4 ms·

This reminds me of the SAT, which is a major college entrance exam in the US. One of it's original goals was to level the financial playing field with an object

by leros 3y ago

This reminds me of the SAT, which is a major college entrance exam in the US. One of it's original goals was to level the financial playing field with an objective measurement of abilities. But then SAT preparation classes became a major thing and more affluent students were earning higher SAT scores due to the additional preparation. I hear some universities are considering removing the exam because it's no longer an accurate indicator of the student's abilities.

akeck 3y ago
My recollection is that there were also scoring changes for the SAT in 2010s that significantly reduced its predictive power.
sn9 3y ago
Those prep classes can only increase scores a modest amount. A mediocre rich kid is still gonna get trounced by a smart poor kid on the SAT. The data presented in the article shows how, after controlling for test scores, the wealthiest children get enormous preference on all the non-standardized factors that people want to replace standardized tests with. Dropping the transparent and standardized metric means the wealthy will game the system in ways that are only going to be harder to detect. Money buys extracurriculars and niche hobbies and elite coaches/trainers/tutors/etc. It only benefits the rich and mediocre.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > The data presented in the article shows how, after controlling for test scores, the wealthiest children get enormous preference on all the non-standardized factors that people want to replace standardized tests with. No, it shows that they get higher ratings (“preference” would be ratings for the same objective facts) on the existing aggregate of the other factors used in admissions, which is not: (1) Showing preference, (2) Showing the advantage on each of the factors, or the particular ones which would actually replace standardized testing in any particular evaluation. The usual concrete recommendation I’ve heard when anyone discusses it is to replace the role of standardized testing by filling its weight by expanding the weight of the existing other objective academic criteria with which it is highly but not perfectly correlated, largely removing the test prep issue and the cost factors it involves, but not upweighting other non-academic factors (which have cost, access, and network factors much stronger than standardized testing does.)
ahzhou 3y ago
While true, standardized testing is still more fair than qualitatively judging extracurriculars or applying arbitrary GPA normalization across high schools.

by leros 3y ago

akeck 3y ago

My recollection is that there were also scoring changes for the SAT in 2010s that significantly reduced its predictive power.

sn9 3y ago

Those prep classes can only increase scores a modest amount. A mediocre rich kid is still gonna get trounced by a smart poor kid on the SAT. The data presented in the article shows how, after controlling for test scores, the wealthiest children get enormous preference on all the non-standardized factors that people want to replace standardized tests with. Dropping the transparent and standardized metric means the wealthy will game the system in ways that are only going to be harder to detect. Money buys extracurriculars and niche hobbies and elite coaches/trainers/tutors/etc. It only benefits the rich and mediocre.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> The data presented in the article shows how, after controlling for test scores, the wealthiest children get enormous preference on all the non-standardized factors that people want to replace standardized tests with. No, it shows that they get higher ratings (“preference” would be ratings for the same objective facts) on the existing aggregate of the other factors used in admissions, which is not: (1) Showing preference, (2) Showing the advantage on each of the factors, or the particular ones which would actually replace standardized testing in any particular evaluation. The usual concrete recommendation I’ve heard when anyone discusses it is to replace the role of standardized testing by filling its weight by expanding the weight of the existing other objective academic criteria with which it is highly but not perfectly correlated, largely removing the test prep issue and the cost factors it involves, but not upweighting other non-academic factors (which have cost, access, and network factors much stronger than standardized testing does.)

ahzhou 3y ago

While true, standardized testing is still more fair than qualitatively judging extracurriculars or applying arbitrary GPA normalization across high schools.