My Opinion on the SATs/Standardized Tesrs

[Anonymous]

"Either people should get docked for taking expensive SAT prep courses, or make them available to everyone free of charge."

Reasonable. Otherwise you should depend on grades, which we all know are not affected at all by parental income or supplemental tutoring.

SATs are biased toward rich kids, but they are the least biased of any of the other factors considered (school attended, grades, extracurriculars, essays, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Exposing accommodations to colleges should never happen. At least I am glad it hasn't happened yet because both my kids benefitted from it, but they both have severe ADHD. Sharing a student has accommodations puts them at a deep disadvantage....maybe even more of a disadvantage than getting a lower score without accommodations. FWIW my oldest got extra time on the ACT, got a very good score, and was admitted to a T20 and did very well. Not a superstar, but gainfully employed now making 6 figures.

Those of you who are pissed off about it...keep steaming lol. It's not changing any time soon.

disagree. colleges should know about the applicants as they are as students. if they need accommodations on the SAT, logic would say they'll need accommodations in school. colleges can decide if that's a non-issue for them or it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:you can take SAT once a year, like APs

all "extra time" are noted on test results.

That's entirely false--extra time hasn't been noted on SAT results since 2002 to prevent discrimination and protect student privacy. Don't post garbage on this site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exposing accommodations to colleges should never happen. At least I am glad it hasn't happened yet because both my kids benefitted from it, but they both have severe ADHD. Sharing a student has accommodations puts them at a deep disadvantage....maybe even more of a disadvantage than getting a lower score without accommodations. FWIW my oldest got extra time on the ACT, got a very good score, and was admitted to a T20 and did very well. Not a superstar, but gainfully employed now making 6 figures.

Those of you who are pissed off about it...keep steaming lol. It's not changing any time soon.

disagree. colleges should know about the applicants as they are as students. if they need accommodations on the SAT, logic would say they'll need accommodations in school. colleges can decide if that's a non-issue for them or it is.

Accommodations are required by law so colleges may not decide that it's an issue for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:you can take SAT once a year, like APs

all "extra time" are noted on test results.

That's entirely false--extra time hasn't been noted on SAT results since 2002 to prevent discrimination and protect student privacy. Don't post garbage on this site.

Extra time is the very definition of discrimination. And what student privacy when they already judge you based on some combination of name, gender, race, wealth, and family?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exposing accommodations to colleges should never happen. At least I am glad it hasn't happened yet because both my kids benefitted from it, but they both have severe ADHD. Sharing a student has accommodations puts them at a deep disadvantage....maybe even more of a disadvantage than getting a lower score without accommodations. FWIW my oldest got extra time on the ACT, got a very good score, and was admitted to a T20 and did very well. Not a superstar, but gainfully employed now making 6 figures.

Those of you who are pissed off about it...keep steaming lol. It's not changing any time soon.

disagree. colleges should know about the applicants as they are as students. if they need accommodations on the SAT, logic would say they'll need accommodations in school. colleges can decide if that's a non-issue for them or it is.

Accommodations are required by law so colleges may not decide that it's an issue for them.

Affirmative action is banned yet schools still make workarounds that strangely look very similar to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exposing accommodations to colleges should never happen. At least I am glad it hasn't happened yet because both my kids benefitted from it, but they both have severe ADHD. Sharing a student has accommodations puts them at a deep disadvantage....maybe even more of a disadvantage than getting a lower score without accommodations. FWIW my oldest got extra time on the ACT, got a very good score, and was admitted to a T20 and did very well. Not a superstar, but gainfully employed now making 6 figures.

Those of you who are pissed off about it...keep steaming lol. It's not changing any time soon.

disagree. colleges should know about the applicants as they are as students. if they need accommodations on the SAT, logic would say they'll need accommodations in school. colleges can decide if that's a non-issue for them or it is.

No, colleges do not get to decide. Colleges do not have this information at the time of admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exposing accommodations to colleges should never happen. At least I am glad it hasn't happened yet because both my kids benefitted from it, but they both have severe ADHD. Sharing a student has accommodations puts them at a deep disadvantage....maybe even more of a disadvantage than getting a lower score without accommodations. FWIW my oldest got extra time on the ACT, got a very good score, and was admitted to a T20 and did very well. Not a superstar, but gainfully employed now making 6 figures.

Those of you who are pissed off about it...keep steaming lol. It's not changing any time soon.

disagree. colleges should know about the applicants as they are as students. if they need accommodations on the SAT, logic would say they'll need accommodations in school. colleges can decide if that's a non-issue for them or it is.

No, colleges do not get to decide. Colleges do not have this information at the time of admissions.

Your reading comprehension sucks, ironically on a thread about the SAT. This was a hypothetical situation that the pp was positing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Either people should get docked for taking expensive SAT prep courses, or make them available to everyone free of charge."

Reasonable. Otherwise you should depend on grades, which we all know are not affected at all by parental income or supplemental tutoring.

SATs are biased toward rich kids, but they are the least biased of any of the other factors considered (school attended, grades, extracurriculars, essays, etc.)

The SAT and ACT are biased toward students who study and do the work. That's it.

Obviously, higher IQ students are going to have an easier time of it. And so are students who have had a good education. One can't do much about IQ, but we can do a lot about ensuring all students get a strong education. And that's where progressives fail.

I have no idea why Democrats have embraced this race to the bottom mentality. It's not doing anyone any good. Progressives are dragging everyone down with their policies in public schools. And then they'll post about how standardized "tesrs" are unfair because they can't even do a basic spell check.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exposing accommodations to colleges should never happen. At least I am glad it hasn't happened yet because both my kids benefitted from it, but they both have severe ADHD. Sharing a student has accommodations puts them at a deep disadvantage....maybe even more of a disadvantage than getting a lower score without accommodations. FWIW my oldest got extra time on the ACT, got a very good score, and was admitted to a T20 and did very well. Not a superstar, but gainfully employed now making 6 figures.

Those of you who are pissed off about it...keep steaming lol. It's not changing any time soon.

disagree. colleges should know about the applicants as they are as students. if they need accommodations on the SAT, logic would say they'll need accommodations in school. colleges can decide if that's a non-issue for them or it is.

That’s what the Disability Services Office is for, not admissions.

Accommodations are there to provide equitable access. That’s it. Colleges don’t need to know if a student used a ramp to get into the testing building because they are in a wheelchair, or who gets extra breaks because they have diabetes and have to check blood sugar, or get extra time because they are dyslexic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that they can be useful in predicting college success, but if we’re going to mandate it back, we must apply it more responsibly so that all prospective students are given a fair shot.

1. Limit attempts to two. I remember taking that thing twice then my mom said, “that’s good enough, that should get you into Davis or something. I’m not gonna keep paying 70-100 bucks for that thing.” I read somewhere that the average Ivy admit takes that thing on average 5x. How is that even impressive? At that point they’re just remembering the test structure and some of the questions. That doesn’t capture what they really know or predict future college success.

2. Either people should get docked for taking expensive SAT prep courses, or make them available to everyone free of charge. If we’re really testing what people have learned, test them, not whatever they learned from some SAT expert.

3. The reading portion is too culturally bias; they need to make it more universal.

4. There should be a small portion where it captures IQ score (this might be controversial).

There are plenty of free resources and cheap tutors - we pay under $10 an hour for tutors.

This is absurd. They are free of charge - MCPS allows you to take it for free and there are low income waivers. You clearly have no clue what you are talking about.

Right, so you’re saying the average self-taught piano player will be better than the average classically trained piano player?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exposing accommodations to colleges should never happen. At least I am glad it hasn't happened yet because both my kids benefitted from it, but they both have severe ADHD. Sharing a student has accommodations puts them at a deep disadvantage....maybe even more of a disadvantage than getting a lower score without accommodations. FWIW my oldest got extra time on the ACT, got a very good score, and was admitted to a T20 and did very well. Not a superstar, but gainfully employed now making 6 figures.

Those of you who are pissed off about it...keep steaming lol. It's not changing any time soon.

disagree. colleges should know about the applicants as they are as students. if they need accommodations on the SAT, logic would say they'll need accommodations in school. colleges can decide if that's a non-issue for them or it is.

They can’t do that because of health privacy laws but giving any kid that wants it the extra time is what would level the playing field. Your ADHD kid needs double time? Fine. And it should also be ok if another NT kid feels they would benefit from extra time.

[Anonymous]

So, accommodations such as for ADHD are NOT revealed to colleges? That is news to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, accommodations such as for ADHD are NOT revealed to colleges? That is news to me.

No. 504 plans and IEPs are not revealed to colleges during the admission process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:you can take SAT once a year, like APs

all "extra time" are noted on test results.

That's entirely false--extra time hasn't been noted on SAT results since 2002 to prevent discrimination and protect student privacy. Don't post garbage on this site.

Extra time is the very definition of discrimination. And what student privacy when they already judge you based on some combination of name, gender, race, wealth, and family?

That's your opinion. And not a very intelligent one in my opinion. Thankfully, your opinion does not matter, and the guidelines on testing are clear to all. You will not see extra time noted on the SAT, ACT, or GRE.