It almost took an act of God to get a correction made on a transcript. No money. It was a mistake the school made.
@mdphd92 I think they will look closely at students working with private admissions counselors who advocate directly with the colleges, especially if that student is graduating from an elite HS where they have a robust college counseling program already.
2018
@magic panther
That is an interesting question. I don’t know about other sports because I haven’t done the research. In my daughters sport, which is fencing, the top 9 ranked girls in her weapon were recruited by Ivy schools. Of those 9, two came from private prep schools. The rest from suburban and selective publics.
2109
@privatebanker – exactly right.
Sullie Sullenberger is a really good pilot because he got a lot done in the couple minutes between LaGuardia runway and touching down in the Hudson. The speed/pressure aspect is highly relevant to that job. For academics, how relevant is that skill?
There’s no time limit on term papers, for example. What counts is how good the paper is, not how long or short the writing time was. But totally different answer if you are writing on deadline for a newspaper – performance with time pressure is key. ER docs and surgeons need to act fast. Radiologist and oncologist don’t need to be fast – they need to be right. So take all the time you need; run a second set of tests if you want.
I personally had the skill to correctly do SAT type questions fast, and it helped get me admitted some places. I have no idea if my percentile would have been lower if everyone was given 50% extra time. My kid is smart but slow. Got great scores and got into a great school. But only could do that with extra time. I have no idea whether my high/fast scores or my kid’s higher/slower scores are more impressive or more relevant for the purpose of college admission.
My kid had years of LD diagnosis, treatment, 504 plan etc. etc. etc. So the ACT accommodations were completely legit. But how “disabled”, really, was my able bodied successful surburban kid? I’m sure plenty of other parents would think my kid’s extra time was BS, and was due to heli-parents agressively gaming the test for our little snowflake.
I do know that my smart/slow kid is doing well at quite fancy college. But does really have to grind more than other kids. Since most of the classmates at the fancy school are smart/fast. They can give you more time for the tests, but you can’t get more time in the day/week.
But bottom line, I bet the system could do without the time pressure on the SAT/ACT.
If testing is eliminated or reduced in importance. The blame game will simply switch to another culprit.
Grade inflation, not enough aps at my school, aps are over rated, ib is harder, bad teachers, lousy district, teachers pets etc.
It has to be a reasonable combination of all available information.
Grades, scores, writing ability, recommendations and activities. And professionals with experience and institutional goals inhand make the best darn decision they can.
If life as in admission. “Fair is rarely simple. And simple is rarely fair.”
The wealthy and the upper middle class will redeploy money to help their kids improve in other measures of merit.
Or people will give up on the idea of meritocracy and some will continue to find ways to cheat.
There may be good reasons to reduce the importance of some standardized tests, or try to change the nature of standardized tests, but they may not necessarily affect the disparity in opportunities (both in honest merit achievement and dishonest cheating) created by differences in parental money in the longer term (as those with money adjust to the new regime).
I really don’t understand this lawsuit.
These students seem to be saying “we knew when we applied that our seats might be taken by students whose parents gave large sums of money directly to the university or students who got special accommodations on standardized tests that gave them double the time or students whose private schools have severe grade inflation, or students who are only there for a year to play basketball or students whose parents are very famous or who hired a $50,000/year “admissions consultant” in 9th grade to help them choose activities to craft the perfect Ivy-worthy application. But we are harmed because we didn’t know a few seats were – without the admissions’ committee’s knowledge – being designated as recruited athletes by corrupt coaches so they could get in.”
It seems odd that there would be no grounds for a lawsuit if the parents had just given the money directly to the university and the university admitted those students as special admits, but because the admissions’ office would not allow that, it means they are more likely to get sued.
I can understand the harm done to a high level student athlete who didn’t get that recruit’s spot at Yale or Georgetown or University of Pennsylvania or USC (or perhaps at other colleges yet to be identified) because another student got that seat via fraud or connections. But the other students are harmed by lots of admissions policies that favor the people with money much more than a few seats going to people who scammed the student-athlete system.
Sully actually read multiple dials and made mathematical assumptions that was really important. But, I’m talking in broad generalities.
When mission control received the “Houston we have a problem” message, it didn’t say and please take all the time you need.
But I am for extra accommodation. And being generous about it. And no telling the schools either. Just making a point.
But, unlimited test times is just not practical. Proctors, buildings, kids schedules, and just the amount of material needed to be covered. There’s a time limit because of logistical concerns and reasonableness.
Make the exams a couple of hours
longer. Doesn’t have any impact on me.
If a student has visual impairment give them an untimed test.
But being able to process complex situations under stress does have applicable real world applications. I gave a few. You chose one to discuss. It’s just a thing some people can do and some people can’t. Like dunking a basketball or completing a perfect high dive. To say there’s no value to the skill or gift contradicts giving any other natural gift any value.
Our experience as well! Our school uses PowerSchool and the teachers have until a specific date to complete grades. We had an issue with the Chem Teacher last year, resulting in a failing grade in the system. The teacher was terminated, and the Guidance Counselor who knew what happened was laid off (whole other story - 4 GC over 3 years!). Managed to get the grade changed, but the transcript doesn’t show credit earned. Then two other classes that mysteriously weren’t credited at the correct level, impacting the weighted average. She’s a Junior, so we need it corrected before this summer - it will have significant impact on automatic merit scholarships. It’s made harder by a GC who is new to the school, teachers who are no longer there, and a district office that requires a robust paper trail for any grade/level changes. Thank God I saved every email between myself and the old GC regarding the Chemistry grade, but I’m not particularly hopeful about the other changes. It’s a small school, and honors level is by contract - little did we know we should have asked for a copy of the signed contracts.
interesting article supporting testing…
https://quillette.com/2019/03/13/standardized-testing-and-meritocracy/?mod=article_inline
@CTScoutmom yep…we saved everything…including all the report cards. All of them.
It was still a hassle to get the transcript corrected to accurate. But it happened!
I never suggested that standardized tests be eliminated. I said…I think the tests are too long for everyone. Five hours of tests? Come on. That’s a long time!
I believe the prep schools have some responsibility in this - the tests require accommodations to go through the high school and/or the 504 or IEP to be submitted. My child only requested use of her hearing device and to sit in front (no extra time) one of the organizations (SAT or ACT) requires that requests be completely done through the high school. Unless the high school is requesting extra time for most of their students, something is very wrong…I think the extra time accommodation needs to be more transparent, I would love to know percent of extra time scores that are in top percentages. I also believe if the testing orgs cannot fairly determine who legitimately needs extra time, they should offer two tests to every child, one timed and one untimed and the type taken should be reported to colleges.
Everything you said is true. I saw Apollo 13. I was mostly joking about the ER doc. I will add to your list, “improv comedy actor.” Trust me, you need to think fast on stage! The thing is all of those jobs require speed in different areas, none of which are well tested by the ACT. Additionally, they each have their own barriers to entry where the relevant skills are tested.
The problem is that the SAT/ ACT is the gateway to the entire university, not to any specific speed dependent career. The vast majority of what students need to do at college does not require that kind of speed. When someone gets a less than perfect score on the ACT, the university has no way of knowing whether it is because she didn’t have the knowledge, ability or time. I think the college should care about that.
@gallentjill Improv. That’s for real!
I think we all are on the same page. I have no answers.
I’m close to that viewpoint. The ACT/SAT, for better or worse, is designed as a speed test, who can run a 6 minute mile? If fully able bodied kids can get a a slow running disorder label from their doctor and then get 9 or 12 minutes to run the mile, it creates incentives for a lot of questionable behavior.
Like everything else, when there are different rules for different people, there will be some who bend the rules to help them. There most definitely are kids who need extra time for various learning/physical and other issues. But that should not mean that they are easy to get. Why can’t getting an extension of time, be tied to having an IEP or specific medical record in high school? It seems there are far too many who are using this extension to raise their scores. Also, this should be reported on the scores. That way the AO can factor it back in, makes sense for someone with ADHD for example but why does this kid have extra time? Don’t know how they can reframe it, but the college admissions process has gone haywire. And SAT’s are only a small part of the problem.
I think the extra time or ADHD kids does not make sense. Some ADHD kids need more time, some need less.
They should make special tests independent of time for ADHD kids. Written answer tests are probably better than multiple choice tests.
Thanks for the link to that article. It is interesting but glosses over a lot.
In fact, we have no idea how high Zoe Kazan’s SATs were, just that they improved 200 points after paying tutors. The problem is that we seem to have a system where the students of the wealthy and famous just need to hit a bar (and some of them can “legally” game the system so that their child has extra time) while regular middle class or even upper middle class unconnected students often need a much higher score.
That article said: "Another way to describe the legacy advantage is that legacies get in if they can score at the 95th percentile, while unhooked applicants must score above the 99th percentile. "
Students who score at the 95th percentile on standardized tests are capable and bright and deserving of seats. And if they are connected or parents donate enough money, they will usually get them while many middle class students or upper middle class students who score in the 99th percentile will not. There is an argument to be made that a 1440 SAT score is no different than a 1550 but most unhooked middle class or upper middle class students from public schools are expected to score much higher than the 95th percentile.
That’s fine, as long as those students understand they are in seats that would have gone to higher scoring students whose parents aren’t famous or rich enough to donate a library if the process was only about merit. Instead, they are certain that they deserved the seat that they believe they got entirely on merit – i.e.,they were better than all the other applicants and would have been chosen even if the applications were read without anyone knowing who their parents were.
The presence of a donor’s list or athlete’s list suggests that universities understand that those students are not very likely to be admitted if the admissions committee just viewed their applications in comparison with all the other middle class and upper middle class (but not particularly wealthy) students applying.
Universities are absolutely free to do this because admitting famous or very rich students who are not as academically stellar as students they turn down meets one of their institutional needs. But it seems obvious by the way the ad coms identify these students that they weren’t likely to be admitted if their application was treated like everyone else’s. So when I read Rob Lowe’s son’s tweet about how he got into Stanford because he “earned” it, I wonder at the definition of “earned”.
Overseas, in the UCAS system, the “tutor” (teacher recommender) must himself or herself sign as to the veracity of the application contents, as a separate but important feature of that application. Obviously that implies that such an adult has done his or her due diligence with regard to verification – including asking the student questions about all of the alleged activities, awards, etc. Enforcing more accountability in the American system would be, therefore, a start.
Requiring a graded paper (incidentally being mailed directly by the school, not the student) in place of the SAT/ACT writing sample would also help. (Princeton is already requiring graded papers.)
Replacing activity/personal interviews with academic interviews would also promote truth in advertising. That academic interview would substitute also for the standardized test, and the student would be told by the college how to prepare for said interview.
Believe it or not. My d and my nephews at different highly selective schools tell me some of the students who have have been admitted through preference (imagined or not) boldly tell everyone it’s the case. Oddly bragging about it.
This is hearsay and only limited examples. But it shocked them and us parents.
I would think you would do everything you could to avoid that label.