Are you suggesting that employers should rely on SAT scores to narrow their post university applicant pool?
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Some do, or more recently, LSAT/GMAT/GRE scores. I donât understand why an employer-developed test ( more frankly, contracted out at great expense to third parties) is just fine but an actual standardized test is considered unsuitable for consideration. The standardized tests went through far more quality review than the employer developed equivalent.
In any event, the use of such tests is really a reflection of the declining trust in university education to ensure the requisite skills needed for the workforce. That is a subject for a different thread.
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Because people took those tests when they were 16 or 17 years old, and they arenât aptitude tests.
As discussed above, some of the students hadnât yet learned the material tested by the SAT/ACTâŠeither because they hadnât taken the requisite classes or they had poor instruction in the classes they did take.
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Regarding the use of AP tests for admissions, I can report that the University of Michigan factors in the percentage of AP classes taken out of those available at their high school. They are looking for 40% or higher.
At least thatâs what they told my kid during an admission session. 
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Number of AP courses taken really has nothing to do with AP tests.
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In the industries in question, the students are sometimes being considered for employment at age 18-20, so that isnât that far off. Summer employment usually leads to full time offers. Of course, anyone could update a poor SAT score with a good GRE score. In any event, at some point, prior to hire, the applicants need to demonstrate the requisite skill level, regardless of their prior preparation, whether by a test score or taking the employer-developed test.
There are alternative ways to show that to employers sifting through a million applicants a year, but most seem to prefer that the employer test all million applicants. A very expensive proposition, but I suppose it works. It has certainly greatly enriched the for-profit companies which provide those tests to employers.
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A computing employer is unlikely to find the common standardized tests to be applicable to what they actually test in technical interviews for hiring purposes.
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They are also tests covering a hodgepodge of topics, and in no way related to the applicantâs current mastery of material needed to do a particular job.
But it all gets back to ârelentless elitism.â Some would prefer that we use these tests to create a permanent barrier to access and advancement. Keep the low scorers in their place. Permanently punish those those whose parents didnât have the wherewithal to negotiate the requirements necessary for early academic âsuccess.â
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I realize that this is a subject for a different thread, but I just want to make clear, as Dr. Barabasâ thesis that I linked above does too, that this is a byproduct not of declining trust in a university education to prepare for the workforce relative to a historically high baseline of same, but in a shifting of expectations to the university to do such training, which is a relatively recent and historically contingent development. Gina Neffâs book Venture Labor also traces how, over the late 20th century, as corporations sought to cut costs and shifted away from âjob for lifeâ mindset, they gradually eliminated on-the-job training and apprenticeships that had historically managed the transition from a liberal arts and science education (of generally how to think and learn) and began essentially a broad-based ideological campaign to reset social expectations that a university should be doing more pre-professional training for them. This is interwoven with the decline of trades and unions (that provided such on-the-job training), a shift of expectations towards the employee as mobile neoliberal subject who should move careers and manage a 401k rather than expect a pension, and where universities should be subsumed into a broader professionalization system rather than stand apart from it.
To hastily try to make a tenuous connection to testing: my point is that I would contend this perceived crisis in âwell who would be good in the job and whyâ has much less to do with a change in how a college admits or educates, with or without testing, and much more to do with changes to way that people find and are trained for jobs through other institutions and byways.
Technically-oriented schools like MIT have always been in an odd position here, of course; you can go back to university reports from the 1940s and find much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over the question of âare we a university that advances the fundamental sciences and liberal arts or are we an institute of technology that offers pre-professional training for specific already-defined roles that exist in society.â Indeed, the current format of the GIRs were established at a moment of historical consensus that MIT should decisively shift towards âfundamental scienceâ and not âmere technical training,â with all of the disciplinary chauvinism such a formulation implies.
This is, again, why I think testing is epiphenomenal here. The Daily podcast does get this right â what weâre really talking about is âwhat is education for.â What they get wrong is ascribing the fundamental disagreement to âdiversity vs. excellence,â which is of contemporary salience in our culture wars, but not tied to the deeper structural and material questions of what a university education is supposed to do and how it relates to all other institutions in a society.
As B.A.T. put it in the preface to his book (College Admissions and the Public Interest | MIT Admissions)
The central thesis of these pages is threefold: first, one cannot tell by looking at a toad how far he will jump; second, the process of admission to college is more sociologically than intellectually determined; and third, to understand the process, one must look beyond the purview of the individual college and consider the interaction of all institutions with the society that generates and sustains them.
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Or, perhaps alternatively, some of us think that when the tests are used properly, can actually be used to remove barriers for finding talented students for college. Note that I am not a fan of using SAT scores for jobs.
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Of course youâre correct. I intended to write AP classes.
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Well-said @MITChris. But we must work within both the employer and student expectations of our times. It seems unlikely that we can reform either capitalism or the economics of higher education in the near future instead ( however much I might wish it)
Yes! That was exactly my point. An outstanding student from non-target school X that was never on a firmâs radar gets a chance to interview once they demonstrate they have the requisite knowledge and skills. Itâs no longer about where they are and who they know.
(as an aside: no, I donât think SATs should be used for internships or jobs).
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I guess I should have used more of the quote . . .
In my opinion, those who relentlessly shill for the tests are more concerned with keeping people out than with increasing access to the supposed âdiamond in the rough.â
And for every "âholy crap, how did this child of migrant farmworkers in rural Texas get an 800?ââ there are many more talented kids with great potential who are locked-out ofrom higher education by these artificial hurdles. They either donât ever take the test or they donât bother to apply.
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This goes right to the heart of the âquality issueâ that was implied and feels workable for the UCs since they are CA publics but itâs probably not workable for privates.
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I would just like to take a moment to thank MITChris here. When one of my children expressed interest in applying to MIT, my initial response was hell no. My response was not out of fear that the kid wouldnât be admitted --I know that very few students are admitted even those with impeccable records so the odds are long for everyone. Frankly, I was worried about the relentless (and sometimes offensive) elitism of some of the posts in this forum. I was also worried about what I perceived as some fairly blatant racism sprinkled through various threads that I have read over the years here. This is not to pick on MIT in particular since I had a similar reaction when my kids brought up a handful of other (non-STEM) universities and liberal arts colleges.
MITChrisâs posts made me more opened minded about MIT as did the applying sideways blog (as well as the people that I know in real life who have graduated from MIT with bachelorâs and graduate degrees --when in doubt, we should all get off various internet echo chambers and debating forums and talk to real people on the ground instead). While I have misgivings about the role the SAT has played in college admissions, I also trust that admissions offices at most of the institutions have been thoughtful about their decision to be test required or test optional or test blind. And frankly, I think that those offices likely know a whole lot more than I do about the pros and cons of using those tests for their specific university. So I try to trust that the admissions offices know what they are doing around their admissions policies in general and testing in specific. At very least, I trust that they are trying their best to admit the students that they believe will contribute to their universityâs needs and mission. However, I also know that many institutions still have considerable work to do in order to fulfill their desire to create cultures in which all admitted students will flourish. If you donât know this or you donât understand how alienating the experience can be for black students at these institutions, you likely donât know many black students or you have never really asked.
Iâve learned a lot in this thread and I think it has been useful to hear dissenting opinions even when Iâve found myself frustrated. On the other hand, given two of my kids are rather STEM-y and the other two are decidedly not, I would be very interested to hear posters thoughts about EBRW section of the exam. I am confused about why on College Confidential, there is next to no discussion about the role of that section in college admissions. Iâve suspected that it is because people who like mathematics are convinced that math related fields are important and rigorous while non math related fields are unimportant and a cesspool for weak students (speaking in hyperbole here); but I am probably being unfair. I loved the math courses that I took throughout secondary school and college, but I have never felt as if STEM fields are inherently more rigorous than the humanities, arts, and social sciences. I certainly have never felt that they are more important. So why do so many posters focus only on the math portion of the SAT?
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I donât get why standardized tests must necessarily have ulterior motives to âkeep them down.â I have seen numerous hugely disadvantaged students come through our B.S. program who are now successful engineers. I get to know a small number of them and listen to their stories, even meeting their families at convocation. Some have parents who couldnât speak a word of English and work what most would consider unimaginably horrible jobs just to live. Some of them did great in SAT/ACT which led to small scholarships from the university that helped pay for their college. They may or may not be âdiamond in the rough,â but standardized tests helped them. Others didnât do well in SAT/ACT but the less-selective nature of my school gave them a chance, which they took and never looked back. For these, standardized tests neither helped nor kept them down. Their poorly resourced high schools didnât keep them down. They helped themselves with enough talent and an unbelievable work ethic. I couldnât be happier for them and thought to myself, social mobility can happen if you want it to happen.
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You do realize the quote referred to using the SAT later on life, right? Particularly in hiring practices?
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Part of that shift of expectations is that potential employees are responsible for their own career development, identifying the opportunities and qualifications that are needed to best advance it. They similarly need the agency to apply for those opportunities, just like they need to apply to college at an earlier stage. Youâve pointed out that some job opportunities are hidden, but thatâs not the case with college applications.
In what sense is a talented kid with great potential âlocked-outâ of taking the test? There is free material available for self-study on Khan Academy (which suffices as prep for plenty of kids) and fee waivers available to cover the cost of taking it. And its not hidden, I doubt there are many kids in US high schools who are unaware that the SAT test exists.
The decision not to take or not to apply to selective schools again comes down to agency. Increasing awareness of college opportunities (just like opening up job opportunities) and encouraging talented potential students (or potential employees) to exercise that agency is a marketing challenge, not a testing issue. And even then, its patronizing and elitist to think that leaving their community and state to attend a prestigious college is the right answer for everyone. Does anyone seriously think Google should go âcode test optionalâ for its employees, even though the existence of that code test undoubtedly deters some applicants, and some applicants are able to do more prep (sometime paid in coding boot camps etc) than others?
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Not what I said. I said they donât take the test. And statistics indicate that poor kids are much less likely to take these tests than rich kids. Only about 25% from the lowest income deciles take the test.
And even for those who do take the test, a test taker with a perfect math score and access to sound advice may apply to MIT, but an extraordinarily talented but under-resourced student with a 740 in math is going to take a look at the 25% Math score (790) and they probably arenât going to apply to MIT. And MIT will miss out on a talented student with great potential.