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Job application asked for my SAT scores

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Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#361

Post by igregoryca »

LtWorf wrote: post #307
igregoryca wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time, I thought I wanted to learn cursive handwriting. Except this version of me was already in his 20s, would be out of school in a matter of months, and quickly realized the skill would be of such marginal utility in the future that it wasn't worth the hours spent tracing out giant letters like a kindergartener every day. One could learn this skill in their 20s or beyond, but there's an opportunity cost…

So what did you learn instead of cursive?

Some type theory, some abstract algebra...

Communication skills, teamwork skills...

How to cook better, maintain relationships better, keep a tidier space...

Not perfect! But time well spent.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#362

Post by expedition32 »

brightball wrote: post #206
delichon wrote: post #28

Last month 2,400 University of California faculty asked for admissions to resume using the SAT "to ensure foundational fluency." Of course many employers want to ensure that too, especially when college degrees don't anymore. The widening abilities gap followed the 2020 elimination of the SAT/ACT, a temporary measure that has now become a permanent vulnerability. This outcome was explicitly predicted by the Academic…

It’s frustrating when easily predicted outcomes are ignored for the sake of feel good policy.

The ironic thing is that feel good policy can be more racist and prejudiced than any test.

They experimented replacing tests in my country with giving teachers the final say- it was a fucking disaster. Human beings are quite terrible at objectivity.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#363

Post by Maxatar »

BobbyJo wrote: post #301
Maxatar wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that I'm not responding to any claim about the efficacy of math tests... it's actually your statement which is wholly irrelevant to this discussion.

"You can't compare academic tests and flight tests because flight tests involve flying" "Academic tests involve academics" "I'm not talking about academics!" That about sum it up?

The submission isn't about academic tests involving academics... it's about the relevance of using such academic tests for the purpose of job screening.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#364

Post by FatherOfCurses »

WalterBright wrote: post #146
delichon wrote: post #28

Last month 2,400 University of California faculty asked for admissions to resume using the SAT "to ensure foundational fluency." Of course many employers want to ensure that too, especially when college degrees don't anymore. The widening abilities gap followed the 2020 elimination of the SAT/ACT, a temporary measure that has now become a permanent vulnerability. This outcome was explicitly predicted by the Academic…

I always enjoy the advocates who claim that students have mastered their subjects, but "don't test well". Would you want a pilot on your flight who flunked flying school exams, but somehow "really knew how to fly!"?

It's not a claim, there is psychological data supporting the negative impact stress can have on recall and that for some students a test is not the best way to identify their retained knowledge.

Your single example identifies a situation where we would want someone resilient to stress to pass the testing process.

However if you are evaluating someone's ability to identify characters in Shakespeare who are most closely representative of the Bard himself, a proctored exam may not be the only environment where that could be demonstrated.

Anyone in software knows as well that for a test to be effective it has to be written properly. In the history of academic and standardized testing however there has been little rigor in the construction of tests, and those who pass are ones who give the "right" answers regardless of whether those answers are true proofs of knowledge.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#365

Post by falcor84 »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #356
dgacmu wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a professor: the filter is really helpful. Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible. I've seen it happen - and I saw more of it happen for the years CMU also stopped requiring the SAT. The SAT is a very imperfect measure but it turns out a lot of the others are even worse.

>Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible. Putting a body every a seat for those profitable 500-person lectures taught by an adjunct and graded by TAs who are all paid peanuts and then having them wash out before those expensive 50-person high level classes and esoteric electives taught by tenured profs and accompanied by lots of expensive lab time is great for the…

Good point, and that was for me the promise of the original MOOCs 15 years ago - for students to be able to take on these MIT/Stanford courses, with the exact same workload and see if they could handle them, without any additional cost to the school and without the student having to upend their life yet. And if they proved to themselves that they could and are willing to, then enroll, and use that as proof.

There are still some online courses that try to do this sort of thing, with a particular example being the University of Helsinky's Full Stack Open [0] which offers post-hoc university credits for those who complete the course, but it seems that the dream didn't quite materialize.

[0] https://fullstackopen.com/en/about

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#366

Post by lotsofpulp »

Maxatar wrote: post #363
BobbyJo wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can't compare academic tests and flight tests because flight tests involve flying" "Academic tests involve academics" "I'm not talking about academics!" That about sum it up?

The submission isn't about academic tests involving academics... it's about the relevance of using such academic tests for the purpose of job screening.

A business that wastes money on ineffective screening methods for employees will lose to a business hiring better employees.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#367

Post by ludicrousdispla »

cm2012 wrote: post #30

I would never ask for them since its so cringe. But SAT scores correlate to IQ at .81, and IQ is one of the few things that strongly correlates to knowledge work performance positively. There is probably a lot of alpha from knowing candidates SAT scores. Its more useful than knowing the college they went to.

Is it really that hard to assess someone's intelligence after talking with them for half an hour?

That would be an interesting experiment, post-interview ask each interviewer to guesstimate the candidate's SAT score.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#368

Post by lotsofpulp »

stockresearcher wrote: post #173
stephenbez wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High graduation rates are an important metric to administrators. If a professor gave a failing grade to 1/3 of the class they would be in hot water.

My wife has a civil engineering degree. There were a number of courses where partial credit was not permitted and the final exam was 2 questions. It was common for students to take those courses 3 or 4 times before passing. Giving a failing grade to only 1/3 of the class might get a professor investigated for making the class too easy.

The incentives change when the school becomes a mechanism to sell a chance to increase probability of immigration rights at tens of thousands of dollars per year, especially when the pool of domestic kids is shrinking.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#369

Post by hammock »

Newlaptop wrote: post #274
hammock wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't buy the notion that tests do not test relevant skills. In my long career I've noticed a strong correlation between SAT scores and academic performance as well as job performance. SAT tests intelligence (aptitude), not skills. Which is why it correlates with job performance, where intelligence can (over some time) matter as much or more than a starting point of relevant skills.

I just checked, and the SAT math section covers algebra, trigonometry and statistics. Look at this list: Quadratic equations and functions (vertex form, roots, discriminant) Polynomial operations and factoring Exponential functions and growth/decay Radical and rational expressions Function notation, composite and inverse functions Nonlinear graphs and their transformations A genius student who had never been taught t…

> A genius student who had never been taught those subjects wouldn't even know what the symbols meant.

This is pedantic. Take it to the logical next step. Words and letters are symbols too. How would someone who can’t read do on the SAT?

> A mediocre student who had studied SAT-style questions for weeks leading up to the test would likely outperform a high IQ student who last solved those types of problems over a year prior.

Would make an interesting experiment, if it hasn’t already been studied. I would put my money on the lapsed high IQ student though.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#370

Post by economistbob »

Age and socioeconomic discrimination. They want only younger people who took the SAT from yuppy societal bastions. Kind of like how Handshake was full of jobs where the firms wanted only recent graduates.

Clearly they will pay a lot of money but be badly run. They want to avoid wokeism beneficiary kids and old folks. An actual job related aptitude test would be better. Half the nation didn't even use the SAT at that age. They used the ACT.

They want young coastal yuppies who were not wokeism beneficiaries at the DEI universities. Those universities broke signaling so making all their alumni show SAT scores instead of relying on the brand will mitigate the fallout.

ACT takers were from lame red states anyway. They want the young blue state brains without the old blue state baggage.

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