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Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

theatlantic.com

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Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

#41

Post by briliantbrandon »

ryan93 wrote: post #27
pfisherman wrote: post #15

I think the University of Texas has one of simplest and most egalitarian admissions policies that I have seen. If you graduate in the top 10 percent of your class, then you are guaranteed admission to all state funded universities. As a Californian I find it quite ironic that many policies in “conservative” Texas (ex. university admissions, property tax, income tax) are more much more progressive than what we have in…

Top 6% now FWIW

Yeah I wanted to point this out. In Texas it is the top 10% for every public university except the University of Texas at Austin which varies the percentage from year to year depending on the expected number of applicants. 6% is the lowest I have seen it. I believe it was 8% the year I was accepted.

Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

#43

Post by Causality1 »

Aperocky wrote: post #28
pfisherman wrote: post #15

I think the University of Texas has one of simplest and most egalitarian admissions policies that I have seen. If you graduate in the top 10 percent of your class, then you are guaranteed admission to all state funded universities. As a Californian I find it quite ironic that many policies in “conservative” Texas (ex. university admissions, property tax, income tax) are more much more progressive than what we have in…

All system can be gamed. I guess UT isn't that prestigious to create strong enough incentives. Imagine if Harvard said you'd get admission if you're top 1% of the class. Imagine how many parent would just stick their kid into the worst school for 1-2 years to get that. California just made it very hard to game.

That wouldn't be a good thing? Students are assigned to schools based on their address. To put their kid in a bad school would require moving into a bad neighborhood. That means the poor town gets more tax money, which all the students benefit from.

Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

#44

Post by wavefunction »

pfisherman wrote: post #15

I think the University of Texas has one of simplest and most egalitarian admissions policies that I have seen. If you graduate in the top 10 percent of your class, then you are guaranteed admission to all state funded universities. As a Californian I find it quite ironic that many policies in “conservative” Texas (ex. university admissions, property tax, income tax) are more much more progressive than what we have in…

The problem arises when most of them want to attend UT-Austin rather than UT-El Paso or UT-Permian Basin or UT-Rio Grande. And as noted by others the threshold had to be revised downwards from 10%. I personally believe you can receive an excellent education from most institutions but there's prestige associated with UT-Austin that isn't with the satellite campuses.

Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

#45

Post by klyrs »

josephcsible wrote: post #29
pfisherman wrote: post #15

I think the University of Texas has one of simplest and most egalitarian admissions policies that I have seen. If you graduate in the top 10 percent of your class, then you are guaranteed admission to all state funded universities. As a Californian I find it quite ironic that many policies in “conservative” Texas (ex. university admissions, property tax, income tax) are more much more progressive than what we have in…

> If you graduate in the top 10 percent of your class, then you are guaranteed admission to all state funded universities. Aren't most schools small enough that this incentivizes sabotaging classmates to boost your relative rank?

That would be a ton of work (liable to expose the plot) unless you're right at the threshold and you know who's immediately in front of you.

Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

#46

Post by zumu »

MikeUt wrote: post #7

> Here are some more of the fiercely held arguments for dumping the tests: Test scores don’t reflect the character-forging aspects of life as a poor teenager; the tests force students from underfunded schools to compete against “affluent whites” who can afford expensive test prep; While the article does offer some rebuttal to that claim, I'd like to give a stronger one*: California is 31% white, University of Califor…

Does anyone else think the % of the student body metric is misleading? Shouldn't it be a % relative to college age population?

Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

#47

Post by wavefunction »

akomtu wrote: post #36
pfisherman wrote: post #15

I think the University of Texas has one of simplest and most egalitarian admissions policies that I have seen. If you graduate in the top 10 percent of your class, then you are guaranteed admission to all state funded universities. As a Californian I find it quite ironic that many policies in “conservative” Texas (ex. university admissions, property tax, income tax) are more much more progressive than what we have in…

The top 10 percent policy is a merit based system and the most recent flavor of "progressivism" says that merit based systems are racist and should be abolished. Lottery and quota based admissions is what considered progressive today.

This reads like a straw man argument.

Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

#48

Post by SavantIdiot »

pfisherman wrote: post #15

I think the University of Texas has one of simplest and most egalitarian admissions policies that I have seen. If you graduate in the top 10 percent of your class, then you are guaranteed admission to all state funded universities. As a Californian I find it quite ironic that many policies in “conservative” Texas (ex. university admissions, property tax, income tax) are more much more progressive than what we have in…

Well, there are problems with that right out of the gate.

* Consider a family where the highschool student has to work to help out with rent and food bills, so they miss school or don't have time to work on assignments. Compare this to a wealthier family where the student has all the free time in the world.

* Or consider a district that skews wealthier and tutors push the haves up into the 10%, and push the have nots below. Plenty of the have nots would have hit the 10% threshold if only they had money.

* Or consider being a minority in a very white district that isn't fond of minorities.

These are just a few I've read about off the top of my head. The idea of standardized testing is fair, but only if it is aware of inequities in the system. This has been a debate since the 70's. In fact, the popular TV show "Diff'rent Strokes" did an episode about systemic racism in standardized testing the early 1980's.

I'm not arguing if Cali has it right or wrong, but there are problems with using just testing.

Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

#49

Post by usaar333 »

Aperocky wrote: post #28
pfisherman wrote: post #15

I think the University of Texas has one of simplest and most egalitarian admissions policies that I have seen. If you graduate in the top 10 percent of your class, then you are guaranteed admission to all state funded universities. As a Californian I find it quite ironic that many policies in “conservative” Texas (ex. university admissions, property tax, income tax) are more much more progressive than what we have in…

All system can be gamed. I guess UT isn't that prestigious to create strong enough incentives. Imagine if Harvard said you'd get admission if you're top 1% of the class. Imagine how many parent would just stick their kid into the worst school for 1-2 years to get that. California just made it very hard to game.

Well, UC doesn't consider your skin color in said evaluation (the evaluation criteria is constructed in a weigh that does boost racial diversity, but that's different from considering at the individual criteria), and it has similar gaming dynamics.

As the article notes, you absolutely can go to a weaker high school to boost your chance into a UC (parents can also try dropping their income lower to boost their kids as well). Though, neither might not be a good strategy for the long-run anyway.

Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

#50

Post by danaris »

dahfizz wrote: post #23
charlesju wrote: post #12

Isn't GPA even easier to game than SATs? -- Private schools can curve more leniently so its pay to play -- Rich schools tend to have more AP/Honor courses which inflate weighted GPAs I went to one of the best public schools in America and it was not uncommon for someone to take 100% AP/Honors and get a 4.5+ GPA.

I don't see how taking more advanced classes and scoring well is "gaming" your GPA. You are legitimately taking harder / more in depth classes and performing well. The fact that your GPA is higher as a result seems legitimate. You can argue about availability of AP classes / funding / etc, but that doesn't detract from the hard work of the AP students. Plenty of rich white kids take hard AP classes and get D's.

In some schools, so I understand, AP and Honors courses come with a "bonus" to GPA—so if you get 100% in the course, it may go down on your transcript as a 110%, that sort of thing.
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