@gallentjill While a short testing timeframe may be “an almost irresistible temptation to cheat,” a longer timeframe almost guarantees that students will cheat. For instance, if you have an all-day test, then students will inevitably be in a position to Google the answers, or call others for help, or talk amongst themselves about responses.
@Waiting2exhale You understand that selective highlighting is not very nice.
Of course they didn’t “have to” in a sense of being compelled to do so in a cosmic sense. It means they “had to” in these specific cases for the desired result. That despite their wealth and privilege their specific kids would not specifically have received their specific admissions to these specific schools that specific year. That’s what I meant, specifically.
And not sure if your second highlighted section was facetious or not.
If it was, it would be helpful, especially on a thread dedicated to scholarship, to fully utilize the entire quote.
It mentioned my hope for compliance against cheating and fraud to be increased.
And also that a look at the system of preferences should be examined.
1.9 mm students each year work through the system each year. No one is being shut out of an education. This is all about access to a few dozen elite schools. If attending these schools, becoming successful in life then turns you into a privileged jerk for the rest of eternity —why do we all want our kids to go there and do this? It’s all about the silly prestige hunting in college admissions and the pressure on our kids to fit this narrative.
College admissions scandal: Why we won’t see mug shots for Lori Loughlin, Felicity Huffman…
Side question on timed tests…If we get rid of time limits on SAT/ACT, what about AP tests? Are we also suggesting that there are should be no time limits on exams in college? What about MCAT, GRE, LSAT? From my experience, timed tests are a fact of life at college. If we don’t prepare students for them in HS, they will arrive to college even more unprepared.
IMO, we should be cracking down on the people abusing the system, not suddenly allowing untimed tests for all.
@Riversider I’d you look up the backgrounds of many of the parents involved. Rich now, middle class once.
Remember, the point of the accommodations in this scandal seems to be to isolate the test taker, allow for a site move, all to facilitate cheating. It’s not an indictment of accommodations, in general. It’s misuse.
This thread doesn’t need to mock holistic, btw.
In reality, you wouldn’t really need unlimited time. After a certain point, more time doesn’t help. What you need is a test where the vast majority of students have slightly more time then they need to answer the questions they know how to answer. Some students with special needs might need more time than that and they should be able to apply. It won’t provoke abuse, because the kids without LD, extra time won’t benefit them. They will just be frustrated sitting in a room staring at questions they can’t answer.
A thoughtful article from the New Yorker:
@lookingforward - if 50% of the school is on accommodation (referenced earlier) … not sure we understand the scale of this unreported and hush arrangement by rich
But doesn’t this describe the current SAT, how it’s structured and timed and CollegeBoard’s intent? The ACT has less time per question and is much more a test of speed and quick processing.
(and of course I am not talking about the tests with regard to those who qualify for extended time accommodations)
I’m loving this report about where one of the admission-scam actors was right when the big news broke (compliments of Inside Higher Ed, see link: https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2019/03/14/u-southern-california-will-bar-applicants-affiliated-company-under
“Olivia Jade was on the yacht of USC’s board chair, Rick Caruso, in the Bahamas. Jade is the YouTube personality on whose behalf her mother, the actress Lori Loughlin, is accused of participating in the admissions scheme.”
Caruso is later quoted in the story, saying: “…the young woman [Jade] decided it was in her best interest to return home.”
“How did the bribery scam unravel?
It started, improbably, with a securities fraud investigation out of Boston, a so-called pump-and-dump stock scam that extended overseas.
FBI agents and federal prosecutors quickly homed in on a financial executive, according to several people familiar with the case, who said he was willing to cooperate with authorities. He also offered investigators a tantalizing tip, one entirely unrelated to stock prices — a Yale University women’s soccer coach had asked him for a bribe to help get his daughter admitted into the elite school.
With that, a low-profile securities investigation had led authorities to uncovering a massive college admissions scandal, a brazen plot in which wealthy parents allegedly schemed to bribe sports coaches at top colleges to admit their children.”
Boston Globe, online . March 14 2019 full story.
@privatebanker They are all really ultra rich, famous and well- connected since not years but decades. Those are the merits these colleges value the most.
Also not sure if I’ve picked up on all posts, but the repeated assertions about the accommodations prep schools get for their students is surely something at least the college board needs to investigate. It may not be bribing coaches, but it still is cheating to give students who don’t need it more time. There is a line between using your wealth to give your kid more advantages via schools, tutoring etc and outright cheating, and it looks like a lot of these prep schools are complicit in crossing that line.
@Riversider I get it. Heck I am the first person in any side of my family tree to go to a 4 year college. I don’t argue that there are advantages built into the system. So what. It’s better to be tall and good looking too. Or born smart or simply lucky enough to be born the USA compared to other places.
But they are not insurmountable.
And as a solidly lower middle class student, it never dawned on me that it was top 30 school or bust. But that is only my experience.
but if the point is to go to these schools to become what we all seem to detest. Economically considered “rich” by any context and but paying for college still a real struggle. And a future legacy parent. Why bother?
And just to be clear of the definitions being used. The “ultra rich” is some of these people. Some are more correctly upper middle class. Their current wealth will not become dynastic. It will end with their own lives. And they are criminals. They don’t speak for the entire swath of hard working neighbors who may currently and temporarily occupy the upper middle class definitions.
@privatebanker
not so sure about the monks.
Colleges often ask for the high school’s profile. How about a line in the profile that indicates percentage of students with testing accommodations?
Some high schools would certainly raise red flags.
Too much stigma?
It would certainly be telling.
@STEM2017 - why not the principal of the school verify and sign off for each student punishable by law?
My older two kids, in college now, had no accommodations and got very high scores. They also spent hours and hours, for weeks and weeks, taking practice tests and doing extra math problems.
My youngest is in fifth grade, and tests average to above average with an occasional superior or low average in the mix. She is hearing impaired, has a connective tissue disorder that makes sitting upright for long periods very fatiguing, has sensory issues, and severe anxiety. She gets extended time on tests- but it is not unlimited time. It is up to double.
On a 4 or 5 hour test, I can see that extra time in one sitting wouldn’t do her any good, as fatigue would make additional time produce diminishing returns…so two sessions of 5 hours each? IDK, we aren’t there yet, but - I don’t see why they can’t just let everyone have that. My older daughter would easily have qualified for extra time for the same CTD and anxiety…we had never heard of it (extra time) though. She did fine, but U am sure there are lots of kids with real undiagnosed problems who are still quite capable. And the ones who just don’t know any more, would leave when they reach the limit of their ability.
@57special Hah. I was thinking Tibetan!