Students learn "You should hate this test."
to conquer SATs
Help is available
UH watching no-SAT rule
for those who want
to boost their test scores
School averages By Crystal Kua
Star-BulletinAndrea Zimmer looked at the crop of Kaimuki High School students sitting in front of her before she continued with her pep talk.
"You shouldn't get mad at this test; get even with it. You take the test; don't let the test take you."
Zimmer, director of the Hawaii office of test preparation company Princeton Review, teaches the art and strategy of figuring out which bubbles to correctly shade in on the SAT, a key standardized test needed to get into college.
More Hawaii students are gaining access to the skills taught by Zimmer and other test preparation teachers -- skills needed to close the collegiate gap between the haves and have-nots.
The SAT, a three-hour entrance exam, is viewed as a necessary evil on the road to higher education.
"A lot of people criticize (the SAT), but it's a hoop our local students and all high-school students have to jump through," said Wren Wescoatt, executive director of the nonprofit College Connections Hawaii, which provides low-cost SAT test preparation courses.
Getting high scores means a choice of colleges and scholarships.
"When it translates directly to opportunity, that's a biggie," Wescoatt said.
Historically, Hawaii high school students, especially those in the public schools, have not done well on the SAT, particularly on the verbal section. But the tide appears to be turning. Hawaii students are inching closer to national scores.
College-bound Iolani School senior Blake Wayman, 18, has applied to Notre Dame and a host of West Coast colleges. With scores of 800 on math and 610 on verbal, his chances of admission are high. "Those scores give me the confidence to get into the schools I applied to," he said.
But he is apparently the exception to the rule here. Hawaii is underrepresented at four-year colleges.
"Many of our Hawaii graduates fall out of the pipeline," Wescoatt said. "The kids who could go to college don't."
The disparity is greater among public schools. While 90 percent of Hawaii private school graduates go on to a four-year college, only 32 percent of public school graduates do. One reason for their success, Wescoatt found, was that private school pupils outperformed public school students by more than 100 points on the SAT. "While you're never going to erase the gap, we looked for what kind of interventions to target," Wescoatt said.
With the help of grants, the organization offers low-cost SAT classes at public high schools across the state. As a result, scores went up 178 points overall, Wescoatt said.
Test preparation is a national multimillion-dollar industry. Locally, group sessions could cost upward of $800, and individual attention $1,000.
Iolani English teacher Charles Proctor wondered why the academic promise he saw in the classroom was not translating into higher scores on the SAT for his students.
"My initial displeasure with the test was that we weren't doing very well on it," Proctor said. "I knew the scores they (students) were getting on the test did not match their ability." He wanted the scores to better reflect their ability.
The Educational Testing Service, which develops and administers the test for the College Board, said the test could not be coached.
Proctor disagreed. He and math teacher David Masunaga began Iolani's SAT preparation course in 1986. Scores went up -- a lot. Iolani advertises a 160-point improvement in combined SAT scores. The course has grown to 650 students from 40. Kristal Young, an Iolani junior, was one of them.
"I think the secret to getting a high score is probably just the way you can analyze the question, especially for the verbal questions," said Young, whose scores improved to 620 from 550 on verbal and to 800 from 700 on math.
Matthew McLane, a Leilehua High School senior, did not take a test prep course because of his busy schedule. But he wanted to, just like other public school students.
"Students all over the state have been asking for it for a long time," said McLane, who is also the student member on the Board of Education. "Many students have been going to private schools."
The hefty price tag of outside courses is an obstacle for the majority of public school students, said McLane, who got an SAT score of 1250.
"That was one of the main considerations in making it more accessible," McLane said. "We realized that because the SAT plays an important role, we should at least offer it."
The Hawaii State Student Council passed a resolution calling for SAT prep courses in the public schools, and the Department of Education will now begin offering them.
Iolani is also reaching out to the public school students, offering scholarships to its prep course and sharing its strategies. This week, Iolani is taking its test preparation course on the road to Maui in time for Saturday's scheduled SAT.
Goodbye SAT? UH tracking
By Crystal Kua
California proposal
to eliminate SAT
admissions rule
Star-BulletinNo one thinks the SAT will disappear anytime soon, but the national debate over whether the test should remain a college admissions tool heated up recently when the University of California president proposed last month to do away with it as an admissions requirement for his school system.
"My computer (e-mail) is smoking today," University of Hawaii admissions director Dave Robb said recently. "It's a very healthy discussion and it's long overdue."
The University of Hawaii, the university most frequently applied to among Hawaii high school graduates, will not abandon the test but is watching events in California and monitoring the national discussion.
For UH there isn't anything to replace the SAT in standardizing the background of students who fall under different grading systems, Robb said.
"The SAT in and of itself has no value," he said. "It only has value in combination with other pieces of information."
UH also looks at grade point average, class ranking and high school course work.
Andrea Zimmer, director of the Hawaii office of test preparation company Princeton Review, applauds the proposal. "It's an unfair test," she said.
Company founder John Katzman recently said, "The SAT's day is long past, and we look forward to a college admissions process that is more fair, more sane and more supportive of schools' educational mission."
Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, which oversees the SAT, defended the test. "It is the only common yardstick in an era of grade inflation, and where students complete different courses with different teachers who use different grading standards."
Some students agree. "I think it's a good idea to have a standardized test because at the college level, they don't know which high schools are harder," said Iolani junior Kristal Young. "And if you get all A's in your high school, that doesn't necessarily mean you're smarter than someone who gets all B's in their high school."
Charles Proctor, co-founder of Iolani's SAT preparation course, said he has mixed feelings. "On one level the test does do what it's intended to do," he said. "I think it predicts success in college, and if that's all it's used for, I don't have problems with it. It's when it's used to compare states or compare schools or to become the sole criteria of admissions."
What's your SAT score? Match your score to the list of selected colleges. A perfect score on each section is 800. What's your average?
College Math Verbal Arizona State University 559 548 University of Arizona 550 540 California Institute of Technology 771 729 California Polytechnic 569 532 University of California-Berkeley 685 655 UCLA 655 620 Claremont McKenna College 690 690 University of Colorado-Boulder 587 573 Cornell University 700 660 Creighton University 586 578 Georgetown University 675 675 Gonzaga University 577 575 Harvard College 745 750 University of Hawaii-Manoa 570 525 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 752 702 University of Nebraska-Lincoln 584 566 University of Nevada-Las Vegas 500 491 University of Notre Dame 670 680 University of Oregon 552 558 University of the Pacific 568 544 Pepperdine University 627 621 Princeton University 745 740 University of Southern California 647 626 Stanford University 717 715 University of Washington 590 570 Yale University 730 735 Source: The Princeton Review