Colleges righteously gaming the SAT

[Hibush]

Has anybody looked at CHE lately? I ask because we seem not to be reacting to what is published there very much anymore.

There is an recent opinion column on the by-now tiresome topic of standardized tests. I enjoyed it for the meta story it tells.

We all know that many students game the SAT by taking cram classes that result in a score that is higher than what their general education would support. Elite colleges do their share to make sure they get average test scores that make them look good to prospects and higher rankings than they deserve in the simplistic magazine tables.

Now there is a chance to do double duty by going test-optional. First, only students who do awesome on the tests will submit scores, so the colleges mean score jumps without any change in the applicant pool. Win!  Second, the school can claim to be righteous in lowering the barrier for underrepresented applicants without changing anything else in their recruiting or admission processes. (They are not going test blind after all.) Win!

/s

[spork]

Our VP of enrollment management keeps claiming that the slow rise in SAT scores is evidence that the quality of our students is increasing. Admissions went test optional about ten years ago. Faculty think he's an idiot.

[Hibush]

Our VP of enrollment management keeps claiming that the slow rise in SAT scores is evidence that the quality of our students is increasing. Admissions went test optional about ten years ago. Faculty think he's an idiot.

If he starts to also claim the colleges increasing wokeness, will the faculty think he is more of an idiot? Or would that be seen in a different light?

[financeguy]

I have to laugh that the SAT was supposed to be the "great equalizer" that allowed a bright kid without social connection or wealth to compete for admission to elite institutions based on intellectual ability but is now seen as impediment to desired social outcomes when results are not even among groups. Gee, the test (and all others such as GRE, LSAT, MCAT, etc) must be biased. We refuse to admit as a society that anything can be objectively quantified, that facts don't care about feelings and that no matter how you slice it, 50% of children are below average.

[spork]

I have to laugh that the SAT was supposed to be the "great equalizer" that allowed a bright kid without social connection or wealth to compete for admission to elite institutions based on intellectual ability but is now seen as impediment to desired social outcomes when results are not even among groups. Gee, the test (and all others such as GRE, LSAT, MCAT, etc) must be biased. We refuse to admit as a society that anything can be objectively quantified, that facts don't care about feelings and that no matter how you slice it, 50% of children are below average.

How would you calculate the volume of space taken up by a cord of split, stacked firewood?

[marshwiggle]

I have to laugh that the SAT was supposed to be the "great equalizer" that allowed a bright kid without social connection or wealth to compete for admission to elite institutions based on intellectual ability but is now seen as impediment to desired social outcomes when results are not even among groups. Gee, the test (and all others such as GRE, LSAT, MCAT, etc) must be biased. We refuse to admit as a society that anything can be objectively quantified, that facts don't care about feelings and that no matter how you slice it, 50% of children are below average.

The "Lake Wobegone Effect" is a consequence of the "Silver Bullet Principle"; i.e. that there's a one-size-fits-all solution for everyone. The fact that half of the population are below average in any specific area doesn't preclude people finding a specific area where they're in the  avove average half. But that doesn't help recruiters relying on the one-size-fits-all mentality.

How would you calculate the volume of space taken up by a cord of split, stacked firewood?

How many kids these days would have the remotest idea what a cord is? Would it be "urbanist" to even ask the question?

[spork]

My point was that for some questions on a purported measure of intelligence like the SAT, the correct answer is actually culturally dependent. F=MA is accurate whereas F=MV is not, but asking that question about firewood ignores the fact that anyone who knows how to stack firewood includes space underneath the wood for air circulation.

If college admissions needs a metric to judge applicants' likely ability to academically succeed in college, zip code is better. If you're from a poor neighborhood with terrible schools than you are probably not going to do as well in college as someone from a wealthy neighborhood.

[ciao_yall]

The SAT was invented to keep out upwardly mobile children of less desirable (Jewish, Black, immigrant, etc) families.

So Stanley Kaplan, a Jewish man himself, started a business teaching SAT test prep as a way of (1) Beating the SAT, and (2) Hey, gotta have a hustle, amirite?

[dr_codex]

Has anybody looked at CHE lately? I ask because we seem not to be reacting to what is published there very much anymore.

There is an recent opinion column on the by-now tiresome topic of standardized tests. I enjoyed it for the meta story it tells.

/s

In a surprise turn of events, putting most of its content behind a paywall, and first hiding the fora, and then eliminating them outright, seems to have driven former free-content-providers like us elsewhere.

Shocking.

There's probably grant money available for a technical analysis.

dc

[apl68]

The SAT was invented to keep out upwardly mobile children of less desirable (Jewish, Black, immigrant, etc) families.

So Stanley Kaplan, a Jewish man himself, started a business teaching SAT test prep as a way of (1) Beating the SAT, and (2) Hey, gotta have a hustle, amirite?

The SAT/ACT/etc. story is a reminder that today's brilliant big-data technical solution to all our problems can end up, with the best of intentions, becoming tomorrow's much-hated status quo that's held responsible for all sorts of evils.

[marshwiggle]

The SAT was invented to keep out upwardly mobile children of less desirable (Jewish, Black, immigrant, etc) families.

So Stanley Kaplan, a Jewish man himself, started a business teaching SAT test prep as a way of (1) Beating the SAT, and (2) Hey, gotta have a hustle, amirite?

The SAT/ACT/etc. story is a reminder that today's brilliant big-data technical solution to all our problems can end up, with the best of intentions, becoming tomorrow's much-hated status quo that's held responsible for all sorts of evils.

This is not remotely limited to tech; there will always be a group in society looking for grievances who will interpret actions in the past according to attitudes of the present and finding them offensive.
What they fail to realize is that future generations will naturally do that to them as well, so in a few decades they will become the demons of the past.

[apl68]

The SAT was invented to keep out upwardly mobile children of less desirable (Jewish, Black, immigrant, etc) families.

So Stanley Kaplan, a Jewish man himself, started a business teaching SAT test prep as a way of (1) Beating the SAT, and (2) Hey, gotta have a hustle, amirite?

The SAT/ACT/etc. story is a reminder that today's brilliant big-data technical solution to all our problems can end up, with the best of intentions, becoming tomorrow's much-hated status quo that's held responsible for all sorts of evils.

This is not remotely limited to tech; there will always be a group in society looking for grievances who will interpret actions in the past according to attitudes of the present and finding them offensive.
What they fail to realize is that future generations will naturally do that to them as well, so in a few decades they will become the demons of the past.

Or to put it another way, success is never final.

Doesn't mean that nobody should ever try to introduce a solution to today's problems.  It does suggest that when advocating our solutions we need to have a certain humility, and an awareness of the law of unintended consequences.

[mamselle]

Yes.

Those who scorned 19th c. ameliorations as "half-way measures" too quisling to be stood for have come to realize that unless you want a roadblock every step of the way to some given reform, you need to be able to keep channels of conversation open and boundaries bright but somewhat fluid to make transitions towards and away from various respective goods and evils possible.

M. 

[financeguy]

I'm not advocating standardized tests as a perfect measure of intelligence, ability or whatever else one may claim to quantify, only that they are likely a better indicator than the subjective opinion of an admissions officer. But we don't need to take my word for this. We can look at the predictive validity of this or other tests.

Do LSAT and MCAT scores correlate with success on Bar and Medical Board exams? Yes.
Do SAT and ACT tests at least capture some of the likelihood of college success? (GPA, retention, etc.) Yes.

If these tests measured nothing they would be totally uncorrelated to later outcomes. They are despised not because they "don't work" but because they remove the SJW's job of tilting the scale in whatever direction their agenda lies.

[spork]

I'm not advocating standardized tests as a perfect measure of intelligence, ability or whatever else one may claim to quantify, only that they are likely a better indicator than the subjective opinion of an admissions officer. But we don't need to take my word for this. We can look at the predictive validity of this or other tests.

Do LSAT and MCAT scores correlate with success on Bar and Medical Board exams? Yes.
Do SAT and ACT tests at least capture some of the likelihood of college success? (GPA, retention, etc.) Yes.

If these tests measured nothing they would be totally uncorrelated to later outcomes. They are despised not because they "don't work" but because they remove the SJW's job of tilting the scale in whatever direction their agenda lies.

What published research are you referring to for this statement? IIRC, the association between SAT score and first-year college academic success as measured by GPA is pretty weak. Meanwhile a testing industry that is supposedly non-profit pays its executives really high salaries, and you have the test prep companies like Kaplan that enable those who can afford it to boost their scores, belying the College Board's claims of predictive validity for the SAT. This is why I said it's less expensive all around and just as predictive to use zip code.

I might have seen the OLS regression figures on SAT score and college GPA in The Big Test, but it's been a long time since reading that book and the book itself was published many years ago. I assume there is more recent research on this topic.