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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]

#331

Post by SamBam »

Jun8 wrote: post #298
nindalf wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affirmative action on the basis of socio-economic status is a good thing, and will replace affirmative action based on race. What surprises me is that you're surprised by this. Wasn't this called out by the Supreme Court in their judgement as a better alternative to the race based admissions they struck down? > whatever objectives They're very clear about their objectives too - they want more of their student body to…

You're absolutely right but that's not what's being done when the community income is being used rather than family income. This leads to many complexities, injustices, and people gaming the system.

People gaming the system? Are affluent kids moving into housing projects in order to get admitted into Dartmouth?

The fact is if they're in a public school in an underserved area, they are most likely going to a disadvantaged public school, and face strong headwinds trying to achieve the kinds of scores kids in affluent neighborhoods get.

Note also that multiple factors are being looked at.

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

#332

Post by asdff »

zeroCalories wrote: post #177
ryukoposting wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in my experience in the Big Ten. For any math/science class, the plurality of the final grade was made up by exam scores - typically 45-60 percent, to my recollection. 60ish percent is a very particular number, because it's the highest weight that doesn't make it possible to pass the class by doing almost nothing except the exams. At 65 percent, you're giving students an easy way to game the system. Some classes…

Yes exams are heavily weighted, but labs/assignments are not usually easy in stem courses. You're delusional if you think that you're gonna get a 4.0 by half-assing course work, and even more delusional if you think someone like that will average over 90% on their exams. The SAT covers fairly basic topics that nearly every student should know, that's why it's like an IQ test. When I was in school freshmen would take…

The labs at least are not designed to be challenging. They are designed to safely demonstrate some topic. I have been graded on yield and purity in chemistry before but it was only on a sliver of a percentage of the write up grade. Things can go sideways on you in lab all the time the last thing they want is for you to be worrying about that and dropping glassware full of chemistry. Lecture component was always the ugly beast that demanded all your focus. The lab, you show up, you do your writeup, you get a great grade on that section generally. If they have a lab specific exam at the end of the semester its a mole hill compared to the mountain of the chemistry lecture exam.

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

#333

Post by mnky9800n »

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.

Then why do the tests cost money?

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

#334

Post by SamBam »

ckemere wrote: post #257
pknomad wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How though? They're explicitly tying academic performance in relation to one's socioeconomic background. I find their claim of "doing more with less being more impressive than doing more with more" reasonable. The only way to avoid any sort of judgmental/arbitrary calls is to blindly apply academic standards (the way UT Austin does top 4% of your HS class) and that comes with its own problems.

While the article claims grades are less predictive than test scores, UTs policy is actually intended to have a similar locally-normalized effect, leveraging the wide variability of high school quality in TX…

Dartmouth wants to both achieve SES diversity and gets kids who are likely to succeed. If selecting the top of each class in the state gives them the diversity but doesn't give them the success rates, it's a less effective strategy. Their data seems to say that accepting medium-high SAT scores from poorer kids gets them both the diversity and the higher predicted success rates.

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

#335

Post by [deleted] »

doctorwho42 wrote: post #103
ryukoposting wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#336

Post by rangestransform »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #288
laidoffamazon wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was probably a time in which SAT scores are weighted highly in admissions for elite schools. Now it's a starting level filter. You're not getting in because of top scores, but you will get rejected because of bad scores absent a massive alternative hook. People that get in have top scores and other superhuman traits.

Or: Having a high IQ isn't enough anymore, you also need to have - and prove - that you have doggedly high Conscientiousness. Preferably in a way which aligns with traditional prestige seeking, like debate or math competitions or football. That's probably a good thing imo. It indicates that our overall expectations for our elites is on the rise, which translates to better outcomes on net down the line when they actua…

That sounds like Japan and Korea, i vastly prefer the status quo over that

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

#337

Post by gnicholas »

tverbeure wrote: post #325
chiefofstuffs wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's relatively common for similar behavior on the margin; people avoid sending their kids to the super competitive high schools for a combination of competitiveness/mental health/standing-out-to-colleges reasons

Indeed. If the level of instruction between neighboring school districts is the same but one is super competitive and the other is not, I really don't see why you'd decide to buy a house in the the more competitive one. What good does it do? And that's not even taking into account the fact that kids from a weaker school might actually have better chances during admission.

I think the general sense is that being around other high-performing students would be motivating and enjoyable. But if there is a significant tradeoff in terms of admissions, I think some parents will lean in the other direction.

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

#338

Post by Kwpolska »

asdff wrote: post #321
Kwpolska wrote: post #183

You know what’s an even better policy? Making standardised tests the sole admission criterion. No high school grades (which are often inflated, unless your teachers hate you), no extracurricular activities, no essays. Just one set of objective numbers from the national maturity exam; which tests and with what weights depending on the field of study. This is what universities do in Poland (for most fields of study; so…

In theory this is what the diploma or GED is already for. These are all certified by the state to show you've completed a certain amount of education to a certain level of quality. What is an SAT or ACT supposed to be on top of all that honestly? Really its tackling a symptom of colleges for whatever reason no longer trusting the states own education departments' diploma or GED. Which is damning considering these sch…

Where do the grades on a US high school diploma come from? They are arbitrarily assigned by teachers from the student’s high school, right? One teacher might give everyone good grades, while another will be more strict, and yet another may give good grades to their favourite students only. Grades of two students from the same class are often not comparable, let alone grades of two students from different states.

The SAT and the ACT are standardized tests, meaning that everyone in the country writes the same test on the same day, and the tests are designed to make the test results comparable between different sessions.

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

#339

Post by counters »

gnicholas wrote: post #299
counters wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has to be asked out loud - do you think that the admissions departments at top universities haven't explicitly thought about this? In a post-SFFA vs Harvard world, anecdotes and thought experiments carry very little water. We all know - and the universities are very explicit about this - that socio-economic indicators are the new affirmative action. It's clearly the only practical way to effect the sort of diversi…

> It has to be asked out loud - do you think that the admissions departments at top universities haven't explicitly thought about this? Yes, I think they would use this as a facially-neutral way to achieve a race-motivated goal. > We all know - and the universities are very explicit about this - that socio-economic indicators are the new affirmative action. It's clearly the only practical way to effect the sort of di…

> Are you saying they want to have racial diversity or SES diversity?

Because of structural racism and similar phenomena, they're not fully separable. It's not obvious to me they're even separable in a meaningful way (meaning that if you optimize for one, you simply won't get the same result as if you were to optimize for the other).

> Can I ask what you found so objectionable? I understand that many people disagree with the outcome, but from a legal perspective (IAAL), I haven't heard much criticism.

(IANAL, and it's been quite a while since I spent cycles on this so my recollection may be fuzzy) Fundamentally, I'm very uncomfortable with the dissonance in the concurring/dissenting opinions of Thomas/Sotomayor, respectively. My understanding was that they basically argue that the proposed standards by SFFA's lawyers are effectively unworkable, yet at the same time, there's very little to indicate that many - if any - universities were actually already out-of-compliance. In fact, in the aftermath of the case it seems as if most universities simply publicly doubled down on their existing diversity policies and missions.

So what's the point here? Why did SCOTUS accept to hear this? It seems like it was just taken up so that Roberts could fire up culture wars with the commentary he made in the majority opinion he authored.

It's hard to find virtue in something that claims to do a lot but in practice seems to do virtually nothing. So maybe it's incorrect to state that this is based on "absurd jurisprudence," but I can't find anything redeeming or positive to state about the opinion or the process that took us here.

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

#340

Post by Geisterde »

There is a lot of really interesting and simultaneously totally useless information in the comments here. If I ran a college, im accepting whoever I decide, because its mine. Imagine accepting random strangers in your house to level out income/racial/gender inequities.

Of course the standardized tests are the best indicator of collegiate performance, and of course you will miss inspired candidates by only looking at test scores. Its a numbers game, and people pay a high price to come to my college, because every student gets a well paying job, because every student has a good grasp of the material and we built a reputation for high standards. If I accept unqualified candidates then my reputation and profit will suffer, because im dumping thousands of subpar kids into the market with papermill degrees.

"Oh no, it was always my dream to go to harvard, its not fair!" Like fuck-all is fair in life.

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