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By RAY ROUTHIER, Portland Press Herald Writer
Are the SATs as important as they used to be? In this age of the Internet and Pentium processors, is a multiple choice test taken on a single Saturday morning still one of the best ways for colleges to weed out applicants?
It depends who is answering the question. Many colleges say SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) scores are maybe the fourth or fifth most important measure of a student's suitability for college, after course level, grades and class rank. Some 300 colleges nationwide don't even require applicants to submit standardized test results. The argument against SATs is that they can be biased toward certain types of students, and are generally not good indicators of how a student will do in college.
But talk to students and parents and you'll think SATs are crucial. Some youngsters pay $750 or so for intensive SAT prep courses. Others buy SAT study guides. Many high school students take the SATs twice (usually at the end of junior year and the beginning of senior year) plus one or two SAT II tests, which measure knowledge of certain subjects.
The pressure to do whatever it takes to get into the best college - including taking as many standardized tests as possible - seems more intense than ever before.
"I'm taking four tests this year (SAT, two SAT II tests and the ACT entrance test), and that's less than a lot of people I know," said Kate Caulfield, a Yarmouth High junior. "It's fairly ridiculous, but it's expected."
SATs, created in the 1920s, are caught in the middle of two conflicting movements. First, there's the 20-year-old movement among civil rights groups and education activists to put less emphasis on standardized tests. Those groups say tests like the SATs are unfair to women and to people who speak English as a second language, for example.
But colleges are also getting more applications than ever, thanks in large part to the ease of online applications. So there's more competition than ever to get into certain schools, and SAT scores can provide an edge for students and an additional measuring stick for colleges.
"When I started here 16 years ago, if someone applied to more than four or five colleges, that was a lot," said Gary Vines, a guidance counselor at Deering High School. "I had a young man who just applied to 10 colleges and got accepted at all but his first choice. With so many more applicants, it gets tougher for colleges to choose between students."
One of the pioneers in the movement away from SATs was Bates College in Lewiston. In 1984, Bates dropped the requirement that SAT scores be submitted with applications. Since then, the number of applicants to Bates each year has more than doubled and the college's administrators feel they have a more diverse and well-rounded student body because of it. The SAT tests only math and verbal skills.
Other Maine colleges that don't require SAT scores from all or some of their applicants include: Bowdoin College in Brunswick; College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor; Unity College in Unity; and the University of Maine System campuses in Augusta, Farmington, Fort Kent and Presque Isle.
"One of the reasons we dropped the requirement is that we wanted to give a strong signal about what Bates values - show us what you can do outside of a single test score," said Bill Hiss, vice president for external affairs at Bates. "The SATs predict the (college) success of some students reasonably well, but not well at all for others. We feel that human intelligence is more complex and subtle than can be measured with one test."
Jennifer Greenlaw, a Portland High School senior, is a good example of what Hiss describes. She has a 95.6 grade average, is in the National Honor Society and regularly makes the honor roll. Despite her high academic achievement over four years of high school, her SAT score was poor - 860 - well below the 1000 mark a lot of colleges use as a cut-off point. She did not take an SAT prep course or use an SAT study guide.
"The things that are on the SAT, you have to be taught them. I don't think you can study for them, you either know it or you don't," said Greenlaw. "I think it depends on the type of learning you're good at. I'm not good at tests, I do better with hands-on projects."
Greenlaw's first choice of a college was the University of Southern Maine, and she was accepted despite her score. But she says she didn't get a quick answer, and she fears that if she applied at other schools her score would have blocked her acceptance.
David Pirani, director of undergraduate admission at USM, said it's rare that high-performing students like Greenlaw get turned down because of a low SAT score. His department looks first at how many difficult courses an applicant takes - how challenged the student was. Then Pirani looks at grades and class rank.
After those are considered, Pirani said, SAT and other scores are considered. Then the subjective parts of the application, such as the interview, recommendations and essay, are weighed.
"I'd say that good SAT scores can never hurt an application, but it's rare they'd be considered above the other academic elements," said Pirani. "SATs are one more measure we can use."
Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:
rrouthier@pressherald.com
Copyright ? 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
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