Looks like the SAT test is going to be changing
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Things I take away from this:
The addition of the essay section has been a flop, and this is the first move towards its abolition.
Critics said the penalty for answering wrong discouraged guessing. That is set out like it was a bad thing. Someone explain to me why someone should luck out if they guess right when others don't. I thought the idea was to score someone based on what they actually knew. The so-called penalty was 1/4 point for a wrong answer, the thinking being that if you guessed randomly, you'd lose 1/4 point four times for each 1 point you got by being right 1/5 of the time. So it never was a penalty, it was a probability-based scoring adjustment. Test instructors routinely tell test takers that guessing turns statistically in their favor if they can at least eliminate one or two possibilities first.
The last time they monkeyed with the test, they basically inflated the scores by 60-80 points for the 2-part total. That is, a kid making 1280 today is comparable to a kid who got 1200 25 years ago. Who wants to bet that more score inflation is about to come our way?
I was kind of surprised to hear this....mostly because I thought the SAT was basically irrelevant nowdays. My daughter was a 4.0 student, 32 ACT, #1 in her class and was never asked once what she got on the SAT....only the ACT. Maybe it's a regional thing here in the Midwest....but my son who is a junior and looking at schools hasn't seen it mentioned on a school website yet with regard to scholarship requirements. Is the SAT common in other areas???
We are in the same area and my boys took both. But going through the college process, you are right they were asked more about the ACT than the SAT.
Originally Posted by Buckeye 2015:
I was kind of surprised to hear this....mostly because I thought the SAT was basically irrelevant nowdays. My daughter was a 4.0 student, 32 ACT, #1 in her class and was never asked once what she got on the SAT....only the ACT. Maybe it's a regional thing here in the Midwest....but my son who is a junior and looking at schools hasn't seen it mentioned on a school website yet with regard to scholarship requirements. Is the SAT common in other areas???
That definitely plays a role.
Most schools that I've seen only look at the Critical Reading and Math Sections and the writing component didn't figure in to their admissions equation.
On the west coast, we took the SAT when I was in HS and it's still much more common. I'd never heard of the ACT until some years ago, which is more common in the Midwest (and the South). SAT started first and used to be far more common, but the ACT has been slowly gaining on the SAT ever since and I think they are about equal now.
The SAT test is a long way from being "basically irrelevant", and in fact there were colleges that didn't accept the ACT test until just a few years ago. They are now both accepted everywhere so it makes more sense to research the differences between them, and have your child take the test which suits him better (they are quite different) rather than do what is customary for your region. Especially since baseball could take your kid out of his home state. Almost all colleges profess no preference, and there are lots of books and articles about which test is better for which kids. My son did practice tests for both, and one was far better for him over the other so he focused his studying on that one.
Kids here in Tennessee tend toward the ACT though a lot still use the SAT. Our college counselor said that the general difference is that the ACT tests for what the student should have learned in high school while the SAT is more of an IQ test.