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University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT

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Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT

#211

Post by zamfi »

thereare5lights wrote: post #188
zamfi wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I spent a grand total of $28 and managed to get a 99th percentile score on the SAT. To claim it’s impossible to score high on that test without money is absolutely false. No one is claiming it's "impossible", and I don't want to minimize your experience -- 20 years ago, I also scored 99th percentile on the SAT with only $15 spent on practice books -- but it's absolutely not the norm. The reality is that a SAT score…

I don't really have a point, just going to add in my experience and some thoughts. I came from a lower middle class background, not white if that matters, did next to zero studying, paid nothing to prepare and got a 96th percentile score. The extent of the preparation I did was practice tests held at my high school. However, I didn't come from the background you described: living in poverty, unable to afford basic ne…

Thanks for sharing your story.

> But school quality being linked to wealth is a much bigger problem than standardized testing.

Agreed. The UCs can't solve this problem on their own, though. The UCs have different admissions criteria for undergrads than private selective colleges, in my understanding -- they can't treat the SAT as an optional indicator, it's part of a score.

Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT

#212

Post by barry-cotter »

rayiner wrote: post #168
collegeburner wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I briefly mentioned my service work with my church in my interviews as a part of an overview of me; it led to some of my larger accomplishments I wanted to highlight. In most interviews, this resulted in me getting a look like I'd just grown a third eye. This after reading web pages full of smiling, multi-cultural faces that lectured me on just how diverse and open-minded students and alumni were at these uni…

> I'm a bit baffled; when did attending church become unusual in America? It’s not. Even in Manhattan 45% of people attend religious services “frequently” or “regularly.”

It’s very unusual among the kind of people who staff the admissions departments of selective colleges though.

Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT

#213

Post by willberman »

I would prefer if schools just gave as concrete as possible feedback for why individual applicants are or are not admitted.

i.e. Congrats, you got accepted. Your GPA ranked in the top $X percentile of our admitted class and your engagement in robotics was astonishing.

or

You were not admitted because while your GPA was excellent, we did not see sufficient community engagement in your extracuriculars.

Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT

#214

Post by dehrmann »

zajio1am wrote: post #145
awillen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I agree with this 100% - these students are going to be compared to each other somehow, and it's always going to be imperfect and favor those who are better off. Still, these tests are at least relatively objective, and if you remove them the kids will be compared with less objective measures that allow for more bias to be introduced. The SAT/ACT are the worst form of college admission criteria very much in the…

Here the common strategy for STEM degree programmes is to admit most people and then make first year hard enough that e.g. 2/3 of students are eliminated. In some sense it is more fair than strict admission criteria.

My college did this. They don't have the strictest admission standards, but they're ranked well in STEM because of this. What's funny about people criticizing standardized tests in college admissions is, at least in a big school, 80% of your Calc I grade is effectively three standardized tests, so if someone's just "a bad test taker," throwing them into the deep end with 1200 other freshman engineers isn't doing them any favors.

Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT

#215

Post by barry-cotter »

jeffbee wrote: post #86
_23sd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worry that "holistic" admissions in universities with highly competitive admissions are already disadvantaging groups that aren't culturally aligned with university administrators and their donors: Asian Americans, people from the South and rural areas regardless of race, and people brought up in religious households where most time spent on "extracurricular activities" is church-related. I personally think that pe…

Did you just claim that Asian Americans are disadvantaged by UC admissions?

> Part of the Mare report -- obtained by Sander through an open-records request -- looks at applicants by race/ethnicity for several years, noting those who -- all other factors being equal -- would have been admitted based on standard criteria. Over a five-year period, he notes that more than 1,300 Asian American applicants in this group were denied admission, while black and Latino applicants were admitted.

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/11/19...

Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT

#216

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #168
collegeburner wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I briefly mentioned my service work with my church in my interviews as a part of an overview of me; it led to some of my larger accomplishments I wanted to highlight. In most interviews, this resulted in me getting a look like I'd just grown a third eye. This after reading web pages full of smiling, multi-cultural faces that lectured me on just how diverse and open-minded students and alumni were at these uni…

> I'm a bit baffled; when did attending church become unusual in America? It’s not. Even in Manhattan 45% of people attend religious services “frequently” or “regularly.”

[deleted]

Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT

#217

Post by dehrmann »

nerfhammer wrote: post #177
zajio1am wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here the common strategy for STEM degree programmes is to admit most people and then make first year hard enough that e.g. 2/3 of students are eliminated. In some sense it is more fair than strict admission criteria.

rather than accepting them for an entire year and then kicking 2/3rds of them out, why not don't kick them out and just teach three times as many students. feels more humane somehow

Now the school has a bad reputation, and students who spent four years of time and tuition have a diploma worth nothing?

Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT

#218

Post by dehrmann »

Kalium wrote: post #203
nerfhammer wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

rather than accepting them for an entire year and then kicking 2/3rds of them out, why not don't kick them out and just teach three times as many students. feels more humane somehow

Students are only occasionally actually kicked out. Much more common is that they struggle with the coursework, decide it isn't for them, and pick a different direction. How many years of time do you think it is humane to provide to a student before suggesting somehow that they might consider an alternate use of their time?

Where I went, there was a hierarchy of lesser degrees to pick from.

Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT

#219

Post by organicfigs »

I can't say I agree with this decision. I graduated from Cal probably a bit higher than 70th percentile by GPA in EECS 10 years ago. To this day, I was motivated by everyone smarter than me who was admitted based on merit based on their SAT. If I were to graduate today (at lets say) 85th percentile, not because of merit but because Berkeley admitted applicants not as strong, that would've damaged my motivation more than being in a fair 70th percentile placement.

Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT

#220

Post by remarkEon »

ciarannolan wrote: post #185
remarkEon wrote: post #33

That sound you hear is panicked elites, rushing to the "side door" of the UC system in an attempt to figure out how best to influence their kid's probability of admission since paying a few grand for prep sessions (for piece of mind, mostly) on what's a pretty darn good measure of academic aptitude is a waste of everyone's time, now that the test is rendered meaningless ... until California develops their own. I'm su…

>That sound you hear is panicked elites, rushing to the "side door" of the UC system [...] Are you sure? Because I think the "elites" or very wealthy will be perfectly fine with removing objectivity. In fact, it helps them. This hurts working class and poor applicants who don't fit the, shall we say, "background" that admissions offices of elite universities are looking for in 2020. As time goes on I have less and le…

I've edited my comment because I wasn't clear. I agree with you.

>This hurts working class and poor applicants who don't fit the, shall we say, "background" that admissions offices of elite universities are looking for in 2020.

Exactly this.

The test was a way out, especially for gifted kids from poor backgrounds.

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