No I’m not. The SAT and ACT are both highly g-loaded. If you don’t know that, then you haven’t researched the subject in the slightest.
han Academy is linked ubiquitously on the College Board website. You literally can’t register for the SAT without encountering it. <<<<<<<<
Lord, you have no idea. Do you know how many kids are homeless? No computer? no internet? Work jobs at all hours outside school time? That don’t actually GET the the CB site?
I assume you are just trolling.
Again, neither the SAT, nor ACT measure intelligence. Neither the College Board, nor ACT.org make any such false claims.
College Board and ACT have (most recently) acknowledged the factors (such as access and other benefits of ‘privilege’) that influence the glaring socioeconomic gaps related to scores. One measure that the College Board took, very recently was to partner with Khan academy. However, there are a LOT of kids (as it’s been explained) who don’t have access to Khan Academy, or the time, and even the College Board acknowledges that.
Also, while Khan Academy may be free (an some kids will have access), kids in far less privileged schools, and districts don’t get the same degree or timing of college counseling that might lead them to the free resources in a manner timely enough for it to be effective. Ignorance to resources and highly nuanced processes isn’t the same as “less intelligent”. Denying the realities and cyclical nature of poverty don’t really make them disappear or discriminatory practices & social inequities less culpable. Trying to portray institutionalized constraints as “they’re just less intelligent” is actually beyond disingenuous and more than disturbing.
Thankfully, TAMU recognizes it for what it is, and is (finally) making strides towards self-correction, and to catch up with future peers, increasing access to underrepresented (geographically, culturally, economically) populations. Intellectual diversity is critical to the success of higher education. I applaud them for adopting more enlightened practices. The next generation of Aggies will be better for it.
For anyone who hasn’t read it, and for everyone who wants to truly understand where TAMU is going, read the Vision 2020 Strategic Plan. If you want the Cliff’s Notes version, go with The Twelve Imperatives: https://vision2020.tamu.edu/The-Twelve-Imperatives
Some relevant (to this discussion) highlights:
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“We must better prepare learners for lives of discovery, innovation, leadership, and citizenship by better inculcation of writing, thinking, and self-expression skills.”
“Our recruiting should be more proactive and produce a more broadly representative student body.”
“The time has passed when the isolation of the Texas A&M University campus served a compelling utilitarian function. Information, communication, and travel technology have produced a highly connected global society. The ability to survive, much less succeed, is increasingly linked to the development of a more pluralistic, diverse, and globally aware populace. It is essential that the faculty, students, and larger campus community embrace this more cosmopolitan environment.”
“Texas A&M University must attract and nurture a more ethnically, culturally, and geographically diverse faculty, staff, and student body.”
“As we attract a wider range of people to Texas A&M University, the enrichment provided through our connection to a large metropolitan area becomes increasingly important.”
“Our responsibility to the System as its flagship must be evidenced in all decision-making. Academic progress is fragile. Enlightened, shared governance and leadership are elemental to its achievement.”
"Texas A&M University's aspiration to be among the best public universities in the country resonates with this historical mandate. The diverse population of Texas should have access to the best public education in America without having to leave the state. Texas A&M University must also reach out even more to help solve the most difficult societal problems, including those related to public education, crime, and the environment, and must honor its heritage of enhancing the economic development of all regions of the state. Texas A&M University, if it aspires to national prominence, must first stay committed to Texas."
This is your TAMU! And this is largely why TAMU has moved away from the Academic Admit category. The TAMU regents have adopted a more global and socially responsible mindset (and they communicate it beautifully, if you ever have the opportunity to attend a discussion) that embraces the idea of true intellectual diversity. They’re communicating that their direction is to expand the university’s reach (particularly, within the diverse State), and to wean themselves from antiquated & self-insulating practices that stifle their forward momentum. They’re becoming wise enough to recognize and acknowledge that institutionalized social constraints should not create a barrier to educational access. Broader holistic admissions practices will allow them to fully realize their goals.
Please tell me how the “rationally explained correlation” is not causal. I have a degree in Math with concentration in statistics. I am an actuary. I suspect I understand statistics better than 95% of the population.
When I say that wealth buys higher SAT scores, I don’t mean that every upper-class parent goes and literally buys SAT scores (although the scandal of last summer does prove that out a bit), but the fact that the kids are in a much better situation to have higher scores whether it be from:
- parents being able to afford to have their kids in a high-performing school district
- parents providing a safe environment for the students to study
- parents understanding the value of education and thus having time/interest in their kids studies
- being able to afford excellent SAT prep courses. It's ridiculous to assume that a free program (Khan) can offer the same preparation as a $1500 / year program.
I absolutely do believe that kids’ futures should not be jeopardized for their parents’ financial situation. Incidentally, this is absolutely not a knock on the parents… I am sure they are doing everything they can to provide for their kids. They just didn’t have the head start that many parents on this board had.
One other bullet point I would add @TexasMTDad
- Students at public magnet or charter schools, even if they do have a significant free or reduced lunch qualified population, are not representative of the majority of students in that population. For a wide variety of reasons. A huge one is many school districts and charter schools do not offer transportation to the magnet /charter school. That is a HUGE factor that limits access - even where open enrollment is encouraged. And in Arizona - a leader in the school choice/charter school movement - the vast majority of charter schools do not have cafeterias or offer lunches (It’s catered in by the school parent orgs). So students from food insecure homes can’t take part in free or reduced lunches.
I still think that an Academic Admit category is a good thing. Maybe cut it down to Top 20%, but don’t do away with it. Even though neither of my daughters benefited from the Top 25% Academic Admit, I still think it was a good idea.
In my opinion, having only Top 10% as Automatic Admit and the rest Holistic Review will cause even more “chasing of the Top 10%”. And thus more stress on ALL HS students. At least with some range of Automatic Admit, a student has a firm goal to shoot for, X rank and X score on SAT/ACT, knowing that if they achieved that lofty goal, they earned the opportunity to attend TAMU. Students can control the effort they put into their SAT/ACT even if they are at a “high performing High School” where it is nearly impossible to be in the Top 10% without perfect grades.
High School is tough enough. A student who fulfills the recommended number of Math/Science/English/Foreign Language classes etc, is in the Top 20-25% of their graduating HS class AND earns a high SAT/ACT score is most likely ready for the rigor and pace of TAMU classes.
Neither of our daughters were Academic Admit, one daughter was in the 27% of her class and the youngest wasn’t anywhere near the Top 25%. Their HS was so tough that having a 3.5 unweighted gpa did not even place my youngest daughter in the Top HALF of their High School. (It is mind boggling that making mostly As and Bs and fulfilling all of the “college bound recommended courses” could leave a student so far down in the ranking). My younger daughter finished 2 years of Blinn-TEAM and earned a 4.0 last Semester as a Junior at TAMU (and only has one B in all of her TAMU classes). So she was well suited for TAMU. My older daughter graduated Cum Laude on time from TAMU even though she was outside of the Top 25% of her HS class. (And she married another Aggie, who WAS in the Top 10% of his HS AND TAMU class). I’m pretty sure that every student from their HS who ranked higher than either of my daughters in HS are also doing well/did well in their college careers, in fact probably nearly ALL of their HS cohorts are doing well at college. But the entire high school were children of very high performing parents who had high expectations for their children.
Going through Holistic Admission process was extremely stressful for both girls and our whole family. I don’t wish that upon anyone, and it just sounds like it is going to get to be a longer process. I am glad that a lot of factors are taken into account during the holistic review, but the process takes so long and now there will be so many more applications to go over with a fine toothed comb. And then there will be the agony of what will be viewed as holistically “better” than something else. Is it better to stay in an EC for 4 years if you don’t have a hope of earning a Leadership role? Should a student drop out of an EC that they enjoy even without a Leadership role and get a job instead? And what sort of job, is working at the mall or baby sitting or dog walking or mowing lawns “good enough” or do they need to up the ante to “start their own multi million dollar business” or "cure cancer’, or volunteer to bring fresh water to an under developed country overseas so that they can be “competitive” in the holistic process? The whole process of physical and mental maturation that is taking place during the HS years is tough enough, this process will just add more stress.
I can’t imagine what the process will be like when my future grandchildren are applying to college.
My daughters are first generation Aggies, but not first generation college graduates. Both my husband and I put ourselves through college, and started saving for our daughters’ college costs as soon as they were born, so that they would have no college debt. My husband was “first generation college”, he worked during the Summers to pay for college and took a loan for an advanced degree, which he paid off. I was technically not a first generation college, but because of a fractured family, I had no financial benefit from that side of the family. I attended college with merit and need based scholarships and a small loan that I paid back, along with working about 20-25 hours every Semester of college.
But having parents and grandparents who are college graduates will evidently be a strike or two against the future grandchildren of all of us on this board. That includes all of the Aggies who are currently first generation college, since their children are no longer first gen. People with college degrees usually live in areas where public HS are “high performing” or they send their children to private schools or home school. Thus it is hard to get into the Top X percent at those schools as most or all of the families are highly educated. Even the people who themselves were 'first generation college", like our family. After all, isn’t that the “American Dream”? Don’t we all want our children to grow up in a nicer place than we did? So it will be harder for most of our grandchildren and other future generations to break into the Top whatever percentage.
Unless they are Top 10%, or whatever Top X percent is used in that far future year, any of our grandchildren who want to be Aggies will most likely have to transfer into TAMU College Station.
I think you raise a lot of good points @aggiemomagain - but the one thing missing is that the Texas population is going to continue to grow. And that having university freshmen class over 10,000-11,000 is probably not something TAMU and state lawmakers want.
As the percent admitted drops - the university should be admitting students that help them meet their strategic goals. I believe the removal of the academic is just part of changes underway.
I feel strongly that students (and more importantly their parents) should look at TTU, UNT, UH, UTD, etc - these schools have great things to offer. With UT and TAMU both stopping the growth of their freshmen enrollment- there are now 1000s more students that don’t fit in those schools. (TAMU peaked in 2017 and has reduced the past two years despite increased applications)
It’s hard when for years and years - thousands more students attended and graduated from UT and TAMU. Passionate, proud students. These other schools just don’t have the word of mouth and alumnae visibility.
My HS junior took her first SAT last month and scored over 1300 and had a slightly lower PSAT. She has not received anything from UH yet - but man is she getting crap from public schools in South Carolina, Iowa, Colorado, Kansas, Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma etc. All states my daughter sent nothing to. My oldest daughter did not get anything from UH until after she was already enrolled in her college- long after TAMU’s decisions were made. That really perplexed me.
TTU actually calls and mails and UNT mails and emails a lot - those are both schools she sent scores to. And we have toured TTU. So she showed interest first.
I see how kids are attracted to OOS - to schools with very similar stats/research opportunities that exist in Texas. They are constantly getting “recruited” and made to feel wanted.
Other Texas schools need to show why they are a great choice, not just a backup.
Generally speaking, to prove causation one must show three things -
(1) correlation
(2) the cause preceded the effect
(3) lack of a third intervening variable.
The third intervening variable in his argument is “intelligence.” I.e. The fact that SAT scores and family income tend to rise and fall together may not mean that family income causes SAT scores to rise and fall. Instead, they both could be related to a third intervening variable like intelligence, such that families with high intelligence also tend to have high income and high SAT scores.
A calculus test doesn’t measure intelligence either. But having a high intelligence is helpful for scoring well on calculus test.
You’ll understand this argument when we substitute “Socio Economic Status” for intelligence. Just because the SAT doesn’t measure ones SES, that doesn’t mean one’s SES doesn’t effect SAT scores.
I think intelligence probably is the difference between earning $70K / year and $200K per year. You can do very well by your child earning $70K per year, I think. HOWEVER, I think it is disingenuous to say that people achieve middle-class because they are smarter. There are very smart people born into bad situations that just can’t overcome it. There are also not-so-smart people born into really good situations that benefit. The argument that people deserve to go to a good college because they won the parent lottery is a bad one IMO.
There are people in this country that are at an automatic disadvantage because centuries of systematic bias and deliberate bureaucratic obstacles have prevented their families from rising up to the level that families without these obstacles have been able to. To argue otherwise is being willfully ignorant.
They have to register for the test online. Their places of education have internet access that they can utilize.
They can also use an old fashioned ACT workbook that requires no internet.
Everyone does not come from the same social or economic background, and we will all never be completely equal in intellect, income, or family support.
We all have to take our situations and make the best out of them.
As an educator, I see kids from all walks of life who perform at all levels on the spectrum.
There’s no reason to try to reduce causation to a single variable. There are likely multiple reasons any individual person gets a high SAT score, and likely multiple variables related to why one would achieve middle or upper class. Intelligence is one of those variables, as is work ethic, among many others. (Some of those are good reasons, but admittedly some may not be good reasons.)
Beyond that, if in your last paragraph you are implying that race automatically confers a categorical disadvantage for some races you misunderstand the concept of racial privilege. You can’t tell whether a person has experienced a net societal or historical disadvantage based simply on knowing what their race is - if that was what you were implying.
Again, this goes back to the concept of statistics. I am 100% certain that you can cherry-pick individuals to try to prove a point. However, if you take a representative sample of 10,000 kids, I believe that you will find that race plays a big part in the overall advantages of the group.
I also feel like you are suggesting that socioeconomic status, which is HIGHLY correlated to race is more based on intelligence than circumstance.
@TexasMTDad It’s TAMU published on dars.
http://dars.tamu.edu/Student/files/F2019-Admission-Scores-Final.aspx
Race is indeed one thing that can play a big part in overall advantages of a group, but you can’t apply group statistics to individuals within that group. It’s called the ecological fallacy. That’s why we don’t say “the average American has one breast and one testicle,” or “every woman is shorter than any man, since women as a group are shorter than men as a group.” Group level statistics don’t apply to individuals within the group.
Your last paragraph goes back to your single-variable explanation of phenomena. High SES is caused by lots of things. Having rich parents, being smart, being hard working, being tall, good looking, the list goes on.
But you seem driven to deny that merit exists and reinforce the idea that hard work and intelligence are meaningless and unrelated to one’s success. I disagree. They are not everything, but they are something and they are something very substantial.
Wow! I apologize if this is your takeaway.
My daughter is #1 in her class and scored high on her SATs. She was auto to UT (Engineering) and TAMU (Engineering). I am very proud of her. She worked very hard. She was advantaged with middle-class parents who supported her desire to get ahead and could afford to have her in a good school district and pay for SAT prep classes. I believe that we should all use the advantages were given.
All I am saying is that others don’t have the same advantage. They could put in the same amount of work overcoming obstacles to just graduate. Just because they don’t score as high on the SAT doesn’t mean that they aren’t as intelligent nor does it mean that they don’t work as hard. We can both agree on that, right?
I agree, Texas is a HUGE state and each year it produces many more highly qualified students than there are Freshman seats at TAMU and UT. And yes, there are several other great schools in TX which don’t have the reputation of the 2 flagship Universities. Maybe if those schools increased their required SAT/ACT scores it would make them more appealing to the higher performing students.
Texas Tech has a lot of passionate alumni, and football, but it seems to draw more students from the panhandle since it is a LONG way from everywhere else. From a visit there, I would think that it has some similarities to TAMU and might appeal to students who want to be Aggies, but the lower score threshold and the location are perceived negatives. But still better than going Out of State, in my opinion. 
UH has a lot of great departments, and football, but it struggles with the reputation of its location in Houston and with the lower score thresholds. Otherwise, it could appeal to people who like the urban setting of UT in Austin. As it climbs in national ranking, probably more of the higher performing students could choose UH, but probably not if they live in the Greater Houston Area as many of those students want to "leave home and not have mom show up unannounced for lunch! 
And again, better than going OOS in my opinion.
I have heard great things about UTD and UT-Arlington, but those are part of the UT system. I have also heard good things about UT-San Antonio, but it is one of the CAP schools for UT. And they don’t have the draw of big sports and traditions.
As for the TAMU system schools, I don’t know much about them other than TAMU Galveston offers the Aggie experience, but just in a different location. Maybe the other TAMU system schools will begin to be more appealing as it gets harder to start out in College Station.
I don’t know much about UNT, SFA, Sam Houston or TX State other than their score threshold is lower that the 2 flagship schools. And they are smaller schools without the draw of big football games and big traditions of the flagship schools.
A few people that I know are alumni of a couple of the above “non flagship universities” and their children also went there/are current students, so perhaps the family traditions of going where their parents attended will continue to rise.
And yes, all of the OOS schools in states which don’t produce as many highly qualified students will continue to “poach” some of the cream of the TX crop as long as there are only 2 flagship universities in TX. Students will often choose a higher ranked OOS school which is offering $$$$ over a lower ranked in state school which isn’t offering any money. Even if they have to travel to get there.
Both of my daughters heard from many OOS schools and they had no interest in going OOS and didn’t apply anywhere outside of TX. But offers of scholarships, etc kept arriving. We had many pounds of mail from OOS. Both of my girls also heard back almost immediately with acceptance from every other school (public and private TX schools) they applied to in their application year, long before they heard back from TAMU.
On visits to the other TX schools, there was a lot of interest paid to my girls. At one of the schools, a Dean showed up to talk to my younger daughter during her appointment with an English Department Adviser. She was flattered by the attention, but her heart was already set on TAMU.
I am not from TX and had no idea about the differences between TAMU and UT. All of the flagship schools from my home state and the state where I went to college are much much more alike than the Aggies and Longhorns.
Both TAMU and UT have passionate alumni who are more likely to have children who want to continue the family tradition, but it will get harder and harder each year. It will be stressful for those children/grandchildren etc. to earn a spot in the Top X percent. And it will be stressful for everyone to try to tick ALL of the boxes for holistic review for all of the remaining seats. And I think that is just added stress for children who already have to navigate a difficult time of just growing up.
Just my 2 cents and of course, this is all moot as TAMU is eliminating the Academic Admit category. I am willing to concede that maybe this will all work out well in the long run. I am sure that there was a lot of concern and hand wringing/pearl clutching when various other changes to the admissions process were made in the past at each of the flagships, but traditions and the schools reputations survived and even became stronger.
Time will tell.
[quote=“TexasMTDad, post:37, topic:2081027”]
Yep!
Good, because I’m exhausted! 