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University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT, Claiming it is biased against minorities

The University of California board of regents voted Thursday to stop using the SAT and ACT college admissions exams, reshaping college admissions in one of the largest and most prestigious university systems in the country and dealing a significant blow to the multibillion-dollar college admission testing industry.

The unanimous 23-to-0 vote ratified a proposal put forward last month by UC President Janet Napolitano to phase out the exams over the next five years until the sprawling UC system can develop its own test.

The battle against standardized tests has raged for years because minority students score, on average, lower than their white classmates. Advocates argue that the exams are an unfair admission barrier to those students because they often cannot pay for pricey test preparation.

“The test is a proxy for privilege,” said Regent Cecilia Estolano. “It’s time, it has been studied to death.” More than 1,000 colleges and universities have gone “test optional,” with the pace of schools dropping the exam accelerating in recent years in an attempt to level the admissions playing field.

The University of California received more than 176,000 freshmen applications last year—including around 116,000 from in-state students—and the system’s decision to abandon the exams opens the door for other schools to follow suit, partly to ensure they don’t alienate California applicants.

Ms. Napolitano’s proposal allows four years for the UC system to develop a new exam. If it fails to create or adopt one, then it likely would cease to use any exam, said Robert Schaeffer, public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, known as FairTest, which has fought against standardized testing for 30 years. Mr. Schaeffer said he doesn’t believe a new exam will be implemented.

“It appears very unlikely that they will be able to design an instrument that is more accurate and fairer than relying on applicants’ high school records,” Mr. Schaeffer said. “And, if a new test somehow meets those goals promoters would face massive adoption barriers, including persuading UC and the rest of the admissions world that a third test is truly needed or useful.”

The road to Thursday’s vote has been full of twists and turns. Ms. Napolitano began the review of the use of the SAT in 2018, that prompted a faculty committee began a review of the use of the exam. In February it recommended that the system continue to use the exams, arguing that applicants’ scores on the SAT and ACT still serve as better predictors of first-year performance than high school grades.

However, the task force encouraged the university system to expand the criteria on which it bases admissions decisions, and suggested possibly creating an alternative admissions test.

In December, students and community groups sued the University of California, alleging its requirement that applicants submit ACT or SAT scores discriminates against racial and ethnic minorities and low-income applicants. Last month, the UC system voted to suspend the use of the tests for one year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

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by Anonymousreply 180May 25, 2020 1:25 PM

Lol, it's "biased" against certain favored minorities. Affirmative action is illegal, so they're eliminating any numerical indicators.

by Anonymousreply 1May 21, 2020 10:31 PM

[Quote] The battle against standardized tests has raged for years because minority students score, on average, lower than their white classmates.

Oh, clearly.

by Anonymousreply 2May 21, 2020 10:34 PM

You won’t get me to defend SATs.

by Anonymousreply 3May 21, 2020 10:34 PM

R3 Hi Lori!

by Anonymousreply 4May 21, 2020 10:37 PM

The Years That Matter Most by Paul Tough marshals a lot of data to show that these tests are poor indicators of college success. Even if they were not biased, they would not make much sense to use in admissions.

High school grades have been the best indicator of college success for as long as these things have been studied.

by Anonymousreply 5May 21, 2020 10:37 PM

It's kind of biased against people whose parents didn't go to college. I had great grades, excellent extracurricular activities and recommednation, and good but not great SATs, still got into several Ivies and attended one, and still did better in my classes than a lot of folks with higher SATs. Children whose parents didn't go to college or have lots of books with advanced vocabulary in their house or who didn't go to prep school regularly vocabulary and testing drills as part of the curriculum, were at a disadvantage in taking standardized tests.

by Anonymousreply 6May 21, 2020 10:39 PM

Good! Cue the right wing propaganda deplorables coming to voice their fake outrage!

by Anonymousreply 7May 21, 2020 10:40 PM

The tests are not so much biased against minorities as against those who do not go to private school and do not take test prep classes.

by Anonymousreply 8May 21, 2020 10:41 PM

Do high-IQ countries use exams to place students at universities?

Yes.

But no, we can't here because some kids can't cut it. So we scream bias and eliminate it.

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by Anonymousreply 9May 21, 2020 10:43 PM

R6 100%. I did good in HS but I always struggled with Math. Math was always my weak point, and I had to take certain math classes more than once. Because of my struggle with math, it made Physics hard for me too. Other than that I did well.

But because I wasn’t good at that I didn’t do great at the SATs.

I got into a good college, but not a great one, and did well in college, which to me shows the SATs are bullshit. And I had a teacher that would say that also.

by Anonymousreply 10May 21, 2020 10:45 PM

[quote] High school grades have been the best indicator of college success for as long as these things have been studied.

Grades are padded everywhere. They indicate jack shit. I was a college professor and now I teach at a private high school. Grade inflationn is the rule at all levels of education. I used to think standardized tests were bullshit but the truth is that there is a relationship between intelligence/aptitude and test performance. Sociologists can design studies to show anything they want, I don't buy much of what they have to say. Definitely some other kind of metric needs to be used for historically disadvantaged groups. But for upper middle class kids? SAT scores tell you a lot.

I am not a deplorable and believe in affirmative action. I think the actual solution is to equalize education spending at the elementary school level. It won't happen.

by Anonymousreply 11May 21, 2020 10:45 PM

r10, may I ask what you got on the SAT?

by Anonymousreply 12May 21, 2020 10:46 PM

We're doomed.

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by Anonymousreply 13May 21, 2020 10:46 PM

R9, but the SAT and ACT have been studied repeatedly and been consistently found lacking.

Has anyone really examined the South Korean test?

I recommend Paul Tough's book mentioned above. It digs into the data and decades of research, explaining it is an accessible way.

R11 says grades are padded--but all the grades in the same high school are padded at the same rate. So someone whose class rank is 3 out of 500 is likely to be at the same level of achievement as someone who is 3 out of 500 at another school with more padded grades.

And ultimately, you have to rely on quantifiable data. And the data is very clear.

by Anonymousreply 14May 21, 2020 10:49 PM

Those who claim to be bad at math probably have a poor working memory. If you write it down, it's really easy. A lot of people just assume they suck at math so they don't even try. It's a shame because being good at math means you can more easily debunk many of the lies being fed to you by so called experts.

by Anonymousreply 15May 21, 2020 10:51 PM

My parents were both blue collar and, graduated from high school, no college. By reading voraciously, I expanded my vocabulary and have a PhD. That is nonsense!

by Anonymousreply 16May 21, 2020 10:55 PM

The problem is that educated parents tend to have educated kids. The minority groups the college wishes to help are frequently more poor and less likely to have a college education. The minority groups which don’t get to minorities anymore (East and South Asians) tend to be more well to do. Redneck whites don’t do great on standardized tests.

Honestly, if one wants more economically challenged minorities, they just need affirmative action back. All these contortions are just a way to get more black and Hispanic kids in, which is an admirable goal.

by Anonymousreply 17May 21, 2020 10:56 PM

There's two kinds of "bad at math" -- scoring under 400 on standardized exams bad at math, and not scoring above 700 bad at math. Above a certain threshold, probably about 500, it doesn't matter what your score is, you can do math well enough. It's that low range-- under 400 or so-- that yes, indicates a kid will struggle in college. Kids in that range usually have trouble understanding directions or using computers. I'm not talking about "learning differences"-- that's a whole other ballpark.

by Anonymousreply 18May 21, 2020 10:56 PM

I am a professor now, but I did terrible as an undergraduate and only got into grad school much later because of my professional achievements.

I got 780 verbal and 740 in math on the SAT. But I flunked a number of classes in high school. (I was a whiz at tests but did not have the discipline to do classwork.)

And yes, my high school performance was a better indicator of how I would do in college than the SAT that got me in the Ivy League.

by Anonymousreply 19May 21, 2020 10:56 PM

R16 that is you. Most kids don’t have access to all you did or aren’t even aware of the importance of “vocabulary” because they do not have anyone telling them that at home.

You caught on, many don’t.

by Anonymousreply 20May 21, 2020 10:57 PM

Thank you R16. It was a struggle as my family saw me as a black sheep/weirdo given my aspirations vs. theirs. And I am still the outcast.

by Anonymousreply 21May 21, 2020 10:59 PM

BTW, this is bullshit:

[quote][R9], but the SAT and ACT have been studied repeatedly and been consistently found lacking.

by Anonymousreply 22May 21, 2020 11:01 PM

r13 Chinese students start preparing for the gaokao in elementary school. Bu the time they get to university, they're utterly burnt out.

When I lived in China I sat in on a couple of undergraduate lectures. The disinterest and boredom was unlike anything I've seen in American universities

by Anonymousreply 23May 21, 2020 11:01 PM

[quote] My parents were both blue collar and, graduated from high school, no college. By reading voraciously, I expanded my vocabulary and have a PhD. That is nonsense!

What did you get on your SATs?

by Anonymousreply 24May 21, 2020 11:03 PM

Asian kids live to do school work. It’s insane. That is why suicide is so high in HS aged kids in Asia. Some of them crack under the pressure.

But that is also why they come here and flourish. This is easy to them.

by Anonymousreply 25May 21, 2020 11:04 PM

They are frustrating to teach. They do not want to think and get really bad anxiety in discussion classes. Plus they cannot write papers with much insight.

That anyone holds up South Korea or China as a model we should follow has never had to deal with the aftermath of their schooling.

by Anonymousreply 26May 21, 2020 11:08 PM

Only 1350-- I was not great at math. Big discrepancy between math and verbal. It was so great that I think looking back I may have had some kind of math disability. But in those days there was no SAT tutoring. You got the book out of the library and did the best you could. My GREs were a lot better. But I moved on and did OK.

by Anonymousreply 27May 21, 2020 11:08 PM

As a non-American, it always struck me as insane how Americans decide a test is biased. If blacks or women don't do as well as whites or men, then the test is flawed. It must be ditched, or items should be eliminated until scores become more equal. It feels almost like shooting the messenger -- as if, by destroying the evidence of differences, the differences themselves disappeared. I guess it's easier to throw the tests away than to address the differences they reveal.

by Anonymousreply 28May 21, 2020 11:08 PM

I went to grad school in part in an East Asian country. The education system is designed towards success on college entrance exams. College is about socializing until you get a job. I don't know if their system is better or worse than the US. It's definitely not something to emulate.

by Anonymousreply 29May 21, 2020 11:09 PM

Americans: "Asians aren't creative or critical thinkers. They use exams. We're better and more humane: down with exams."

Delusional, doomed civilization in decline, the masses of which fear vaccines and 5G. 😂

by Anonymousreply 30May 21, 2020 11:11 PM

Do what the countries with high IQs are doing. Taiwan and S. Korea handled COVID better, too.

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by Anonymousreply 31May 21, 2020 11:14 PM

r30 China has about a billion peasants, in addition to a middle & upper class of around 300 million.

The Chinese have a demographic problem and an incredible battle for resources.

by Anonymousreply 32May 21, 2020 11:15 PM

[quote] It's that low range-- under 400 or so-- that yes, indicates a kid will struggle in college. Kids in that range usually have trouble understanding directions or using computers.

I got 330 on mine & have 2 master’s degrees in science. I never understood algebra & just stopped working on my math SAT & left the room. I thought “I don’t need this.”

And I was right.

by Anonymousreply 33May 21, 2020 11:20 PM

R33, what was your GPA and where did you get your Masters degrees from? Not all masters degrees in science are created equal.

by Anonymousreply 34May 21, 2020 11:23 PM

Even when you control for socio-economic status, whites still do better than blacks on these tests.

It’s either the culture or the genes or both. But I don’t think blacks as a group have tried hard enough.

by Anonymousreply 35May 21, 2020 11:25 PM

R28, so poor people, women, and black people do bad on tests because they are stupider than white men?

Maybe.

But when you track students performance in college, those test scores do not correlate with college performance. So even if the tests measure something in an unbiased way, what it measures does not help to select the highest achieving college students.

And selecting students who will be high achievers ought to be the goal.

by Anonymousreply 36May 21, 2020 11:26 PM

The best predictor of college success are grades. That is why many community college students who do well can get into very good schools after 2 years in a community college.

by Anonymousreply 37May 21, 2020 11:30 PM

R35, only on the DL, we get trash like you. Why do Trumptards have to invade everything? Since that despicable human being became president, you're coming out of the woodwork like vermin.

by Anonymousreply 38May 21, 2020 11:30 PM

[quote] unbiased way (?)

Does that exist?

by Anonymousreply 39May 21, 2020 11:32 PM

I work in a school where the rich kids take test prep courses outside of school, starting in their freshman year. They know how to spell and use twelve-letter words, but they slip up on the most obvious six-letter words everyone knows. The principal always gets phone calls from parents after their kids get a "C" in a class. They swear their kids are perfect and the teacher is a really bad one. They keep pestering the principal until he gives up and raises a letter grade to a "B".

by Anonymousreply 40May 21, 2020 11:40 PM

California just sits around thinking up stupid shit to pass into law.

by Anonymousreply 41May 21, 2020 11:44 PM

R36, that is false. Have you ever heard of the mismatch effect? If you have an LSAT of 160, and you go to a law school with a median LSAT of 170, you’re more likely to get worse grades, rank at the bottom of the class, or drop out all together.

The tests are far from perfect, but they’re better than nothing, and they’re still better than alternative subjective measures at predicting success.

by Anonymousreply 42May 21, 2020 11:51 PM

Things will just get worse and will continue as tests are dumb downed, grades are padded, the wealthy have recourse to private tutors, and teachers and principals can be strong armed into improving grades.

And we'll just get worse governments, more venal, incompetent and selfish administrations and there is nothing anybody can do about any of it. The human race is exhausted and spent.

by Anonymousreply 43May 21, 2020 11:55 PM

MARY!!!!!! r43

by Anonymousreply 44May 21, 2020 11:56 PM

R36 women do not do worse on tests and are a slight majority on college campuses. This isn’t 1970.

Tests aren’t about intelligence, it’s about education. Blacks were denied educational opportunities due to racism and the damage of slavery. Many Latinos in CA are the descendants of farm workers, I.e., peasants. It’s not about intelligence, it’s about education. Of course people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds are going to be less educated, this is true everywhere in the world. The solution is better education.

by Anonymousreply 45May 21, 2020 11:58 PM

Women do, in fact, do worse on the math portion of the SAT and the combined score. That more women are in college has probably more to do with the fact that more of them apply in the first place.

In my country, over 70% of maximum scorers on the national university entrance test are male, but more women are in college because 60% of all test-takers are female.

by Anonymousreply 46May 22, 2020 12:14 AM

So California's basically saying that smart people will no longer have an edge scholastically?

by Anonymousreply 47May 22, 2020 12:18 AM

R42, data?

Or is that just your gut?

by Anonymousreply 48May 22, 2020 12:52 AM

The SAT/ACT tests are great for measuring the skill of people to successfully take the SAT/ACT tests

by Anonymousreply 49May 22, 2020 12:54 AM

Yes, R49!!!

by Anonymousreply 50May 22, 2020 12:56 AM

If the SAT's vocabulary portion were entirely ebonics/urbonics, blacks would still finish at the bottom of the pile.

For a sizable swath of blacks, fulfillment of academic obligations also finishes at the bottom of priorities, behind entertainment celebrity, sports star, hustling & most of all....not "acting white." I.E. Good grades, stable job, 2 kids, home ownership, suburban living.

Noooooooo sympathy!

by Anonymousreply 51May 22, 2020 12:56 AM

These exams were designed by rich old straight white men! I’m shocked they are biased! Shocked I tell you!

by Anonymousreply 52May 22, 2020 1:05 AM

I always thought they were stressful and stupid, so glad to see them go. I support the GRE and LSAT though...grad school should have higher standards.

by Anonymousreply 53May 22, 2020 1:18 AM

I'm an adjunct math professor on the east coast, so upfront, I don't have info on the CA schools.

The reality is that most schools are not selective. When you say "college," everyone pictures a selective school like Princeton. However, schools that actually turn away people are in the very small minority. Most schools are clamoring to attract students; it's a business. Once you have the infrastructure, you might as well pack it full and have adjuncts teach. The administrators and the tenured profs (the minority) make very nice livings from this system.

In my state, only an Ivy, the State University and a technical school turn away people. All the others "market" themselves. This includes the "State Colleges," the public schools between the state university and community colleges. They don't really need the SAT; they use it more to place kids in math & writing classes. They will take anyone who can get the tuition paid.

My guess re CA: UC Berkeley is very selective, they are looking at AP scores and honors class grades. I don't know if any others are selective; the state colleges I bet don't turn away people. So I think they don't really need the SAT.

by Anonymousreply 54May 22, 2020 1:37 AM

Well fuck! I paid $500,000 to cheat the California system and now I’m going to jail. Now this!?!

by Anonymousreply 55May 22, 2020 2:03 AM

The logic of testing is to sample knowledge that predicts better performance in school. Unfortunately, what happens is that there is lot of teaching to tests and test prep. It rewards a certain kind of well-off slice of society.

by Anonymousreply 56May 22, 2020 2:38 AM

Lucky whores

by Anonymousreply 57May 22, 2020 2:41 AM

I've heard that so many aspects of the educational system are changing not solely because of any minority issues. So many members of society have felt fucked over by academia in one way or another. Ask any member of any race and they'll hold up statistics about how testing is biased against them.

It's also striated by class. You've got Jews/Asians/WASPS all fighting each other, then you have Blacks/Hispanics trying to get in. Once they do, their positions are questioned by the Jew/Asian/WASP and then the cycle repeats itself and society ends up hating each other as they learn.

I'm glad I graduated back in 2012. I thought I had it bad. Geez.

by Anonymousreply 58May 22, 2020 2:43 AM

they're are trying to wipe out the private testing and testing prep companies. I am for this.

by Anonymousreply 59May 22, 2020 2:51 AM

[quote]they're are trying to wipe out the private testing and testing prep companies. I am for this.

Didn't whatsherface plead guilty today? The educational system is FUCKED.

by Anonymousreply 60May 22, 2020 3:08 AM

R59 Seriously, what do these testing prep companies teach that isn't already available in a book or online? Anyone who is even slightly motivated can take or retake as many practice exams as they want and not have to pay a thing. It just takes a little motivation and basic memorization.

by Anonymousreply 61May 22, 2020 3:23 AM

Video games tests kids' minds to the max. It's amazing how many hours they will devote to mastering a game yet when it comes to something as significant as a test, will barely bother.

by Anonymousreply 62May 22, 2020 3:24 AM

Contortions to justify this irrational nonsense. This is pure decline.

by Anonymousreply 63May 22, 2020 5:42 AM

This decision is a variation on the "everyone should get a prize so their feelings aren't hurt" lunacy.

by Anonymousreply 64May 22, 2020 5:49 AM

In 1992, my first PSAT scores were not good. My family could not afford any kind of tutoring or formal prep. So I went to Borders, bought a $15 PSAT prep book, studied my ass off and kicked myself up into the 98th percentile on the second try.

Today, there is a Kaplan PSAT book with practice tests, similar to the one I got, available on Amazon for $10.39. Not sure how that's financially prohibitive.

by Anonymousreply 65May 22, 2020 5:51 AM

This is so we can admit less Asians.

by Anonymousreply 66May 22, 2020 6:16 AM

The same people who say they can’t afford to study for the exam have cable TV.

by Anonymousreply 67May 22, 2020 6:16 AM

FEWER Asians, R66.

You are clearly not Asian—they're educated.

by Anonymousreply 68May 22, 2020 6:20 AM

r68 is talking to himself

by Anonymousreply 69May 22, 2020 6:32 AM

less is perfectly acceptable grammar wise r68 you old windbag.

by Anonymousreply 70May 22, 2020 6:48 AM

Biased against minorities? Please. Tell that to the Asians.

by Anonymousreply 71May 22, 2020 6:50 AM

R70 acceptable in your ignorant universe, Billy Bob.

by Anonymousreply 72May 22, 2020 7:07 AM

The problem is Joe is 77 and looks like he could drop dead a year into his term.

The VP choice takes on unusual import because of this. Biden's VP has to look especially "presidential" out of the box, ready to go on day one. Just like Obama's VP choice had to compensate for his lack of experience.

Kamala has it. Val Demings does not. Stacey Abrams does not. Amy Klobuchar, because of her documented psychological issues and management problems, does not.

by Anonymousreply 73May 22, 2020 7:40 AM

Sorry, wrong thread.

by Anonymousreply 74May 22, 2020 7:40 AM

Ohhhh everyone is offended. Please

by Anonymousreply 75May 22, 2020 8:52 AM

Why the fuck are shit stains like r51 posting on DL?

by Anonymousreply 76May 22, 2020 11:10 AM

what can I say? but I think UC will gradually decline, in 30 years when people mention UC, it will be like we talk about CUNY today.

by Anonymousreply 77May 22, 2020 11:45 AM

Asians aren’t a minority? Huh.

by Anonymousreply 78May 22, 2020 12:28 PM

When I went to school, there was no computers in the classroom, no access to all of recorded history at my fingertips, no websites that made it easy to cheat, no ratemyprofessor.com, etc. With all these advantages, how do people still fail standardized tests? In my experience everything standardized could be copy and pasted from an online source. This generation is supposed to be the most progressive and tech savvy, yet they still face the same struggle. I don't understand how anyone can be challenged by school to be quite honest unless you have absolutely no motivation.

by Anonymousreply 79May 22, 2020 1:42 PM

I can't even remember taking the SAT.

by Anonymousreply 80May 22, 2020 2:18 PM

Here you are, R48.

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by Anonymousreply 81May 22, 2020 2:20 PM

R52, to that, I say that our entire culture of academia and law and sciences was designed by rich white straight men (more or less). We live in a dominant culture society. That’s the reality. If you want to advance, you got to learn to conform to the script.

by Anonymousreply 82May 22, 2020 2:23 PM

I’m sorry, but you can’t uplift marginalized communities by lowering standards. That’s just accepting the lower standards that kept them marginalized to begin with, while also contaminating the quality of the educational standards for everyone else. When you admit more students that can’t meet the standards that schools demand, the schools become under more pressure to relax their grading standards, lowering the bar for everyone. We are already seeing that today. In the 60s, it was so much harder to get an A at Yale than it is today, for example. It’s not because the students all got smarter, it’s because the standards lowered.

by Anonymousreply 83May 22, 2020 2:37 PM

University of California's new diploma

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by Anonymousreply 84May 22, 2020 2:55 PM

One of the best predictors of college success is how well and what type of math courses students completed in high school. Maybe they could look at that, though the quality of math would vary so widely that it probably wouldn't mean much. They need to consider the ACT in lieu of the SAT. ACT tends to measure what students actually learned in high school vs. the SAT which tends to measure aptitude (it was formerly known as Scholastic Aptitude Test).

by Anonymousreply 85May 22, 2020 2:58 PM

so you just now need a 4.5 min to get into Berkeley or UCLA. These schools are 90% Asian. So I think they need some diversity, here

Not everyone wants to go to Humbolt or Northridge.

by Anonymousreply 86May 22, 2020 3:05 PM

UC Santa Barbara is where all the white kids go.

by Anonymousreply 87May 22, 2020 3:09 PM

Math wasn't presented in a fashion that I could easily grasp. Part of it is in testing it was determined I had high abstraction scores,. It was a question of me wanting to know WHY mathematical proofs worked and how they were created. Unfortunately my teachers and professors didn't know either. No instead I'm an auto-didact - I learned more about math out of school than in.

Did well on my SAT also high IQ. And one time I saw a domain map of mathematics and realized I'd learned about 95% of it. So I can sort of understand the SAT is just how well you take a test. Nothing more.

by Anonymousreply 88May 22, 2020 3:11 PM

Of course they're not fair.

Kids like me had private SAT tutors who worked with us for six months to boost our scores on the test which is easily gamed.

Many Asian families spend thousands of dollars on prep and even when I was in college in the 00s I met Asian kids who had started SAT prep when they were in 7th grade.

When the tests are easily gamed by people who have the resources, they're no longer indicative of much.

OTOH, it was a way for a kid from a nowhere public school to prove that the 4.0 average they had in high school was the equivalent of the 4.0 that kids in private schools and top public high schools had.

Without some sort of leveler like that, you're just going to see much more favoritism towards schools the admissions counselors are familiar with.

by Anonymousreply 89May 22, 2020 3:16 PM

R89 But learning to study something is in itself a valuable life skill and a good predictor of success. Those who perform well in standardized tests know how to maximize their study time. Creativity is difficult to assess on tests, but learning how to strategy build based on your learning style requires some imagination. Students today have such an advantage over previous generations in terms of available resources, it's amazing to me how we keep hearing the same excuses.

by Anonymousreply 90May 22, 2020 3:34 PM

R89, it’s worth noting that most children of rich kids don’t score well enough on the SAT to get into an Ivy League. Also, a private tutor may help, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient to get a top score, although I won’t deny it can make a difference. But if it it were that easy, you wouldn’t see people like Lori Loughlin or Felicity Huffman cheating to get their kids into those colleges. Still, there are more economic alternatives for students who are really motivated. And there are many stories of kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who overcome the odds and still do well on those tests.

Even if you want to shell out money for an expensive test prep course, I don’t see that as an obstacle for even the less financially privileged. If you’re going to borrow tens of thousands to get an overpriced degree, then a few hundred bucks on a prep course is nothing. Hell, you might even do well enough as a result of that test prep course that you get awarded a scholarship and save money on tuition. That’s what happened to me with my law school, I ended up getting a renewable $30,000 a year scholarship because I invested a few hundred dollars in an online test prep course. It was a good investment. I also had to work my ass off and practice regularly for nine months. But at the end of the day, I was willing to do what most prospective students were not willing or motivated to do.

by Anonymousreply 91May 22, 2020 4:38 PM

Speaking of video games, perhaps the next stage of testing could be based on computer simulations that test different cognitive abilities such as verbal, spatial, reasoning, and so on. Modern video games do a pretty good job of this as it is.

by Anonymousreply 92May 22, 2020 5:51 PM

I think I see what we have is a logic problem.

R81, what you connect to is about affirmative action, not about biases in SAT/ACT or the SAT as a predictor of college success vs. high school class rank or anything else being discussed.

You are grasping at something that you associate with the subjects being discussed rather than something logically connected.

by Anonymousreply 93May 22, 2020 7:51 PM

So, R79 is criticizing the young people of today for not finding better ways to cheat on standardized tests?

by Anonymousreply 94May 22, 2020 7:52 PM

It’s another grift: don’t want to do the work and make sacrifices? Blame the system for being unfair, and tear it all down.

by Anonymousreply 95May 22, 2020 10:15 PM

R32, oh I guess they’re the ones who are doomed. Please. They have higher IQs: the country is run by committees of engineers. Engineers fix problems. Robots, etc.

Also, Asia isn’t just China.

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by Anonymousreply 96May 22, 2020 10:26 PM

Is r66 really grammatically incorrect? r68 has me curious. I tried it in a grammar check website and it came up correct.

by Anonymousreply 97May 23, 2020 12:06 AM

"Fewer" is used when referring to multiple, countable things. "There were fewer people on the street today."

"Less" is used with a singular thing. "There was less rain today."

"I have less money in my wallet than I did last week" vs. "I have fewer dollar bills in my wallet than I did last week."

by Anonymousreply 98May 23, 2020 12:13 AM

It is not grammatically incorrect. But it is incorrect usage.

Meaning that if R66 had do define the word "less" on the SAT, he would get it wrong.

And I suspect R97 would, too.

by Anonymousreply 99May 23, 2020 12:14 AM

Unless maybe if R66 is saying that they want to admit people with one Asian parent rather than people with two Asian parents....? But if that is what he was trying to say, then it is grammatically incorrect.

by Anonymousreply 100May 23, 2020 12:15 AM

R97, yes. “Fewer” is for things that can be counted by discrete numbers. “Less” is for unquantified volumes/amounts.

by Anonymousreply 101May 23, 2020 12:16 AM

Oh FFS take the grammar lesson elsewhere.

by Anonymousreply 102May 23, 2020 12:21 AM

Yes, how dare you discuss grammar on a thread about the SAT and ACT.

by Anonymousreply 103May 23, 2020 12:40 AM

So many other businesses are going out of business or downgrading or changing their business model. Why not those arrogant folks who think they know what it takes to succeed in college who make up the SAT and ACT and the graduate school equivalents? Have they or anyone ever taken a survey to show what percentage of folks who didn't do as well on the test, based maybe on parents not going to college, being of a certain minority or economic group or who didn't have prep testing, might have actually done better than folks with great scores or who became A students when their test scores indicated B or C in university? I thought not.

by Anonymousreply 104May 23, 2020 1:00 AM

Why have entrance exams at all? Open the flood gates.

by Anonymousreply 105May 23, 2020 1:19 AM

Why have entrance exams at all? Open the flood gates.

by Anonymousreply 106May 23, 2020 1:19 AM

SAT does a "validity study" every few years. The study has consistently shown a correlation between family income and SAT scores. However, the College Board usually claims that it shows the opposite (even while they present the data that contradicts their own claim).

One college administrator I know refers to the SAT as pseudoscience.

by Anonymousreply 107May 23, 2020 1:20 AM

Some people who are highly intelligent just SUCK at math. It' s not an indicator of a person's intellectual abilities.

by Anonymousreply 108May 23, 2020 1:22 AM

Because only white people are able to study for it.

by Anonymousreply 109May 23, 2020 1:25 AM

I never took the SAT, only the ACT. I knew what school I wanted and someone from admissions told me the ACT is weighted higher in their decisions. I never studied and BS'd my way through most of the test. Ended up scoring in the top 2% in the country. Took more tests before starting college. Tested into higher math, science, and lit classes so I didn't have to take any 101 courses.

I struggled hard 1st semester. Turns out, I was just good at taking tests. That's why the ACT and SAT don't work. They only measure the ability to take a test. I look forward to more modern cognitive solutions.

by Anonymousreply 110May 23, 2020 1:40 AM

Fran Lebowitz said that she had a perfect score on the English portion of the SAT, and the lowest possible score on the math portion. This was, at the time, a new record in New Jersey.

by Anonymousreply 111May 23, 2020 1:46 AM

R110, I had a very similar experience.

I still am great at anything with multiple choice. But outside of tests, you rare get to choose between A, B, C, and D.

by Anonymousreply 112May 23, 2020 1:48 AM

R93, R36 was claiming that SATs don’t have any correlation with college performance. Also, SATs aren’t judged in a vacuum, they are also judged with the student’s GPA. But not all GPAs or class ranks are created equal.

by Anonymousreply 113May 23, 2020 1:48 AM

R110, if you BS’d your way through the test, to me it sounds like a dumb fluke of luck, like someone winning the lottery, which occasionally happens. If you just BS’d your way through it, without really comprehending it or why the answers were right, then it should be no surprise that you struggled in school. On the other hand, maybe your peers also struggled hard, maybe you weren’t the only one. But I don’t know what your grades were.

I would agree to some extent that the tests just test your ability to take a test, but theoretically, if you have the cognitive ability and literacy to do well on the test, that ought to translate to your ability to learn and perform the tasks required of you.

I went to an average law school that required an average LSAT score to get in. I have a close friend who graduated from Stanford Law, which obviously requires a much higher LSAT score than my law school did. I definitely notice that he has a much more razor sharp mind than my law school peers, and I also observe that about the other top tier law school grads. I think there is definitely some validity to the LSAT. However, it’s also not a perfect predictor of how you’ll do in law school. Although my score put me in the top 1% of my school’s applicant pool, I did not graduate in the top half of my class. But I didn’t graduate in the bottom quarter either. But my undergrad GPA wasn’t particularly high either, so that also factors into predicting how disciplined I am in school.

I know one student who did poorly on the LSAT, yet he managed to finish in the top quarter of his class, and yet, he’s flunked the Bar Exam two times. While the LSAT is more logic based and not knowledge based, the Bar Exam is knowledge based. It’s half multiple choice and half essay/memo writing.

by Anonymousreply 114May 23, 2020 2:10 AM

R113. The SATs are apparently correlated solely to how well people will do in the first year of college.

That said, I understand that colleges do need a standardized way to tell applicants apart. Getting A’s in every high school doesn’t mean the same thing.

by Anonymousreply 115May 23, 2020 2:23 AM

I also am good at standardized tests, like R110.

I have been all my life. It is like a logic puzzle to eliminate the incorrect answers and figure out the right ones. I am also very good at Scrabble.

But ask me to write a research paper or back up my ideas in a discussion, and I think I am below average. But I still got a great scholarship to a good school, purely because of that SAT score. But It was harder for me to do the work required in college and my grades were not great.

by Anonymousreply 116May 23, 2020 2:25 AM

The value of the standardized tests depends on the ability of the people who design them. Back when they were a political dream of meritocracy in a corrupt society, they worked hard to develop tests that worked. Today, though, the people at ETS are not bright, their statistical models are flawed, and the tests themselves - particularly the math tests - have been changed according to fairly radical theories that don't work and are spitting out incompetent engineers and scientists at an alarming rate. Anyone who can read English can get an alarmingly high score, and writing tests are judged by people who are unable to write themselves. It's time to back to the drawing board, but not because minorities do poorly - Asians certainly do not - but because grading to a mean rather than a standard has proved a terrible idea.

by Anonymousreply 117May 23, 2020 2:40 AM

[quote] I know one student who did poorly on the LSAT, yet he managed to finish in the top quarter of his class, and yet, he’s flunked the Bar Exam two times. While the LSAT is more logic based and not knowledge based, the Bar Exam is knowledge based. It’s half multiple choice and half essay/memo writing.

Logic based tests can't be biased. However, an IQ test that is even more logic based is an even worse predictor of success. Lots of smart people don't put in the effort to learn.

by Anonymousreply 118May 23, 2020 3:09 AM

I kept reading through these responses hoping my point would be addressed.

Has anyone looked up the recidivism for each college? Has anyone gone backward through all this and just correlated SAT scores with recidivism? What DOES correlate with graduating from college? Find these things, quantify and merely use these identifyers with our high school students.

Me: CA, mediocre SATs, mediocre high school grades, dropped out after two years at a UC in in the '80s. I felt like the dummest kid in a sea of muti-talented, multi-colored college students.

by Anonymousreply 119May 23, 2020 3:34 AM

*dumbest* lol

by Anonymousreply 120May 23, 2020 3:38 AM

(R119) You're using the word recidivism incorrectly. What word do you really mean?

by Anonymousreply 121May 23, 2020 4:01 AM

These tests do have validity. A previous poster mentioned law schools. The shitty law schools have students with extremely low LSAT scores. And guess what, 20 percent of their students pass the California Bar.

The Bar isn't that difficult (I've passed three of the hardest), but it is for those who don't have the intellectual chops or intelligence.

by Anonymousreply 122May 23, 2020 4:05 AM

I never really like the looks of the UC campuses I've been to. Sort of bland.

Does Berkeley have problems with homeless people? I remember a girl in my neighborhood went there in the nineties and she transferred out because she was stalked by a homeless man.

by Anonymousreply 123May 23, 2020 4:05 AM

R121 Hah...sorry I guess. I meant: How many and who do not graduate. Recidivism. lol

by Anonymousreply 124May 23, 2020 4:17 AM

Now the question remains - what criteria will they know use before they accept new students?

by Anonymousreply 125May 23, 2020 7:12 AM

It's retention rate-- it's about how many students finish. Colleges with a low retention rate are not. viewed as desirable as those with a high rate.

by Anonymousreply 126May 23, 2020 7:59 AM

Lots of anecdotal evidence here

by Anonymousreply 127May 23, 2020 12:15 PM

Performance in High School (usually measured by class placement) is the best indicator of success in college. The same class issues that plague the test, plague colleges as well. But those who had the discipline and work ethic to do well in high school will usually have the discipline and work ethic to overcome any such issues in college.

by Anonymousreply 128May 23, 2020 12:20 PM

I did terrible in high school. I was second in my class at college. Depending on your major, they’re not always 1:1 comparable.

by Anonymousreply 129May 23, 2020 12:24 PM

Nothing is always 1:1 comparable.

But that does not mean we should not use any method to analyze or predict what will happen.

by Anonymousreply 130May 23, 2020 12:32 PM

Schools will still need academic criteria to determine which students they accept. If they don't test, only an applicant's HS performance would fit that requirement. The minorities who are pushing to get rid of the SAT and ACT don't do well in HS compared to whites and Asian. They still won't be accepted in the numbers they're hoping. So then what?

by Anonymousreply 131May 23, 2020 4:51 PM

R131 Any scientific data to backup your deplorable claims?

by Anonymousreply 132May 23, 2020 9:58 PM

[quote] [R89], it’s worth noting that most children of rich kids don’t score well enough on the SAT to get into an Ivy League. Also, a private tutor may help, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient to get a top score, although I won’t deny it can make a difference.

The SAT tutor thing is not to get us all into Ivy League schools R89, it's to make sure that we do as well as other kids at similar high schools who have tutors.

And the kids who benefit most from this are the ones who wind up getting into schools like Syracuse, Tulane or Pepperdine because the tutor helped them boost their SAT score by 100 points and the private college admissions advisor got them to start a charity collecting used lacrosse equipment for inner city kids so they could write their admissions essay about it, which, together, allowed them to overcome the B- GPA. Well that, and the fact that they were not going to need any sort of financial aid.

Your bootstrapping Flyoverstani example is true for very motivated kids but leaves the rest high and dry.

And again, without SATs or similar, college admissions officers a top schools are going to revert to "well, we know Horace Mann, and if she had a 4.0 there, she can certainly handle the work here...."

by Anonymousreply 133May 23, 2020 10:09 PM

R126 Thank you! I knew the word I wanted started with an "r".

by Anonymousreply 134May 23, 2020 10:11 PM

R132, just for you

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 135May 23, 2020 10:21 PM

R132, here's a link to another site

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 136May 23, 2020 10:22 PM

R132, I hate to disturb your fragile worldview, but not everyone you disagree with is a deplorable.

by Anonymousreply 137May 23, 2020 10:24 PM

So it makes more sense to use class rank than GPA.

Even without grade inflation that would have seemed like the most fair thing to do.

by Anonymousreply 138May 24, 2020 12:11 AM

The SAT’s are a game. They’re formulaic and follow a pattern. The more intuitive students will figure out how to game the system and get a great score. It’s not a measure of intelligence, it’s a measure of strategy.

by Anonymousreply 139May 24, 2020 12:16 AM

That would not fly R138

Being #20 at a very competitive high school is very different than being #20 at a large public high school with middling academics

by Anonymousreply 140May 24, 2020 12:16 AM

You usually say how many the ranking is out of. 20 out of a class of 89 or 20 out of a class of 247.

It is understood that the number mean something different based on the size of the class.

by Anonymousreply 141May 24, 2020 12:21 AM

I still think SATs should play a part in the formula colleges use to admit students - part of a group of criteria. It shouldn't be the only area, but definately part of the group.

Say you own your own wonderful college. You would create a fair and practical group of friteria for acceptance. If there is a better way, then it should be recognized and adopted, post haste.

by Anonymousreply 142May 24, 2020 12:23 AM

I work for a university and I I think a big part of the popularity of the SAT is that admission is needs-blind at most schools.

So without some way to weed out the less privileged students, you can get stuck with a class of hard-working, disciplines students who will gobble up all the financial aid.

Because the SAT skews toward more financially well off students, it is a way to make sure you are not accepting a class of impoverished students.

by Anonymousreply 143May 24, 2020 12:35 AM

[quote] ou usually say how many the ranking is out of. 20 out of a class of 89 or 20 out of a class of 247. It is understood that the number mean something different based on the size of the class.

LOL. Comment at R140 was about the quality of the school, not the actual numerical ranking

To be in the top 20% of the class at Dalton, Harvard Westlake, Scarsdale, New Trier, Choate et al is very different than being in the top 20% at Dan Quayle High School in East Flyoverstan and losing the SATs will hurt the kids from Quayle who really are that smart.

by Anonymousreply 144May 24, 2020 2:35 AM

I really don’t see the fuss. You really think U of C is going to start admitting remedial students? You are ignorant twats.

by Anonymousreply 145May 24, 2020 3:19 AM

I went to a UC school briefly. I don't recommend them. The students are all underclass and lacking in the grace that comes from being born to privilege.

by Anonymousreply 146May 24, 2020 3:22 AM

R144, you might not realize that those are private schools. That means one gets into them if you can afford them. While there may be scholarship students, most of the students do not need to show any ability to get in. They just need to show that their parents can pay.

I worked in private schools. They usually have an admissions test that we tell parents sets a standard for entry. But anyone who can pay tuition, gets in. No particular ability is needed.

I guess the general public naively thinks (like R144, that a name prep school certifies ability.

But it does not.

So the number one student may have had better resources and more advanced classes if they attended Choate, Dalton, etc.

But in terms of ability they are probably on about the same level as a student from Quayle.

Now that I work at a university, I would say that private school kids come in with more knowledge, but a little less ready for the hard and independent work needed to distinguish oneself in college.

So it is a wash.

by Anonymousreply 147May 24, 2020 3:24 AM

The idea that anyone would think that going to an elite private school indicates greater academic ability is probably the most depressing thing I have seen on DL in a long time.

I guess it helps explain how the 1% hang onto their power. And how people think that Jared Kushner has such a wide ranging expertise.

by Anonymousreply 148May 24, 2020 3:49 AM

Egads! I had in mind the term, "rubric", before even knowing what one was. We need a rubric, that is, a matrix of guidelines, for assessing whom we will admit to our colleges!

There's even another term for this that I can't think of. It means a formula for selecting the entire participant list.

by Anonymousreply 149May 24, 2020 4:57 AM

White people doing white things to feel better about being white.

More clownery posing as social justice!

by Anonymousreply 150May 24, 2020 4:59 AM

R149 No my plan would be color blind. I'm saying, use SATs, high school performance, essay, etc. It would be totally fair and perfectly blended.

I have no idea why the smart people at colleges haven't done this already. Give the opportunity to succeed to those who have proven to succeed. SATs are important, but not 100% or even 50% of the perfect formula for admitting.

by Anonymousreply 151May 24, 2020 5:08 AM

R119, remember, the SATs aren’t an absolute predictor of how you’ll do at ANY college, they’re more of a predictor of how you’ll do relative to the rest of the student body with a median SAT score. If you get a 1200 SAT and you go to a college where the median SAT of students is 1200, you’re likely to do just fine.

by Anonymousreply 152May 24, 2020 5:43 AM

R124, I think you mean ATTRITION.

by Anonymousreply 153May 24, 2020 5:45 AM

No, I think "retention study" or "retention percentage". I jnow there's a word for it because I was interested in researching for various colleges, the dropout rates were vs. the graduate completion rates. It was an eye-opener because of the sheer amount of waste- wasted effort, wasted money, wasted dreams. But thanks.

by Anonymousreply 154May 24, 2020 6:00 AM

On private tutors:

From 1981 to 1990, three separate analyses of all the prior studies were published in peer-reviewed journals. They found a coaching effect of 9 to 25 points on the SAT Verbal and of 15 to 25 points on the SAT Math. In 2004, Derek Briggs, using the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, found effects of 3 to 20 points for the SAT Verbal and 10 to 28 points for the SAT Math. Donald Powers and Donald Rock, using a nationally representative sample of students who took the SAT after its revisions in the mid-1990s, found an average coaching effect of 6 to 12 points on the SAT Verbal and 13 to 18 points on the SAT Math. Many studies tell nearly identical stories. On average, coaching raises scores by no more than a few dozen points, enough to sway college admissions in exceedingly few cases.

But the coaching business is booming, with affluent parents being the best customers. If the payoff is really so small, why has the market judged coaching to be so successful?

Most obviously, parents who pay for expensive coaching courses ignore the role of self-selection: the students who seem to profit from a coaching course tend to be those who, if the course had not been available, would have worked hard on their own to prepare for the test.

Then parents confuse the effects of coaching with the effect of the basic preparation that students can do on their own. No student should walk into the SAT cold. It makes sense for students to practice some sample items, easily available from school guidance offices and online, and to review their algebra textbook if it has been a few years since they have taken algebra. But once a few hours have been spent on these routine steps, most of the juice has been squeezed out of preparation for the SAT. Combine self-selection artifacts with the role of basic preparation, and you have the reason that independent studies using control groups show such small average gains from formal coaching.

It makes no difference, however, that the charges about coaching are wrong, just as it makes no difference that the whole idea that rich parents can buy their children high SAT scores is wrong. One part of the indictment is true, and that one part overrides everything else: the children of the affluent and well educated really do get most of the top scores. For example, who gets the coveted scores of 700 and higher, putting them in the top half-dozen percentiles of SAT test-takers? Extrapolating from the 2006 data on means and standard deviations reported by the College Board, about half of the 700+ scores went to students from families making more than $100,000 per year. But the truly consequential statistics are these: Approximately 90 percent of the students with 700+ scores had at least one parent with a college degree. Over half had a parent with a graduate degree.

In that glaring relationship of high test scores to advanced parental education, which in turn means high parental IQ, lies the reason that the College Board, politically correct even unto self-destruction, cannot bring itself to declare the truth: the test isn’t the problem. The children of the well educated and affluent get most of the top scores because they constitute most of the smartest kids. They are smart because their parents are smart. The parents have passed their smartness along through parenting practices that are largely independent of education and affluence, and through genes that are completely independent of them.

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by Anonymousreply 155May 24, 2020 9:03 AM

[quote] [R144], you might not realize that those are private schools.

Actually Scarsdale and New Trier are public high schools open to anyone living in the district, and I could have used any number of public high schools in my example.

That makes me question your alleged credentials as does your complete misreading of what I wrote: it is the admissions officers at schools who are going to have a bias in favor of high schools--private AND public that they are familiar with, having sent generations of students their way and they will know that the curriculum and level of competition at those schools means that a kid in the 20th percentile of their class who took AP and other honors classes faced a rigorous curriculum and is well prepared for college.

That is not a call they will be able to make about Dan Quayle High School as they are unfamiliar with the school and its curriculum.

*That* is where the SAT came into play--it was easy for admissions officers to say "this kid had good grades at this high school we have never heard of but that doesn't seem like it offers a very rigorous curriculum AND they had a 1580 on the SAT, that indicates they are indeed very smart."

Is it lazy? Of course--the admissions committees should be doing more diligence and not relying on a test.

But that's how it works.

by Anonymousreply 156May 24, 2020 11:18 AM

[quote]As a non-American, it always struck me as insane how Americans decide a test is biased. If blacks or women don't do as well as whites or men, then the test is flawed. It must be ditched, or items should be eliminated until scores become more equal. It feels almost like shooting the messenger -- as if, by destroying the evidence of differences, the differences themselves disappeared.

All Americans know that. We're just not allowed to say it, at least in public.

by Anonymousreply 157May 24, 2020 11:25 AM

I took the SAT twice and went up a 100 points the second time. I wasn't satisfied with my first score and so used a common study book that anyone could buy or read at the library. I had no coaching or help from anyone. The score is a good representation of innate abilities and the willingness to put some effort into getting a better score. There will always be excuses for people who aren't willing to take responsibility for themselves.

by Anonymousreply 158May 24, 2020 11:35 AM

Any standard is going to have bias built in. That is just how it is. The question is what biases are we willing to tolerate and which ones do we want to eliminate.

To claim that there is no bias in any standard for admission is just foolish.

R151, guess what? Schools do that, but the issue is that they tend to weigh heavily indicators (like the SAT) that insure the well-to-do continue to have an advantage.

The ACT was created to correct the bias of the SAT. But like the SAT it also has limitations and biases.

There are schools that have made the SAT or ACT optional or request that no SAT be sent to them. And they are doing just fine. Bryn Mahr, Sarah Lawrence, Smith, Wesleyan, etc. are test optional.

Test flexible school require some tests but allow a choice. (For example AP or IB scores can be submitted). These include Brandeis, Middlebury, NYC,

There has been a trend away from standardized tests for admission, but the College Board is doing all it can to hang onto its business. But the trend has made it a lot easier for schools to waive standardized tests during this period. The question everyone is asking is will they come back? Or will they come back in the same form?

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by Anonymousreply 159May 24, 2020 12:35 PM

More than 50 percent of students are females who don't use degree. Rest r Jews or Asians. University should be to train American males. Keep cheering the genocide of Americans

by Anonymousreply 160May 24, 2020 2:47 PM

The entire system of elite college admissions is bullshit. Separate their STEM colleges and let the rest be burned to the ground.

by Anonymousreply 161May 24, 2020 3:36 PM

These tests changed my life.

I grew up on welfare and food stamps, was 3rd in my mediocre high school class (but with good APs), was being counseled toward one of the Ohio Five or an in-state school. Nailed both tests and went Ivy (with Pell Grants and scholarships) and never looked back.

A lot of people shit on them, for legitimate reasons, but if you've read The Big Test, you can see how they also played a positive role in social mobility, now gone in a world of test-prep and cheating.

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by Anonymousreply 162May 24, 2020 3:49 PM

What about the students whose parents pay someone else to take the test? That's been going on for years.

by Anonymousreply 163May 24, 2020 3:53 PM

R162, the rest of your record would have probably done almost as well or as well without the SAT.

Though it worked out for you, statistically the SAT does not seem to favor social mobility.

The book you cite, The Big Test itself points out that the test favors the affluent.

The Big Test notes that though intended as a force for social mobility the SAT is that only for a very limited number of young people. The blurb at the link says the test " does not apportion opportunity equally or fairly." It also says that this book is partially responsible for the movement of colleges to discard the SAT.

by Anonymousreply 164May 24, 2020 4:18 PM

As posted above, the reason the test favors the children of affluent parents is not because they’re rich, but because they have the smart genes.

It wasn’t always this way. Back in 1960, IQ wasn’t as stratified by SES as it is today and the student bodies were more economically diverse. As more and more colleges started admitting more and more high IQ students, gradually, the demographics shifted and colleges became more economically homogenous. All the high IQ people from poor families moved upwardly economically and their offspring inherited their smart genes.

Charles Murray writes about this phenomena in his book Coming Apart, which talks about how over the decades, college graduates (particularly Ivy League graduates) are forming their own enclaves. College graduates marry other college graduates, they live in neighborhoods with other college graduates, and they form their own culture that is distinctly separate from the uneducated, and they pass that culture (and genes) on to their children.

by Anonymousreply 165May 24, 2020 5:15 PM

R165 which I am fine with. It's fashionable these days to paint your scenario as inherently bad.

by Anonymousreply 166May 24, 2020 5:18 PM

Enough with the excuses as to why one can't do well on the SAT's. Performance on the SAT's is part intelligence and part study.

Most high schools have the AVID program for students who want to go to college. Students have college tutors come in twice a week who help them with math primarily. AVID classes also provide SAT and ACT test prep.

Today's students have access to Khan Academy and Youtube and countless other study and learning tools that we didn't have in high school.

by Anonymousreply 167May 24, 2020 5:29 PM

R167 exactly. when I took it , we just more or less showed up that day for testing and the results were what they were. I had 1100 cumulative, so not exceptional but good enough. No prepping for the test was available

by Anonymousreply 168May 24, 2020 5:44 PM

When I showed up for my AP English exam, I was surprised that students from other schools had an AP English class to prepare for the test.

My school always told us you could not prepare for standardized tests.

by Anonymousreply 169May 24, 2020 5:47 PM

The same people who are for this type of “racial justice” shit are the same ones that would rail against big business and the high cost of education.

Guess what, sugartits? This noble endeavor to uplift “communities of color” is a BUSINESS DECISION to throw more people into the meat grinder and make more money for the colleges and universities. Nothing more.

All about money. And dumbshit do-gooders fall for it due to a dearth of critical thinking skills.

by Anonymousreply 170May 24, 2020 5:48 PM

Any of us working in higher education knows that the money is not getting eaten up by funding given to minority students but rather by funding spent on the affluent students.

Luxury student housing, lazy rivers, etc. and a platoon of administrators used like customer service reps to support affluent students who are used to being catered to are where all the money is going.

by Anonymousreply 171May 24, 2020 7:04 PM

There are a lot of useless administration positions at colleges these days, it's true.

by Anonymousreply 172May 24, 2020 7:21 PM

Exactly, R170, exactly girlfriend!!

by Anonymousreply 173May 25, 2020 12:50 AM

I hope this thread will continue. I find it interesting. I'm the mediocre in everything poster who got about 1100 also on the SAT and happy I even did that well. I grew up poor, but had pretty smart parents. I still think the SAT should play some part in the selevtion process.

Look how many do not finish college! The numbers are shameful. I find it hard to believe only wealthy families have the smartest children, lol.

by Anonymousreply 174May 25, 2020 4:24 AM

I took the SAT when I was 17 in 1999. I only got about a 1050, nothing impressive. I had bought test prep software, but I didn’t progress very far or practice very much on it. I wasn’t particularly motivated to work on it.

Between 2016-2017, I took the LSAT three times when I was 35, and I got a 162 on my third try, which was in the 85th percentile. I was very motivated preparing for the LSAT and spent months practicing. I also paid for an effective online course which diagnosed my weak areas. I also think I was a lot more intelligent at 35 than I was at 17.

Now I’m almost 39 and preparing for the Bar Exam.

by Anonymousreply 175May 25, 2020 4:33 AM

If you read the book, R164, you'll find the second half does come to this conclusion, but in the beginning, the tests did lift promising poor rural white students out of limited circumstances, from the early 50s (e.g., Bill Clinton) to the late 70s (when I took them). I believe they could have been salvaged in some way, but I'm not sure how as secondary education wasn't my field of study.

I was one of very few in my school ever to leave our state for university. Without the test scores, I'm sure that would not have happened. I would have been told to stay local, major in business administration or accounting, and be happy I didn't wind up in a factory or farm job.

by Anonymousreply 176May 25, 2020 4:50 AM

(R175) Good luck on your exam. I assume that you are taking BarBri? The bar exam is more of an endurance test than anything. When I took it in California, it was a whole 3 days of testing!

by Anonymousreply 177May 25, 2020 5:18 AM

R177, I’m taking Themis.

I’m taking the Washington Exam. It’s only two days,

I’ve heard that California is harder, though. But why is it three days? Is one day supposed to be the California law component? In Washington, that is done online.

by Anonymousreply 178May 25, 2020 6:30 AM

(R178) CA was 3 days in the 1990's. Now it's two. You have to get yourself in the zone those two days of testing, and you'll do fine.

by Anonymousreply 179May 25, 2020 6:42 AM

R176, but that is not about the test as an admissions tool. That was about the staff of your high school's attitudes, which broke down because they venerated your test score. It is sad they gave that more respect than your grades and even the other standardized tests you took.

And sad to say, there are many high scoring students in rural and underesourced regions who score high on the SAT and still do not get encouragement to go out of state for school. In Paul Roughs book (which is in my office so I cannot cite his reference), he talks about a program aimed at students such as you were to let them know they could apply to schools anywhere.

My school was the same. I had an older sister who was a genius who encouraged me to apply to better schools. But my high school never did. And we were always told that you could not study for standardized tests. I did not know that there were prep courses.

But trying to solve the issue of high school counselors putting limits on their students ambitions though the SAT is inefficient and does not get at the root of the problem.

by Anonymousreply 180May 25, 2020 1:25 PM
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