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Yes, finally! As someone who underwent the standardized testing grind, I have been waiting for an announcement like this by a university system for years. I un
by usui 6y ago
Yes, finally! As someone who underwent the standardized testing grind, I have been waiting for an announcement like this by a university system for years.
I understand that there needs to be some standardized way to objectively score students, because allocating college seats to students seems to be an induced scarcity problem.
However, as someone who scored highly and is currently studying computer science at UC Berkeley, I ultimately feel like my time was wasted because the tests have almost no relation to any of my studies in class.
I know that in the absence of SAT and ACT, universities will need to come up with a different system, that has an equal chance of being gamed. Perfect is the enemy of good, and in this case, I would rather we strive toward standardized systems that actually relate to the content of high school. So many times while studying for the test I thought how much of a waste of time it is, and that I would rather be doing something else like programming.
Thank goodness that nowadays all I have to worry about is actual computer science. I got past the time-wasting hump and I never have to look back again. That is, unless I face the GRE...
- realbarack 6y agoThe problem is that whatever fills the void left by SAT and ACT will likely be _easier_ to game. Standardized tests are not perfect but they're a better signal than extracurricular checkboxes or professionally-edited essays.
- TuringNYC 6y agoYeah...i'm pretty sure that is the whole intention. Us New Yorkers have been having the same problem as they tried to take away standardized high school entrance exams. Most doubt the intention was to make it fair -- the intention was to make it opaque so admins could pick and choose students rather than leave it up to people studying their way in.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- harryh 6y agoI ultimately feel like my time was wasted because the tests have almost no relation to any of my studies in class. The SAT is basically a somewhat disguised IQ test and I'm quite confident that intelligence was related to the studies in your classes.
- usui 6y agoI hated this admissions process so much that I did the ACT as early as I could, graduated high school a year early, and started college faster. As soon as I knew the battle was over, I knew I could drop the facade of playing the game. It felt so liberating to focus on what I deemed "more relevant" tasks. My problem though is that I do not think educational reform is my passion. My passion aims at progressing in my chosen major, and I desperately wanted to show to colleges this passion, but my test score was the Great Filter that decided whether or not the other aspects to myself mattered, such as personality, side projects, or personal achievements. I did well in high school, so it's not that I dislike the system because I didn't perform well. I dislike the system because there is such a great disconnect between what is relevant to the college experience and what college admissions is based off. In general, high SAT/ACT scores correlates with well-achieving college students, but I'm sure most begrudgingly pushed themselves to get over the IQ test hump. I have thought about this issue a lot. The incongruence between college admissions and student achievement really compels me to strive for a better system so that future generations will not have to waste time like I did. However, I suspect that all the great people who could work on a better system do not stick around.
- bradlys 6y agoI wouldn’t really say it’s an IQ test. After all, if you don’t know the material then you won’t get a good score. Lack of knowledge doesn’t mean you have a low IQ. If you didn’t brush up on vocab specific to the SAT then you’re gonna get a bad score. Same with the writing portion and especially math. (It’s mostly math trivia, not proofs or anything creative)