7 ms·

This, like every other similar attempt made to "equalize" the SAT, is misguided and will accomplish little. If the SAT correlates too strongly with wealth, the

This, like every other similar attempt made to "equalize" the SAT, is misguided and will accomplish little. If the SAT correlates too strongly with wealth, then Collegeboard should make a better test. Make one that changes significantly every year so direct test-prep is hard. Choose different types of critical reading passages and questions each year, vary the style of the math questions - make the test different enough each time so studying past tests isn't valuable. Then, if you eliminate the advantage direct prep gives, the correlation to wealth should weaken, and the test should get closer to measuring aptitude. But instead, Collegeboard continues to shoehorn political objectives into an already broken exam. This is a mistake.

leetcrew 7y ago
it's hard to change a test enough that it's hard to prepare for but not so much that scores can still be meaningfully compared year to year. even if kids go straight to college, there's a two year window where they could reasonably take the test and the test is offered several times per year. I don't see how they could accomplish this without severely increasing the cost of the test.
- vageli 7y ago
  > it's hard to change a test enough that it's hard to prepare for but not so much that scores can still be meaningfully compared year to year. even if kids go straight to college, there's a two year window where they could reasonably take the test and the test is offered several times per year. I don't see how they could accomplish this without severely increasing the cost of the test. As an entrenched player, I'd love to know more about their operating costs. They have no need for marketing, have a constant demand and are essentially a monopoly (possibly part of duopoly) on the college standardized test market. If they had optimized supply chains and distribution (which I would expect to improve year over year) I would be curious as to where all the money is going.
SeanAppleby 7y ago
Hypothetically, what if it was true that wealthy people's exposure to better education over a lifetime, reduced stress distracting them from learning, better and more abundant roll models, etc, meant they would do better on pretty much literally any test you could put in front of them? Most research points to this being true.
- logicx24 7y ago
  Then wealthy people show more "merit" and the test is working as designed. If the test is an accurate predictor of success in college and success thereafter (which is a big if), then that people who do well on it are more deserving of college admissions. The ancillary qualities of that group of people (wealth, race, etc.) are irrelevant.
  - dmix 7y ago
    This is the reality of the situation that people don't want to admit. This is a social engineering problem related to the outcomes of college entrance processes. It's not really about the test or how we are measuring aptitude. This problem would be far better solved elsewhere in the chain instead of blurring the meaning of data and pretending that things are different.
    - TheOperator 7y ago
      Yes but fucking with the metrics costs almost nothing. Does almost nothing too. It can even backfire by sending a bunch of disadvantaged kids to programs they're not prepared to succeed at to "help them" get saddled with college debt they can't discharge.
  - andyv 7y ago
    The SAT is (well, was) supposed to predict academic success at a college/university. The idea being that an institution could admit students who would likely graduate, as opposed to students who did not. It's heading away from that.
changchuming 7y ago
Your suggestion relies on the assumption that there is some way to change standardized tests such that they do not correlate with wealth. Perhaps the problem is that academic ability is directly correlated to the kind of test prep you receive, so unless you set a test paper full of trivia questions the student that has gone through test prep will perform better every time. I do not agree with this idea either, but only in that the adversity score will be opaque to students, so there is no recourse if it does a poor job of addressing the current issues with college admissions.
- Qwertystop 7y ago
  If you do set a test paper full of trivia questions, that just changes the sort of things in the test-prep program. Anything studiable is going to correlate with the amount of time spent studying, therefore with wealth. People do study for Jeopardy.
- eitland 7y ago
  > Your suggestion relies on the assumption that there is some way to change standardized tests such that they do not correlate with wealth. Good IQ tests exists that are hard to game. They are easy to learn easy to vary and easy to measure. (I think I have heard someone here talking about IQ tests that include language and geography questions. This is not the kind of IQ tests I'm talking about. Perfect IQ tests should measure your processing speed, not your "software" - i.e. education.)
  - learc83 7y ago
    The SAT is supposed to be a test measuring scholastic aptitude not a pure IQ test. IQ tests always have a knowledge component anyway. Unless you specifically design a test to only measure something like working memory. And who cares about that. Colleges would only care to the extent that it correlated with performance. But you can have 2 people who have equal performance in a given field even though one has a higher working memory because the other has better context from more time spent reading.
    - 7y ago
pjscott 7y ago
Imagine a perfect SAT that preparation can't affect; for the purposes of the hypothetical, the test just stares into your soul and measures pure scholastic aptitude. If (a) scholastic aptitude has a significant effect on your lifetime income, (b) people tend to marry people of similar social and economic class, and (c) scholastic aptitude is fairly heritable (through genes, environment, whatever)... ... then you would expect the Perfect SAT scores to correlate pretty noticeably with family wealth. This wouldn't be a sign that anybody is doing anything wrong; it's just as natural as water flowing downhill. And these are reasonable premises, with strong empirical evidence for each of them. So, question: just by looking at the correlation of SAT scores with family wealth, how can we possibly tell how broken the test is? How can we know how far the real SAT is from the absolutely un-gameable Perfect SAT?
- logicx24 7y ago
  I mentioned this below, but if the test is a perfect predictor of future success, then the people that perform well on it are absolutely worthy of college admissions, and there should be no further analysis required. If the test is perfect, then the characteristics of the people that do well on that test don't matter. The reason we need to do implement equalizers like this is because such a test is impossible.
  - baronswindle 7y ago
    This argument seems rather like question begging.
- starpilot 7y ago
  Because we've done studies to address exactly that question. What we've found: The least-gifted children of high-income parents graduate from college at higher rates than the most-gifted children of low-income parents, hence the adversity score to rectify the inequity in life circumstances. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/money-academic-success-us-college-intelligence-born-rich-genomics-new-york-university-a8585821.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/money-academic-su...
droithomme 7y ago
The student who spends time preparing for a test, reviewing the material, studying previous tests, drilling with practice tests, actually has more scholastic aptitude than the students who do not do this because these are actual research and preparation skills that are valuable to success in mastering college material.
- cycrutchfield 7y ago
  The only skill you gain while cramming for the SAT is how to cram for tests like the SAT. The gameability of the SAT is not an indication of general scholastic aptitude
  - freeone3000 7y ago
    If general scholastic aptitude measured something other than how to study for tests and write essays, then you might be onto something, except that college is simply more of the same.
    - cycrutchfield 7y ago
      Sure, maybe if you went to a degree mill.
      - learc83 7y ago
        I always wonder where people get this view of college (the GP's view that is). I went to a non-name state school for undergrad and it was nothing like the above.
  - stale2002 7y ago
    You have just described what college is. College is all about studying/cramming for tests. And yes, this applies to "top" engineering colleges and otherwise.
    - cycrutchfield 7y ago
TheOperator 7y ago
What's going to happen is the transformation of people believing that you succeeding in SPITE of hardship is no big deal since you got a leg up. I truly loathe those who "help" the disadvantaged by lowering standards for them.

leetcrew 7y ago

it's hard to change a test enough that it's hard to prepare for but not so much that scores can still be meaningfully compared year to year. even if kids go straight to college, there's a two year window where they could reasonably take the test and the test is offered several times per year. I don't see how they could accomplish this without severely increasing the cost of the test.

vageli 7y ago
> it's hard to change a test enough that it's hard to prepare for but not so much that scores can still be meaningfully compared year to year. even if kids go straight to college, there's a two year window where they could reasonably take the test and the test is offered several times per year. I don't see how they could accomplish this without severely increasing the cost of the test. As an entrenched player, I'd love to know more about their operating costs. They have no need for marketing, have a constant demand and are essentially a monopoly (possibly part of duopoly) on the college standardized test market. If they had optimized supply chains and distribution (which I would expect to improve year over year) I would be curious as to where all the money is going.

SeanAppleby 7y ago

Hypothetically, what if it was true that wealthy people's exposure to better education over a lifetime, reduced stress distracting them from learning, better and more abundant roll models, etc, meant they would do better on pretty much literally any test you could put in front of them? Most research points to this being true.

logicx24 7y ago
Then wealthy people show more "merit" and the test is working as designed. If the test is an accurate predictor of success in college and success thereafter (which is a big if), then that people who do well on it are more deserving of college admissions. The ancillary qualities of that group of people (wealth, race, etc.) are irrelevant.
- dmix 7y ago
  This is the reality of the situation that people don't want to admit. This is a social engineering problem related to the outcomes of college entrance processes. It's not really about the test or how we are measuring aptitude. This problem would be far better solved elsewhere in the chain instead of blurring the meaning of data and pretending that things are different.
  - TheOperator 7y ago
    Yes but fucking with the metrics costs almost nothing. Does almost nothing too. It can even backfire by sending a bunch of disadvantaged kids to programs they're not prepared to succeed at to "help them" get saddled with college debt they can't discharge.
- andyv 7y ago
  The SAT is (well, was) supposed to predict academic success at a college/university. The idea being that an institution could admit students who would likely graduate, as opposed to students who did not. It's heading away from that.

changchuming 7y ago

Your suggestion relies on the assumption that there is some way to change standardized tests such that they do not correlate with wealth. Perhaps the problem is that academic ability is directly correlated to the kind of test prep you receive, so unless you set a test paper full of trivia questions the student that has gone through test prep will perform better every time. I do not agree with this idea either, but only in that the adversity score will be opaque to students, so there is no recourse if it does a poor job of addressing the current issues with college admissions.

Qwertystop 7y ago
If you do set a test paper full of trivia questions, that just changes the sort of things in the test-prep program. Anything studiable is going to correlate with the amount of time spent studying, therefore with wealth. People do study for Jeopardy.
eitland 7y ago
> Your suggestion relies on the assumption that there is some way to change standardized tests such that they do not correlate with wealth. Good IQ tests exists that are hard to game. They are easy to learn easy to vary and easy to measure. (I think I have heard someone here talking about IQ tests that include language and geography questions. This is not the kind of IQ tests I'm talking about. Perfect IQ tests should measure your processing speed, not your "software" - i.e. education.)
- learc83 7y ago
  The SAT is supposed to be a test measuring scholastic aptitude not a pure IQ test. IQ tests always have a knowledge component anyway. Unless you specifically design a test to only measure something like working memory. And who cares about that. Colleges would only care to the extent that it correlated with performance. But you can have 2 people who have equal performance in a given field even though one has a higher working memory because the other has better context from more time spent reading.
  - 7y ago

pjscott 7y ago

Imagine a perfect SAT that preparation can't affect; for the purposes of the hypothetical, the test just stares into your soul and measures pure scholastic aptitude. If (a) scholastic aptitude has a significant effect on your lifetime income, (b) people tend to marry people of similar social and economic class, and (c) scholastic aptitude is fairly heritable (through genes, environment, whatever)... ... then you would expect the Perfect SAT scores to correlate pretty noticeably with family wealth. This wouldn't be a sign that anybody is doing anything wrong; it's just as natural as water flowing downhill. And these are reasonable premises, with strong empirical evidence for each of them. So, question: just by looking at the correlation of SAT scores with family wealth, how can we possibly tell how broken the test is? How can we know how far the real SAT is from the absolutely un-gameable Perfect SAT?

logicx24 7y ago
I mentioned this below, but if the test is a perfect predictor of future success, then the people that perform well on it are absolutely worthy of college admissions, and there should be no further analysis required. If the test is perfect, then the characteristics of the people that do well on that test don't matter. The reason we need to do implement equalizers like this is because such a test is impossible.
- baronswindle 7y ago
  This argument seems rather like question begging.
starpilot 7y ago
Because we've done studies to address exactly that question. What we've found: The least-gifted children of high-income parents graduate from college at higher rates than the most-gifted children of low-income parents, hence the adversity score to rectify the inequity in life circumstances. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/money-academic-success-us-college-intelligence-born-rich-genomics-new-york-university-a8585821.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/money-academic-su...

droithomme 7y ago

The student who spends time preparing for a test, reviewing the material, studying previous tests, drilling with practice tests, actually has more scholastic aptitude than the students who do not do this because these are actual research and preparation skills that are valuable to success in mastering college material.

cycrutchfield 7y ago
The only skill you gain while cramming for the SAT is how to cram for tests like the SAT. The gameability of the SAT is not an indication of general scholastic aptitude
- freeone3000 7y ago
  If general scholastic aptitude measured something other than how to study for tests and write essays, then you might be onto something, except that college is simply more of the same.
  - cycrutchfield 7y ago
    Sure, maybe if you went to a degree mill.
    - learc83 7y ago
      I always wonder where people get this view of college (the GP's view that is). I went to a non-name state school for undergrad and it was nothing like the above.
- stale2002 7y ago
  You have just described what college is. College is all about studying/cramming for tests. And yes, this applies to "top" engineering colleges and otherwise.
  - cycrutchfield 7y ago

TheOperator 7y ago

What's going to happen is the transformation of people believing that you succeeding in SPITE of hardship is no big deal since you got a leg up. I truly loathe those who "help" the disadvantaged by lowering standards for them.