Thread by @JonBoeckenstedt

Thread: I read it again this morning:

"Everything like letters of recommendation and essays and GPA can be easily manipulated by the wealthy, so we need The SAT because it's standardized and fair."

I have this strange belief that if we who have actually done admissions keep beating our heads against a brick wall, somehow this thinking will go away.

It won't because you have people with a voice--the same ones who benefit from the SAT--controlling the narrative.

So first, the rebuttal: Yes, as I've said before, almost everything in the process favors the wealthy. That's the defining problem.

But all those other things stand in stark contrast to the SAT and ACT: People--even those who have never done admissions--understand that those other things are contextual. We all know a LOR from a private prep school is different than a letter from a large underfunded public.

We all know that 38,000 high schools have what seems to be 38,000 different grading systems. We all know that some students learn about the college essay as a literary style as HS freshmen, and some start typing it as they're completing the app.

But test scores? They're *NUMBERS*. And numbers are objective, right?

They're not, of course. Stats 101 includes an understanding of SEM. Too often, this point is lost on the media and not even understood by young admissions officers.

We don't report GPA because it's never the same thing for two students. We don't report average LOR score, or average essay score, because these too, would be meaningless. Average activity score? Huh?

But most colleges still report mean SAT and ACT scores, or at least the middle 50% of scores (the midpoint of the ranges usually being very, very close to the mean, of course, so there goes that little trick.)

And people believe they're objective. They're not. Of course a student with a 1570 is probably better prepared for college than one with a 930. No one disputes that (but it's also true that the 1570 has a higher GPA, too, 98,9% of the time.)

(BTW, College Board's own data shows that when test scores are higher than GPA, it's almost always a wealthier, white or Asian male with parents who have a college degree or higher). highereddatastories.com/2019/03/lookin…

Let's take two people into a room to play a new video game: One is a natural gamer who's never seen this game before. One is a pretty good gamer who's been practicing on it for a few months.

Who wins? Natural talent, or practice and familiarity?

The game is objective, right?

Who hears about the SAT in 7th grade? Who's been prepping for it for two years? Who gets multiple stabs at it? Who knows to take a practice test five times before the real test? Who goes to a school where the curriculum is tied to testing concepts?

And who doesn't?

The very same people who won't hire a candidate until they've vetted that person with 50 people on campus via in-person interviews think you can select the best future students by making them take a three-hour test.

A test created by a private company. A private company that no one voted for. An organization that shows what it thinks of us by stashing billions in off-shore accounts. A group of people no government agency appointed. A group of people that have never taught those they test.

This, we believe, is fair. Or, more accurately, this, the people who have benefited from this system, believe is fair.

See the problem? See the problem.

This day is The Day of Fools.

This doesn't mean you need to tolerate them.

Oh, and #EMTalk