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It’s as if you’re trying to make perfect the enemy of good. Standardized tests aren’t perfect but they give less privileged kids the best choice at attending a
by boeingUH60 3y ago
It’s as if you’re trying to make perfect the enemy of good. Standardized tests aren’t perfect but they give less privileged kids the best choice at attending a good college.
The kids of the upper class and the rich will always have an upper hand compared to the poor. However, standardized tests limit how wide the upper hand is. An upper class kid still has to study and pass the test, and the poor kid can also do that.
If admissions become “holistic”, poor kids would have little chances. Good luck to that poor kid competing subjectively with kids whose parents send them on impressive charity trips and get them unpaid internships at the most prestigious companies.
- lisper 3y agoI think you are underestimating the extent to which standardized tests can be (and have been) biased. https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/racist-beginnings-standardized-testing https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/racis...
- nancyhn 3y agoThat's soft bigotry of low expecations. All you have to do is look at data that includes Asian Americans, which is always conveniently omitted from these racist narratives. Even non-Americans routinely do better on American standardized tests.
- underlipton 3y agoIt is not. GP is saying that the "expectations" in question aren't as applicable to potential as they're purported to be. >Asian Americans, which is always conveniently omitted from these racist narratives. Ironically, so is the diversity of the Asian American community.
- MostlyStable 3y agoI think you're underestimating how biased literally every other possible metric of admissions can be.
- nradov 3y agoEveryone understands that standardized tests are biased. They are still the least bad way to identify students from underprivileged backgrounds who have high potential to succeed in college.
- jpadkins 3y agoI am someone, and I don't understand why they are. Do you have a primer handy on this subject?
- nradov 3y agoSAT scores are correlated with wealth. This CNBC article is a decent introduction to the issue, but be aware that anything you read on the subject is likely to be pushing a particular narrative so it's tough to find a neutral primer anywhere. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/03/rich-students-get-better-sat-scores-heres-why.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/03/rich-students-get-better-sat...
- Auracle 3y agoIt’s funny how that article doesn’t mention the most obvious reason - it turns out intelligent people generally don’t get jobs as janitors, retail workers, or other minimum-ish wage jobs. Those intelligent people then have intelligent babies. For some reason a large part of our society doesn’t want to acknowledge that genetics (highly) influence intelligence.
- DiogenesKynikos 3y agoAnyone who has lived in the real world knows that the conditions in which you grow up have a massive effect on where you end up. There are entire communities of people who live in deep poverty. It's not because they're all - uniformly down to the last person - dumb. The parents are poor, don't have a high-quality education, work long hours, can't afford tutoring, can't help their children with their coursework, etc. There are entire countries trapped in poverty. China was desperately poor until just a generation ago. Did Chinese people suddenly become smart for some reason? Which is the next country that will magically go from being filled with dumb people to being filled with smart people? As I said, just a bit of experience with the real world and critical thought will show that your explanation is nonsense.
- caterpi11ar 3y agoWhat is the evidence that the tests now are biased other than that different groups score differently?
- RhodesianHunter 3y agoWhen your history ensures that some groups are socioeconomically disadvantaged, every possible method will be biased. It's unavoidable.
- kneebonian 3y agoSo why don't we focus on socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals instead of focusing on racial metrics?
- RhodesianHunter 3y agoWith affirmative action gone, that's pretty much exactly what's going to happen.
- Brusco_RF 3y agoYeah the SAT is the worst admissions metric, besides all the other ones. What would you use in its place? You think grades don't have bias?
- thebradbain 3y agoInterviews, transcripts, (optional) test scores, letter of recommendation, a set of common essays across all schools, and an optional supplemental section or portfolio to showcase any personal achievements not covered by the other standard categories. Oh wait! That exists — it’s called the Common App, and it’s what most private colleges today use, from the Ivies to elite tiny liberal arts colleges with the largest share of students from the 0.1% that you’ve never heard of, like Pomona College.
- Brusco_RF 3y agoThey use it because it allows them to ignore standardized test scores and just do admissions based on their own preferences. They used less merit-based metrics because they don't WANT a meritocracy. Question. Which tells you more about a student: 1. An essay that was probably written by chatGPT then edited by the students parents 2. A test taken in a supervised, controlled, timed environment
- thebradbain 3y ago1. Would absolutely not get you in anywhere selective 2. Would absolutely not either I believe the whole concept of “meritocracy” for purpose of admissions is a lie— choosing the criteria to measure against is itself a subjective act.
- kneebonian 3y ago> I believe the whole concept of “meritocracy” for purpose of admissions is a lie— choosing the criteria to measure against is itself a subjective act. Let me ask you. Do you also believe that requiring a display of proficiency in mathematics to get into the best schools is inherently discriminatory? What about requiring a demonstration of the capability to understand and complete basic subject matter material in the fields or reading, writing, or scientific literacy?
- laverya 3y agoIs there literally any test in which: "Students of Color" receive scores in the same distribution as white/asian/hispanic students (same fraction of 1s, 2s ... 35s, 36s on the ACTs for example) AND Top scores are meaningfully distinct from the population average? (because the first condition can be trivially fulfilled by having everyone score the same)
- DiogenesKynikos 3y ago"Since their inception a century ago, standardized tests have been instruments of racism and a biased system." Standardized tests were invented in Sui dynasty China, in the early 600s AD, as a way of selecting officials for the imperial bureaucracy. They were invented precisely because they were more objective than the prevailing method of selecting officials - recommendations from the aristocracy. There is a long history of standardized testing being a means for rewarding merit, instead of more easily corruptible methods of selecting officials/students/etc., such as recommendations. Just to illustrate my point: Do you know why Harvard abandoned standardized testing in 1926 as the sole means of determining admissions? Because "too many" Jews were passing the admissions test. Harvard's "holistic" admissions policy was invented for the sole purpose of restricting Jewish admissions.
- dionidium 3y agoTo the contrary, the NEA wildly overestimates it and employs junk question-begging "disparate impact" [0] reasoning throughout. The article is full of stuff like this: "There is a clear correlation, for example, between test scores and property values." To the extent that society is meritocratic at all and intelligence is heritable (and it is), we should expect test scores to correlate with all manner of measures of success, including property values. Articles like this don't even take that question seriously. They just ignore it. It's proof by repeated assertion. It may be fashionable to insist that this is prima facie evidence of bias, but that is a question of logic and not a difficult one, whatever exceedingly average minds like Ibram X. Kendi think of it. [0] As a legal concept "disparate impact" is what it is. The law means whatever its authors intend it to mean. But as a matter of logic, it's embarrassing, and beneath this forum.
- SamReidHughes 3y agoThey're not biased at all. People don't like them because they're accurate.
- janalsncm 3y agoThe entire concept of an “admissions” department was based on the historical fact that too many Jews were being admitted and too few WASPs were. So they included a “character” criteria and fixed the problem. Now, too many Asians are being admitted based on test scores. Oh no! To fix this problem, Harvard consulted their history department and included a “personality traits” section. Is it any wonder that Asian students scored low on this? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollment-applicants.html?unlocked_article_code=yqP4RDqBuzEWa04c1rjc1hfyYcD9RL43NXcroKTeek4axaswlcvSz6nIIxgf4U-xM0jDcFKKR4kZMgbn1efkm0w049WCDmQ9P229XsDT859c3ziV306sULHpMV5AJpAZoRY8iJon_QfzU4WsZNkSDYJQea-dDRVY-ulXpuWPtw7bmszIx48aX4gNMGTGE_-Ojqctx9YYJUIVzEIxEeIoOr85Xw_emHfRDK2hspEy2gX5JMqKM91DMg0G6obYo6vdtQMie0mdH92nQzyORT3Z8bPWZQEI4xt-rFveou1ejDjIrVWhI0izS3jQt1DEOM6myptfxdJS7qRB8GL1Ie_dcir2W0wGqrNv&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollme...
- 9dev 3y agoOh my. This obsession over race is so bewildering to foreigners like me.
- Auracle 3y agoThat’s an awfully big article with no actual examples of how the tests are currently, in any way, biased.
- OO000oo 3y agoThis is so naive. Poor kids do worse in school because their lives lack the material and parental support necessary for quality education.