the Sam Jackson College Experience

Two weeks ago I outlined all the courses I was taking this semester, and a few days ago announced that I was going to become a complete recluse while I worked on my final papers and studied for tests. Let’s combine those two thoughts, and take a look at what my finals schedule and workload looks like. This is not exactly typical, thankfully. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have to do it all!

In the order that the final exams are due:

• May 2nd (already due): 15-18 page paper for EP&E 353, Critique of Political Violence. I wrote 17 pages exploring the possibility of “nonviolent nonviolence in a violent world.”

• May 5th: 20 page paper for EP&E 440, Nonviolence and Political Power in the Twentieth Century. I am writing a paper questioning the Universality of Eastern European nonviolent movements 1920-1980 and tracing the disconnects between universality in theory and universal practicability, comparing successful 1980s nonviolent movements with unsuccessful antecedents and comparing with Gandhi and MLK.

• May 6th: 3 hour comprehensive French FR139 final, 9 am sharp… on science hill. Why my french final is in Sloane Physics Laboratory, I don’t know. I just resent the fact that it’s about 20 minutes away.

• May 6th: 10-15 page Sociology SOCY015 research paper. This is why I was running that survey for current Yale students. Collected the data, now have to analyze it, compile literature, write about findings.

• May 12th: EVST 245: 3 hour environmental studies final, wherein I will have to come prepared to regurgitate my prepared response on how to develop an effective global environmental governance scheme. So, basically, save the world.

So… that’s why I shouldn’t be blogging right now, why I’m going to stop blogging right now, and why I could be a little bit happier… wish me luck!

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One of the most popular posts ever written for this blog was the one in which I wrote about the finer details within the 2006 Senior SAT College Board data. In a way, I am very much a beneficiary of the same standardized-testing and college admissions stresses which I rail against. However, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to provide clear and accessible information about the 2007 Senior SAT data–information which will help de-stress applicants, hopefully, and also raise awareness of some of the ways in which the SAT is biased and why we should think twice before judging people on their SAT scores.

I’m going to break it up into a few posts, starting with this one about some general data for the SAT I: Reasoning, with another on percentiles and more detailed demographics, and one more about the SAT II subject tests.

There’s a lot of information in the total national report to cover, so I’ll start with the big picture and hit the most important tables. If you’re interested in the whole report, it’s worth checking out. I aim to give a narrative overview of what is going on in all the most important tables of that 18 page document, so if you don’t want to stare at numbers but want to know what’s going on… keep reading. Numbers given are in Critical Reading / Mathematics / Writing , or complete SAT I reasoning composite score out of 2400 maximum.

The College Board says this data can be used to

• interpret scores of individual students within the broader context of data aggregated across groups of collegebound seniors;
• study changes over time in the characteristics of students taking SAT tests; and
• look at year-to-year educational and demographic changes in this population, along with changes in test performance.

So let’s do the last two, and individual readers can do the first with their own scores or whoever’s scores they happen to have handy, if they want.

First things first–scores dropped for the second year in a row. These scores are “within the expected range” over the long term, but this continues the trend seen with the introduction of the “new” SAT last year. What does it mean? Nothing that should matter on an individual level–the test, in its new longer and more expensive format, is unlikely to change again any time too soon.

Of the 1,494,531 people who took the SAT, with an average composite score of 1511 (502 Critical Reading, 515 Mathematics, and 494 Writing), 53% were female and 46% were male; this mirrors results from last year. The score comparison is, for CR / M / W, Male v. Female, 1526 (504 / 533 / 489) v. 1501 (502 / 499 / 500): a total score difference of just 25 points, in favor of guys. Last year, the difference was… 26 points. You see where this trend is going? Females were helped, once again, by the 11 point writing section advantage in the new SAT, which held steady from last year.

Here’s some correlational information which I find especially interesting: breakdowns of who took the test when. The College Board tracks people over their high school years and indicates if they most recently took the test in Senior, Junior, Sophomore, or Freshman year. Of the graduating class of 2007, 1,001,667 took the test their senior year (either only, or most recently, as an additional sitting). 485,401 took it their junior year, and from there it trickles down with 6339 / 1124 for 10th and 9th grade, respectively. Now, the scores from these sittings? Freshman fare worst overall, and they don’t have writing scores to compare since it wasn’t around for them, but still manage a 1 pt increase over seniors in mathematics. People who only take the test their senior year are the next worse, with 493 / 505 / 486 for a composite score of 1484. Followed by, shocker here, juniors! Who go 522 / 534 / 511 for a total composite of 1567. The best scoring group are those who take the test only in their sophomore year, and their mean score is 1603 (526 / 549 / 528).

Lastly for today, a few Fun Facts, a preview of the percentiles and demographics data to come in the next post in this series:

• Of the 9% of test takers for whom English is not their first language learned (reporting), there was a 7 point mean increase on the math section, while there was a 32 point decline in the critical reading and 24 point decline on average in the writing section.
• 22% of test-takers say they don’t plan to apply for financial aid. (Why not? Lot’s of reasons, but a lot of those numbers probably should be applying, I bet!)
• Those students with coursework or experience in Italian did worst on the math section of all languages polled, with a mean score of 509–lower even than the dismal performances of “other languages.”

Look forward to more to come! Just didn’t want to overload people with too many numbers and too much text all in one place. Enjoy!

Should you worry about the collaboration between DNA test marketers and anxious students and parents eager to get their way into top schools? David over at EphBlog certainly thinks so (EphBlog is an unofficial Williams community blog which I mention here frequently as an excellent example of an unofficial school blog that adds lots of value and is a great resource even for prospective students).

There are many “chances” posts on College Confidential, requests from potential applicants for comments on their chances of getting into Williams and advice on how to do so. See here, here and here for recent examples. I am often tempted to reply: “Take a genetic genealogy test and, if it comes back black, join the appropriate clubs in your high school and check the right box on the Common Application.”

Good advice?

I don’t necessarily want to spark an affirmative action debate here as happened last year on the blog with my writings on Jian Li. What I do find interesting are the questions posed by these new technologies. As a biracial student I am particularly interested in points 4 and 5 about Williams.

4) Besides studying the trends in the number of applicants from different groups, the Record could have a lot of fun just by looking at the pictures of Williams students. There are, allegedly, 49 or so African-Americans in the class of 2011. Want to bet? I have no doubt that the admissions office is being honest — 49 students did indeed check that box. But, could an outsider look at pictures of all the members of the class of 2011 and pick out those 49 individuals? I doubt it. The Record ought to give it a try. Background information here.

5) Don’t forget that there are some administrators at the College who would actually welcome this development. The College loves to be able to claim that 10% of Williams is African-American, whatever the underlying “truth” might be. In this dimension, the College certainly practices a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell philosophy. Even better would be having a 10% African-American class with average SAT scores above 1400. Not hard to do if a lot of applicants start checking that box.

I know that I would frequently be surprised to hear that “such and such is [insert minority here], actually” in the context of high school college admissions gossip. Sometimes this was something which would definitely have affected that person’s life experience and background and was very relevant to who they were and their family; other times, it was surprising as well as implausible just because the link could be so tenuous.

When there are DNA test marketers who are happy to give results which will tell people they are “black” and college admissions folks happy to accept those students (see point 5) statistics take on an especially distorted relation with reality… just wanted to poll you readers and see what you all thought of this.

Also, merry Christmas and happy new year!

What would college be without participation in random psych experiments?

I won’t be able to personally answer that question because I’m going to have to be a guinea pig in some experiments in order to meet the pretty easy lab requirement for my intro psych course, taught by the excellent Marvin Chun. Signing up for the ‘experiments server’ there is a one hour intro survey which counts for a credit of participation. Some of the questions were normal, but some were pretty weirdly specific. The first two big sets were about spiders and snakes, which questions like:

If I came across a spider now, I would get help from someone else to remove it. T/F

Although it may not be so, I think of snakes as slimy. T/F

I am terrified by the thought of touching a harmless snake. T/F

I would be somewhat afraid to enter a room now, where I have seen a spider before. T/F

And I’m just thinking to myself… are most of the studies the psych department is doing this fall about spiders and snakes? Maybe this is the norm for such things; I have no idea. Some of the sociological questions were pretty creepy, too: “Its OK if some groups have more of a chance in life than others.” (1-7) or “Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups.” Scary.

Lastly, I kept finding the phrasings really funny as the later sections used the term ‘close others’ to describe some weird friend-romantic-family-amalgam with whom one might share secrets, turn to for support, etc.

Anyway I didn’t sign up for any of the first few studies because of timing, but hopefully I’ll have some fun ones to report back about. I can’t get any money for anything I do for credit, but some could be fun on their own. Hopefully.

I was looking through my folder of old posts and I saw one from ePrep mentioning some Senate pressure last December for the ACT. I had a very interesting discussion about the SAT with some midwestern readers last year, and I thought I would just make a quick post for the record to explain why I never took the ACT.

There are two reasons I didn’t take the ACT, aside from its lack of trendiness here in the Northeast.

• Reason number one is that I had good SAT scores in hand by the time I had the opportunity to ever sit for the ACT.
• Reason number two is that although looking at practice books made the ACT look like a better and more fun test than the SAT, it was almost impossible to take from my then-HQ in Exeter, NH. There were one or two changes to take the ACT throughout the entire year–and both meant getting up around 4:30 and driving to Maine. I don’t know how bad the situation is back home around Boston, but the unavailability of testing centers in the Northeast scuttled my desire to take the ACT.

Now you know!