UCs forbidden to use SAT and ACT in admissions by court

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are tens of thousands of high school seniors that spent perhaps years studying and taking get classes to do well on the act and sat's. This really changes college admissions for middle class Californians who can't afford private college (donut hole families). I now live in CA and have an 8th grader. I can't afford private college so UC's are his only option. There is a specialized high school program in our city that is competitive and no guarantee of A's or our local high school that isn't as rigorous but I am told easier to get A's since most of the top students go to the specialized high school. Not sure what we will decide.

the fact that you can spend years (and pay years worth of fees) to do better on the test was the one of the bases of the lawsuit. Maybe not at the top end, and not 100%, but the SATs have become a reflection of a students ability and means to prepare to take the SATs

How is that any different than school itself? A wealthy family can spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on tutors for school classes to help their kids get good grades, and a wealthy family likely will have easier access to schools with more rigorous curricula. The fact that one family is able to devote more financial resources to school or the SAT or extracurriculars is not illegal. It's capitalism. Relative financial status is not a protected class for purposes of civil rights laws.

[Anonymous]

Test optional: "you don't have to submit a score, but we'll just go ahead and take a peek at the scores of those who do." So who's going to have an advantage in this process?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
How is that any different than school itself? A wealthy family can spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on tutors for school classes to help their kids get good grades, and a wealthy family likely will have easier access to schools with more rigorous curricula. The fact that one family is able to devote more financial resources to school or the SAT or extracurriculars is not illegal. It's capitalism. Relative financial status is not a protected class for purposes of civil rights laws.

nope, but relative financial class correlates with race which is a protected class

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This ruling seemed narrowly focused on the College Board’s inability to offer accommodations for testing this year

Curious why they can't offer accommodations.

Test sites don't want to/are unable to host the exams including the lesser number that normally provide accommodations. So students who need accommodations may not be able to register for a test site anywhere near them. Plus it's very hard to even reach the College Board or ACT right now. In any case, offering accommodations means nothing if the test is ultimately cancelled as were all or nearly all the August CA SATs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How is that any different than school itself? A wealthy family can spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on tutors for school classes to help their kids get good grades, and a wealthy family likely will have easier access to schools with more rigorous curricula. The fact that one family is able to devote more financial resources to school or the SAT or extracurriculars is not illegal. It's capitalism. Relative financial status is not a protected class for purposes of civil rights laws.

nope, but relative financial class correlates with race which is a protected class

But again, what is the difference between (1) being able to devote more financial resources to school and (2) being able to devote more financial resources to the SAT? If (1) is perfectly permissible, and it is, why would (2) be any different?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How is that any different than school itself? A wealthy family can spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on tutors for school classes to help their kids get good grades, and a wealthy family likely will have easier access to schools with more rigorous curricula. The fact that one family is able to devote more financial resources to school or the SAT or extracurriculars is not illegal. It's capitalism. Relative financial status is not a protected class for purposes of civil rights laws.

nope, but relative financial class correlates with race which is a protected class

But again, what is the difference between (1) being able to devote more financial resources to school and (2) being able to devote more financial resources to the SAT? If (1) is perfectly permissible, and it is, why would (2) be any different?

I don't know, nor do I care. A group is suing the UC system over the SAT. Whether or not having money conveys other advantages is irrelevant to whether using the SAT is discriminatory. As far as the SAT goes, the plaintiffs have reams of data and they're confident they can prove their case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How is that any different than school itself? A wealthy family can spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on tutors for school classes to help their kids get good grades, and a wealthy family likely will have easier access to schools with more rigorous curricula. The fact that one family is able to devote more financial resources to school or the SAT or extracurriculars is not illegal. It's capitalism. Relative financial status is not a protected class for purposes of civil rights laws.

nope, but relative financial class correlates with race which is a protected class

If poor whites have the same lack of access as poor minorities, I'm not sure you can say there is a disparate impact on poor minorities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:50% of American high schoolers ha r straight As.

DCPS is only giving As and Bs this year. They dropped Cs and below from the grading scale entirely.

This is going to make very student even.

This will cause more colleges to require remedial classes to help students who got an "A" in English in HS but clearly can only write at a 5th grade level. Acceptances will become almost like a lottery, and admitting those students who cannot hack it in higher level institutions will hurt everyone.. These students should be going to community colleges for remedial classes, then transferring to 4 yr universities. By no means do I think that we should not help these kids, but pushing them into situations in which they are not prepared for is doing everyone a disservice.

They should replace the SATs with something else, like maybe a test like cogat or something.

CogAT relies too heavily on speed, though I get what you mean; it sounds like you are referring to ability testing. The old old old SAT purported to measure ability, unlike the current one that purports to measure academic skills per the Common Core State Standards.

(Poor David Coleman, SAT is going down in flames and it's only partly his fault; no one could have predicted a pandemic. I thought he would have been gone long before now...)

Here's the thing... in the real world, you are not giving "extra time" to solve a problem, not during the interview, and not on a project.

Lots of big name companies give out brainteaser type questions during interviews. You are not given extra time if you say you have LD issues. You have 5 min to solve that problem. That's the way the real world works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How is that any different than school itself? A wealthy family can spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on tutors for school classes to help their kids get good grades, and a wealthy family likely will have easier access to schools with more rigorous curricula. The fact that one family is able to devote more financial resources to school or the SAT or extracurriculars is not illegal. It's capitalism. Relative financial status is not a protected class for purposes of civil rights laws.

nope, but relative financial class correlates with race which is a protected class

If poor whites have the same lack of access as poor minorities, I'm not sure you can say there is a disparate impact on poor minorities.

you can and they are. They'll argue the relevant comparison is minorities as a whole as a percentage of the applicant pool as a whole. Do you think the UC system is going to pay an attorney to say the system is fine because poor people are equally disadvantaged? How long do you think anyone who signs off on that line of argument would keep their jobs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:50% of American high schoolers ha r straight As.

DCPS is only giving As and Bs this year. They dropped Cs and below from the grading scale entirely.

This is going to make very student even.

This will cause more colleges to require remedial classes to help students who got an "A" in English in HS but clearly can only write at a 5th grade level. Acceptances will become almost like a lottery, and admitting those students who cannot hack it in higher level institutions will hurt everyone.. These students should be going to community colleges for remedial classes, then transferring to 4 yr universities. By no means do I think that we should not help these kids, but pushing them into situations in which they are not prepared for is doing everyone a disservice.

They should replace the SATs with something else, like maybe a test like cogat or something.

CogAT relies too heavily on speed, though I get what you mean; it sounds like you are referring to ability testing. The old old old SAT purported to measure ability, unlike the current one that purports to measure academic skills per the Common Core State Standards.

(Poor David Coleman, SAT is going down in flames and it's only partly his fault; no one could have predicted a pandemic. I thought he would have been gone long before now...)

Here's the thing... in the real world, you are not giving "extra time" to solve a problem, not during the interview, and not on a project.

Lots of big name companies give out brainteaser type questions during interviews. You are not given extra time if you say you have LD issues. You have 5 min to solve that problem. That's the way the real world works.

^ also, tons of people seeking accommodation for "disabilities" are from rich. No way they're poor; they know better how to game the system. Know several of these people myself.

[Anonymous]

I actually think this will hurt 4.0 students at mediocre high schools too. Everyone knows that As are pretty common, but if your high schools average ACT is like 20 before or like a fourth of people go to 4 year college, demonstrating that you had a 4.0 and a 30 means you can hack it at a UC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A California judge. That says it all, lol. (California judges in general have a certain reputation for... unexpected rulings, for lack of a better term.)

What does it say?

One would expect liberals to support SATs and ACTs since they ensure better diversity.

In normal times. Pandemic times is harder.

No they don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:50% of American high schoolers ha r straight As.

DCPS is only giving As and Bs this year. They dropped Cs and below from the grading scale entirely.

This is going to make very student even.

This will cause more colleges to require remedial classes to help students who got an "A" in English in HS but clearly can only write at a 5th grade level. Acceptances will become almost like a lottery, and admitting those students who cannot hack it in higher level institutions will hurt everyone.. These students should be going to community colleges for remedial classes, then transferring to 4 yr universities. By no means do I think that we should not help these kids, but pushing them into situations in which they are not prepared for is doing everyone a disservice.

They should replace the SATs with something else, like maybe a test like cogat or something.

CogAT relies too heavily on speed, though I get what you mean; it sounds like you are referring to ability testing. The old old old SAT purported to measure ability, unlike the current one that purports to measure academic skills per the Common Core State Standards.

(Poor David Coleman, SAT is going down in flames and it's only partly his fault; no one could have predicted a pandemic. I thought he would have been gone long before now...)

Here's the thing... in the real world, you are not giving "extra time" to solve a problem, not during the interview, and not on a project.

Lots of big name companies give out brainteaser type questions during interviews. You are not given extra time if you say you have LD issues. You have 5 min to solve that problem. That's the way the real world works.

Yeah, maybe for a few mor minutes the “real world” will work like that.

[Anonymous]

I highly doubt an appeal would be successful. Maybe admissions could just be based on a televised lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How is that any different than school itself? A wealthy family can spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on tutors for school classes to help their kids get good grades, and a wealthy family likely will have easier access to schools with more rigorous curricula. The fact that one family is able to devote more financial resources to school or the SAT or extracurriculars is not illegal. It's capitalism. Relative financial status is not a protected class for purposes of civil rights laws.

nope, but relative financial class correlates with race which is a protected class

If poor whites have the same lack of access as poor minorities, I'm not sure you can say there is a disparate impact on poor minorities.

you can and they are. They'll argue the relevant comparison is minorities as a whole as a percentage of the applicant pool as a whole. Do you think the UC system is going to pay an attorney to say the system is fine because poor people are equally disadvantaged? How long do you think anyone who signs off on that line of argument would keep their jobs?

I don't think the UC system needs to make the argument because the ability to hire a tutor or prepare for the test was not relevant in any way to the Court's ruling. It is a narrow ruling about whether or not adequate testing centers are being made available for persons with disabilities. Any contentions about rich people performing better were window dressing to drum up sympathy and were not a basis for the trial court's decision.