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Taking tests is an important frog. It’s been quite a few years for me, but lately the movement to dethrone tests like SAT made me wonder how disadvantaged kids
by ttyprintk 4y ago
Taking tests is an important frog. It’s been quite a few years for me, but lately the movement to dethrone tests like SAT made me wonder how disadvantaged kids can distinguish themselves without a quantifier for potential. If it’s essays instead of a math score, then maybe an essay is like this article says, improved messaging makes bad startups look like good ones.
- anonymoushn 4y agoI agree, but taking a single test that's mostly about merit rather than compliance is not really what's being talked about. For what it's worth, my family is not wealthy or educated and I was able to go to a high-quality-but-not-prestigious magnet school in significant part because of my SAT score :)
- ttyprintk 4y agoBut the linked article (GP to yours) is about Y-Combinator and yes it is a bit of a different topic than the (better written) posted one about frogs. It’s been quite a few years, but without the SAT, the only test that would distinguish me from a socio-economically disadvantaged background was a military assessment test. So when the SAT came under fire after a high-profile cheating scandal in Hollywood, I heard a lot about replacing the test with an essay. The article about Y-Combinator is about IQ and things that are not IQ. It also has this interesting quote about messaging —- message coaching can obscure the bad candidates among the good ones. I feel replacing the frog of SAT preparation with the possibility of an essay-as-a-service feels punitive to kids from difficult backgrounds.