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.
University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT
251–260 of 393 posts
Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The reality is that a SAT scores correlate with wealth. Everything good correlates with wealth. Wealth is quite literally the ability to make things happen . The relevant question is, do SAT scores correlate with wealth more or less than whatever holistic criteria the UCs will be switching to? And if they correlate more, is it because the holistic criteria are actually fairer or because the UCs are Goodharting on h…
> The relevant question is, do SAT scores correlate with wealth more or less than whatever [...] Well, no, because the SAT correlates with wealth while plausibly having claim on being an objective measure. When little Johnny gets an internship as his daddy's company, that obviously correlates with wealth, and admissions committees can discount it. When little Susie is on a groundbreaking paper from mommy's lab, that…
Yes, some private high schools feed to quality summer research programs, but A) those schools give out more aid than you'd think and B) a number of public magnet schools have similar success in placing students with labs. I am sure that this does still correlate with wealth to some degree, but I don't think it does so in a way that the admissions committee can easily "see".
Beyond that, I think the vast majority of admissions committees (including all of the ivies) have little interest in discounting anything. I watched a lot of students that to be honest were just average get into very good schools, purely on good (inflated) grades from a name brand high school. The kids from my summer research cohort also got into very good schools for the most part, but those students were actually some combination of insanely smart and insanely dedicated.
It's a very hard problem for sure, I don't feel confident enough to say strongly that a particular set of metrics is obviously good or obviously bad. But I don't think removing standardized testing on the whole is likely to help with discounting for wealth (and I also don't think they really want to).
FWIW I think SAT/ACT are bad indicators for the "elite" schools because they just saturate and stop having much value in splitting the applicant pool. Especially the math section, it becomes a matter moreso of making a careless mistake or two.
Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT
#253I know some people protest measures that are considered more "objective" over measures that are more "holistic", whether this is in school admittance, performance evaluation, promotion consideration, interviewing, determining welfare benefits, choosing who makes the rules and governs. However it has been my experience that whenever an explicit test or hierarchy is removed another shadow one builds up that is more sub…
Yes exactly. This is why every tech company should apply this type of standardized testing to software engineers as well. We can test for specific types of algorithms and have them regurgitate them on whiteboards, making it easy to compare each candidate on highly relevant skills they will be using on the job. It's not perfect because there's still rampant ageism in our industry but it's better than letting ourselves…
Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT
#254I can't help but wonder at the motivations for these changes, at UC and other schools. It seems to be a combination of equity (it favors rich kids), effectiveness (it's not that predictive) and risk aversion (can't prove racist admissions if there's no standardized comparison). And yet... I wonder if we're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Standardized tests _seem_ like they could be such a such a powerful fo…
I think the problem with standardized tests is that they're standardized; you can prepare for them. It reduces both the effectiveness and the equity, because preparation for the tests is something that rich kids will have better time and access to.
Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT
#255I can't help but wonder at the motivations for these changes, at UC and other schools. It seems to be a combination of equity (it favors rich kids), effectiveness (it's not that predictive) and risk aversion (can't prove racist admissions if there's no standardized comparison). And yet... I wonder if we're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Standardized tests _seem_ like they could be such a such a powerful fo…
I think the problem with standardized tests is that they're standardized; you can prepare for them. It reduces both the effectiveness and the equity, because preparation for the tests is something that rich kids will have better time and access to.
Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT
#256Also, if all colleges are created equally, endowed similarly, we may not need a test and follow the K12 model of going to your local college because it is as good as any other college. It is about time we solve education along with healthcare and create equity in the system.
Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT
#257I can't help but wonder at the motivations for these changes, at UC and other schools. It seems to be a combination of equity (it favors rich kids), effectiveness (it's not that predictive) and risk aversion (can't prove racist admissions if there's no standardized comparison). And yet... I wonder if we're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Standardized tests _seem_ like they could be such a such a powerful fo…
Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT
#258I can't help but wonder at the motivations for these changes, at UC and other schools. It seems to be a combination of equity (it favors rich kids), effectiveness (it's not that predictive) and risk aversion (can't prove racist admissions if there's no standardized comparison). And yet... I wonder if we're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Standardized tests _seem_ like they could be such a such a powerful fo…
I think the problem with standardized tests is that they're standardized; you can prepare for them. It reduces both the effectiveness and the equity, because preparation for the tests is something that rich kids will have better time and access to.
Prep helps, but prep has a limit. A Golf tutor, high tier equipment, admission to private school with a large golf team, etc. are more easily bought.
Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT
#259Re: University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is in the context of a free education system, the only thing the poor students loose is a bit of time.
A year is A LOT of time, and you have to explain why you lost a year later on. Also, even in "free" education systems, some taxpayer is going to ask "why the hell am I paying for 2/3 of crappy students, can't you just raise the bar at the beginning, and only accept the top 1/3?"