4 ms·

> Common sense should tell us that standardized tests like this are not fair assessments of actual student academic potential. Common sense should tell you no

> Common sense should tell us that standardized tests like this are not fair assessments of actual student academic potential. Common sense should tell you no such thing! Why wouldn't a test that measures a list of aptitudes (writing, comprehension, logic, math, etc.) not correlate to some extent to academic success in a liberal arts degree? Literally the classes you have to take are related to writing, comprehension, logic, math, etc! > most college support structures are biased I am not even sure what this is getting at! If you are arguing that most of our colleges should not be centered on liberal arts, then the alternative is centered on professional or technical degrees ... which, in most cases, lean even more heavily on math, logic, writing, and comprehension! Many universities have decided that they value diversity (ever how they define that) higher than or equal to pure academic results. And that is fine for them to make that choice, but it is silly to say that, "... common sense should tell you that there is no correlation between people that are good at lots of things and those same people being good at lots of things in college."

geofft 7y ago
> Many universities have decided that they value diversity (ever how they define that) higher than or equal to pure academic results. This is a rational thing to do, because "pure academic results" are hard to get a useful measure from. Here's an analogy. Suppose you are looking for the most secure encryption algorithm. One thing you could measure is the number of unbroken messages generated from the algorithm. This seems to make sense, because good algorithms will be broken less easily than bad ones. But a bit of thinking will demonstrate this is a bad idea. There are a ton of DES messages in the world, most of which nobody has bothered to break. So by sheer numbers we would conclude DES is more secure than AES, and both are much more secure than any brand née algorithm. Since this is untrue, our heuristic must be wrong. Meanwhile, another heuristic of giving intentional and honest consideration to new, unproven algorithms seems likely to work better. In the same way, if you want to select for academic potential or * aptitude, measuring prior academic results* may not be the highest-value signal.
- zaroth 7y ago
  The point is to select for diversity for the purpose of diversity, not for the purpose of academic potential. Selecting for prior academic success is a good way to predict future academic success — your analogy about encryption makes no sense at all. Academic success doesn’t fail in any of the same ways that encryption does. But the problem is that selecting for prior academic success does not select for diversity, because the environments which support early adolescent academic success are not as diverse as colleges want their own student populations to be. So colleges are left trying to increase the diversity of incoming freshman by passing over more academically successful candidates which don’t meet their diversity quotas. There is tremendous value in having a diverse campus population, but the best way to get there is to have diverse academically successful applicants. Colleges aren’t willing to wait. One problem is that these applicants are also generally paying a lot of money to attend these colleges, and if they ultimately aren’t going to be successful those colleges are causing significant harm by admitting them. Note that one of the primary purposes of the SAT is to predict success in the first two years of college. The not very good alternative is to lower academic standards in the classes themselves, and certainly there is anecdotal evidence of this but I’m not sure about rigorous studies.
reilly3000 7y ago
The tests have been gamed by a test prep industry that extracts money from wealthy families. Colleges aren't admitting students based only on diversity. They are taking kids with excellent grades, volunteer work, etc. and giving them a closer look. It relies on the judgement of all of the student's high school teachers, rather than a centralized corporate assessment. Poor kids don't get second or third tries at tests that cost money to take. Even the most brilliant students can have a bad day. Colleges are held financial accountable to enroll students they can retain, so they can collect a full-term tuition. They aren't going to risk giving a valuable spot to a student that won't be able to perform well academically, just because they are 'diverse'. Professors would rather teach exceptional, motivated students from all walks of life than the wealthy, entitled children that can afford to spend $5000 on a test prep coach.
- mhuffman 7y ago
  > The tests have been gamed by a test prep industry that extracts money from wealthy families. No matter what you do, it will be gamed by money from wealthy families, because successfully graduating from one of these schools opens doors! For example, one thing that rich families are doing now is getting apartments in "ghettos" so that certain institutions that use an address as a proxy for "diversity" will include them. Whenever you have something of value (like an Ivy League education), people are going to compete for it. Short of a literally random lottery that cannot be sold, there is zero way to change that. > Professors would rather teach exceptional, motivated students from all walks of life Exceptional, motivated students have never had a problem getting into schools. Universities have long adored the idea of having "church mouse" geniuses, but it turns out that there are only so many of them. These self-motivated, exceptional students never had to worry about the SAT, because they knocked it out of the park ... without coaching!
- GarrisonPrime 7y ago
  >Colleges are held financial accountable to enroll students they can retain, so they can collect a full-term tuition. They aren't going to risk giving a valuable spot to a student that won't be able to perform well academically, just because they are 'diverse'. One would hope this to be the case, but considering only about 50% of college freshmen come back for a second year, it doesn't seem like they're doing that well picking applicants with staying power.
wyxuan 7y ago
If you actually take the SAT, you realize that the content is very easy. Instead, its just a test taking strategy test. Who had the better tutor. It doesn't test any 'real' skills, only how well they can bubble answer sheets.
- mhuffman 7y ago
  I did actually take the SAT! Granted it was a long time ago, but I thought that it was challenging. I did very well on it and it helped me move forward in my academic career because I was from a very, very poor family where going to college wasn't in the cards otherwise.

geofft 7y ago

> Many universities have decided that they value diversity (ever how they define that) higher than or equal to pure academic results. This is a rational thing to do, because "pure academic results" are hard to get a useful measure from. Here's an analogy. Suppose you are looking for the most secure encryption algorithm. One thing you could measure is the number of unbroken messages generated from the algorithm. This seems to make sense, because good algorithms will be broken less easily than bad ones. But a bit of thinking will demonstrate this is a bad idea. There are a ton of DES messages in the world, most of which nobody has bothered to break. So by sheer numbers we would conclude DES is more secure than AES, and both are much more secure than any brand née algorithm. Since this is untrue, our heuristic must be wrong. Meanwhile, another heuristic of giving intentional and honest consideration to new, unproven algorithms seems likely to work better. In the same way, if you want to select for academic potential or * aptitude, measuring prior academic results* may not be the highest-value signal.

zaroth 7y ago
The point is to select for diversity for the purpose of diversity, not for the purpose of academic potential. Selecting for prior academic success is a good way to predict future academic success — your analogy about encryption makes no sense at all. Academic success doesn’t fail in any of the same ways that encryption does. But the problem is that selecting for prior academic success does not select for diversity, because the environments which support early adolescent academic success are not as diverse as colleges want their own student populations to be. So colleges are left trying to increase the diversity of incoming freshman by passing over more academically successful candidates which don’t meet their diversity quotas. There is tremendous value in having a diverse campus population, but the best way to get there is to have diverse academically successful applicants. Colleges aren’t willing to wait. One problem is that these applicants are also generally paying a lot of money to attend these colleges, and if they ultimately aren’t going to be successful those colleges are causing significant harm by admitting them. Note that one of the primary purposes of the SAT is to predict success in the first two years of college. The not very good alternative is to lower academic standards in the classes themselves, and certainly there is anecdotal evidence of this but I’m not sure about rigorous studies.

reilly3000 7y ago

The tests have been gamed by a test prep industry that extracts money from wealthy families. Colleges aren't admitting students based only on diversity. They are taking kids with excellent grades, volunteer work, etc. and giving them a closer look. It relies on the judgement of all of the student's high school teachers, rather than a centralized corporate assessment. Poor kids don't get second or third tries at tests that cost money to take. Even the most brilliant students can have a bad day. Colleges are held financial accountable to enroll students they can retain, so they can collect a full-term tuition. They aren't going to risk giving a valuable spot to a student that won't be able to perform well academically, just because they are 'diverse'. Professors would rather teach exceptional, motivated students from all walks of life than the wealthy, entitled children that can afford to spend $5000 on a test prep coach.

mhuffman 7y ago
> The tests have been gamed by a test prep industry that extracts money from wealthy families. No matter what you do, it will be gamed by money from wealthy families, because successfully graduating from one of these schools opens doors! For example, one thing that rich families are doing now is getting apartments in "ghettos" so that certain institutions that use an address as a proxy for "diversity" will include them. Whenever you have something of value (like an Ivy League education), people are going to compete for it. Short of a literally random lottery that cannot be sold, there is zero way to change that. > Professors would rather teach exceptional, motivated students from all walks of life Exceptional, motivated students have never had a problem getting into schools. Universities have long adored the idea of having "church mouse" geniuses, but it turns out that there are only so many of them. These self-motivated, exceptional students never had to worry about the SAT, because they knocked it out of the park ... without coaching!
GarrisonPrime 7y ago
>Colleges are held financial accountable to enroll students they can retain, so they can collect a full-term tuition. They aren't going to risk giving a valuable spot to a student that won't be able to perform well academically, just because they are 'diverse'. One would hope this to be the case, but considering only about 50% of college freshmen come back for a second year, it doesn't seem like they're doing that well picking applicants with staying power.

wyxuan 7y ago

If you actually take the SAT, you realize that the content is very easy. Instead, its just a test taking strategy test. Who had the better tutor. It doesn't test any 'real' skills, only how well they can bubble answer sheets.

mhuffman 7y ago
I did actually take the SAT! Granted it was a long time ago, but I thought that it was challenging. I did very well on it and it helped me move forward in my academic career because I was from a very, very poor family where going to college wasn't in the cards otherwise.