User:Ashad Hanley/SATs in the Caribbean

S.A.T.
S.A.T is one of two standardized college admissions tests in the US and is run by the College Board. The idea is to provide colleges with one common criterion that can be used to compare all applicants. However, it is just one factor in the admissions decision. Schools also consider your high school GPA, academic transcript, letters of recommendation, extracurricular activities, interviews, and personal essays. The tests measure the same skills and knowledge in ways that make sense for different grade levels, so it’s easier for students, parents, and educators to monitor student progress. The weight placed on SAT scores varies from school to school, and are offered nationally every year in October, November, December, January, March, May and June.

Structure
This test comprises of three major parts; Math, Evidence-Based Reading and Writing section and an Optional Essay. Start to finish, the test will take you three hours and 50 minutes.

The Evidence-Based Writing section is made up of 4 passages and 44 multiple choice questions and lasts for 35 minutes. The topics of these passages always include careers, social studies, the humanities, and science, and consists exclusively of critical reading questions designed to test your reading and grammar skills at the sentence, paragraph, and passage level.

The Math section of the SAT includes 2 sections and a total of 58 questions. In the first section, calculators are not permitted, and it contains 20 questions and lasts for 25 minutes. The second section has 38 questions, and lasts for 55 minutes, a calculator can now be used. Within the entire Math section, there are four main content areas: fundamental algebra involving linear equations and inequalities, problem solving and data analysis, advanced concepts in algebra, including quadratic and higher-order equations, and finally additional topics including geometry, trigonometry, and complex numbers.

The Optional Essay section allows you to show your ability to comprehend source material, analyze an argument, and write effectively. The new SAT essay prompt asks you to read and analyze a provided passage and write an essay, using up to 50 minutes. Essays are graded on three specific criteria: Reading, Analysis, and Writing, each of which is measured on a scale of 2 to 8, yielding a score range of 6-24.

The highest possible score on the Evidence-Based Reading and Writing section is 800, and the Math section having a maximum score of 800. The highest possible total score is therefore 1,600.The optional essay section is separately scored, and has a maximum of 24.

=SAT in the Caribbean= In the Caribbean, education is one of the most important attributes that any person could have. Thousands of Caribbean students have moved through primary, secondary and tertiary education to secure professional occupations, but many realized that Caribbean based education had it's disadvantages in relation to accreditation issues, in that relatively few colleges were accredited and that acceptable accreditation differed from one country to another. For example, prior to the 1990's graduates of the University of the West Indies received greater recognition that those of the then Caribbean Union College, Trinidad based. Additionally, the issue of variety in subject areas and the general desire to explore other schools outside the region further propelled students to explore. Thus SAT's became the popular option.

SAT was introduced in the Caribbean on February 15, 1964 on the island of Puerto Rico when more than 11,500 high school seniors went to 53 different public and private school in large cities and small towns across the island to take a college admission examination. These students were the first Caribbean participants in a truly historic event that was to transform the transition to college process on their island to this day.

During the early sixties, the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) engaged in a number of initiatives in the international arena. The person most responsible for these activities was Frank H. Bowles, who directed the organization from 1948 to 1963, first as executive director and as its first president in 1957. Prior to becoming chief executive of the CEEB, Bowles was director of admissions at Columbia University, an institution that received a good number of foreign students. He was well aware of the difficulties faced by foreign applicants in obtaining information, communicating with the institution, getting credentials understood and accepted, taking examinations in English and adapting to a different environment. Many of the foreign students were from Latin America who were seeking entrance into the colleges in the North. In 1947 Bowles recruited a young Puerto Rican specialist in public administration as his assistant charged with providing needed support services to these foreign applicants. For the island of Puerto Rico this opportunity to enter schools of higher education abroad was taken as soon as it was initiated on the island. The event was historical because it broke new ground in many ways:
 * Never before had all students applying for collage in Puerto Rico taken the same entrance examination and on the same date.
 * This entrance examination was of a different nature from the entrance examinations usually administered by each of the higher examination institutions.
 * These tests had been developed by a U.S. mainland educational organization, the College Entrance Examination Board, which was established in Puerto Rico in an unprecedented experimental agreement with the five island universities and the Puerto Rico Department of Education.
 * The exam was being administered by high school teachers and principles and not by staff from the colleges.
 * The aptitude test, although developed in Spanish in Puerto Rico by an international committee of examiners, was modeled after the Scholastic Aptitude Test, known as the SAT now, sponsored by the CEEB and widely used by many institutions in the United States and taken by thousands of students in many countries.
 * It was the first time that a foreign language version of the SAT was administered anywhere.

An example of an English Speaking island is the Federation of St..Kitts and Nevis; Nevis the smaller of the island with an aggressive approach to the course. The SAT program started on the 8th November, 2002 and was facilitated by the Nevis Public Library Service. The library being the Advising Center for U.S. higher education, an initiative of the US Department of State, Washington DC. The objective of establishing Advising Centers in various territories were to educate students in successfully applying to US schools. The SAT programme was one of the tools used to do so. Thus the Nevis Public Library Service became fully engaged in the programme. The programme caters for students of all ages and is conducted on a two- hourly basis twice per week, that is the instruction segment. The actual exam is taken on the sister island of St. Kitts, having received certification as an examination center around 2006, making it  easier for students to now participate in the overall program. Statistics from the Library has shown over fifty percent increase in students enrollment both in the programme locally as well as successful application to schools in the US. The programme has become so successful that schools that do not require SAT's to be admitted, look favourably on the test scores.

Additionally, the SAT programme has created some positive initiatives between the US government and Caribbean governments via the various schools in that Memorandum of Understanding has been established to assist student enrollment and transition into US schools; college recruiting officers visit the islands regularly conducting informed educational sessions with local students on the admissions process as well as the offering of scholarship opportunities. Through this initiative, it has now become a common practice for students to gravitate to US schools.