PP here. Excuse the typos, using my tiny iPhone.

AA mom here. Definitely have to agree that test prep isn’t valued in our culture or even discussed. I was truly just fortunate enough to attend a HS that signed me up for SAT prep. I was told that it was mandatory. I didn’t study outside of the program. It improved my score by 130 points. Even still, I didn’t adequately prepare for the day of testing. I sat for the SATs twice on Saturday mornings after waiting tables until midnight the night before. My parents didn’t know that I was testing either time. I just went about my day. I nodded off during testing both times. My score could have further improved if I’d understood how important a good night’s rest is. My parents didn’t go to college and assumed that sending me to a good school was enough to get me there.

Most of my friends had no prep at all. I have friends from PG county schools where the SATs weren’t even discussed with them. One of best friends, in fact, is a CPA who nearly flunked out of HS. He’d intended to join the Marines so he didn’t take school seriously. He changed his mind after graduation and then enrolled a PGCC, then transferred to UMCP. I assumed he was dumb when we were in HS, because of his grades. Nobody ever suggested college to him. Can you imagine???

Culturally, we don’t play the game and it’s hurting us.

I think people need to also talk about the emphasis on test taking and what it does it mental health. One of my friends in college was locked in her basement to practice for the SATs; she pulled a 2400 but has mental health issues due to her parents and they way they raised her.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a theory about the AA SAT scores. I’m a black female who went into a test heavy field (medicine) later in life, my family was pretty well off. The biggest thing I realized is the black community does not value these tests period. For example, we don’t really practice for the sat in my community or see it as something you can practice for. You kind of just take it and move on... we value other things in life. So when I went to take my McAT and was researching it, I can to find out that you can practice for these tests! I know it sounds dumb but literally I just thought it was a measure of intelligence that you couldn’t prep for.. Many of the Asian kids learned to drill for standardized tests at a young age, so of course they knew how to take the tests or tests. Simply put, the black community does not value these tests in the same way. At least in my community, we valued church and community. One should def look into Nigerian test scores as they are black but def value tests more as a community. Anyway, my husband and I will likely be UMC and have UMC kids but again we don’t value drilling SAT tests and such, we haven’t decided yet how we will handle this, as we also don’t see the huge point of drilling for tests at a young age, but I guess that would reproduce the chart above.

I was reading through this thread, wondering why no one was addressing cultural differences as a factor. This seems to me to be the most obvious answer. It is something that can be changed, but it does seem to be rather intractable. As a white person with Asian friends, I'm in a similar position -- I see what they're doing sending their kids to Kumon several times a week, etc., but I really would rather my dc be doing other things with their time. If you think of what the colleges are doing as adjusting for cultural differences between groups, the admissions standards become much more reasonable/rational. To me, the problem is not just that they are looking holistically at applicants and adjusting for background/cultural differences, but rather trying to socially engineer admissions with a preset view of what a "fair" admissions profile looks like.

The only problem with this is that research shows that blacks actually use test prep more than whites and Hispanics, both of which are groups which outscore them, whites significantly so. The only group which uses test prep more than blacks in the US are Asians.

Source?

https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/salon/files/2011/11/Racial_differences_SFJ_89_2_Alon-final.pdf : " One of the noteworthy findings in the BCR study is the racial and ethnic differences in the use of test preparation: blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites from comparable backgrounds to utilize test preparation. The black-white gap is especially pronounced in the use of high school courses, private courses and private tutors. The Hispanic-white gap is more modest, and is limited to the use of private tutors. "

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2012.01326.x : "Black non?Hispanic students are more likely to participate in test prep, and there are also significant interaction effects of race and grade level on prep, with black 11th graders having the highest predicted probability of prep"

https://www.jefftk.com/buchmann2010.pdf : "In contrast to predictions regarding social class inequalities, we suspect that racial/ethnic minorities will be as likely as, or even more likely than, whites to utilize test preparation"

Taking a prep class does not equal prioritizing a test to the extent of some cultures. It is just a class. Taking it does not mean you are prepping or making it a priority and it doesn't reflect a culture based on truly working to abolish the SAT. In fact, many of these classes are just a waste of time and a box you check (schools may sign students up for the class).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No asshole it’s that’s not everything isn’t about a stupid test and maybe we value other important things in life and also we were feed the idea that it measures intelligence, so the Why prep for something that is intelligence based. Not every community is obsessed with status.

The problem with focusing too much tests is that we end up professionals who care too much about prepping and packaging themselves and too little on doing their jobs.

Your command of the language is horrendous.

Oh. It's you again.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No asshole it’s that’s not everything isn’t about a stupid test and maybe we value other important things in life and also we were feed the idea that it measures intelligence, so the Why prep for something that is intelligence based. Not every community is obsessed with status.

The problem with focusing too much tests is that we end up professionals who care too much about prepping and packaging themselves and too little on doing their jobs.

Your command of the language is horrendous.

Anonymous wrote:No asshole it’s that’s not everything isn’t about a stupid test and maybe we value other important things in life and also we were feed the idea that it measures intelligence, so the Why prep for something that is intelligence based. Not every community is obsessed with status.

The problem with focusing too much tests is that we end up professionals who care too much about prepping and packaging themselves and too little on doing their jobs.