University Of California Reaches Final Decision: No More Standardized Admission Testing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will they distinguish among white or Asian kids who all have the same grades?

I get how this allows them to pick minorities. But there will be spots who go to white/Asian kids. And a very large percentage of these kids will have almost identical grades--I know my kid and all of his friends have the same grades
Retake and lax grading makes it almost impossible to not do well in many publics (DCPS for sure).
I get that extracurriculars are one thing--but again, most kids will have a very, very similar version of these as well. And it's not Harvard--we're not looking for kids to split to atom to get into UCSD or even UCLA.

Same as how they do it now. Most kids who have similar grades from similar HS also have very similar standardized test scores.

Not at all. in my child's very socioeconomically diverse school, which doesn't offer class rank, allows endless retakes/resubmissions, the "top" GPAs are quite compressed due to grade inflation. Like many kids near 5.0. But a couple of those kids got 1500s on their SATs, a couple got 1400, and a couple got 1300, while the vast majority scored 1100-1200, despite their top grades. You think these students are all equally capable of succeeding in the most challenging college and professional endeavors just because they are near "straight A" students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think UC just has better data on kids then they did before. Who needs a Nielsen box for rating TV shows when you have Netflix monitoring every moment? SATs are Nielsen box. Naviance is Netflix.

Great analogy. I think you’re right.

Thanks kind DCUM poster! I think UC has the added ‘bonus’ of a PR win...when in reality they have more data then they know what to do with on these kids!

What data do they have? You mean GPA and transacript (and essays, often written with help of parents, teachers and other adults?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kids this will hurt are:

-The top achievers (especially the Asian, white top kids) at public schools that grade inflate everyone. One less data point to tell the difference between great kids and everyone else who was just inflated to an A. Huge problem in a place like DCPS where you get an A for signing in.
-Kids from unknown/small schools (private and to a lesser extent public) that have strict grading.
-Kid from schools that don't have advanced courses.

Who it will help:
-Kids from brand name privates that the colleges know and who don't grade inflate (Sidwell, etc).
-Minority kids

There are many public HS that do not “grade inflate” {sic}. Colleges know a great deal about each high school, and keep data regarding the performance of attendees from each HS.

Like many changes, it is “fair” to some and “less fair” to others, but that of course demands that the system was “unfair to some” prior.

Ok, so it is really bad news to high performing public students in districts that grade inflate. Which is much of the DMV.

It's probably a good thing for students at places like Sidwell, STA, NCS. Universities know what they are getting. They give out Bs and Cs freely with no retakes, no curves and hold a high academic standard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will they distinguish among white or Asian kids who all have the same grades?

I get how this allows them to pick minorities. But there will be spots who go to white/Asian kids. And a very large percentage of these kids will have almost identical grades--I know my kid and all of his friends have the same grades
Retake and lax grading makes it almost impossible to not do well in many publics (DCPS for sure).
I get that extracurriculars are one thing--but again, most kids will have a very, very similar version of these as well. And it's not Harvard--we're not looking for kids to split to atom to get into UCSD or even UCLA.

Same as how they do it now. Most kids who have similar grades from similar HS also have very similar standardized test scores.

Not at all. in my child's very socioeconomically diverse school, which doesn't offer class rank, allows endless retakes/resubmissions, the "top" GPAs are quite compressed due to grade inflation. Like many kids near 5.0. But a couple of those kids got 1500s on their SATs, a couple got 1400, and a couple got 1300, while the vast majority scored 1100-1200, despite their top grades. You think these students are all equally capable of succeeding in the most challenging college and professional endeavors just because they are near "straight A" students?

depends on what you think “succeed” means. kids with lower (but still very good) SATs and higher grades may be very focused, hard workers with big ambitions who are likely to be conventionally successful. kids with very very high test scores and lower (but still strong) grades may be more likely to make unique contributions but also less likely to be conventionally successful. and then there are the kids with bad grades but sky-high test scores - these are the kids who likely have some kind of challenge but can turn out to be superstars.

in any event, you’d think a college might want kids from all three categories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will they distinguish among white or Asian kids who all have the same grades?

I get how this allows them to pick minorities. But there will be spots who go to white/Asian kids. And a very large percentage of these kids will have almost identical grades--I know my kid and all of his friends have the same grades
Retake and lax grading makes it almost impossible to not do well in many publics (DCPS for sure).
I get that extracurriculars are one thing--but again, most kids will have a very, very similar version of these as well. And it's not Harvard--we're not looking for kids to split to atom to get into UCSD or even UCLA.

Same as how they do it now. Most kids who have similar grades from similar HS also have very similar standardized test scores.

Not at all. in my child's very socioeconomically diverse school, which doesn't offer class rank, allows endless retakes/resubmissions, the "top" GPAs are quite compressed due to grade inflation. Like many kids near 5.0. But a couple of those kids got 1500s on their SATs, a couple got 1400, and a couple got 1300, while the vast majority scored 1100-1200, despite their top grades. You think these students are all equally capable of succeeding in the most challenging college and professional endeavors just because they are near "straight A" students?

Do you think kids who are good test takers are equally capable of succeeding in the most challenging college and professional environments?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will they distinguish among white or Asian kids who all have the same grades?

I get how this allows them to pick minorities. But there will be spots who go to white/Asian kids. And a very large percentage of these kids will have almost identical grades--I know my kid and all of his friends have the same grades
Retake and lax grading makes it almost impossible to not do well in many publics (DCPS for sure).
I get that extracurriculars are one thing--but again, most kids will have a very, very similar version of these as well. And it's not Harvard--we're not looking for kids to split to atom to get into UCSD or even UCLA.

Same as how they do it now. Most kids who have similar grades from similar HS also have very similar standardized test scores.

Not at all. in my child's very socioeconomically diverse school, which doesn't offer class rank, allows endless retakes/resubmissions, the "top" GPAs are quite compressed due to grade inflation. Like many kids near 5.0. But a couple of those kids got 1500s on their SATs, a couple got 1400, and a couple got 1300, while the vast majority scored 1100-1200, despite their top grades. You think these students are all equally capable of succeeding in the most challenging college and professional endeavors just because they are near "straight A" students?

Do you think kids who are good test takers are equally capable of succeeding in the most challenging college and professional environments?

DP. What do you mean by “good test taker”? Being a good test taker as in you have high working memory? There are lots of very good test takers who have bad grades. A really high standardized test score reflects IQ, not anything you prep for.

[Anonymous]

This really would have hurt me. I was a great student, but I know that my score of 1500 on the SAT is what got me into my top college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will they distinguish among white or Asian kids who all have the same grades?

I get how this allows them to pick minorities. But there will be spots who go to white/Asian kids. And a very large percentage of these kids will have almost identical grades--I know my kid and all of his friends have the same grades
Retake and lax grading makes it almost impossible to not do well in many publics (DCPS for sure).
I get that extracurriculars are one thing--but again, most kids will have a very, very similar version of these as well. And it's not Harvard--we're not looking for kids to split to atom to get into UCSD or even UCLA.

Same as how they do it now. Most kids who have similar grades from similar HS also have very similar standardized test scores.

Not at all. in my child's very socioeconomically diverse school, which doesn't offer class rank, allows endless retakes/resubmissions, the "top" GPAs are quite compressed due to grade inflation. Like many kids near 5.0. But a couple of those kids got 1500s on their SATs, a couple got 1400, and a couple got 1300, while the vast majority scored 1100-1200, despite their top grades. You think these students are all equally capable of succeeding in the most challenging college and professional endeavors just because they are near "straight A" students?

Do you think kids who are good test takers are equally capable of succeeding in the most challenging college and professional environments?

DP. What do you mean by “good test taker”? Being a good test taker as in you have high working memory? There are lots of very good test takers who have bad grades. A really high standardized test score reflects IQ, not anything you prep for.

DP. Disagree. I was a great test taker and I can attest that scoring well on standardized tests is a skill that some people have that isn’t necessarily related to intelligence. My DC is highly intelligent and makes great grades, but didn’t “get” standardized tests the first time through. With a minimal amount of tutoring, he raised his composite score three points on the ACT. One or two tutoring session’s focus on the English section raised his score from a 30 to a 35, and another session raised his science score from a 31 to a 36. He is obviously a smart kid to begin with, but his test scores went from middling to great because he had a parent willing to fork over the $$ to make it happen. Prep *can* absolutely make a difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's fantastic. Study after study after study has confirmed the high correlation between family income and parental education and SAT and ACT scores. Generally speaking, high scores were born on third base. It doesn't make them any smarter.

This will hurt immigrant and low-SES kids who have the smarts to do well on the SAT.

- Ivy League grad immigrant kid who’s parents didn’t go past grade school

Exactly!

I am a black immigrant who scored high on the SAT and so did my children. No more standardized admission testing will negatively impact many immigrants. Shame on UC! It hurts me to no end to see the culture of low expectations or the dumbing down of black students in this country. It's like if you are a black student who values education and score high on tests UC will penalized you and regulate a black student to low performing status. It's Absurd!

Screw them!

As a Black immigrant, you have to understand that your experiences are not the same as Black Americans. There is a lot of nuance to this issue, but your position is in line with why things will never get better. Every minority group is pitted against one another fighting for scraps instead of collectively trying to make the system more equitable. And I'm not saying that you as an individual are responsible for fixing the system, but in general, this sort of thinking is what continues to help shut our meaningful opposition to an unfair system that needs change.

[Anonymous]

Test blind goes too far. Test optional gives school the flexibility to use scores where needed and to admit students from unrepresentative populations using only grades.

[Anonymous]

Asian-Americans need to create their own universities.

[Anonymous]

I think what matters is that people have money to pay for college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This really would have hurt me. I was a great student, but I know that my score of 1500 on the SAT is what got me into my top college.

But you don't know that. You were already a great student. You probably had great letters of recommendation. You probably wrote well. Did they REALLY need the SAT to tell them you were qualified/competitive/etc?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll just state the obvious....consideration of standardized tests doesn’t yield the desired color composition of incoming classes so it had to be eliminated. The cal system will continue to tinker with admissions criteria until it admits exactly 12% blacks because that’s proportionate with the population. Forget the merit of applicants, the overriding consideration is race. MLK is rolling over in his grave.

You sound absolutely ridiculous. As if colleges have always been about merit when they were only letting in white males, and then whites in general, and then only desirable non-whites. To suggest colleges have been meritocracies until now is intellectually lazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How will they distinguish among white or Asian kids who all have the same grades?

I get how this allows them to pick minorities. But there will be spots who go to white/Asian kids. And a very large percentage of these kids will have almost identical grades--I know my kid and all of his friends have the same grades
Retake and lax grading makes it almost impossible to not do well in many publics (DCPS for sure).
I get that extracurriculars are one thing--but again, most kids will have a very, very similar version of these as well. And it's not Harvard--we're not looking for kids to split to atom to get into UCSD or even UCLA.

Same as how they do it now. Most kids who have similar grades from similar HS also have very similar standardized test scores.

Not at all. in my child's very socioeconomically diverse school, which doesn't offer class rank, allows endless retakes/resubmissions, the "top" GPAs are quite compressed due to grade inflation. Like many kids near 5.0. But a couple of those kids got 1500s on their SATs, a couple got 1400, and a couple got 1300, while the vast majority scored 1100-1200, despite their top grades. You think these students are all equally capable of succeeding in the most challenging college and professional endeavors just because they are near "straight A" students?

Do you think kids who are good test takers are equally capable of succeeding in the most challenging college and professional environments?

DP. What do you mean by “good test taker”? Being a good test taker as in you have high working memory? There are lots of very good test takers who have bad grades. A really high standardized test score reflects IQ, not anything you prep for.

DP. Disagree. I was a great test taker and I can attest that scoring well on standardized tests is a skill that some people have that isn’t necessarily related to intelligence. My DC is highly intelligent and makes great grades, but didn’t “get” standardized tests the first time through. With a minimal amount of tutoring, he raised his composite score three points on the ACT. One or two tutoring session’s focus on the English section raised his score from a 30 to a 35, and another session raised his science score from a 31 to a 36. He is obviously a smart kid to begin with, but his test scores went from middling to great because he had a parent willing to fork over the $$ to make it happen. Prep *can* absolutely make a difference.

Of course prep can increase score. But if you gave all kids the same amount of prep, you'd still get a range of scores that very likely correlate to the intelligence of the kids.