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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?

#71

Post by ethbr0 »

usaar333 wrote: post #37
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…

It's top 7% now and it has a holistic system to handle students outside that cohort. The reason this exists is that it's effectively an affirmative action program for both urban segregated schools and rural schools, which combined have enough political power to pull this off. I believe political dynamics in CA wouldn't allow for this to be constructed - note that suburbs in general fight against such policies. UT its…

> reducing its rank

Do universities exist for students? Or do students exist for universities?

I'm sure university administration believe the latter, but given that they're supported by the state (in UT's case, ~25% of their budget?) there's a pretty strong argument that they owe the people of the state education.

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

#72

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

srswtf123 wrote: post #55
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.

As noted in the sibling comment - this has already been implemented in Texas for almost 30 years now. While studying the outcomes and the way it was implemented is an exercise for the reader, it's hardly the silver bullet your comment makes it out to be.

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

#74

Post by Causality1 »

Aligning enrollment with state demographics would require cutting the share of those students by almost two-thirds.

My best friend growing up was Korean. I saw firsthand the amount of effort he put into his studies. Why should we allow any institution to invalidate his work because our culture produces lazier, dumber students? Why should we artificially prop up patterns of thought and behavior that have negative effects on the people subjected to it?

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

#75

Post by namelessoracle »

criddell wrote: post #17

The author doesn't spend much time arguing why the tests should be kept. This is one defense and it feels pretty weak to me: > standardized test scores say more about which applicants are likely to earn a degree and to do it in less than eight years; they also correlate strongly with students’ GPA at the university

"this metric shows better than the one they want to go with who will actually succeed" is a weak defense? What would a strong one look like?

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

#76

Post by renewiltord »

Aperocky wrote: post #19
lokar wrote: post #6

There is no real evidence for the idea that a difference in scores predicts a difference in performance, once you are above some threshold. They should keep the test, but use a threshold (per major and school) with a lottery for everyone above the threshold. And admit a small number below at random to keep evaluating what the threshold should be.

I don't understand why lottery are used so much in official context. Instead of the best, you select randomly and hoping RNGesus is on your side. I agree about the threshold, but how about using other criterias instead of RNG.

The idea of the randomness is to calibrate your criteria against general population. I wonder if it works.

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

#77

Post by thebradbain »

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.

UT Austin is one of the most prestigious public universities in the nation, the Texas equivalent to UC Berkeley. Texas just strictly limits how many from out of state can come (also, in state tuition is only $5000/semester, so it heavily incentives even the wealthy / those who can achieve a Harvard or, say, Pomona College admission to attend). Full disclosure: I did not attend UT Austin.

Also. as someone who grew up in Texas and now lives in California, I can tell you the UT System has more than its fair share of gaming attempts -- as such, you're ineligible for the automatic-in based on rankings if you switch schools in the last 2 years (i.e. you need to get in holistically), and those who attend private high schools also need to get in holistically (because top private schools got caught saying more than 7% of their students were in the top 7% and have non-state-standardized ranking criteria). Granted, being automatically admitted to one of the UT schools via rankings often does _not_ mean admission to UT Austin, but rather a satellite campus.

It's a decently progressive and fair system.

https://news.utexas.edu/2020/06/18/new-ranking-puts-ut-austi...

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

#78

Post by sokoloff »

Causality1 wrote: post #43
Aperocky wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The overwhelming majority of towns do not impose an income tax and presumably the property tax would be the same regardless of whether a "typical" or "college admissions gaming" resident lived there. The only small difference in tax income to the town would be any minuscule difference in excise taxes on vehicles or local sales tax. Do you have a larger difference in tax income to the town in mind that I'm not seeing?

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

#79

Post by PEJOE »

Manuel_D wrote: post #67
rootusrootus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's an upside if you're looking to be equitable.

Not necessarily. Wealthier parents are more mobile, and can move residences such that their children are in the top 10%.

You're losing the forest for the trees. Wealthier parents most often send their children to good private schools, and their children have lots of options for college if they are talented and hard working.

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

#80

Post by usaar333 »

This is not a particularly strong article. Here's a much more data-backed one arguing similar points (though still with some bias): https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/you-arent-actually-mad-...

Issues with this particular article (addressed by above):

* It's ignoring the racial gap in SAT scores (and other standardized tests) that exists even after controlling for family income. A large part of the political narrative here (including the university backing Prop 16 which would allow it to consider race) is coming from this fact, not just the income gap in itself (Note that I don't think the university ever took the position that the tests were per se discriminatory, which the author claims).

* It's not really defining what "worst" school means; you need to be careful here as you might just be saying the tautological "students at schools with low-performing students on average on low performing". It's making the common claim these schools are underfunded, but on average, lower performing schools are receiving more money. (Example from LA - http://www.laalmanac.com/education/ed04m.php -- LAUSD, which some of the lowest ranking schools, is well over average funding - areas with top schools - e.g. Arcadia - get the least). Perhaps the author means "underfunded schools relative to what I think they should get", but that's a different statement.

* UC admission data for 2021 is out (https://ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/co...), so it's possible to start objectively assessing the impact of the policy.

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