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Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

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Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#101

Post by balderdash »

ccleve wrote: post #28

Here's the money quote: >> Importantly, these test scores better position Admissions to identify high-achieving less-advantaged applicants and high-achieving applicants who attend high schools for which Dartmouth has less information to interpret the transcripts. Precisely. SATs aren't about hurting the poor or disadvantaged. It's about giving them a chance.

>> who attend high schools for which Dartmouth has less information to interpret the transcripts

IIRC most colleges correlate incoming and outgoing grades for specific high schools - so that a 3.0 average at a highly competitive high school (think Stuyvesant or Thomas Jefferson) is a better indicator of success than a 4.0 at a poor performing school - the SAT is very helpful to add context to a GPA for a students applying from schools where colleges don’t already have a sense for the HS program’s rigor.

I came to appreciate my high school education when I attended a highly selective university and found my grades going up from high school without actually doing any more work while seeing class valedictorians (I barely scraped by with a cum laude) from other high schools really struggling.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#102

Post by zeroCalories »

ryukoposting wrote: post #31
sokoloff wrote: post #2

Shocking that a “Scholastic Aptitude Test” or “American College Test” would predict future scholastic achievement at the collegiate level.

I know. Being good at taking tests in high school is a positive indicator for being good at taking tests in college? A staggering discovery.

I don't know if you're trying to make a point about test taking, but you're aware that college GPA is composed of more than just being a good test taker? Better way of putting it might be: someone that scores highly on an IQ proxy is good at everything.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#103

Post by doctorwho42 »

ryukoposting wrote: post #31
sokoloff wrote: post #2

Shocking that a “Scholastic Aptitude Test” or “American College Test” would predict future scholastic achievement at the collegiate level.

I know. Being good at taking tests in high school is a positive indicator for being good at taking tests in college? A staggering discovery.

I would argue that it is even more so in college, where tests make up the bulk of your grade.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#104

Post by ryukoposting »

Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #30
SnooSux wrote: post #5

To measure academic achievement they use First Year GPA. It makes sense they're correlated, both require studying known material for a test. But is GPA the best measure, especially first year? I would be interested in other metrics like 3rd-4th year GPA or placements into jobs and such.

Contrary to what some may think: I would strongly suspect that particularly high scores on SAT/ACT would also correlate fairly strongly with well-paying job placements and long term GPA. Note I am not saying that people who don't do particularly well on SAT/ACT can't also succeed on college and beyond, I had a pretty average score myself and consider myself fairly successful. But all the people I know who had the hig…

There's some nuance to the "work ethic" factor. Work ethic makes a big difference in academic outcomes, but it depends on where that work is targeted.

Anecdotal evidence, part 1:

I grew up in the suburbs and went to public schools that, at the time, were good-not-great within the state. In that setting, I was a high achiever by any sensible metric. I was friends with a lot of the other "smart kids," and I definitely worked harder than some of them, but outside of school, I was also working on different things. My hobbies and extracurriculars weren't strictly academic, but they certainly set me up for academic success better than sports or video games would have.

Anecdotal evidence, part 2:

One of my classmates was "freak of nature" levels of gifted. I shared math classes with him for three years of high school, and to my knowledge he got one math test question wrong in that entire time period. He was also one of the school's best tennis players, and he made it into so many state concert bands/jazz bands/choir groups that their schedules overlapped and he couldn't do all of them. Last I checked, he was finishing up a PhD in neuroscience. But get this: he was our salutatorian, solely because someone else who did no sports and few clubs took more summer classes, and thus had the same GPA with more total credit hours.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#105

Post by Ekaros »

webdood90 wrote: post #92
hardware2win wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Standardized exams are the most fair and transparent. Materials and tutors are available easily for free or cheaply on the internet nowadays.

> Standardized exams are the most fair and transparent. perhaps the _most_ fair right now, but certainly not what I would consider fair. consider a middle class family that has secure food, housing, and transportation vs lower class family where the child might potentially have less consistent sleep, food, or has to work to help pay bills. one has more distractions than the other.

And how do you correct for that?

Move all children to government controlled facilities and do not let them see their parents until they are some age like 21?

Or maybe we should get rid of all criteria for education and just do huge once a year lottery. You get one chance to enter. As poor people can not afford more.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#106

Post by gizmo686 »

nyrikki wrote: post #76
ccleve wrote: post #28

Here's the money quote: >> Importantly, these test scores better position Admissions to identify high-achieving less-advantaged applicants and high-achieving applicants who attend high schools for which Dartmouth has less information to interpret the transcripts. Precisely. SATs aren't about hurting the poor or disadvantaged. It's about giving them a chance.

Except that metrics like how many TVs a household has are indicators of performance on SAT scores. Obviously this is a proxy for socioeconomic status, and people higher on that ladder will have better support structures to do better in school. This is begging the question as socioeconomic status is the primary indicator of educational attainment in our country today. They aren't measuring potential, but the persons a…

This point is specifically addressed in the paper. The predictive power of SAT/ACT goes far beyond its corralation to socioeconomic status.

> Importantly, the relationship between first-year college GPA and SAT/ACT scores is likewise quite similar across neighborhood income and other demographic subgroups at Dartmouth. By contrast, Chetty, Deming, and Friedman (2023) show that certain non-test score inputs in the admissions process, such as guidance counselor recommendations, do not predict college performance even though they do advantage more-advantaged applicants at IvyPlus institutions, increasing their admissions chance

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#107

Post by rconti »

NYTimes "The Daily" podcast had an informative episode on the matter[1]

I'm out of the loop since my college days are behind me, and I don't have kids.

I had heard colleges were going to rely less on standardized testing (and many dropped the requirement during Covid when SAT tests didn't take place at all). I had also heard that there was controversy over reliance on standardized tests, because the wealthy can more easily afford expensive test prep, which initially seemed reasonable to me.

But then when I listed to the podcast I was stunned that the colleges seemed to think relying much more heavily on grades and extracurricular activities was somehow an _improvement_. I thought "grade inflation" was a big worry over the past couple of decades? I thought we all joked about today's nonsensical GPAs where kids get, whatever, 4.5s or 5.0s on a scale of 0-4. And it goes without saying that it's obvious to most of us that volunteering and participating in travel sports and debate teams and so on, is FAR more accessible to those with money, with transportation, with resources, with involved parents?

Standardized tests can't tell us how diligently kids do their homework, how well they do after encountering a setback. Maybe they favor kids who are smart but lazy. They can't tell us how a kid will do when they go from being a high school standout to a below average Harvard student.

But they sure as hell tell us a lot more than utterly subjective grading systems with no standardization whatsoever, and "intangibles" that tell us only how good a kid's family (or hired college prep expert) is at identifying activities that will get them into a selective University.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/podcasts/the-daily/the-wa...

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#108

Post by localhost »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #78
ghaff wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your local library probably has test prep books. I know things have gotten more competitive since back in the day but you can probably get 90% of the way there without expensive test prep courses. (Yes, it takes time and commitment but it's mostly not the case that paying for test prep courses automatically translates into higher scores.)

I prepped on my own and did really good, but I was middle class and had a lot of other advantages. Prepping isn’t just about having access to prep material, but coaching that encourages you to actually practice the material.

That's what AI is for, and it does a great job of this today.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#109

Post by candiodari »

piombisallow wrote: post #58
ccleve wrote: post #28

Here's the money quote: >> Importantly, these test scores better position Admissions to identify high-achieving less-advantaged applicants and high-achieving applicants who attend high schools for which Dartmouth has less information to interpret the transcripts. Precisely. SATs aren't about hurting the poor or disadvantaged. It's about giving them a chance.

What, you mean kids from a disadvantaged background can't build a 10 page CV filled with outreach, volunteering, expensive sports and musical practice by the time they're 18? They don't have an instinctive feel for the current pieties, bred into them since they're 3, to put in their admission essays?

[flagged]

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#110

Post by doctorwho42 »

cowmix wrote: post #19

... but it still doesn't predict actual success in my experience. I was "gifted program" adjacent growing up (all my friends were in these programs in the late 70s -> 80s) -- all earned high grades and test scores -- but many are now puzzled why they are not showered with $$ and success into present day. Well, they don't think they are successful to where they should be.

Well yeah, our society doesn't really reward hard work and advanced knowledge for the many. There are the rare exceptions, but for the most part to make $$$ you need to buy into the current system which is all about making spreadsheet numbers go up YoY at the cost of everything else. If you don't do that, well I hope you can find a niche somewhere that is stable and comfortable.
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