Posted on 09/23/2008 11:44:06 PM PDT by reaganaut1
A commission convened by some of the country’s most influential college admissions officials is recommending that colleges and universities move away from their reliance on SAT and ACT scores and shift toward admissions exams more closely tied to the high school curriculum and achievement.
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It encourages institutions to consider dropping admission test requirements unless they can prove that the benefits of such tests outweigh the negatives.
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Mr. Fitzsimmons’s group, which was convened by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, also expresses concerns “that test scores appear to calcify differences based on class, race/ethnicity and parental educational attainment.” The report calls on admissions officials to be aware of such differences and to ensure that differences not related to a student’s ability to succeed academically be “mitigated in the admission process.”
“Society likes to think that the SAT measures people’s ability or merit,” Mr. Fitzsimmons said. “But no one in college admissions who visits the range of secondary schools we visit, and goes to the communities we visit — where you see the contrast between opportunities and fancy suburbs and some of the high schools that aren’t so fancy — can come away thinking that standardized tests can be a measure of someone’s true worth or ability.”
Mr. Fitzsimmons said that at Harvard high school grades and the College Board’s individual subject tests are considered better predictors of college success than the SAT, also administered by the College Board, or ACT, and that the university is studying the use of standardized tests in its admissions. He added that it was possible that the university might eventually make such tests optional.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Fitzsimmons' comment that standardized tests do not measure "someone’s true worth or ability" is stupid. "True worth" is too nebulous a concept to be measured in any way. There *is* evidence that standardized tests measure (imperfectly, as all measurements do) the academic ability needed to succeed in college.
What should they rely on? An intensive series of interrogations? The feeling they get deep down in their hearts when they read an application? Coin flips?
This sounds a lot like “calls to put less focus on credit ratings for mortgage lending” to get more people in home ownership...
We all know where that led...
You nailed it. The SAT (even after PC based dumbing down) is one of the few semi-objective measures of actual intelligence remaining. Of course the leftists want to kill it.
well at least have them say their ABC’s,you could get 80% of applicants in that way,,but no one wants their enemies to understand or think in any advanced or independent way,,its sad in todays world that we struggle so hard to make things better and keep our good traditions and values and are attacked in every way at every turn by enemies within and without,,how long can we hold out?
The stupid bleeding heart, only worry about today, never tomorrow or long term consequences, as a result they are taking us down the socialist path, which ALWAYS leads to misery, poverty, and starvation. SOCIALISM fails when ever it is tried, it is philosophy of crooks and losers, and it CANNOT WORK, EXCEPT IT. All they are doing is stealing resources away from winners, and wasting them on losers.
You stupid sod. You sound just like those incredibly misguided (and of course, racist) people who founded the United States of America.
I trust a < /sarc> tag isn't necessary.
Nope. It all breaks down to breakfast. If you have something for breakfast which gives you really obnoxxious gas, you can make those around you sick, and (in between gas pains) do better than they do on the test, which will make your score look relatively good for that year. /sarc.
Makes just as much sense as that drivel.
Yes, opportunities can make a difference, but there were those of us who took advantage of every opportunity we had and tested higher than those from nicer and better funded schools who did not apply themselves.
If you are trying to protect people who do not apply themselves and school administrators and staff who have failed miserably despite ever-increasing injections of taxpayer dollars, I would imagine anything which approaches an objective standard measure of individual academic achievement would be anathema to you.
If ya use the S.A.T. test then it is harder to pack schools with whatever minority percentage ya care to use as admissions officers.
Ain’t higher education grand?
I think it is wrong for the universities to require me to meet any minimum requirements. I feel as if I could be a very good Brain Surgeon. :0)
We’ve got to get more Obama’s into Columbia and Harvard.
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