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Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

hechingerreport.org

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Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think this would be a good way to run admissions at ultra-selective elite universities - places like Harvard or Oxford where getting in or not can make a huge impact on the entire rest of your life. Everyone knows the evaluation process is bullshit and highly dependent on luck, so why pretend otherwise? Just discard those applicants who don't meet some minimum objective standard (SAT scores or whatever) th…

> places like Harvard or Oxford where getting in or not can make a huge impact on the entire rest of your life. ??

What part don't you understand?

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The school clubs met after school, one was there anyway. The Boy Scouts also met within walking distance. The Scouts used to meet at public schools, but the people who hate the Scouts got them kicked out because they had a religious requirement for one of the ranks.

Can you please explain how the child would get home from the after school activity, if it existed? I’m being clear when I am saying there really aren’t any EC options . In poor areas , there’s no money because school funding comes from property tax . Where I went, the funding was so tight they had to fire the foreign language , art teachers and music teachers . If they can’t afford regular instructors , where is the…

I walked home from school. I can't recall my parents ever picking me up.

The Boy Scouts didn't run on money. A chess club, book club, drama club, dance club, photography club, math club, etc., don't require money.

Besides, creating something from nothing is going to look a lot better on an application than following a course that is laid out by instructors and papered with cash.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#274

What surprises me is how many Asians support these measures. Make no mistake: our ability to progress as we have in America has depended on the fact that objective metrics cannot easily be gamed. The cost of test prep is a minor barrier to entry compared to the cultural knowledge required to write an essay that moves a WASP admissions officer, or the social capital and connections required to get involved in charitab…

I don't think WASPs are given an edge here. I feel like it is actually racist to make this assumption also. White people as a broad category are the only racial group that is underrepresented relative to their population percentage in Ivy League schools. Maybe you could make the argument that WASPs are a subset of white people who are overrepresented specifically because of that faculty benefit for admissions but the…

I think the person you’re replying to is referring to the current(?) standardized testing regime that heavily rewards test prep above all else.

There’s a very obvious correlation between the SATs de-emphasizing essays (~2000-2005ish) and Asians absolutely blasting past Whites in terms of average SAT score.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#275
I'd encourage everyone to read Emily Shaw's research on this topic: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED563202.pdf

"Validity of the SAT for Predicting First-Year College Grade Point Average"

TL;DR: High School GPA + SAT score produce correlation coefficient values between 0.44 and 0.62, depending on the population. How strong are those values?

> A general rule of thumb for interpreting correlation coefficients is offered by Cohen (1988): a small correlation has an absolute value of approximately 0.1; a medium correlation has an absolute value of approximately 0.3; and a large correlation has an absolute value of approximately 0.5 or higher.

From Dr. Shaw's paper on page 7, linked above.

In other words it's very strong, the strongest correlation coefficient that has been found for any signal associated with first year GPA at college.

This has been well understood in the academic community for decades, it's only outside of professional education circles that the validity of the SAT and ACT (when combined with high school GPA) as a predictor of future performance at college is even questioned.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Multiple Republicans ... and you wonder why there's a backlash I'm generally not in the USA so I'm trying to speak of things more internationally, and broader than just the divisive Dem/Rep mob. And no, the backlash I'm talking about is the last eighty or more years. The hippies are boomers, after all. > Top 10 states by drug overdose ... I'm not talking about deaths but deaths that society encourages. What would h…

You provided a link to a Canadian program. If you don't have other sources then why do you think it happens in the us "The police warn non drug users that a cheap street dose is many times more likely to kill an inexperienced user than a similar dose from a decade ago." This is a conspiracy theory. Evidence? And about your first comment, I'm showing numbers of deaths, you're claiming that some part of that is encoura…

> You provided a link to a Canadian program. If you don't have other sources then why do you think it happens in the us

Because the cities literally follow the same public policy. Don't arrest for "simple usage", camping on the streets is allowed, etc. They're getting advice from the same people. But yes, the USA does not that I know, have vending machines for drugs yet, that's still afaik a Canadian thing. In the USA you have to go to a "clinic" and ask a worker for your dose by hand and generally they want you to consume the drug there.

> [Street doses growing in strength] is a conspiracy theory.

Not even a little. I'm not talking about the why or the who. When tested the bags sold contain more active drug and many first-time users are reported dying when generally opioids (read erowid, etc) don't do that.

> Evidence?

Your googling fingers are busted but the ones you use to complain are working?

> Most of what you said is speculation and you haven't provided meaningful evidence besides linking to a paper

No, I've provided enough evidence to show that things are run by people who don't know what they're doing and are misrepresenting the studies to the city. If you can't find the public documents talking about your own cities you aren't trying hard enough.

> in another country.

Lol, so sorry the world doesn't end at your borders.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#277

It should be easy to make the student body reflect the diversity of applicants: select them at random.

I'd have them selected randomly from those that clear the standardized testing bar. Otherwise, without selecting for academic performance, universities become a continuation of highschool where high achievers are surrounded by riffraff who don't really want to learn but rather spend a few years partying with student loans before hitting the workforce.

continuation of highschool where high achievers are surrounded by riffraff

One of the best things about adulthood is no longer spending every day with what one teacher called "the peanut gallery" hooting and squawking from the back of the room.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#279

MIT admissions concluded that SAT scores were the least inequitable method for selecting students that would be successful at MIT.

Quoted post unavailable.

What's the sarcasm? You could argue the SAT is designed for testing skills that can only/primarily be learned within the current school system. And that System is designed to keep minorities out, so I could argue there's a correlation there
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