| ▲ | StateflowsLabs an hour ago |
| "The surge in math deficiencies after dropping the SAT highlights a systemic issue: grade inflation. Without a standardized baseline like the SAT/ACT, a 4.0 GPA from a high school with relaxed standards looks identical to a 4.0 from a highly rigorous one. Paradoxically, removing test requirements harms underprivileged students the most. Preparing for the SAT requires a book and an internet connection. In contrast, building a competitive profile based entirely on expensive extracurriculars, sports, and elite summer camps is far more wealth-dependent. Standardized testing isn't perfect, but it's often the only objective equalizer we have." |
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| ▲ | CalRobert 36 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| I wasn't underprivileged but I did go to a terrible evangelical high school that had no honors or AP classes (AP bio at a place teaching creationism would've been something else...) and I think I only got in to a decent college on the strength of my SAT and ACT scores. My grades were OK (except in bio, where I refused to acknowledge young Earth creationism) but not amazing. |
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| ▲ | ceejayoz an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Preparing for the SAT requires a book and an internet connection. Sports frequently just requires a ball or a place to run. In both scenarios, you can still purchase better equipment/training. There are very expensive, effective SAT prep options out there for the wealthy. |
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| ▲ | criddell 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | My kids were able to take some SAT test prep course through their school (partially funded by the PTA) and it helped a lot. They wrote a bunch of practice exams and each time their scores went up. Also, test taking itself is a skill and the more you practice it the better you get at it. If you’ve written the SAT 15 times over the past 2 years, then the 16th time won’t be as stressful and you will know strategies that work and the questions will be familiar. If you are in a school that doesn’t have a well funded PTA, you are at a disadvantage. | | |
| ▲ | jeffbee 27 minutes ago | parent [-] | | You can, as of about a year ago, take official SAT practice exams for free in Google Gemini. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 24 minutes ago | parent [-] | | SAT prep is much more than just taking practice exams. | | |
| ▲ | jeffbee 21 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The person to whom I responded seemed to imply that it consists chiefly or entirely of taking practice exams. I merely wish to point out that if you want your kid to take SAT practice exams every month you can do it for free at home. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 19 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Such a "SAT test prep course" is going to involve more than just self-guided practice exams. It'll include feedback and coaching to address deficits revealed by those practice exams. |
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| ▲ | triceratops 17 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Whatever gates you put up, the wealthy can fire cannons of cash at them. You just have to pick the ones least vulnerable to cash barrages. What is the marginal gain of expensive SAT prep? Versus just doing hundreds of mock tests out of some prep book, like SWEs grinding LeetCode? | |
| ▲ | valleyer an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Your analogy works against you, given that tons of professional athletes come from poverty. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Professional athletes are like people who get 1600s on the SAT; a bit of an outlier. | | |
| ▲ | Aarostotle 40 minutes ago | parent [-] | | That's exactly the point. Top schools are looking for outlier intellectual talent, but the egalitarian approach (high school grade inflation plus weakening of standardized testing) smooths the differences and makes it harder for them to admit the right people. The visible result has been the weakening of these institutions. Do also observe that this is recursive — as these institutions have lowered their standards over decades, the people who go through them and end up leading them are weaker, too. | | |
| ▲ | t0mpr1c3 6 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | We're talking about the California state education system here. They do not have the option to restrict the provision of their services to a tiny elite. The concerns of "top schools" absorbs altogether too much oxygen. | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 36 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Top schools are looking for outlier intellectual talent… Eh, somewhat. They want some of those outliers hobnobbing with the legacies. |
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| ▲ | rixed 7 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | According to IA this is mostly a myth though. | |
| ▲ | BigTTYGothGF 43 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > tons of professional athletes come from poverty Is that actually the case? | | |
| ▲ | ptek 28 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Depends on the sport. I don’t think the Olympic equestrian competitors would be dirt poor. |
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| ▲ | happytoexplain 31 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I can't read the article - do they explain why they think this is a "paradox"? |
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| ▲ | nyeah an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I don't think it's paradoxical at all. This was the original strength of the SAT system. |
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| ▲ | eunos an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| And SAT as high school math exam itself I think is way too easy. They should design another test which can clearly distinguish top 1% or even 0.1%.from others |
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| ▲ | linguae 28 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | When I was in high school in California more than 20 years ago, SAT math alone was insufficient for admissions to STEM programs at mid-ranked and top-ranked universities. I was required to take the SAT Math IIC subject test, which went up to pre-calculus. We were also strongly encouraged to take calculus in high school. There are two AP Calculus exams: AB (which covers the first semester of university calculus) and BC (which covers the first two semesters). | |
| ▲ | raincole 42 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | There are already such tests. They're called International ___ Olympiad. |
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| ▲ | lokar 44 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] |
| The problem is as never the tests. It was pretending that the difference between a 600 and 625 (or whatever) really predicted anything. It was the silly idea that with tests you could produce a fair ordering of students based on potential to succeed. |
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| ▲ | scarmig 30 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | You can absolutely make a bet on who's more likely to succeed based on a 100 point difference, though. It's not absolute, but it's highly predictive. And the reason the SAT was dropped wasn't because admissions were being forced to blindly accept 620 over 610 (they never were), but so that people who scored hundreds of points below the mean could be admitted (in the pursuit of other institutional goals). | | |
| ▲ | lokar 23 minutes ago | parent [-] | | We have decades of data (test score vs grades and degree completion). They should gather it up and calculate the answers. Flip answer: the bucket width should be 2.5 times the score improved of a prep course. |
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| ▲ | raincole 37 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Any working system has to rely on some arbitrary rules. Drawing a line between students who scored 600 and 625 is still infinitely better than drawing it based on the decision-makers' moods. | | | |
| ▲ | chaostheory 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | As imperfect standardized tests are, they are still more fair and less biased than using arbitrary judgement on extra curriculars | | |
| ▲ | lokar 21 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Bucket to the observed predictive power of the score, resolve ties with a lottery . |
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| ▲ | jpadkins 38 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | who uses SAT scores as "potential succeed"?? | | |
| ▲ | lokar 22 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The original argument for standardized tests was to pick based on how well you would do in university (vs who your parents know). |
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