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Selecting Undergraduate Students: What can the UK Learn from the American SAT?
Author(s) -
West Anne,
Gibbs Rebecca
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
higher education quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.976
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1468-2273
pISSN - 0951-5224
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2273.2004.00260.x
Subject(s) - test (biology) , mathematics education , politics , context (archaeology) , profiling (computer programming) , value (mathematics) , sociology , psychology , political science , law , mathematics , history , computer science , paleontology , statistics , archaeology , biology , operating system
This short paper explores the contribution or otherwise that could be made by using a test akin to the American Scholastic Assessment Test or SAT to select students for undergraduate degrees in the UK. It examines the political context to the debate about the potential value of such a test, before outlining how SAT results in America vary along dimensions related to social background and how American universities have adapted their admissions procedures in response to these differences. From the research examined it cannot be assumed that the introduction of a test such as the SAT would be any more equitable then the current use of public examinations in England. It is suggested that profiling students along the lines used by some American universities may assist with making access ‘fairer’.