At the very least, it's complicated. I went to an appallingly bad, fundamentalist religious high school (not my choice) that didn't offer extracurriculars, honors classes (never mind AP!) etc. and if I hadn't been able to do exceedingly well on standardized tests I could not have gotten in to the colleges I did. My parents did not pay for any test prep. I did learn and practice on my own though, which is how I know that evolution does not, in fact, teach that you can grow wings if you want them badly enough.

merit doesn't mean equal wealth spending to obtain a result. And it's not black and white.

Someone rich spending a lot of money to obtain tutoring doesn't necessarily make their score higher, and there's also diminishing returns. Someone poor who do not afford private tutoring can also receive good score due to their natural talent and/or hard work in self-teaching/practicing.

> universal SAT tutoring available to everyone in order to be more meritocratic.

and that is now called school isnt it? Everybody gets at least some minimal standard of schooling.

The fact is, meritocratic is meant to describe the opposite of nepotistic (or sometimes hereditary/aristocratic). Under a nepotistic system, no matter what you do, you cannot succeed without becoming the in-group somehow.

Khan Academy was free and used to obtain 99th percentile SAT scores. Academic resources for success are abundantly available, but they require discipline, time, and effort.

Well nothing is truly meritocratic - even with free tutoring, kids will still have different genetics, different home environments, different upbringings etc..

Colleges in the US that removed standardized testing from their applications, in the pursuit of trying to be more meritocratic, found that fewer students from underrepresented backgrounds got in, not more. In hindsight (and to some in foresight) this makes sense because now schools leaned more heavily on grades and extracurriculars, both of which can be gamed by wealthy families far more easily than a standardized test.

China has made for-profit extracurricular tutoring illegal since 2021. [1] Of course there can be under the table operations and discussion to be had about regionally biased gaokao difficulty, but I think it's worth recognizing gaokao being a real chance for upward class mobility, hence why it is so competitive.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Reduction_Policy

Tutors barely move exam scores, particularly if they're only hired for test prep. You can crush tests without cramming, tutors or any of that if you just pay attention in class and do all optional homework.

> Don’t wealthier families hire tutors to prepare their children?

Effect of tutoring is greatly overstated.

It could still be more fair than no standardized testing

Take it to it's logical conclusion. Free universal choice of schools rather than being tethered to your home address.

Sure, but tutoring involves learning and improving the skills at hand. Meritocracy doesn't mean equal opportunity, it means candidates are evaluated equally without regard to superficial characteristics like appearance. A meritocratic test will award higher scores to test takers that can read and analyze passages faster and solve math problems more reliability. Whether those test takers possess that ability innately, or built up that ability through loads of studying doesn't alter the fact that it's a meritocratic test.

Of course candidates that study more have an advantage. But that doesn't make it non-meritocratic. That'd be like saying a marathon isn't meritocratic because some people spend more time training.

Sure, but tutoring involves learning and improving the skills at hand. Meritocracy doesn't mean equal opportunity, it means candidates are evaluated equally without regard to superficial characteristics like appearance.

Of course candidates that study more have an advantage. But that doesn't make it non-meritocratic. That'd be like saying a marathon isn't meritocratic because some people spend more time training and conditioning.

The actual problem is that we are not blank slates, and wealthy parents tend to be wealthy because they are more intelligent, and likewise give birth to predisposed-to-be-intelligent babies.

I always find it slightly ironic how mother nature gets so much reverence from ostensibly communal types, despite her being the most shamelessly power hungry entity ever conceived.

There are those who argue that the entire high school curriculum in the USA is formed and molded by College Board changes to the SAT (and similarly to the ACT).

It makes sense, if the SAT starts asking you do calculate epicycles, schools are going to add Ptolemy to the study, or look worse than those that did.

So what are aspects of being well educated not reflected in the Gaokao? How could those aspects be assessed as objectively and unbiased as possible?

Or (some) western education is too unconstrained and have strayed from purpose.

Scope of gaokao = teaching the test is just teaching everything a well rounded student should know. it's not sats where you can cram a few test tactic sessions and get a few 100 extra points. At the end of the day, gaokao is there to beat knowledge floor/foundation into kids, and one would argue knowledge floor is very deep if you want to generate most bodies that can transition into technical tertiary. Like... if one want human capita pool to be launchpad for innovation, you don't make calculus optional to athletics or other extra curricular.

IMO useful perspective is PRC diaspora, who readily acknowledges they don't want their kids going through gaokao not because it's ineffective but because it's tough, and half the reason they immigrate is because their statistically mediocre kids can't hack it under gaokao, but with some east asian education rigour/pressure will still be top 5% students under western education.

If this is the case, then why doesn’t everyone get the top a score? The answer is, of course, that it’s not so simple, and you can’t just learn to the test.

That’s just like with sports: anyone can learn how to train himself, and anyone can improve with training, but in the end, some people will end up faster, and some people will end up slower.

China also bans test tutoring as a commercial service. Without a doubt people will still be able to find tutors if they're sufficiently capable, but the scale of this problem should be vastly altered by that action.

Can you learn to the test without actually learning the material?

The problem is the high stress generated by the one-shot approach. There has to be a balance between the objectivity of a single test and practical concerns (like choking because you were sick or got bad sleep the night before).

Ultimately, the only "fair" outcome is an abundance of opportunity. The vast majority of people are worth something to their community and society. And even then, as long as there's enough food and shelter to go around, no one should have to justify their mere existence.

The systems may not be held in high regard, but their education systems produce workers responsible for great innovation, productivity and economic growth.

How many folks from China have you met that haven't passed/been to university?

The US has plenty of exams, starting in early primary school. All states have Standards of Learning (SOL) exams every few years on the main subjects. Then, starting in high school, you have a combination of Advanced Placement (AP) subject exams (college level, often granting college credit) or International Baccalaureate (IB) exams, Scholastic Aptitude (SAT) or American College Test (ACT), SAT2 subject exams, and probably a few I've forgotten.

The SAT or ACT are technically the only ones "required" for college, but most of the elite schools expect AP or IB (which tends to give the students a year or two of calculus, a fourth year of foreign language, and some deeper dives into other sciences or social studies).

But, because it's split across so many tests, there's no single "score poorly and your life is ruined" exam.

We have the SAT and ACT, and those are objective. The wealthy still pass disproportionately due to better tutoring specifically oriented to those tests. It’s Goodhart’s law.

I am currently living in Japan, and it seems that they follow the American style exams. I don't know if it is a result of the post-war occupation, or it was already like that before WW2.

Back home in Spain we follow the same style of a single national-level exam that you mentioned though.

Everyone has a tendency to support the system they went through. I've done it numerous times for standardized tests and I went through them. I think the information value of a person who was certified capable by system X recommending system X is probably low.

After all, if you flipped the script and the US used standardized tests and you were then told that China uses a committee of experts that will certify incoming applicants' stated political positions, race, and cultural background in order to "craft a class" (as an admissions officer calls it in SAT Wars) with a carve-out for the children of those who have already attended, you would be informed of the need for meritocracy, the tendency towards nepotism, and the obvious racial biases that will affect individuals in such a system.

Likewise, you would doubtless be informed that the East's more holistic look at the total student is a superior form of student selection since it is driven by a Confucian focus on the gestalt human rather than on the reductive metrics of the West.

What is interesting to me is to hear from those who have succeeded in some system but nonetheless wish it were different.

I don't know how this exam is in China and Poland, but from what I've seen about the south Korean one it is much harsher on the students than the french one, even in my time

Your single exam performance doesn't forever assign you to a class of people, you still have an opportunity to redo the exam next year or to be successful even without a degree. That's not possible in China nor Korea. Even in Germany flunking a class might ban you from ever retaking it at any other German university.

>and it's the same in the entire EU

That's not true.

Its basically anything that sticks by saying "China Bad, USA Good".

Because they want to say that China is bad. When, as you say, US is the outlier in inventing strange ways to admit kids to college. I'm from Brazil and the entrance is exam is similar to China, there is a single exam and the note is used to determine which college you can go.

Balances out the mass media. Drink propaganda from both sides. Healthier for you.

Don't american right wingers like the SATs too?

Your country has very black-and-white politics. Anything <entity I don't like> does / says is bad.

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