We found Kahn academy to be excellent. And Schoolhouse offers free peer tutored 4 week small group “bootcamps” which are synchronous and well structured.
Strictly speaking, that’s true. If it were feasible (because it is possible) to measure a student’s mastery of a subject without the formalized test, it would be far better. However, there aren’t enough teachers and there isn’t a good setup to do this.
The problem with standardized high stakes testing is that students start focusing in learning how to do well on the tests, not how to use what they have learned. When the tests also become high stakes for schools, actual learning is left behind.
My wife teaches CS, and has complained about that multiple times. Students learn how to solve problems that are set up in a certain way. They learn how to plug in different numbers and solve that version of the same question. However, students who got As on all math classes in school, and have above 650 on the math SATs don’t actually understand what a “variable” is, and cannot figure out how to generalize in combinatorics. For example, they are unable to conceive that a function of a variable is a variable itself. They are unable to extrapolate from a series of numbers or functions to a single function, etc.
SATs, and , in fact AP tests as well, reward this type of rote learning and template memorizing. Because of NCLB, this has become the primary way in which math, for example, is taught in the USA. It makes students into great test takers, so long as the tests are in the “right” format, but the students are not actually learning how to think or solve novel problems.
I remember as a TA when we were teaching students to do basic statistical analysis (Chi-square tests) other TAs thought that the only thing that they should teach students is how to use these tests, and didn’t see any benefit is teaching the students anything regarding probability distributions (for example). The TAs are the product if the same school system, and the students go on to medical school (most thought of themselves as “pre-meds”) without understanding why they are using these tests, whether these tests are appropriate, and what the results even mean.
It all goes back to the belief that standardized testing is the best way to evaluate whether a student understands the material that they were taught.
BTW, testing is a very powerful tool in aggregate, and sometimes for individuals, but only if there is no individual or aggregate benefit in any particular outcome. So long as there is an incentive for individuals, schools, districts, or states to have higher scores, teaching subjects will collapse into teaching students how to do well on a particular test.
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All the kids I know currently at Ivy+ and the service academies did not have SAT tutoring: Not a single one and they all scored 1560+. At most they reviewed on their own and their grades and class rank at their very rigorous highly regarded high schools pretty much reflects how they did on the SATs. Reinstating the SATs isn’t going to affect these type of kids at all…
One of my friends who is a professor in a very math oriented field at a top 100 university is always complaining that his American PhD students don’t have the requisite math skills to succeed in their chosen field unlike the foreign PhD candidates. Too bad there was no standardized testing to weed them out.
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Dude, anybody who is a PhD student now attended colleges when there were only a handful of TO colleges. Many (including all Ivies) also required subject SAT tests.
Furthermore, to be admitted to these PhD programs students needed to have taken GREs and subject GREs.
So you are essentially telling us that, all of these PhD students, who did well on their SATs, on the subject SATs, did well on their GREs and on their subject GREs, did NOT have the requisite math skills for a PhD program in the USA.
So I guess that standardized testing is a REALLY poor way to test whether a student has learned math.
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This thread deteriorated quickly.
We all know somebody who did XYZ.
Yes. I do know a few people who scored near perfect on SAT/ACT with zero studying.
I also know people who paid $250/hr for private tutors.
My own nephew took a $4000 summer class.
I also know people who chose not to study for anything and apply test optional.
I also was almost killed by a Physics PhD student from Germany who didn’t know torque steer and driving in snow.
Anecdotes, personal observations, experiences can not be generalized to the entire world.
The point that I think was lost a while ago, is school can require whatever it wants. If you want to go to that school, you just have to play by their rules. If you can’t or won’t meet whatever they ask, then look somewhere else.
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I think the big thing here is that Dartmouth has likely seen its admitted kids not ready, maybe even passed them through.
Otherwise you wouldn’t take this step.
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For private schools like Dartmouth, I agree.
For public schools, with tax money involed, the more transparency (and less personal opinion of AOs) the better.
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Agree. And to add, not just transparency but also consistency is helpful.
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Dartmouth is arguing it is a false negative problem, not a false positive problem. And doing so with supporting data.
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Which they won’t share how they acquired (said data). Red flag.
But, I am in the camp they have any testing policy they want.
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The specific data I was referencing were submitted test scores that they were then asked not to use for admissions by the applicants.
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I think if Dartmouth thinks they need test scores to determine academic capability- they should require test scores. It’s what THEY feel THEY need. Whether you agree or disagree doesn’t really make a difference. It’s a private college that’s been around for forever, and I’m sure their AOs are experienced enough to know what the school needs. They have insider knowledge we don’t have. This decision is highly based off what the school thinks they need to successfully filter out candidates, and each school should make decisions based off what they feel is appropriate to admit the best class they can.
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Kids can obviously got those scores without tutoring…and are you truly sure you would know if all the kids you know were tutored or not? A lot of people keep hush about this sort of thing for a variety of reasons. That may not be the case in your instance, but putting out there a lot of this happens under the radar IMO.
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Assuming that SAT scores are a strong predictor of preparedness for college, are schools doing disadvantaged students with SATs well below the school median any favors by admitting them? I couldn’t find the article quickly, but I remember reading a piece about disadvantaged students with low scores admitted to CA flagships like UC Berkeley failing out at an alarming rate (I think 40% in the first year). Meanwhile, disadvantaged students who went to schools where their SATs were at or above the median graduated at rates similar to other cohorts. In short, don’t admit a student - regardless of background - into UC Berkeley, if their academic record suggests they should attend Cal Chico. If you want kids to climb the socioeconomic ladder they are better off graduating from the less prestigious school, than dropping out of a top tier school.
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If they’re dropping out vs being passed through. Given many schools’s extremely high graduation rates, I’d be very surprised if some aren’t being passed through fir statistical purposes.
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I think you are remembering some details wrong. Studies that are available suggest different conclusions.
For example, kids who are admitted to selective test optional colleges generally graduate at extremely similar rates to kids who are admitted with scores. The previously referenced 25 years of test optional at Bates study found 89% graduation rate for submitter vs 88% for test optional, in spite of the test optional kids having a substantially lower median income than submitters, thus being more likely to leave for financial reasons.
Studies also show that SAT/ACT in isolation does not predict which students will graduate well. The previously referenced UC study found SAT + SES explained only 4% of variance in which students graduate, among students within the UC system.
Berkeley also has a freshmen retention of 96-97%. They don’t have problem with masses of students failing out during freshmen year.
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My point , though, is that they need them, but not for determining academic capability.
Two ways that SAT scores can help an “elite” college are, first, simple culling.
As I wrote above, SATs are good in aggregate. So, overall, if among the 40,000 who apply, 20,000 have SAT scores of under 1400, more of these will be academically unprepared than the other 20,000. It’s unfair to the pretty large number of prepared students who didn’t do that well on their SATs, but Dartmouth itself has culled half of its applicant pool, but less than half of its prepared applicant pool.
Dartmouth may have also culled many more low income students, but there will be enough low income students in the applicant pool to allow them to accept enough to mute the voices of their critics.
The second way that this helps “elite” colleges is to increase the proportion of the “privileged poor” relative to the rest of the low income applicants in the admitted student pool. Low income students who attend “elite” high schools (public and private) tend to do better on their SATs than kids of similar economic backgrounds with the same academic talent. So the “privileged poor” will be a much higher proportion of the low income applicants that remain in the applicant pool after that initial culling. These low income students are more likely to succeed during and after college than other low income students.
The college scorecard tracks the success of low income students, so Dartmouth has a strong interest in their post-college success. The best way to make sure that they succeed, while minimizing the resources that you need to invest in them, is to choose those that have the highest likelihood of success. Not the smartest, not the “most deserving”, but those who will most likely achieve “success” as it is defined by most “elite” (and other, for that matter) colleges, meaning “achieving wealth, power, and/or fame”.
No “elite” college ever boasts “65% of our graduating students positively impact their communities by being great middle school teachers, community activists, academic mentors, and great parents”. They boast about how many wealthy alumni they have, how many powerful politicians, how many famous actors, etc.
In short - it seems to me that Dartmouth is not requiring SAT tests to increase the chances that they will find low income applicants who would normally be overlooked. They are using it to justify admissions for the low income students that they already want. Not really different from every other factor in holistic admissions.
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You have stated this numerous times. I want to see the data from multiple sources that supports this. And I don’t mean one article. I mean some longitudinal study that supports this.
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Using historical retention/graduation rate data to justify going test optional/blind can be misleading because it fails to identify students who couldn’t cut it at a challenging major but manage to graduate with an easier one that may not be their first choice. These students are also considered success as far as retention/graduation rate goes.
Using historical average GPA data can also be misleading because it is not clear how many professors assign letter grades on an absolute scale and how many do so with a target class GPA in mind. For the latter, it doesn’t matter if the class is filled with sloths or Einsteins, a certain percentage is going to get As, Bs, etc., making it difficult to gauge the impact of TO.
A lot of existing studies that attempt to justify going test optional/blind don’t seem to be able to or want to address these nuances.
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I think you are comparing apples and oranges. I was referring to kids with low SATs for the elite school, say 200 points below the median, dropping out at alarming rates. You are referring to students who do not submit SAT scores vs those who did. The issue I was raising was mismatching disadvantaged students.
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