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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]

#381

Post by Boatfaceing »

counters wrote: post #284
gnicholas wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just socioeconomic background, it also includes 'how much your parents cared about your education', to some extent. For some families (think of the typical Asian immigrant family), getting the kids a good education is the first priority. They will sacrifice vacations, living in a nicer house, etc. in order to make sure their kids go to better schools and get better grades. If you have two families that are e…

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…

[dead]

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

#382

Post by bhickey »

SamBam wrote: post #331
Jun8 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Are affluent kids moving into housing projects in order to get admitted into Dartmouth?

This came up in Boston Public Schools. Admission to Boston Latin took into account the portion of a student body eligible for free lunch. It became mathematically impossible to be admitted to Latin if you weren't coming from a low income school.

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

#383

Post by hirvi74 »

asdff wrote: post #324
sokoloff wrote: post #2

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

Except that the test is pretty clearly perverted. You take two kids, same education, give one an after school testing program their parents pay money for, and they score better. Is the wealthier kid more worthy of receiving a college education? What does that say about how we educate our society then, and what we are actually valuing and giving privilege?

> Is the wealthier kid more worthy of receiving a college education?

Not to mention, what about us test-disabled people?

I didn't know I had ADHD and its "friends" when I took the ACT, and I could have potentially benefited greatly from the reasonable accommodations the test allows for. However, it's not like every child is required to have some kind of psychological evaluation while in school.

I find all of this standardization in testing to be nothing more than Goodhart's Law in full swing.

Just what we need, more "Teaching to the Test" and route memorization in our education system...

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

#384

Post by hirvi74 »

verst wrote: post #87

I was born and raised in Germany where I attended an ordinary high school. Eventually I decided I wanted to attend university in the US but had no help navigating the process and requirements. Needless to say, I realized I had to take the SAT last minute and had never seen a practice test, or taken this kind of test in English before. All my instructions had been in German, and the German school system does not usual…

> everything is about showing your thought process and your steps

You probably did well at a US college because you came from a system that actually provided you with critical thinking and reasoning skills. Instead of a system, like the US, which is rife with route memorization and multiple choice tests.

I would imagine the opposite experience would be much more difficult (assuming what I remember from studying German is actually correct).

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

#385

Post by spoonjim »

counters wrote: post #284
gnicholas wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just socioeconomic background, it also includes 'how much your parents cared about your education', to some extent. For some families (think of the typical Asian immigrant family), getting the kids a good education is the first priority. They will sacrifice vacations, living in a nicer house, etc. in order to make sure their kids go to better schools and get better grades. If you have two families that are e…

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…

The universities want to have 13% black students because they’re run by the kind of people who prioritize that over other goals. They are now in the position of trying to achieve that while plausibly claiming that they’re not.

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

#386

Post by spoonjim »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #278
ckemere wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

like many things, there are some pretty significant unintended consequences though. In my district in Texas, parents would send their kids to the worst high school in the district because it was dramatically easier to be top 4% and get auto-admit to UT that way

Goodhart’s lawing the Asian nerds into a high school with cholos and gangbangers

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

#387

Post by spoonjim »

LeonardoTolstoy wrote: post #249
gnicholas wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't suggesting that families would move, just that they would select lower-intensity schools that they currently have access to. For example, families in Menlo Park can send their kids to high school in Atherton, Redwood City, or San Carlos. If they can get an edge by sending their kid to a school in RWC, where they'll be at the top of the class, and apparently get a boost when colleges weight their SAT, I would…

High achievers / high earners moving into lower achieving / low earning schools seems like a good thing regardless.

Why?

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

#388

Post by hirvi74 »

kebsup wrote: post #252

I've taken ACT as an exchange student when I was in the US. I didn't need it, but everyone in my grade was doing it and it was for free, so why not. Sometimes people say, that for ACTs, one needs a specific knowledge of how to take the test, which does not teach you anything, but I did not get the feeling. All of the questions seemed quite reasonable, no tricks and not even a need for smart ideas (unlike let's say ma…

> Basically know the basic math rules

I was raised in the Southeast, USA. That's a big ask of us and our education system.

In my state, we have a few state administered tests that are taking throughout one's primary schooling years. Student take these exams at periodic intervals. For example, there is one for reading comprehension and assessment taken, iirc, at grade 3, 6, and 9 or something like that.

Well, 60% of students in my state right now who took the 3rd grade reading comprehension assessment have failed to demonstrate the ability to read at a 3rd grade level.

I have a hard time accepting these test [ACT/SAT] as some kind of arbiter or one's future when the education system is failing many students long before he or she ever gets to take the SAT/ACT.

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

#390

Post by hirvi74 »

garyrob wrote: post #123

My own experience was that I was a mediocre high school student due to my ADHD-Inattentive, but then the SATs were interesting enough to me that I was able to really, really focus for the length of the test. And I did far better on that test that anyone would have suspected I could do based only on my grades, and it was, in fact, predictive of my college performance. In college, I was able to figure out tricks to man…

Interesting, for I was quite the opposite.

I'm ADHD-C, but I always did well in school, got shit on by the ACT, went to college and did well up until my final year, but that was mainly due to some extenuating circumstances and not my drive or intelligence.

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