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Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?

theatlantic.com

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

#291

Post by matthewowen »

dragonwriter wrote: post #150
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. UC is the more elite of two separate state funded university systems in CA, but it has a similar guarantee (but not campus-of-choice), that evaluates earlier (counts only 10th and 11th grade) and has a 9% cutoff for the “in your class” guarantee, which is called “Eligibility in Local Context”. ht…

Right, but the campus of choice difference is huge!

The UC system includes schools like UC Merced which just aren't that competitive or prestigious to begin with, just as the UT system includes schools that are much less competitive/prestigious than UT Austin.

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

#292

Post by ajsnigrutin »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #270
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…

There's a decent argument to be made that standardized tests distort the education system by making good test results the goal of teaching and attending class, rather than learning whatever the class is supposed to teach. To put it differently, it's not comparing students on the basis of tests that's the problem, it's what those tests cause the students and teachers to do in the year leading up to them. I used to be…

Can't the tests be made to reflect the whole subjects? For example have the math test cover everything that high school math programmes are supposed to teach, so there's no way to prepare for the test, except to actually teach the whole subject?

For example, our general high schools ("gymnasiums") have predefined lists of topics, that sudents will learn there, and the standardized tests basically cover everything. How can you prep for eg. derivatives, except by actually learning and doing derivatives?

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

#293

Post by sokoloff »

rejectedandsad wrote: post #274
sokoloff wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

DE Shaw rejected me after I submitted my SATs (not once, but twice). What even is the point of living if society deems people like me to be inherently inferior for life ?

Almost no place has this (fairly pointless IMO) policy in place. How predictive is the SAT test I took when I was 16 to my performance on the job a decade later?

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

#294

Post by wyldfire »

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've heard of some families gaming this system by having their students attend less competitive high schools in order to improve their rank.

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

#295

Post by kart23 »

The article makes no mention of the lawsuit that was brought against the UC system. They ended up settling, with the UC system agreeing to stop using the SAT for the next 5 years. I think the lawsuit had a lot more influence on the decision than most people think.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/Judge-bars-Uni...

https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/UC-settles-student...

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

#296

Post by tastyfreeze »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #281
tastyfreeze wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> Allowing families to choose what school they go to, This is a non-starter for any family that depends on public school buses to transport their kids to school. It might help to some extent in regions if schools are in close proximity but overall it just becomes "School choice for people with parents that can afford it". Plus I would be surprised if it there's a case the program led to a 'bad' school closing and a '…

Schools are not static. Some will fail. New ones will pop up. If there is a group of people in an area that are not served then somebody can create a school to serve them. Make the only government run part of the school system the funding attached to a child.

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

#297

Post by dnautics »

charlesju wrote: post #12

Isn't GPA even easier to game than SATs? -- Private schools can curve more leniently so its pay to play -- Rich schools tend to have more AP/Honor courses which inflate weighted GPAs I went to one of the best public schools in America and it was not uncommon for someone to take 100% AP/Honors and get a 4.5+ GPA.

in california the top X% of all public high schools are guaranteed a berth at SOME UC, so to some degree intra-school comparisons are less at issue. (parent article is about the UC system as a whole).

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

#298

Post by mochomocha »

kristjansson wrote: post #103
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 does that too: https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requi...

Yep. And the data that shows it at play is here: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/admissions...

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

#299

Post by thaumasiotes »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #286
thaumasiotes wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Shouldn't this be fixed earlier, and not after they get the lower scores? Equal opportunity is ok, but equal outcome is really shitty for kids of other groups who work hard and lose their spots due to the color of their skin. > Note that communist societies had the analogous problem; whenever they implemented standardized testing, class enemies filled the ranks of top scorers. Meh, we were lucky, we were the "3rd wor…

> Shouldn't this be fixed earlier, and not after they get the lower scores?

There is no point earlier than when they get the lower scores. The performance gap is apparent at all ages where performance can be measured at all.

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

#300

Post by hellbannedguy »

Aunche wrote: post #261
ethbr0 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

High calibre students not only help the university's rankings, but also other students. A few of my courses had absolutely terrible lecturers, but we managed to more or less learn the material from each other.

I had a girlfriend at U C Davis, and I found the opposite.

The best students were called 4clickers. They sat in the front row, with four color pens in hand. They never helped, and one on occasion turned her in for cheating. She used to talk about how competitive thstudrnts were. They all wanted a spot in a graduate program. It was the most depressing school I ever visited. Couldn't wait to leave on Sunday. (I was suprised she cheated, but it taught me something about "the high caliber" student.)

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