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

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

#591

Post by thereare5lights » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #544

thereare5lights wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you even read the article? > How do I know all of this? Because unlike the regents, who enthusiastically voted to eliminate the tests for the first time in 2020, I did not ignore the findings of a 225-page report that was prepared for them at the request of the UC’s then-president, Janet Napolitano. This report[1], by the Academic Council’s Standardized Testing Task Force, was based on years of UC admissions data…

The issue is not if testing "amplifies" racial disparity. If it is the link in the chain which makes sure the disparity is carried on, especially to bigger amplifiers like college admission, then the decision to abandon it is clear.

Even if it is also a link in the chain which makes sure the disparity is broken?

You do realize that it is possible for it to be both right?

The question is whether or not it helps more than it hurts and no one seems to care that it helps the students from poorer areas distinguish themselves.

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

#592

Post by panda88888 » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 8:14 PM UTC

pugetsounds wrote: post #554

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…

SAT test prep doesn’t have to cost thousands. A prep book, a timer/clock, and time reading through the tricks and taking practice test(s) would be at least 70% there if not more.

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

#593

Post by satyrnein » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #581

satyrnein wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> apply subjective criteria like "culture fit", who has "leadership potential", etc, and this is where bias creeps in This would no longer be the example I described. This is why people who support something approximating a meritocracy are typically in favor of any efforts to remove bias, and move in a direction of blind hiring. It is disingenuous to say that this is the objective of those in favor of affirmative act…

You made the strong claim that affirmative action mathematically requires lowering the proficiency bar. I responded that it depends on certain facts about the world, on which there is much disagreement (whether hiring/admissions is completely objective, whether groups have the same abilities and preferences, etc). I didn't even specify what I personally believed, but I see you dug up your talking points.

I'm responsible for hiring engineers as well, and I don't actually think discrimination plays much of a role at this point in the pipeline; I just rarely see candidates from underrepresented groups cross my desk. From here, it looks like a supply issue upstream (whether from preferences, abilities, or bias). So in this little corner of the world, I agree that affirmative action would require compromising on proficiency. Other corners may be different.

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

#594

Post by BeFlatXIII » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

akomtu wrote: post #534

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lottery systems with an initial cutoff make sense if you have a large surplus of applicants who surpass your lower quality threshold. Rather than make asinine minuscule decisions over who exactly the top 1,526 out of 10,000 are, cull the 7,234 that don’t make the cut and randomly select from the survivors.

I'd rather prefer my surgeon, should I ever need one, be one of those "asinine miniscule" top 1526 applicants selected based on pure merit.

The entire point is that you set the initial cutoff such that the differences in “pure merit” between your threshold and the lowest candidate if you went anal-retentive on ranking do not translate into meaningfully different outcomes.

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

#595

Post by waterhouse » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 9:25 PM 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…

> This assumes that the existing system is already a perfectly ordered meritocracy.

No, just that it's as close as you can get with the imperfect tools at your disposal. Even if your tools are really bad—like, if the variation in scores on your test suite is 10% ability, 90% luck—well, if that's the best tool you have for sorting by ability, then you should use it, and to the extent that you ignore its recommendations in favor of racial or other preferences, that will lower the average ability of the candidates you accept. (Unless your tool is so bad that selecting by race outperforms it—which is a very unfortunate situation, and one that should be avoided as much as possible.)

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

#596

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

thethimble wrote: post #572

rayiner wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not like they just spend $1,000 all of a sudden. Poor families plan for that expense and spend the money: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/magazine/asian-test-prep-... > This summer, Wang and his two younger brothers shared a room with one bunk bed, taking turns sleeping on the floor’s bamboo mat. His parents were in the other bedroom, with his sister and youngest brother. If test-prep classes were ever a fina…

Just because one poor family has paid for test prep doesn’t mean all families can afford this expense. OP’s comment about other needs (haircut, clothes, etc.) is very real. Where would you suggest test prep stacks relative to paying rent on time, food, clothes, etc.? Are you really suggesting that all poor families that haven’t spent on test prep are simply ignorantly misprioiritizing spend? It seems like there’s a m…

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-prep-rite-passage-asian-americ... ("While affluent Asian-Americans are more likely to take test prep, 46.7 percent of low-income Korean-Americans still took a prep course.").

> OP’s comment about other needs (haircut, clothes, etc.) is very real.

Those are short-term expenses. Families can plan for long-term expenses over years. By your logic poor people would never be able to afford a car. But 80% of people living in poverty do have access to a vehicle.

> Are you really suggesting that all poor families that haven’t spent on test prep are simply ignorantly misprioiritizing spend?

I don't know what the priority should be for doing well on tests. My point is that a $1,400 one-time expense is not out of reach even for most poor people.

And nobody said "all."

> It seems like there’s a massive gap between your life perspective and that of a poor person’s.

I grew up very comfortable, but I have family from Bangladesh who immigrated to pretty close to the bottom of the totem pole. Not the very bottom, not homeless, but public housing, working the lowest end service jobs, etc. My wife's parents grew up extremely poor (as in buying meat at the grocery store was a luxury until she was an older kid). Many people really don't understand the difference between people who are destitute (which is a very small number of people) and "normal" poor people.

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

#597

Post by andrekandre » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #393

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…

All of this revolves around a selective assumption that a disproportionate outcome (if the outcome isn't favorable to a group with a large activist base in US universities) is evidence of discrimination. Note that I say "selective". Males are disproportionately incarcerated and killed by police, but nobody is saying police are systemically bigoted towards males, because it's blatantly obvious that males disproportion…

  For an ideology based in Marxism, it's amazing how much it undermines the ability to organize unions

is it based on marxism? i thought marx was interested in class relations not race?

(sorry, im a little rusty on this subject)

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

#598

Post by andrekandre » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 10:47 PM UTC

nullc wrote: post #576

bayesian_horse wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affirmative action is a shortcut, but sometimes the shortcut is the only way to make any progress. There may be a few very large issues, but also a gazillion small factors that make up systemic discrimination, both racially and against women. It is impossible for minorities to fight those individually, especially not from a position of weakness. It is more effective to counter at least a small part of the net discrim…

I'm dubious that economic standing isn't a better criteria than race in most situations where affirmative action would be desirable. Providing programs to help those in a weaker economic position more directly addresses the need, results in programs that everyone can feel that maybe they or their family might benefit from, and avoids perpetuating raced based discrimination and the resulting resentment. If when econom…

i think what your comment aludes to, and is an important point that gets lost easily is, concentrating on race masks the real issue which is systemic economic and opportunity disparity

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

#599

Post by UncleMeat » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 10:55 PM UTC

blackgirldev wrote: post #586

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…

Are you the UncleMeat from Netslaves?

No. I don't know what that is.

UncleMeat is a Zappa album title so I'm certain that others use it as a handle.

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

#600

Post by SamoyedFurFluff » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #521

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that work? You’re saying a child being literally homeless can focus on keeping GPA up?

You got the point of the parent comment backward. It’s specifically easier for a bright child in poverty to ace one test than to maintain a GPA for four years.

But how can it be better for child study to ace the test when they’re homeless rather than they work to help avoid homelessness and maybe not study so much?