Atlantic article on college admissions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it still true that you can take an untimed test and the colleges will never know?

Yes.

[Anonymous]

The OP who cherry-picked Flanagan's first reference to the accommodations scam, neglected to include this part, which confirms that a diagnosis in high school is not a guarantee of accommodations:

..."This is the only section of the complaint that mentions the character of “our psychologist.” There are more educational psychologists in Greenwich, Connecticut, than there are Labrador retrievers. Hotfoot it over to New Haven or Manhattan, and you have to beat them off with a stick. Why was Singer so certain that this particular psychologist would produce the documentation the student needed? The government is clearly continuing its investigation—student records have been subpoenaed from several private schools in Los Angeles, and it’s not hard to imagine that more indictments, perhaps many more, are coming. “Our psychologist” might play a role in these investigations.

"The problem with getting newly diagnosed with a learning disability in 11th or 12th grade is that the companies that own the tests know they’re probably being manipulated, and will often deny the application for untimed testing. Sure enough, the ACT denied the Caplan daughter’s first request, and also her appeal. But then, a surprising bit of good news. “You were right,” Caplan tells Singer; “it was like third time was the charm … Everybody was telling us there’s no way, and then all of a sudden it comes in.” But one of the delights of this novel is that the reader is often in possession of information the main characters lack. While Caplan crows, we smirk: “The ACT ultimately granted CAPLAN’S daughter extended time on the exam at the request of law enforcement.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/what-college-admissions-scandal-reveals/586468/

Atlantic article nailed it on accommodations:
The second flaw in the system was an important change to the way untimed testing is reported to the colleges. When I began the job, the SAT and the ACT offered untimed testing to students with learning disabilities, provided that they had been diagnosed by a professional. However, an asterisk appeared next to untimed scores, alerting the college that the student had taken the test without a time limit. But during my time at the school, this asterisk was found to violate the Americans With Disabilities Act, and the testing companies dropped it. Suddenly it was possible for everyone with enough money to get a diagnosis that would grant their kid two full days—instead of four hours—to take the SAT, and the colleges would never know. Today, according to Slate, “in places like Greenwich, Conn., and certain zip codes of New York City and Los Angeles, the percentage of untimed test-taking is said to be close to 50 percent.” Taking a test under normal time limits in one of these neighborhoods is a sucker’s game—you’ve voluntarily handicapped yourself.

No.

1) Even among students with accommodations, an untimed test is rare (and most susceptible to cheating). Most timing accommodations are time and a half; some get double time and a sliver get untimed (all of the Singer clients got untimed FWIW). Any student (save for those with a traumatic brain injury or other issue) with the faked diagnoses supposedly have ADHD. Untimed tests for ADHD are not needed in most cases.

2) Subject requests from 'high percentage areas' for extra time to higher scrutiny and a look back requirement to see what students grades and performance was before and after the 'diagnoses.' If no difference, then no accommodations (College Board denies thousands of students with disabilities extra time every year, saying there is no designated impact).

3) It does not matter that this writer thinks that the flag should be returned; it is against the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law. There are better ways to cut down on false diagnoses, and unneeded accommodations without hurting those who have legitimate disabilities and who were discriminated against in the old system.

How in the hell was Singer able to get the college board to approve untimed? That's the part of this scandal the perplexes me the most. You always hear about how hard it is to get extra time on the SAT - a diagnosis isn't enough, they want to see that the student has had a diagnosis for a few years and has been using accomodations in school. Yet Singer's clients weren't getting diagnosed until 11th grade and I doubt they had a history of using the accomodations at school. So what in the name of God, did they tell the college board to get this approved?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the scandal, getting the extra time was necessary to shift the testing site to where the corrupt test proctor could do his thing. It really wasn't about extra time, per se, and it is in fact rare for students to get to take the test over two days.

But yet, the parents were still able to get the College Board to approve extra time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, this is what they should do. They should allow everyone a set time to take the test--a LONG set time, so it stops being a speed test and becomes a test about what they know and how they reason.

I've come full circle on this. My DD has a genetic eye condition, and she has to strain to see. Her eye muscles give out after focusing close for long periods of time. I used to not want her to have any accomodations because "life doesn't give you extra time." A doctor finally convinced me that that is the wrong thought process..."life is not a speed test where you must keep your eyes focused for 3 hours straight" is more like it.

So let's test what the kids know and how they think, not how fast they can squiggle it into a bubble.

I completely agree.

Except the world does value the ability to think rapidly so these tests measure that ability. And all of your garbage accommodations and handicaps cheat those metrics.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Maybe he had somebody on the inside on the College Board. He seemed to have enough other people in on the scam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe he had somebody on the inside on the College Board. He seemed to have enough other people in on the scam.

See above. When the CB and ACT balked at extra time for these clearly non-disabled students whose parents hired Singer, the FBI asked them to grant it, so they could catch the parents as well as the paid off proctors who administered the tests and changed the students' answers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every person on these threads who is fixated on extra time or other accommodations that children with disabilities are legally entitled to needs to take a big step back.

You can join the cadre of privileged parents who are convinced, despite all data to the contrary (or no data at all), that their kids must have "lost" their seat -- or may "lose" a seat -- to a minority applicant.

Your kid is not necessarily the best-qualified applicant. Your child was NEVER promised a seat at these institutions. There are no outside forces conspiring to deny your of something they kid of what was rightly theirs.

Your behavior is frankly no different than the parents who berated Flanagan for their child's poor results during admissions season.

The assumptions you make about why people oppose extra time are preposterous. I have a kid who actually does qualify for extra time, and of course we will have her use it, because we would be fools not to, but even I think it's ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every person on these threads who is fixated on extra time or other accommodations that children with disabilities are legally entitled to needs to take a big step back.

You can join the cadre of privileged parents who are convinced, despite all data to the contrary (or no data at all), that their kids must have "lost" their seat -- or may "lose" a seat -- to a minority applicant.

Your kid is not necessarily the best-qualified applicant. Your child was NEVER promised a seat at these institutions. There are no outside forces conspiring to deny your of something they kid of what was rightly theirs.

Your behavior is frankly no different than the parents who berated Flanagan for their child's poor results during admissions season.

The extra time accommodations are not personalized. So some are definitely getting an advantage and then there is the abuse of the system. When those who are getting the accommodations protest too much about giving every child longer or untimed to take the tests or make the test less about speed, then one can’t help but wonder why.

Yes, they are personalized. The school asks for the amount of time that a student receives in school. Some students get 1.5 time, some get 2x time, and a very few are approved for unlimited time for ADHD (those are supposed to be for a student with multiple and severe disabilities - think a Stephen Hawking-level of complex issues).

But of course, if you are bribing someone in the SSD office of the College Board (as Singer did), your child is likely to receive unlimited time to complete the exam.

-public school counselor who submits these requests

Actually Singer never bribed anyone to allow extra time. He bribed the proctor to fake the scores. But the permission to receive extra time was not due to a bribe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe he had somebody on the inside on the College Board. He seemed to have enough other people in on the scam.

But evidence of that hasn't come out. And like a pp posted, with one client, it looks like the kid wasn't going to get extra time. The ACT agreed to it because the FBI directed them to because they were onto the scam. That shows that Singer didn't have anyone he was paying off to approve extra time and in most cases it just worked. It was a gamble for the parents though. I wonder how many parents paid for the extra time, but never ended up getting approved. I think that's why many parents went for the fake athletic recruitment option. That seemed like more of a sure thing.

[Anonymous]

Long past time to drop the SAT/ACT as part of admission process. The SAT/ACT can be gamed legally and illegally. The getting more time is the least of the problems. I really do not know why so many people focus on this one thing. Other kids have been drilled by professionals, shown how to game the test and worked “practice” exams for years. Others just straight out cheat. 2 million test are given a year 4,000 are flagged for cheating. Trust me there are most likely double that number not getting caught.

In addition the SAT really have little to do with how well one will do in college. So what’s the point of using these test? It allows rich people to pay for better results.

Another factor to take into account is that even when studies do show a relationship between test scores and college success, the correlation is not very strong. In other words, a student who gets a higher score on the ACT or SAT is slightly more likely to be more successful in college, but only slightly. Your standardized test scores don’t always predict your future.

Some studies have found that in practice, your high school grades and GPA tend to be better predictors of your eventual college success than your SAT and/or ACT scores. It’s thought that course grades, which are made up of many different assignments and exams over a long period of time, are more comparable to the challenges you’ll encounter in college than your test scores.

https://blog.collegevine.com/how-good-are-the-sat-act-at-predicting-college-success/

[Anonymous]

I just wish this hadn't been written by Caitlin "Mommy Wars" Flanagan. It's hard to take her seriously when she spent several years of her career excoriating vulnerable new moms for not having the good sense to marry a wealthy husband like she did. She is the definition of entitlement herself (or was, at least), and frankly in the context of her prior writing history, I am skeptical of her stories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe he had somebody on the inside on the College Board. He seemed to have enough other people in on the scam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Long past time to drop the SAT/ACT as part of admission process. The SAT/ACT can be gamed legally and illegally. The getting more time is the least of the problems. I really do not know why so many people focus on this one thing. Other kids have been drilled by professionals, shown how to game the test and worked “practice” exams for years.

Doing drills and practice exams and learning test-taking strategies is not "gaming the test" or "cheating". Nor are they beyond the reach of even poor students.

[Anonymous]

In addition the SAT really have little to do with how well one will do in college. So what’s the point of using these test? It allows rich people to pay for better results.

SAT scores have been shown to be strongly correlated with general intelligence. Intelligence predicts the ability to succeed in college (though of course it does not guarantee it). So the point of the tests is to determine the student's intelligence and thus their potential to succeed in college.