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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]

#301

Post by CharlieDigital »

Animats wrote: post #272
CharlieDigital wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMO the thing that tests do not sample is persistance See Angela Duckworth's research on "grit"; it is indeed very difficult to test for.

No, it's not hard to test for. Military units test for it routinely. At the SEAL/Delta/Army Special Forces level, the testing for that is insane. Some companies used to do this. Around 1900, if you went to work for a major US steel company, you started out shoveling coal. Even if you were destined for management. Japan Air Lines pilot training for new pilots involves a stage where they do grunt jobs in maintenance su…

    > No, it's not hard to test for.
Hmm...

    > ...the testing for that is insane.
Sounds like it's...hard to test for.

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

#302

Post by KRAKRISMOTT »

sangnoir wrote: post #225
codexb wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The war against standardized tests has far more to do with black students performing disproportionately poorer on them. Many people are unwilling to acknowledge the multitude of cultural and socioeconomic factors responsible for that and instead want to simply chalk it up to racism. And so there's a war against any admissions policy that results in disproportionate racial outcomes, until we're left with admissions po…

> And so there's a war against any admissions policy that results in disproportionate racial outcomes Except legacy admissions and pay-to-play donations. After all, pedigree and wealth are merit (or proof thereof) - no need for pesky test scores in the face of such overwhelming evidence.

I don't think people truly care about legacy admissions and pay-to-play as long as it's fair. Put a big banner under the admissions page with clear criteria for the donation thresholds necessary and people would be fine with that. It's the hypocrisy and pretense that it's a fair meritocratic game that people cannot stand. The universities are trying to prevent brand dilution while shouting racism the moment people accuse them of having an unfair admissions process.

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

#303

Post by sudosysgen »

JCharante wrote: post #162
stonemetal12 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Space isn’t the limiter, teaching hours via faculty are. The glut of un/under employed PHds suggest that the limited faculty is an artificial limit. Schools could easily hire more faculty and expand their undergrad programs if they wanted to. They see their half percent acceptance rate as something that makes them special.

It's an artificial limit that keeps up the quality. It's the reason nightclubs have bouncers.

There are a lot of great PhD students who will never be able to get a faculty position. It bears notice that the number of faculty spots has being going down for over a decade.

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

#304

Post by Jun8 »

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…

> modern academia's favored nurture over nature mindset

The is a simplified way of putting it by I would roughly agree with this statement. However, I think you're drawing the wrong conclusion from the fact that "poor Asian immigrants were able to outscore other demographics". It is absolutely about nurture, but not in a way that the "academia" wants to emphasize. I think the main reason these poor kids achieve better is the support and, yes, the tremendous push they get from their families on topics related to education. I'd wager that having a two-parent family that places importance in education correlates most with academic performance.

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

#305

Post by nostrademons »

nyrikki wrote: post #166
nostrademons wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the report is that SAT scores are less correlated with socioeconomic status than other metrics used by admissions like GPA, high school reputation, extracurriculars, essay content, etc. They're still correlated. One of the interesting findings of social science research is that a lot of different metrics like IQ (itself a correlation between different subtest performances), GPA, parental income, child's…

A Harvard, Princeton, and Yale alumni survey found three-quarters live in zip codes that rank in the top 20 percent by income and education. Half live in the top 5 percent of zip codes. So their efforts didn't work.

What would the counterfactual be? The population of elite New England boarding schools, at least in 1934 when the decision was made, was pretty solidly top-1%. (It too has diversified recently because of efforts by those top prep schools to accept diverse applicants on scholarships, but a major applicant criteria they use, particularly for underprivileged applicants, is...get this...the SSAT!). If they're accepting 25% of students from outside the top 20%, that is way better than the situation 100 years ago.

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

#306

Post by gnicholas »

LeonardoTolstoy wrote: post #232
gnicholas wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will processes like this result in families avoiding (or at least not seeking out as much) rigorous high schools? It seems like some families might choose to send their kid to a not-super-rigorous high school — where they can coast in class and learn via outside enrichment — instead of a school with more rigorous academics where they'll be held to a higher bar by colleges. This would allow students to have a lower-st…

I'm skeptical someone would risk giving their child a significantly worse education in the off chance it might give them a marginally better chance to get into a top university. Regardless high income families moving to low income areas to go to those schools I would assume would be a net benefit for all from a tax perspective. Some of those taxes would presumably go right back to improving the local schools for ever…

Other commenters specifically mention this happening in Chicago (wrt HS admissions) [1] and Texas (wrt UT admissions). [2]

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39266951

2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39266262

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

#307

Post by sudosysgen »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #282
runarberg wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a pretty old link which has been severed a long time ago. They’ve even changed the name from Scholastic aptitude test to just SAT, in an effort to convey that SAT doesn’t actually measure anything but it self. (This is in a stark contrast to IQ which makes ridiculous and pseudo-scientific claims that it measures something approaching what they call general intelligence ) I have many beefs with SAT and standar…

> IQ is a horrible and racist concept that should remain along with phrenology as a pathetic attempt to use science to explain racist beliefs How then do you explain IQ's strong correlation with positive life outcomes like work success, educational achievement, happiness, etc https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=74943... . https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medici...

How is r=0.15 to r=0.3 a strong correlation? Especially when the correlation is very strong in one direction (low IQ, low income) and weaker in the other.

The educational achievement correlation has to be thrown aside completely because the SAT and GRE were largely an IQ test until the late 80s.

I'm not saying that IQ tests are completely useless. But clearly, the correlation isn't strong, and the whole hypothesis that it measures a g factor is not borne out by strong evidence.

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

#308

Post by pokerface_86 »

gnicholas wrote: post #212
msravi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Will processes like this result in families avoiding (or at least not seeking out as much) rigorous high schools? It seems like some families might choose to send their kid to a not-super-rigorous high school — where they can coast in class and learn via outside enrichment — instead of a school with more rigorous academics where they'll be held to a higher bar by colleges. This would allow students to have a lower-st…

[dead]

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

#309

Post by lazyasciiart »

fudhdjdbauu wrote: post #296
msravi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Maybe when we can identify them?

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

#310

Post by 11101010001100 »

cm2012 wrote: post #268
runarberg wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a pretty old link which has been severed a long time ago. They’ve even changed the name from Scholastic aptitude test to just SAT, in an effort to convey that SAT doesn’t actually measure anything but it self. (This is in a stark contrast to IQ which makes ridiculous and pseudo-scientific claims that it measures something approaching what they call general intelligence ) I have many beefs with SAT and standar…

IQ is one of the most reliable and proven metrics in social science.

Sure, but that says more about social science than IQ.
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