To those who say standardized tests are racist or unfair: think about the message this sends to students who spend years studying, improving their reading and math skills, and putting real effort into learning. When you tell them their success is only because they are privileged or wealthy, what does that do psychologically? It tells them their hard work does not truly matter or deserve recognition. How is that fair to students who genuinely worked to improve themselves?

On the other hand, for those who avoid effort and hide behind excuses or distractions in the name of whatever BS reasons to avoid studying, think about what is lost over time. You lose valuable years that could have been spent learning skills, building discipline, and becoming independent. Instead, you risk becoming someone who constantly depends on others for help, support, or remediation.

Is this what we really want our society to turn into?

Anonymous wrote:The majority of students getting extra time on the SAT are affluent and white. The number of students getting accommodations has skyrocketed. The College Board is NOT allowed to flag if you have extra time or not.

This is the reason why so many students at top schools get accommodations. Almost 40% of Stanford students are registered as having a disability.

12.5% of Stanford students have academic accommodations. The majority of accommodations are related to housing and/or religion. For example, my Stanford kid has severe food allergies so can’t be placed with an unknown roommate (not as relevant as an upperclassman with a draw group but extremely relevant as a freshman)—the university classifies this as a “disability.” She, like 87.5% of her fellow students, does not have any academic accommodations.

From our grade deflationary west coast public high school, the kids who get in to Berkeley, LA, and now even San Diego are kids who missed the HYPSM tier. Kids typically will choose Berkeley over schools like Northwestern and Hopkins and even Cornell. Many are National Merit semifinalists which is very hard from CA. Point is the UCs are able to pick out top students from the mass of applications. They are huge public schools and not meant to be filled with all 1500+ SAT students. DC just went through the process. In at HYP and in at Berkeley. Similar results from classmates.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:If you can’t score 700 on the watered down SAT you don’t belong in a STEM program at a 4 year university. It is as simple as that. Score lower start out at community college and prove you can do the work.

Math isn’t racist and everyone can do basic math, but let’s face it not everyone develops the necessary abstract thinking skills for the higher level math required for STEM degrees and STEM jobs.

Problem solved, but there will still be a few exceptions where students start out fine but can’t make it through weed out courses.

How are there STEM Majors at most colleges then?

I wouldn't make 700 the cut off. I think it should be a bit lower, like maybe 650. Some people just don't test well in standardized testing, and plus, a lot of these kids take the test at 16. Some people bloom a bit later.

But, it's also true that a lot of public schools aren't doing a good job educating students in math (or English for that matter). Too much grade inflation.

Can you be more specific?

specific about what? Grade inflation?

Here's how that works:

- Student gets a 70% on math test. Teacher let's them retake it, and lo and behold, student manages to get closer to 80%
- Student doesn't turn in assignments, so they should get a zero. But, teacher allows them to turn in assignments late and only get like 10% marked down, if even that

Such a student could get a B or even A in math but score below 650 in SAT math section.

FWIW, both my kids scored 700+ on the math section and both are STEM majors. One scored 800 and took MVC in HS, dual STEM major in college including math.. just graduated summa cum laude. But, I have seen the above happen even in their math classes in HS.

+1 this as well as padding the grade book with extra credit and participation grades.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can’t score 700 on the watered down SAT you don’t belong in a STEM program at a 4 year university. It is as simple as that. Score lower start out at community college and prove you can do the work.

Math isn’t racist and everyone can do basic math, but let’s face it not everyone develops the necessary abstract thinking skills for the higher level math required for STEM degrees and STEM jobs.

Problem solved, but there will still be a few exceptions where students start out fine but can’t make it through weed out courses.

How are there STEM Majors at most colleges then?

I wouldn't make 700 the cut off. I think it should be a bit lower, like maybe 650. Some people just don't test well in standardized testing, and plus, a lot of these kids take the test at 16. Some people bloom a bit later.

But, it's also true that a lot of public schools aren't doing a good job educating students in math (or English for that matter). Too much grade inflation.

Can you be more specific?

specific about what? Grade inflation?

Here's how that works:

- Student gets a 70% on math test. Teacher let's them retake it, and lo and behold, student manages to get closer to 80%
- Student doesn't turn in assignments, so they should get a zero. But, teacher allows them to turn in assignments late and only get like 10% marked down, if even that

Such a student could get a B or even A in math but score below 650 in SAT math section.

FWIW, both my kids scored 700+ on the math section and both are STEM majors. One scored 800 and took MVC in HS, dual STEM major in college including math.. just graduated summa cum laude. But, I have seen the above happen even in their math classes in HS.

The majority of students getting extra time on the SAT are affluent and white. The number of students getting accommodations has skyrocketed. The College Board is NOT allowed to flag if you have extra time or not.

This is the reason why so many students at top schools get accommodations. Almost 40% of Stanford students are registered as having a disability.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can’t score 700 on the watered down SAT you don’t belong in a STEM program at a 4 year university. It is as simple as that. Score lower start out at community college and prove you can do the work.

Math isn’t racist and everyone can do basic math, but let’s face it not everyone develops the necessary abstract thinking skills for the higher level math required for STEM degrees and STEM jobs.

Problem solved, but there will still be a few exceptions where students start out fine but can’t make it through weed out courses.

How are there STEM Majors at most colleges then?

Because over 150,000 kids get a 700 or better in math on the SAT every year. It really isn’t that high a bar.

Most schools don’t have students with 700+ sat scores then , so the question remains.

In 2024 there were about 436K bachelors degrees awarded in STEM in the US. Not everyone with a 700 0r greater in math on the SAT goes into STEM but the numbers support 700 as a good baseline. If you drop the number to 650 as someone else suggested you have 300K kids where STEM is a good fit.

So yes most schools do have students with those scores. Source for data - https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=899

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how bad the student quality is now at the UC's. Without the SAT they've obviously deviated from an objective academic standard. Even before they abandoned the SAT, the UC's were not getting the best and brightest:

UC Santa Cruz- more than half the students had below a 1300 on the SAT

UC Davis-more than half the students had below a 1300 on the SAT

UC Irvine-more than half the students had below a 1300 on the SAT

UC San Diego-half the students had below a 1370 on the SAT

UCLA- half the students had below a 1400 on the SAT

It depends on how low the scores were going. A 1200 puts you in the top 20 percent of students and a 1350 puts you in the top 10 percent of test takers. It doesn’t make you competitive for elite schools, but a 1300 isn’t the terrible horrible score you all think it is. 1050 is the average nationally.

https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/scores/what-scores-mean/what-is-good-score

I wonder how bad the student quality is now at the UC's. Without the SAT they've obviously deviated from an objective academic standard. Even before they abandoned the SAT, the UC's were not getting the best and brightest:

UC Santa Cruz- more than half the students had below a 1300 on the SAT

UC Davis-more than half the students had below a 1300 on the SAT

UC Irvine-more than half the students had below a 1300 on the SAT

UC San Diego-half the students had below a 1370 on the SAT

UCLA- half the students had below a 1400 on the SAT

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This just tells me grade inflation is rampant in the high schools. If they are accepting kids with 3.8+ GPAs and they are showing up not college ready that means the high schools are just handing out As.

There was a UAlabama student who posted she had a 1260.and was 3/around 150 kids in her high school with a 3.8 and took APs...grade inflation and expectations have morphed.

That makes sense. Her SAT is above average. Sounds like she is a great student at an average school

I bet that AP Calc AB class she took was WAY watered down.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How has no one made a more comprehensive exam than the sat?

You mean like the ACT?

There is no incentive for testing companies to become more rigorous. The vast majority of students want easier tests. Selective colleges want dumbed down tests so they can emphasize holistic factors.

Caltech wants dumbed down tests? Stanford wants dumbed down tests? MIT wants dumbed down tests?

If Caltech was the only college in the world, they would want the test to look like the math olympiad but their applicant pool isn't sufficient to support a business model.

All the highly holistic schools want dumbed down tests.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This just tells me grade inflation is rampant in the high schools. If they are accepting kids with 3.8+ GPAs and they are showing up not college ready that means the high schools are just handing out As.

There was a UAlabama student who posted she had a 1260.and was 3/around 150 kids in her high school with a 3.8 and took APs...grade inflation and expectations have morphed.

That makes sense. Her SAT is above average. Sounds like she is a great student at an average school

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Anonymous wrote:Those are not accurate conversions. There are inaccurate tables floating around. Here’s the one from Collegeboard directly: https://www.texasffa.org/docs/SAT%20Comparison%20Chart%20on%202400-1600%20Scale_68721.pdf

You’re cherry picking. That’s 1 exam’s concordance table. You can find 10 others from CB that show completely different conversions.

What are you even talking about? There's only one concordance table for 2400-->1600.

https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/higher-ed-brief-sat-concordance.pdf

The values are different between the two tables you posted. Something is off.

The numbers are exactly the same. You are looking at pg 7 of the PDF, right?

They’re off by up to 30 points on the two. Are you serious?

You may need to go to an optometrist...

So disingenuous and stubborn too

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those are not accurate conversions. There are inaccurate tables floating around. Here’s the one from Collegeboard directly: https://www.texasffa.org/docs/SAT%20Comparison%20Chart%20on%202400-1600%20Scale_68721.pdf

You’re cherry picking. That’s 1 exam’s concordance table. You can find 10 others from CB that show completely different conversions.

What are you even talking about? There's only one concordance table for 2400-->1600.

https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/higher-ed-brief-sat-concordance.pdf

The values are different between the two tables you posted. Something is off.

The numbers are exactly the same. You are looking at pg 7 of the PDF, right?

They’re off by up to 30 points on the two. Are you serious?

You may need to go to an optometrist...

Anonymous wrote:This just tells me grade inflation is rampant in the high schools. If they are accepting kids with 3.8+ GPAs and they are showing up not college ready that means the high schools are just handing out As.

There was a UAlabama student who posted she had a 1260.and was 3/around 150 kids in her high school with a 3.8 and took APs...grade inflation and expectations have morphed.