Studies Show the SAT Still Sucks, College Board Declares Victory!
In the spring of 2005, the SAT underwent a major overhaul. This week College Board released a validity study analyzing the effectiveness of those changes. (If you've already forgotten the old SAT, here's a summary of the changes). In response, the New York Times published an article titled "Study Finds Little Benefit in New SAT." It begins with the three best sentences I have ever read in a major newspaper:
The revamped SAT, expanded three years ago to include a writing test, predicts college success no better than the old test, and not quite as well as a student's high school grades, according to studies released Tuesday by the College Board, which owns the test.
"The changes made to the SAT did not substantially change how predictive the test is of first-year college performance," the studies said.
College Board officials presented their findings as "important and positive" confirmation of the test's success.
Before you read any further, stop. Go back. Read those three sentences again.
Done? Great. Let's break those three sentences down to examine their supreme silliness.
#1: The new test that College Board spent millions of dollars developing isn't any better at predicting college success than the old SAT they threw out in 2005. Sure, you sit for an additional hour of testing, write an essay on an esoteric topic, and pay more money now, but it's not telling colleges anything they didn't already get from pre-2005 scores. Oh, did we mention that high school grades are still a better indicator than the SAT?
#2: College Board's own study says that the changes didn't have any real effect! Their own study! It's like a tobacco company saying "Yep, these things DO cause cancer! No point in hiding it..."
#3: College Board assures us that all of this information means the new test is successful and that we should definitely trust it.
Le Sigh.
At least the NY Times isn't fooled. The article does a very solid job of explaining the background of the New SAT and how College Board came to its insane conclusions. Newsweek also provides a great summary of the correlation math and reminds us that "even the University of California system, which had inspired the change, was not yet downloading the SAT essays or using the writing scores in its admission deliberations."
So don't be fooled yourself. College Board will always, despite whatever evidence is produced, insist that the SAT is a great tool for college admissions offices. They will swear that the version of the test they are currently using is a perfect version of the exam, even as they begin work on designing a new test. They will ignore data they don't like, and spin the data they find useful.
And at this point, colleges are loathe to trust them because of this constant spinning. When College Board made changes to the test in 2005, most schools held off on using the writing scores because they had no faith that the new test would improve as an indicator of student success. While College Board insists that their new study should compel colleges to start using the Writing section, at this point only a handful make it a priority. I can't imagine this study will cause many changes.