I suspect that the College Board - and various test prep companies - will want to shoot holes in this study. From what I heard, the SATs ultimately don't add very much to this. If you would more clearly explain toi nme the "big difference" that makes the conclusions unwarranted, I am interested.
I understand that the SATs provides a modest amount of additional information about potential for college success. Not enough to warrant the misery that preparing for this (what amounts to) annual hazing of HSJuniors from what I've seen. I am not sure that we lose a lot of information by not forcing students to take the exam. I am sure that several corporate entities are sweating the loss of income. I feel worse for the students who don't really benefit much from this. I can easily and happily watch this become an optional and then probably unnecessary part of the college preparatory experience. A good high school student (truly good) will be a good college student. Nancy Melucci Long Beach City College Long Beach CA -----Original Message----- From: John Kulig <[email protected]> To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) <[email protected]> Sent: Tue, Feb 18, 2014 8:16 am Subject: [tips] SAT and High School grade study I usually don't read articles with "executive summaries" but this got air time on NPR this morning. On the air it sounded like we'd be better off admitting students based on just HS grades, but that conclusion may not be warranted, even using their data: http://www.nacacnet.org/research/research-data/nacac-research/Documents/DefiningPromise.pdf The NPR story is: http://www.npr.org/2014/02/18/277059528/college-applicants-sweat-the-sats-perhaps-they-shouldn-t I did a quick peek at their figures, and found (Figure 40) that, as I suspected, the combined use of grades and SAT scores predicted more variance than either alone. If you had to choose between them, their data shows grades a better predictor but that should not be surprising. I am wondering if, these days, there is a tighter relationship between HS grades and SAT scores (and general cognitive ability) at least in the US, given the tendency to teach-to-the-standardized test. I will never forget my shock when I saw some of my children's homework that looked liked IQ items, of absolutely no use to anyone or anything other than general-cognitive etcetera etcetera etcetera ========================== John W. Kulig, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology Coordinator, Psychology Honors Plymouth State University Plymouth NH 03264 ========================== --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=12993.aba36cc3760e0b1c6a655f019a68b878&n=T&l=tips&o=34339 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-34339-12993.aba36cc3760e0b1c6a655f019a68b...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=34343 or send a blank email to leave-34343-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
