Test optional over

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brilliant.TO is another proxy for this by the way and should also be banned. No one in USA cant take an SAT these days. Shame on anyone applying to school TO but the essays are the worst.

I can see why the PP is opposed to essays. Clearly they didn't get ahead in life on the basis of sharp writing skills.

The PP is not opposed to essays - they are opposed to using essays as a proxy for racial information:

"For example, a school may not use students’ personal essays, writing samples, participation in extracurriculars, or other cues as a means of determining or predicting a student’s race and favoring or disfavoring such students."

High time. No more essays used to thinly disguise your race.

THANK YOU!!!!

Thank god. No more identity essays, no more tell us about your trauma, no more pressure to create yet another cultural club to showcase your ethic heritage. Can't get rid of it fast enough.

There was always something a little ick about asking minorities to bare their wounds to get the racial preference. And there was something even more ick about actually doing so.

Not as ick as the fact that the wounds exist at all, should that be the case

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is too bad. Creatives will be shut out of better colleges because many don’t process standardized tests well. One of mine tested high and another went TO. They both deserve a place at college, but the one kid isn’t inherently a better student than the other. The one who didn’t test well has more curiosity and is always leading interesting discussions on a myriad of topics.

Your low test kid can still get into a good college if they can show that they have other attributes that overcome that. But now they will have an idea of how much of a trade-off they are making to get your kid's curiosity and interesting discussions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brilliant.TO is another proxy for this by the way and should also be banned. No one in USA cant take an SAT these days. Shame on anyone applying to school TO but the essays are the worst.

I can see why the PP is opposed to essays. Clearly they didn't get ahead in life on the basis of sharp writing skills.

The PP is not opposed to essays - they are opposed to using essays as a proxy for racial information:

"For example, a school may not use students’ personal essays, writing samples, participation in extracurriculars, or other cues as a means of determining or predicting a student’s race and favoring or disfavoring such students."

High time. No more essays used to thinly disguise your race.

The Supreme Court didn't ban citing one's race in college essays.

They banned using devices and artifice to achieve indirectly what they could not do directly.

The explosion of identity related essay prompts was so fkn transparent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will they get rid of legacy admissions as a proxy for selecting wealthy white students?

Well since the demographics attending college have changed significantly over the last 20 years, wouldn’t legacy benefit all races now? This isn’t the 1980s where legacy exclusively means wealthy Caucasian anymore.

Yep. At Stanford, for example, 40% legacy applicants are of color and 50% legacy admits are of color.

The legacy admits at Stanford are like 90% asian or white. This is no better than if it is all white.

I am very anti affirmative action. Affirmative action has been providing cover for legacy admissions since day 1. Not that we've drawn back the curtain of affirmative action, we must get rid of legacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges can still admit students with low test scores even if they submit them!

Exactly. It doesn't mean kids who aren't great test takers won't get into college.

“Aren’t great test takers”, the foundation for academic measurement in every setting. Have you ever wondered if they “aren’t great test takers” but have a high GPA, how that occurred? Grade inflation? Retakes? Clearly it was not “test taking”. If there is one score I would use for college admissions it’s the SAT/ACT and secondarily AP scores. The amount of TO kids getting into colleges over my high stat GPA/SAT kids makes me crazy and I have every right to be.

Almost everyone DD knows is getting an accommodation of some sort. Expect accommodations to rise if TO is eliminated.

There are really a lot of accommodations given at the wealthier schools and with the ACT since the content is easier. Personally, I think they should just allocate additional time as a standard as a way to mitigate this.

+1 to additional time for all to level out the playing field. If some kids get more time any kid that wants it should have the option to use it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will they get rid of legacy admissions as a proxy for selecting wealthy white students?

Well since the demographics attending college have changed significantly over the last 20 years, wouldn’t legacy benefit all races now? This isn’t the 1980s where legacy exclusively means wealthy Caucasian anymore.

Yep. At Stanford, for example, 40% legacy applicants are of color and 50% legacy admits are of color.

They're Asian.

It's still a pretty good proxy for race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please tell me if I am reading this Valentine's Day letter from the US Department of Education correctly:

https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-sffa-v-harvard-109506.pdf

Test-optional is over?

Also, it says the universities have 14 days to comply. How will this affect the current admissions cycle?

This is about TO as a proxy for race, which doesn’t mean tests will be reinstated as required.

TO can't be used as a proxy for race. Going TO doesn't tell admissions what race you are.

TO is a way to ignore objective measures of academic merit to focus more on other things because of a concern that URM don't have academic merit

[Anonymous]

You can never level it all out, but I’d be fine as a parent of both adhd and non-adhd of having extended time for all. There is a ton of excellent free tools online to prepare. The cases that bother me most are the ones from privileged backgrounds in good schools that claim bad test taker and it’s sometimes more unwilling to do the work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll be curious to see how all of this affects HBCUs.

HBCUs actively court non black students.

They want to make the shift from HBCU to predominantly black institution

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll be curious to see how all of this affects HBCUs.

Why do you think it would affect HBCUs? They already admit without regard to race. Do you think a bunch of whites and Asians will start submitting applications?

They used to favor non black applicants

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is too bad. Creatives will be shut out of better colleges because many don’t process standardized tests well. One of mine tested high and another went TO. They both deserve a place at college, but the one kid isn’t inherently a better student than the other. The one who didn’t test well has more curiosity and is always leading interesting discussions on a myriad of topics.

Don't worry.
There are good colleges for the kid who got 1250 sat. The kid will be fine.

Elite colleges are for kids who got both.

You are so smug. Your kid who “got both” may not have the advantages you think he does in the real world.

Colleges like Bowdoin (which is a great college) have long disagreed with you that test scores are the most important factor. Their track record shows they know how to choose good students without test scores. FWIW, I believe they used to have kids submit graded work in lieu of test scores so they had a method and it clearly worked for them for many years. Not sure if it is the same now that more schools are test optional. I know you can’t comprehend it, but good schools actually do know what they are looking for and have a good track record of picking the right students. It’s not all about who has the highest scores.

If you select for income instead of test scores, you can achieve a similar level of success in your graduates as if you selected based on test scores

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brilliant.TO is another proxy for this by the way and should also be banned. No one in USA cant take an SAT these days. Shame on anyone applying to school TO but the essays are the worst.

I can see why the PP is opposed to essays. Clearly they didn't get ahead in life on the basis of sharp writing skills.

The PP is not opposed to essays - they are opposed to using essays as a proxy for racial information:

"For example, a school may not use students’ personal essays, writing samples, participation in extracurriculars, or other cues as a means of determining or predicting a student’s race and favoring or disfavoring such students."

High time. No more essays used to thinly disguise your race.

THANK YOU!!!!

Thank god. No more identity essays, no more tell us about your trauma, no more pressure to create yet another cultural club to showcase your ethic heritage. Can't get rid of it fast enough.

There was always something a little ick about asking minorities to bare their wounds to get the racial preference. And there was something even more ick about actually doing so.

Not as ick as the fact that the wounds exist at all, should that be the case

No one was asking URMs to do this. But I guess it's OK for Asians to cite their heritage in essays?

Free speech. Write about anything you want the admissions team to know about you. Students aren't homogeneous, nor they should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please tell me if I am reading this Valentine's Day letter from the US Department of Education correctly:

https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-sffa-v-harvard-109506.pdf

Test-optional is over?

Also, it says the universities have 14 days to comply. How will this affect the current admissions cycle?

Wonder if UC Schools need to bring testing back

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a few long term TO schools and that is fine, they are quirky and look for something other than academics. But for the vast majority of academic mainstream schools the thought of making admissions decisions with localized GPAs, chatgpt essays and unverified activities is just asinine. They have to have an agenda to agree to this and it’s not the find the highest performing academics, which are potentially America’s GREATEST natural resource. They are being cast aside for all sorts of nonsense while other countries plot our demise.

This.

America is losing it's competitive edge

Some people complain about H 1 B visas but if we don't bring them here, the job goes over there. The global economy of the future is not going to be kind to countries that play these sort of games

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please tell me if I am reading this Valentine's Day letter from the US Department of Education correctly:

https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-sffa-v-harvard-109506.pdf

Test-optional is over?

Also, it says the universities have 14 days to comply. How will this affect the current admissions cycle?

Wonder if UC Schools need to bring testing back