Just How Useful is the SAT?

Although Gladwell focuses on the IQ test in his third chapter, he does mention the SAT as well, and the SAT seems a much more appropriate example for those in our position. While there has been a definite trend to focus on more well-rounded aspects of a student's academic career during college admissions, the SAT still plays an enormous role in determining who is accepted into a school and who falls short. I think it is obvious that the SAT is a useful tool, but if it is overused or used ineffectively, in what ways could it be improved?

The largest problem with the SAT may be its only goal - to assess pure intellect. How well it achieves this can also be argued, but more importantly, a sharp intellect is not the only part of the whole mental capacity. As Gladwell mentioned, creativity plays a part, and in my opinion so does communication. In a society as dependent on interactions as ours, the ability to effectively transmit ideas and theories is just as crucial as having a solid theory in the first place.

If these three 'categories' are used as the basis for mental capacity, what methods are most useful for aptitude tests? I feel like there is no easy way to test for all three in one shot, and instead there need to be various ways of determining the entirety of a student's capacity.

The 10,000 hour rule

In my previously life, one of my student-athletes (who was undergoing an extensive rehabilitation and thus spent a ridiculous amount of time in the athletic training room) busied himself by trying to estimate the number of ankle tape jobs I had completed during my career as an athletic trainer. The easiest starting point was my first year as a graduate student at Ohio State. I worked pre-season football. Most Division I programs carry approximately 135 players. For easy math, let's say that each day of pre-season, 100 athletes suit up. At Ohio state, this amounted to 100 players getting two ankles taped, two times a day, 6 days per week, for about 4 weeks.

100 * 2 * 2 * 6 * 4 = 9600 ankles taped during pre-season. Divide that by the number of ankles tapers (n=10), and each preseason I probably taped 960 ankles in a four-week stretch. I was at OSU for two years (x = 1920). I worked every home game for two years (n=9), so taped about 180 ankles in that stretch. In two years of football alone, I taped 2000 ankles. I worked the rest of the year in one of the other busy training rooms, so in an average week, probably taped 25 ankles * 30 weeks of school * 2 years = 1500. The summer between my graduate school years, I worked 6 weeks of football camp. Although we didn't tape all of the campers, we did tape a bunch of them, so maybe 10 kids per week = 60. I learned to tape ankles when I was a first-year student at Whitworth. I then worked for three years as a student athletic trainer. On average, I probably taped 10 ankles per week for 30 weeks for 3 years, accumulating about 900 tape jobs under my belt. Add that to 15 years of athletic training at Whitman, with a conservative average of 50 ankles week * 30 weeks of school = 22500 ankles. So by the time I left for sabbatical last spring, I had taped nearly 27000 ankles.

As a result, I can tape ankles blindfolded just as well as I can tape them with my eyes uncovered. On an average day, I can tape an ankle in just under a minute. I guess that is what I have to show for 27000 practice attemps.

What have you done in your lifetime more than 10000 times? Or for more than 10000 hours? What have you done that you can look back on and to which you can contribute some of your skills as a SA?