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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How will they distinguish among white or Asian kids who all have the same grades?

I get how this allows them to pick minorities.  But there will be spots who go to white/Asian kids.  And a very large percentage of these kids will have almost identical grades--I know my kid and all of his friends have the same grades
Retake and lax grading makes it almost impossible to not do well in many publics (DCPS for sure). 
I get that extracurriculars are one thing--but again, most kids will have a very, very similar version of these as well.  And it's not Harvard--we're not looking for kids to split to atom to get into UCSD or even UCLA.

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Same as how they do it now.  Most kids who have similar grades from similar HS also have very similar standardized test scores.    [/quote]

Not at all.  in my child's very socioeconomically diverse school, which doesn't offer class rank, allows endless retakes/resubmissions, the "top" GPAs are quite compressed due to grade inflation.  Like many kids near 5.0.  But a couple of those kids got 1500s on their SATs, a couple got 1400, and a couple got 1300, while the vast majority scored 1100-1200, despite their top grades.  You think these students are all equally capable of succeeding in the most challenging college and professional endeavors just because they are near "straight A" students?

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Do you think kids who are good test takers are equally capable of succeeding in the most challenging college and professional environments? [/quote]

DP. What do you mean by “good test taker”? Being a good test taker as in you have high working memory? There are lots of very good test takers who have bad grades. A really high standardized test score reflects IQ, not anything you prep for. [/quote]

DP.  Disagree.  I was a great test taker and I can attest that scoring well on standardized tests is a skill that some people have that isn’t necessarily related to intelligence. My DC is highly intelligent and makes great grades, but didn’t “get” standardized tests the first time through. With a minimal amount of tutoring, he raised his composite score three points on the ACT.  One or two tutoring session’s focus on the English section raised his score from a 30 to a 35, and another session raised his science score from a 31 to a 36. He is obviously a smart kid to begin with, but his test scores went from middling to great because he had a parent willing to fork over the $$ to make it happen.  Prep *can* absolutely make a difference. [/quote]

Your son is a pretty big outlier with those gains.  Not saying it's impossible, but unlikely to be the standard.  [/quote]

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