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> we do expect to return to requiring the SAT/ACT once it is possible for everyone to take them safely Fine with this being temporary. Much less fine with the

> we do expect to return to requiring the SAT/ACT once it is possible for everyone to take them safely Fine with this being temporary. Much less fine with the schools who have completely abandoned the SAT/ACT in the name of equality while still considering things like personal essays and extracurriculars, which are way more liable to be gamed by the wealthy than the SAT.

pmiller2 6y ago
You know test prep courses are a thing, and that the wealthy are the primary consumers of them, right? Pretty much everything in the USA is pay to win.
- porb121 6y ago
  I'd rather have people paying for test prep services than essay ghostwriters or fraudulent extracurriculars.
- kansface 6y ago
  Test prep has a more or less negligible effect size. Extra curriculars and paying someone to write your essay for you on the other hand are all about privilege.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I know the test prep industry is bigger today than it used to be- but I assume you can still just buy a test prep book(s) and study like I did.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      Or even check out a test prep book from the library.
- paconbork 6y ago
  Yes, and high-quality free prep solutions exist: https://www.khanacademy.org/SAT https://www.khanacademy.org/SAT Spending 10k on a prep class isn't going to cause your dimwitted child to outperform a bright kid from a disadvantaged background, but it can probably buy a better essay
- ffggvv 6y ago
  you know they also pay people to write their essays or give them tutoring to get a high GPA right? And that GPA's are inflated at private schools? The SAT is the one mechanism that poor asian and jewish and nigerian kids could prepare for and do well on. But obviously the objective is to get rid of them as "theres too many" Its also the only measure thats the same for everyone. There also isnt any indication that as a whole the test prep classes actually "work" to a serious degree. Maybe theyll take your score up 20 points but wont raise it 300.
- fireflies_ 6y ago
  You're being downvoted, but I think this sentiment is right and if you take it seriously, it's an argument for the SAT. Pretty much _everything_ in the USA is pay to win, not just the SAT, and the more subjective factors like essays, extracurriculars, and even grades, are more biased. Test prep companies have an incentive to overhype their services but research suggests the improvement isn't that much. There's a Jacobin article making the case for the SAT that people following this debate might enjoy reading: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/03/sat-class-race-inequality-college-admission https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/03/sat-class-race-inequality...
- ericd 6y ago
  This is an oft-repeated meme, but I don't think it holds much water - the main value of SAT test prep is in taking a few practice tests, which you can do by yourself with a $20 book. You can't buy your way to a 2400, it takes being able to actually solve the problems. Otherwise, you'd see a lot more of them.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > You can't buy your way to a 2400 Well, no, since that would be 150% of the maximum score. You can buy your way to the maximum score, and people have been doing it, but test prep won't get you there. (As you note, prep is worth nearly nothing in terms of score gains.) You need advance access to the answers, or a substitute to take the test for you, or something along those lines.
    - ericd 6y ago
      Ha are they back to 1600? When did they get rid of writing? Sure, yes, maybe bribery or fraud could get you there. Have there been reported cases?
      - thaumasiotes 6y ago
        1600 is the high score again as of 2016. Yes, there have been various reported cases of fraud on the SAT. The most prominent two that come to mind are the recent college admissions scandal, in which strategies included both (1) having a substitute take the SAT in place of the student and (2) bribing the test proctor, and the year in which every test result from South Korea was canceled due to widespread cheating. https://world.time.com/2013/05/10/for-the-first-time-sat-test-gets-canceled-in-an-entire-country/ https://world.time.com/2013/05/10/for-the-first-time-sat-tes...
        ericd 6y ago
        Wow, TIL, thanks!
- jostmey 6y ago
  At least the wealthy still have to take the test. With essays, there is no guarantee that the person wrote it. There are numerous websites for purchasing essays
- cma 6y ago
  At least in the past, Harvard had a far higher rate of students with learning disabilities than lower tier schools, because having one meant you could get unlimited time on the SAT (giving the time to, on the math part, test every multiple choice solution manually rather than solve once and choose or use other higher level strategies). Richer families were more likely to have connections with a doctor to give the diagnosis, afford the insurance deductible, or even be in the right circles or to know through word of mouth or paid admissions advisers that it was a thing to try and acquire for the kid.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    That's genius. I've seen it elsewhere too. Again, you should expect every metric to be thoroughly gamed.
- sparky_z 6y ago
  Yes, everything. But testing is the least gameable (assuming you can prevent actual cheating). So getting rid of it makes admission more gameable overall.
- underpand 6y ago
  This was downvoted because it's a disingenuous reply. Obviously, OP was not arguing that SAT can't be gamed.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    I think I know when I'm being disingenuous, thank you very much, and that was not it. Mistaken, perhaps, but not disingenuous. Even so: > In any case, even small effects can be unfair. Let’s assume the effects of short-term coaching are really just a 20- or 30-point jump in students’ scores. That means they ought to be irrelevant to college admissions officers. Briggs found otherwise, however. Analyzing a 2008 survey conducted by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, he noted that one-third of respondents described a jump from 750 to 770 on the math portion of the SAT as having a significant effect on a student’s chances of admissions, and this was true among counselors at more and less selective schools alike. Even a minor score improvement for a high-achieving student, then—and one that falls within the standard measurement error for the test—can make a real difference. https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/sat-prep-courses-do-they-work-bias.html https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/sat-prep-courses-do-the... Test prep, even if it's as rudimentary as taking the test multiple times (thus, being able to afford to take the test multiple times), is an advantage that matters.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      That's fair. In extremely competitive situations, the slightest edge matter. Arguably test prep is less of an edge than spending a summer on some community project would be but even a relatively small point jump is an edge for someone on the bubble. And, of course, elite schools have become hyper-competitive. I have very few illusions that I would have the school choice I had when I went to college--especially given that that about an eighth of my class went to the school in question.
      - pmiller2 6y ago
        The real problem [edit: with scores] here is that scores are reported on a 200-800 scale. If they were reported in terms of standard deviation from the mean, then those 20-40 point differences wouldn't matter to admissions officers. As it is, a 30 point difference looks significant, even though it's only around 0.15 SD.
ghaff 6y ago
Furthermore... This was years ago but there's no particular reason I'd expect things to have changed. But basically if you looked at outcomes--I think this included post-uni outcomes like salary--the quantitative measures like SAT score had a lot more predictive value than interview/letters of recommendation/essays/etc. (The way the one school I'm familiar with used to do things was that basically everyone went on an X-Y graph with X being a normalized quant score and the Y being a normalized everything else score. Everyone up and to the right. No one down and to the left did. Those in the middle band were looked at a bit more carefully.
- chris11 6y ago
  > the quantitative measures like SAT score had a lot more predictive value than interview/letters of recommendation/essays/etc. I've also read SAT scores are highly correlated to family income. Family income probably has a huge impact on post university outcomes.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    I would imagine the socialization benefits of family income probably massively enhance interview skill and (even more) letters of recommendation as well, no? And for the essay, this seems easiest to fix with wealth as you can hire someone to either write it for you or massively edit it and assist you with it. Any time someone proposes to get rid of this or that requirement for being correlated to wealth, I'd like to see what the alternative is and see if it's any better. We want something somewhat meritocratic, where we can tell the difference between natural capability and hard work on the one hand and simply being lucky to be born into wealth on the other... but it's not clear to me that objective measures like the SAT are going to be worse than interviews/letters-of-rec/essays in discerning that.
rudderz 6y ago
I don't get why students need to be apply to be accepted. Why can't everyone go to MIT? Is there a scarcity on chalk boards, shitty chairs and cinder blocks?
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  The admissions criteria is probably most of the value of MIT. If you have a degree from MIT you're probably smart, and we know that because you were able to get in to MIT (and graduate).
- trentnix 6y ago
  Because the big money isn't in selling an education. The big money is in selling the credential.
- sitkack 6y ago
  How about kids test in? They can take classes online, if they perform well enough, they get to attend in person, everyone else can bang on the gates via a MOOC. Why not take 1 or 2 university classes your junior and senior year of HS?
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    > Why not take 1 or 2 university classes your junior and senior year of HS? Wasn't this the point of AP classes?
    - sitkack 6y ago
      I think so, but in the method I am outlining, the student would be doing an audition with a university they would like to attend, it isn't just for college credit.
      - 908B64B197 6y ago
        That would be neat. I think there are some Community Colleges/Universities that will allow it, or used to.
hintymad 6y ago
It can be permanent. In addition to the effort of removing standard tests, education reforms are happening left and right. San Francisco school union recently decided to remove fast tracks. The union will also delay the teaching of geometry to grade 9, which IMHO will make teaching physics and algebra really hard. I can understand that the motivation of such reform is to improve equity, as numerous studies have shown positive correlation between family income and testing scores. Therefore, lowering the difficulty of challenging courses and removing requirements of standard tests appear to be a natural choice towards better equity. Besides, many of us do not need advanced math or STEM in our profession anyway, why spend so much time on STEM, right? That said, I don't see how such reform will lead to more equity. Studying and taking tests are probably the most inexpensive activities out there. All that a driven student needs to learn well is a library, a good teacher, and a few like-minded classmates. And tutoring school does not necessarily make a difference, either. But with all the reforms, what would happen? Here is what I can imagine: - Tutoring schools will make more difference. Family with means will send their kids to tutoring schools so their kids can learn geometry or algebra in grade 5 and have all the time to study AP courses in high school. Who suffers? Smart kids from poor families. Same goes for history, writing, English, and etc. - Money will matter more. Families with means will send their kids to robotics camps, science research labs, coding schools, professional sports coaches, and etc. You know, things that poor families have a hard time to afford. With non-differentiating test scores, guess what school admission officers will look at? I really don't see how good intention in this case will help less privileged kids. Such reform is advantageous to my ids, as I'll simply send them to private schools, all kinds of camps, or tutoring schools. They will learn calculus in grade 7 or early if they are talented. They will have a bucket list of volunteering experience and so-called leadership proof in their resume. They will build their ML-powered robots or conduct their favorite chemistry/physics experiments in their private lab that I can help build, if they are interested. And in the worse case, my wife and I have no problem and plenty of time to home school my kids. Yet it still pains me to see potentially hundreds of thousands of kids who would get better chance but can't because of watered-down education. And I'll be happy if someone could show me how wrong I am.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > The union will also delay the teaching of geometry to grade 9, which IMHO will make teaching physics and algebra really hard. In the usual secondary sequence, Geometry is between Algebra I and Algebra II; doing it in 9th grade, even with a full year precalc after Algebra II, gets you to Calculus I in 12th. with a combined Algebra II/Trig and no separate precalc, which has long been thr common accelerated course, it gets you to Calculus II. Physics in high school is typically non-calculus based and works well alongside precalc or calc I or even Algebra II; there’s no difficulty having it in 11th/12th with geometry in 9th. It may create problems keeping mathematically advanced students engaged, it doesn’t create problems teaching algebra or physics.
scarmig 6y ago
One of the more obnoxious things is how biases are buried into things like personal essays and extracurriculars. They're so subjective that it lets evaluators sneak bias into their decisions. The Harvard undergraduate admissions lawsuit a year ago or two provides an example. Asian applicants were consistently ranked to have inferior personalities to white people, even with otherwise identical applications. There's no particular reason to think Asians are inferior to white people, and Harvard is really just promoting racist ideologies that say that Asians are mindless automatons who might be technically proficient but lack the creative, human impulses that would make them suitable for social roles higher than servitude.
- flowerlad 6y ago
  The so called "holistic reviews" were introduced to limit the number of Jewish people admitted to top colleges. See story here: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/history-privilege-elite-college-admissions/585088/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/histor...
  - artichokes 6y ago
    > The number of Jewish students on campuses soared; by the early 1920s, they made up 21 percent of Harvard’s student body, and nearly 40 percent of Columbia
yellowyacht 6y ago
I have never considered this issue before, so what are the good alternatives to this? For MIT admissions to call their teachers and ask questions?

pmiller2 6y ago

You know test prep courses are a thing, and that the wealthy are the primary consumers of them, right? Pretty much everything in the USA is pay to win.

porb121 6y ago
I'd rather have people paying for test prep services than essay ghostwriters or fraudulent extracurriculars.
kansface 6y ago
Test prep has a more or less negligible effect size. Extra curriculars and paying someone to write your essay for you on the other hand are all about privilege.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I know the test prep industry is bigger today than it used to be- but I assume you can still just buy a test prep book(s) and study like I did.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Or even check out a test prep book from the library.
paconbork 6y ago
Yes, and high-quality free prep solutions exist: https://www.khanacademy.org/SAT https://www.khanacademy.org/SAT Spending 10k on a prep class isn't going to cause your dimwitted child to outperform a bright kid from a disadvantaged background, but it can probably buy a better essay
ffggvv 6y ago
you know they also pay people to write their essays or give them tutoring to get a high GPA right? And that GPA's are inflated at private schools? The SAT is the one mechanism that poor asian and jewish and nigerian kids could prepare for and do well on. But obviously the objective is to get rid of them as "theres too many" Its also the only measure thats the same for everyone. There also isnt any indication that as a whole the test prep classes actually "work" to a serious degree. Maybe theyll take your score up 20 points but wont raise it 300.
fireflies_ 6y ago
You're being downvoted, but I think this sentiment is right and if you take it seriously, it's an argument for the SAT. Pretty much _everything_ in the USA is pay to win, not just the SAT, and the more subjective factors like essays, extracurriculars, and even grades, are more biased. Test prep companies have an incentive to overhype their services but research suggests the improvement isn't that much. There's a Jacobin article making the case for the SAT that people following this debate might enjoy reading: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/03/sat-class-race-inequality-college-admission https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/03/sat-class-race-inequality...
ericd 6y ago
This is an oft-repeated meme, but I don't think it holds much water - the main value of SAT test prep is in taking a few practice tests, which you can do by yourself with a $20 book. You can't buy your way to a 2400, it takes being able to actually solve the problems. Otherwise, you'd see a lot more of them.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > You can't buy your way to a 2400 Well, no, since that would be 150% of the maximum score. You can buy your way to the maximum score, and people have been doing it, but test prep won't get you there. (As you note, prep is worth nearly nothing in terms of score gains.) You need advance access to the answers, or a substitute to take the test for you, or something along those lines.
  - ericd 6y ago
    Ha are they back to 1600? When did they get rid of writing? Sure, yes, maybe bribery or fraud could get you there. Have there been reported cases?
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      1600 is the high score again as of 2016. Yes, there have been various reported cases of fraud on the SAT. The most prominent two that come to mind are the recent college admissions scandal, in which strategies included both (1) having a substitute take the SAT in place of the student and (2) bribing the test proctor, and the year in which every test result from South Korea was canceled due to widespread cheating. https://world.time.com/2013/05/10/for-the-first-time-sat-test-gets-canceled-in-an-entire-country/ https://world.time.com/2013/05/10/for-the-first-time-sat-tes...
      - ericd 6y ago
        Wow, TIL, thanks!
jostmey 6y ago
At least the wealthy still have to take the test. With essays, there is no guarantee that the person wrote it. There are numerous websites for purchasing essays
cma 6y ago
At least in the past, Harvard had a far higher rate of students with learning disabilities than lower tier schools, because having one meant you could get unlimited time on the SAT (giving the time to, on the math part, test every multiple choice solution manually rather than solve once and choose or use other higher level strategies). Richer families were more likely to have connections with a doctor to give the diagnosis, afford the insurance deductible, or even be in the right circles or to know through word of mouth or paid admissions advisers that it was a thing to try and acquire for the kid.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  That's genius. I've seen it elsewhere too. Again, you should expect every metric to be thoroughly gamed.
sparky_z 6y ago
Yes, everything. But testing is the least gameable (assuming you can prevent actual cheating). So getting rid of it makes admission more gameable overall.
underpand 6y ago
This was downvoted because it's a disingenuous reply. Obviously, OP was not arguing that SAT can't be gamed.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  I think I know when I'm being disingenuous, thank you very much, and that was not it. Mistaken, perhaps, but not disingenuous. Even so: > In any case, even small effects can be unfair. Let’s assume the effects of short-term coaching are really just a 20- or 30-point jump in students’ scores. That means they ought to be irrelevant to college admissions officers. Briggs found otherwise, however. Analyzing a 2008 survey conducted by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, he noted that one-third of respondents described a jump from 750 to 770 on the math portion of the SAT as having a significant effect on a student’s chances of admissions, and this was true among counselors at more and less selective schools alike. Even a minor score improvement for a high-achieving student, then—and one that falls within the standard measurement error for the test—can make a real difference. https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/sat-prep-courses-do-they-work-bias.html https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/sat-prep-courses-do-the... Test prep, even if it's as rudimentary as taking the test multiple times (thus, being able to afford to take the test multiple times), is an advantage that matters.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    That's fair. In extremely competitive situations, the slightest edge matter. Arguably test prep is less of an edge than spending a summer on some community project would be but even a relatively small point jump is an edge for someone on the bubble. And, of course, elite schools have become hyper-competitive. I have very few illusions that I would have the school choice I had when I went to college--especially given that that about an eighth of my class went to the school in question.
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      The real problem [edit: with scores] here is that scores are reported on a 200-800 scale. If they were reported in terms of standard deviation from the mean, then those 20-40 point differences wouldn't matter to admissions officers. As it is, a 30 point difference looks significant, even though it's only around 0.15 SD.

ghaff 6y ago

Furthermore... This was years ago but there's no particular reason I'd expect things to have changed. But basically if you looked at outcomes--I think this included post-uni outcomes like salary--the quantitative measures like SAT score had a lot more predictive value than interview/letters of recommendation/essays/etc. (The way the one school I'm familiar with used to do things was that basically everyone went on an X-Y graph with X being a normalized quant score and the Y being a normalized everything else score. Everyone up and to the right. No one down and to the left did. Those in the middle band were looked at a bit more carefully.

chris11 6y ago
> the quantitative measures like SAT score had a lot more predictive value than interview/letters of recommendation/essays/etc. I've also read SAT scores are highly correlated to family income. Family income probably has a huge impact on post university outcomes.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  I would imagine the socialization benefits of family income probably massively enhance interview skill and (even more) letters of recommendation as well, no? And for the essay, this seems easiest to fix with wealth as you can hire someone to either write it for you or massively edit it and assist you with it. Any time someone proposes to get rid of this or that requirement for being correlated to wealth, I'd like to see what the alternative is and see if it's any better. We want something somewhat meritocratic, where we can tell the difference between natural capability and hard work on the one hand and simply being lucky to be born into wealth on the other... but it's not clear to me that objective measures like the SAT are going to be worse than interviews/letters-of-rec/essays in discerning that.

rudderz 6y ago

I don't get why students need to be apply to be accepted. Why can't everyone go to MIT? Is there a scarcity on chalk boards, shitty chairs and cinder blocks?

ALittleLight 6y ago
The admissions criteria is probably most of the value of MIT. If you have a degree from MIT you're probably smart, and we know that because you were able to get in to MIT (and graduate).
trentnix 6y ago
Because the big money isn't in selling an education. The big money is in selling the credential.
sitkack 6y ago
How about kids test in? They can take classes online, if they perform well enough, they get to attend in person, everyone else can bang on the gates via a MOOC. Why not take 1 or 2 university classes your junior and senior year of HS?
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > Why not take 1 or 2 university classes your junior and senior year of HS? Wasn't this the point of AP classes?
  - sitkack 6y ago
    I think so, but in the method I am outlining, the student would be doing an audition with a university they would like to attend, it isn't just for college credit.
    - 908B64B197 6y ago
      That would be neat. I think there are some Community Colleges/Universities that will allow it, or used to.

hintymad 6y ago

It can be permanent. In addition to the effort of removing standard tests, education reforms are happening left and right. San Francisco school union recently decided to remove fast tracks. The union will also delay the teaching of geometry to grade 9, which IMHO will make teaching physics and algebra really hard. I can understand that the motivation of such reform is to improve equity, as numerous studies have shown positive correlation between family income and testing scores. Therefore, lowering the difficulty of challenging courses and removing requirements of standard tests appear to be a natural choice towards better equity. Besides, many of us do not need advanced math or STEM in our profession anyway, why spend so much time on STEM, right? That said, I don't see how such reform will lead to more equity. Studying and taking tests are probably the most inexpensive activities out there. All that a driven student needs to learn well is a library, a good teacher, and a few like-minded classmates. And tutoring school does not necessarily make a difference, either. But with all the reforms, what would happen? Here is what I can imagine: - Tutoring schools will make more difference. Family with means will send their kids to tutoring schools so their kids can learn geometry or algebra in grade 5 and have all the time to study AP courses in high school. Who suffers? Smart kids from poor families. Same goes for history, writing, English, and etc. - Money will matter more. Families with means will send their kids to robotics camps, science research labs, coding schools, professional sports coaches, and etc. You know, things that poor families have a hard time to afford. With non-differentiating test scores, guess what school admission officers will look at? I really don't see how good intention in this case will help less privileged kids. Such reform is advantageous to my ids, as I'll simply send them to private schools, all kinds of camps, or tutoring schools. They will learn calculus in grade 7 or early if they are talented. They will have a bucket list of volunteering experience and so-called leadership proof in their resume. They will build their ML-powered robots or conduct their favorite chemistry/physics experiments in their private lab that I can help build, if they are interested. And in the worse case, my wife and I have no problem and plenty of time to home school my kids. Yet it still pains me to see potentially hundreds of thousands of kids who would get better chance but can't because of watered-down education. And I'll be happy if someone could show me how wrong I am.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> The union will also delay the teaching of geometry to grade 9, which IMHO will make teaching physics and algebra really hard. In the usual secondary sequence, Geometry is between Algebra I and Algebra II; doing it in 9th grade, even with a full year precalc after Algebra II, gets you to Calculus I in 12th. with a combined Algebra II/Trig and no separate precalc, which has long been thr common accelerated course, it gets you to Calculus II. Physics in high school is typically non-calculus based and works well alongside precalc or calc I or even Algebra II; there’s no difficulty having it in 11th/12th with geometry in 9th. It may create problems keeping mathematically advanced students engaged, it doesn’t create problems teaching algebra or physics.

scarmig 6y ago

One of the more obnoxious things is how biases are buried into things like personal essays and extracurriculars. They're so subjective that it lets evaluators sneak bias into their decisions. The Harvard undergraduate admissions lawsuit a year ago or two provides an example. Asian applicants were consistently ranked to have inferior personalities to white people, even with otherwise identical applications. There's no particular reason to think Asians are inferior to white people, and Harvard is really just promoting racist ideologies that say that Asians are mindless automatons who might be technically proficient but lack the creative, human impulses that would make them suitable for social roles higher than servitude.

flowerlad 6y ago
The so called "holistic reviews" were introduced to limit the number of Jewish people admitted to top colleges. See story here: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/history-privilege-elite-college-admissions/585088/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/histor...
- artichokes 6y ago
  > The number of Jewish students on campuses soared; by the early 1920s, they made up 21 percent of Harvard’s student body, and nearly 40 percent of Columbia

yellowyacht 6y ago

I have never considered this issue before, so what are the good alternatives to this? For MIT admissions to call their teachers and ask questions?