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Is It Fair to Award Scholarships Based on the SAT? Colleges are asking this question as they seek more diversity in their student bodies, worry that white students disproportionately score higher and compete for students with merit aid
Wall Street Journal ^ | February 2, 2020 | Douglas Belkin

Posted on 02/02/2020 10:35:07 AM PST by karpov

As schools like the University of California consider dropping the SAT as a requirement for admission due to concern that the test is biased, they run up against another question with a potentially bigger impact for students and their families: Should they continue to use SAT scores to award scholarships?

Colleges and universities give out about $30 billion a year in merit aid, which is often based on a student’s SAT or ACT. An additional $2 billion in merit aid distributed by states hinges on standardized test scores.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts stopped using the test for merit scholarships last year, said Andrew Palumbo, dean of admission. Instead, the school is weighing grades, community service and leadership. The school has made the SAT optional for applicants since 2007.

“Using the tests doesn’t help us achieve our goals” of diversifying the student body, he said. Students who apply without the test are just as successful as undergraduates as peers who do submit the test, he said.

The College Board, the New York-based nonprofit that oversees the SAT, said it has worried for years about income inequality influencing test results. White students scored an average of 177 points higher than black students did and 133 points higher than Hispanic students did in 2018 results. Asian students scored 100 points higher than white students did. The children of wealthy and college-educated parents outperformed their classmates.

Those gaps don’t reflect bias in the test itself but the lopsided distribution of resources across K-12 schools, the College Board has said. The College Board gives schools data to see students’ socioeconomic profile and considered creating a score to reflect this, a plan it dropped amid public objection.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News
KEYWORDS: bellcurve; college; education; race; sat
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To: Jim Noble

The best should get in...how about diversity for the baseball team???


21 posted on 02/02/2020 10:54:33 AM PST by Hojczyk
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To: karpov

I read a few years back I read articles about the origins of standardized tests for college admissions. It seems decades ago the students from the most prestigious prep schools and high schools had a big advantage getting into the colleges of their choice.

So, standardized testing was introduced to give the kids from less prestigious high schools a way to demonstrate their knowledge and abilities in comparison to the kids from the most prestigious schools. The tests were introduced to help the less advantaged kids show that they had just as much potential as the more advantaged.

But now, the right groups aren’t doing so well on the standardized tests and they must be de-emphasized, or maybe eliminated altogether at some colleges.


22 posted on 02/02/2020 11:00:34 AM PST by Will88 (The only people opposing voter ID are those benefiting from voter fraud.)
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To: karpov

And my doctor wonders why I always ask him if he got into Medical School through an Affirmative Action program.


23 posted on 02/02/2020 11:00:41 AM PST by eyeamok
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To: karpov

The students aren’t served by preferential grade boosts. It’s for the university’s benefit. Harvard gets its diversity Browny points, and the student that supposedly benefits learns nothing useful. There are highly intelligent black students who want to matriculate to a good school, but since they are in short supply, the big-name universities fight over them like dogs over a stray kitten. Personally, I think liberal arts universities are useless for today’s students. They’re doubly useless for minority students, except insofar as they provide connections for graduates. I learned a lot from a two-year college, then taught myself second-year Modern Standard Arabic and ancient Greek while commuting to and from work on the subways, as well as reading all of Shakespeare, Pound’s Cantos, lit crit, and other impractical but fun subjects perfect for long subway rides.


24 posted on 02/02/2020 11:02:15 AM PST by Eleutheria5 ("SHUT UP!" he explained.)
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To: karpov

Indeed. ‘Tis far better to award scholarships to almost reaching average folks like Bare-ass Dorkbama who we all know is most deserving of an education that obviously did not take.


25 posted on 02/02/2020 11:05:10 AM PST by Da Coyote
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To: karpov

“Using the tests doesn’t help us achieve our goals” of diversifying the student body, he said.

That isn’t your job and it shouldn’t be your goal. It was someone else’s job, 17 years ago, and realistically, 50 years ago.

“Students who apply without the test are just as successful as undergraduates as peers who do submit the test, he said.”

Define “success” as used here. I call BS on this.

I suspect that this is one of the only countries in the world where academic testing is controversial...


26 posted on 02/02/2020 11:14:57 AM PST by The Antiyuppie (“When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day”)
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To: DoughtyOne

“Anyone here want a 2.00 grade point surgeon?“

Well,don’t forget what you call a doctor who graduated last in his or her class.

Doctor.


27 posted on 02/02/2020 11:18:17 AM PST by The Antiyuppie (“When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day”)
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To: Jim Noble
Sending a kid below 1450 to H-Y-P-S is signing him up to be tortured.

I would argue that these institutions are torture, no matter what your score.

28 posted on 02/02/2020 11:20:50 AM PST by bkopto
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To: Jim Noble

Sending a kid below 1450 to H-Y-P-S is signing him up to be tortured. When you look at the suicides, I bet most of them are in this category.

I saw this happen. It’s “fair”, like sending infantry soldiers off to war with zero training.


29 posted on 02/02/2020 11:21:22 AM PST by The Antiyuppie (“When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day”)
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To: karpov
The Bell Curve (Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, 1994) is there for a reason.
30 posted on 02/02/2020 11:22:49 AM PST by Carl Vehse
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

As much as the Left thumps their chest is proclaiming their allegiance to science, the science of IQ is an anathema to them.


31 posted on 02/02/2020 11:24:51 AM PST by bkopto
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To: karpov

Yes, it is right to take the brightest students, for they have worked hard to get where they are. The lazy, unambitious, or grifter students should go somewhere else. SATs are not fair - they are challenging and they weed out the best.


32 posted on 02/02/2020 11:27:44 AM PST by bboop (does not suffer fools gladly)
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To: bboop

The world needs ditchdiggers, too.


33 posted on 02/02/2020 11:29:21 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: karpov

In the interest of transparency and disclosure universities should disclose what is under the diversity requirement and what is not. Are the football and basketball teams to meet diversity requirements? What about the cheerleaders? What about the band? What about admission to scholarship societies? There is a long list.


34 posted on 02/02/2020 11:34:04 AM PST by ActresponsiblyinVA
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To: karpov

Fair???

Who cares?


It's THEIR money; they can distribute it any way they want!!

35 posted on 02/02/2020 11:41:04 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: bkopto

The Left only believes in “science” that supports their totalitarian agenda and anything that does is “science.”

“Science” says there are 187 human sexes, for instance.


36 posted on 02/02/2020 11:54:11 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (Democrats only believe in democracy when they win the election.)
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Oh yeah....let the dummies in to get the advanced degrees....that will be great for the country and advancement of civilization in general....identity politics, diversity, and political correctness are destroying this country....why shouldn’t I be a starting qb in the nfl?.....am I not equal???


37 posted on 02/02/2020 11:57:27 AM PST by TnTnTn
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To: The Antiyuppie

Yes, and sadly the public never knows when they are calling that person.


38 posted on 02/02/2020 12:07:09 PM PST by DoughtyOne (Time to up our FR Monthlies by 5-10%. You'll < hardly miss it and it will help.)
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To: karpov

Typical liberal twisted logic. They should be more concerned that blacks score lower than if whites score higher. Effort should be made to raise blacks up, not bring whites down. Of course their bigotry is oblivious to them.


39 posted on 02/02/2020 12:08:59 PM PST by bk1000 (Banned from Breitbart)
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To: karpov

The “academic-industrial complex” is a bubble of greater relative proportions than health-care or housing.

If Trump wants a real political winner - he will pop that bubble.


40 posted on 02/02/2020 12:14:26 PM PST by PGR88
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