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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?

#251

Post by iammisc »

endisneigh wrote: post #238
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.

I don't understand this comment lol. You say you don't understand the hate for SAT, but then proceed with an example of how you did better than your ex-gf in college despite doing presumably worse on the SAT then her?

No. He's saying that the GPA in college doesn't matter, because he just asked his teacher to raise his grades, and that worked. Whereas his girlfriend was more intelligent by the SAT, but didn't realize this one simple trick.

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

#252

Post by axaxs »

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.

I think it's an important point.

To kinda bounce of your comment and replies, no, I don't think the SAT is racist in any way.

However, I don't think it's a particular useful metric by itself.

I had a near perfect SAT score (sans all this private tutoring people are talking about), but was an absolutely terrible college student. Just wasn't for me, and despite trying twice, I never really got anywhere. I wish I hadn't spent the money. And I hope I didn't prevent someone who was truly more motivated an opportunity in doing so.

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

#253

Post by spoonjim »

option wrote: post #195

I will ask uncomfortable questions here. How will this change affect UC’s competitiveness (as measured by alumni quality) against Tshinghua University (China), or IIT (India), or MSU (Russia). Or we don’t care about that any more?

The top students will remain the top students. The Asian kid who would have gone to UC but now goes to Cal Poly will graduate and completely kick the ass of the UC kid who got in through “holistic” means.

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

#254

Post by dlp211 »

andreilys wrote: post #221
bayesian_horse wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't. The author seems to have a gut-felt conviction that there is no bias or damage in standardized testing or its subsequent use for university admissions.

The problem is that every approach to university admissions will be flawed. Personally I think there should be a lottery system after a certain grade/extracurricular cut-off. The difference at a certain point between students is negligible and a lottery system would help alleviate some bias. Of course there's plenty of things wrong with this approach as well, you're never going to find something that pleases everyone…

I'm not sure of any state universities using a lottery, but some do automatically admit the top N% of students from every high school. For example, U of Texas admits the top top 6% or every high school.

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

#255

Post by ldiracdelta »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #250

I was born in yugoslavia (later slovenia), under the red star, communism, brotherhood, unity, equality, and all other communist bullshit back then. ...and even then we had standardized testing, and it worked. You went to elementary school, usually the closest to your house (from about 6/7yo to 14/15, =8 years), and at the end of that, you'd apply to a highschool of your choice (either general "gymnasium", or 3 or 4 y…

Some people in America don't like SAT's because of "disparate impact"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact

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

#256

Post by jacobolus »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #250

I was born in yugoslavia (later slovenia), under the red star, communism, brotherhood, unity, equality, and all other communist bullshit back then. ...and even then we had standardized testing, and it worked. You went to elementary school, usually the closest to your house (from about 6/7yo to 14/15, =8 years), and at the end of that, you'd apply to a highschool of your choice (either general "gymnasium", or 3 or 4 y…

> IMHO, using grades is worse than testing

Empirically, grades are more predictive of college outcomes than test scores. Both are pretty artificial though, and cause various kinds of perverse incentives.

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

#257

Post by rejectedandsad »

908B64B197 wrote: post #132
Causality1 wrote: post #74

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 effe…

I can only wonder if in a few years some company will have an unspoken rule about scoring candidates, thanks to all the affirmative action and "holistic admissions". With these policies, an Asian male has to be extremely talented to land a spot at a good state school/ivy.

I'm an extremely unimpressive Asian male and I got into my state's flagship, which is considered a public ivy according to the 1985 list [0]. If going to a state school is beneath these people (and therefore, even associating with people like me is beneath them) then perhaps I'm perfectly fine with them feeling a tiny bit of discomfort.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Ivy#Original_list_publi...

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

#258

Post by panda88888 »

honkycat wrote: post #231
gotoeleven wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bizarre canard that people keep running with. You can prep for the SAT but it adds 20-30 points at most. So mostly you can't prep for it. You certainly can't buy a high score. College sports is a racket though for sure.

So personalized tutoring does nothing to improve your score? What an absurd suggestion. That USED to be line line but it has since changed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/05/...

Coaching and tutoring has diminishing returns. Simply having done the practice test before the actual one would both significantly boost the score while reducing the anxiety. The tricks are not hard to learn, and practice tests are cheap to buy (or borrow from library). SAT is (was) probably the cheapest way to boost admission chance for a poor student compared to extracurricular, competitions, volunteering, etc. Those with money always have an advantage, but standardized test like SAT is probably the most egalitarian, as everyone has to take the tests by themselves in a controlled environment.

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

#259

Post by thaumasiotes »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #250

I was born in yugoslavia (later slovenia), under the red star, communism, brotherhood, unity, equality, and all other communist bullshit back then. ...and even then we had standardized testing, and it worked. You went to elementary school, usually the closest to your house (from about 6/7yo to 14/15, =8 years), and at the end of that, you'd apply to a highschool of your choice (either general "gymnasium", or 3 or 4 y…

> I have no idea why only america has issues with standardized tests...

The United States has issues with standardized tests because (1) its black population performs very, very badly on them, while (2) official policy is that the black population should enjoy outcomes such as college admission or job offers that are in line with its share of the total population, not with performance against objective metrics.

Note that communist societies had the analogous problem; whenever they implemented standardized testing, class enemies filled the ranks of top scorers.

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

#260

Post by sokoloff »

kcatskcolbdi wrote: post #243
briefcomment wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the best colleagues I've worked with aced the SAT and/or other standardized tests. I would hate to not be able to refer to them while interviewing job candidates. Honestly, standardized test scores and some case study type questions would be sufficient to make a decision (along with 1 on 1 convos). I hope a decision like this opens a channel for smart people to get to employment without having to go to school or…

You......ask what people got on the SATs in your job interview?

One place I worked at did, by policy (D. E. Shaw & Co.).

It was also the place with the densest collection of high-achieving, highly intelligent colleagues that I’ve ever experienced.

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