I read this quite a lot, but don’t find it convincing. There are aspects of the process that are exceedingly transparent, including the mininum requirements, the local option for auto admit, the extremely detailed admissions record of every applicant from every high school in CA, etc.
If you mean that the admission results appear arbitrary from the outside, then I’d agree. But this was the case before tests, and it would still be the case if tests came back.
California policy is explicit and transparent in this regard. The policy goal is to provide UC access from schools all over the state, including both “meat grinder” schools and “poorly resourced inland schools.” You may not agree with the policy goal, but California is transparent about it.
Again, this isn’t really a lack of transparency, but rather your disagreement with a transparent policy goal.
Did you see the Netflix quasi-documentary about the College Admission Scandal? It felt like it was a couple of hours long. After about 120 minutes of (rightly) shredding the rich people who bought their kids a path into elite schools, a woman (who I think was identified as an ‘education consultant’ or ‘education expert’) then opined that all of their subterfuge was meaningless, because where you go to college really doesn’t impact your life very much. Now, whether she is right or wrong is not the point here. The point is that I suffered through the whole documentary of the “largest of its kind” prosecution, only to be told that there were no real victims, because these unethical rich people had wasted their money.
I think I have read most of this thread, and I got the same feeling after reading your quote just now. Throughout this thread, I’ve been bombarded with the evils of testing, how prepping for the SAT robs high school students of their real education and how every single aspect of the SAT is unfair…only to be told that the people who bomb the SAT do just fine in life, thank you very much. I’m sure it is all true. Still, why do any of the arguments against the SAT even matter if everything is going to be fine anyway?
Because when someone’s “little genius” does poorly on a standardized test, it’s natural to attack the test as being flawed, useless, pointless, what have you.
I would change this to say some. There are many kids who can’t overcome a poor K-12 education.
Juice, meet squeeze.
Again, ask yourself, why have thousands of college administrators/boards decided they don’t need test scores from students to fill their classes? There are lots of reasons…most found in this thread. The genie is not going back in the bottle, although some select schools may go back to testing for their idiosyncratic reasons. Feels like the industry has spoken, no?
As is their right. It doesn’t mean I have to agree with it or think it is indicative of some objective truth. Schools have had all sorts of poor policies through the years.
And a school’s policy does not necessarily tell me how the school actually views standardized tests. Schools play games with their testing policies, just like they do with every other aspect of the admissions process.
Alternatively, when someone’s “little genius” does well on the test but doesn’t get into their dream school, it is “natural” to attack and blame the rejection on not the lack of emphasis on the test score.
What many of these angry parents don’t realize is that the test score probably wouldn’t have made a difference.
I mean, that’s my point… I’m one of “those people” that tests well, and I found during my education that I would end up testing into situations where I felt surrounded by smarter people (whose test scores were lower or the same). Not sure how better to explain this.
Analogy understood, but misplaced? Not everyone who is gifted and subsequently does well on standardized tests hired a high priced tutor,etc. Convenient, but exhausted, excuse.
It doesnt make a difference if they are upper middle class.
Let’s just be honest. T20 schools dont care if a suburban kid scores 1570. It would be great if they just said what most people already know.
Dear applicant,
Since your family makes over $200k/yr, we assume you had an advantage since birth. Therefore, your high SAT scores are completely irrelevant in our review process. However, if you scored below 1500, you are probably not a good fit for our school.
This may be difficult to grasp, but not everyone who is intelligent and subsequently does well on a test had a drove of high priced tutors and gobs of money on “test prep”. Good grief.
Some of those things, but also I am just a good test taker. A time limited test is a perfect opportunity to show off my strengths.
I am a really fast reader. I plowed through tons of books as a kid because of lack of other opportunities in my life, so I have a big passive vocabulary and I’m good at skimming and skipping around through text.
Being a fast reader is almost like getting extra time on many tests. It makes the actual work of the test faster, and it also makes it easier to scan over the test and figure out how much time to spend on each thing. It makes it easier to check work or quickly scan for mistakes.
Also, I am not afraid of tests and enjoy doing them. It’s fun, like a puzzle. I feel a positive kind of stress, like when people play a video game.
During the brief and focused time period of a test, it’s also easier for me to pull my brain together and crank out an answer or theory or short piece of writing, or pull things out of my memory, compared to in real life. Time limited tests, by their very nature, do not require deep and sustained work.
