Why is the university of California dropping the SAT? • Hacker News Board

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

#551

Post by cloudfifty » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 10:14 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #383

What I find very odd about this is the assumption that kids in challenging circumstances would have more problem with test prep than with keeping up their GPA. Poor people can afford test prep. Stuyvesant, NYC’s selective admission high school, has 50% of students living in poverty, and a 1300+ average SAT score. A couple of thousand dollars one time is something most Americans can scrape together. Gaming GPA is much…

> My wife and I carefully manage her younger step siblings’ course schedules to maximize GPA. We schedule meetings with professors, counselors, schedule retakes and extra credit, etc.

That's like another planet for me. Should kids really need to focus on their career so early?

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

#552

Post by bonestormii_ » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 10:23 AM UTC

It's all really stupid, actually.

The competition for the best schooling so that you can get the best job can indeed yield significant benefits for the winners. The private sector judges prestigious universities to be high-value; those universities use SATs to judge which students are high-value; and students judge universities as high-value based on their perception of what the private sector values.

All of this is apparently a filtration system designed to find the best and brightest candidates. Presumably, as many have mentioned, these are people with high IQ. And indeed, high IQ people are extremely noticeable when you are around them. They are frequently faster, more incisive, and have a knowledge base that is both deep and wide.

...And many of them are unproductive, valueless fuck-ups with poor temperaments for almost any work requiring a social component (i.e. almost all work). They have substance abuse problems. They have personality disorders. They lie. And many of them are also wonderful people.

I'll take a medium-bright, tenacious, responsible worker with a degree from a state school or community college any day of the week over some moneyed primadonna who is too busy trying to display their own cleverness to focus on the task at hand.

All of this judgement is stupid because it discounts character. Medium aptitude coupled with hard work can and does produce excellence. Focus, care, and attention to detail are at least as important as intelligence. The filtration process closes doors for these people.

Lastly, though this only an anecdote, anyone who's worked in the professional world has had the pleasure of running into idiot attorneys from prestigious schools. People who send e-mails full of misspellings, careless factual errors, and incorrect legal assertions beyond their specific scope of legal knowledge. Trust me, these people exist, and it's extremely difficult to explain how they exist if the filtration system is really the meritocracy it claims to be. It is frequently hacked as a vehicle for privilege.

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

#553

Post by satyrnein » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 10:41 AM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #494

menzoic wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affirmative action doesn't require a lower bar. Why do people keep saying that? It's also been banned in California since the 90s.

It literally mathematically requires a lower bar. If your criteria for hiring a software engineer is that an applicant demonstrate proficiency in a given set of tasks, for example, you will result in a pool of applicants sorted by proficiency. Say we have 100 slots open to hire people, and we would normally just take the top 100 applicants according to this proficiency criteria. Now, introducing any criteria which re…

This assumes that the existing system is already a perfectly ordered meritocracy. Affirmative action supporters are coming at it from a different hypothesis: that 20 of the applicants pass the objective proficiency bar, and now people will apply subjective criteria like "culture fit", who has "leadership potential", etc, and this is where bias creeps in. Somehow the qualified candidates from certain groups don't make the cut as often you'd statistically expect (if you also do not believe in group differences).

If this is the starting position, then it is mathematically possible for affirmative action to deliver more equitable outcomes without lowering the objective bar.

So yes, affirmative action produces suboptimal results if you believe the world is already perfectly fair, and the "losers" weren't as qualified, due to differences between groups in preferences or abilities. Alternatively, affirmative action provides a slight correction to an unfair world, if you believe that all groups are equally capable, and differences in outcomes indicate how much bias is left to overturn.

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

#554

Post by pugetsounds » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 10:50 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #383

What I find very odd about this is the assumption that kids in challenging circumstances would have more problem with test prep than with keeping up their GPA. Poor people can afford test prep. Stuyvesant, NYC’s selective admission high school, has 50% of students living in poverty, and a 1300+ average SAT score. A couple of thousand dollars one time is something most Americans can scrape together. Gaming GPA is much…

As much as I agree with the overall premise that a GPA is harder to focus on than test prep, I disagree that poor families can afford test prep. Blowing away $1000+ so your child (who is not a star student) can potentially get a better SAT score is not going to be something that a poor family considers to be possible.

Anecdotally, I write this comment from the couch of a poor family. My girlfriend’s parents (who I am visiting) live on welfare in a 1 bedroom apartment (hence the couch we are sleeping on). They have a 15-year-old son who could potentially benefit from test prep. He’d also benefit more immediately from a haircut, new clothes, and a therapist. If the parents had $1000, they’d probably buy all of that instead, or lottery tickets.

Extra anecdotally, I also have a 15-year-old stepsister, who has a rich mom. She has new clothes, a nice haircut, and antidepressants. Soon she’ll have a car for when she’s 16 and most likely will revive some SAT prep. I have noticed (or at least have theorized) that because my girlfriend’s family cannot afford these things for their children, her young brother in a state of arrested development. His lack of luxury is causing him to miss certain life milestones. His maturity is stunted (even for a 15-year-old boy) and he would not be a good candidate for test prep.

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

#555

Post by satyrnein » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 10:52 AM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #417

jbluepolarbear wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have illegible hand writing. I was able to type all other standard tests I had taken up to that point. How was I supposed to know that they changed the test? When I signed up there was no mention of the essay and a lot of kids were surprised by the essay at the time of the test. I’m sure I would have rocked the essay had I been able to type it. I planned to major in English because i enjoyed writing. I haven’t writ…

Its so weird to hear that. My entire college-bound peer group took the SAT twice, once without the essay and once with the essay. Literally all of us, every single friend/acquaintance in my year. Most of us took the PSAT (practice SAT) to get used to the "timing" of multiple choice. (When you're low on time, its time to start guessing and moving way quicker) The exceptions were the military dudes, who left for the Ir…

Your differing experiences are an interesting data point in the question of whether the SAT is a fair and neutral evaluation.

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

#556

Post by UncleMeat » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 11:14 AM UTC

username90 wrote: post #525

UncleMeat wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't seem like anybody is interested in solving the hard problem of why underprivileged communities aren’t producing good high school graduates. The same people who are seeking equity in college are seeking it in high school and elementary school and preschool. The same opponents and arguments come out against them at all of these phases. I have personal experience with this work in both the elementary school…

So why is affirmative action still needed at college level if they get so much help in all the years before?

They don't get "so much help" in all the years before because of the same forces that resist change at later ages. My family got a lot of hatred and resistance for just pushing back on the idea that it was okay that many of the schools (you can guess which ones) in our district simply never sent a single application to the 3rd grade GT system because their principals didn't believe that any application would ever succeed. They were wrong, of course.

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

#557

Post by username90 » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 11:22 AM UTC

satyrnein wrote: post #553

ralusek wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It literally mathematically requires a lower bar. If your criteria for hiring a software engineer is that an applicant demonstrate proficiency in a given set of tasks, for example, you will result in a pool of applicants sorted by proficiency. Say we have 100 slots open to hire people, and we would normally just take the top 100 applicants according to this proficiency criteria. Now, introducing any criteria which re…

This assumes that the existing system is already a perfectly ordered meritocracy. Affirmative action supporters are coming at it from a different hypothesis: that 20 of the applicants pass the objective proficiency bar, and now people will apply subjective criteria like "culture fit", who has "leadership potential", etc, and this is where bias creeps in. Somehow the qualified candidates from certain groups don't make…

> that 20 of the applicants pass the objective proficiency bar, and now people will apply subjective criteria like "culture fit", who has "leadership potential", etc, and this is where bias creeps in.

If that was the case they wouldn't drop SAT. Fact is they want to accept people with worse objective scores, this whole discussion and article is about that fact. Instead they will use "culture fit" and "leadership potential" to discriminate against Asians and bring in more desirable minorities.

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

#558

Post by username90 » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 11:25 AM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #556

username90 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why is affirmative action still needed at college level if they get so much help in all the years before?

They don't get "so much help" in all the years before because of the same forces that resist change at later ages. My family got a lot of hatred and resistance for just pushing back on the idea that it was okay that many of the schools (you can guess which ones) in our district simply never sent a single application to the 3rd grade GT system because their principals didn't believe that any application would ever suc…

So why not fix that problem? You can't make up 12 lost years beginning at College, putting them to compete with people who are that far ahead will just make everyone feel those people are stupid even if it isn't true.

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

#559

Post by mk81 » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 11:48 AM UTC

vagrantJin wrote: post #550

roamerz wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a superficial level yes. The actual impact to people and society I think is far greater and will have an overall negative affect on society and interracial relationships. Putting myself in the shoes of someone that was bumped out of something they earned through hard work and dedication because my skin color was not correct would make me bitter to those that implemented the policy as well as (hopefully less so) th…

Theres a certain thing about race, that we can threaten to be racists if things don't go our way. Is being a racist somehow a good thing? I'm not implying we should hold hands and sing kumbaya, far from it. But why threaten to become a racist particularly? We need discourse, demonstrations and solutions, that insititions should very well look for and nuture young talent from wherever it may come from. But to threaten…

>But to threaten to be actively racist, without exploring any other solution is truly telling.

I assume you're referring to the practice of requiring higher scores for Asian students? And then doing away with the standardized tests altogether when it got too hard to get the outcomes you want? That active racism?

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

#560

Post by username90 » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 12:40 PM UTC

vagrantJin wrote: post #550

roamerz wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a superficial level yes. The actual impact to people and society I think is far greater and will have an overall negative affect on society and interracial relationships. Putting myself in the shoes of someone that was bumped out of something they earned through hard work and dedication because my skin color was not correct would make me bitter to those that implemented the policy as well as (hopefully less so) th…

Theres a certain thing about race, that we can threaten to be racists if things don't go our way. Is being a racist somehow a good thing? I'm not implying we should hold hands and sing kumbaya, far from it. But why threaten to become a racist particularly? We need discourse, demonstrations and solutions, that insititions should very well look for and nuture young talent from wherever it may come from. But to threaten…

When you are racist against people then they will likely become racist. It isn't a threat, that is just how the world works. You can't just impose policies without evaluating them holistically, if you don't take into account that the people you are racist against might become more racist then you aren't doing your job properly.