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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?

#201

Post by fortran77 »

sjg007 wrote: post #198
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 n…

The linked article may give you another point of view.

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

#202

Post by fortran77 »

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…

California has an even better program. If you go to a California community college and have a 2.7 GPA you are guaranteed admission to a CA State University.

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

#203

Post by 1980phipsi »

charlesju wrote: post #89
dahfizz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

If you have a weighted GPA...

Also, GPA is not a great measure of student quality. IRT [1,2] is better.

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/1434976 [2] https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar...

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

#204

Post by jeffbee »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #38
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 am a Texas resident (born here and also graduated from high school in Texas) and would like to point out that it's not just UT, every state school (the other big ones with a decent amount of competition are Texas Tech and Texas A&M) follows this policy. In actuality, it appears that because the demand is so high for UT they have had to lower the number to 6%: https://news.utexas.edu/key-issues/top-10-percent-law/ T…

Aside from quantization errors for high school classes with fewer than 16 students, why would it be easier to get the top 6% in a rural school?

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

#205

Post by hotcold »

sjg007 wrote: post #198
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 n…

Hey man, totally agree. Instead let's just give IQ tests, because test prep doesn't help. Uhuh, whoops, those are racist too.

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

#206

Post by karpierz »

stale2002 wrote: post #144
lostcolony wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I am explicitly pointing out that even if you learn everything taught in class 100%, and get perfect grades in it, you may not be eligible for some advanced classes. It requires outside investment. And then the advanced classes give you a leg up in terms of college admissions if GPA is a guaranteed entry point. That means the grade inflation of AP classes just serves as an indirect proxy for money, rather than a…

> It requires outside investment. So if you engage in more and better education, above and beyond the education that one is engaging in school, then that person will be better at education? Yes, of course. Just like if someone practices basketball, outside of their school team, and hires a basketball tutor, then they would become better at basketball. Obviously, if someone spends more of their own time on something,…

The investment GP is talking about is money.

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

#207

Post by 908B64B197 »

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.

Replacing the SAT by a "Holistic" process is a convenient way to impose a quota on some groups judged problematic. To directly quote the article:

"There is only one group of students who are “overrepresented,” to use the chilling language of social engineering, at the university: Asian Americans. Twelve percent of K–12 students are Asian or Pacific Islander, compared with 34 percent of UC undergraduates. Aligning enrollment with state demographics would require cutting the share of those students by almost two-thirds. It would mean getting right with contemporary concepts of anti-racism by reviving one of California’s most shameful traditions: clearing Asians out of desirable spaces.

[...]

The UC has an established history in this dirty art. In the 1960s, Asian enrollment at UC Berkeley was strong, and it soared through the ’70s. But in the ’80s, it plummeted mysteriously. Berkeley was investigated by the Department of Education, and in 1989, the chancellor apologized and pledged that this would never happen again."

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

#208

Post by [deleted] »

sjg007 wrote: post #198
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 n…

[deleted]

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

#209

Post by failwhaleshark »

genedan wrote: post #137
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'm from Texas, went to UT when it had the 10% rule. It was a problem for kids who went to competitive/affluent schools that were so competitive that one or two Bs would put you out of the running. So you would get some lopsided scenarios where some kids would get into MIT but also be rejected from Texas because the standards were that high. Meanwhile the valedictorian of a bad school with a 900 SAT score would get i…

Disclaimer: I'm in ATX around UT.

The high school I went to was public but it had 15 perfect SAT scores in my grade, numerous full rides to Harvard, and such. Good luck with getting into the top 10% of that.

A fairer way would be to rank the top 10% of students statewide by SAT/ACT and GPA.

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

#210

Post by svachalek »

MathYouF wrote: post #191
zepto wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pub…

Well, assuming this also moves funding this may actually do wonders for balancing out the system. And there may be some benefits to all the students, in seeing how the other half lives, making more advanced classes available in poorer neighborhoods, etc.
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