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UC slams the door on standardized admissions tests, nixing any SAT alternative

latimes.com

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Re: UC slams the door on standardized admissions tests, nixing any SAT alternative

#141

Post by kwere »

spoonjim wrote: post #11
jwilber wrote: post #4

As a Cal grad this is an easy reason to point to the next time I reject an alumni donation call. If the goal is to accept more students on merit, this is a big failure in my opinion: rich kids can just game the “holistic” admissions with opportunities not available to middle/lower class students (“volunteer” trips, extracurriculars, etc.).

Can they “game” themselves into being designated as African American?

just get an african citizenship and maybe get adopted/marry a non white household to melt commision hearts!

Re: UC slams the door on standardized admissions tests, nixing any SAT alternative

#142

Post by DebtDeflation »

temp8964 wrote: post #29

I found what is funny / pathetic about this is that there are tons of psychology / education / especially educational measurement top experts in the UC system, and they know how wrong it is, while they just keep mouth shut. The whole anti-standard-testing movement is pushed by ideology leftists and corrupted bureaucrats, but the supposed experts just quietly watch the world burn. Lol. Update: I found experts in the U…

This paragraph made my head spin:

>The Smarter Balanced test only provided “modest incremental value” beyond high school grades in predicting a student’s first-year UC performance while “reflecting and reproducing inequality” in educational opportunities for underserved students, committee co-chair Mary Gauvain, a UC Riverside professor, told regents on Thursday. Using the state exam in admissions decisions could benefit some underrepresented students who test well but have lower grades, the committee report found, but would disproportionately favor Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and could reduce admission rates of Black, Latino and low-income applicants.

Every study I've ever seen has shown that high school grades by themselves are a good predictor of 1st year college success; high school grades + standardized test scores are an even better predictor. As noted, the use of standardized tests further benefits some underrepresented students who may have had challenges in high school. So what is the problem here? The only issue listed is that it might benefit Asian applicants more than Black and Latino applicants. Is this really where we are?

Re: UC slams the door on standardized admissions tests, nixing any SAT alternative

#143

Post by SkeuomorphicBee »

dehrmann wrote: post #53

Wonder what's going to happen when they realize this just defers testing to exams in courses.

In my country, around the same time top public universities adopted affirmative-action quotas, they also stablished a "pre-calculus" summer course, to get everyone up to speed in all high-school math before starting their first semester (not specific for affirmative action students, plenty of non-AA students also had some catching up to do). From what I've heard it worked very well as an equalizer, with AA students who entered with lower test scores, ending up with final scores mixed with every one else.

Re: UC slams the door on standardized admissions tests, nixing any SAT alternative

#144

Post by yosito »

zenta wrote: post #127

The comments on these articles seem to generally come out in favor of standardized testing (specifically the SAT). I find that interesting because college admissions seemingly generalizes to candidate evaluation. And if you were to suggest a standard leetcode test for software engineering job candidates? Man, this place would go up in flames.

> And if you were to suggest a standard leetcode test for software engineering job candidates? Man, this place would go up in flames.

I'd love to have a standard test for software engineering jobs that was accepted in the place of building yet another 8-hour sample React app.

Re: UC slams the door on standardized admissions tests, nixing any SAT alternative

#145

Post by Jensson »

stadium wrote: post #77
rsj_hn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, firms will need to do much more leetcode as the signaling value of a degree decreases.

Good luck to those firms that have the fastest b-tree optimizations physically possible, and no customers.

Do product managers become worthless at companies where coders understand algorithms? Or what is your point?

Re: UC slams the door on standardized admissions tests, nixing any SAT alternative

#146

Post by nobodyandproud »

abhiyerra wrote: post #124
b9a2cab5 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be doing fine, but objective measures of the average salary of humanities majors at schools like UCB say otherwise. Most of the PMs I know have either business or STEM degrees.

I guess we aren't talking about the same humanities majors. Most of my friends from Berkeley who are history or humanities majors are lawyers, academics, or doctors (yes, many of the humanities became doctors). They don't really seem to care about the money even though we as engineers seem they should care. Or they had to go through additional layer of study which depresses their true value.

So they took the easy road to get into medical or law school.

What about the humanities majors that went straight into the workplace?

Re: UC slams the door on standardized admissions tests, nixing any SAT alternative

#147

Post by nobodyandproud »

abhiyerra wrote: post #117
ngc248 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, lets take your example. why should the kid in your example get a step over a kid with a stable family. Even kids in stable families have dreams. Even stable families got problems.

I think they both need to meet in the middle. I came from a low-income family and had plenty of wealthy friends. Kids with stable families have money. Take away the money, and the thing that gave them the advantage goes away. For the poor kids, the money is no longer a blocker.

You know what meets in the middle? Standardized tests.

Re: UC slams the door on standardized admissions tests, nixing any SAT alternative

#148

Post by yardie »

reactspa wrote: post #140
1cvmask wrote: post #16

These false flag diversity initiatives are there to entrench the privileged white elite who are threatened by the children of often 1st generation immigrants. From the article: UC admissions officers have said they were able to thoroughly evaluate the flood of applications without test scores, using 13 other factors in the system’s review process, such as a student’s high school grade-point average, the rigor of cour…

The only way to be color-blind is standardized tests. It's possible that standardized tests are biased. Then fix them! I didn't have rich parents. So I had never gone abroad. A rich parent can send their kids on "charity missions" to poor countries to rack up those "extra curricular points".

It's not just possible the ubiquitous SAT was literally created by a white supremacist, Carl Brigham [0]. They are having a moment right now and trying to distance themselves from the racist part of their foundation.

> It's possible that standardized tests are biased. Then fix them!

We know they are biased but everytime the solution it's brought the solution is to replace them with another biased test.

[0] https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-history-of-the-sat-is-mi...

Re: UC slams the door on standardized admissions tests, nixing any SAT alternative

#149

Post by protomyth »

Auracle wrote: post #65
protomyth wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why they should have to list tribe enrolled & blood quantum. At this point, I wish the tribes could sue these people for fraud. The continued closing of doors on the most downtrodden minority is pathetic.

I'm 1/8th. Is that enough? 1/4th? Where's the line? My state gave out grants to small businesses during the pandemic and directly said on the application that preference would be given to minorities. I didn't check both white and native only because a local organization would be dispersing the funds and I live in a rural area. Quite frankly, I'm sick of "reverse" racism. That was my state government all but telling m…

Well, the US government has 1/4 but some tribes go down to 1/8. If the position / scholarship says decent the tribes have that documentation too. You can get a document that says you are not enrolled but are a descendent of the tribe. If you are talking about the COVID funding, I think some documentation from the tribe that you are 1/8 in would suffice. Also check the tribal constitution and minority business rules of your state.

I'm not going to comment on reverse racism, but if a position or grant was set aside for a Native American then claiming heritage one does not have is bs.

Re: UC slams the door on standardized admissions tests, nixing any SAT alternative

#150

Post by inglor_cz »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #137
anonuser123456 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend that’s a CSU faculty member in science/engineering. The amount of ideological crap coming down the pipeline is shocking to him… and he’s a pretty liberal guy. But he has a mortgage to pay and dealing with protesting students doesn’t really interest him. He became a professor because he liked teaching, not to become a target.

> he has a mortgage to pay and dealing with protesting students doesn’t really interest him The great irony being it's decisions like this that are undermining support for the University of California. We're not there yet. But a few more of these, and I could see an off-year proposition that dramatically cuts the UC budget.

And such proposition will be slammed as anti-intellectualism driven by stupid, jealous, greedy deplorables. Without asking whether there might be deeper reasons for such development.
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