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Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

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

#51

Post by mattpratt »

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…

I'd point out that this only guarantees you admission into the general studies / undeclared school. It can still be difficult and competitive to get into the engineering or business school for example.

A law was passed in 2009 for the University of Texas specifically, that stated "the university must automatically admit enough students to fill 75 percent of available Texas resident spaces" [1]. That 10% number has dwindled down to the top 6%.

As a past automatic admission, I'm horrified hearing stories from coworkers. The process was never stressful for me -- I sent in one application, heard back before the holidays and was done.

[1] https://admissions.utexas.edu/apply/decisions#fndtn-freshman...

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

#52

Post by lozaning »

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.

UC system, back when I applied only let you weight something like 8 classes, regardless of how many you'd taken.

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

#53

Post by [deleted] »

mchristen wrote: post #32
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 downside of that system is that the 10% at one school is definitely not equivalent to the top 10% in another school. When you compare rural school districts to the suburbs of the major cities a kid in the top 10 people at one school might not even rank in the top quarter at another school.

[deleted]

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

#54

Post by rscoots »

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…

>Test scores don’t reflect the character-forging aspects of life as a poor teenager;

One of these two is a better metric for who will actually pass college courses though.

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

#55

Post by srswtf123 »

throwaway284534 wrote: post #35

All this gnashing over test scores and booster programs is just showboating. If states really want to fix poor schools they should make school funding occur at the state level, rather than whichever random zip code you’re born into. Seriously, you can’t justify a wealthier neighborhood being entitled to better schools when they’re public institutions receiving state and federal funds. Evening out this funding is the…

This is the most important task required to fix education.

Its so obvious and it’s never on the table, which tells me everything I need to know about “reformers”.

Until this is done, most everything else it shuffling deck chairs.

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

#56

Post by president »

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.

Presumably, that could be solved by lowering the weight for GPA

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

#57

Post by thomquaid »

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.

Consider there is a major difference in purpose between a State and private educational institution. Prestige is hardly relevant in my view--the purpose is to efficiently allocate state taxpayer resources for the public good of state citizens at UT, as it should be for UC. Harvard and prestige are two tangential things.

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

#58

Post by enraged_camel »

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…

>> 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 “liberal” California.

There isn't much that is progressive about property taxes. They affect the middle class much more than the poor (who often aren't homeowners) and the rich (who can afford high tax rates).

Texas specifically has some of the highest property taxes in the nation, and that's in part because we have no income tax. Income taxes, though, are actually progressive.

Note that Texas's high property tax rates is one of the significant contributors to gentrification.

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

#59

Post by lostcolony »

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.

It's not gaming, per se, but it definitely is a privilege based thing.

Getting into an advanced class generally means you already know the material that would be in the normal class (taking trig the year everyone else is taking geometry, for instance). How did you get to where you already knew that material? Well, you were either in the advanced class the year before, or, you already learned the material outside of class. How did you already learn the material outside of class? Better education at home. Which is easy to do with a private tutor or stay at home parent; really hard to do with a single parent, or dual income that don't allow for much in education expenses.

And because you are in an advanced class, you basically get a .5-1.0 bump to your GPA (so people are graduating with a 4.5 GPA at some schools), all because you had the extra early resources; you can't compete with just what the school provides.

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

#60

Post by BitwiseFool »

vehemenz wrote: post #16
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…

Considering that international students are overwhelmingly nonwhite, I don't think those numbers really hold up. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/fall-enrol...

I know many public universities court international students because they have to pay full price.
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