Not only can we within this fair County brag about our school/zone, we can also put down neighboring counties.

For example, the much-maligned South Lakes would be the third-best school in the Prince William County, and is almost even with Stafford's well-regarded Colonial Forge. You will also notice the

Hell, even the kids at Westfield put down their heroin needles long enough to do better than anywhere in Loudoun than Stone Bridge and Potomac Falls.

Only Yorktown, Wash-Lee, and George Mason can even hope to come close to us.

TJ (Fairfax) 2200
Langley (Fairfax) 1812
George Mason (Falls Church City) 1795
McLean (Fairfax) 1778
Yorktown (Arlington) 1741
Woodson (Fairfax) 1738
Madison (Fairfax) 1734
Oakton (Fairfax) 1729
Marshall (Fairfax) 1690
Washington-Lee (Arlington) 1670
Robinson (Fairfax) 1665
Chantilly (Fairfax) 1663
West Springfield (Fairfax) 1644
Herndon (Fairfax) 1642
Lake Braddock (Fairfax) 1639
Stone Bridge (Loudoun) 1639
Fairfax (Fairfax) 1635
Potomac Falls (Loudoun) 1626
Westfield (Fairfax) 1625
Loudoun Valley (Loudoun) 1622
Broad Run (Loudoun) 1611
Dominion (Loudoun) 1607
Loudoun County (Loudoun) 1607
Briar Woods (Loudoun) 1598
Centreville (Fairfax) 1596
Brentsville (PW) 1596
Osbourn Park (PW) 1587
Colonial Forge (Stafford) 1581
South Lakes (Fairfax) 1578
South County (Fairfax) 1572
West Potomac (Fairfax) 1561
Battlefield (PW) 1559
Heritage (Loudoun) 1559
Freedom (Loudoun) 1543
Forest Park (PW) 1537
Stuart (Fairfax) 1532
VIRGINIA AVERAGE 1521
Annandale (Fairfax) 1518
Edison (Fairfax) 1512
Stafford (Stafford) 1509
NATIONAL AVERAGE 1509
Falls Church (Fairfax) 1505
Mountain View (Stafford) 1505
Lee (Fairfax) 1504
Brooke Point (Stafford) 1499
Woodbridge (PW) 1497
Wakefield (Arlington) 1484
Park View (Loudoun) 1474
North Stafford (Stafford) 1473
Stonewall Jackson (PW) 1467
Hayfield (Fairfax) 1475
Hylton (PW) 1467
Mount Vernon (Fairfax) 1458
TC Williams (Alexandria City) 1442
Gar-Field (PW) 1440
Potomac (PW) 1408
Freedom (PW) 1310

Oh yeah, I'll post the scores for counties ashamed to report their data when it comes in.

­



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2013 05:59PM by chuckhoffmann.

chuckhoffmann Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is that 2200 the high score or the average for TJ?
> If it's the average, we need to watch out for
> echoes of "Tonight, we take over the world!"
> coming from the halls of TJ.
>
> Narf!

2200 is the average. It's the only way the other counties can hope to compete.

TJ has always been at the top of the list. Not only locally, but nationally. That's why you see all the parents scratching and clawing to get the kids into TJ.

And congrats to the Fairfax County school board, teachers and students, those are phenomenal numbers!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/2010 03:05PM by Lurker..

I am curious as to why Loudoun schools don't do better.

It is the land of expensive McMansions and huge taxes to pay for schools.

An average of 520 to 550 per section for most schools (save Park View)? Ok, I guess. But given the wealth, I would think they would do better.

A real measure of these scores would also take into account the percentage of the students who take them. At the schools with higher drop-out rates, the average score in effect overstates the level of academic achievement.

The parents of kids in Loudoun spend so much time on the road that they are exhausted when they get home. They have no time or energy to help their kids or talk to them.

Wealthy does not always equal smart. Smart people find ways to not spend time in their cars. They find ways to spend time with their kids even if it means they don't live in a McMansion.

TJ is not really a public school. Students have to be "accepted"through testing. It is not fair to put it on these lists. It belongs with private school lists. It is publicly funded, but basically run like a private school in all other ways.

TJ also has students from Prince William County attending---Prince William pays Fairfax to allow some of its students to attend there. Loudoun might be doing the same. This is because those counties do not have a TJ and it is a "Governor's School".

Yes, and Arlington County sends students to TJ as well. Alexandria City students aren't permitted to attend it, however. In any event, the vast majority of TJ students still come from Fairfax, so it's fair for the county to report its scores.

-- begin sarcasm --
SATs are the definitive test that decide whether a kid is smart or not.

Therefore, all students with sub par SAT scores should immediately be dumped in the Potomac.
-- end sarcasm --

I scored the equivalent of 1935 (we were on 1600 scale back then and I got 1290).
Finished 4th in my class down in Henrico County in one of the 'crappier' schools. Finished summa cum laude in engineering at VA tech undergrad, and went on for a MS degree continuing good grades ~ 3.7 or so gpa (not super great for grad school, but decent enough)

1935/2400 is ~ 80.625 percent, so a kid who basically scored an 80% on the SATs, and still finished in the top 15 or so out of 300+ engineering students in their engineering discipline at VT should at least be some indication that those scores aren't necessarily the end all be all. (exception -- yes, they are needed for competitive college entry and bs bragging rights for parents, schools, and students alike)

In all seriousness, parents should first focus on their kids getting solid good grades in their classes instead of getting all the analogies, etc. right on the SATs. What says more about a student 4 years of high school with hard core AP classes and extracurricular activities with A+++ grades with an 80% or better SAT score, or a B- to A- average with a high SAT score? SAT doesn't test on music, foreign language, advanced mathematics, knowledge of history, computers, etc, etc..

It wasn't even all that long ago that I was in FCPS, and the SAT scale topped out at 1500 back then.

I didn't even study for it either, and I still managed to get a 1200 (I also didn't recognize half of the symbols used in the Math section, because we weren't taught them).

Btw, I meant 1600, not 1500.

==================================================================================================
"And if any women or children get their legs torn off, or faces caved in, well, it's tough shit for them." -2LT. Bert Stiles, 505th, 339th (On Berlin Bombardier Mission, 1944).



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2010 08:11PM by ThePackLeader.

It must be pretty damn competitive to get into college these days.

Stinkfist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It must be pretty damn competitive to get into
> college these days.

yup - especially when the VA state schools have a bias against recruiting the kids of northern viginia who've worked hard to get those scores and in favor of the rural areas

Happy to take our taxes though

uneven playing field Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Stinkfist Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > It must be pretty damn competitive to get into
> > college these days.
>
> yup - especially when the VA state schools have a
> bias against recruiting the kids of northern
> viginia who've worked hard to get those scores and
> in favor of the rural areas
>
> Happy to take our taxes though

Yeah. The SAT seems like something that should set the students apart, though. I remember back when I was applying to schools, you could get into Radford, Longwood, CNU, ODU easily with under a 3.0 gpa and around a 1000 SAT score (back in the 1600 days). Not anymore.

ODU use to be the "party VA beach school" that accepted anybody over 2.0, now it is a fortune, just got a football team and is much more difficult to get into. Still can't figure out why VA can't get into the IVY league schools. UVA, W&M and W&M-ODU have been around since the founding of VA.

Loudoun elementary schools are great, but they are dealing with a shitload more kids than just a few years ago. I look for the county SAT scores to continue to improve as these little brainiacs work their way through the system -- at least at the county's newer high schools. The old ones will still suck.

Way to go South Lakes! Bottom 10.

­



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2013 06:02PM by chuckhoffmann.

chuckhoffmann Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wonder if this means that the poorer performing
> schools will be looking for ways to keep their
> braniacs in their home schools instead of letting
> them drain off to TJ. I figure I'd try and create
> a jock culture, but for brainiacs, so they feel
> like bigshots and want to stick around.


Nah - they'll just lobby the board to redistrict harder working kids into their clutches...

Same reason why the AA/GT centers are so often in schools with performance problems

I'll probably sound pretty arrogant for this, but isn't 1812 for the top school in all 4 counties pretty low? I mean, aren't half the kids scoring below that number? (I have no conception of the new scale, but on the old one that'd be around 1208, right?).

I don't know why I expect more, but 1208 (1812) just doesn't sound very high for the top school in the top district. Are their numbers really skewed that much by all their top performers leaving for TJ?

snowdenscold Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'll probably sound pretty arrogant for this, but
> isn't 1812 for the top school in all 4 counties
> pretty low? I mean, aren't half the kids scoring
> below that number? (I have no conception of the
> new scale, but on the old one that'd be around
> 1208, right?).
>
> I don't know why I expect more, but 1208 (1812)
> just doesn't sound very high for the top school in
> the top district. Are their numbers really skewed
> that much by all their top performers leaving for
> TJ?

The scores are averages, not means. But TJ does skew the scores at other schools, particularly in Fairfax.

ITRADE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Way to go South Lakes! Bottom 10.

Butler will be Principal of the Year 2&3 years from now when the redistricted Fox Mill & Floris kids increase the SATs/SOLs/... The first kids are juniors now. SL got about 1/2 of the current juniors, about 3/4 of the current sophomores.

snowdenscold Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'll probably sound pretty arrogant for this, but
> isn't 1812 for the top school in all 4 counties
> pretty low? I mean, aren't half the kids scoring
> below that number? (I have no conception of the
> new scale, but on the old one that'd be around
> 1208, right?).
>
> I don't know why I expect more, but 1208 (1812)
> just doesn't sound very high for the top school in
> the top district. Are their numbers really skewed
> that much by all their top performers leaving for
> TJ?

Actually a median of 1208/1812 is very high (e.g. Palo Alto is 1225 & doesn't have a free TJ skimming off a bunch of 1400/2100+ers.) At 1208, there are probably no more than 30 area-based HSes with similar/higher SATs. (Of course, there's more than a bit of selectivity driven by housing costs in Langley/Great Falls.)

Here's a link to essentially all of the HSes in US with SATs > 1200. The vast majority are either privates or selective entry like TJ.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/372841-high-school-sat-cr-m-scores-profiles-other-sources.html

Yes, I'm aware of the difference between mean and median, but when the range is small enough and the sample size is large enough, they usually converge pretty close.

Anyway, I guess I just have a condescending view of both the area's and nation's academic ability/aptitude then. In my mind the nationwide average should be like 1150 and the NoVa area upper 1200's (old scale), but I guess that's just me.
Then there's the SOL's, but don't get me started...

Average scores may be great for the school. If your kid wants to go to a top school what you really care about is the lowest total score of the top 10% of kids in the school. If your kid wants a good school you probably want to know the score of the top 25%.

SATs have become an almost pure surrogate for the parents' socio-economic rank.

It was invented to predict the potential for a child to succeed at Harvard as its then President tried to pry admissions beyond the old boy prep schools. He knew that, if a boy (only boys went to the Yard then) from a public school in the Mid-West or west coast could succeed in freshman year, he was likely to return for sophomore year and ultimately graduate.

Over the decades the SAT failed to correlate to freshman success. More & more kids with wealthy parents gamed the test, thanks to Kaplan and others, got into academically challenging schools, struggled and didn't come back.

It was discovered that the better predictor of college freshman success was a student's grades during the high school junior year.

Thus, you saw the Ca public university system and many other "selective" colleges announce their intention to drop standardized tests from their admissions process or switch to the ACT which test the actual knowledge acquired in subjects in high school instead of attempting to measure abstract reasoning as the SAT claims it does.

In response to those threats, the College Board added the essay section 5+ years ago, which most colleges ignored for the first few years until a baseline was developed. It is not working out, as the grading of the essays is arbitrary and inconsistent, especially since penmanship is not emphasized any longer in US grade schools and the handwriting is illegible on too many exams for the reviewer to read.

In sum, these SAT scores demonstrate that Fairfax County high school students are to be heartily congratulated on choosing the right parents;

no matter what the pretentious real estate broker/shills tell you otherwise.

The SAT needs to dig more to find the best students. GPA shouldn't matter if a solid, standardized test is given. I knew so many bright kids who skipped class and didn't do HW, but were brilliant. The GPA is for the asskissing, dipshit, kid who lacks intelligence but makes up for it in reading college prep books.

Stinkfist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The SAT needs to dig more to find the best
> students. GPA shouldn't matter if a solid,
> standardized test is given. I knew so many bright
> kids who skipped class and didn't do HW, but were
> brilliant. The GPA is for the asskissing, dipshit,
> kid who lacks intelligence but makes up for it in
> reading college prep books.



Then there are those that are brilliant, and suck at tests. I knew several kids when I was in high school that had near 4.0 GPAs and could never break 1000 on the SATs (old version scoring.) They usually did very well on the ACT though.

eesh Wrote:
>
> Then there are those that are brilliant, and suck
> at tests. I knew several kids when I was in high
> school that had near 4.0 GPAs and could never
> break 1000 on the SATs (old version scoring.) They
> usually did very well on the ACT though.

See, that just seems odd to me. I'm not expecting that kid to crack a 1400 or anything, but if you have a 4.0, how do you not at least get over 1000? Surely there is SOME correlation there, no?

Wouldn't college admissions counselors be wary of someone w/ a 4.0 who came in under 1000? Unless they knew how that school usually graded (which, granted, admissions staff at top nation-wide schools usually do), it could throw both the college and the student in for a surprise. Or maybe I'm still just living with a theory from 50 years ago.

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> SATs have become an almost pure surrogate for the
> parents' socio-economic rank.
>

Without question, there is a strong correlation between SES and SATs and Kaplan, etc have made it somewhat worse. However, after factoring out SES, there remains a very large dispersion in individual scores.

>
> Over the decades the SAT failed to correlate to
> freshman success. More & more kids with wealthy
> parents gamed the test, thanks to Kaplan and
> others, got into academically challenging schools,
> struggled and didn't come back.
>

This is largely BS. Without question, Kaplan and others can raise scores. Kaplan, etc. promise +100 and can achieve that. What they can't do is take a kid who would make 500/1500 with no coaching and turn the kid's scores into 1600/2400. Simply doesn't happen. If it did, there'd be many more 1600/2400s than there are.

There's also an false assertion that the kids all take Kaplan/etc. Many of the kids & their parents don't waste their time/money and the kids end up with very high scores.

>
> It was discovered that the better predictor of
> college freshman success was a student's grades
> during the high school junior year.
>

True, however, what the anti-SAT crowd fails to mention is that GPAs and SATs together are significantly better than either is individually. And, GPAs weighted by class difficulty better still.

>
> Thus, you saw the Ca public university system and
> many other "selective" colleges announce their
> intention to drop standardized tests from their
> admissions process or switch to the ACT which test
> the actual knowledge acquired in subjects in high
> school instead of attempting to measure abstract
> reasoning as the SAT claims it does.
>

While some, but nowhere near all, "selective" colleges have dropped SATs as a requirement, those that have dropped them know that they will get them from nearly all of their applicants and almost all of these colleges continue to use SATs in their admissions process in combination with GPAs, etc.

That said, the real problem that the selective colleges have isn't that Kaplan/etc allow gaming of the system, it's that the SATs (and SAT IIs/ACTs) are too easy, so the vast majority of the applicants who have any chance of acceptance (assuming they don't play football/are legacies/"development cases"/etc) have scores in the tail of the test distributions within the standard errors of the test ceilings. (This was made worse by the recentering of the SATs in the 90s.)

Result, these schools are beginning to require/ask for scores on tests that are appropriately centered for their applicant pool. For example, the higher end engineering school applicants with any chance of acceptance, all have scores > 700 on the math portion of the SATs and SAT IIs. Thus, all kids with a reasonable shot have scores within the test's standard error of the test ceilings. Result, these schools have started asking for AMC-12 scores since they know that the AMCs are hard enough to differentiate amongst their applicants. The AMCs have a top score of about 150 (which only about 20 kids nation-wide score vs. several thousand SAT/SAT II math 800s), 1% at about 120, and 5% at about 100. Nearly all of the kids who score in the top 5% score 750-800 on the SAT/SAT IIs. So, the AMCs provide very significant differentiation within the tail of the SAT/SAT II distribution in a/the key ability in math/engineering.

>
> In response to those threats, the College Board
> added the essay section 5+ years ago, which most
> colleges ignored for the first few years until a
> baseline was developed. It is not working out, as
> the grading of the essays is arbitrary and
> inconsistent, especially since penmanship is not
> emphasized any longer in US grade schools and the
> handwriting is illegible on too many exams for the
> reviewer to read.
>

True.

>
> In sum, these SAT scores demonstrate that Fairfax
> County high school students are to be heartily
> congratulated on choosing the right parents;
>
>
> no matter what the pretentious real estate
> broker/shills tell you otherwise.

For the school averages, that's absolutely true & absolutely true for the pretentious real estaters, etc. However, take Langley's median, there's a very large and statistically significant difference between a median (or even an individual's) score of 1208/1812 and one of 1600/2400. Given all the money in Great Falls, if all it takes is SES (which, by your argument includes Kaplaning), explain how it is that Langley's median isn't 1600/2400?

Or, to take a different measure, how many of those 1208/1812 kids do you think could cut it at your alma mater? Answer zero. How many of the 1600/2400 kids can? Most of them.

So, the fact is, SATs do have a lot of predictive power as a single measure. Not bad for a one day test vs. GPAs accumulated over 4 years.

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> SATs have become an almost pure surrogate for the
> parents' socio-economic rank.
>
> It was invented to predict the potential for a
> child to succeed at Harvard as its then President
> tried to pry admissions beyond the old boy prep
> schools. He knew that, if a boy (only boys went
> to the Yard then) from a public school in the
> Mid-West or west coast could succeed in freshman
> year, he was likely to return for sophomore year
> and ultimately graduate.
>
> Over the decades the SAT failed to correlate to
> freshman success. More & more kids with wealthy
> parents gamed the test, thanks to Kaplan and
> others, got into academically challenging schools,
> struggled and didn't come back.
>
> It was discovered that the better predictor of
> college freshman success was a student's grades
> during the high school junior year.
>
> Thus, you saw the Ca public university system and
> many other "selective" colleges announce their
> intention to drop standardized tests from their
> admissions process or switch to the ACT which test
> the actual knowledge acquired in subjects in high
> school instead of attempting to measure abstract
> reasoning as the SAT claims it does.
>
> In response to those threats, the College Board
> added the essay section 5+ years ago, which most
> colleges ignored for the first few years until a
> baseline was developed. It is not working out, as
> the grading of the essays is arbitrary and
> inconsistent, especially since penmanship is not
> emphasized any longer in US grade schools and the
> handwriting is illegible on too many exams for the
> reviewer to read.
>
> In sum, these SAT scores demonstrate that Fairfax
> County high school students are to be heartily
> congratulated on choosing the right parents;
>
> no matter what the pretentious real estate
> broker/shills tell you otherwise.

Remind us again what exactly South Lakes does well.

In sum, these SAT scores demonstrate that Fairfax County high school parents are to be heartily congratulated on mostly choosing the right school districts.

No matter what the pretentious Reston resident tells you otherwise.

In sum, these SAT scores demonstrate that Fairfax County high school parents are to be heartily congratulated on mostly choosing the right school districts.

No matter what the pretentious Reston resident tells you otherwise.



What about the parents who chose FCPS and got low scores on the SATs? What about the parents who chose FCPS and their kids dropped out of school? That's about 10% of the students by FCPS's own statistics.

Shill Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Remind us again what exactly South Lakes does well.<

Well, this week it beat Herndon pretty good 44-0 at Herndon.

Did you even graduate from kindergarten, troll?

WestfieldDad Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thomas More Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> > SATs have become an almost pure surrogate for the parents' socio-economic rank.

> Without question, there is a strong correlation between SES and SATs and Kaplan, etc have made it somewhat worse. However, after factoring out SES, there remains a very large dispersion in individual scores.<

Actually not true. Especially when differences of less than 50 pts (old scale) are eliminated. (ETB holds that difference of less than that are noise.) The correlation is almost 1.0

> > Over the decades the SAT failed to correlate to freshman success. More & more kids with wealthy parents gamed the test, thanks to Kaplan and others, got into academically challenging schools, struggled and didn't come back.< <

> This is largely BS. Without question, Kaplan and others can raise scores. Kaplan, etc. promise +100 and can achieve that. What they can't do is take a kid who would make 500/1500 with no coaching and turn the kid's scores into 1600/2400. Simply doesn't happen. If it did, there'd be many more 1600/2400s than there are.<

There is little or no correlation between SAT score and freshman college performance. Kaplan and Princeton Review are but one of a myriad of explanations for the almost perfect correlation between SES and SAT. There are many others but the almost perfect correlation is not disputed by any peer reviewed published investigator.

> > It was discovered that the better predictor of college freshman success was a student's grades during the high school junior year.< <

> True, however, what the anti-SAT crowd fails to mention is that GPAs and SATs together are significantly better than either is individually. And, GPAs weighted by class difficulty better still.<

Adding SAT to GPA simply generates noise to the analysis. Evaluating "class difficulty" is subjective and unreliable.

> > Thus, you saw the Ca public university system and many other "selective" colleges announce their intention to drop standardized tests from their admissions process or switch to the ACT which test the actual knowledge acquired in subjects in high school instead of attempting to measure abstract reasoning as the SAT claims it does.< <

> While some, but nowhere near all, "selective" colleges have dropped SATs as a requirement, those that have dropped them know that they will get them from nearly all of their applicants and almost all of these colleges continue to use SATs in their admissions process in combination with GPAs, etc.<

The trend is decidedly against all standardized test and from the SAT to the ACT. Those schools who have announced dropping SATs ignore them if they're reported.

[snip]

> For the school averages, that's absolutely true & absolutely true for the pretentious real estaters, etc. However, take Langley's median, there's a very large and statistically significant difference between a median (or even an individual's) score of 1208/1812 and one of 1600/2400. Given all the money in Great Falls, if all it takes is SES (which, by your argument includes Kaplaning), explain how it is that Langley's median isn't 1600/2400?<

Even rich people have an occasional dumb/lazy kid.

> Or, to take a different measure, how many of those 1208/1812 kids do you think could cut it at your alma mater? Answer zero.<

Actually, most of them do quite well if their GPA was above 3.0 as any number of investigations have shown.

> How many of the 1600/2400 kids can? Most of them.<

You would be stunned at how many 1600 kids don't make it through freshman year.

> So, the fact is, SATs do have a lot of predictive power as a single measure. Not bad for a one day test vs. GPAs accumulated over 4 years.<

All of the peer reviewed investigations prove this assertion to be wrong.

If it worked, what other reason could there be for colleges dropping it and either ignoring standardized test or accepting the ACT instead.

You must be working at the College Board facility in Reston.

not just one way Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What about the parents who chose FCPS and their kids dropped out of school?

They wouldn't have taken the SATs.

>In sum, these SAT scores demonstrate that Fairfax County high school parents are >to be heartily congratulated on mostly choosing the right school districts.

>No matter what the pretentious Reston resident tells you otherwise.



So the kids who dropped out have parents who should not be congratulated for choosing Fairfax County schools?

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Shill Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Remind us again what exactly South Lakes does
> well.<
>
> Well, this week it beat Herndon pretty good 44-0
> at Herndon.
>

That's pitiful. Herndon beat Jefferson 41-0, so if South Lakes was any good, it would have beat Jefferson 85-0, not by the slim margin of 39-7.

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

Unless Sarah Lawrence is your universe of colleges/universities, the fact is that colleges have NOT dropped standardized tests, and most haven't dropped SATs. The facts are that few highly selective colleges have gone "test optional" and even for those that have gone to "test optional," there are many "shades of gray".

FairTest's list of all SAT-optional colleges/universities, even by their own extremely broad criteria, is missing a few colleges/universities that are, by most people's criteria, "selective." http://fairtest.org/university/optional

The missing include:

Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, MIT, CalTech, Amherst, Carleton, Swarthmore, ... (Even Oberlin and Reed are amongst the missing...)

Here's a quote from Bob Schaeffer, spokesman for FairTest (the loudest voice for dropping SATs) http://voices.washingtonpost.com/college-inc/2010/06/update_test-optional_list_long.html

"Test-optional" has become a term-of-art referring to a range of practices. More precisely, we refer to our list as including schools which have deemphasized their use of ACT and SAT in admissions decisions. It includes colleges and universities which ignore ACT/SAT scores even when they are submitted, those that allow all students to choose whether their scores will be considered, those that extend this option only to applicants who meet other criteria (usually minimum class rank or GPA requirements; and those who allow other types of standardized exams (AP/IB/Subject Tests/Local Exams/Placement Tests)to substitue [sic] for the ACT/SAT. As the Chronicle of Higher Education described it, there lots of "shades of gray" as the movement away from exclusive reliance on the ACT/SAT expands and matures.

Note "range of practices," "deemphasized," "ignor even if submitted," "exclusive reliance"...

Also, this was as FairTest added Colorado College to their list of "optionals." Colorado College's actual statement said -

A publicist said the new rules *do not mean* Colorado College is going "test-optional." http://voices.washingtonpost.com/college-inc/2010/06/colorado_college_will_accept_a.html#more

Colorado College's actual policy requires tests of some sort that look a lot like SATs -

"The three picks *must include* at least one math test and one verbal or writing test."

In otherwords, FairTest's list of ALL colleges "http://fairtest.org/university/optional" with any "optionality" is simply papering over the fact that most of the colleges on their list use some equivalent or do use it in some way in their process.

And, consider a different fact - You appear to claim colleges are switching to ACTs since they are useful measure. "actual knowledge"...

"switch to the ACT which test
> the actual knowledge acquired in subjects in high
> school instead of attempting to measure abstract
> reasoning as the SAT claims it does. "

OK. Consider a related fact, ACTs and SATs scores are *very* highly correlated. Sufficiently correlated that both College Board and ACT publish a "concordance" showing how SAT and ACT scores can be converted "http://www.act.org/aap/concordance/index.html" ACT goes on to discuss that the tests are different (curriculum-based vs "abstract reasoning". "From a methodological standpoint, it is preferable to interpret and to use ACT and SAT scores separately. However, many institutions cannot develop and maintain separate systems; they must instead find a comparable score using concordance tables."

Or this from UT Austin's Admissions Office on concordance of ACT & SAT scores (needed because UT Austin doesn't require both & statistically valid because UT Austin gets so many applicants with either or both scores.) -

http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/ACT-SATconcordance.html

"As expected, there are high correlations between comparable ACT and SAT tests. (Composite/Total = .87, English/Verbal = .76, Reading/Verbal = .77, and Math/Quantitative = .86) As stated earlier the English+Reading/Verbal was .82. These correlations are consistent with earlier, national concordance studies. (See Table 4 below.) By contrast, correlations with class rank are lower because of vast differences in the ways the measures are designed and computed. Table 4 presents results from a national concordance study conducted jointly by ACT and ETS in which the population numbered 103,525."

Note, also "class rank" correlation is significantly lower, but similar (between .3 & .4).

On concordance tables, UT Austin states that individual results will vary some between the ACTs and SATs, so a particular score on one does not guarantee the same score on the other. However, they go on to state that

"ACT researchers also measured the strength of the relationship between the tests by computing the consistency of admissions decisions that would be made using ACT or SAT alone. (UT-Austin has never, and will never, use test scores alone to make admissions decisions; such a computation is meant only to illustrate the degree of agreement between the two tests.) The Consistency Rate is defined as the percentage of students for whom similar decisions would be made, given a specific cutoff score. The minimum consistency rates for the two tests were .81 for ACT English/SAT I Verbal, and .82 for the ACT Mathematics/SAT I Quantitative. For the ACT Composite/SAT Total combination, the minimum consistency rate was .84. This implies that, if test scores were used alone, at least 84% of admissions decisions would be the same for the ACT as for the SAT I. This compares to a consistency rate of approximately .89 for two equated and exchangeable versions of the ACT Composite score. Table 9 gives consistency rates for some of the values in the score distribution for the English, Mathematics, and Composite scores."

In other words, even ACT makes it clear that actual acceptance decisions don't vary much given concordant SAT/ACTs.

Cool, which part of this post, Westfield Dad, is relevant to the correlation of SES to SATs and the lack of predictive effectiveness of the SAT to freshman performance.

Thomas More - you rightly point out a challenge and problems with these tests.

SAT and ACT scores are not a great predictor of freshmen performance. Yet they may be "better" than most anything else out there, especially helpful to a busy admissions office which, no matter what it may say, doesn't really have the resources to look as closely at a student as they should. Plus there are so many variables in student performance, that it is difficult to choose any one factor in predicting success.

This article I think has it close to right:

http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/nurture-shock/2009/09/18/in-defense-of-the-sat.html

So while not a "great" predictor of success, they are at the same time helpful in assessing the analytic prowess of student and give some predictive direction.

Grade point is likely a better predictor, but the grading practices and rigor of the schools at issue vary, sometimes wildly. One would think, though, that in Fairfax County, a student with 8/9 AP courses with a 3.9 grade point, should empirically be seen as a sound student irrespective of SAT and ACT scores. The truth is that a reasonable minority of people don't test well on multiple choice tests and end up doing much better outside of that limited paradigm later on in college.

One of my former professors did inform me of the best predictor of college success: Class attendance - as in making every single class. He cited a BYU study (of all places) from the 80's that came to the conclusion that class attendance trumped all. I took his advice to heart, and I think most everyone else should too, notwithstanding the mythical college stories about the brilliant kids who don't go to class and end up getting A's on the tests.


I think the best thing that can be said is that parents are wise to inform their kids that SAT or ACT scores are not the be all and end all, and do not define success or one's prospects in life. Of course, they may matter a lot in terms of admission to the nation's most highly competitive schools, but given the opportunities that can be obtained from most any reputable college with good study habits and dedication, I am not so sure it makes a difference. The overemphasis on scores can grate on No. Virgina parents, because Virginia public universities schools are such a great deal, and they do discriminate in admissions against Northern Virginians. But I am not sure the tests are the culprit. The schools want geographic diversity (no matter how much we may argue against that), and they would find another way to discriminate if the tests somehow became a non-factor.

Reluctantly disagreeing with Quantum (could you add some white space to those tomes you post, please, it would make it easier to read them)

From an admission officer's perspective, junior year high GPA has the highest correlation to freshman college year success.

Since few high schools report class attendance information, the BYU study doesn't help attendance personnel make the close calls.

Parents should know that the average admissions file reader is a grad student working in admissions for a few years to pay for grad school tuition and/or get the discount available to college employees.

At the more selective school, they will each review 2,500-5,000 files in the period from 1/1 of each year to 3/1. There's not going to be a lot of time spent reading the file for every nuance. Triage will be quick and dirty.

Va public university system should be an embarrassment to the Commonwealth. UVA, W&M, JMU & UMW all graduate their freshman in 4 years at percentages that beat the national average.

But the other 9 are a disgrace:

CNU 12%

VCU 17%

ODU 19%

GMU 26%

Longwood and Radford are only in the 35% range.

VTech is only 43%

Paying 5, 6 & 7 years tuition to get a 4 year degree is definitely not a great deal.

When the other 9 Va. public universities have graduation rates comparable to the top 4, maybe NoVa parents will be more sanguine about their children and their money going there.

I think you'd also need to know what the major was. For example, at VT architecture majors typically take 5 years.

kk Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think you'd also need to know what the major was. For example, at VT architecture majors typically take 5 years.<

That's right and students go in to those programs knowing it takes 5 years in advance. So we can cut VTech some slack but it doesn't fully explain a 43% four year grad rate.

But should it really take 5 years to get an architecture degree? Or is it just a barrier to entry.

Many engineering degrees also take 5 years. I remember that from my college days over 30 years ago. I doubt there is less information to cover now. Better to spend an extra year than to have bridges falling down.

I think the barrier to entry to those professions comes before year #5 anyway.

Now with added MoCo-Fairfax goodness. Keep in mind MoCo doesn't send its top 2% to TJ.

And if you were considering Prince George's ... the stats from 2008-09 are here too!

TJ (Fairfax) 2200
Whitman (Montgomery) 1879
Churchill (Montgomery) 1824
Wootton (Montgomery) 1822
Poolesville (Montgomery) 1813
Langley (Fairfax) 1812
George Mason (Falls Church City) 1795
McLean (Fairfax) 1778
Richard Montgomery (Montgomery) 1759
Walter Johnson (Montgomery) 1754
Yorktown (Arlington) 1741
Woodson (Fairfax) 1738
Madison (Fairfax) 1734
Bethesda-Chevy Chase (Montgomery) 1734
Oakton (Fairfax) 1729
Blair (Montgomery) 1727
Marshall (Fairfax) 1690
Washington-Lee (Arlington) 1670
Robinson (Fairfax) 1665
Chantilly (Fairfax) 1663
West Springfield (Fairfax) 1644
Herndon (Fairfax) 1642
Lake Braddock (Fairfax) 1639
Stone Bridge (Loudoun) 1639
Fairfax (Fairfax) 1635
Quince Orchard (Montgomery) 1633
Damascus (Montgomery) 1627
Potomac Falls (Loudoun) 1626
Westfield (Fairfax) 1625
Loudoun Valley (Loudoun) 1622
Sherwood (Montgomery) 1616
Broad Run (Loudoun) 1611
Dominion (Loudoun) 1607
Loudoun County (Loudoun) 1607
Rockville (Montgomery) 1601
Briar Woods (Loudoun) 1598
Centreville (Fairfax) 1596
Brentsville (PW) 1596
Osbourn Park (PW) 1587
Colonial Forge (Stafford) 1581
South Lakes (Fairfax) 1578
South County (Fairfax) 1572
Magruder (Montgomery) 1571
Eleanor Roosevelt (Prince George's) 1570
West Potomac (Fairfax) 1561
Battlefield (PW) 1559
Heritage (Loudoun) 1559
Northwest (Montgomery) 1550
Freedom (Loudoun) 1543
Forest Park (PW) 1537
Paint Branch (Montgomery) 1534
Stuart (Fairfax) 1532
Seneca Valley (Montgomery) 1531
Blake (Montgomery) 1526
Springbrook (Montgomery) 1522
VIRGINIA AVERAGE 1521
Annandale (Fairfax) 1518
Einstein (Montgomery) 1517
Edison (Fairfax) 1512
Stafford (Stafford) 1509
NATIONAL AVERAGE 1509
Falls Church (Fairfax) 1505
Mountain View (Stafford) 1505
Lee (Fairfax) 1504
Brooke Point (Stafford) 1499
Woodbridge (PW) 1497
Gaithersburg (Montgomery) 1496
Watkins Mill (Montgomery) 1493
Northwood (Montgomery) 1492
Clarksburg (Montgomery) 1491
Wakefield (Arlington) 1484
Park View (Loudoun) 1474
North Stafford (Stafford) 1473
Stonewall Jackson (PW) 1467
Hayfield (Fairfax) 1475
Hylton (PW) 1467
Mount Vernon (Fairfax) 1458
Kennedy (Montgomery) 1445
TC Williams (Alexandria City) 1442
Gar-Field (PW) 1440
Potomac (PW) 1408
Wheaton (Montgomery) 1395
Flowers (Prince George's) 1351
Oxon Hill (Prince George's) 1351
Bowie (Prince George's) 1342
Freedom (PW) 1310
Laurel (Prince George's) 1308
High Point (Prince George's) 1290
Parkdale (Prince George's) 1275
Northwestern (Prince George's) 1268
Frederick Douglass (Prince George's) 1262
Bladensburg (Prince George's) 1253
Gwynn Park (Prince George's) 1242
Wise (Prince George's) 1240
DuVal (Prince George's) 1220
Fairmont Heights (Prince George's) 1201
Suitland (Prince George's) 1201
Largo (Prince George's) 1196
Surrattsville (Prince George's) 1193
Friendly (Prince George's) 1178
Crossland (Prince George's) 1172
Potomac (Prince George's) 1163
Forestville (Prince George's) 1158
Central (Prince George's) 1137

LOL at Freedom HS in Prince William - in a shit sandwich between two layers of PG county suckatude.

__________________________________
That's not a ladybug, that's a cannapiller.

Dang, I knew PG wasn't great, but I didn't expect 22 of the bottom 23 (w/o only 1 outside that - ERS - which is pseudo magnet but still places at bottom of FFX range). There aren't any pockets of PG which are nice enough to field a decent high school?

Before we crow too much look how many of the HS in east or south county are below the Virginia average.

snowdenscold Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dang, I knew PG wasn't great, but I didn't expect
> 22 of the bottom 23 (w/o only 1 outside that - ERS
> - which is pseudo magnet but still places at
> bottom of FFX range). There aren't any pockets of
> PG which are nice enough to field a decent high
> school?

I think they are but the good parts of PG will prolly send their kid to private school or angle to get their kids in the MCPS schools.

Why is PWC so low??