what difference do SAT scores make while majoring in Navel Gazing Studies or Angry "fill in the minority" Queer Studies, etc anyway?
Posted on 10/27/2015 3:39:38 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
Large and growing gaps in SAT scores, by race and ethnicity, are nothing new. The College Board and educators alike have acknowledged these gaps and offered a variety of explanations, with a focus on the gaps in family income (on average) and the resources at high schools that many minority students attend. And indeed there is also a consistent pattern year after year on SAT scores in that the higher the family income, on average, the higher the scores.
But a new, long-term analysis of SAT scores has found that, among applicants to the University of California's campuses, race and ethnicity have become stronger predictors of SAT scores than family income and parental education levels.
Further, the study has found that all three factors -- race/ethnicity, family income and parental education levels -- now predict one-third of the variance in SAT scores among otherwise similar students, up from a quarter in 1994. In other words, a larger share of SAT variance today than in 1994 may be predicted based on where and to whom a child is born.
The research was done by Saul Geiser and was released by the research center where he works, the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California at Berkeley.
Geiser is quick in the paper to acknowledge that his study is only of the applicant pool for the University of California and that he has not done research on the extent to which these trends play out nationally. However, his study was based on a very large pool: the more than 1.1 million California residents who applied to UC campuses from 1994 through 2011. And his study is based on the current and previous SAT, not the new one about to be unveiled.
But his findings suggest that those who hope for a closing of racial gaps on standardized tests used for college admissions may be in for disappointment.
Much of the study is based on regression analysis of different factors associated with SAT scores. By controlling for some factors, he can find which characteristics have the most influence.
And for those who wish race to play less of a role, Geiser notes that there were some years of hope. The share of score variance attributable to socioeconomic factors fell from 25 percent in 1994 to 21 percent in 1998. But in the years that followed it went back up to 35 percent.
In contrast, socioeconomic factors could not be linked in a major way to variance in high school grade point averages. Socioeconomic factors, including race and ethnicity, accounted for 7 percent of the variance in GPAs in 1994 and 8 percent in 2011.
Geiser considers several possible explanations for the increasing impact of race and other socioeconomic factors in predicting SAT scores. One that he takes seriously is the possibility that links growing rates of "intense segregation" in high schools, with more minority students attending high schools that are overwhelmingly minority and poorly resourced. For instance, the percentage of what researchers call "apartheid" schools -- those where 99-100 percent of students are nonwhite -- has doubled in the last two decades, and now represents one in 14 high schools. So the impact of race and class are, in many cases, combined for the minority students attending those schools.
Unlike some other critics of the SAT, Geiser doesn't push for its elimination as an admissions criteria. He notes that other measures don't necessarily help minority applicants.
However, Geiser does write that the SAT appears to be a poor predictor (especially for black and Latino students) of whether they will graduate from UC. A key caveat here is that the College Board has always stressed that the SAT is a tool for predicting first-year performance, not graduation. Still, Geiser writes that the consideration of the SAT depresses the chances of minority students getting in, while doing little to help admissions officers predict applicant success.
The solution, for Geiser, is to go back to what the University of California did when it adopted the SAT, but which the state's voters have barred it from doing today: considering race in admissions. He writes that if public universities are going to consider SAT scores in a serious way, they should also consider race and ethnicity.
"The continuing dominance of standardized admissions tests in American higher education is one of the most powerful arguments for affirmative action. Much of the original impetus for race-conscious policies grew out of recognition of the severe adverse impact of SAT scores on admission of students of color. Since then, that impact has not only continued but worsened, if the California data are any indication," writes Geiser.
"These findings underscore the continuing relevance of the original, remedial rationale for affirmative action. Rather than a remedy for historical discrimination, however, they show that race-conscious policies are essential to remedy unwarranted disparities in the present day. The adverse racial impact of SAT scores is far out of proportion with their limited capacity to predict how applicants will perform in college," he concludes.
Geiser makes his argument as the U.S. Supreme Court is once again considering the constitutionality of considering race in admissions.
Asked if he thought his findings could influence the justices or colleges, he said via email: "I have no idea whether my results might influence the court, but if other states were to observe the same trends, I think it might make a difference. I’m hoping that other institutional researchers will pick this up. As for the message to colleges, I think the important point is the linkage of affirmative action with standardized testing, not the emphasis on one or the other."
Roger Clegg, president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity, which opposes affirmative action, had a different take on the study.
"If a test is unreliable for certain races -- and this has long been alleged and long been refuted for the SAT, by the way -- then a school is perfectly justified in not using it, but it should try to find other measures that are reliable," Clegg said via email. "What it should not do is admit students who are less well qualified under any measure in order to reach a particular racial result."
How well does the SAT correlate with IQ testing?
Soon the only requirement needed to enter college will be the ability to color inside of the lines.
And shortly after that happens someone will claim that certain ethnicities cannot manage it.
The nonsense never ends.
.
Maybe it’s true.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
with more minority students attending high schools that are overwhelmingly minority and poorly resourced.
In Buffalo NY, the city high schools are predominantly black - yet the city (State and Feds) spend nearly $19,000 per student. 5th in the entire nation. Their graduation rate is 50%.
The surrounding suburban districts spends approx. $15,000 per student.
Blacks are excused from just about every responsibility because “it’s their culture”.
But when it comes to their failures we are told that it’s not the result of their culture, it’s always bias on the part of non-blacks.
Dads push kids to do better. They get on them to do better. Thats what black families lack. That isnt a mom’s primary nature. You need both. One that primarily can be your cherleader, and one that primarily makes you not rest on your laurels. Both mom and dad can do a little of the others role, but what comes naturaly to each is vital for kids to have both.
what difference do SAT scores make while majoring in Navel Gazing Studies or Angry "fill in the minority" Queer Studies, etc anyway?
Very highly.
IIRC Mensa used to accept a SAT score (above a certain value) as a proxy for a proper IQ test. That rule changed I think, because the correlation fell somewhat after a SAT reform.
Very highly.
IIRC Mensa used to accept a SAT score (above a certain value) as a proxy for a proper IQ test. That rule changed I think, because the correlation fell somewhat after a SAT reform.
Why? So you can put kids in college who just proved they don't belong there? Why must everyone go to college? I've never noticed that college graduates had a corner on the market for wisdom or holiness.
Not to mention: If white people are so terrible and unworthy of emulation, why is anyone trying to force black kids to emulate them? And if they do have something worth emulating, why does it matter whether some other group can match them statistically? The policy logic seems to be what Leftist pajama boys would call Caucasian-normative.
How well does the SAT correlate with IQ testing?
My understanding has always been that they are for the most part measuring the same thing—logic and reasoning—and correlate extremely closely.
Highly. The more important question is how SAT and other IQ-related tests correlate with performance. Frank Schmitt and John Hunter (retired organizational psychologists at MSU) have a mountain of data that supports the idea that IQ correlates with job performance. It is not debatable, unless leftists change the meaning of words and science,
Very well. The SAT is essentially an IQ test tailored to predict the likelihood of success in college. There are charts available that map SAT scores to IQ.
The usual suspects are attempting to ignore the fact that the average black IQ in America is 85. An honest dialog is impossible.
yes, it favors Chinese Americans...
That’s what I suspected having taken a few of both way back in the daze.
Isn’t MIT and Harvard now discriminating against Asians?
“However, Geiser does write that the SAT appears to be a poor predictor (especially for black and Latino students) of whether they will graduate from UC”
I have always suspected that most affirmative action student (admitted into the university because of their race) fill a space in some liberal arts department and get a degree for showing up for class. They don’t get degrees in any major that requires math and science. They get a worthless degree and then they get a gubmint and make more money than I do.
There is a racial aspect to the test. My white daughter scored 2350 and didn’t get into Yale.
About 10 years ago, there was a big push to get the racially biased questions out of the SATs. Maybe it even in the 1990s. There were all kinds of studies and changes. And yet, here we are with “growing gaps.” What is their angle here? Getting rid of the SATs? Turning every college admissions process into simple racial bean counting?
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