A Word on the SATs, IQ Tests, and what it all means

[AthenaAwakened]

What does the SAT predict?

The sole scientific claim of the SAT is its capacity to predict first year grades. According to the technical studies done by the Educational Testing Service and College Board, the SAT predicts about one factor in six--one sixth of the difference between two kids' first-year grades. The predictive value declines after that--looking at four year grades or graduation rates. So even the test makers agree that five out of six parts of whatever it takes to predict how well you're going to do in your freshman year, is not their test.

It does correlate extremely highly with an IQ test. It was developed from the army IQ test...

That's part of the seedy under side of the SAT. The SAT was originally developed by straight out racists--eugenicists, people who thought my forbearers--not just people of color--were imbeciles and shouldn't be allowed in their country because they didn't know the language and couldn't score high on their test. I wouldn't suggest the current people who run those companies share those kinds of ugly views. But it's a self-reinforcing notion of defining intelligence as that which whatever the dominant group in society has. Ends up giving that group higher scores and lower scores. The fact that test scores correlate with test scores is rather meaningless. The tests are measuring the same set of factors. What's more important is whether the test accurately predicts how well you're going to do.

Would you say that we are the only country in the world that administers a national IQ test?

Well, despite the efforts of the Educational Testing Service--which is a global corporation with nearly about half a billion dollars in total revenues--the US still is the major country that administers a test like this across the board to college bound seniors. If you take the SAT and its competitor, the ACT--which about 80 percent as many kids take--the vast majority of college bound kids take those tests. And yes, the SAT in particular has its roots in IQ testing. Which are at best controversial and, at worst, quite, quite poor predictors of anything of value.

So is it an IQ test?

It's a variant of an IQ-like test. It is set up somewhat differently. It begs the question of, what is an IQ test measuring? What is intelligence? And you talk to test makers. And intelligence is what their test makes. And that's a circular definition. So to the extent that it's measuring the same that an intelligence test is measuring--then, yes it is. But there's three fallacies there: That there is such a thing as intelligence--that it can be measured. And that you can put the measurements on a linear scale. And other, even people who believe that there is such a construct as intelligence believes that intelligencee is not one thing but seven or eight or possibly nine different things. Robert Sternberg at Yale says it's three different things.

At best, the SAT is badly measuring one of those parts of what goes into intelligence.

The Secrets of the SAT

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Wrong wrong wrong wrong. Everybody knows that rich white people are the smartest because of their SATs and it has nothing to do with the prep work and tutors they hire for precious Quentin and Penelope.

 

[ronburgundy]

Nearly every college uses the SAT as an admissions criteria, rejecting applications from the almost anyone at the bottom end and rejecting the majority of applicants who score below the median. That means the students who actually go to college, already exclude most of the low SAT scorerers, thus you have a restricted range in the predictor that prevents it from having high predictive power in the restricted sub-sample. IOW, the empirical data we have tells us that most of the applicants that got rejected due to low SATs would have failed out of college, but because we wisely use their low scores to reject their applications they cannot "fail out" and that limits what SAT can predict for the remaining sample.

In addition, unless it is an affirmative action instance, when a college admits a low scoring student, it is because their High school GPA, AP classes, etc.. , are notably high. Thus, they are by definition, non-representative low SAT scorers, who unlike most low scorers have a strong academic record otherwise.
This will of course reduced the predictive power of SATs since they are creating both a restricted and non-representative sample of SAT takers.

Despite all that, the empirical fact is that drop out rates and 4 year retention are highly related to SAT scores.
Your probability of leaving college before your 4th year is more than 7 times greater (30% versus 4%) if your SAT score is below 1200 rather than above 2100.
That is true regardless of your racial group, income level, or parents' education. Also, SAT differences are even more predictive when focusing just on the differential retention rates between races (rather than overall retention rate). Black and white retention rates do not notably differ when controlling for SAT scores. They differ almost entirely as a function of the difference is SAT scores. In other words, by using differential standards in applying the SAT to different racial groups (the defacto meaning of affirmative action admission policies), SAT becomes a bigger factor in accounting for race differences in retention than it does in accounting for retention in general.

Finally, colleges do use several indicators of likely college success, including high school GPA, AP classes, AP tests, academic extra-curriculars, etc..
However, none of these factors increase the number of black admissions, because blacks score worse on virtually every other predictor of academic aptitude.
Affirmative action doesn't just devalue SAT scores for minority applicants, it devalues every single empirical predictor of college success. The collective set of predictors actually do reasonably well at predicting the students who are more likely to drop out than graduate. For white students, these predictors are use sensibly to reject these students' application. For non-white students, these predictors are set aside and students who every indicator predicts will not succeed are admitted anyway. Guess what happens. Most of them do not graduate.

Imagine that. Science actually works.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Nearly every college uses the SAT as an admissions criteria, rejecting applications from the almost anyone at the bottom end and rejecting the majority of applicants who score below the median. That means the students who actually go to college, already exclude most of the low SAT scorerers, thus you have a restricted range in the predictor that prevents it from having high predictive power in the restricted sub-sample. IOW, the empirical data we have tells us that most of the applicants that got rejected due to low SATs would have failed out of college, but because we wisely use their low scores to reject their applications they cannot "fail out" and that limits what SAT can predict for the remaining sample.

In addition, unless it is an affirmative action instance, when a college admits a low scoring student, it is because their High school GPA, AP classes, etc.. , are notably high. Thus, they are by definition, non-representative low SAT scorers, who unlike most low scorers have a strong academic record otherwise.
This will of course reduced the predictive power of SATs since they are creating both a restricted and non-representative sample of SAT takers.

Despite all that, the empirical fact is that drop out rates and 4 year retention are highly related to SAT scores.
Your probability of leaving college before your 4th year is more than 7 times greater (30% versus 4%) if your SAT score is below 1200 rather than above 2100.
That is true regardless of your racial group, income level, or parents' education. Also, SAT differences are even more predictive when focusing just on the differential retention rates between races (rather than overall retention rate). Black and white retention rates do not notably differ when controlling for SAT scores. They differ almost entirely as a function of the difference is SAT scores. In other words, by using differential standards in applying the SAT to different racial groups (the defacto meaning of affirmative action admission policies), SAT becomes a bigger factor in accounting for race differences in retention than it does in accounting for retention in general.

Finally, colleges do use several indicators of likely college success, including high school GPA, AP classes, AP tests, academic extra-curriculars, etc..
However, none of these factors increase the number of black admissions, because blacks score worse on virtually every other predictor of academic aptitude.
Affirmative action doesn't just devalue SAT scores for minority applicants, it devalues every single empirical predictor of college success. The collective set of predictors actually do reasonably well at predicting the students who are more likely to drop out than graduate. For white students, these predictors are use sensibly to reject these students' application. For non-white students, these predictors are set aside and students who every indicator predicts will not succeed are admitted anyway. Guess what happens. Most of them do not graduate.

Imagine that. Science actually works.

BTW

Just so you know

Study: High school grades best predictor of college success — not SAT/ACT scores

The study, titled “Defining Promise: Optional Standardized Testing Policies in American College and University Admissions” and released by the National Association for College Admissions Counseling, says:

“With almost 123,000 students at 33 widely differing institutions, the differences between submitters and non-submitters are five one-hundredths of a GPA point, and six-tenths of one percent in graduation rates. By any standard, these are trivial differences.”

According to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, a nonprofit dedicated to ending the abuse and misuse of standardized tests, more than 800 four-year colleges and universities are “test-score optional” for applicants, including schools in the California State University system. (You can see a list here).

The new study shows that admissions decisions for students who don’t submit ACT or SAT scores are just as reliable as for those who do submit their schools.

and

SAT usage declined in 29 states over seven years

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Nearly every college uses the SAT as an admissions criteria, rejecting applications from the almost anyone at the bottom end and rejecting the majority of applicants who score below the median. That means the students who actually go to college, already exclude most of the low SAT scorerers, thus you have a restricted range in the predictor that prevents it from having high predictive power in the restricted sub-sample. IOW, the empirical data we have tells us that most of the applicants that got rejected due to low SATs would have failed out of college, but because we wisely use their low scores to reject their applications they cannot "fail out" and that limits what SAT can predict for the remaining sample.

This. Measuring the predictive power of the SAT in student grades is bad "science" because their potential is already controlled by the SAT.

If you're going to measure the effect of the SAT on grades at all you should look at what happens when admissions thresholds are adjusted by affirmative action--and there you see an increased dropout rate. I have never seen numbers as to how big the effect is.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Nearly every college uses the SAT as an admissions criteria, rejecting applications from the almost anyone at the bottom end and rejecting the majority of applicants who score below the median. That means the students who actually go to college, already exclude most of the low SAT scorerers, thus you have a restricted range in the predictor that prevents it from having high predictive power in the restricted sub-sample. IOW, the empirical data we have tells us that most of the applicants that got rejected due to low SATs would have failed out of college, but because we wisely use their low scores to reject their applications they cannot "fail out" and that limits what SAT can predict for the remaining sample.

This. Measuring the predictive power of the SAT in student grades is bad "science" because their potential is already controlled by the SAT.

If you're going to measure the effect of the SAT on grades at all you should look at what happens when admissions thresholds are adjusted by affirmative action--and there you see an increased dropout rate. I have never seen numbers as to how big the effect is.

Popularity of belief is not proof of validity of belief. Hence popularity is prone to going in and out of fashion.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This. Measuring the predictive power of the SAT in student grades is bad "science" because their potential is already controlled by the SAT.

If you're going to measure the effect of the SAT on grades at all you should look at what happens when admissions thresholds are adjusted by affirmative action--and there you see an increased dropout rate. I have never seen numbers as to how big the effect is.

Popularity of belief is not proof of validity of belief. Hence popularity is prone to going in and out of fashion.

And what does your reply have to do with what I said?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Popularity of belief is not proof of validity of belief. Hence popularity is prone to going in and out of fashion.

And what does your reply have to do with what I said?

Loren, you were not the only person quoted.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And what does your reply have to do with what I said?

Loren, you were not the only person quoted.

Then why didn't you quote his original post rather than my quote of his post?