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kxyvr • today at 4:02 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

There's a wonderful exchange in the movie Interstellar that speaks to this:

    Cooper: You're ruling my son out for college now? The kid's fifteen.
    Principal: Tom's score simply isn't high enough.
    Cooper: What's your waistline? 32? With, what, a 33 inseam?
    Principal: I'm not sure I see what you're getting at.
    Cooper: You're telling me it takes two numbers to measure your own ass but only one to measure my son's future?
The point being is that a person, and their future, should not be distilled into a single number like an SAT score because people are far more complex than a single number. I would also contend that splitting them into a few numbers, such as by subject area, doesn't help either.

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triceratops • today at 4:36 PM

The SAT has 2 components with separate scores. The SAT score is usually the sum of both, but there's no reason colleges can't weight one section more than the other.

If you really care about multiple dimensions, add more types of standardized tests - general science (or specialized - separate physics, chem and bio sections), history, geography, whatever.

Or tell students to take the standardized tests that most closely map to their preferred major.

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