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Job application asked for my SAT scores

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Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#71

Post by cyberax »

annzabelle wrote: post #25
alephnerd wrote: post #10

As I mentioned elsewhere on HN [0], younger generations are much more competitive now. Visit and talk with undergrads at a top CS program like Stanford, Cal, UIUC, MIT, etc. The culture is different because this is a much more competitive generation. When the acceptance rate into a top CS program is in the 1-5% range and laurels like being a Valedictorian, NHS member, JV or Varsity sports team member in HS, getting a…

I disagree with the increase in competitiveness being a good thing. Excessive filtering at all levels has meant that eccentrics or absent minded professor types are not making it into research roles, and creatives or mad geniuses are filtered out before they have the chance to make an impact. There are a lot of people who are extremely bright and creative, but just don't have it all together the whole time from ages…

The US education has always been competitive. In sports.

Its school system has always been a state-sponsored daycare.

SAT/ACT tests reflect this. I can get a perfect score in SAT math easily. And I likely could do that as a kid (I never took standardized tests at school). I wouldn't have been able to get the perfect scores in the Chinese gaokao or Korean/Japanese tests.

> There are a lot of people who are extremely bright and creative, but just don't have it all together the whole time from ages 14-25, and these days they have no chance of making it into research positions.

This is just nonsense. Are you saying that we should kick out smart kids with high test scores to let in absent-minded students who care about only getting drunk so that they _might_ become great researchers in their 30-s?

To the topic at hand: it's way too easy to fluff your resume with nonsense like "Coordinated a responsible team for an implementation of cross-cutting concerns improving customer retention change by 12.23% across the organization". Test scores provide at least some objective measurement.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#73

Post by LPisGood »

alephnerd wrote: post #10

As I mentioned elsewhere on HN [0], younger generations are much more competitive now. Visit and talk with undergrads at a top CS program like Stanford, Cal, UIUC, MIT, etc. The culture is different because this is a much more competitive generation. When the acceptance rate into a top CS program is in the 1-5% range and laurels like being a Valedictorian, NHS member, JV or Varsity sports team member in HS, getting a…

> a Valedictorian, NHS member, JV or Varsity sports team member in HS, getting a 2100/1500+ on the SAT, and taking 6-7 APs are now table stakes

This is very true in my experience, except I subbed out Valedictorian with multiple varsity sports/student government and the SAT with ACT and I didn’t even get waitlisted at top schools.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#74

Post by annzabelle »

cyberax wrote: post #71
annzabelle wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the increase in competitiveness being a good thing. Excessive filtering at all levels has meant that eccentrics or absent minded professor types are not making it into research roles, and creatives or mad geniuses are filtered out before they have the chance to make an impact. There are a lot of people who are extremely bright and creative, but just don't have it all together the whole time from ages…

The US education has always been competitive. In sports. Its school system has always been a state-sponsored daycare. SAT/ACT tests reflect this. I can get a perfect score in SAT math easily. And I likely could do that as a kid (I never took standardized tests at school). I wouldn't have been able to get the perfect scores in the Chinese gaokao or Korean/Japanese tests. > There are a lot of people who are extremely b…

I'm not opposed to the use of test scores, it's more the requirement that kids have the whole package of grades+activities+honors societies+test scores consistently through a phase of life that is widely understood as tumultuous for many. We're selecting for robots.

There's a reason the west was so productive in terms of new scientific and technological discoveries in the twentieth century, and it's not that our scientists were the most consistent conscientious students who prepared extensively for exams and padded their resumes in just the right way.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#75

Post by samtheDamned »

monkpit wrote: post #41
annzabelle wrote: post #6

Canonical? Heard nothing but bad things about their hiring process.

wild to call out a random org like that…

They're known for asking odd questions like "how did you perform in math in high school" and "please justify your performance in math in high school". It was actually my guess as well before I read the post.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#76

Post by georgeecollins »

ogou wrote: post #23

I have seen company descriptions in job ads that list college achievements of founders. They are invariably young Asian men. I understand that it's a cultural signifier and don't judge them. But, I also understand that I will never hear back from them because I don't share that background. So, I never apply to any job listing that references college experience of either side, other than wanting a degree in general.

I think it is a positive for an employer to ask for an SAT because it tells me right away I don't want to work for them. Once (a long time ago) I tried to upload my resume to apply for a job. The web page started asking me very basic questions, like a basic aptitude test. I was out. Tell me you do not know how to find and evaluate talent!

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#77

Post by analog31 »

jawns wrote: post #48

As a manager, there are several qualities that I value highly in an engineer, and they all happen to begin with the letter C: Competent, Consistent, Curious, Caring, and Clear Communicators. While SAT scores might act as a proxy for competency and possibly curiosity, they're not going to tell you much about whether the person is consistently reliable, whether they care about others and cooperate well, or whether thei…

C = Competitiveness.

I met an HR manager who had worked for a local but well known company with a reputation for caring about things like GPA and SAT scores. She told me that remembering your SAT scores after college was a sign of a competitive attitude.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#78

Post by apparent »

> Why would you ask for a self-reported, unverifiable test score that could be decades old at this point?

Because many colleges that used to reliably filter for them no longer do (or didn't during a several-year period).

It's true that self-reported scores are not the most accurate, but if I were applying for a job I would report honestly, on the assumption that they could easily request for the scores to be sent by the College Board. The risk/reward of lying does not make sense, at least in my case.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#80

Post by alephnerd »

annzabelle wrote: post #74
cyberax wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US education has always been competitive. In sports. Its school system has always been a state-sponsored daycare. SAT/ACT tests reflect this. I can get a perfect score in SAT math easily. And I likely could do that as a kid (I never took standardized tests at school). I wouldn't have been able to get the perfect scores in the Chinese gaokao or Korean/Japanese tests. > There are a lot of people who are extremely b…

I'm not opposed to the use of test scores, it's more the requirement that kids have the whole package of grades+activities+honors societies+test scores consistently through a phase of life that is widely understood as tumultuous for many. We're selecting for robots. There's a reason the west was so productive in terms of new scientific and technological discoveries in the twentieth century, and it's not that our scie…

> There's a reason the west was so productive in terms of new scientific and technological discoveries in the twentieth century

> it's not that our scientists were the most consistent conscientious students who prepared extensively for exams and padded their resumes in just the right way.

Instead, a large portion were immigrants or the children of immigrants who arrived in the US as part of trans-national brain drain from countries with strict education systems (eg. Hungarian Jewish Americans in WW2, Eastern Europeans in the 1980s to present, Asian Americans today).

There's a reason Asian Americans, Eastern European Americans, and immigrant African Americans are overrepresented in leadership and white collar industries despite the very real handicap of having extended periods time without US citizenship or a greencard.

Instead of optimizing for feel-happy edge cases, we should be optimizing for building the best talent where possible, and that requires being competitive.

> We're selecting for robots.

Frankly, this is insulting as well. Yes there are some late bloomers, but they are outliers. If they can truly succeed they would stil find a non-beaten path to succeed in a competitive ecosystem.

> consistently through a phase of life that is widely understood as tumultuous for many

Only to y'all "heritage" Americans. For those of us who are kids of immigrants, we learnt that life is a race, either you compete or you fall to the wayside.

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