s/o this brutal admissions year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know three students who got into major reaches this year for what one would expect for them--test optional really helped some kids and I guess hurt the high performing students.

How on earth would test optional hurt high performing students?

It made the test optional for lesser performing students, who now skate by on some vague criteria.

I disagree. Performing well on a test doesn’t necessarily mean you are smarter or a better student.

There is nothing that proves that you are smarter or a better student. But standardized testing is a useful tool when evaluating students.

When evaluating them for what? And don't just say "qualified for admission", please be specific about personal qualities of a prospective student that standardized testing illustrates.

It’s definitely not perfect but I feel that since khan academy is free it is a more useful indicator (since costly prep isn’t necessary.) It is an additional piece of info. My child worked their tail off preparing with khan academy and got upper 1500s. To me that seems more relevant to her likelihood of success in college than her sports and clubs.

So really you don’t know.

It’s a terrible measure. GPA is a good measure

How can GPA be a good measure when it is to subjective and different across schools and even across teachers in the same school?

How can SAT be a good measure when you see examples on this thread of spending big bucks to substantially increase scores?

+1
I feel the same way about AAP testing (FCPS). Parents pay for prep, the student does well. It’s a farce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about the high-scoring, low-income brilliant kids who aren't prepping at all and take the exam cold?

You can’t find those unicorns anymore thanks to test prep.

I actually think they should have a place to mark that you did not test prep.

I was poor, I did not know about SAT. My best friend said she could go out because of the SAT test, I said, what is that? Her mom said, you should go too. I’ll take you. So she did and I almost aced the math section.

But his wound anybody know.

No one would believe anyone who simply marked “no test prep.” Most kids prep and there’s no way to prove you didn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about the high-scoring, low-income brilliant kids who aren't prepping at all and take the exam cold?

You can’t find those unicorns anymore thanks to test prep.

I actually think they should have a place to mark that you did not test prep.

I was poor, I did not know about SAT. My best friend said she could go out because of the SAT test, I said, what is that? Her mom said, you should go too. I’ll take you. So she did and I almost aced the math section.

But his wound anybody know.

No one would believe anyone who simply marked “no test prep.” Most kids prep and there’s no way to prove you didn’t.

Right, khan academy is free and is better than many prep courses.

[Anonymous]

No one has yet to explain how prepping for a test is different than studying for a test. Lots of free resources available for test prep. Ok

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There will be tests in college. A kid has to know how to take a test.

Sure - but not standardized tests! Have you attended college? It’s mostly writing papers and taking (non-standardized) exams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one has yet to explain how prepping for a test is different than studying for a test. Lots of free resources available for test prep. Ok

No one wants to acknowledge this. The "anti-SAT" crowd wants any semblance of standardized measurement of ability removed so we can no longer call the admitted crowd "not qualified". See what's happening at a lot of colleges this year. Most admissions offices are filled with left-leaning, SLAC-bred AOs. They are having a field day capitalizing on the "test optional" situation to bring on kids who fit their model of "preferred ability" over kids with actual ability over without impacting their US News rankings game. If all those admits were to take the SAT, we will know where they will land.

Will these admits survive the "rigors" of college. Of course they will.. dumba** athletes and legacy admits have been doing that for years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one has yet to explain how prepping for a test is different than studying for a test. Lots of free resources available for test prep. Ok

No one wants to acknowledge this. The "anti-SAT" crowd wants any semblance of standardized measurement of ability removed so we can no longer call the admitted crowd "not qualified". See what's happening at a lot of colleges this year. Most admissions offices are filled with left-leaning, SLAC-bred AOs. They are having a field day capitalizing on the "test optional" situation to bring on kids who fit their model of "preferred ability" over kids with actual ability over without impacting their US News rankings game. If all those admits were to take the SAT, we will know where they will land.

Will these admits survive the "rigors" of college. Of course they will.. dumba** athletes and legacy admits have been doing that for years.

And lots of the "born on third base, think they hit a triple" crowd thinks the fact that there are free resources available makes everything else on the playing field level.

As for whether "these admits survive the "rigors" of college". Your presumptuous and insulting speculation can be summarily dismissed by reading the graduation rates posted just a few pages back.

[Anonymous]

I think PP might be referring to graduation rates starting with the Class of 2025 and its test optional admitted students. So, statistics yet to come.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think PP might be referring to graduation rates starting with the Class of 2025 and its test optional admitted students. So, statistics yet to come.

He explicitly referred to "dumba** athletes and legacy admits have been doing that for years."

I agree the data in the future will be very revealing - to see if there is any change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one has yet to explain how prepping for a test is different than studying for a test. Lots of free resources available for test prep. Ok

No one wants to acknowledge this. The "anti-SAT" crowd wants any semblance of standardized measurement of ability removed so we can no longer call the admitted crowd "not qualified". See what's happening at a lot of colleges this year. Most admissions offices are filled with left-leaning, SLAC-bred AOs. They are having a field day capitalizing on the "test optional" situation to bring on kids who fit their model of "preferred ability" over kids with actual ability over without impacting their US News rankings game. If all those admits were to take the SAT, we will know where they will land.

Will these admits survive the "rigors" of college. Of course they will.. dumba** athletes and legacy admits have been doing that for years.

The "my privilege gave my kids a high SAT score so they must be smart" crowd doesn't want to acknowledge the ONLY thing an SAT can tell you on an aggregate basis is how wealthy a kid's family is.

I get that you love the notion of being born on third base and claiming that you reached home plate by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but your failure to acknowledge or understand mountains of academic research makes you seem not to have much "actual ability" -- at least as far as evidence based policymaking goes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one has yet to explain how prepping for a test is different than studying for a test. Lots of free resources available for test prep. Ok

No one wants to acknowledge this. The "anti-SAT" crowd wants any semblance of standardized measurement of ability removed so we can no longer call the admitted crowd "not qualified". See what's happening at a lot of colleges this year. Most admissions offices are filled with left-leaning, SLAC-bred AOs. They are having a field day capitalizing on the "test optional" situation to bring on kids who fit their model of "preferred ability" over kids with actual ability over without impacting their US News rankings game. If all those admits were to take the SAT, we will know where they will land.

Will these admits survive the "rigors" of college. Of course they will.. dumba** athletes and legacy admits have been doing that for years.

The "my privilege gave my kids a high SAT score so they must be smart" crowd doesn't want to acknowledge the ONLY thing an SAT can tell you on an aggregate basis is how wealthy a kid's family is.

I get that you love the notion of being born on third base and claiming that you reached home plate by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but your failure to acknowledge or understand mountains of academic research makes you seem not to have much "actual ability" -- at least as far as evidence based policymaking goes.

You seem to be selectively ignoring that this thread has been about kids who also have excellent grades and have taking rigorous courses . So by your logic, neither grades nor test scores matter, and admissions staffs just have incredible prognosticating abilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one has yet to explain how prepping for a test is different than studying for a test. Lots of free resources available for test prep. Ok

No one wants to acknowledge this. The "anti-SAT" crowd wants any semblance of standardized measurement of ability removed so we can no longer call the admitted crowd "not qualified". See what's happening at a lot of colleges this year. Most admissions offices are filled with left-leaning, SLAC-bred AOs. They are having a field day capitalizing on the "test optional" situation to bring on kids who fit their model of "preferred ability" over kids with actual ability over without impacting their US News rankings game. If all those admits were to take the SAT, we will know where they will land.

Will these admits survive the "rigors" of college. Of course they will.. dumba** athletes and legacy admits have been doing that for years.

The "my privilege gave my kids a high SAT score so they must be smart" crowd doesn't want to acknowledge the ONLY thing an SAT can tell you on an aggregate basis is how wealthy a kid's family is.

I get that you love the notion of being born on third base and claiming that you reached home plate by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but your failure to acknowledge or understand mountains of academic research makes you seem not to have much "actual ability" -- at least as far as evidence based policymaking goes.

Keep saying that.. See the other PP that pointed out the high GPAs as well.

Try this.. teach your kids how to crack a book open and how to read. There's a whole new world out there once you figure that out. Not everyone with high SAT/high GPA was "born on third base".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this the thread where everyone thinks college admissions officers are imbeciles who can't build a class without a data point from a commercial entity they don't control or have influence over? That without that score they just pick applicants out of a hat and sit around drooling the rest of the time?

To be clear: most colleges appreciate the value of the score data point, but it is not essential for them to build their class and never has been. Only the undue influence of the USN rankings has over-inflated its impact.

The SAT hasn’t been required for the past half century or so because of US News.

There is obvious value to a standardized test that everyone takes given extreme differentials between school rigor and grading policies. Arguing it isn’t helpful is intellectually lazy and not at all compelling.

Being unaware of the extensive research showing that SATs are far more predictive of a kids economic background than future college success is intellectually lazy and not at all compelling.

A kid’s economic background is probably also the most predictive factor of success in college. We are now considering other factors because we want a more diverse student mix of students at top schools, not because we think they will perform better.

Yes, college GPA is strongly correlated to a kid's SES. But -- high school GPA is a good predictor of college GPA and is much less strongly correlated to SES than SAT scores .

In other words, there are a significant number of low income students who do worse on SATs, have high GPAs and go on to do well in college. Also, high school students who have low GPAs but high SATs tend to have low college GPAs.

So, when

1. you have two measures, one strongly correlated to SES (SAT) and one less so (GPA),
2. both are predictive of college GPA
3. the one that's less correlated to SES (GPA) is also (according to some research) a slightly better predictor of college success, and
4. you nevertheless choose to use the measure more highly correlated to SES (SAT),

that's systemic racism/classism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this the thread where everyone thinks college admissions officers are imbeciles who can't build a class without a data point from a commercial entity they don't control or have influence over? That without that score they just pick applicants out of a hat and sit around drooling the rest of the time?

To be clear: most colleges appreciate the value of the score data point, but it is not essential for them to build their class and never has been. Only the undue influence of the USN rankings has over-inflated its impact.

The SAT hasn’t been required for the past half century or so because of US News.

There is obvious value to a standardized test that everyone takes given extreme differentials between school rigor and grading policies. Arguing it isn’t helpful is intellectually lazy and not at all compelling.

Being unaware of the extensive research showing that SATs are far more predictive of a kids economic background than future college success is intellectually lazy and not at all compelling.

A kid’s economic background is probably also the most predictive factor of success in college. We are now considering other factors because we want a more diverse student mix of students at top schools, not because we think they will perform better.

Yes, college GPA is strongly correlated to a kid's SES. But -- high school GPA is a good predictor of college GPA and is much less strongly correlated to SES than SAT scores .

In other words, there are a significant number of low income students who do worse on SATs, have high GPAs and go on to do well in college. Also, high school students who have low GPAs but high SATs tend to have low college GPAs.

So, when

1. you have two measures, one strongly correlated to SES (SAT) and one less so (GPA),
2. both are predictive of college GPA
3. the one that's less correlated to SES (GPA) is also (according to some research) a slightly better predictor of college success, and
4. you nevertheless choose to use the measure more highly correlated to SES (SAT),

that's systemic racism/classism.

No one is arguing that schools only look at SAT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one has yet to explain how prepping for a test is different than studying for a test. Lots of free resources available for test prep. Ok

No one wants to acknowledge this. The "anti-SAT" crowd wants any semblance of standardized measurement of ability removed so we can no longer call the admitted crowd "not qualified". See what's happening at a lot of colleges this year. Most admissions offices are filled with left-leaning, SLAC-bred AOs. They are having a field day capitalizing on the "test optional" situation to bring on kids who fit their model of "preferred ability" over kids with actual ability over without impacting their US News rankings game. If all those admits were to take the SAT, we will know where they will land.

Will these admits survive the "rigors" of college. Of course they will.. dumba** athletes and legacy admits have been doing that for years.

The "my privilege gave my kids a high SAT score so they must be smart" crowd doesn't want to acknowledge the ONLY thing an SAT can tell you on an aggregate basis is how wealthy a kid's family is.

I get that you love the notion of being born on third base and claiming that you reached home plate by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but your failure to acknowledge or understand mountains of academic research makes you seem not to have much "actual ability" -- at least as far as evidence based policymaking goes.

Keep saying that.. See the other PP that pointed out the high GPAs as well.

Try this.. teach your kids how to crack a book open and how to read. There's a whole new world out there once you figure that out. Not everyone with high SAT/high GPA was "born on third base".

Hmm... clearly data and evidence are not your stong suit. The point is not that "everyone with a high GPA was born on third base." The point is that "way more people with a high GPA were born on third base."

When talking about how to best make policy for the most people, you have to look at agregate data and at research, not "what the other PP pointed out" or your personal biases. If you crack a book open and learn how to read research, you find a whole new world beyond annecdotes and your self-interested biases.