The number of SAT tests administered is rising back towards the pre-pandemic levels, mainly thanks to in-school weekday testing spreading rapidly. A few universities like Georgetown and MIT have bravely starting to again require scores from all applicants. MIT has a very robust defense of the requirement here. Quite simply: the SAT provides a standard measure of student ability that has a proven correlation with eventual academic success. Grade inflation accelerated with Covid and it is hard for a university to compare a 4.1 GPA at high school A with a 4.2 from high school B without massive resources and past data sets. A student scoring a 1450 on the SAT is nearly always going to do much better academically than a student with a 1200.
A common criticism of the SAT (and all standardized testing) is that it is biased towards affluent students who attend high schools with greater funding. We would contend that the test is biased towards students that go to better-funded high schools because those students have received a superior education and hence are better prepared for university, as revealed by higher scores. Blaming the SAT for education inequalities is like blaming a thermometer for hot weather, to paraphrase Freddie de Boer.
More recent research has revealed that university admissions is indeed a corrupt process that is biased toward the affluent. A summary of Chetty, et. al. is here and offers a damning indictment of the industry backed up by statistically robust data. Beyond the fact that the system is very much biased towards rich tennis players whose Mom and Dad went to the same university, there also is a clear correlation between SAT scores and eventual academic and career success. "Among available indicators, SAT/ACT scores remain one of the best predictors of student success".
Small liberal arts colleges with 1,200 students can take the time going through each aspect of an application carefully and can proudly be test blind in admissions. Large schools with upwards of (or over) 100,000 applications have no such luxury and the SAT provides a reasonably accurate metric to be viewed along with academic transcripts and other data. NYU doesn't require the SAT, but the reported median score is 1540. Why report this information if it wasn't considered? NYU and many other similar schools have enjoyed a massive surge in the number of applications by going test optional.
SAT scores may be optional, but technically so are high grades, good recommendations, strong essays, and outside activities. Students that submit high SAT scores have a better chance of acceptance to the most rejective universities. This is especially true for students coming from affluent international schools where there are no barriers to accessing the test.
Thoughts on the dSAT
We've been preparing students for the newest version of the SAT, the Digital SAT (dSAT), since January. The dSAT is taken on a student's digital device and is adaptive by section: you must do well on the first module to get to the second harder module and challenge for a higher score. We did a deep dive on the new format here, and that analysis is still broadly valid. Here are some more thoughts:
- The questions have different weights!
Getting an easy question incorrect will really lower a score while getting a super-hard question wrong will have much less impact. Hence, students need to work hard to not make silly errors on the easier questions in the first module. If you don't get to the harder second module, scores are really capped at about 580/800.
- The test is shorter!
It is now just over 2 hours long and the computer based nature means that there is much less faffing about at the start with the answer sheets and whatnot. Kids click "Start Test", and they are off to the races. A much more pleasant, and much shorter, experience for all concerned than the old SAT and especially the ACT.
- Focus is key!
While shorter, the Reading and Writing half of the test requires students to focus on a brief passage about, say, Native American pottery, to answer one question and then tackle the next question which may cover an experiment in botany, followed by interpreting a Shakespeare quote, etc. Switching so quickly is a challenge for many and requires laser-like focus for the full 64 minutes of the two Reading modules. We have developed some great timing strategies to maximize Reading/Writing scores.
- DESMOS is a game-changer!
The DESMOS graphing calculator is embedded in the testing app and on some math modules it can be used on up to a third of the questions to effectively blunt-force your way to the correct answer through trial and error. Learning how to employ this powerful tool is key to a higher score, especially for students who don't remember what a discriminant will tell them about the number of solutions to a quadratic function.
- The test has worked!
We had profound fears regarding the many, many things that could go wrong with this transition to a new test format. Thankfully, things have gone largely to plan - a few issues aside. International students are being used as beta testers before the test is rolled out in the States from next March but to give College Board credit, it seems to be working just fine.
Supreme Court Ruling on Admissions
The start of July saw the American Supreme Court rule that race could no longer be considered in admissions decisions. We'll leave it to experienced education journalists like Jeff Selingo to attempt to parse out all the ramifications. The next policy to likely get legally challenged is the use of legacy preference, which is much less divisive.
The big question for families is whether this change will have any material impact on the admissions rates of the most rejective schools? These rates have plummeted overall in the last three years or so and the admit rate for students in Singapore is much, much lower than the headline rate. This number is known by the universities, but good luck getting them to reveal it.
The short answer is NO. There will be no discernible change to the single digit admit rates that international students are currently facing. While universities are now technically barred from directly considering race and ethnicity, this ruling was intended for the domestic American population. There is nothing barring universities to continue to consider nationality and geographic location to "build their class". Singapore has many excellent students applying to a very small list of popular universities, and these universities can only take so many per country or high school.
So, what to do? For years we've been advocating away from chasing a brand name school that is popular in favor of universities that have programs that interest you and are located in a place you'd love to live for 4 years. Here is an article we published back in 2010 on why rankings are garbage, they even worse now and schools are finally walking away. Work with your school university counselor to come up with a viable list of universities that will be a good fit for you. You should have a great reason to apply to each of them, not "XXX U is highly ranked/renowned/respected."
Summer Ideas!
The tendency over the summer is to enrol in intensive on-campus pre-university programs to effectively pad university applications. While there is no firm data on whether these activities actually do help with applications, they certainly do help universities monetize their lovely campuses and graduate students earn some nice money over the break teaching wealthy high school students. There is also a more recent trend of kids writing "academic papers" in partnership with "mentors" which are then "published" in "academic journals". This grift is revealed in this recent article.
So, what should a rising junior or senior do with their summer break? Here are some ideas:
- Tour Schools
Go on university tours. Even you aren't interested in a school, go on the tour if your travel brings you near the campus. Top tip: after a tour finishes, sit down and write notes about the campus you just viewed to refer to later. Otherwise the campuses tend to merge together in your memory a bit like temples in Thailand.
- Get A Job!
If you are legally allowed, get a paid job. Lifeguarding, baby-siting, F & B, landscaping, retail, whatever you can find. You will learn more about what you want to do with your life and how to interact with other people in a summer working at McDonalds than in Economics 101.
- Intern
We recommend students leverage their parents' professional networks (LinkedIn) and see if anyone might need a gofer/peon for a few weeks. The job should entail making copies, mindless data entry, pointless market research, and fetching tea/coffee/muffins for people. This experience should hopefully be both enriching and humbling for students as they learn a bit more about how the real world actually operates. You don't need a work visa for an unpaid internship.
- MOOC MOOC MOOC!!!
Massive Online Open Courses are a great way for a young student to dip a toe into real collegiate-level academic content. A good directory is here.
- Khan!!!! (Sal, not Noonien Singh)
You should be able to get your hands on the syllabi of some of the courses you are taking next school year. Why not steal a march and use Khan Academy to knock out the first few modules of math/econ/history so you can get off to a great start on the school year?
- Read More
We are a bit of a broken record on this. Here is a great list of 20 "must read" books for high school students. Beyond that reading magazines and anything without too many pictures will serve you well.
- Relax
School is stressful. Covid was stressful. Life is stressful. Be sure to take the time to do things that you find help you to relax. Run. Walk. Bake. Cook. Meditate. Binge watch. Zone out. Have a great holiday!
Recent Trends in Admissions and Testing - August 2022
We will need another hour-long webinar to even come close to covering all the developments in the world of testing and admissions. The impact of the Covid pandemic is ongoing and indeed will be echoing around the halls of learning for years to come. American Universities stopped requiring tests students couldn't take, and there was an ensuing flight to perceived quality among applicants. The direct result was a well-reported and alarming reduction in the acceptance rate of the most competitive schools as students no longer saw a (relatively) middling test score as a barrier to entry.
The universities opened their application doors up widely and have been enjoying an unprecedented surge in interest, applications, and application fees. What they haven't done is expanded any of the entering class size to any real degree with giants such the University of California system actually reducing the seats available to out-of-state applicants. The net result at UC is that only 2,442 international students were accepted for 2023, down 12.2% from last year. (What isn't reported is how many of these international admits were olympic or professional-caliber athletes...)
The net result is that universities that used to be very completive, are now absurdly competitive, and those that used to be a bit competitive, are now very competitive. Past historical data from your high school on admissions into universities X, Y, and Z are now no longer nearly as indicative as it used to be and students will need to look at the last couple admissions cycles instead. In many cases, a school that would have been a bit of a "reach" for a student in 2018 is now out of reach - even if GPA/IB results are outstanding and SAT scores are tip-top. For those of graduating in 2023, the key is to adjust your expectations and take to mind that the most competitive schools often aren't the best choice for your future.
Nearly all American schools are now some form of "Test Optional", and this will continue to be the new normal. Students will need to consider how their results on the SAT/ACT compare to the most recent data from the university on accepted students - check the Common Data Set rather than the university - just google "Common Data Set XXX" to get data on XXX University. Please also note that the last couple years of data will have inflated test scores from accepted students as only the students who scored high will submit their scores. Though data is still spotty, students who submit scores generally have a better chance of acceptance - though these same students are those that tend to be stronger academically, something the tests profess to measure.
Oh, we almost forgot to remind readers that the SAT is changing format in 2023 to a new digital format. That will present an entirely new array of variables and challenges to an already-Byzantine process. We'll circle back on this in subsequent editions of this newsletter...
