Well, not all of us insist. I opted my daughter out of all state testing starting in elementary school. I see her work, I see her grades, I attend parent-teacher conferences. I trust her teacher’s feedback more than a test which, in our personal experience, caused way more anxiety than it provided value. She never took any of the high school state tests. She got a study hall on those days.
(She is a now rising junior at Cal with a 3.9 GPA, a double major, and a minor, lest you have concerns about her college preparedness based on her lack of standardized testing.)
A transfer student who had the advantage of attending a high performing schools that put them “well and truly above the other students at the (new) school in college preparation” transferred to a lower performing school, and you think it is not fair for that student to not be able to use their test score to give them a leg up over the kids without the fancy education the student had received? Trying to reconcile your example with your previous statement . . .
Hmmm . . . seems like your example presents this exact scenario. Advantaged kid from better school with high scores should be given leg up over less advantaged kids for worse school with lower scores.
The UCs did a study some years back where they looked at high schools (public and private) and divided at least the public schools by quartile, and while there was grade inflation across all the quartiles the grades were significantly higher at the top tier schools. As for “the kids who are unable to read that are graduating,” unless these kids are getting A’s, they really don’t enter into the type of grade inflation which creates the “lots of As” issue (it if really is an issue.) And they aren’t getting As. It doesn’t take straight As to barely graduate.
As for the kids who are going to HS in a place where “half the kids are unable to read” I’d like more information about such places because I suspect the description is somewhat apocryphal, or, at best, extremely unusual. But even in the situation you describe, I don’t think it makes sense to diminish the accomplishments of the kids who manage to thrive in such an environment. While showing up and doing the work may be impressive in and of itself in such an environment, I also doubt the these kids have received straight As “just for attending and being able to do some of the work?”
In fact, such descriptions reinforce my initial impression. It seems that many are willing to dismiss a significant segment of society just because they didn’t have the advantage of attending high performing schools. IMO, relying on test scores would exaggerate this even further, as can be seen by your proposal that it takes a 700 in SAT math to be considered college ready.
In this regard, as for my questions about who is not “prepared for college” you jump straight to MIT and Cal Tech, as if these and propose a ridiculously high number of 700 SAT Math. Despite protestations of proud parents here about how “easy” the test is, only about about 9% of test takers score 700 or above on math, and given that in some states (CA for example) only 25% of students even bother to take the test, and those that do are likely, headed to college, the percentage of actual HS students is probably much smaller than 9%.
In short, whether one is a good candidate for MIT/CalTech has little to do whether kids are ready for college. So let me rephrase. I am not talking about admissions to MIT or CalTech. I am talking about entrance to state supported 4 year colleges. A minimal requirement, not an elite requirement.
More generally (I am not directing my comments to you here) there is an elitism being expressed about college readiness that seems to closely correlated with the desire for mandatory SAT/ACT requirements. No surprise given how much these tests favor kids who receive an “elite” HS education.
It isn’t just about being prepared for college. Say 1,000 kids apply for 20 spots and 500 are prepared for college, how do you allocate the spots? Everybody here will have a different answer. In my view if the goal of the institution is to identify the best and the brightest who might contribute to the future of science and technology with inventions or research, then you need all data points you could have from tests to extracurriculars. Not all institutions have same goals. The UC system and CSU system are good examples.
If we just want to identify all kids who are capable of surviving college, we could have a set of requirements and then pull the names out of hat from that list.
Of the colleges that are that selective, Caltech comes the closest to that goal, but they need to use academic indicators well beyond SAT or ACT scores and high school record to find which applicants are capable of doing the work there (which is a big step up in rigor compared to other highly selective colleges).
But most colleges that are that selective have other goals, such that the “best and the brightest” make only a portion of the admission class. Various “hooks” like development, recruited athlete, and legacy also matter, and it is certainly convenient for colleges admitting on that basis that high school grade inflation and SAT and ACT score inflation allow them to admit “hooked” applicants with plausibly excellent stats of that nature, even if they would not be competitive with the “best and the brightest” admits.
I think that the much of the general public believes that the goal of highly selective schools should be to optimize their inputs and that some believe the best way to do so is via testing.
I think that the schools are far more interested in optimizing their outputs as they see them aligning with their missions. This goal results in a much wider view of merit and what an optimal class looks like.
Yes, not many schools have the goal of admitting only the ‘best and brightest’. Not only is that tough to define, schools want classes that include people of all races, religions, income levels, appropriate gender ratio, living situations, countries, etc.
Many educators believe the greater the diversity of the student population, the greater the learning environment in the classroom, in clubs, etc.
How is attending a high performing school an advantage when the first school had much higher standards for giving out an A grade than the second school? The student was disadvantaged compared to peers for taking courses that were more rigorous at another school they transferred from and then getting a hit on their GPA in comparison to the other students at the second school who never took those courses. Also note that since the kids in the second school did not take the same coursework, it’s unfair to compare these grades as the B’s were from another school with different standards so the local context idea is all well and good until kids transfer or take classes outside their school. The real issue in this school - transfer or no transfer credits - is that without test scores the local context does not provide any information since some kids are getting A’s even if they score a 2 on an AP exam while others score a 5. Grades are basically meaningless. The only measure of comparison would have been AP scores or SAT scores or something else which would have shown the difference in performance and college readiness.
Where did I say advantaged kids vs disadvantaged kids? Not all kids who are in a high performing school are advantaged and not all schools that are not high performing have disadvantaged kids. In fact, some kids in the first school would have been in far more financial need than the second school. You are making the assumption of high performance = advantaged kids but there are plenty of schools that are high performing that have kids from various financial backgrounds.
Note that I didn’t say the kids who are graduating and unable to read would receive A’s. However, a student in such a classroom that does achieve straight A’s may not have enough preparation to attend college right out of high school and would benefit from going to a community college to bring them up to speed. There are kids who do drop out simply because they are too far behind their peers to make up ground quickly enough to catch up.
Wherein did I state anywhere close to what you state above ie. a 700 being considered college ready? I put forth the idea that a threshold could be used to determine college readiness but that the threshold could be dependent on the school and/or intended major. I then brought up 700 as a threshold for MIT simply because a poster here from MIT had said that this was their minimum ie. it was basically being used almost as their threshold. However, I said that 700 may be the threshold for MIT but the threshold would be set based on the situation so I offered up examples of possible thresholds but said they were just made up ie. maybe a 650 math for Berkeley engineering students as someone said that a 620 for UT Austin was needed for their engineering. Note that I also suggested a 500 in math may be the threshold for other schools for their engineering programs and maybe a 500 verbal for their intended English majors and for some schools/programs no threshold at all. The threshold would serve simply as a check to be sure the student does have enough background that they would expect to be able to succeed in the major they intend.
Except you did direct your comments to me and stated I stated things I didn’t with regard to a 700 being “college ready” and also made some rather off-base assumptions about the advantages/disadvantages of the kids at the two schools as you seemed to assume that the first school was the reason for why the student’s level of college preparation exceeded that of the other students attending the second school which was not the case. It was the number of AP/advanced courses this student had taken while attending the second school that other students at the second school could have also taken had they been so inclined. Note also I brought up the case of the kid who had taken a high school course in 8th grade and gotten a B and was also hurt by the school’s transfer policy. The point is that local context and school ranking seems all well and good until one realizes that schools do not actually rank students in the same manner across the board which is likely why some schools have stopped ranking students and also that transfer credits can cause issues because one is comparing apples with oranges.
Your question answers itself. Generally, high performing schools have advantages in terms of academic preparation, more rigorous courses, generally higher test scores. Attending such schools is an advantage no matter the SES of the families. In your words, this kid is “well and truly above the other students at the school in college preparation.” IMO opinion that gives this student a big advantage over the other students, and that usually shows up in the test score.
And, generally, there is a correlation between high performing schools and high SES families, usually more educated parents, usually a more stable environment in which to learn. That is not to say that there aren’t lower SES kids who sometimes attend high performing schools, but the correlation is clear. And if a lower SES kid does attend a high performing school, that is a big advantage over all the lower SES kids who do not have that privilege.
In short, I think the kid in your example was lucky to have received an education at a high performing school before transferring, and that will likely serve them well going forward in college. I don’t think it is unfair for this kid to have to rely on his transcript as it is after transferring. In terms of academic preparation, their real peer group is the peer group at the previous school.
More generally, I think if we have to go so far as to consider a highly specific transfer situation to come up with supposed unfairness, then we’ve stretched the concept beyond breaking. As the kids receiving the sub-par education realize, life isn’t always perfectly fair, nor is fairness always defined by whether we get what we think we deserve.
Attending a high performing school is an advantage no matter the SES of the student. In other words, there is more to education than the grades one receives.
Also, I didnt’ ask about CalTech or MIT. I asked about the UCs. I did so because there were posters suggesting that under the UC admissions policies kids at the top of their class would be unprepared for college.
Ask veteran teachers who have taught in low performing schools and high performing schools.
1- Low performing schools typically have clusters of below average teachers. Sometimes they are new to teaching- and given time and mentoring, they will become superb teachers. But many of these schools don’t have the mechanisms that more affluent school systems have put into place- veteran teachers helping the newbies with lesson plans, sitting in on their classes and then advising on classroom management, etc. And teachers who are reassigned due to performance issues, workplace conduct, etc. end up congregating in these schools as well (unless their behavior was criminal in which case they start a dismissal/appeal process but the teacher can’t be in front of a class during that time).
2- Low performing schools don’t always have the same support staff as more affluent ones. They don’t have the army of speech therapists, OT’s, aides/shadows. It takes MUCH longer to refer a kid out. And the parents are sometimes dealing with A LOT. So finding time, transportation, etc. to be taking the kid to therapy sessions-- very challenging.
3-Low performing schools don’t have the equipment they need. The fancy playgrounds, the customized soccer fields, state of the art gymnastic equipment. And in even in situations where a private foundation, for example, has “adopted” a school, there are more pressing priorities. How does the lack of structured gym/physical activity impact a kid? Ask a fourth grade teacher who struggles with classroom management after lunch if the kids haven’t run off their energy.
I could go on for hours, but you catch my drift. A kid from a low SES family who is attending a high performing school benefits enormously, whether or not that kid is taking calculus in 10th grade. It’s everything else- guidance counselors who don’t double as social workers helping the homeless kids in the school, all the non-academic resources.
Except once again I just stated that the college preparation was NOT due to attendance at the first school but rather achieved during the student’s time in the second school. Ergo that SAME college preparation was available to the other students in that SAME school had they been so inclined. In other words, the preparation had nothing to do with attending a high performing school since none of the courses that would be considered college preparation were taken at the high performing school. You can go on and on about all the advantages you assume this student supposedly had, none of which were applicable yet you fail to actually address the problem with comparing students in a local context which was demonstrated by this one example though it applies to a lot of students across many schools. In fact, I even gave the second example of a student who was penalized merely for a B in 8th grade which was transferred in.
The first issue is that kids can be compared in a local context which again is all well and good until one realizes that students transfer credits in from a wide array of schools - college, online, summer etc where the grades from one system may not compare to the grades of another. This is the issue the student faced not the fact that the student came from a high performing school. Had the student gone from two schools with exactly the same performance but with different grading systems, the SAME situation would have occurred. The issue of having different grading systems put into the same local context can be further exacerbated by the fact that schools themselves have different ways of ranking students. The example I provided also highlighted this as this particular school used unweighted GPA to rank students so students with a lot of AP/honors courses are penalized compared to students who don’t take any such courses. And note, even if a student had no credits transferred in from another school and only took courses within the school, a student taking a rigorous courseload would be disadvantaged in such a system. Thus, the other issue of the local context is that the ranking within one might differ from another and may not reflect college readiness.
The other issue is the grade inflation within the second school. As I pointed out A’s seemed easy to obtain with over 10% of the class receiving 4.0’s. Students in the same class who struggled would be able to retake tests. Some scored 2’s on AP tests and yet had the same A course grade compared with kids who scored a 5. Thus, local context can also have issues but one way these issues can be addressed would be by taking test scores into account such as SAT scores/AP scores etc.
Feel free to start a new thread about preparation for college but this conversation is very off topic for this thread. Once again a reminder that this thread is not in the cafe.
With over 1850 comments in this thread, I don’t know if anyone made this point already, but if colleges (including the UCs) are concerned about the college readiness of students in an environment where grade inflation at the high school level appears to be an issue, they could require standardized tests like the SAT and ACT and set a minimum bar that applicants must meet rather than use these tests as a way to select the highest scoring students. Arizona State University does this to some extent (SAT and ACT scores are two of fours options applicants can use to satisfy ASU’s " Aptitude requirement"), and I suspect that other colleges do so as well.
Thresholds are what I proposed. See my response to post 1822 for example. The threshold and type such as math/reading/both/AP test score etc could vary depending on the school/intended major and could be based on expected success rate ie students below some given threshold in the SAT math portion only have a 50% likelihood of completing the major. While there are some posters that seem to be against testing no matter what, I think tests can be used in the interest of the student to assess readiness for a given program/school. If a student does not have the necessary background for a program which is likely to show up with the SAT test though for some programs/schools the SAT may not be sufficient for this purpose, the student would be better served taking catch up courses or attending community college rather than having to drop out or switch majors.
Since SAT used to be an aptitude test, it made sense to seek out the highest scorers. Now that it is no longer an aptitude test, its utility is similar to AP tests. Although I would argue that even with tremendous coaching, some kids will still top out at SAT at certain level. My nephew couldn’t get a required 1400 for a HYPS athletic recruitment even though he had all the privileges in the world and a lot of tutoring. So I think schools might still be biased at looking at these tests as sort of an aptitude indicator. SAT is definitely coachable but up to a point.
I agree that even with coaching, there is only so much one can do. While there is a correlation between wealth and scores on the SAT, only 7% of the wealthy students score a 1500 which is about 7 times the average.
Also there are free resources for SAT preparation ie. Khan Academy along with books at the library so of all the advantages the wealthy have, the SAT seems to offer the most resources to those without wealth.
Take some of these sports that colleges recruit for such as fencing, la crosse etc. How many students that are not wealthy even have access to these sports? How about extracurriculars? The kids in many places aren’t even aware of the type of opportunities that are available, nevermind actually be able to afford them. What about letters of recommendations? The teachers at some of these schools don’t have time to write a letter of recommendation but even if they do, they aren’t familiar with them as teachers who teach at top schools would be. There are so many advantages the wealthy have and most of these are not even available or within any control of a student without resources. However, the SAT is at least something that almost all students can access and perhaps can help make the student stand out. How else does one propose a student, who has no access to AP courses and where schools have different standards for giving out A’s, demonstrate that they would be able to do well in a rigorous program if not for the SAT? Sure there might be other ways but no one seems to be proposing them except for suggesting class rank which is flawed as I tried demonstrating with that example I provided. Many schools have moved away from class rank since they are not calculated the same across schools and transfer credits can create disparities. Even in some of those schools that do selectt the top 5% of students from every school such as UT Austin, they still impose barriers to getting into some programs ie. engineering and I believe UT Austin still requires the SAT to see if students would need to take some catch up courses.
I’m guessing you are comparing the 7% rate for top 0.1% in the Chetty paper to 1500 being a 99th percentile score. This is a misleading stat because the average income of kids who score 1500+ is extremely high. If you compare to median income or low income kids, then there is a more stark difference.
The relevant table from the Chetty paper is pictured above – 6.8% of top 0.1% income kids had a 1500+ compared to 0.15% of median income kids – 45x more likely to have a 1500+ score. Low income kids had a 0.0% rate of scoring 1500+, so a ratio cannot be calculated.
For ASU, the SAT or ACT do not set a minimum bar. First-year admission requirements | Admission | ASU says that admission to the school (some majors have higher standards) can be gotten with one of the following in addition to completing the specified high school courses:
top 25% in high school graduating class
3.00 GPA in competency courses (4.00 = “A”)
ACT: 22 (24 nonresidents)
SAT: 1120 (1180 nonresidents)
So a student who makes a 3.00 GPA in a grade-inflated high school does not need any ACT or SAT score to be admitted to ASU.
Yes as 1% of students get a 1500. while 6.8% of students in the top 0.1% get a 1500. It may be misleading but then so perhaps is the median income as students in some schools/states are required to take an SAT even if they do not have any desire for college which also correlates with income as lower income students are the least likely to pursue a college education. Students who have no plans to go to college but take an SAT test as their school offers it that day or they are required to take it to graduate are likely to not have a good score.
What I think would be interesting are any studies that actually break out SAT scores within a certain income range say the top 1% but compare if there might actually be differences there with the education of the parents. For instance, it could be quite interesting to see how students from families who made their income from their education or the knowledge sector ie. parents are doctors, lawyers, professors, engineers, scientists etc. differ from those in the same income bracket but whose parents are wealthy through inheritance, fame, sports, business excluding knowledge based businesses etc. Many of these people may be well educated though probably not all but what would be interesting is to see if there is a disparity between those with the same resources but where parents may emphasize education as the key to success vs parents who are wealthy by some other means. Both would have the same amount of privilege since both types of students would have access to tutors, private schools etc but one group of parents may stress the importance of education more than the other group.
Even when the SAT was officially the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was still heavily influenced by prior learning. Back then, the verbal section was mostly vocabulary, presumably a proxy for how well read in relatively advanced books and readings you were, but was sometimes short-cutted by test prep teaching hundreds of “SAT words”. The math section was algebra and geometry, and was obviously influenced by how well you learned it and how well you were taught it.
Of course, how comparable are different applicants’ SAT scores when some are heavily coached and prepped but others are not?
