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We don’t use any standardized testing in Canada and I don’t think it’s affected our higher education system at all. Are there any proven advantages to standard

We don’t use any standardized testing in Canada and I don’t think it’s affected our higher education system at all. Are there any proven advantages to standardized testing?

dontbenaive 8y ago
It gives smart troubled kids in terrible schools a chance to show that they are talented and in a bad situation. Instead of just selecting for the agreeable popular kids who can get recommendation letters.
slantyyz 8y ago
That's true for getting into undergraduate programs, but when it comes to graduate programs, dentistry, medical, law schools etc, I believe we still do use the same standardized tests as in the USA.
- fooker 8y ago
  For grad school, GRE and the other tests exist to filter out obviously unmotivated candidates. So, a good GRE score can not get you in with any certainty, but a bad one can disqualify you.
  - slantyyz 8y ago
    I think it depends. When I wrote the GMAT (albeit in 1992), a good score would get you into most Canadian business schools even if you had mediocre marks. My recollection of the GMAT's difficulty was that any high school grad with an A average could easily score higher than the 80 percentile on the test. While I was happy my result gave me the ability to choose which business school I wanted to go to (my marks, while not bad, were also nothing to brag about), I also think the GMAT was a useless selection criterion.
    - fooker 8y ago
      I am not familiar with business school admissions, but it is very rare nowadays to get into non cash-cow grad school programs in STEM fields on the basis of the GRE score alone.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Obviously unmotivated? Your thoughtless dismissal of those less intelligent is enraging. Do you think all the people who work harder than you to get worse results are less motivated? There are tens of thousands of people who would love to get into top graduate programmes, who love the subject they study but who just aren’t as smart as other people and you’re shitting on them as unmotivated? Conscientiousness and intelligence are negatively correlated. https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/30661143/Conscientiousness_and_Intelligence_-_2004.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1529137553&Signature=b0pTq0P9P7Xx1AnwSRSO52D3AtE%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DWhy_is_conscientiousness_negatively_corr.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/30661143/Con...
    - fooker 8y ago
      The GRE is designed to reward hard workers as well as intelligent people, that's why it is a widely used metric. Grad schools need hard working people as much as (probably more than, to be fair) they need intelligent people. I am joining a CS PhD program in an US university this fall. The GRE, especially the math part, is high school mathematics. If you are not good at math, you can ace it by studying hard for a month. That is why a low GRE quant score reflects that you haven't really bothered.
- cdmckay 8y ago
  I went to grad school in Canada and I didn't have to do any standardized testing. People recommended doing your GRE but it wasn't required.

We don’t use any standardized testing in Canada and I don’t think it’s affected our higher education system at all. Are there any proven advantages to standardized testing?

dontbenaive 8y ago

It gives smart troubled kids in terrible schools a chance to show that they are talented and in a bad situation. Instead of just selecting for the agreeable popular kids who can get recommendation letters.

slantyyz 8y ago

That's true for getting into undergraduate programs, but when it comes to graduate programs, dentistry, medical, law schools etc, I believe we still do use the same standardized tests as in the USA.

fooker 8y ago
For grad school, GRE and the other tests exist to filter out obviously unmotivated candidates. So, a good GRE score can not get you in with any certainty, but a bad one can disqualify you.
- slantyyz 8y ago
  I think it depends. When I wrote the GMAT (albeit in 1992), a good score would get you into most Canadian business schools even if you had mediocre marks. My recollection of the GMAT's difficulty was that any high school grad with an A average could easily score higher than the 80 percentile on the test. While I was happy my result gave me the ability to choose which business school I wanted to go to (my marks, while not bad, were also nothing to brag about), I also think the GMAT was a useless selection criterion.
  - fooker 8y ago
    I am not familiar with business school admissions, but it is very rare nowadays to get into non cash-cow grad school programs in STEM fields on the basis of the GRE score alone.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Obviously unmotivated? Your thoughtless dismissal of those less intelligent is enraging. Do you think all the people who work harder than you to get worse results are less motivated? There are tens of thousands of people who would love to get into top graduate programmes, who love the subject they study but who just aren’t as smart as other people and you’re shitting on them as unmotivated? Conscientiousness and intelligence are negatively correlated. https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/30661143/Conscientiousness_and_Intelligence_-_2004.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1529137553&Signature=b0pTq0P9P7Xx1AnwSRSO52D3AtE%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DWhy_is_conscientiousness_negatively_corr.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/30661143/Con...
  - fooker 8y ago
    The GRE is designed to reward hard workers as well as intelligent people, that's why it is a widely used metric. Grad schools need hard working people as much as (probably more than, to be fair) they need intelligent people. I am joining a CS PhD program in an US university this fall. The GRE, especially the math part, is high school mathematics. If you are not good at math, you can ace it by studying hard for a month. That is why a low GRE quant score reflects that you haven't really bothered.
cdmckay 8y ago
I went to grad school in Canada and I didn't have to do any standardized testing. People recommended doing your GRE but it wasn't required.