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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

#401

Post by thelock85 »

ratsmack wrote: post #376
thelock85 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The evidence is literally in the federal and state legislation passed since late 1800s to support public education with extreme prejudice toward women and minorities. And the subsequent battle to make the system inclusive, culminating with the 1964 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (commonly grouped with “civil rights acts”). And even this law is continuously reauthorized by both sides on the aisle in the name o…

> (most recently “No Child Left Behind” and “Every Student Succeeds”) And now for the worst thing that ever happened to the government education system.

No argument here. Though there’s tough competition for some of those Nixon-Reagan era reauthorizations of ESEA which set the stage for standardized tests being the primary benchmark for everything (and priming the pump for education publishers to create/expand the test prep industry).

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

#402

Post by kelnos »

bombcar wrote: post #129
paulpauper wrote: post #109

Even very high scorers sometimes find it impossible to get into top schools. Part of the problem is supply of slots has not kept up with population growth. It's not like Harvard's enrollment has kept up with population growth. Another problem is that the ceiling of standardized tests has been lowered, so top scores more more common.

Universities like to limit themselves somewhat because they don’t want to endanger the brand, but it takes an insane amount of money and effort to get a new college or university off the ground. The state schools may be able to sidestep this a bit.

Not just an insane amount of money and effort, but likely decades to develop a reputation that could rival that of a Harvard or MIT. When you're starting from zero, you're not going to be able to attract top-notch faculty.

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

#403

Post by zdragnar »

matai_kolila wrote: post #388
Meekro wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know when all of this happened to you, but these days there's no excuse. I just googled for "how to increase my sat score" and the first result was this collegeboard.org page[1] called "How to Improve Your SAT Score." It referred me to the Khan Academy's free SAT practice course[2]. [1] https://blog.collegeboard.org/how-to-improve-your-sat-score [2] https://www.khanacademy.org/sat/confirmed

Cool so when exactly is a student supposed to spend this time to study? I really think HN should stop for a moment and think about how insidious and pervasively poverty creeps into every aspect of a poor child’s life, because some of what’s being written here is embarrassingly naïve.

They'll certainly have more time to study than they will for extracurricular activities, social clubs, volunteering and all of the other "soft" ways kids pad out their college applications.

In terms of fairness across racial and economic strata, standardized tests like the ACT and SAT are the fairest ways to judge college applications.

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

#404

Post by gloryjulio »

alistairSH wrote: post #321
BobbyJo wrote: post #285

The greatest source of admissions inequity is childhood socioeconomic status. Dropping the SAT is so obviously not a fix for that I question the competency of the administrators who thought doing so was a good idea. The SAT is probably the most attainable piece of the application process for a poor kid to succeed at. You literally just need a guide book or two and enough time to study. One good smart friend helps if…

Part of the argument for dropping the SAT is that the SAT has been shown to be a proxy for family socio-economic status and is no better an indicator of success at college than GPA, honor/AP/IB course participation, and extracurriculars. (I’m not making that argument myself, I haven’t seen numbers explained well enough to form a solid opinion)

> SAT has been shown to be a proxy for family socio-economic status

The problem is that this argument is in isolation. If SAT is a proxy, how much better are the other activities as proxies? Who has the leisure to participate all those sports clubs, volunteer clubs, writing all kinds of fancy essays? While the poor kids struggle with jobs outside the school work to support the family and are perpetual tired? If u get rid of the SAT score, who are supporting these poor kids?

I don't believe the people who is making the argument didn't know this. I firmly believe that they are bad faithed and hope others can't see through the crack of the logic and eat it up. Who benefit from this kind of policy which favors the kids with 'life fulfilling' resumes? Plus AA, you know fully well who are benefiting (hint, not the poor kids).

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

#405

Post by samatman »

MereInterest wrote: post #322
crazygringo wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You literally just need a guide book or two and enough time to study. I think it's important to realize just how extremely non-obvious this is, though, for many high school sophomores/juniors. I went to a decent high school and was in honors classes, and even I would have had zero idea test prep was even a thing, if a single science teacher hadn't randomly mentioned it in class once. I went to the school library an…

Especially because the entire purported schtick of the SAT is to measure aptitude (the "A" in the acronym). In principle, if the SAT is true to its name, getting a study book shouldn't help at all. But since study guides or repeated testing does improve the score, it can't be a true measurement of aptitude.

I would think, personally, that if studying were an important part of scholarship, I said if it was, just hypothetically, then studying for the test of scholastic aptitude would itself demonstrate aptitude for scholarship.

SAT must agree, since they changed the test to be much more amenable to study. That must be the reason why right.

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

#406

Post by kleinsch »

HarveyBungus wrote: post #369

1) The SAT is obviously a superior and more objective indicator of "will do well on schoolwork" than the other components of college applications. Essays on political topics, biggest weaknesses, and a time you had to overcome a challenge are obviously less standardized, more subject to whims of reviewer, and this is why they are being promoted. The idea that there are kids with terrible scores but great portfolios of…

Grades you got on actual schoolwork are a much more obvious predictor.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-22/grades-v...

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

#407

Post by zdragnar »

dirtyid wrote: post #367
alistairSH wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the argument for dropping the SAT is that the SAT has been shown to be a proxy for family socio-economic status and is no better an indicator of success at college than GPA, honor/AP/IB course participation, and extracurriculars. (I’m not making that argument myself, I haven’t seen numbers explained well enough to form a solid opinion)

You can watch SAT prep videos and pirate prep books for free. GPA gets juiced all the time. Honor AP/IB had a solid premium. Very few extra curriculars that don't cost money / resources. The handful of kids (including me) that didn't pay 5 digits for fancy SAT prep at my school poured over some study guides and watched pirated VCDs and ended up doing better than kids who half hearted their private prep.

You don't even need to do that. There are plenty of free, legally accessible resources to prepare for the test available now- much more so than when I took the tests back in my youth.

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

#408

Post by zdragnar »

davidgay wrote: post #397
robomartin wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The greatest source of admissions inequity is childhood socioeconomic status If we are talking about the US, no, I disagree. The greatest source of admissions inequity are shit K-12 education. I'll give you a direct example from when my kids were at the local middle school. Their science teacher --a Chiropractor-turned-teacher-- was, well, there's no other way to put it, a moron. The guy actually taught the kids th…

> > The greatest source of admissions inequity is childhood socioeconomic status > If we are talking about the US, no, I disagree. > The greatest source of admissions inequity are shit K-12 education. You've missed the step where the higher socioeconomic classes opt-out of the shit K-12 education by moving to better school districts, sending their kids to private schools, or homeschooling them.

That's why so many parents advocate for vouchers and school choice. Kids shouldn't be locked into shit schools just because their parents can't afford to move.

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

#409

Post by samatman »

alistairSH wrote: post #321
BobbyJo wrote: post #285

The greatest source of admissions inequity is childhood socioeconomic status. Dropping the SAT is so obviously not a fix for that I question the competency of the administrators who thought doing so was a good idea. The SAT is probably the most attainable piece of the application process for a poor kid to succeed at. You literally just need a guide book or two and enough time to study. One good smart friend helps if…

Part of the argument for dropping the SAT is that the SAT has been shown to be a proxy for family socio-economic status and is no better an indicator of success at college than GPA, honor/AP/IB course participation, and extracurriculars. (I’m not making that argument myself, I haven’t seen numbers explained well enough to form a solid opinion)

We don't need numbers here, logic is fine.

If it were a proxy for socio-economic status, there would have to be some way for the score to adjust if the student's parents suddenly went broke.

Since there isn't it cannot be a proxy.

Perhaps you meant it correlates? So what? What if it correlates better with success in college than pure socioeconomic status, which I'm fairly sure it does?

Should we just use the less accurate one instead?

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

#410

Post by matai_kolila »

BobbyJo wrote: post #399
matai_kolila wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool so when exactly is a student supposed to spend this time to study? I really think HN should stop for a moment and think about how insidious and pervasively poverty creeps into every aspect of a poor child’s life, because some of what’s being written here is embarrassingly naïve.

As someone who grew up super poor, time tends to be one of the only things poor kids have as much of as rich kids. Is that universal? Of course not, but name something better.

My man, if you were poor and had a lot of free time, someone in your life was being a great person to keep you from that effect of poverty.

Not all of us were so lucky.

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