entrance exam stats

Interesting discussion over at Vox Popoli about entrance exam statistics and what they say (or don't say) about voter intelligence.

According to average SAT scores across the country, Republican voters are slightly smarter than Democratic voters. Okay, tell us something else we didn't already know.

But there are several problems with using such statistics. The most glaring one that I see is that the distribution of students taking the SAT varies widely from state to state. In the northeast, where the SAT is the exam of choice, anyone even thinking of college will take it. But in the south and to a lesser extent the midwest, the ACT is preferred so a much smaller percentage of students will pay the money and go through the trouble of taking the SAT. The only reason to take the SAT is if you're considering a school in another part of the country or are shooting for National Merit Finalist status. And to be considering such a school in the first place, you're probably going to be smarter and better prepared than most students taking the exam. Thus it can be reasonably assumed that the SATers from the south and midwest are, on average, better prepared than those from the northeast.

Not to say that northeastern high school students aren't as smart though. The above argument would also apply to the ACT. Since northern students only have a reason to take it if they're thinking of heading out of state, the average scores will be higher in those states than in the southern states where just about everyone considering any form of higher education will take the ACT.

As an example, most of my high school graduating class took the ACT but I'm the only one I know of (out of 100 or so graduates) who took the SAT. It's not a coincidence that I'm also the only one I'm aware of who applied to a school in the northeast.

Another problem is that those exams often aren't a very good indicator of actual wisdom and common sense, which I think are far more important in determining someone's worldview and thus their political views. Someone could be a rocket scientist and still be blind to basic truths, and vice versa. Those tests are measuring scholastic aptitude and ability to excel in higher education, not how much someone knows about the world around them. And in my opinion they're not very good indicators anyway. I know several people from my high school that didn't do very well on the ACT yet are probably considerably smarter in a lot of areas than I am. And yours truly blew away those entrance exams but it didn't carry over into college. I barely slipped out after six years of killing time and doing whatever was necessary to keep advancing; actually trying to learn something rarely crossed my mind. Okay, they're probably not too bad across the board, but it's easy to slip through the cracks.

Thirdly, only college-bound students or those thinking of college ever take the exams in the first place. That's getting to be a larger and larger chunk of the population but it's by no means representative of the whole. So such an analysis fails to even measure those with no education beyond high school. Though since they tend to lean Republican in red states and Democratic in blue states anyway this might not make much difference. But you'd at least want to make some mention of all those voters, right?

There are probably several more reasons that I can't think of right now because it's past my bedtime. But if I were trying to put together an solid case for why Pubs are smarter than Dems entrance exam scores isn't someplace I would look for evidence.