University Of California Reaches Final Decision: No More Standardized Admission Testing

[Anonymous]

The same disparities you see between the races in test scores, is the same disparity you see with GPA, they won't be able to scapegoat Asain overrepresentation with test scores anymore after this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The fewer objective measurements, the more opaque cherry-picking they can do.

And in the near future, you'll wonder why they have way fewer Asian students graduates...

It’s not objective. You can game the test, pay for test tutoring and increase scores. The only proven correlation between SATs and ACTs is income.

An 1100 can’t game their way into a 1500. A kid could go up 100 points or something, but it’s not hugely significant. The people who will lose out are the smart kids in not-great schools or not-great backgrounds who will lose out on the opportunity to show what they are capable of in an objective way. There will be shining stars who miss out on opportunities to rise out of their circumstances due to this change. It’s not the win that people arguing for it think it is.

Exactly. Or those who don’t have the parents able to play the new game. Sad

This is not what the data says.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The fewer objective measurements, the more opaque cherry-picking they can do.

And in the near future, you'll wonder why they have way fewer Asian students graduates...

It’s not objective. You can game the test, pay for test tutoring and increase scores. The only proven correlation between SATs and ACTs is income.

That isn’t true, the UC system itself recently produced research showing high correlation between SAT scores and performance in college. It’s more predictive than high school grades. Hi

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The fewer objective measurements, the more opaque cherry-picking they can do.

And in the near future, you'll wonder why they have way fewer Asian students graduates...

It’s not objective. You can game the test, pay for test tutoring and increase scores. The only proven correlation between SATs and ACTs is income.

That isn’t true, the UC system itself recently produced research showing high correlation between SAT scores and performance in college. It’s more predictive than high school grades. Hi

link?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The fewer objective measurements, the more opaque cherry-picking they can do.

And in the near future, you'll wonder why they have way fewer Asian students graduates...

It’s not objective. You can game the test, pay for test tutoring and increase scores. The only proven correlation between SATs and ACTs is income.

An 1100 can’t game their way into a 1500. A kid could go up 100 points or something, but it’s not hugely significant. The people who will lose out are the smart kids in not-great schools or not-great backgrounds who will lose out on the opportunity to show what they are capable of in an objective way. There will be shining stars who miss out on opportunities to rise out of their circumstances due to this change. It’s not the win that people arguing for it think it is.

It’s entirely possible. My DC had a score in the 1200s on the SAT, and just a few weeks of (expensive) tutoring took him from a 31 to a 34 on the ACT. He didn’t even work that hard at it. He was a bright straight-A kid to begin with, and he just needed some practice and help with test strategy. This experience did convince me that $$ can make a difference in test scores. Of course there are practice materials on line, but how many kids are going to do that without a lot of parental encouragement (which assumes the parents know about it and understand how important it is)?

That said, I do think schools are on their way to rendering grades meaningless and test scores are one standardized measure that does seem to predict success in college. I don’t know what the answer is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The fewer objective measurements, the more opaque cherry-picking they can do.

And in the near future, you'll wonder why they have way fewer Asian students graduates...

It’s not objective. You can game the test, pay for test tutoring and increase scores. The only proven correlation between SATs and ACTs is income.

That isn’t true, the UC system itself recently produced research showing high correlation between SAT scores and performance in college. It’s more predictive than high school grades. Hi

link?

Halfway through the bullet points— “without controlling for demographics,” SAT/ACT score are a better predictor of college grades than high school gpa. https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/_files/sat-act-study-report.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The fewer objective measurements, the more opaque cherry-picking they can do.

And in the near future, you'll wonder why they have way fewer Asian students graduates...

It’s not objective. You can game the test, pay for test tutoring and increase scores. The only proven correlation between SATs and ACTs is income.

That isn’t true, the UC system itself recently produced research showing high correlation between SAT scores and performance in college. It’s more predictive than high school grades. Hi

link?

Halfway through the bullet points— “without controlling for demographics,” SAT/ACT score are a better predictor of college grades than high school gpa. https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/_files/sat-act-study-report.pdf

but like...demographics exist?

[Anonymous]

Tons of Asian kids going to sec schools on full rides in the future?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's fantastic. Study after study after study has confirmed the high correlation between family income and parental education and SAT and ACT scores. Generally speaking, high scores were born on third base. It doesn't make them any smarter.

This will hurt immigrant and low-SES kids who have the smarts to do well on the SAT.

- Ivy League grad immigrant kid who’s parents didn’t go past grade school

No, it won't. It'll help them.

How, exactly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The fewer objective measurements, the more opaque cherry-picking they can do.

And in the near future, you'll wonder why they have way fewer Asian students graduates...

It’s not objective. You can game the test, pay for test tutoring and increase scores. The only proven correlation between SATs and ACTs is income.

That isn’t true, the UC system itself recently produced research showing high correlation between SAT scores and performance in college. It’s more predictive than high school grades. Hi

link?

Halfway through the bullet points— “without controlling for demographics,” SAT/ACT score are a better predictor of college grades than high school gpa. https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/_files/sat-act-study-report.pdf

but like...demographics exist?

Maybe actually read the report?

They also concluded that adding sat/act to high school gpa materially improved ability to predict college performance.

[Anonymous]

The ACT ranges of a few UC schools for fall 2019 admits

UC San Diego: 26-31
UC Irvine: 24-31
UC Davis: 24-31

https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses-majors/san-diego/freshman-admission-profile.html
https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses-majors/irvine/freshman-admission-profile.html
https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses-majors/davis/freshman-admission-profile.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The fewer objective measurements, the more opaque cherry-picking they can do.

And in the near future, you'll wonder why they have way fewer Asian students graduates...

It’s not objective. You can game the test, pay for test tutoring and increase scores. The only proven correlation between SATs and ACTs is income.

That isn’t true, the UC system itself recently produced research showing high correlation between SAT scores and performance in college. It’s more predictive than high school grades. Hi

link?

Halfway through the bullet points— “without controlling for demographics,” SAT/ACT score are a better predictor of college grades than high school gpa. https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/_files/sat-act-study-report.pdf

but like...demographics exist?

Maybe actually read the report?

They also concluded that adding sat/act to high school gpa materially improved ability to predict college performance.

Without controlling for student demographics, SAT/ACT scores are a stronger predictor of freshman GPA when compared to HSGPA, but have almost the same explanatory power of graduation GPA, first year retention and graduation. After controlling for student demographics, HSGPA and test scores have the same explanatory power of the freshman GPA for 2015, the latest year included in this study, but HSGPA is a stronger predictor of the first year retention, graduation GPA and four-year graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The fewer objective measurements, the more opaque cherry-picking they can do.

And in the near future, you'll wonder why they have way fewer Asian students graduates...

It’s not objective. You can game the test, pay for test tutoring and increase scores. The only proven correlation between SATs and ACTs is income.

That isn’t true, the UC system itself recently produced research showing high correlation between SAT scores and performance in college. It’s more predictive than high school grades. Hi

link?

Halfway through the bullet points— “without controlling for demographics,” SAT/ACT score are a better predictor of college grades than high school gpa. https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/_files/sat-act-study-report.pdf

but like...demographics exist?

Maybe actually read the report?

They also concluded that adding sat/act to high school gpa materially improved ability to predict college performance.

Without controlling for student demographics, SAT/ACT scores are a stronger predictor of freshman GPA when compared to HSGPA, but have almost the same explanatory power of graduation GPA, first year retention and graduation. After controlling for student demographics, HSGPA and test scores have the same explanatory power of the freshman GPA for 2015, the latest year included in this study, but HSGPA is a stronger predictor of the first year retention, graduation GPA and four-year graduation.

Right, so the goal isn’t to admit the most qualified students who will perform the best in college, just admit a cohort that will make it to graduation.

This is the frustration with wokeness in public education.

And you choosing to ignore the fact that the study found gpa plus sat best predictor of college performance.

[Anonymous]

The UC decision will have ripple effects throughout the college industry. And it is an industry - one that is in dire need of a reset of some kind. CA is big enough that it will influence other schools' decisions - one of the test prep firms that spoke my DC's (public) school told us this pre-pandemic (at that time the UCs required SAT w/essay, and they were predicting that if CA dropped it, it would be the death knell for the essay part of the test entirely.)

I understand why people take some comfort in the test scores, especially if they have high-scoring kids. But I've seen first-hand how intensive test prep can completely change the outcome. All you need is money - we spent thousands but it got our kid from a 26 composite to 31. It's insane how much money biases the whole process, but it's especially true around test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The UC decision will have ripple effects throughout the college industry. And it is an industry - one that is in dire need of a reset of some kind. CA is big enough that it will influence other schools' decisions - one of the test prep firms that spoke my DC's (public) school told us this pre-pandemic (at that time the UCs required SAT w/essay, and they were predicting that if CA dropped it, it would be the death knell for the essay part of the test entirely.)

I understand why people take some comfort in the test scores, especially if they have high-scoring kids. But I've seen first-hand how intensive test prep can completely change the outcome. All you need is money - we spent thousands but it got our kid from a 26 composite to 31. It's insane how much money biases the whole process, but it's especially true around test scores.

I disagree, test optional here to stay. Test blind is a step too far.