Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Job application asked for my SAT scores

mrmarket.lol

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 403 posts

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#111

Post by apparent »

sdevonoes wrote: post #33

If you want the job, can’t you just lie? Or are SAT scores something that cannot be faked? I dunno, I also say I know Kotlin when I have more experience in Java (and honestly I couldn’t care less about specific tech stacks), or that I know about tcp/udp when all I have is read a couple of (good) books about it. I don’t feel bad lying about some stupid requirement

> If you want the job, can’t you just lie? Or are SAT scores something that cannot be faked?

I would assume that if you progress to the point of an offer, they would ask you to have the official scores sent by the College Board. Apparently they hang onto scores back to 2005 and can send them for a fee.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#112

Post by alephnerd »

annzabelle wrote: post #108
cyberax wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the whole package of grades+activities+honors societies+test scores This is _also_ a very US thing. Without true competition, students have to fluff their "resumes" with nonsense to get admitted into good colleges. Other countries have tougher tests that can provide a better signal. > We're selecting for robots. I disagree. We're selecting for people who can set a goal and follow it. Apply the same arguments to spo…

I didn't really state my whole view, but hard exams like Oxford and Cambridge use make sense for elite colleges to use (rather than unrelated extracurriculars), but reforming the whole education system to be oriented around a single high stakes test like in China or Korea has its own severe costs. I do not want high schoolers to spend 20 hours a week at hagwons, and the current resume filler system is also terrible.…

> We could probably repurpose AP exams to fill a similar admissions role to A Levels

They are already being used like that in college admissions today.

> possibly use the AMC/AIME/USAMO more explicitly for admission

Already in use explicitly at most of the top CS programs today

> I do not think declining admissions rates at elite universities reflect that the students are any smarter or more prepared than they were 20 years ago, but rather they are much more cutthroat about many things that are orthogonal to being successful adults

The cutthroatness is what we should be optimizing for long term. Competition is what begets innovation.

Also, even at solid middle tier universities like UC Riverside, the calibre of student has increased dramatically over the past decade [0]

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39369724

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#113

Post by cyberax »

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…

> We're selecting for robots.

And to add to this, learning itself is a _skill_. Working on a complex problem, looking at it from different angles, spending time memorizing facts, working on learning to paint fine lines - these are all skills that you need to master.

By not motivating children to do that during their formative years, you set them up for failure later in life.

Yes, there will always be exceptions, humans are extremely variable. But for the general case just letting children float along without any goals or competition is not a great general strategy.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#115

Post by cm2012 »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #36
cm2012 wrote: post #30

I would never ask for them since its so cringe. But SAT scores correlate to IQ at .81, and IQ is one of the few things that strongly correlates to knowledge work performance positively. There is probably a lot of alpha from knowing candidates SAT scores. Its more useful than knowing the college they went to.

> and IQ is one of the few things that strongly correlates to knowledge work performance positively i think you mean that it correlates to pay. nobody knows what you mean by "knowledge work performance." reviews of your peers also correlated with pay. often it is not the smartest person who is the most popular. so... do you see how you said something kind of meaningless?

Nope, I meant what I said.

A very good metastudy is "The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology" (by Frank L. Schmidt and John E. Hunter). It summarizes 100 years of research on predicting job and training performance. It makes a very strong case that General Mental Ability (GMA, their word for IQ) is the single most valid predictor of employee success on the job, not just income.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#116

Post by apparent »

infamouscow wrote: post #95

If it's been 10+ years and an employer wants your SAT scores, 1600 is as good an answer as any. Anyone asking for that data point doesn't actually care about the accuracy, they just want to see if you'll compliantly jump through a pointless hoop. (Save the "but that's fraud!" replies. It's not material to the job, so it isn't).

That cost-benefit analysis makes no sense if you had a pretty good scores. What's the point in fudging a few extra points if it means that diligence reveals you to be a liar?

It would also be somewhat suspicious if you went to a so-so college but allegedly had a perfect SAT. It would only make sense to lie if your score was well under 1600, you went to a college that makes sense for someone with a perfect SAT, and you didn't think it was likely they would follow up with a request for the official score report.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#117

Post by aidenn0 »

Hax0r778 wrote: post #29
janalsncm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say the same for SAT tests, where the score is best of N and N is however many the person can afford and varies between candidates?

Not only that, but the SAT is not an IQ test and you can definitely study for it. Students with wealthy or motivated parents can get study books or tutors which makes a huge difference in score. The Princeton Review promises a 200 point score improvement with some of their packages. And they can fairly-reliably achieve it too.

You can study for most IQ tests as well.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#118

Post by reaperducer »

wavemode wrote: post #56
spullara wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sadly my kids were just recently taught cursive in elementary school for some unknown reason

Learning it is mostly useful for being capable of reading it, esp. when encountering historical documents (or when encountering old people)

Or encountering California license plates. Or finding Walgreens.

Not wanting to learn cursive is like not wanting to know lower case just because caps lock exists.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#119

Post by aidenn0 »

apparent wrote: post #101
aidenn0 wrote: post #96

I had a friend with an MS show up for first-day of work for a job that asked for SAT scores on the application. HR said "we never got documentation for your SAT scores, can you provide that?" He was on the phone with his mother, having her go through a filing cabinet when he realized that he didn't want to work for a company that was this serious about SAT scores when hiring someone with a post-graduate degree.

That does seem wild. Out of curiosity, did he also have to submit GRE scores, which would be closer in time and more representative of his current knowledge/skills?

I'll ask him. This was about 20 years ago.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#120

Post by jleyank »

apparent wrote: post #101
aidenn0 wrote: post #96

I had a friend with an MS show up for first-day of work for a job that asked for SAT scores on the application. HR said "we never got documentation for your SAT scores, can you provide that?" He was on the phone with his mother, having her go through a filing cabinet when he realized that he didn't want to work for a company that was this serious about SAT scores when hiring someone with a post-graduate degree.

That does seem wild. Out of curiosity, did he also have to submit GRE scores, which would be closer in time and more representative of his current knowledge/skills?

Worker w/PhD was asked by Quebec during residency interview to produce High School grades. Bureaucrats will be bureaucrats independent of language I guess.
Post reply on HN