Posted on 03/28/2022 8:03:32 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
What are you giving up for Lent? California State University is giving up academics — at least where standardized testing for admission is concerned.
The school’s Board of Trustees issued the decision Wednesday.
Due to the pandemic, CSU had temporarily axed ACT and SAT considerations. Now it’s been made permanent.
Why would a school terminate tests which determine how good a student is at school in order to decide whether they should be let into a school that doesn’t let everyone in? Well, maybe the school lets everyone in. But according to CSU acting Chancellor Steve Relyea, it’s about leveling the playing field. He made that clear to CBS News:
“This decision aligns with the California State University’s continued efforts to level the playing field and provide greater access to a high-quality college degree for students from all backgrounds.”
Down with stress:
“In essence, we are eliminating our reliance on the high-stress, high-stakes test that has shown negligible benefit and providing our applicants with greater opportunities to demonstrate their drive, talents and potential for college success.”
If someone has “drive, talents and potential for college success,” they’d presumably do well on tests. Then again, maybe doing well on tests is no longer necessary for college success:
Professor Razes the Evil of Writing Rules, Whacks White Supremacy by Gonging Grades
University Professor Goes the Route of ‘Ungrading’ — in Math
Excellence Awaits: Professors Make Their Case for Ending Grades
That may only be fair, since university newcomers won’t necessarily have been previously required to garner good grades:
Virginia School District Targets Inequity by Shooting at Grades and Deadlines
Oregon’s Education Dept. Takes a Stand Against Standards — Racism, to the Layperson
In Order to Attack ‘Systemic Racism,’ a School Eliminates Failure and Time Constraints
As for the SAT, the test itself has undergone adjustment. In May of 2019, RS Editor-At-Large Kira Davis explained:
Typically, we think about this idea in terms of the rich shutting out the poor, but a new strategy for judging SAT scores throws the old stereotype out the window. In this newest scheme to “even the playing field” the College Board (which oversees SAT testing) has decided they will add a new “adversity score” when grading their college entrance exams. The intention is to add points to the grades of students who come from areas that score higher on the “adversity” scale. It will take into account crime rates, poverty rates and property values.
In education, it’s a new day. Meritocracy is, well, old-school. As such, it’s not earning merit with cutting-edge experts.
Some of those, evidently, sit on the California State University Board of Trustees. The vote to sack the SAT and ACT was unanimous.
Standardized test scores can still be used for placement in subjects such as math, but that’s on the move, too:
A Major News Outlet Asks if Math is Racist
https://t.co/YxxOsvu8wd— RedState (@RedState) December 10, 2021
Major University Professor Fights Math's 'Harbor for Whiteness' https://t.co/6NWoqgBpsD
— RedState (@RedState) August 18, 2021
who needs admission tests when bribes work better?
Smith,Cornell, and University of Chigago don’t require them….all great schools.
.
Who needs testing when your getting a degree in trans studies with a minor in fisting?
>> according to CSU acting Chancellor Steve Relyea, it’s about leveling the playing field
In other words, K-16
Does this mean a student taking Honor Roll or AP curriculum is wasting their time?
In other words, Asians need not apply.
Lowering standards so all the foreigners invading our borders “get a fair chance”.
Yeah....keep lying to the students so they stay in school and the school can get those government grants. I don’t support schools that teach nonsense majors that are just made up to get government monies. The schools are just as bad as the fly by night “technical” schools.
No. They will be able to function at a high level. Will have many opportunities come their way.
SAT, GRE and ACT are useless marketing tools from the 1960’s. Admissions to colleges is confusing and random. UC Berkeley got 120,000 applicants last year and accepted 5,000. How? People sit around a table with a pile of applicants, talk about the weather and grab a few applications here and there to accept. Everyone knows that the 27 Cal States are graduate high schools and major employers like Bayer, Sybase and Amgen don’t really look at diplomas apart from twenty major schools. MIT is by far the best college and a simple acceptance letter from MIT is worth more than a diploma from hundreds of other colleges.
My advice? Every person deserved an excellent education which he can get anywhere with a library, a tutoring center and a pizza place. No reason to drop big bucks for college.
Two of my kids are attending/have graduated from Cal State. This is a complicated issue. All of my boys did better on their SATs than their GPAs would predict—some boys are “late bloomers.”
But studies do show that GPAs are better predictors (or at least equal predictors) than SATs of academic success. So in one sense, no great loss.
Bottom line for all non-Californians here: it’s very easy to get into any of the 23 Cal State campuses other than San Luis Obispo and San Diego. You need a 2.5 and you are good to go.
The real problem now is UC. Nine campuses. Applications have skyrocketed due to no SAT (that hurdle is gone), and the essay now has more importance. Horror stories abound about 4.5 students being rejected from most or all UCs now (except for Merced who rejects nobody).
Asians are hurt most by this (not whites).
Gavin Newson is doing ONE good thing to help Californians here: he’s reducing the out-of-state and out-of-US students gradually, down to 10% by 2033. Currently it’s 25%.
The college admissions system nationwide is really broken.
You can include Asians in that.
That is already happening. 60% of college students are women. Making it so much harder to get the MRS degree. Guys are finding better opportunities without a worthless degree and all that college debt
SAT’s are required for whites.
Banana republic with nukes.
Without standards these schools are just waving a magic wand and giving semi-literates a degree in exchange for a large IOU; the debt-laden “grad” then goes into the workforce without skills but equal to real students on paper. This starts a series of racial grievance complaints that last a lifetime as the person never earns enough to justify the school debt.
The government used to invent jobs for those tokens but ran out of money to do so; now the government simply pressures companies to add them to their payrolls in fake jobs; a “diversity tax” (and sues any who fail to do so at the set rate).
Yep. This will pay off financially in the short term, at least: First, they can save money on the admissions process by not screening. Second, they can welcome in a group of unqualified kids, get their first semester’s tuition, and when the kids drop out after 6 weeks, the college keeps the money.
They should lose their accreditation.
The only problem with GPAs as indicators is the massive grade inflation in the public schools. I know: I was a teacher with LAUSD for 16 years, and I inflated along with everyone else (well, I didn’t inflate the A’s and B’s, but I did everything I could to turn F’s and D’s into C’s, because admin made it clear that if we didn’t, all fails were our fault. I took the earliest retirement I could because the whole system made me sick.)
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