Why is the university of California dropping the SAT? • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by Businesshabit » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

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.

GOOD

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

#92

Post by failwhaleshark » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

UCD 2009 CS&E alum.

This is as dumb as when California threw away phonics or when it forced longer-distance busing of white and Asian kids to inner-city schools.

I took the SAT-I (1600) without studying and got a 780 on the math section. How is math racist?

If some schools suck, fix the schools.

If some kids aren't getting enough to eat, feed them.

If some kids aren't in an environment where they have everything they need, put them in quality foster care.

It's not a feel-good, quick fix to lower the bar because it leads to a sense of entitlement, lower confidence, lower competence, and ruins an educational system that the world may decide its not worth sending their students to. If this is normalized, then academia becomes a center of victimhood codependency rather than a center of knowledge, accomplishment, and excellence.

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

#93

Post by jlangemeier » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

Higher Ed Number cruncher here (who also read the report, which apparently was a big deal to the author since they cited the page count - and many of their arguments hinge on you taking their word for it and not reading at least the exec summary yourself - which is only 8 pages):

So, fun thing about the actual study that the author references... the committee actually __DIDN'T__ tell UC regents to not get rid of the test; they recommended against making it test optional due to variability in assessment requirements between institutions - and the exec summary doesn't include any recommendation for or against fully excising standardized testing from their eval process.

Further, the committee found that while the tests over HSGPA (high test score, low GPA) weighting was used in a subset of cases it was more likely that a student was admitted with just the opposite (low test score, high GPA); and overall it looks like the strongest recommendation was to disincentivize the HSGPA due to it losing almost 25% predictive effectiveness over the tested time period.

This article reads fine until it gets to the last couple of paragraphs, covering "affirmative action" and over-representation of AAPI students; and this is where a glaring issue comes through with their analysis. Like any higher ed institution there is a monetary incentive to get international students; as there isn't usually an out for lower tuition like WUE/WGE (which coincidentally the UC system no longer participates in), interstate compact agreements, and the like for tuition reduction; and the home country in many cases subsidizes the student so the higher ed institution gets full out-of-state tuition rates on a nearly guaranteed basis. So, by using AAPI students as a proxy argument for their weird screed at the end while leaving off factors like what percentage of that UG population is in-state v. out-of-state v. international does a disservice to that over/under-represented claim; while also leaving them off of the earlier analysis pieces moves the slant of the article in a weird way.

For further reference; AAPI students are __NOT__ included in Underrepresented Minority (URM) calculations - even though in many cases a layperson __WOULD__ include them; so by not mentioning them until you reach the point you're calling out the discrepancy they end up begging the question around the "model minority" bs; when it really may be explained more concretely through international and out of state student draw.

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

#94

Post by snakeboy » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

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%.

The equilibrium state in this scenario would be all public schools approaching equivalence, which would be a positive outcome.

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

#95

Post by namelessoracle » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

rscoots wrote: post #54

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.

Im kinda curious what exact "character-forging aspects of life as a poor teenager" lead to not just better school outcomes but better life outcomes in general?

The only thing that comes to mind is possibly empathy towards the less fortunate, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to result in better life outcomes for a person in our modern society. But let me stress "possibly" because there seems to be plenty of examples of people who dont have any kind of empathy towards others who grew up as poor teenagers.

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

#96

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

pie420 wrote: post #5

warent wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California is crumbling, socially. Have you seen the homelessness epidemic from San Fransisco and everywhere south? I work in a lucrative upper engineering management role and still cannot afford to buy a house... That's not really an indicator of a healthy state.

Then ask for a raise. Two people making $140k should easily be able to save up $400k in 5-8 years for a mortgage down payment. And single people don't need an entire house.

[deleted]

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

#97

Post by sct202 » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

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?

I think it would incentivize making sure your lower ranked peers stay in school to pad out the ranking more than sabotage. IDK how you would even sabotage effectively, but I can think of a lot of ways to help your peers stay in school.

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

#98

Post by justaman » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

seriousquestion wrote: post #30

walkedaway wrote: post #11

Thomas Sowell has broken this down very well over the last 50 years. https://www.hoover.org/research/affirmative-action-around-wo... https://www.commentary.org/articles/thomas-sowell-2/affirmat... And of course the Bible on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/Discrimination-Disparities-Thomas-Sow...

Thomas Sowell is easily in the top 5 intellectuals alive, and yet most people are barely aware of him and his work. Why? I genuinely don't understand why he is so ignored.

The left doesn't like a black man with right-wing ideas so he doesn't appear in mainstream avenues which are typically moderated by the left.

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

#99

Post by BitwiseFool » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #71

usaar333 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

University Presidents and Trustees have this bizarre fixation on rankings. I have no clue why, especially considering the fact that that composition of the top 100 is fairly stable. Rarely does a university experience a big swing, up or down. Most universities are never going to dethrone the top 20, no matter how hard they try. And it's not like they are in desperate need for enrollment either.

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

#100

Post by usaar333 » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #71

usaar333 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed, but that argument is more relevant to argue along the lines of how many in-state vs. out-of-state/international students you can educate. (Even then it's murky -- I can argue the international students both bring additional funding and add diversity which improves the learning experiences of in-state students).

Regardless, the argument here is simply which people they select. Assuming they hold 90% of spots for Texans (required by law), it's just a question of how they select people. The university wants to select the strongest students holistically (which some additional diversification criteria) - the state wants it to select the top 7% of students from every high school. Even if you argue the people are owed a state education, either criterion is a valid way to select the students that attend.