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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?

#191

Post by MathYouF »

zepto wrote: post #135
Manuel_D wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It seems like you are arguing that wealthy parents move to places with worse schools to make it easier for their kids to be in the top 10%.

This is in fact exactly what happens in Texas. I've met many people who attended UT whose parents or friend's parents did exactly that for the explicit purpose of increasing their chances of their child being in the top 7% of their graduating class so that they could get automatic admission to UT Austin, a very good school to attend compared to the usual options for someone graduaitng #35 in a class of 500 from a public high school with low educational achievement rankings.

They'll often go straight for petroleum engineering if their career path is as calculated during college as it was in high school, and end up with a six figure salaxy at age 22 (not sure this still works as of 2020 given the problems with Houston's gas sector).

For some parents, making sure their child has a sure fire path to the middle class is what they consider their main responsibility, and will do things as crazy as move to a worse school district just to get them on the above track.

If you're as cynical about the value of education (to provide a "job") as the people described, you'll absolutely sacrifice the quality of your kids education (moving to a school with ostensibly less talented or credentialed teachers and possibly less academically gifted peers to learn from and larger class sizes) in order to game the system.

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

#192

Post by fridif »

Don't understand the hate for the SAT. Where I went to school, students would just beg their teachers for better grades and it literally worked.

I did average on my SAT compared to my ex-gf in college (top 30 US school) but I ran a 3.8 in college compared to her being a C student.

Doesn't matter anyway because none of the stuff I learned in college is used in my daily job as a java developer.

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

#193

Post by mountainb »

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 reason being that US conservatism is often a more egalitarian branch of liberalism. In states like California and New York, they're animated by a more hierarchical and traditional type of (small-r) republican politics in which they cultivate client groups which they support through direct cash payments and favored policies.

In California the worthies are untitled hereditary aristocrats who secure political power by accumulating and supporting vast client populations. These clients vote for the aristocratic party and provide it with a patina of moral justification. It is an intensely traditional political form that can be found in other societies going back thousands of years. These aristocrats in turn ensure that big corporate interests get favored tax treatment (often effectively zero tax) while preventing small business competition through hyper regulation. BigCo gets subsidized and pays zero tax, LilCo gets hit with endless demands for paperwork and fines. You can find similar social forms in many societies throughout history: it's not special or unique.

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

#194

Post by jlangemeier »

nyc640 wrote: post #185
jlangemeier wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UC reports international students separately. [sic] The report cited in the article isn't as clear on their distinction and in some cases the numbers indicate that the comparisons are among feeder, in-state high schools; and others are general enough that the lack of detail is concerning as the study leaves out the total population and only provides percentages. > Not in higher ed. While the common/colloquial under…

> The report cited in the article isn't as clear on their distinction and in some cases the numbers indicate that the comparisons are among feeder, in-state high schools; and others are general enough that the lack of detail is concerning as the study leaves out the total population and only provides percentages. You can look at the data[1] yourself. It's clear that of in-state students enrolling in UCs (not internat…

You're literally __NOT__ citing the study used and provided to the regents and which forms the basis for the article.

Again, as I noted to the GP, the study is not clear in all cases what n they are using when calculating their percentages, and the author of the article takes advantage of that.

Further, you're reading a lot into my comments; I am neither advocating for or against changes to given policy, but that the study leaves inconsistencies that the author readily takes advantage of for their own agenda.

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

#196

Post by endisneigh »

analog31 wrote: post #134
PEJOE wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Where I lived in Texas, no middle class family sent their kids to public schools.

Where was this? I highly doubt this is true.

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

#197

Post by frankfrankfrank »

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.

now you are starting to ask extremely uncomfortable questions for the higher education cabal.

Unfortunately, what I suspect is going on with all this high minded "get rid of the SATs" is really going to at least help the universities combat what was an increasing pressure to do pre and post testing to validate or establish the value of a university's program. You cannot as easily gain useful information if you have no pre-test.

The very irony of this is of course that it is a kind of deliberate and manipulative breaking of the scientific process by universities who will simply claim even more profusely that their graduates improve over 4 years of study, without any control of variables.

The only possibility I see to circumvent what may be a devious scheme is for citizens to press state Legislatures to require a pre-test on entry and a post-test on graduation. Expect extreme pushback though because the data that is available strongly indicates that universities are largely not actually conferring the value one may expect. In other words, the quality of the students on entry is the primary determination of the quality of the student on graduation, which seems to hold across the board.

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

#198

Post by sjg007 »

fridif wrote: post #192

Don't understand the hate for the SAT. Where I went to school, students would just beg their teachers for better grades and it literally worked. I did average on my SAT compared to my ex-gf in college (top 30 US school) but I ran a 3.8 in college compared to her being a C student. Doesn't matter anyway because none of the stuff I learned in college is used in my daily job as a java developer.

The SAT is basically institutionalized racism. I think this has been well studied, from its origins until today. If you have the means and money you can get tutored test prep and do significantly better than you would otherwise.

Next on this list will be scholarships and admissions for elite sports. Rowing and gymnastics all favor the wealthy.

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/views/2020/08/17/h...

Maybe we need randomized admissions when kids qualify above a threshold...

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

#200

Post by failwhaleshark »

zdragnar wrote: post #69
SavantIdiot wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What your scenarios describe are students who are not ready / prepared to do as well as their peers in college. You cannot resolve prior inequities by forcing students into college- they drop out at higher rates, with higher (unforgivable!) debts, and word of mouth of their experiences will continue to deter others from trying. I personally witnessed this happen to friends I had made my freshman year at school. The A…

Yep. Packing unprepared students in based on non-merit items (including legacy) and disadvantaging prepared students is absolutely ridiculous. It's bad enough that the standards are low for student athletes because it's all about talent-recruitment business and NCAA $$$, where educational attainment is tertiary.
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