Job application asked for my SAT scores • Hacker News Board

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#241

Post by BobbyJo » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 2:27 AM UTC

eikenberry wrote: post #150

delichon wrote: post #28

Last month 2,400 University of California faculty asked for admissions to resume using the SAT "to ensure foundational fluency." Of course many employers want to ensure that too, especially when college degrees don't anymore. The widening abilities gap followed the 2020 elimination of the SAT/ACT, a temporary measure that has now become a permanent vulnerability. This outcome was explicitly predicted by the Academic…

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.

If you completely ignore costs, and the negative affects of having 50+% of a class be unprepared and taking time from the other students, sure, that would work great. Seems like a bad alternative to standardized tests considering students will then have to pass tests once in college...

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#242

Post by s5300 » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 2:27 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #205

Maxatar wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how it plays out in practice. There is overwhelming evidence that students who otherwise excel academically score fairly mediocre SAT scores on their first attempt and then jump substantially after weeks of targeted practice and/or tutoring, even though they didn't learn anything new in the classroom. If attention in class were all it took then that improvement couldn't happen. What changed was familiarity…

I guess times have changed. When I took the SAT, I did zero prep work. Nobody else I knew did prep work, either. Paul Graham recently posted SAT advice along the form of "when you finish the test and have more time, go back over the test and check for mistakes." I was kinda astonished at this advice, isn't it obvious? A strategy I also employed was to do the easy problems first, so I don't miss a question that would…

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Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#243

Post by chasd00 » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 2:28 AM UTC

apparent wrote: post #144

aezell wrote: post #132

1600 and your GPA was 4.0. Any other answer proves you aren't trying hard enough to get the job.

4.0, what no APs? Insta-rejected. /s

If I may rant. My oldest son will be a junior in HS next year at a STEM magnet (Townview SEM in Dallas). I think even one of his electives is an AP, It’s kind of ridiculous. APs in HS seem pointless if you can’t apply the credit to your college degree plan. As if a University is going to let a STEM major out of calculus because they took the AP in HS…

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#244

Post by tptacek » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 2:30 AM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #115

doctorpangloss wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's not what that paper says. Work sample tests are more valid than GMAs; the paper just presumes they're too expensive. Meanwhile, we don't have to axiomatically derive any of this: we know that relying on general cognitive assessments to prospective software developers wouldn't work. That's why almost no firms use them.

If you exclude work sample testing from your analysis, all this paper is really saying is that active examination of candidates beats subjective interviews and resume scans. Well, obviously.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#245

Post by s5300 » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 2:32 AM UTC

hammock wrote: post #201

varun_ch wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I took the digital SAT a couple years ago, we had access to the Desmos Graphing Calculator during the whole math section. The entire point of the exam was to test whether you can read a math question, input it into the calculator and select the option that matches the result within 60 seconds. If you get a couple questions wrong, you drop hundreds of points. I don’t think it was a valuable test whatsoever (and o…

Everything you’re saying makes me so mad

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Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#246

Post by dgacmu » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 2:42 AM UTC

falcor84 wrote: post #185

bigthymer wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Speaking as a professor: the filter is really helpful. Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible. I've seen it happen - and I saw more of it happen for the years CMU also stopped requiring the SAT.

The SAT is a very imperfect measure but it turns out a lot of the others are even worse.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#247

Post by TMWNN » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 2:49 AM UTC

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.

>I would never ask for them since its so cringe. But SAT scores correlate to IQ at .81

The combination of these two phrases is the equivalent to "I hate Trump, but ..." in another context.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#248

Post by mproud » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 2:50 AM UTC

I don’t even remember my own GPA, for me college was a lifetime ago!

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#249

Post by cyberax » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 2:51 AM UTC

jleyank wrote: post #131

alephnerd wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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.

Yep, and we end up in a situation where the US-born people are working on "people skills", getting MBAs, and then going into management positions to manage the financialized companies.

Except that there aren't that many management positions. And once _everyone_ is doing complex financial stuff, you end up losing competitive edge against other countries.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#250

Post by boring_twenties » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 2:51 AM UTC

> Since 2023 or so, I've noticed more and more tech companies and hyper-growth startups dropping bachelor's degree requirements.

Those requirements were never real, anyway. I don't have any degree. The last time I was seriously questioned about it during an interview was 2004.