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Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

robkhenderson.substack.com

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Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#141

Post by LewisVerstappen »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #124
whack wrote: post #120

The following paragraphs were especially powerful: > The chattering class is using poor kids as pawns to eliminate standardized testing. Which helps their own kids. Rich kids who “don’t test well.” But they know how to strategically boost their GPAs, get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” >…

Standardized tests are much easier to prep for than GPA and extracurriculars. I don’t get where the statement “rich kids don’t test well” actually comes from, and it wasn’t just made up to argue a point. Perhaps if you had state sponsored test prep like in China (you spend the last two years of high school just prepping for the test), but high school isn’t compulsory and many poor kids don’t even attend.

> Standardized tests are much easier to prep for than GPA and extracurriculars

All the data shows the exact opposite. Also, it's pretty obvious this is false if you spend 10 seconds thinking about it.

You're forced to give the test yourself. Whereas you can easily hire a tutor to read over and "check" (i.e. rewrite) your school essays/homework.

Rich kids can also easily get internships/research experience while in HS due to family connections.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#142

Post by civilized »

_mh56 wrote: post #133
whack wrote: post #120

The following paragraphs were especially powerful: > The chattering class is using poor kids as pawns to eliminate standardized testing. Which helps their own kids. Rich kids who “don’t test well.” But they know how to strategically boost their GPAs, get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” >…

Here in India, we have quotas for different kinds of people. There's caste based, Gender based and finally EWS (Economically Weaker Section) Quota. Overall 60% of total seats are reserved for these people. My friend who's ultra rich was selected in EWS Quota. His father who runs his own company took Zero pay for the last two years so he qualified for the benefits. Meanwhile people who actually deserved this had to co…

Wouldn't any metric be gamed? Why single out income for criticism? At least favoring lower income is going directly at the problem.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#143

Post by mrangle »

ww520 wrote: post #128
mrangle wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an urban myth perpetuated by people interested in generalized grievance. At least from the period I attended prep school, and beyond. From the mid-1990's. Almost in-total, the "old boys" applicants are not under-qualified. When compared to almost any kid that attended lesser secondary schools than the privileged kid attended, on average. These kids have almost always proven themselves in elite educational envi…

If they are so qualified, why not let them compete on the even ground with the rest of the applicants? Why is there a need to special track them via legacy? Legacy should have been abolished long time ago. It’s the epitome of systematic racism.

You seem to have missed the point of my prior post, and you misunderstand how legacy admissions work. Dropping the rhetorical nuke of "systemic racism" doesn't cover for that. Read my prior post again.

Legacy gets one looked at. Its not an automatic admission.

Unlesss you are simply stating that legacy admissions should be disqualified (this would be ridiculous), then also consider that:

you may be making the "research" error of uncontrolled variables that include the fact that legacy kids are likely to be smart, their parents are astute enough to track them in a manner that makes them better candidates on average, and that their parents are more aware of the process that they can relate to the child.

Al leading to a statistically significant rate of legacy admissions that has nothing at all to do with unfairness.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#145

Post by jakeinspace »

_mh56 wrote: post #133
whack wrote: post #120

The following paragraphs were especially powerful: > The chattering class is using poor kids as pawns to eliminate standardized testing. Which helps their own kids. Rich kids who “don’t test well.” But they know how to strategically boost their GPAs, get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” >…

Here in India, we have quotas for different kinds of people. There's caste based, Gender based and finally EWS (Economically Weaker Section) Quota. Overall 60% of total seats are reserved for these people. My friend who's ultra rich was selected in EWS Quota. His father who runs his own company took Zero pay for the last two years so he qualified for the benefits. Meanwhile people who actually deserved this had to co…

This is off topic, but do you find it difficult seeing this friend the same way while knowing that they and their father gamed the system like that? If I learned this about somebody I knew it would seriously hurt their image in my eyes.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#146

Post by LewisVerstappen »

_mh56 wrote: post #133
whack wrote: post #120

The following paragraphs were especially powerful: > The chattering class is using poor kids as pawns to eliminate standardized testing. Which helps their own kids. Rich kids who “don’t test well.” But they know how to strategically boost their GPAs, get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” >…

Here in India, we have quotas for different kinds of people. There's caste based, Gender based and finally EWS (Economically Weaker Section) Quota. Overall 60% of total seats are reserved for these people. My friend who's ultra rich was selected in EWS Quota. His father who runs his own company took Zero pay for the last two years so he qualified for the benefits. Meanwhile people who actually deserved this had to co…

> The point is you can't just give preference based on income as its incredibly easy to fudge.

Okay, well this is the US.

Your tax returns are a very good indication of how much money you make.

If you lie on your tax returns then you have much bigger issues than college admissions counselors.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#147

Post by ouid »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #124
whack wrote: post #120

The following paragraphs were especially powerful: > The chattering class is using poor kids as pawns to eliminate standardized testing. Which helps their own kids. Rich kids who “don’t test well.” But they know how to strategically boost their GPAs, get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” >…

Standardized tests are much easier to prep for than GPA and extracurriculars. I don’t get where the statement “rich kids don’t test well” actually comes from, and it wasn’t just made up to argue a point. Perhaps if you had state sponsored test prep like in China (you spend the last two years of high school just prepping for the test), but high school isn’t compulsory and many poor kids don’t even attend.

What? I think you have the wrong kind of standardized test in mind. Bad standardized tests written by politicians are easy to prepare for. Often by design, since they are supposed to measure "what you have learned", rather than how smart you are.

The SAT is an IQ test.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#148

Post by commandlinefan »

whack wrote: post #120

The following paragraphs were especially powerful: > The chattering class is using poor kids as pawns to eliminate standardized testing. Which helps their own kids. Rich kids who “don’t test well.” But they know how to strategically boost their GPAs, get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” >…

> If equity is so important

Because equity is about keeping people down, not lifting people up.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#149

Post by vlovich123 »

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #146
_mh56 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in India, we have quotas for different kinds of people. There's caste based, Gender based and finally EWS (Economically Weaker Section) Quota. Overall 60% of total seats are reserved for these people. My friend who's ultra rich was selected in EWS Quota. His father who runs his own company took Zero pay for the last two years so he qualified for the benefits. Meanwhile people who actually deserved this had to co…

> The point is you can't just give preference based on income as its incredibly easy to fudge. Okay, well this is the US. Your tax returns are a very good indication of how much money you make. If you lie on your tax returns then you have much bigger issues than college admissions counselors.

I think you’re missing the point. The really wealthy can just stop receiving income and have enough to draw on from their accumulated wealth. You can start looking at net assets but it’s a cat and mouse game against lots of very well resourced opponents.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#150

Post by selimthegrim »

mrangle wrote: post #99
nicoburns wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where you go to school still greatly affects how well you are likely to do on standardised tests. Better schools can easily bump students up 2 or 3 grades compared to poorer schools. To some extent this will also improve students’ ability to complete degree courses, but there’s also a great extent to which this is just teaching students how to pass standardised tests well. It’s true that truly excellent students will…

With all due respect, that's not right. Any student attending a prep school from kindergarten, or otherwise very early, will have their development accelerated as compared to a child who attends an average school. The effect compounds with each year. This doesn't somewhat improve college performance. It creates a markedly different brain and habits. An effect that declines as entrance into such a school system become…

Can you elaborate on the “different brain and habits”?
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