College Apps: Ask Me Anything - Page 5

On August 21 2010 12:21 Z3kk wrote:
Also, you need to let your parents know how the SAT works; I don't think you understand precisely yourself, so here goes (this is going to cram a lot of info into one attempt at explaining, so this isn't going to be a particularly sequential/ordered explanation, though I tried ):

Just about every country except for the United States has just a few--2 or 3--"big" or "top" universities. Admission into said universities depends on a single "BIG TEST" towards/at the end of high school. If you do well on this big test, you're in; if you don't do well, then you can go [insert fitting verb of a menial task].

HOWEVER, the United States is a different matter. There are numerous top universities and a startling variety of schools from which you can choose. There are schools that excel in a particular course of study, liberal arts schools, extremely expensive schools, community colleges, etc. Thus, there is no single, objective test that determines where you're going to go. Your parents most likely are under the impression that the SAT is this "BIG TEST". Needless to say, it is not. In America, there are numerous factors that come into consideration when admissions officers are deliberating (GPA, SAT, extracurriculars, essays, and perhaps more).

So what IS the point of the SAT? Well, look at it this way. There are schools all over the country, and they all are different. At one school in California, you might take be struggling to scrape out an A because your AP Psychology teacher is a total sadist who gives you hours and hours of homework. At another one in Texas (just random states--I'm not trying to imply anything here haha), the AP Psychology teacher might give you an A as long as you don't get out of your seat as everyone watches the comedy movies he plays every day. Colleges, therefore, need some sort of standard with which to measure and compare students--the SAT is this standard, and its customers are the colleges (I'll get to that in a moment) and not you.

(You're forced to take the SAT; what are you going to do? Not take it? Take the ACT? No, students all over America are taking the SAT, and if you don't, it's your college you won't be getting into.)

Because the SAT is meant to be the standard, this also means that the SAT's job is simple: crank out a bell curve. The colleges are going to use the SAT scores to compare students all over the US, and the SAT better give them a bell curve, or else the colleges won't care about the SAT's results. In other words, the SAT needs to have its scores produce a bell curve, or else colleges won't use it to compare students. Also, as I stated before, the SAT's customers are the universities and colleges. Why? If colleges find out that the SAT's scores aren't in a neat and tidy bell curve, then the shit starts to get real. Obviously, if they can't use the scores to compare students, there's no reason to use the SAT. If this were to happen, THEN the SAT would lose its business, because no one would have to take a test that doesn't matter.

As a side-note, the SAT needs to maintain its bell curve by whatever means possible. This means making the test as hard as they can without utterly screwing everyone over. Think if it this way: if the bell curve were to shift to the right, what would that mean? It would mean that everyone is scoring higher. the SAT DOES NOT want this. The aforementioned situation would mean that the SAT's scores are unreliable, and if a student has a high score, then who cares? Everyone's scoring that high. On the other hand, if the bell curve were to shift to the left--that is, if people's scores became lower--then how does that impact the SAT? All they have to do (and they've done this before) is proclaim that the American school system sucks, that the teachers aren't teaching the right stuff, yadda yadda yadda. College board (the creators of the SAT) isn't on your side and will do whatever it takes to confuse you.

OKAY, so back to the significance of the SAT. This is what you need to tell your parents (though you can tell them anything else I've stated too, if you want). How exactly does it factor into college admissions? Basically, certain faculty of the top schools--let's go with MIT here--get together and decide the "cut-off" point of the SATs. Let's say that MIT decides the cut-off is 2200, because otherwise stupid students might come in, and their Nobel prize-winning professor will want to go to UC Berkeley and teach math to all the smart kids there, because there's no point in teaching a bunch of lazy, stupid students. What happens with the students that make the cut-off? The admissions officer looks at the score, and turn over your application and continue reading. What happens if you *gasp* don't make it? The admissions officer laughs and tosses it in the junk pile of crushed dreams with the rest of the layabouts, right? WRONG. If you happen to not make it, then you just need something extra. You are by no means automatically rejected then and there.

"Why not?" you ask. Well, let's say there's a student who has always been at the top of his class, with highest marks and scintillating compliments from his teacher; he's one of the most studious people out there. Unfortunately, he got really nervous on the SAT that one time and messed it up (or took it several times, and each time, he got scared and did poorly). What now? Is he doomed?



Of course not!

What if they get an application from a kid, and his SAT score is simply abysmal; the admissions officer is about to reject him, turns the page, and finds out his application is written entirely in SPANISH? Turns out this kid's a genius in Argentina but doesn't know a word of English!

Better yet, the admissions officer opens up an application, sees a disgustingly poor SAT score, shakes his head at the embarrassing GPA, and then reads the essay. Apparently, this guy created a software program when he was 13 years old and sold it to Microsoft for $750 million. Are they going to reject this guy? NO WAY IN HELL!!! This kid's just unmotivated! He's going to go to MIT, graduate, become the CEO of Intel, donate billions of dollars to MIT, and MIT is going to take the money and make a building in his name!

Thus, the SAT is far from the "BIG TEST"; it definitely helps, but it does not singlehandedly determine whether you get into your school of choice. Another thing you should tell your parents is that the SAT is equated (which is actually curving, but they're not about to admit that) to make a bell curve, so anything from a certain score to another is essentially the SAME score (i.e. 2290 and up, unless you get a perfect score, is basically the same score in the eyes of college admissions officers; this is to account for curving and variation).