301–310 of 684 posts
Isn't this patently obvious that dropping the SAT is entirely about creating pretext for continued discrimination against Asian applicants? In 1996, California repealed affirmative action via Prop 209. At the UC Berkeley and UCLA, considered the 'best' of the UC system, Asians represented 25-30% of the student base. Studies and fear-mongering at the time showed that a repeal of affirmative action would imply that Asi…
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.” >…
Allowing Rich kids in. THISSSSSSS!!!! is what it was always about. It amazes me how corrupt higher education is now. It is AMAZINGLY corrupt. There is this thing with getting old (I'm in late 40s now) where you think the world is going to hell, but really what is happening is that you are figuring out EXACTLY how fucked up everything is. However, sometimes things really are going to hell (increasing rich/poor divide,…
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> 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.
If your family has $10MM in the bank, you too can take (and report) to IRS zero income.
Moreover I'd expect that any given user w/10mm would be rolling into multiple accounts to maximize protection offered by FDIC.
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Especially since evidence of inequality of opportunity is so prevalent.
Would you like to provide an example then? Government inequality please, I’m not interested in hearing why you believe a private party should be obligated to give you anything.
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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…
40% for meritocratic entrance is more than twice what is at elite schools in the US. Maybe ambitious Americans should move to India for a fairer chance. At most US elite schools, less than 20 percent is for “non-reserved” seats. Elite schools reserve seats for sports teams (affirmative action for rich white elites with “sports” like fencing and rowing), legacies (affirmative action for rich white elites), related to…
Even the SAT score can be gamed.[3] I think pretty much every admissions advantage that exists is found and exploited. These schools are no longer about providing an elite education to talented students who want to get ahead. They are credential factories and students who go these schools have parents that push them from young ages to get in because they want the status credential. I have all sorts of stories about how fake a lot of students CVs are. Fake non profits, doing math competitions despite not liking math, getting into obscure sports, etc. It's absolutely not just white people who do this.
I am not advocating for dropping test scores. I just want to point out how aggressively people pursue getting admitted to elite schools and the specter of cheating hangs over it all too. I have friends who did tutoring in other countries who talk about paid SAT test takers.
[1]: https://gocrimson.com/sports/mens-fencing/roster
[2]: https://goprincetontigers.com/sports/mens-squash/roster?path...
[3]: https://qz.com/980074/the-sat-can-be-hacked-and-gamed-with-t...
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.” >…
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Prepping for a test doesn't give you any practical knowledge or expand how you think about things; it's just about getting familiar with the test’s format and the way the question authors think. It'd be a bit like getting “better” at poker by always playing with the same people and learning their tells. It's “gaming” it because you're not better at what the test is supposed to measure, you're just better at what it a…
Prepping for the test is a valuable signal when you're talking about the entire pool of high school students. And it does not gate opportunities by economics as much as you'd think: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/magazine/asian-test-prep-... . Immigrant families eligible for reduced price lunch are able to scrounge up the money for these tests.
Give ten kids from the same class a self study online course and give another ten a private tutor, and they won't see the same score distribution. Where's the signal there?
SAT results don't have a line item that notes the amount of wealth or privilege that went into preparing.
> Immigrant families eligible for reduced price lunch are able to scrounge up the money for these tests.
Some families can't. Other families aren't aware, or aren't interested. But we judge the kids in the family for that.
That said... I don't know how the _new_ system will work at fighting that privilege -- there are still lots of ways for it to disguise itself. But we have to at least acknowledge the issues with the SAT.
But, to me at least, this goes beyond privilege. This is about diversity of skills and diversity of learner profiles and moving away from linear quantification of potential.
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> Standardized tests are much easier to prep for than GPA and extracurriculars And that makes them perfect for poor kids who don't have much time or money, they can easily get similar levels of test prep as rich kid with little effort. GPA or extracurriculars however, no chance, those are much more dependent on home environment and wealth.
Why would home environment be more influential for GPA, which is a bunch of tests, versus the SAT, which is also just a test? Extracurriculars I agree with, rich people are more likely to have connections to get the nice internships.