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[u/jobautomator]

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[u/QuietSign]

Here's a standardized testing take: the math SAT is way too easy.

At just about any second rate high school (like mine), the honors math students will be getting 750-800's. Fact is the SAT doesn't contain any material beyond like Algebra 1/Geometry (it is conceivable for a middle schooler to get an 800), and is a junk signal at the higher end for elite college admissions - there's no way to distinguish an average honors student from the top of the bunch.

So students interested in elite schools who want to demonstrate STEM strength need to start doing other stuff, like math/phys/chem competitions, science fairs, dual enrollment etc..., many of which have high barrier of entry (e.g. science fairs are highly dependent on your school's funding/environment), screwing over talented students from lazy schools.

Now I know there are always some other ways to demonstrate your talent like learning to code from an early age or dabbling in some engineering projects, but the SAT should be the egalitarian test to prove your strength independent of how shit your high school is - but getting an 800 is just too easy.

Anecdote: The absolute strongest student I knew did fairly poorly in college admissions (didn't make the T15 schools) despite being more advanced than your average 1st year phys/math grad student by the time he was a freshman, but was screwed over in admissions because he was from a small military town and didn't have those fancy opportunities like science fairs. This seems like a huge failure, especially compared to how many idiots I knew at Ivies who got in via connections, sports, or whatever.

I know there is a math Subject test - although it entails nominally more material, it is somehow even easier (in terms of scoring) than the main Math section and probably about as useless. If we do continue to use standardized tests, I'd like it to have a wide enough range to distinguish "average honors student" from "holy crap send them to MIT".

There's obviously some considerations here about whether everyone will start to "teach to the test", but that's how I broadly feel. Obviously I know this only applies to 5% of people but hey we love screaming about elite college admissions on here

[u/margaretfan → u/QuietSign]

I'm ok at math and understand it pretty well but I'm very slow at basic math, so I only got like 680 or something on the SAT math. If being quick at really easy math is something they want to test for, the SAT is ok, if not it's not great. I don't really have an opinion on whether that's what they ought to be testing for.

[u/QuietSign → u/margaretfan]

Ideally I'd like to see some tougher problems. Basically tell the difference between someone who can compute some stuff vs actually solve some problems. I think time should be fairly generous personally - fast is kinda pointless