And yet the most common response to the college arms race seems to be to do our very best to give the colleges what they say the want. And make it seem authentic.
@lookingforward referring to “holistic” admissions in post 2660, wrote: “And the Harvard issue was nearly 100 years ago. Not an excuse to call things corrupt today” Seem to vaguely recall a case currently awaiting a ruling in the Boston Federal District Court (and likely on it’s way to an eventual date at the Supreme Court) that provides considerable evidence - let alone an excuse - “to call things corrupt today.”
Some of this is economic. If I were a low SES family, I would be doing all I could to help my kids become competitive for one of the few meets full needs schools because that would be their best chance of getting an education. There are not that many of them and they do tend to require fairly high stats. There are even fewer that are both “meets full needs” and “need blind.” Many of the people pushing their kids hard are immigrants with very few other avenues for their children.
On the other hand, this particular scandal comes from the opposite end of the spectrum. These families had all the resources in the world and stooped to this out of pure vanity. Its revolting.
In my suburban town, I see a lot of “elite” worship. Most of the parents won’t say outright that they only want their kids in an elite school, but many would scrimp to afford an Ivy when they could be paying half as much somewhere else. They also talk about schools in terms of rankings and whether something is top 20 or top 50 as if that makes a difference. You can see the strain on the kids who worry about whether or not they will get into a “good” school. Its sad and unnecessary.
The cheating cited in this scandal seems to be paying someone to alter exam answers or take the exam for them. Limiting the number of exams each student can take won’t prevent those situations.
@alh
Post #2680
Words!
We are raising elites to “Fake it till you make it”!
I’d go one better – instead of super-scoring, how about averaging scores across multiple test administrations.
If doing things right, the bassoonist should be premising the college search around colleges with orchestras in need of a bassoonist – not Harvard or Yale. It might make some sense at the beginning for parents to encourage the bassoon over the flute, knowing that there is a benefit to gaining proficiency in a less popular instrument. But down the line the expectation should that the value of that skill is to serve the needs of the institutions – and if word gets out and everyone starts studying the bassoon in middle school… then maybe that skill won’t end up creating whatever type of hook might have been anticipated.
“none of the schools we are talking about do superscoring, they see all your scores and cant “unsee” them.”
Neither USC or Stanford for example requires the scores for all your test sittings to be sent.
Making kids send all their scores (good and bad) is what would de-escalate the testing arms race the most and also make the field more level for less resourced kids.
Getting rid of super scoring is less significant, but still a good idea. Looks like Stanford and USC allow some kind of super scoring.
Gtown testing policy fyi:
We recommend sitting for the SAT or ACT in the spring of junior year and fall of the senior year. We do not find that taking these tests more than two times or using a test preparation company to be useful in increasing the likelihood of admission.
Georgetown University does not participate in the Score Choice option available through the College Board.
Georgetown requires that you submit scores from ALL test sittings of the SAT, ACT, and SAT Subject Tests. Access to your full testing profile enables the admissions committee to fully and fairly assess your individual strengths in comparison to the entire applicant pool.
That is generally what schools do with the MCAT. While I think thats warranted for entry to medical school where life and death is on the line, I wouldn’t like to see it for college admissions. The stress that pre-meds go through preparing for this all important test is tremendous. I think our high school kids are under enough pressure. They already feel like these tests are life and death for them. I honestly don’t think we can solve this problem by heaping more stress on 16 and 17 year olds.
And what would be the point? It won’t stop cheating scandals like this one. The only supposed purpose would be to try to use the tests to figure out who is more academically qualified – the presumption being that kids who can score high in one sitting are “better” then kids who are willing to work hard and commit and raise their scores. The colleges themselves don’t seem to feel they need this to differentiate between kids. I agree with them.
An even better idea might be to eliminate testing altogether. It works just fine in other countries.
@calmom – Sure. Once the school (like Gtown) gets ALL the scores, then they can use them however they want
The key is making kids show the school ALL their scores. That changes the incentives and behavior the most.
If you look at the Gtown policy above, you clearly get the vibe that they are not going to be very impressed by the nice score you got on your fourth SAT try.
I’m surprised more high end schools don’t do it this way.
This is a reason why adcoms wouldn’t make admissions transparent. It would affect authenticity.
“An even better idea might be to eliminate testing altogether. It works just fine in other countries.”
The irony is that Harvard invented in the SAT in the first place in order to level the playing field. It was the way Harvard was going to be able to identify the kid in Iowa who was Harvard material and enroll him instead of yet another kid from a NE prep school with fancy grades and connections.
It probably has worked relatively well, frankly, but clearly still a very imperfect system.
Then limit the number & frequency of the tests that students can sit for. Once during an academic year.
And the “stress” is partly a result of the system that allows the prep and multiple retakes, which drives up score expectations. I think I took the SAT back in 1969 – in those days it was a one and done thing, and I had a score somewhere in the mid 1300’s – I was delighted, and that would have been good enough to apply to any college, though I had no intention of applying to any of the elites. But if I had, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to retake the test - and because the culture didn’t encourage retakes, there wasn’t the score inflation that exists these days.
Same deal with my son. Spring of junior year, one test sitting, score in the mid 1400’s… he was delighted, I was delighted, end of testing. That was almost 20 years ago (oy!) … but 1400+ was in range for any Ivy. Not top quartile, but definitely within the 50% midrange. My son also had no intention of applying to Ivies- he was more concerned with trying to get good financial aid at a mid-level LAC — but the point is, it never occurred to us to retake.
Down the line my daughter had difficulties with the tests - scores of 1200 & 27 didn’t seem good enough for her aspirations - so there was stress & retakes, and it all came at a time that her grandfather was dying of prostate cancer – and regret the stress part, especially given the fact that my daughter ended up with a degree from Columbia U. in any case (through Columbia’s well established “side door” of Barnard) – because we did figure out that whole “bassoon” thing. My daughter studied Russian, we looked for schools with well-established but under-enrolled Russian departments… and that turned out to be a lot more effective as a college admission strategy. Because in the end the colleges really weren’t looking at the scores after all. They were looking at the “what’s in it for us” piece of the package.
What other countries don’t use a college admission test? I thought almost everyone does, on top of a standardized national curriculum which allows for meaningful comparison, in contrast to the US.
@roycroftmom Agree, and that curriculum is very difficult compared to graduation requirements in the US. I can just hear the uproar if American kids had to take the arbitur or the bac 
or the entrance exam to the Grandes Ecoles!
Exactly! And many these countries are producing excellent students, many of whom come to the States for post-graduate studies and/or tech jobs.
Standardized tests are not perfect, but in combination of grades/LoR, they tell a better story than grades alone.
I still can’t get over the extra time granted to the “disabled”, private school types. Surely the College Board people would start to wonder when a disproportionate amount of students from private and privileged schools started identifying as “handicapped”? Surely it’s those from the other end of the economic spectrum are more likely to have health challenges?
I have all the sympathy in the world for the truly handicapped, but this is sickening.
@gallentjill I never mean to suggest everyone denied is at fault. Remember, I also point to geo diversity, balance in major, gender, etc. But a kid who wants to max his/her chances needs to operate smartly.
And to tdy: I do not agree the H case is any proof H did something wrong. I have a different perspective.
Nor is this about faking it. I’m not even sure where the idea comes from that ‘doing what it takes’ to reach a goal (of any sort) is faking or padding. You need certain elements and do not need to love every bit of it. You do need to perform to certain standards. I hope no one really thinks you get in just for being yourself or only taking the clsses or doing activities that super interest you. (Wouldn’t even grad hs if that were the case.) This not about “passion” alone (I actually feel it’s not about passion, per se. But, the nature of the interests and the actions, their relevance.)
As for the issue of why so many at these colleges are wealthy, I neglected to post that answer earlier. On top of the fact that more of the qualified higher SES kids apply, I think we’d need to examine how many of the lower SES admits choose to matriculate. There are many valid reasons lower SES kids choose not to leave their home areas, separate from any issues of affording any co-pay. The fact of wealth present still doesn’t mean wealth or what it buys (LAX camp, lol,) are values the colleges seek to perpetuate.
Yes most if not all countries have “entrance exam” for universities. They don’t even care if you have a perfect GPA in HS. At least th US takes into account all the hard work the students did in their 4 years of HS.