For Elite Colleges, Standardized Tests Should Be More Important in Admissions Decisions Then GPA

Introduction: The first thing I'd like to note is that we are discussion what elite colleges SHOULD do, not what they do. There is absolutely no way to know what elite colleges actually consider important because that information is typically not release to the public (in much the same way a company would not release it's hiring policies to the public.) Also, we are talking about only whether GPA (a number) should have more of role than SAT score (a number). Other factors, though very important, are not the subject of the debate. Argument 1. Abundance of Scores In the previous round I argued that high test scores were more rare than high grades. The College Entrance Exam Board publishes its distribution of scores each year, proving that the highest scores are hard to come by. My opponent has argued that college success is not likely to difference considerably between students who have scored sufficiently high (over 2200 by his example). The admissions committees of elite universities seem to uniformly disagree with this assumption. Consider the following statistics: 1. At Stanford, applicants with 800 on the Critical Reading section of the SAT are 64% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 700-790. 2. At Princeton, applicants with 2300-2400 on the SAT are 130% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 2100-2290. 3. At Dartmouth, applicants with 800 on the Critical Reading section of the SAT are 122% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 700-790. 4. At Brown, applicants with 800 on the Critical Reading section of the SAT are 39% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 750-790 5. At Brown, applicants with 36 on the ACT are 119% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 33-35 and 273% more likely to be admitted than applicants with 29-32. These universities considered perfect scores to be astronomically better than even slightly lower scores. Elite colleges continue to consider increases in standardized test scores important enough to distinguish between students up until the perfect score is reached. In fact, studies show that the odds of admission increase exponential as the score approaches perfection (reasonably, because the rarity of the score increases exponentially according to the bell curve). Argument 2. GPA vs. Course Rigor I will note here that were are comparing GPA to test scores. We are not comparing GPA to course rigor, and we are not comparing test scores to course rigor. It creates a 3rd variable that is very difficult to measure. Which is a better, a 95% in AP Biology or a 100% in Regular Biology? This is very hard to judge. My opponent's answer to this is that elite colleges are mainly selecting from students who took the hardest courses, and those who took easier courses are not being considered. In a perfect world this might make sense, but there are too many other variables to consider. What if a student was not able to schedule AP Biology due to other classes and took Regular Biology instead? These students would still need to be comparable to one another. The way to do that, of course, would be through the SAT Subject Tests. These problems increase dramatically when you consider applicants from different scores. At my score, the percentage of students who earned 5's on the AP Biology test was 58.3 (7/12). That means students who were ranked in the bottom half of the class according to GPA scored 5's. A 5 is considered equivalent to an A in a college class, but the grade range for students who scored 5 was 88%-99% (B+ to A+). What is the cause of this? Obviously, it makes much more sense to assume that the class was harder and therefore provided a better preparation for the test than to assume students who scored 5's were not in the top of the class because they were lazy. At a "typical" school that followed the distribution, someone might be in the top half of the class and receive a 3 (equivalent to a C+, B-, or B) while still receiving a 90%-95% grade (A- to A) as is typically necessary to be in the top of a class. Obviously comparing grades between two schools that have drastically different results on the same test is problematic. The solution? Use the AP scores to determine whether or not the grades are be awarded fairly. The SAT Subject Tests do an even better job of this because they provide more exact scores. A high Subject Test score always indicates mastery of the subject materiel. If a student with a high Subject Test score has less then perfect grades in a class, the Subject Test should be considered much more important. It is most reasonable to conclude that the grade was due to the rigor of the course. Exceptions, of course, could be made for students with a huge disparity between test and grade performance (indicating that the student was, in fact, lazy). Argument 3. First, note that I am not just talking about the SAT when I refer to standardized tests. One's grade in AP Calculus should certainly be less relevant than one's score on the Calculus BC test. A student scoring a 5 on this test is more proficient in math then a student scoring a 3 regardless of their grades in the classroom. Any disparity would likely result from different grading methods across different classes. Now, what I am really arguing here is that student's need a means of distinguishing themselves against a more difficult level of competition than they could encounter in a typical classroom. The average MIT math student is going to be the best out of his AP Calculus class. In fact, he's probably not even going to be terribly challenged by it because students who are "only" good in math have to be able to pass the class with respectable grades. The class may adequate prepare him to succeed at MIT, but it does not enable him to distinguish himself from the thousands of other applicants that were the best in their Calculus class as well. That is were standardized tests come in. Some standardized tests are administered for competitions, and the awards and scores earned on these tests allow even the best students in a subject to distinguish themselves. These include the Biology and Chemistry Olympiad tests and the AMC test (in mathematics). From personal experience, I can say that these tests are much harder than any of the College Board's tests (AP, SAT, SAT II) which are criticized for being so easy. They are specifically designed to distinguish the best of the best. Similar tests exist for foreign languages as well. Conclusion: A test is capable of of objectively measuring a student's knowledge, reasoning, and problem solving skills. Two (or a million) people can take the same test, and the results are comparable. A properly designed test is extremely fair to all individuals. Grades don't achieve any of these goals. All they do is tell us how well a student did in a class. For elite colleges, the answer is almost uniformly "very well" so no distinction is made between students. Also, imperfect but still high grades are often caused by things that should not count against the student (a very bad teacher or, often, a very good teach that made the class harder.) There are a wide variety of standardized tests, and together they can paint a much better picture of an top student's capabilities than performance in highly nonstandardized high school course. As it stands, the only real use of grades for top universities is to cut out students who have a huge disparity between grades and tests as too lazy. Once grades reach a level that shows a solid work ethic, test scores become the supreme gauge of ability. Sources: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com... http://amc.maa.org... http://apcentral.collegeboard.com... Peace out homeslices.