Because the SAT correlates with IQ and IQ tests are racist. Next leetcode style interviewing will be made illegal for the same reasons. Employers will then find something else to approximate IQ, and so on.
Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?
461–470 of 647 posts
Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
The SAT is an extremely high predictor for IQ. It correlates incredibly well. I grew up in a trailer park, and didn't have access to the test prep industry, so I understand that wealthier kids had a big edge. That being said, nobody is talking about the SAT being biased against poor kids. They are pretending that it's purely a racist, culturally-biased test due to its outcome of having average scores that are hundred…
Plenty of people recognize that the SAT is bias against poor kids https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/07/why-po... The reason that the racial component comes out is that Black children are over-represented in poor communities due to systemic racism
What JPKab said is entirely true. The SAT is known to correlate strongly with general intelligence, which is determined almost exclusively by hereditary factors outside a person’s control [1]. The data clearly suggests lower class persons of east asian descent will disproportionately suffer the consequences of this policy.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/16/books/what-is-intelligenc...
[1]: https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/1994/10/16/books/what-is-...
Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?
#463What I find very odd about this is the assumption that kids in challenging circumstances would have more problem with test prep than with keeping up their GPA. Poor people can afford test prep. Stuyvesant, NYC’s selective admission high school, has 50% of students living in poverty, and a 1300+ average SAT score. A couple of thousand dollars one time is something most Americans can scrape together. Gaming GPA is much…
I'm not too sure about your guess that most Americans can afford even a one time payment of a couple thousand dollars. That seems to way underestimate how impoverished many families are. To your note about GPA being easy to game, that's definitely true. The real issue is that families with means will likely always be able to game the system in some way. Testing and college admission coaches can be hired, opportunities can be acquired through family/connections, etc. I think colleges are struggling to reduce game-able metrics (like dropping the SAT), but it really feels like an almost intractable problem.
Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm not even counted as "diverse" (because I'm not black or hispanic) despite coming from a muslim family and middle eastern background. I can only select "white", though I'm not white white. Should that even matter for admission purposes?
This article is specifically about the UC system, which has been banned by Proposition 209 since 1996 from considering an applicant's race when making admissions decisions. It might matter at private schools or in other states, though. It might surprise people who only know California by reputation and assume it is completely full of raging lefties, but affirmative action measures have been pretty soundly rejected by…
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Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
The SAT is an extremely high predictor for IQ. It correlates incredibly well. I grew up in a trailer park, and didn't have access to the test prep industry, so I understand that wealthier kids had a big edge. That being said, nobody is talking about the SAT being biased against poor kids. They are pretending that it's purely a racist, culturally-biased test due to its outcome of having average scores that are hundred…
Plenty of people recognize that the SAT is bias against poor kids https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/07/why-po... The reason that the racial component comes out is that Black children are over-represented in poor communities due to systemic racism
SAT results correlate highly with IQ, and IQ correlates highly with success in life. Still, people engage in all kinds of postmodern mental gymnastics to explain why an intuitively obvious fact is somehow false.
Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
I took the SAT the first year they added the essay. It wasn’t optional and they had no accommodations for people with disabilities. I would have much rather had a score of 1500/1600 than the dumb 1700/2400 I got.
I dont think the essay can bring down the score that much.
It was a third of the score and was a minimum of 200 points. I got the minimum because I attempted. They changed the scoring at some point to make the written section not count as much.
Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?
#467Earlier quoted context omitted.
I took the SAT the first year they added the essay. It wasn’t optional and they had no accommodations for people with disabilities. I would have much rather had a score of 1500/1600 than the dumb 1700/2400 I got.
Same, we must be about the same age, but interestingly I had the opposite experience there. That newly added section was only partly the essay and the other part was grammar. I got a pretty mediocre score on the essay and thought it would bring down my score but I did perfect on the grammar and got the full 800 points for the section. In addition to disability issues you point out, I would expect that there was also…
I got all multiple choice questions right, I got all writer questions wrong. It wasn’t because of my English comprehension that I did poorly.
Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
So is your position that, while the SAT is still the best choice for admissions, UC should stop using it for some years in the hopes that this will motivate College Board to improve it more quickly, after which UC should resume using the SAT? That the impact (on future applicants and everyone else involved) of using a worse admissions process for some years is less than the bargaining-chip value?
> So is your position that [...] the SAT is [...] the best choice for admissions No
What did you mean by your second sentence?
>"Not using it in its current form is the strongest influence it has to incentivize change."
What change (and by whom) is/should UC incentivize?
Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?
#469This is one of the most outrageous things I've seen in a while. I really think the academic institutions are hammering the last nails into America's coffin.
America is a failed state, the majority of Americans just don't know it yet. The founding mythos, and ideological bedrock of America has been replaced by something toxic and subversive. The ideological upheaval of the last few years has left behind a broken and confused country. One that will inevitably fracture into smaller parts, or devolve unequivocally into a mess like South Africa. If you go to the former USSR (for one example), you can see monuments to the country's tenacity in the face of absolute peril. Statues, monuments, and architecture which proudly memorialise their heroes, and their history. Meanwhile, delinquents in America have been tearing down any statue or monument with a European-sounding name. America will end up a country with no history, and no future.
Re: Why is the university of California dropping the SAT?
#470I think the University of Texas has one of simplest and most egalitarian admissions policies that I have seen. If you graduate in the top 10 percent of your class, then you are guaranteed admission to all state funded universities. As a Californian I find it quite ironic that many policies in “conservative” Texas (ex. university admissions, property tax, income tax) are more much more progressive than what we have in…
This is a terrible policy. Anyone who has kids in high school and sees the lengths people go to game their grades will tell you this.
Maybe an unpopular perspective, but IMO its not that hard to be top 10% even with people gaming grades. Source: went to one of the top public high schools in Texas, graduated top 1%, am not that smart and didn't go to any great lengths for school. I payed attention in class, did (most of) the homework, and reviewed for final exams.