SATs, Colorblindness & New Movies on Race | Glenn Loury & John McWhorter | The Glenn Show
SATs, Colorblindness & New Movies on Race | Glenn Loury & John McWhorter | The Glenn Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJfWmRQz4C0
Tag: SAT
Why elite colleges are bringing the SAT back
“according to Opportunity Insights’ findings, it can be the case that tests reinforce inequality generally but also allow schools to identify individual kids who are academically prepared despite challenging circumstances.”
https://www.vox.com/24083809/college-university-sat-testing-requirement-ivy-league-yale
Could Elite Colleges Embrace the SAT Again?
“While many are put off by the persistent score gaps across racial and economic lines, the idea that ditching the test will help minority students or those from low-income families is short-sighted. Yes, SAT scores correlate with income and race—but so do high school GPAs and essays, the other metrics elite colleges most often rely on in the absence of test scores.
GPA is a particularly muddy metric to rely on when making admissions decisions for highly selective colleges, as rigor—and grade inflation—varies widely between high schools. Leonhardt highlighted two recent studies that show this. One found that SAT scores were much more predictive of success (such as being admitted to a top graduate school or being employed by a prestigious firm) than high school GPA. The second found that college grades were much better predicted by standardized test scores than by high school grades.”
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“Ultimately, those who stand to benefit most from test-optional admissions aren’t disadvantaged students but mediocre wealthy ones. Standardized test scores, while imperfect, are the closest to an objective measure colleges have for making admissions decisions—one that isolates academic achievement from expensive extracurriculars and tutor-polished essays.”
https://reason.com/2024/01/08/could-elite-colleges-embrace-the-sat-again/
Killing the SAT To Help Underprivileged Students Actually Benefits Rich Kids
“The study provides yet more evidence that the recent move to ditch SAT and ACT test requirements in favor of a higher emphasis on nonacademic measurements will end up hurting low-income students rather than helping them. While a move away from standardized testing has been hailed as a move to increase racial and economic equality, a greater reliance on admissions essays, extracurriculars, and teacher ratings will make it harder for talented yet disadvantaged students to prove themselves when applying to elite universities. One 2021 study backed this up, finding that student essays were more closely correlated with income than SAT scores.”
The SATs are: a) dying; b) already dead; c) alive and well; d) here forever
https://www.vox.com/23700778/sat-act-standardized-tests-college-high-school
If Harvard Cared About Equality, It Would Abolish Legacy Admissions, Not ACT and SAT Requirements
“Harvard University has decided to extend its pandemic policy of making SAT and ACT scores optional for applicants until at least 2026, which means standardized test scores won’t play much of a role in admissions decisions for years to come, if ever again at all.
Harvard cited the pandemic as the reason for the extension, but the broader push to abolish the ACT and SAT in college admissions is grounded in a misguided idea that the tests are unfair to underprivileged teenagers. The University of California system, for instance, has moved to stop requiring the exams due to concerns that they disfavored black and Hispanic applicants.”
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“As Freddie de Boer, author of The Cult of Smart, has argued very persuasively, some combination of grade point average and SAT/ACT scores is highly predictive of success in college. And it’s simply not true that prioritizing test scores punishes racial minorities more than alternative admissions standards. On the contrary, the more that schools rely on non-academic criteria such as extracurricular activities and legacy status, the more they reward applicants who are wealthy and well-connected. A gifted but impoverished Latino teen who is the first in his family to finish high school has a better shot in a system that cares about his SAT score than in a system that cares if his parents paid for clarinet lessons and secured him a spot on the water polo team.”
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“If institutions like Harvard really cared about being fair to the unprivileged, they’d take a machete to legacy admissions: a special boost to applicants who are the scions of previous graduates.”
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“The most prestigious educational institution in the country should take the brightest students, and standardized tests are a better metric for that than the alternatives on offer.”