Thread by @JonBoeckenstedt

Thread: We need to get a few things straight, people.

Those advocating for the return of the SAT in admissions because "other things seem to favor wealthy students" seem to be missing something.

Something kind of big.

Can you guess what it is?

I'll wait.

Go on, don't be afraid. I bet you know the answer but you're too shy to say it.

OK, here it is:

Everything (save perhaps one thing) in the admissions process favors wealthy students.

And people who actually do admissions for a living already know this. We don't need research to prove it to us.

To wit: Yes, essays. Duh. In one suburban high school outside of Chicago I know, students work on college essays as a literary form in Freshman English.

Others, not knowing much about the process, might sit down and type their essay as they fill out Common App.

Guess which of those groups have more resources, even before you factor in the ability to a) hire tutors or editors, b) have your essay reviewed by several people who have college degrees, and c) have them reviewed by people WHO GO TO WORKSHOPS RUN BY PEOPLE WHO READ THE ESSAYS?

Again, I'll wait. This is not the SAT; I'm not trying to trick you by giving you a wrong answer that looks right.

What about those LORs (that's what we call letters of recommendation in the business?) I wrote about this several years ago.

washingtonpost.com/news/grade-poi…

Extra-curriculars? Well, what looks better in ED (which already favors the wealthy because if you don't have to worry about money, well...):

Captain of the lacrosse team?
or
20 hours a week at Subway?

Demonstrated interest? Your (hired) coach will tell you about that, assuming you can afford to hire a coach.

And your parents can pay for that plane ticket to visit if...guess what...see? you're learning!

Of course, low-income kids can just tell grandpa to build a new wing on the science center, right? (Jared Kushner, are you listening?)

Or tell their mother's colleague in the corner office to put in a good word....

We also need to remember that high school GPA is now and always has been the best predictor of college GPA.

Even the College Board and ACT have never disputed this. And they don't dispute the VERY (and I mean VERY) small incremental gain their tests add to the prediction EQ

Of course, the narrative suggesting "the GPA at THAT school is not as good as the GPA at MY school" is a theme started and dominated by...by whom, do you think?

People with the money and the power, of course.

So the argument seems to be, "Let's use tests because they are standardized." That word standardized does not really mean what most people who don't do this for a living think it means.

It's doesn't mean "common."

In fact, in any given admissions cycle, students might be presenting test from as many as 12 different administrations, all different (unless College Board recycles them, as they've done in the past, which favors...well, you complete the sentence.)

But that's an aside. Standardized means they're designed to sort students into group: If you give it to a thousand students, you'll always have 100 who score in the top 10%. It's not like a high school grade.

So, that top 10% means you're smart, right?

First, tell me what smart means. Once you do that, I'll admit that it's hard to guess your way into the top 10%. That's really the only reason the highly rejective colleges like them: Low false positives.

So the tests measure something. But scores can be raised by test prep, and intensive tutoring, and by having money. Here's how it looks on the ACT, in 2018 (extracted this from the EIS reports):

Along the left are composite scores: Read across any composite score to see how students at that score represent (self-reported) income levels. For instance, at a 34 composite, 41% of students had family income over $150K.

Are low-income kids dumb? Or is it possible they have been forced to take a test they're not prepped for by wealthy, obsessive parents (see Varsity Blues)? Or perhaps they've never been exposed to the content. Is that "fair" to them?

Be suspicious of anyone who has risen through the ranks of academia at least in part by having high test scores.

It's hard for some people to believe that the touchdown they scored in the homecoming game isn't really important.

Same for their SAT or GRE scores.

It's not a coincidence that people who like these scores tend to be white or Asian or wealthy. Because that's who scores well on the tests.

But suggesting they will somehow help low-income, first-gen, students of color?

It's laughable. It's moronic.

If you want to say removing these tests will hurt low-income, first-gen, students of color, tell me this:

When have they ever helped low-income, first-gen, students of color?

This "Diamond in the Rough" theory occasionally helps a small number of students. But you can't cite the benefits of the tests without accounting for the costs: The thousands of kids each year screwed over by the exams.

The tropes people use to justify a test that helps them are predictable. There are at least nine. I wrote about them: jonboeckenstedt.net/2020/01/10/som…

I'm out of room. Sorry.

Don't believe the BS.

Oh, and #EMTalk

Just stopped in over lunch to say I've muted this conversation, so I won't see replies to it. Sorry for any replies I've missed here that I should have responded to; I had no idea this would get so much attention, and think I'll go back to my blogs.