Obsession with “one and done”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question. A lot of people on here strongly advocate for a “one and done” approach to testing or say that kids should be limited to taking the SAT or ACT twice. I really don’t get that. Why does it matter? I understand the socioeconomic argument that kids who can afford coaching will have an advantage, but that doesn’t seem to be the motivation for most of the posters here who push for limits. This seems to be a mantra of parents who are taking issue with schools’ acceptance rates, individual decisions, etc.

I would genuinely like to understand the arguments. If a kid learns from mistakes or studies and improves between tests isn’t that a measure of success as a student? Of their ability to learn? What is the crucial significance in your opinion of getting your score in only one or two tries?

For us, it is just part of the escalation of the college arms race. Whereas back in the day when no superscoring, you take it maybe twice at most and you apply to like 5 colleges (because you are typing out each application). Now there are kids taking it 3+ times, applying to 20 colleges, etc.

Superscoring has completely skewed things. You can create a very high score out of two or more good but not great scores (at least what DCUM considers great). Definitely know kids that never cracked 1500 in one sitting that superscored to over a 1550 by focusing their prep on one section over another.

When was superscoring not done? I applied to college in the mid 70s and it was done then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question. A lot of people on here strongly advocate for a “one and done” approach to testing or say that kids should be limited to taking the SAT or ACT twice. I really don’t get that. Why does it matter? I understand the socioeconomic argument that kids who can afford coaching will have an advantage, but that doesn’t seem to be the motivation for most of the posters here who push for limits. This seems to be a mantra of parents who are taking issue with schools’ acceptance rates, individual decisions, etc.

I would genuinely like to understand the arguments. If a kid learns from mistakes or studies and improves between tests isn’t that a measure of success as a student? Of their ability to learn? What is the crucial significance in your opinion of getting your score in only one or two tries?

For us, it is just part of the escalation of the college arms race. Whereas back in the day when no superscoring, you take it maybe twice at most and you apply to like 5 colleges (because you are typing out each application). Now there are kids taking it 3+ times, applying to 20 colleges, etc.

Superscoring has completely skewed things. You can create a very high score out of two or more good but not great scores (at least what DCUM considers great). Definitely know kids that never cracked 1500 in one sitting that superscored to over a 1550 by focusing their prep on one section over another.

When was superscoring not done? I applied to college in the mid 70s and it was done then.

Huh? I applied in the 1990s and it definitely was not anything I was aware.

[Anonymous]

I don't think very many people have a problem with superscoring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have used that phrase, but I wasn't advocating for it. It's what my kid did. He felt his first score was good enough and so did his college counselor. I couldn't have paid him to take it again. He was "one and done."

OP here. That’s different from what I mean. I’m asking about all the people who applaud the return of mandatory scores or who are complaining that their child didn’t get in to a certain school. I’ve just seen what feels like a LOT of people saying that testing should be limited, not that kids might be happy enough with their first score.

That is a completely different topic from your OP.

No, it really isn’t.

[Anonymous]

For many students, multiple times at the same test with superscoring make them look smarter than they are. Just the truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question. A lot of people on here strongly advocate for a “one and done” approach to testing or say that kids should be limited to taking the SAT or ACT twice. I really don’t get that. Why does it matter? I understand the socioeconomic argument that kids who can afford coaching will have an advantage, but that doesn’t seem to be the motivation for most of the posters here who push for limits. This seems to be a mantra of parents who are taking issue with schools’ acceptance rates, individual decisions, etc.

I would genuinely like to understand the arguments. If a kid learns from mistakes or studies and improves between tests isn’t that a measure of success as a student? Of their ability to learn? What is the crucial significance in your opinion of getting your score in only one or two tries?

For us, it is just part of the escalation of the college arms race. Whereas back in the day when no superscoring, you take it maybe twice at most and you apply to like 5 colleges (because you are typing out each application). Now there are kids taking it 3+ times, applying to 20 colleges, etc.

Superscoring has completely skewed things. You can create a very high score out of two or more good but not great scores (at least what DCUM considers great). Definitely know kids that never cracked 1500 in one sitting that superscored to over a 1550 by focusing their prep on one section over another.

When was superscoring not done? I applied to college in the mid 70s and it was done then.

Huh? I applied in the 1990s and it definitely was not anything I was aware.

Super scoring started about 15 yrs back. SAT started it, ACT followed. My guess is they saw it as another avenue to increase their profit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For many students, multiple times at the same test with superscoring make them look smarter than they are. Just the truth.

How? They are earning each of the scores.

[Anonymous]

I think the idea is that if many, many tests are taken by a few students, their data is not a true ability measure.

That's all.

Of course people whose kids are naturally scoring well (1,500+) would like this. Also those who can afford a big amount of test prep in advance of of a one and done opportunity.

If everyone faced a one take plus maybe one retake world, the people above would benefit the most. They would face reduced competition from people willing to retake many times.

There are times when prep can help and a few points matter. In my case, I prepped ineffectively for the SATs. Despite at least 3 retakes, I was unable to move a score by 10 points above a specific math threshold that would have given me a $2K per year scholarship. I studied myself, years later, for the GMATs, and on my own raised my percentile score by 15 population percentage points, and received a big scholarship in part because of that. I'm still annoyed that I didn't have the skill to help myself in high school. There's little to love about the SATs and I do believe that some people can train to outperform their natural one-shot ability by a lot. Because I did it. And only with paper books and an ETS software disk you could buy at Barnes and Noble. 10 years after my last math class.

[Anonymous]

I have a history of OCD, which makes my kids prone to it, so I don't encourage any kind of repetitive anxiety-reducing behaviors.

Kids aren't aiming for Ivy, anyway.

[Anonymous]

Virtually all schools allow super scoring. So one and done is irrelevant. Get that 1500 in one sitting or five sittings, doesn't matter. The evaluators only see the top score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For many students, multiple times at the same test with superscoring make them look smarter than they are. Just the truth.

How? They are earning each of the scores.

It takes a bit of courage to be willing to "tank" one of your scores, but literally you just have to report your two best scores. By courage, most kids have their own standards and even though they know one of their section scores is irrelevant...it's still hard to know you received a low score.

In the extreme, there is no downside to getting a 1200 on one sitting (800Math/400 verbal) and a 1200 on the next sitting (400Math/800verbal) and reporting a 1600. You are not lying at all by saying you have a superscored 1600.

It is fairly rare for anyone to have such extremes, but kids definitely may score very high on one section on their first sitting, and then do nothing but prep for the other section on their next sitting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question. A lot of people on here strongly advocate for a “one and done” approach to testing or say that kids should be limited to taking the SAT or ACT twice. I really don’t get that. Why does it matter? I understand the socioeconomic argument that kids who can afford coaching will have an advantage, but that doesn’t seem to be the motivation for most of the posters here who push for limits. This seems to be a mantra of parents who are taking issue with schools’ acceptance rates, individual decisions, etc.

I would genuinely like to understand the arguments. If a kid learns from mistakes or studies and improves between tests isn’t that a measure of success as a student? Of their ability to learn? What is the crucial significance in your opinion of getting your score in only one or two tries?

For us, it is just part of the escalation of the college arms race. Whereas back in the day when no superscoring, you take it maybe twice at most and you apply to like 5 colleges (because you are typing out each application). Now there are kids taking it 3+ times, applying to 20 colleges, etc.

Superscoring has completely skewed things. You can create a very high score out of two or more good but not great scores (at least what DCUM considers great). Definitely know kids that never cracked 1500 in one sitting that superscored to over a 1550 by focusing their prep on one section over another.

When was superscoring not done? I applied to college in the mid 70s and it was done then.

How old are you? Why are you here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The argument in favor of limited testing is that unlimited testing contributes to inequities because kids with less means cannot pay for the second/third/fourth test and cannot pay for the the prep in between to bolster the second/third/fourth test scores. The argument against limited testing, paradoxically, can also be used to support equities, in that children who have been prepped beforehand or just have base knowledge that can help will get a leg up versus those who don't even know what they are getting into with the first exam. Doesn't occur so much in our rarefied DMV atmosphere because the schools have prep etc. But in other more rural or inner cities areas, it definitely has an effect.

There is a lot of free test prep online. And tests are given multiple times at public schools. Out of pocket it is 60.
We are not talking thousands of dollars, in the grand scheme of things many other items included in apps are far more inequitable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn’t matter. Awful DCUM people like to pretend it means their kid is smarter because the kid supposedly did that.

It's this. Smug parents whose kids did well the first time and therefore think anyone who takes it more than once is somehow cheating.

[Anonymous]

Because less stress is better.