The Seniors' Slump May Be Over

After a 19-year decline, SAT scores go up, slightly

For the first time since 1963, there was good news last week about how the nation's high school seniors did on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. The scores, which can be crucial in students' applications to colleges, were up a total of three points over last year. Out of a perfect 800 score, the nationwide average on the verbal section was 426 (in contrast to 424 last year); on the math section it was 467 (in contrast to 466). The three-hour test, which is taken by about 1 million seniors a year, is designed to predict on the basis of general intellectual aptitude how they will perform in college. In addition, the yearly aggregate result has come to be regarded as a leading indicator of how well U.S. high schools are doing. Says George Hanford, president of the College Entrance Examination Board, which sponsors the SAT: "This year's score increase, however slight, combined with last year's steady state, is an encouraging sign that the serious efforts by educators, parents and students to improve the quality of education are starting to take effect."

Other experts are less certain. Says William Fitzsimmons, director of admissions for Harvard and Radcliffe colleges: "Whenever we talk about statistical trends around here, we like to see things occur over at least a two, three-or four-year period. But certainly it is encouraging to see it go this way rather than the other way." In 1963, before the scores began to drop, the national average was 478 for verbal and 502 for math. Educators hypothesize that much of the 19-year decline occurred because colleges expanded their admissions, prompting many students to take the SAT who would never before have applied. A variety of other social factors, including television, the frequency of divorce and the softening of high school curriculums, have also been blamed. "Nobody knows why the scores went down," maintains Northwestern University Sociologist Christopher Jencks, a critic of the SAT, "so nobody knows why they went up. Be cautious until you see next year's scores before you reach any conclusions."

Considerable debate also persists as to precisely what the SAT measures. If the exam is a pure test of general intellectual aptitude, as the College Board contends, then no special acquired knowledge should help raise scores. Yet in recent years students across the country have been paying hundreds of dollars to take special SAT prep courses. Acting on the evidence that students can study their way to higher scores, the National Association of Secondary School Principals announced this fall that it would publish SAT teaching materials in an effort to make the advantage available to all public school students. Could these cram courses be responsible for last week's announced improvement? Insists Hanford: "The rise in scores is due primarily to a refocusing of attention in the schools on academic subject matter." Indeed, a survey by the College Board shows that this year's SAT takers had enrolled in more physical science, math and foreign-language courses than had previous classes.

College-admission officers everywhere still take SAT scores very seriously. However, research published in September by James Grouse, an education professor at the University of Delaware, and Dale Trusheim, acting director of admissions at Maryland's Washington College, found that high school grades are every bit as good an indicator of college success as the SAT. Says Grouse: "In terms of predicting who will graduate from college, the SAT adds nothing over high school grades alone." Grouse and Jencks, in a previous study, concluded that the SAT, as a so-called aptitude test, encourages students to believe they can get by on innate intelligence, without hitting the books, while achievement tests, which assess mastery of the secondary-school curriculum, reward diligent study of standard academic courses. They note, "We think emphasizing tests like the SAT in college admissions undermines efforts to improve secondary education."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.