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Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

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Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#291

Post by genman »

smeej wrote: post #173
anon291 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also asked whether she was worried that conservative critics of affirmative action might use test scores to accuse Dartmouth of violating the recent Supreme Court ruling barring race-conscious admissions. She was not. Dartmouth can legally admit a diverse class while using test scores as one part of its holistic admissions process, she said. I am conservative and I have no problem with poor students from disadvan…

The last word of your post is considered a slur by people other people historically used it to describe. Please don't use slurs here. There's no need for that.

I guess that by your standards "stupid" would be equally invalid. We don't use "retarded" as medical term. If you have a medical condition then you are "intellectually disabled". Retarded is now mainly used to mean "very stupid" or "incredibly stupid" in informal context e.g. like in HN comments.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#293

Post by titanomachy »

piombisallow wrote: post #58
ccleve wrote: post #28

Here's the money quote: >> Importantly, these test scores better position Admissions to identify high-achieving less-advantaged applicants and high-achieving applicants who attend high schools for which Dartmouth has less information to interpret the transcripts. Precisely. SATs aren't about hurting the poor or disadvantaged. It's about giving them a chance.

What, you mean kids from a disadvantaged background can't build a 10 page CV filled with outreach, volunteering, expensive sports and musical practice by the time they're 18? They don't have an instinctive feel for the current pieties, bred into them since they're 3, to put in their admission essays?

piety (n.) a belief or point of view that is accepted with unthinking conventional reverence.

TIL. I only knew the other definition, "the quality of being religious or reverent".

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#294

Post by fudhdjdbauu »

rozap wrote: post #281
elteto wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dartmouth Admissions uses SAT scores within context; a score of 1400 for an applicant from a high school in a lower-income community with lower school-wide test scores is a more significant achievement than a score of 1400 for an applicant from a high school in a higher-income community And this is how you again discriminate based on race in a post-Affirmative Action world. The weight they assign to each context is…

I just don't see how this is a bad thing. At the end of the day, admissions depts are selecting for potential. A middling test score from a kid with access to all the support they need shows that they've reached their potential. A middling test score from a kid that has received little to no support shows that there is a whole lot more there.

> admissions depts are selecting for potential

No they aren’t. They’re selling a product to the highest bidder but happen to work in an industry where social and cultural expectations don’t allow them to sell exclusively to highest bidders. Adjusting to those expectations is ever changing as we’re seeing here.

It’s an unfortunate fact that high bidder’s children roughly correlate with high potential (somewhat impolite to point out), so colleges these days can still point to success stories and pretend they did something.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#295

Post by legolas2412 »

csa wrote: post #209
ren_engineer wrote: post #157

The SAT was based on IQ tests used during WWI to try and find draftees with the most potential who shouldn't be wasted in the trenches. Standardized tests have always been about making things as fair as possible, and the fact that paying huge money for tutoring only results in minor score improvements should be a sign they are effective the war against them was because people didn't like the implications that poor As…

> the fact that paying huge money for tutoring only results in minor score improvements This might be true in aggregate, but I’ve seen data that says otherwise (buddy owns a test prep school). The keys are that the student wants the test prep and that the student has room to grow (i.e., not already near the top, where increases are capped). Middle of the pack students can gain 50-150 points per skill (this is a lot).…

> Programs like Head Start in the US have measurable positive impact:

Something can have an unjustified basis, but have a measurable positive impact. Just because the unjustified basis of race was correlated with income. But using the justified basis of income and wealth will not only lead to even more measurable positive impact, it will also be fair.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#296

Post by fudhdjdbauu »

msravi wrote: post #40
ccleve wrote: post #28

Here's the money quote: >> Importantly, these test scores better position Admissions to identify high-achieving less-advantaged applicants and high-achieving applicants who attend high schools for which Dartmouth has less information to interpret the transcripts. Precisely. SATs aren't about hurting the poor or disadvantaged. It's about giving them a chance.

And this: >> Third, under test-optional policies, some less-advantaged students withhold test scores even in cases where providing the test score would be a significant positive signal to Admissions. Importantly, Dartmouth Admissions uses SAT scores within context; a score of 1400 for an applicant from a high school in a lower-income community with lower school-wide test scores is a more significant achievement than…

At what point can we use genetics to weight scores as well? I’m having a hard time logically justifying class factors (being born poor is not something you can control) but not genetic factors (being born dumb is not something you can control).

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#297

Post by Jun8 »

msravi wrote: post #40
ccleve wrote: post #28

Here's the money quote: >> Importantly, these test scores better position Admissions to identify high-achieving less-advantaged applicants and high-achieving applicants who attend high schools for which Dartmouth has less information to interpret the transcripts. Precisely. SATs aren't about hurting the poor or disadvantaged. It's about giving them a chance.

And this: >> Third, under test-optional policies, some less-advantaged students withhold test scores even in cases where providing the test score would be a significant positive signal to Admissions. Importantly, Dartmouth Admissions uses SAT scores within context; a score of 1400 for an applicant from a high school in a lower-income community with lower school-wide test scores is a more significant achievement than…

>> Importantly, Dartmouth Admissions uses SAT scores within context; a score of 1400 for an applicant from a high school in a lower-income community with lower school-wide test scores is a more significant achievement than a score of 1400 for an applicant from a high school in a higher-income community

Since I encountered a similar approach just three years ago in my son's High School application in the Chicago Public School System I can say this leaves a lot to be desired non low-info,e families. Here's a high-level summary of how it works:

1. Chicago is neighborhoods are assigned one of (if memory serves) four levels, which represent socioeconomic levels.

2. With the thought that the economic level is proportional to school quality (this is more true in most places in the US than other countries, since a big chunk of school budget comes from property taxes, so neighborhoods with low taxes get school with lower budgets) scores from the entrance exams for kids from different levels are boosted by different multipliers.

Now, of course, (2) is a travesty of the US but that's another long discussion. The problem with (1) is that the neighborhood to level assignments are not revised each year. So you can be affluent in a district that has gentrified in the past 2-5 years and your kid will get the low-income boost unfairly.

Additionally some neighborhoods are highly bimodal, eg take Lakeview. This is considered a low-income neighborhood but there are many high-income high rises and single family homes within its borders. Alternately, there are many rental condos in our neighborhood which is the highest income level, so these middle income kids get slammed.

Still another problem is families purposefully gaming the system. We had friends who changed their rental condo during their child's 8th year so they can get a lower-info,e address sin their application. This is widely known and done.

Perhaps a better approach would be to use the family's income rather than communities.

Edit: I had more time to research and found the following, in case somebody is interested:

* What I referred to as the four levels are actually called tiers

* The tiers are actually updated every year, so I was wrong above. Still, the community average criticism stands. See the discussion about the update that was done last Feb here: https://chicagoschooloptions.com/forums/topic/when-are-cps-t...

* You can see the distribution of the tiers from a few years ago on this site: http://cpstiers.opencityapps.org, owners say it's no longer maintained. It seems currently there's no map showing all tiers, you can check only a single address at https://schoolinfo.cps.edu/schoollocator/index.html

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#298

Post by Jun8 »

nindalf wrote: post #273
elteto wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dartmouth Admissions uses SAT scores within context; a score of 1400 for an applicant from a high school in a lower-income community with lower school-wide test scores is a more significant achievement than a score of 1400 for an applicant from a high school in a higher-income community And this is how you again discriminate based on race in a post-Affirmative Action world. The weight they assign to each context is…

Affirmative action on the basis of socio-economic status is a good thing, and will replace affirmative action based on race. What surprises me is that you're surprised by this. Wasn't this called out by the Supreme Court in their judgement as a better alternative to the race based admissions they struck down? > whatever objectives They're very clear about their objectives too - they want more of their student body to…

You're absolutely right but that's not what's being done when the community income is being used rather than family income. This leads to many complexities, injustices, and people gaming the system.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#299

Post by gnicholas »

counters wrote: post #284
gnicholas wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just socioeconomic background, it also includes 'how much your parents cared about your education', to some extent. For some families (think of the typical Asian immigrant family), getting the kids a good education is the first priority. They will sacrifice vacations, living in a nicer house, etc. in order to make sure their kids go to better schools and get better grades. If you have two families that are e…

It has to be asked out loud - do you think that the admissions departments at top universities haven't explicitly thought about this? In a post-SFFA vs Harvard world, anecdotes and thought experiments carry very little water. We all know - and the universities are very explicit about this - that socio-economic indicators are the new affirmative action. It's clearly the only practical way to effect the sort of diversi…

> It has to be asked out loud - do you think that the admissions departments at top universities haven't explicitly thought about this?

Yes, I think they would use this as a facially-neutral way to achieve a race-motivated goal.

> We all know - and the universities are very explicit about this - that socio-economic indicators are the new affirmative action. It's clearly the only practical way to effect the sort of diversity missions that many Universities seek to establish

Are you saying they want to have racial diversity or SES diversity?

> SFFA v Harvard is a _horrible_ decision based on absurd jurisprudence and a total divorce from the truths of the world we live in. I commend everyone from admissions boards to clever families who learn how to play the new rules of the game better than those who backed the jurisprudence in the first place.

Can I ask what you found so objectionable? I understand that many people disagree with the outcome, but from a legal perspective (IAAL), I haven't heard much criticism.

Re: Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

#300

Post by nordsieck »

JCharante wrote: post #165
nordsieck wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I tend to think there is an unspoken fear that if it became more accessible it loses its prestige That might be a concern for Dartmouth and the Ivys. But for US state schools, not so much. And those generally provide a very high value:cost product.

but state schools are already massive? They are certainly already going with that approach.

> but state schools are already massive? They are certainly already going with that approach.

Sort of.

Sure, the school itself is huge, but often times that means that worthless majors[1] like Psychology and English are open, but more valuable majors are often limited.

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1. Worthless in the sense of earning potential with a Bachelors

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