Scores are holding steady and more students are taking the test, but Maine lags in some areas.
By Lindsay Tice
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Maine’s SAT scores have risen over the past decade but are still below the national average.

Maine has a higher participation rate than 39 other states, but not as high as the rest of New England.

The national SAT report released by the College Board is filled with both good and bad news for Maine, depending on how you look at it.

“It’s something to pay attention to but not give too much meaning to,” said David Silvernail, director of the education policy center at the University of Southern Maine.

On average, Maine students scored 503 on the verbal portion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test and 501 on the math portion. There was no change in verbal scores from a year ago. Average math scores were down one point.

Over 10 years, verbal scores were up four points and math scores were up 11.

Nationally, the average verbal score in 2003 was 507 and the average math score was 519, up three points each from last year. Since 1993, verbal scores have risen seven points and math has increased 16.

But many Maine educators – wary that parents will use the scores to compare states, high schools or kids – say that the SAT is just one test taken on one day, with results that can be colored by dozens of factors.

“It’s also a measure of how well you know how to take a test,” said John Parkman, counseling services coordinator for SAD 17 in Oxford. “I’m not really sure we need to spend a whole lot of time worrying about it.”

Parkman points out that Maine’s average scores were well below other New England states, but some of those states pay for SAT prep classes for high schoolers while Maine does not. New Hampshire has a high percentage of private and prep schools, with students who are bound to score well.

“You don’t have those types of schools in Maine, not that many,” Parkman said.

Dick Strong, guidance director at Leavitt Area High School in Turner, said participation can affect SAT results, too.

Nationally, 48 percent of upperclassmen took the SAT this year, up from 42 percent in 1993. Many in the Midwest took the ACT, the American College Test, instead.

In Maine, 70 percent of upperclassmen took the SAT, up from 64 percent a decade ago. That means a greater mix of academically gifted, average and poor students took the test here.

“Less students were taking it. Certainly they might have been stronger students,” Strong said.

Predictor of success

Lee Price, guidance counselor at Lisbon High School, questions the multiple choice test even to gauge individual students.

Although the exam was designed by the College Board to predict how well students will do in college, she doesn’t believe it always does.

“A huge factor that colors success is motivation. That doesn’t show up on any test,” Price said.

Bates College in Lewiston, Bowdoin College in Brunswick and the University of Maine at Farmington have all stopped requiring the SAT in admissions.

Bowdoin was one of the first in the country to stop mandating the test. It hasn’t required the SAT since the 1960s.

Jim Miller, Bowdoin’s dean of admissions, said that for students the test “began to transcend all the other things they had done with their lives.”

Bowdoin accepts SAT and ACT scores but places most emphasis on recommendations, student essays and high school work.

“What kids do day in and day out in their four-year career is more important to us,” he said.

But most colleges, including Colby College in Waterville and the University of Southern Maine, still require the SAT.

David Pirani, director of undergraduate admissions at USM, said his school looks at students’ high school records, courses and grades first. Then SAT scores.

“Used in combination, it does give us a good predicter of success,” he said.

In 2002, the average SAT score for USM applicants was 1040, with 520 verbal and 520 math. While such a score may not be the first thing USM considers, he said, “It’s still an important part of the process.”

He believes that any information the state can get about its educational system is important. And the SATs should be a part of it.

At USM’s center for education policy, Silvernail agrees.

“It’s one more indicator that the state wants to pay attention to,” he said.

But the SATs alone should be considered cautiously.

“We have to keep an eye on them, but we have to be careful how much meaning we attach to them,” he said.

ltice@sunjournal.com

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