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Each year more than 1.2 million high school students take the basic Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT). A much smaller group -- usually those applying to the nation's most highly selective colleges and universities -- also sit for the more rigorous SAT II exams, which were formerly known as Achievement Tests. Nationwide, in 2002, 121,871 white students and 10,572 black students took SAT II tests.
In 2002 only 8.6 percent of all black students who took the standard or regular SAT also sat for any of the SAT II tests. In contrast, 17.6 percent of the white students who took the SAT I also took one or more SAT II tests. Therefore, college-bound black students are about one half as likely as white students to take the SAT II achievement tests.
Generally, only the nation's most selective colleges and universities require applicants to submit scores on SAT II tests. Most public universities and historically black colleges do not require the SAT II test. Therefore, students who take SAT II or Achievement Tests tend to be the academic cream of college-bound high school students. These top students -- both black and white -- generally have very high scores on the regular SAT. For example, white students who took any of the SAT II tests scored an average of 1242 on the basic SAT. This is nearly 182 points above the nationwide average score for all white students who took the standard SAT test. For blacks who took any SAT II test, the mean score on the standard SAT was 1076. This is 229 points and 19 percent higher than the nationwide average score for all African-American students who took the standard SAT test.
Clearly, when we are comparing racial differences in SAT II scores we are looking at only those black and white students who are at the top of the scoring pyramid on...