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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?

#401

Post by JPKab »

cmh89 wrote: post #386
starchild_3001 wrote: post #333

Cancelling SAT (especially subject exams) is the stupidest decision I've seen anywhere. Make access more fair? Sure. Cancel it? Plain wrong! How do I know? I'm one of those students who didn't have stellar high school grades, but I excelled in subject exams --- those subjects were genuinely interesting to me (math, science). I didn't find the rest of high school interesting, and I wasn't a nerd nerd studying anything…

Deciding whether or not the SAT is equitable, fair, or valuable shouldn't have any anecdotal component. For every one person with a story like yours, there is someone who had a bad experience with it for reasons outside of their control. I did exceptionally well in take home or book assignments because I understand the subject matter, but never was a good test taker. I took the ACT and did 'fine' but I could have don…

The SAT is an extremely high predictor for IQ. It correlates incredibly well.

I grew up in a trailer park, and didn't have access to the test prep industry, so I understand that wealthier kids had a big edge. That being said, nobody is talking about the SAT being biased against poor kids. They are pretending that it's purely a racist, culturally-biased test due to its outcome of having average scores that are hundreds of points lower for certain ethnic groups. And like all hamfisted efforts at "equity", it will benefit the most privileged members of the favored class at the expense of the least privileged members of the disfavored class.

Rich Black kids will gain the most, and poor Asian and White kids will lose the most. Poor Asian kids are already getting screwed. My best friend is the child of dirt poor Cambodian refugees, but the college admissions people treated him as if he was the son of college educated Korean immigrants.

Obama's daughters will never be held back in life, and this ideology makes no room for that fact, or the fact that a pale kid born to a single mom in a trailer park is, statistically, screwed.

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

#402

Post by mbostleman »

My two cents. Be color blind for access to things like this. Then, when you see cultural groups that don't seem to getting through in the numbers you'd like, study the success factors from other groups and help promote those from the bottom up, within the culture. Sounds cliche, but it's better to build naturally occurring desirable attributes in communities than providing the benefits despite the absence of the attributes.

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

#403

Post by madengr »

jacobolus wrote: post #215
jeffbee wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because on average the children of urban/suburban professionals have more academic support, higher expectations placed on them, and more competition, and as a result end up with more academic practice/preparation, compared to rural or working-class children.

That must be why many of the rural, flyover states have higher standardized test scores than the urban ones.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/sat-scores-...

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

#404

Post by dsr_ »

starchild_3001 wrote: post #398
cmh89 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deciding whether or not the SAT is equitable, fair, or valuable shouldn't have any anecdotal component. For every one person with a story like yours, there is someone who had a bad experience with it for reasons outside of their control. I did exceptionally well in take home or book assignments because I understand the subject matter, but never was a good test taker. I took the ACT and did 'fine' but I could have don…

Not sure what data you're talking about. What I've seen so far: SAT Income are correlated => let's not rely on SAT? That's such a BS argument. Anything related to income will be (statistically speaking) associated with intelligence and other personal traits (perseverance etc). Any of this will be obviously correlated with your kid's SAT --- it's called genetics. Any other, more sensible data to look at?

It's never the kid's income, though. It's always the parents' income.

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

#405

Post by _RPL5_ »

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…

Russians introduced standardized testing for college admissions in late 2000s. The stated goal was to curb regional variations in GPA (easier to get high GPA in a bad district), and to make it easier to apply to colleges outside of your immediate city [1].

The kids & parents have generally gotten used to the testing, but the teachers & educators absolutely despise it. You regularly see diatribes on social media against it. The crux of their criticism is that standardized testing emphasizes very niche test-testing skills as opposed to a holistic education.

But overall, I'd tend to agree - standardized tests are a good thing. They help streamline the admission process and make it less painful/variable, which is good thing for society as a whole.

----

[1] Prior to standardized testing, each university in Russia held its own full-on series of admission exams that would take 1 to 2 weeks. Even if you were lucky and lived in a city with several universities, the logistics would limit you to 3 or 4 college applications at most. The "SAT" alleviates this, as most universities now use it as the sole application metric. So you can apply to an unlimited number of schools.

That being said, universities retained the capacity to do their own testing, for example for foreign students who didn't take the SATs. I think elite schools & programs (like a physics program at a top technical college in Moscow) may require additional testing. But overall, the admissions system they have in Russia now seems to closely approximate what you describe for Slovenia.

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

#406

Post by briefcomment »

netr0ute wrote: post #358
sokoloff wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You can actually take the SAT at any age, so I'd say there's no reason to not try and get a high score.

+1

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

#407

Post by briefcomment »

rejectedandsad wrote: post #312
harmegido wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe 1500/1600 is top 2%, so it's weird you'd consider that not "well" to me.

It’s not good enough to get into any top school, and top 2% is simply not good enough when it’s effectively the same as the top 20%.

It's definitely in range [1]. You could also consider retaking it, or taking the GMAT, LSAT, or GRE.

[1]https://www.thoughtco.com/sat-scores-for-ivy-league-admissio...

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

#408

Post by tonymet »

this is common with diversity efforts: over emphasis on admission. I feel this does students a disservice. I was one of these students.

Focusing on admission rates sounds nice to a bureaucrat – but to the individual who will drop out, they will be taking the hit on their career and savings– they won't be getting hired, and they will have $100k in debt for nothing.

Who would you hire? A graduate from CSUn or a dropout from UCLA?

it's telling that people rarely talk about SAT correlation with university graduation rates. I'm guessing they are tightly correlated (which is why they've been used for 60 years).

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

#409

Post by vageli »

heavyset_go wrote: post #287
settrans wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It exists in many, many states in some form or another: New Jersey (where every dollar collected from the progressive income tax is funneled redistributionarily to municipalities), Connecticut, and Vermont to name a couple. For one eye-popping counterexample to the notion that redistributionary school funding policies are effective, it might be worth understanding what happened in Newark[0], where 75% of the school i…

Property taxes pay for local schools in NJ.

Yes for a portion of the school's funding. In NJ there also exist Abbott districts which receive additional funding from the state.

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

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

#410

Post by cmh89 »

rayiner wrote: post #396
cmh89 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deciding whether or not the SAT is equitable, fair, or valuable shouldn't have any anecdotal component. For every one person with a story like yours, there is someone who had a bad experience with it for reasons outside of their control. I did exceptionally well in take home or book assignments because I understand the subject matter, but never was a good test taker. I took the ACT and did 'fine' but I could have don…

That kid working 25 hours a week to help their family make rent is going to have an easier time buckling down for one test than keeping up their GPA over four years. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2021/03/23/sta...

I agree that there are issues with GPA too, but despite saying that it's easier to take one test than it is to maintain a high GPA throughout high school, that's opinion. Teachers can work with over extended students to help them while they are in school

I can't really speak to your opinion piece because its behind a paywall

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