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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?

#171

Post by curryst »

throwaway284534 wrote: post #82
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas actually has a system like this - it's called recapture - or more colloquially, the "Robin Hood law". You can read more here on how it has actually played out in its implementation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_plan

That’s a very interesting read, thank you. It’s a shame that the law only applied in full effect for 10 years. That’s barely enough time to fix a generation of students.

It's not solely isolated to funding. Baltimore is the 3rd highest per-student spender in the US, and has terrible outcomes.

I don't doubt that funding is part of it, but there's definitely some more nuance to it.

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

#172

Post by brailsafe »

41209 wrote: post #81

For one , you don't need to go straight to college , or attend college at all. Even before I got my BA I was making more than the Ivy League Alum in my family. That's the first myth. California has what's probably the best community college system in America. It was very easy for me, as a poor kid to meet ( and at times date) people from all over the world. Maybe you dropped out of high school due to just not liking…

Amen

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

#173

Post by throwaway0a5e »

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%.

In practice they want nothing to do with the poors so they cluster into "good" school districts.

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

#174

Post by criddell »

namelessoracle wrote: post #75
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?

The metric is basically just confirming that people who are good at writing tests in high school continue to be good at tests in college.

If a college thinks an SAT is not a good way to judge candidates, maybe tests in general aren't a good way to evaluate their own students.

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

#175

Post by jfengel »

dahfizz wrote: post #152
charlesju wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given 2 equally smart people. The one that has the opportunity to take more AP/Honors will have more opportunity to get a higher GPA.

And as a result, the person who took more Honors classes will be "more educated" (assuming the Honors / AP classes succeed in their stated goal). Therefore, the student that took the Honors classes is more competitive. It comes back to the question of what universities should prioritize. Should they be optimizing for the fairest / most equal student body, or the most gifted / competitive student body?

More educated and more competitive are not the same thing.

What you want is the most talented, hardest working, brightest students. That's difficult to discern given the differences in the availability of opportunity. Scaling for availability is hard.

But it is clear that just selecting for the students who succeeded in the best environment will leave you missing out on potential. And worse, that rapidly becomes self-reinforcing, since the next generation of students will be influenced by your choices on this one.

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

#176

Post by freeopinion »

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.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth my U.S. state tried to stem the brain drain to out-of-state universities. They offered big money scholarships to anybody who graduated in their school's top ten. The higher the rank, the more money.

This was pre-internet, but people still tracked rankings across the state. One kid would transfer schools to bump their rank two spots. That would cascade to a flurry of transfers. All the top students knew where their GPA would place them in every other high school in the state and everybody was watching for movement. Eventually, they capped the program to be based on your rank midway through senior year to prevent 100s of transfers in the last month of the school year before graduation. Which of course, just moved the activity to the last month in the semester before the last semester before graduation. But then you had to maintain your GPA in the new school for a whole semester, so it involved more risk.

Now that I've told this whole story, let me say that none of it is true. Or, at least, I don't really know how much of it is true. I do know that it was the buzz among students when I was in school. I never entered that world very deeply. I'm pretty sure that it did happen a bit. Probably not as much as it was talked about.

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

#177

Post by enraged_camel »

zozbot234 wrote: post #119
enraged_camel wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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…

> They affect the middle class much more than the poor (who often aren't homeowners) and the rich (who can afford high tax rates) Absolutely not. The burden of property taxes falls largely on the capitalized asset-value of real estate, so a typical middle-class household can offset much of that burden by paying for a smaller mortgage in the first place. And poor renters largely benefit by not having to pay local inco…

Property taxes are fundamentally regressive because if two individuals in the same tax jurisdiction live in properties with the same values, they pay the same amount of property tax, regardless of their incomes. That's the literal distinction between progressive and regressive taxation. The fact that the middle class household can offset the burden by getting a smaller place is quite irrelevant.

In addition, it's erroneous to think that property taxes are shouldered by landlords. They are, in fact, passed on to renters.

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

#178

Post by tastyfreeze »

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…

That wont work. Increasing funding of a school does not improve quality. Allowing families to choose what school they go to, and as a result which school they fund, forces schools to compete on quality or go out of business. The only arguments I have heard against school choice are from teacher's unions that claim that nobody would go to their school if they had a choice. Good! That means you are failing at your job. You should go out of business.

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

#179

Post by freeopinion »

stanford_labrat wrote: post #118
mattpratt wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience the more common narrative was gaming the system to keep your GPA high. AP/DC/Advanced classes are typically shifted a GPA point up. For example, you may not take an elective (Photography) because getting the top grade in the class would still drop your overall GPA. Despite Spanish being available in middle school, our valedictorian waited until high school because it would count a point higher -- by…

My favorite example of this is a CISCO/networking class offered at my old high school. It counted as 2 classes when it came to calculating your GPA...and accordingly was supposed to take up 2 "slots" on your schedule. However it didn't and instead the 2nd slot was always after school, which nobody went to anyways. So it allowed you to fit N+1 AP classes into what would normally be a N class schedule and gave a major…

In our school district they have multiple tiers: normal classes, honor classes, AP classes, college classes. It amuses me that AP classes are weighted higher than college classes. That is, it would just amuse me if it didn't affect my children.

So students can take a college class, get an A, and receive college credit. Or they can take an AP class, get an A, then take an exam that might determine whether they get college credit. Why take an AP English class when you could just take College Freshman English? Because the AP class will be better for your GPA.

I get to see first hand when advisers are sticking a kid in an AP Government class that is completely pointless instead of the Honors Biology class for GPA reasons. Never mind that the kid wants to be a botonist or marine biologist or anesthesiologist. We don't have room for that. We have to maximize their GPA. Stick them in AP English instead of normal Stats even if they could be in Stats and normal English and are more interested in Stats.

If your kid didn't take the Honors Ag class as a freshman, they're already mathematically eliminated. They will never recover the additional 0.025 point GPA advantage. There are only 64 academic slots available in a four year schedule. There are are 32 highest weighted classes, 16 mid-weights, and 24 low-weights. Only four of those can be taken as a freshman. If you miss just one opportunity, you're out.

So you have a 4.0/4.0 GPA, 4.625/4.75 weighted GPA, and a class ranking of 53.

And hopefully a support group that helped you understand and choose what is most important in life.

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

#180

Post by flowerlad »

In most countries students apply to just 1 or 2 colleges. Because college admissions are predictable in other countries. In the US students apply to a dozen or more colleges, and each college requires custom essays. Then these applications go through "holistic reviews". In reality, because of the huge volume of applications, colleges spend 6 to 8 minutes reviewing each application, and the reviewer is often an inexperienced 22-year-old graduate student.

The system of "holistic reviews" and unpredictability was introduced to control the number of Jewish people being admitted to top universities. More here: https://circles.page/5680a56b5c28af0998656e09/College-Admiss...

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