Eugenics, IQ & Standardized Testing

 

Fact Sheet on the SAT, Race, and College Admissions

The source for much of the following material is the “Secrets of the SAT” program or Web site (www.pbs.org/frontline/shows/sats), unless otherwise noted.

About the SAT and Test Prep

• Number of times the SAT was administered in 1998-99: 2.2 million.
• Number of high school seniors who took the SAT in 1998-99: 1.2 million.
• Mean SAT scores of high-school seniors in 1998-99: Combined – 1016 (Verbal: 505 / Math: 511).
• SAT registration fee: $23.50.
• Cost range for SAT preparation materials and courses: free test prep resources (online and through guidance counselors) to $500/hour for private tutors.
• Money spent on preparation in 1995-96: average student spent $8 preparing (47.8% of students spent no money; 12% spent an average of $400).
• Range of time spent preparing for the SAT in 1995-96: average student spent 11 hours (44.8% of students spent 10 hours or less; 8.3% spent over 60 hours).
• Ninety-seven percent of high school students use some form of test preparation.

SAT Test Score Gaps

• On average, African-American and Latino students perform below white and Asian students, with the average African-American score 93 points below an average white score on the SAT I Verbal and 106 points less on the Math.
• Women score, on average, 36 points below men on the SAT I Math and 43 points below men overall, yet get higher grades than men in both high school and college when matched for identical courses.
• An average SAT I test taker from a family earning less than $10,000 a year scored 871, with scores rising with income to 1130 for the average person from a family earning more than $100,000.

SAT and College Admissions

• Percentage of four-year colleges that currently require standardized test scores: 83%-a drop from 86% in 1997-98.
• The top factors that influenced admission decisions in 1999 were (in order of importance): grades in college prep courses, admission test scores, grades in all subjects, and other criteria specific to each institution. In 1998 the top four factors were grades in college prep courses, admission test scores, grades in all subjects, and class rank.
• There are 2000 colleges and universities that award the BA. About fifty of those (approximately 3%) admit less than 50% of applicants, while the other 1950 (more than 95%) admit more than 50%. Only twelve highly selective colleges and universities admit less than 20% of their applicants
  

  Race and College Admissions Around the Country

  Texas
  

  • After twice being denied admission to the UC Davis Medical School despite having test scores higher than many of the minority applicants, Allan Bakke sued the school in a landmark case charging reverse discrimination. UC Davis appealed the case to the US Supreme Court. In 1978, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bakke, stating that universities could no longer use two separate admissions processes based on race, but left open the practice of considering race in admissions to promote diversity.
  • In 1996, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals nullified a University of Texas Law School admissions policy (Hopwood v. Texas) that sought certain percentages of black and Latino students. Hopwood v. Texas, unlike the Bakke case, left no room for racial preferences in the admissions process in those states covered by the Fifth Circuit-Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
  • In 1997, in response to the rollback in race-based admissions, Texas signed into law legislation that requires the state universities to admit all applicants ranked in the top 10% of their high school class.7

  California
  

  • In California in 1996, Proposition 209 banned racial preferences in university admissions’ processes.
  • In its first year without race-based preferences in admissions, UC Berkeley accepted its least diverse freshman class in 17 years, admitting 56% fewer blacks and 49% fewer Latinos than in 1997.
  • In March 1999, the University of California Board of Regents voted to accept a proposal similar to that in Texas to admit the top 4% of high school students to the University of California system.8

  Michigan
  

  • Racial preference in admissions is now being challenged in a lawsuit against the University of Michigan claiming its affirmative action program discriminates by applying different test score standards to different races.

What Does the SAT Measure?

Statistics show that the SAT successfully predicts 18% of the variance in first year college grades. By comparison, the high school grade point average (GPA) predicts 20% of the variance in first year grades. Together, the combination of SAT and GPA predicts around 25% of the variance in first year grades. These numbers go down sharply each year after and have marginal value in projecting a college student’s graduating GPA.

The design of the SAT was based on the IQ test-IQ standing for “intelligence quotient,” or the ratio of mental to physical age. The French psychologist Alfred Binet created the first test of intelligence in 1905. It was to be used to identify slow learners so that teachers could give them special attention.

The SAT was first administered to a group of students in 1926 and was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the word “aptitude” signifying that the test was designed to measure an innate ability, rather than knowledge acquired through schooling-where wealthy students at elite preparatory schools would have an unfair advantage. Harvard University first employed the test as a means of identifying the potential abilities of scholarship applicants.

“When these tests were originally developed,” said Harvard social policy professor Christopher Jencks, “people really believed that if they did the job right they would be able to measure this sort of underlying, biological potential. And they often called it aptitude, sometimes they called it genes, sometimes intelligence.”

Later, the name of the test was changed to “Scholastic Assessment Test,” and since 1994, the test administered by The College Board has been referred to as simply the “SAT”-illustrating the uncertainty surrounding what exactly the test measures. (We are referring only to the SAT I: Reasoning Test, not to the SAT II Subject Tests.)

According to Wayne Camara, director of the Office of Research at The College Board, the SAT measures “developed reasoning,” a quality he describes as the skills that students develop not only in school but also outside of school. The College Board says that the best way to prepare for the SAT is to read a lot and to take rigorous academic courses.