I wish I could find a position that would. My SAT scores, by far, outshine my CV.
Job application asked for my SAT scores
181–190 of 403 posts
Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of late, US folks coming out of university optimize for money and head for things like finance - people who hire STEM people. Those more interested in the field than the bucks go for advanced STEM degrees. And if the Yanks don't go for the bucks, they go for the MD.
> US folks coming out of university optimize for money and head for things like finance... Not really, and I say this as someone who works in VC with peers in PE, Growth Equity, and other segments of high finance. If you have the resume to get hired as an IB Analyst you will also get hired as a new grad SWE or APM at OpenAI, Google, or Roblox where they would earn the same or more than as an IB analyst with chiller w…
Judging from your career path, you shifted from tech to money towards the start. I hope you were a good boss when you were starting up, as such people are rare and wondrous creatures. Forgive my choice of jargon - I divide the world into people who do the work and those who talk about the work. And the latter group tends to set the rules and collect the profits. I preferred the hacking. And tech != STEM, as biotech/pharma is rather different than selling ads and harvesting information.
And FWIW, I've worked all over N America.
Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always enjoy the advocates who claim that students have mastered their subjects, but "don't test well". Would you want a pilot on your flight who flunked flying school exams, but somehow "really knew how to fly!"?
My understanding is you're equating `failing a test` to `lacking the relevant skills and knowledge to do a certain task competently`. The reality is sometimes tests in academia are just not very well made and don't really test what they are supposed to be testing, and that's usually due to multiple reasons like misaligned incentives, staffing shortages and maybe lack of resources / funding. I don't think the comparis…
I don't buy the notion that tests do not test relevant skills.
In my long career I've noticed a strong correlation between SAT scores and academic performance as well as job performance.
> I don't think the comparison to flight school is relevant enough in this context because it's a too different of a world to traditional academia.
My dad kept his flight school tests for flying all sorts of airplanes. They bear a lot of similarities with the SATs. There's a lot of math in there for things like fuel consumption, wind, maximum landing weight, glide distance, and so on.
For example, one day he was cruising along in his F-86 when the engine failed. he radioed the tower, and they told him to bail out. But he calculated his speed, altitude, distance, wind, sink rate, air templeratur, etc., and figured he could make the field after configuring the airplane for maximum glide. He made a perfect landing, but still got reprimanded for risking his life bringing the airplane back. But he had worked the math and disagreed that it was more risky to bring it in than bail out.
Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores
#184You cannot use the SAT as a metric to compare different cohorts. SAT scoring has been revised many times over the years. When I took it the highest possible score was 1600. From 2004 through 2016 the highest score was 2400. Now it is back to 1600 again. Plus, both the content and the format of the exam has changed many times over the years. At times, there was no essay requirement, at times the essay was required, an…
The scores have changed, but ideally they are asking for the percentiles. Those are scaled to the current year.
Paid test prep is generally considered to be more effective on the current SAT than it was several years ago which also makes it harder to compare across years.
Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is a lossy testing filter better than just failing out those who can't make it? Maybe allow for larger freshmen classes and smaller latter classes or adopt community colleges and have all students start there and advance into the UC system sophomore year on. Instead they bring back what is basically an IQ test for admission.
From the students' perspective, it is better to not be allowed in than fail out midway through. One test is cheaper than years in college.
I personally strongly disagree. I think it's much better to be given the opportunity to do the actual work, rather than to be required to do the pre-assessment song and dance. And if there are actual prerequisites that a person hasn't previously passed, they should be allowed to be tested on these specifically.
Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone once told me that American work culture used to be based more on intern-ship / apprentice type hiring but now obsess with formal degrees. I wonder how much of this shift in culture is influenced by the Korean, Chinese and Indian immigrants, as a formal education is a prerequisite to compete in these countries' job market? For example, it is quite common in India for employers to ask for our 10th and 12th stan…
> I wonder how much of this shift in culture is influenced by the Korean, Chinese and Indian immigrants I think there’s an influence, but it’s amplifying a pre-existing trend. Bureaucratic societies favor formal credentials. The U.S. has become much more bureaucratic since the mid-20th century, and credentialism has grown. Reliance on degrees and other formal credentials also enables the universities to achieve polit…
how many uncredentialed people's families go to private school with what you pay them?
it's one thing to hire some people for some roles with this sort of, diamond in the rough mentality. obviously that can be a good idea. but in my experience, if you try to take leadership in that way, you are spending most of your time persuading other people that it's a good idea, which they will reject, and consequently, it's of little influence.
then you look at people who become bosses who lack credentials (or whatever), and you find out it's only because they drop out of their competitive colleges to be fabulously successful. the true weirdos out there - whatever held them back from "credentials" doesn't stop them from becoming fabulously wealthy, but rarely do they go and hire anyone else. like they do not create enterprises, teams or even families. do you get it?
Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sneaky age filter? You must be young enough to remember your SAT scores. I can remember mine just fine. If you're really looking for smart people, use "Answer this word problem in two or more paragraphs. Write your answer on the sheet of paper provided. In cursive."
Are people who were forced to learn cursive smarter? They're just older. Doing this may well expose you to age discrimination lawsuits, since it's just sneaky indirect age filtering. Another example would be if you required a minimum SAT score of 1601. Sure, someone could have gone off and taken the SAT as an adult or a young child but in reality it is mainly an age filter.
Are people who were forced to learn cursive smarter?
By definition, people who know more things are smarter than people who know fewer things. That's just how it works.
For centuries, people have striven to improve themselves through the acquisition of knowledge and skills. It is a quirk of recent generations that so many members take pride in their lack of knowledge.
I'm repeatedly bewildered by my Millennial colleagues who proudly say "I don't know what that means," or boast "I don't know what that is" with no sense of shame.
Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
The UC faculty opposed the SAT requirement being discarded in the first place. They were overruled by the UC Regents, and that may happen again. And even if the SAT is brought back, I'm sure it will be given much less weight and subjected to the "in a local context" process in the name of equity.
I took the SAT 50 some years ago. I kinda doubt I would do so well on it today without doing remedial prep work on the math.
The SAT is actually a lot easier today than it was when most of us took it.
It is an hour or more shorter in length, the long reading passages have been replaced with short paragraphs, calculators are allowed, and vocabulary has been removed.
Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is a lossy testing filter better than just failing out those who can't make it? Maybe allow for larger freshmen classes and smaller latter classes or adopt community colleges and have all students start there and advance into the UC system sophomore year on. Instead they bring back what is basically an IQ test for admission.
High graduation rates are an important metric to administrators. If a professor gave a failing grade to 1/3 of the class they would be in hot water.
I remember a first lecture when I started my CS studies, where the professor said something like "look at the people to your left and to your right, it's likely that at least one of you will drop out by the end of this year; it's ok, this is not for everyone; if you truly believe this is for you, put in the effort and you'll make it"
Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is correlated tightly with IQ, so yes it will likely be a strong predictive signal for passing a phone screen.
Maybe Maths, but english is probably not correlated tightly with IQ as it is more affected by language background and education.
I feel like it's a common misconception that IQ only tests some narrow intellectual abilities like math and logic, likely because online tests and fake IQ tests tend to focus on those kinds of puzzles. Actual IQ tests actually do place heavy emphasis on language skills like vocabulary, verbal abstraction and comprehension.