Posted on 06/23/2019 5:55:34 AM PDT by reaganaut1
As Americans debate the roles of wealth, race and access in higher education, researchers at Georgetown University wondered: What would the nation’s most selective colleges and universities look like if they admitted students solely on the basis of SAT scores?
Their answer: The most prestigious U.S. campuses would be wealthier, whiter and more male—leading researchers to question the role standardized testing plays in a fair, comprehensive admissions process.
More than half the students now enrolled at the top 200 colleges and universities would lose their seats to students who performed better on the test—and the median SAT score would rise by 70 points to 1320, the study found.
The biggest losers in this reshuffling were black and Latino students, whose numbers would be cut nearly in half, to 11% of all students from 19%. The share of Asian students would slip to 10% from 11%. The principal winners were wealthy white male students, whose ranks would increase. But a large number of white students would lose their seats and be replaced with other white students.
“The affluent have extraordinary advantages in college admissions,” said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, which performed the analysis. Until 2005, Mr. Carnevale was a vice president at Educational Testing Service, which is a client of The College Board and administers the SAT.
Many elite colleges consider a range of factors such as grades, extracurricular activities and teacher recommendations in what they call a holistic admissions approach. They also try to build a diverse student body and might look for students from underrepresented ethnic or racial backgrounds or geographical regions.
The holistic admissions process has come under fire following the disclosure this spring of the biggest cheating ring federal prosecutors say they have ever seen.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
When I took the tests back in the early 60s, the Verbal section was not my strength and I thought I did most poorly on the reading sections. So I always looked for the sections that discussed something I was interested it. Astronomy was the most usual. I could just answer the questions without doing the reading.
Fast forward to the 90s when my kids were taking the tests. Now I was acing the Verbal sections too when I took the practice tests. And I found again that you could answer about 75% of the reading questions without doing the reading. One had only to pick the most* politically correct statement from the five (Or was it four?) choices given as possible answers. NO POLITICALLY CORRECT STATEMENT COULD EVER BE CONSIDERED WRONG.
ML/NJ
* It wouldn't surprise me that if there were more than one suggested answer than might be considered politically correct, that each would be considered as correct.
I have a large working vocabulary because my parents had a large working vocabulary. I think that if you grow up in a household with educated English-speaking parents you do have an advantage on the SAT/ACT that is not purely a function of intelligence, but also environment.
Hard work and dedication to purpose are the things that govern success in life, not Ivy League diplomas.
Why are we the only country in the world willing to water down the educational opportunity of higher intelligence?
Is there a test to evaluate an individual’s common sense and critical thinking abilities?
Besides combat, that is.
I appreciate the corrections I received
Those who speak for History, Philosophy, Ethics Are seeking Vision
Those who speak for Literature are seeking to bridge the boundaries of Empathy and Understanding
Our understand of God would be severely diminished
without the Gift of The Torah
Along with the Greeks, the Philosophies of
Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism should not be discounted.
Far East Asians are not counted as URMs but southeast and Pacific Islanders are. So the share of East Asians would go up but southeast and Pacific Islanders would go way down.
Interesting. Sounds decently likely, though in general those groups of course aren’t near an Ivy League merit score cutoff point—they could dilute the percentage of actual Asians who are.
I on the other hand, grew up in a family with a 3rd grade education and a mother with a 6th grade education. They were both from the Appalachians and spoke fluent hillbilly and nothing else. I scored in the 99th percentile on my SAT back in the day. My brother became a civil engineer and I somehow became a nuclear chemist.
By the way, though "uneducated" my parents were some of the most intelligent people I have ever known.
Look at the children of smart non-English speaking immigrants who grow to ace the SAT and you will recognize that smart students climb either way. Is it perhaps not absolutely 100.0000% precisely fair/accurate? Of course, nothing in life is. But it is much more fair and accurate than anything else we have.
The Achievement tests and Advanced Placement tests measure knowledge.
The SAT is intended to measure college readiness, that is to say, intelligence or intellectual capacity.
Of course, it can't help testing knowledge in something like the vocabulary section, but that's not the test's main purpose.
From what I can find out, the ACT is also intended as a test of college readiness, but doesn't present itself as a measure of raw intelligence, as the SAT tries to.
“Their answer: The most prestigious U.S. campuses would be wealthier, whiter and more male.”
IOW prospective students who are more qualified are being discriminated against on the basis of race, on the altar of diversity and sports titles. Admissions are being based on political value judgements and agendas rather than merit. I’m an old dinosaur stuck on the notion that real universities should be about research and high-end education rather than politics and semi-pro sports.
GPA is too subject to manipulation and inflation these days to be reliable, but could tell about relative work ethic.
In other words white females would lose to white males.
We aren't.
It's just less obvious in other countries because their national governments still impose national tests for high school graduates.
Behind the scenes, though, the same forces are at work in Britain and France as here.
Another way of saying you wanted to spend time in the Mental Gym and learn how to think.
...getting my PhD...and driving a truck for a living.
After 1-6 months you would started to think about building a trucking company and it would have been successful.
You must have loved the movie October Sky
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Sky
My family is 8 generations West Virginia
I... understand where you are coming from
One quickly learns to reason when everyday survival is at stake.
As an early Henry Fonda "hillbilly" character said, "I learnt along time ago that just 'cause its wrote down on paper don't make it so."
My family was up in those hills going back to shortly afer the Jamestown era.
Those hillfolk are as a rule, underestimated by the educated classes.
If Colleges were rated on student productivity and employment, most of them would close their doors.
Amazingly, people do believe that if it’s printed, it’s true.
“He was a “B” high school student.”
—
He only got into Punahou because he was black.
.
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