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That doesn't jive with the submitted article in the Washington Post: "Research has consistently shown that ACT and SAT scores are strongly linked to family inc

That doesn't jive with the submitted article in the Washington Post: "Research has consistently shown that ACT and SAT scores are strongly linked to family income, mother’s education level and race. The College Board and ACT Inc., which owns the ACT, say their tests are predictive of college success, but (as with many education issues) there is also research showing otherwise." There are studies that have shown rigor of high school course work is the strongest predictor of college success: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Study-Says-Rigor-of/8973 https://www.chronicle.com/article/Study-Says-Rigor-of/8973 I think we can all agree that allowing two private companies to be the gate keepers of higher education is a terrible idea.

danieltillett 7y ago
This is because all of these factors are heavily g loaded. I do agree with your last sentence.
haihaibye 7y ago
I thought the best measure was to combine school grades and tests. But grades are so subjective - who has time to evaluate the rigor of a school curriculum, the teacher teaching it and a student learning it each year? Hence standardized tests. > Research has consistently shown that ACT and SAT scores are strongly linked to family income, mother’s education level and race. So is IQ, school and career success - and anything that predicts them, which is supposedly what we want. But innate differences are crimethink, so best shift from measure with predictive ability to those that give the desired results. > I think we can all agree that allowing two private companies to be the gate keepers of higher education is a terrible idea Yes, in my country this is done by the government.
xyzzyz 7y ago
This WaPo quote is a good example of a common practice in modern journalism, which is to write something which literally is true, but leaves the reader with the wrong impression of the reality. Yes, the rich people tend to do better on SAT. So? Why would anyone expect all groups to do equally well on SAT? There is no problem with that. It would only be a problem if SAT had different predictive validity between the rich and the poor, that is, poor people with a given SAT score had different outcome in predicted variable than the rich people. By and large it is not true. > The College Board and ACT Inc., which owns the ACT, say their tests are predictive of college success, but (as with many education issues) there is also research showing otherwise." Of course there is research showing otherwise. There always is. The real question here, which WaPo is eliding, is what’s the preponderance of evidence, and it overwhelmingly is on the side of high predictive validity of SAT. Don’t believe me, see for yourself: go to Google Scholar and search for “sat predictive validity”. > There are studies that have shown rigor of high school course work is the strongest predictor of college success: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Study-Says-Rigor-of/8973 https://www.chronicle.com/article/Study-Says-Rigor-of/8973 It is marginally better than SAT, and it’s worse than GPA + SAT. I predict if we dropped SAT, it’s predictive validity would fall significantly, because it’s much easier to game GPA than to game SAT. > I think we can all agree that allowing two private companies to be the gate keepers of higher education is a terrible idea. Where I went to school, a government agency designs the test, of which all students take the exact same version on exact same date. Universities by and large exclusively consider the score in admissions. I think it’s superior system, more fair and egalitarian.

danieltillett 7y ago

This is because all of these factors are heavily g loaded. I do agree with your last sentence.

haihaibye 7y ago

I thought the best measure was to combine school grades and tests. But grades are so subjective - who has time to evaluate the rigor of a school curriculum, the teacher teaching it and a student learning it each year? Hence standardized tests. > Research has consistently shown that ACT and SAT scores are strongly linked to family income, mother’s education level and race. So is IQ, school and career success - and anything that predicts them, which is supposedly what we want. But innate differences are crimethink, so best shift from measure with predictive ability to those that give the desired results. > I think we can all agree that allowing two private companies to be the gate keepers of higher education is a terrible idea Yes, in my country this is done by the government.

xyzzyz 7y ago

This WaPo quote is a good example of a common practice in modern journalism, which is to write something which literally is true, but leaves the reader with the wrong impression of the reality. Yes, the rich people tend to do better on SAT. So? Why would anyone expect all groups to do equally well on SAT? There is no problem with that. It would only be a problem if SAT had different predictive validity between the rich and the poor, that is, poor people with a given SAT score had different outcome in predicted variable than the rich people. By and large it is not true. > The College Board and ACT Inc., which owns the ACT, say their tests are predictive of college success, but (as with many education issues) there is also research showing otherwise." Of course there is research showing otherwise. There always is. The real question here, which WaPo is eliding, is what’s the preponderance of evidence, and it overwhelmingly is on the side of high predictive validity of SAT. Don’t believe me, see for yourself: go to Google Scholar and search for “sat predictive validity”. > There are studies that have shown rigor of high school course work is the strongest predictor of college success: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Study-Says-Rigor-of/8973 https://www.chronicle.com/article/Study-Says-Rigor-of/8973 It is marginally better than SAT, and it’s worse than GPA + SAT. I predict if we dropped SAT, it’s predictive validity would fall significantly, because it’s much easier to game GPA than to game SAT. > I think we can all agree that allowing two private companies to be the gate keepers of higher education is a terrible idea. Where I went to school, a government agency designs the test, of which all students take the exact same version on exact same date. Universities by and large exclusively consider the score in admissions. I think it’s superior system, more fair and egalitarian.