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 students 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 doesnt 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 dont 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 ...
Mostly the SAT isn’t about hard work.
Unfortunately, yes.
Engineering and most of the hard sciences can be learned online. Doctors, nurses, etc., are the ones who need some physical lab classes.
I would suggest that the rightward hump has to do with Lizzy’s cousins—the ones who heard that some ancestor had high cheek bones.
This is hilarious. It’s like asking the question, “Should people be rewarded based on their merit, or the color of their skin?” College administrators have no idea at all that they’re racists.
It is unjust to do otherwise.
Diversity is perversity.
A college degree is worth a small fraction of what it used to be worth because they will take virtually anyone who wants to apply.
I saw this first hand as a college tutor. Grown men who couldnt even do simple arithmetic and who didnt know a noun from an expletive.
Not quite. The SAT assesses a a broad base of subject MATTER knowledge, stuff you should have learned the first 10 or so grades of school.
IQ assesses aptitude for learning, for creative thinking outside of a box, independent of substantive subject matter.
An even better question is it fair to give scholarships and admission based on ones race and ethnicity?
Ps
When I went to pharmacy school all were admitted based on academic ability. Most were white, about 15 percent were of other ethnics. It should be noted that the orientals were the most excellent students.
Bookmarked to read. I did really well on my SATs. Did really well in college, too. No scholarships from SATs, however.
Forgot to add this. I worked for a black pharmacist for twenty years in a hospital. I had been management in the past and hated it. I want back to staff under my black friend as my boss. By his skills he most deserved his position and he was my friend. I think this is they way it is supposed to work. In my many years working for this man and friendship with him the subject of race never came up once with one exception. I had my DNA tested and found out I was slightly less that one percent black. I went to his office and told him of the results. I asked him, “can I now call you Bro.? We both laughed our ass off and just went back to work.
More benighted hand-wringing from more knee-jerk Lefties
Sounds familiar.
I think we need diversity in sports. Let’s give all the people a shot at it and let’s change the rules so they don’t get hurt by the neanderthals.
Same was true when I started college in 1963.
Yeah, lets just put the names in the two hats, the white male hat and the Minority hat and then draw 1:5 respectively. /sarc
diversity is something that happens in your goal to excellence.
Excellence does not happen in the goal of diversity.
Of course everyone wants a doctor who graduated bottom of his class and scored super low on the sat
The only real path they earned from all of their hard work was acceptance to several top universities.
My son was accepted to Purdue, Michigan, Princeton, and Georgia Tech, and wait listed at Cornell. He chose Purdue because they had the degree program for astronautical engineering that he wanted.
My daughter was accepted to Purdue, Penn State, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech. She chose Purdue because her brother was going there (they are only a year apart and very close). Like yours, she earned a degree in biomedical engineering.
Off all of those schools, none offered scholarships. Princeton came the closest by saying to us: “If you can’t afford to go to Princeton, you’ll go to Princeton.” I think if they based the criteria on that, we would have been excluded anyway. I never thought I’d see anyone turn down Princeton, but my son did hands down. Purdue had the program he wanted, and it’s paid off for his aspirations.
I was awarded a National Merit Scholarship in high school. Let me go to a nice school and get an engineering degree.
My kids will never get that chance, because they are white.
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