# Do the S.A.T. people have any "static" way to compare a school year-to-year?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-s-a-t-people-have-any-static-way-to-compare-a-school-year-to-year/31732>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 2, 2000, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-s-a-t-people-have-any-static-way-to-compare-a-school-year-to-year/31732 "2000-09-02T01:55:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![anomaly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@anomaly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anomaly)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2000, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-s-a-t-people-have-any-static-way-to-compare-a-school-year-to-year/31732/1 "2000-09-02T01:55:58Z")

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Our local school’s scores drop every year, and it gets blamed on “more marginal kids applied this year”.

That seems like a cop-out. Why more this year than last? and why not just test an entire class one time, to create a benchmark.

There should be some way to figure this. Does the S.A.T. company (I should know the name, but am blanking) ever try for school-wide figures. It seems like the kind of thing they would want to do.

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**Author:** ![Lawmill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lawmill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lawmill)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2000, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-s-a-t-people-have-any-static-way-to-compare-a-school-year-to-year/31732/2 "2000-09-02T04:14:49Z")

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> [@](#):
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> Why more this year than last? and why not just test an entire class one time, to create a benchmark.

Most likely, more teens took the test because more are planning on going to college. The reasons for that could be economic, social, or just that it’s random.

As a teenager, I can assure you that the SAT is taken very seriously. Students often spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on tutors and courses. Everyone has a different schedule, and it wouldn’t be feasible to force everyone to take the test at one time.

> [@](#):
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> Does the S.A.T. company (I should know the name, but am blanking) ever try for school-wide figures

The College Board charges a considerable fee to take the test. They’d either have to offer the test for free and lose most of their income, or force every student to cough up a pretty hefty sum.