AT-SAT Scores

[swiester2790]

So I got a 91.2 and am well qualified is that good compared to what they look for?

[venividibitchy]

No, "well-qualified" actually means that you are the least likely to get a job.

[swiester2790]

Hilarious. I just saw that a bunch of people had 95 and up and was unsure. But friendly sarcasm is always nice

[chichi]

Originally Posted by swiester2790

So I got a 91.2 and am well qualified is that good compared to what they look for?

They only see that you are well-qualified, so you'll be considered the same as those who got 85s and those who got 100s

[MrBucket]

This is my new favorite thing to quote.

"To further address the potential problem of adverse impact, FAA officials decided to abandon a strict “top-down” approach to hiring and, instead, use a category ranking method. This approach is a form of “score banding”that can be justified on the basis of ignoring score differences that are due to an estimate of the applicant’s true ability.
Score banding, although somewhat controversial among selection scientists, “will almost always produce less adverse impact than strict rank ordering as it ignores score differences likely to be statistically insignificant. Applicants who achieve a qualifying minimum score are divided into two groups: those scoring 85 and above(termed “well qualified”) and those scoring from 70 to 84.9 (termed “qualified”). Those in the “well-qualified” group will be offered employment before anyone in the “qualified” group. "

Seems like people who get 100's are getting a raw deal because of this.

[nathanw]

Originally Posted by MrBucket

This is my new favorite thing to quote.

Seems like people who get 100's are getting a raw deal because of this.

Meh. I'm still getting an interview so I don't care

[K-Dog]

Originally Posted by MrBucket

This is my new favorite thing to quote.

Seems like people who get 100's are getting a raw deal because of this.

Really no more so than someone who gets a 95, and then gets someone scoring 86 hired before them. I mean, when you were in school a B student was always as good as an A student right? The letters are just formalities.

[BoomerSooner77]

Wouldn't it be funny if they found out the 100s were caused by a programming glitch and they rescended those offers and made you start over with the ATSAT?

[MrBucket]

Originally Posted by BoomerSooner77

Wouldn't it be funny if they found out the 100s were caused by a programming glitch and they rescended those offers and made you start over with the ATSAT?

Or if you answered a set of 5 questions with the correct combination of answers you automatically get a 100. BADBC=100!

[saxplayer72586]

*I posted this in another forum but along the lines of getting a 100% I thought it would fit in here too...*

Ok I'm gonna take this opportunity to "stir the pot" a little

In this fantasy world of atc forums... I think we can all agree that a LOT of people have been rocking the ATSAT with 100%'s... while it's not at all my prerogative to be judgmental towards any single member, I do wonder to myself... how many of the ATC forum members totally BS their scores? While most of them are probably legit... I can't help but think of that Brad Paisley song "So much cooler online"...

(edited for us... sing along)

Oh, online, I aced my AT-SAT
Well qualified, make sure you know that,
Cause even on my first day, I could handle IFR,
with 30 pilots at one time,

I'm so much cooler online

Vindictive? Crass? Bitter? Maybe a little bit of them all... all I know is that after my piss-poor ATSAT showing (83.2), if I don't get hired by the FAA, I'm seriously contemplating opening up a real letter factory... maybe with campbell's soup company... sadly... children everywhere will be sorely upset when they can only make words like "BAD", "CAB", and "ADD". Yeah... alphabet soup land is gonna get pretty flippin' boring my friends...

Nextly, I hope that someday the FAA can put the ATSAT into practical use... maybe start making controllers talk to pilot's while only using analogies...

"Cessna 421, Approach, Benign is to night, as viscosity is to..."

Or maybe while a controller is trying to assist with an engine out... a little voice will come over the radio saying "All radio communications have been suspended until you can tell me how this triangle with 5 million stripes going 3 different ways would translate if it were to translate like the given example of the circle with 3 millions stripes going 5 ways... sorry, sir, your answer is incorrect, your engine-out aircraft has now exploded because of your ineptitude... have a nice day"

Point being, ATC is a highly stressful job that not everyone is cut out for. But to base even the chance to be trained as one off a score... I think is a little bogus. I hope they dig into the applications to try and give each applicant the whole-person concept as opposed to just a number and a score... but hey... it is the gov't we're dealing with here... they're the double edged sword that we love to hate yet hate to leave...

Clear skies and tailwinds, all

[GeorgeM]

If I were going to exaggerate my score, I'd say I scored 105, not 95.

[Justin538]

I scored a 100, but I am completely skeptical about the way the test is weighted.

[BoomerSooner77]

You get 70 points just for entering a valid SSN.

(Now let's see how many people are going to say "OMG, are you for reals?")

[K-Dog]

Originally Posted by BoomerSooner77

Wouldn't it be funny if they found out the 100s were caused by a programming glitch and they rescended those offers and made you start over with the ATSAT?

I know huh? I guess I should have answered more questions wrong and gotten like, say a 90% so my score wouldn't be a glitch.

[justme62]

Originally Posted by K-Dog

Really no more so than someone who gets a 95, and then gets someone scoring 86 hired before them. I mean, when you were in school a B student was always as good as an A student right? The letters are just formalities.

Just because one person is great at the analogies (or great at guessing?) doesn't mean they would be any better suited to control air traffic than someone who bombed that portion. What does it have to do with ATC anyway?

The entrance exam into the military is called the ASVAB. After you get your score, there are sub scores. In order to get into ATC in the Army you have to have a GT (general technical) score of 110 or higher. I think the highest is 130? (mine was 124) We would get some guys in the unit from the schoolhouse with GT scores of 110 and they were great soldiers and great controllers, and then there were some that came in with a higher score and just thought their #### didn't stink. They were cocky and arrogant about a test that didn't really matter, and yet they sucked on the mic. Sure they could pass a test about gears and simple math questions but they sure as heck couldn't get the big picture of the airspace in order to pass their training tests.

Test scores are not everything. A 100 will not make you into a great controller, and a 70 will not destine you to being a mediocre controller, or a failure.

[MrBucket]

Originally Posted by justme62

Just because one person is great at the analogies (or great at guessing?) doesn't mean they would be any better suited to control air traffic than someone who bombed that portion. What does it have to do with ATC anyway?

The entrance exam into the military is called the ASVAB. After you get your score, there are sub scores. In order to get into ATC in the Army you have to have a GT (general technical) score of 110 or higher. I think the highest is 130? (mine was 124) We would get some guys in the unit from the schoolhouse with GT scores of 110 and they were great soldiers and great controllers, and then there were some that came in with a higher score and just thought their #### didn't stink. They were cocky and arrogant about a test that didn't really matter, and yet they sucked on the mic. Sure they could pass a test about gears and simple math questions but they sure as heck couldn't get the big picture of the airspace in order to pass their training tests.

Test scores are not everything. A 100 will not make you into a great controller, and a 70 will not destine you to being a mediocre controller, or a failure.

Such is why they use they use 3 categories instead of going by score.
F, Q and WQ. The difference between a 93 and a 95 is probably very insignificant.

[K-Dog]

Originally Posted by justme62

Just because one person is great at the analogies (or great at guessing?) doesn't mean they would be any better suited to control air traffic than someone who bombed that portion. What does it have to do with ATC anyway?

The entrance exam into the military is called the ASVAB. After you get your score, there are sub scores. In order to get into ATC in the Army you have to have a GT (general technical) score of 110 or higher. I think the highest is 130? (mine was 124) We would get some guys in the unit from the schoolhouse with GT scores of 110 and they were great soldiers and great controllers, and then there were some that came in with a higher score and just thought their #### didn't stink. They were cocky and arrogant about a test that didn't really matter, and yet they sucked on the mic. Sure they could pass a test about gears and simple math questions but they sure as heck couldn't get the big picture of the airspace in order to pass their training tests.

Test scores are not everything. A 100 will not make you into a great controller, and a 70 will not destine you to being a mediocre controller, or a failure.

I agree with you that a test score may be insignificant, however a poor test score could be symptomatic of a larger problem, especially when the test consists of questions that an above average 8th grader would be able to answer without hesitation. Also, a high test score could show a capacity for learning. I am not saying that a 70 means that someone would be a bad controller, or 100 means a great controller. There are plenty of geniuses out there who when put into a stressful situation where they need to react quickly will just freeze.

However, there have to be lines drawn somewhere and generalizations can't be made without the probability that someone won't fit into that generalization. So it is safe to assume that someone who scores a hundred will have the probability of learning at a more advanced pace than someone who scores a 70. Especially since the test is totally based on aptitude and requires no previous knowledge, other than a limited vocabulary and basic math skills.

To say someone who scores 100 would automatically be a great controller would be putting too much emphasis on one little test. However to say that someone who scores a 70 is just as likely to be a good controller as someone who scores 100 is to downplay this profession and the intelligence of those who work traffic on a daily basis, as every test, no matter how insignificant, plays to the test takers intelligence in some capacity.

And I don't really think they are trying to see if you are good at analogies, but whether or not you have sound reasoning abilities. If you read the rules before the analogies portion it was actually quite simple. If you can't look at a screen and see a pattern...it may be more difficult for you to memorize flight routes...then again, maybe not. There are exceptions to every rule

[JB_113]

You guys do realize that anyone with a military background receives an additional 10 bonus points to whatever they score, don't you?

[GeorgeM]

Originally Posted by JB_113

You guys do realize that anyone with a military background receives an additional 10 bonus points to whatever they score, don't you?

Actually, it's five points (unless you're a disabled vet, then it's 10), and it doesn't attach to the AT-SAT score. It's added to the overall weight of the application (education, experience, scores, ...). All government jobs have a veterans' preference of five points.

[hudson26]

Originally Posted by K-Dog

I mean, when you were in school a B student was always as good as an A student right? The letters are just formalities.

Dude, get over yourself.

[K-Dog]

Oh Hudson...I guess you didn't do so hot, huh?

[AUPilotAU]

I got an 85.7 and I'm doing just fine out here The test is bs imo

[scongdon]

Even though I'm *very* happy with my score, I have to agree with some of the skepticism above... I think of my best friend's dad, who is one of the quickest thinkers and most mechanically inclined people I know, but he can't maneuver a mouse to click on the "start" button in Windows to save his life...

I think anyone would agree that someone who was addicted to video games as a child would score leaps and bounds above someone with, say, a PhD in physics who wasn't completely computer literate on things like the letter factory, AT scenarios, etc.

Before I found these forums I checked out an ATC "test prep book" that was published in like 1980 something, and the paper test looked like a nightmare at first glance. I wonder why the FAA strayed away from that version?

[SoCal23]

For what it's worth I got 100 but I also studied a few hours a day for several weeks using that Jeppesen book and CD software. The fact the software is about 10x faster than the real exam made it extremely easy for me and should for anyone else who took the time to study it.

FWIW a 100 on the ATSAT is not a good indicator of a good controller, but it does recognize that a certain skillset is present within the test-takers mind.

[K-Dog]

I agree that the at-sat is not the end all and be all of becoming a controller. If it was then you wouldn't need to go to an academy and then have OJT for 2-4 years, but I still felt like responding to the bitterness I saw in the previous postings, I mean...if I get an 83 on a test, does that automatically mean it is B.S.? If I score 100, does that mean it is a good test? No, my own score is indicative of nothing, and in fact in my previous post for which I was being accused of being full of myself, you can see I really didn't refer to myself at all.

Also in other posts I have made on this forum you can see that I clearly said that the scenarios and letter factory portions of the test must be very liberally scored or weighted as I did not feel I did well on those portions. I have also said that an above average 8th grader could do well on this test...that being said, how would it make me think I am better than anyone else just because I scored highly on it? Wow, I can do a test I think an 8th grader can do...I must be Einstien.