40% Of America's Schools Have Now Dropped Their SAT/ACT Testing Requirement (washingtonpost.com) 224
"A record number" of U.S. schools are now accepting nearly all of their students without requiring an SAT or ACT test score, reports the Washington Post:
Robert A. Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, which opposes the misuse of standardized tests, said the past year has seen the "fastest growth spurt ever" of schools ending the SAT/ACT test score as an admission requirement. Over the summer, more than one school a week announced the change. Nearly 50 accredited colleges and universities that award bachelor's degrees announced from September 2018 to September 2019 that they were dropping the admissions requirement for an SAT or ACT score, FairTest said. That brings the number of accredited schools to have done so to 1,050 -- about 40 percent of the total, the nonprofit said.
While the test-optional list has some schools with specific missions -- there are religious colleges, music and art conservatories, nursing schools -- it also includes more than half of the top 100 liberal arts colleges on the U.S. News & World Report list, FairTest said. Also on the list are the majority of colleges and universities in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the District of Columbia and the six New England states...
Research has consistently shown that ACT and SAT scores are strongly linked to family income, mother's education level and race... The University of Chicago, which abandoned the requirement last year, reported in July that its decision, along with an increase in financial aid and outreach, led to a 20 percent increase in first-generation, low-income and rural students and veterans to commit to the school.
While the test-optional list has some schools with specific missions -- there are religious colleges, music and art conservatories, nursing schools -- it also includes more than half of the top 100 liberal arts colleges on the U.S. News & World Report list, FairTest said. Also on the list are the majority of colleges and universities in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the District of Columbia and the six New England states...
Research has consistently shown that ACT and SAT scores are strongly linked to family income, mother's education level and race... The University of Chicago, which abandoned the requirement last year, reported in July that its decision, along with an increase in financial aid and outreach, led to a 20 percent increase in first-generation, low-income and rural students and veterans to commit to the school.
Wonder if this is just (Score:5, Interesting)
In return for this monetary investment in the school the school will help them get a degree in something that "might" enable the student to pay the loans back.
So the risk is all on the student, the school is 100% cashed out and laughing all the way to the bank.
Just my 2 cents
Re: Wonder if this is just (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Wonder if this is just (Score:5, Insightful)
Soon the government is giving you a hundred thousand dollars a year to educate whoever you want.
Educate them to do what? Be surgeons, lawyers, engineers, professors, scientists, politicians, military leaders, bankers, and social workers? Of course not, because these occupations require an intelligence that is in the top 1/3 of the population. The people that don't have an IQ over about 105, and are admitted to university, will either fail out or end up in an education in something that doesn't require this level of intelligence. Then they end up "educated" with a degree that means nothing to anyone that is looking to hire a professional.
It's not the education that gets people a good job, it's the work ethic and the intelligence to comprehend and apply this education that gets them a good job.
Maybe we should be educating people in high school. This way those that have a high school education will be prepared to hold a job. We can't have that though, because that means we'd have to deny people a diploma for not attaining some minimal standards for holding down a job. We could not be so cruel to deny people a high school diploma, so we've made a diploma worthless for determining one is able for the basics of reading, 'riting, and 'rithmatic.
Re: Wonder if this is just (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're missing the point. The goal is equity among the occupations as well. The next step is to ensure that there are no wealth-earning occupations. For example, Bernie Sanders' healthcare plan includes a 40% pay reduction for physicians. I'll be just like in the Soviet Union - everyone will earn within 2-3 fold of each other no matter the profession. You'll get your alotted apartment based on the size of your family and availability (and how much you bribe the clerk), you'll take the bus to work, a
Re: Wonder if this is just (Score:5, Insightful)
I googled the 40% claim and it seems to be a wild exaggeration, e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
But still, considering your health care is some of the most expensive in the world with very poor outcomes for many people a 40% cut might be quite reasonable. Medicine costs in particular need to come down by way more than 40%.
And as that article points out some providers will actually get more money under the Sanders system.
Re: Wonder if this is just (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't really the Doctor pay that drives the cost up here in the US, it is the middle men, the HMO and bean counter types.
You combine those with the lawyers and costs of litigation that causes the medical profession to CYA themselves often with multiple expensive tests in excess of what could actually help the diagnosis....but are done for legal coverage reasons.
We have a lot of those causing the problems.
Sure, Dr's get paid a lot, but they also sacrifice a lot to get started....the extra years of med school and that debt, the internship, and long hours, etc....
By the time they are actually out working and earning money, they have to make up time salary wise, and frankly, I don't mind someone working on my body making a very healthy living.
But it ain't the doctors themselves in the US that drive the costs up so high.
Lots of other areas to cut way before you hit what a Dr charges in order to make his salary after expenses.
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I don't disagree, and to be clear the 40% number is a lie. It's actually a 40% reduction in the amount paid to the provider, of which a proportion goes on doctor's pay. It could conceivably be eaten by the provider and the doctor does not see any reduction, or they could stop spending money on those unnecessary tests you mention.
So really it depends what other reforms happen at the same time, the cut in money is just one aspect of the overall plan that needs to be evaluated as a whole.
Re: Wonder if this is just (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe so, but that doesn't change the fact private insurance pays about twice what Medicare pays. If you don't up the payments in M4A, then doctors take a big hit. Given the time, the expense, the difficulty, the sacrifices...doctors are will to put up with that for the big payday at the end. Without the big payday I don't know what that does to the medical field.
Re: Wonder if this is just (Score:4, Interesting)
I had shoulder surgery recently. Good doctor, young, talkative. He mentioned that when entering college, he went medical and his friend went industrial. Electrician or whatever. The friend is buying a house. Taking vacations to places.
The doctor is paying off his loan.
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Here's the problem. I should have better health care than a 25 year old unemployed schmo who sits on his parents' couch and plays video games all day. Currently I do and I pay for it. Under Warren/Bernie suddenly my kids have the same fucking health care as the schmo.
If said schmos new health care was as good as mine, I don't mind as long as my costs don't double. However, instead mine will get worse and his will get better and I will pay at least marginally and probably considerably more overall especially
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I should have better health care than a 25 year old unemployed schmo who sits on his parents' couch and plays video games all day. [...] If said schmos new health care was as good as mine, I don't mind as long as my costs don't double.
Kinda sounds like you do mind.
However, instead mine will get worse and his will get better
The US pays nearly 2x as much per person for healthcare as average first world countries and the outcomes are not great. Near the top for some categories (cancer IIRC), really bad for o
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By better I mean not waiting in line, fewer hoops to jump through for e.g. imaging or special labs, etc.. I'm fine and support universal coverage but not if it means my care gets "worse" (lines, fewer doctors, more hassle to get tests, etc...).
In particular I don't get where the idea that everything should be "free" comes from. If you can afford to pay you should pay. It shouldn't bankrupt you, but there should be basic deductibles, reasonable costs for pharmaceuticals, etc.. You want people to get treated
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It's not the education that gets people a good job, it's the work ethic and the intelligence to comprehend and apply this education that gets them a good job.
No matter how many times you tell yourself that it won't make it any more true. I bet it makes you feel great about yourself though. Most people making the hiring decisions are not smart enough to even recognize an intelligent person when they meet one and you have to first hire someone to see if they are hard working. Maybe jobs should require IQ test scores, but unfortunately they don't.
Re: Wonder if this is just (Score:4, Interesting)
It's always down to IQ with some people.
Being a lawyer is not very hard. What it does require is dedication to learning a large amount of material, which is why it's likely to be one of the first clerical jobs to be replaced by AI.
Bankers are even easier to replace by dumb machines. In fact it's been happening for years now already.
Most surgeons are also not geniuses, they just have a lot of experience and steady hands. Most surgery is routine and has been made as safe and simple as possible. Again, it's just that you need to study for years and then work in a high pressure job for years to become a surgeon who does those routine operations, not that you need to have great intelligence.
Anyway if you start blocking people from certain careers based on IQ they will just start gaming the IQ scores, like every other kind of exam.
Re: Wonder if this is just (Score:2)
Being a lawyer is not very hard
You think you're bitching about our stupid, arbitrary way of measuring intelligence but from the above, it's clear that you're just attempting to play-down intelligence itself.
Par for the course, from you.
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You do realize that most lawyers aren't like the ones on TV, right? Most of their work is making slight modifications to form contracts, wills, helping with house purchases, that sort of thing.
Actually these days there seem to be a fair few who specialize in spamming DMCA notices, but as evidence of their limited intelligence I point to the fact that they don't even bother check if the receiver is in the US first.
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Education has value on its own. Voters can either be educated or uneducated - but they still get a vote.
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Maybe we should be educating people in high school. This way those that have a high school education will be prepared to hold a job.
We do that already, but it has no effect. Companies love to use degree requirements as an easy to implement filter to throw out applications automatically so they don't have to consider them even when the position should not require a degree.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Change the word "educate" to "indoctrinate" and suddenly it makes a LOT more sense.
Uneducated people are much easier to control. And quite a lot easier to manipulate their votes in the election. Political indoctrination happens over social media these days.
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Uneducated people are much easier to control
People who get what they want are easiest to control. And highly educated people are more likely to get what they want, because they can create it, especially if everybody else is educated too.
Re: Wonder if this is just (Score:4, Insightful)
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Remember that you, as an individual, have no real bargaining power against a large corporation. They have no incentive to do anything other than gouge for every penny they can get and you have no choice other than accept it or die (in the case of health care) or condemn yourself to a lifetime of low-paying shit jobs (in the case of education).
Collective bargaining is the only way to oppose this and we don't have anything of the sort right now beyond an ineffectual government agencies suffering from regulat
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You have it backwards. The issue is that as the economy transitions from low skill manufacturing and low skill services to jobs that require education the population needs to be educated. Otherwise the economy suffers from a lack of skilled labour and the population suffers from a lack of well paid jobs.
Developed nations are all facing this problem and the only solution is to help more people access university level education. Loans are one option but it seems like you fucked that up royally, so time to try
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>The issue is that as the economy transitions from low skill manufacturing and low skill services to jobs that require education
I see little evidence of that. There are TONS of new jobs, jobs that never existed before, that require minimal intelligence & skill.
Uber, Lift, Shift, DoorDash, GrubHub, Air B&B, people that collect & charge those scooters, people that repair those simple scooters.
Nuts, even the number of people who cook at home is dropping like a rock. Every restaurant in town is
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There are TONS of new jobs, jobs that never existed before, that require minimal intelligence & skill.
Uber, Lift, Shift, DoorDash, GrubHub, Air B&B, people that collect & charge those scooters, people that repair those simple scooters.
Yes, but they are all shit jobs with no security and extremely low pay. Are those the jobs you want to build your economy and society on?
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Ultimately we are going to have to reduce the amount of work we do. 3 day working week and all that.
I think the vast majority of people can learn to do something productive.
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It's not ideal but then again that phrase applies to your entire education system.
It's the pragmatic solution. Schools are run at state level, college funding is federal. Fix what you can.
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"the schools seeing the game is getting close to the end. Now they will accept any candidates who are able and willing to apply for a government school loan."
Aunt Beckys of the world, we welcome you, your money and (reluctantly) your brats.
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Music and Art schools have never really been much on SAT scores they have different scales they use.
Re: Wonder if this is just (Score:2)
This is a good thing (Score:2)
There are many people that have the ability to pass tests regardless of their ability to comprehend or apply the concepts the test is attempting to measure. Likewise, there are many that have the ability to comprehend and apply the same content but don't do well in on a test.
These tests eliminate a great percentage of those that are clueless, but they also eliminate those that are fully capable of ''grocking'' at a high level. Not all humanity is able to communicate in the same manner. It will be interesti
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Well, if they get accepted to a school, their progress will also be measured by testing. Seems like an entry test would be a good estimate of the ability to pass school tests later.
Number of College-Aged Students Hits Low Point (Score:5, Informative)
As the number of colleged-aged students is bottoming out, colleges are in a competitive race to the bottom to reduce admissions and graduation standards to keep their numbers, "retention", and income up. Likewise, lots of colleges are in the last year or two abolishing any basic math requirement (like 8th-grade algebra) to graduate.
Projected population graph here, 2014-2030: http://www.chmuraecon.com/blog/2015/september/15/the-decline-in-college-aged-students/ [chmuraecon.com]
More admissions, more debt (Score:2)
Sounds good for the business...
Adversity Score did this (Score:3)
Does SAT still reflect IQ? (Score:5, Insightful)
SAT was introduced so that kids could gain entry on merit, their ability, even without family connections.
Research has consistently shown that ACT and SAT scores are strongly linked to family income, mother's education level and race.
Well, of course it is. All those things are highly correlated to scholastic aptitude or IQ, which is what the test is looking for.
Does the "link" go away when controlling for IQ? That might mean wealthier people are gaining an unfair advantage by coaching their kids for the test, so it no longer reflects their innate ability.
On average, rich kids are smarter than poor kids, and that correlation increases if their parents accessed higher education based on merit.
Are we abandoning merit for racial and class quotas?
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Are we abandoning merit for racial and class quotas?
Of course.
This will not end well.
Re:Does SAT still reflect IQ? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that this reaction is not solving the issue - it's pretending that it doesn't exist. These schools and universities should be looking at ways to eliminate the connection between wealth and education, so that smart kids from anywhere can be found and developed as far as they can go. Instead, they're just pretending that there's no such thing as smart kids and treating everyone the same.
It's always been the case that people opposing meritocracy tend to be the ones with no merit.
Re:Does SAT still reflect IQ? (Score:4, Insightful)
"These schools and universities should be looking at ways to eliminate the connection between wealth and education"
That only happens if we eliminate the ability of wealthy parents to educate and provide for their young.
My parents were poor. They were also smart, and worked hard to educate me. I'm not poor, and my spouse and I are already putting things in place for the children we don't have yet to have access to good education at whatever their level may be.
Intelligence leads to wealth. It also increases the power of education. We can't compensate for a lack of intelligence by throwing money at it - we've been trying for a long time.
There's also the race issue, but nobody wants to touch that with a ten foot pole.
https://www1.udel.edu/educ/got... [udel.edu]
That's one of the tragedies of affirmative action - when you put children in schools they are not academically prepared for, you end up setting them up to fail.
Re:Does SAT still reflect IQ? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're never going to overcome the fact that the well-educated parents provide a better learning environment than poorly-educated ones. Even just watching smart people solve problems can give you a bunch of insights you would not have otherwise. Not to mention those 1 on 1 lessons they could give their kids.
The only way to make the environment truly equal is to take all kids at birth and put them through a live-in school system until they're adults. No parent-child contact allowed.
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There's also the fact that the USA tends to define merit in terms of wealth, regardless of whether that wealth was earned, inherited or stolen.
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Are we abandoning merit for racial and class quotas?
SAT 'Adversity Score' Is Abandoned in Wake of Criticism
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0... [nytimes.com]
Of course, they're only somewhat abandoning it. Even though they've ditched the monolithic "adversity score," the separate socioeconomic criteria are still being made available to schools as context for students' scores
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If ACT and SAT scores are correlated with income, mother's education level and race (a proxy for poverty) then it seems like it should be possible to intervene and help students with low scores.
Since your schools system is so badly broken and all the money is in colleges perhaps colleges are a good place to start.
We can tell that it works by looking at graduation rates.
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If ACT and SAT scores are correlated with income, mother's education level and race (a proxy for poverty) then it seems like it should be possible to intervene and help students with low scores.
Income, mother's education level and race all correlated to hereditary IQ. Obviously in the US, higher IQ often leads to greater educational opportunities and income potential.
The "A" in SAT stands for "aptitude", which by definition is not something that can be changed. The question is not whether richer kids on average have higher aptitude (they do), but whether the SAT accurately reflects that or if scores are inflated by other factors such as coaching.
Race is not a "proxy for poverty" - that is just w
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Twin studies of adult individuals have found a heritability of IQ between 57% and 73%[6] with the most recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80%[7] and 86%.[8]. IQ goes from being weakly correlated with genetics, for children, to being strongly correlated with genetics for late teens and adults. The heritability of IQ increases with age and reaches an asymptote at 18–20 years of age and continues at that level well into adulthood. This phenomenon is known as the Wilson Effect.[9] Recent studies suggest that family and parenting characteristics are not significant contributors to variation in IQ scores;[10] however, poor prenatal environment, malnutrition and disease can have deleterious effects.[11][12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Does SAT still reflect IQ? (Score:4, Informative)
If you read the actual studies it looks more like nutrition and the mother's health are the issues, not genetic
Where does it say that ?
Let us know when someone finds the high IQ gene.
There's not a single gene. It's a combination of many genes, each contributing a small effect.
Re: Does SAT still reflect IQ? (Score:2)
On average, rich kids are smarter than poor kids
Used to be more that way; now they're damn near equally stupid on average.
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"On average, rich kids are smarter than poor kids"
Careful. They do better because they are more likely to be fed, get sleep, and have access to technology in the home. And the parents have time to oversee things like homework, and maybe hire a tutor. End result is better test scores, not a smarter person.
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Why were these tests put in place to begin with? (Score:2, Insightful)
Did people stop to think why colleges wanted to use these tests? This was done to show that the admission process was blind to race, sex, income, etc. The score was a standard by which all could be measured, and based on skills that an applicant would need to be successful at university. These skills being their intelligence in the "three Rs", reading, writing, and 'rithmetic.
From the fine article:
Research has consistently shown that ACT and SAT scores are strongly linked to family income, motherâ(TM)s education level and race.
You know what is also linked to family income, mother's education level, and race? Inherited intelligence.
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Well these tests weren't very good at figuring out how good you are at math either. They ask very simple math problems but expect you to be very fast.
When I took the test I was doing very well in national math contests that had very tough questions but for which you had a lot of time to solve (you know.. like in college).
So this thing doesn't really do a good job at measuring your skills. At least it wasn't very good at measuring mine.
Re:Why were these tests put in place to begin with (Score:4, Insightful)
Well these tests weren't very good at figuring out how good you are at math either. They ask very simple math problems but expect you to be very fast.
Being fast at simple math correlates well to being able to manage more complex math. This is a test to determine if a person attending high school is suited for education at university. Since high school math rarely goes beyond algebra, trigonometry, and geometry, they have to keep the testing within that set of knowledge. Going above that might give better detail on the applicant's math skills but this is a test for people to get into university, not to graduate from university.
So this thing doesn't really do a good job at measuring your skills. At least it wasn't very good at measuring mine.
Then perhaps you should have chosen other options to display your skill to university admission boards.
The reason SAT and ACT scores are used is because they show high correlation to success at university. The goal isn't to measure precise levels of skill in every subject, but "good enough" for university admission.
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I'm a fan of standardized tests, but they aren't blind. Lots of kids go to SAT prep classes, private SAT tutors, etc. Also, some schools have SAT prep classes. Those kids are prepared for the TEST. Other kids aren't as fortunate, and are just thrown into the test not knowing what to expect. If you aren't getting lunch, you certainly aren't getting SAT prep classes.
Re: Why were these tests put in place to begin wit (Score:2)
There's plenty of evidence that there is a large component of intelligence that is inheritedAnd yet that's still a whole lot less than certain idiots would like to believe.
Declining Enrollment (Score:3)
Don't let this fact make you think these institutions are doing a charitable thing.
There's a dirty little secret amonst colleges now. Every major institution is seeing declining enrollment and applications YOY.
This is a directly caused by the decline in birth rates and outrageous tution costs.
Not needing sat/act scores is a desperate attempt to boost those numbers.
Hello Sub-Prime Student Loans! (Score:2)
We saw how things went when anybody with a pulse could get a home loan.
I wonder how things will play out when anybody with a pulse can get a student loan and qualify for just about any college or university. I somehow get the feeling that things won't end well either.
“History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” – Mark Twain
I'm sure there are plenty of reasons to do it . . (Score:5, Interesting)
. . . like "Diversity Inclusion Equity" or something . . .
University of Chicago to stop requiring ACT and SAT scores for prospective undergraduates [chicagotribune.com]
A growing number, including DePaul University, have opted to stop requiring the SAT and ACT in their admissions process, saying the tests place an unfair cost and burden on low-income and minority students, and ultimately hinder efforts to broaden diversity on campus. But the trend has escaped the nation’s most selective universities.
Isolated trend? Portents of something bigger going in?
'Social justice warriors' are ruining engineering, prof warns [campusreform.org]
Engineering professor: Academic rigor enforces 'white male heterosexual privilege' [washingtonexaminer.com]
Social Justice Culture is Now Infiltrating the Study of Medicine [legalinsurrection.com]
Doing Physics While Black [mindingthecampus.org]
TRENDING: Educators work to combat racism, whiteness in math [thecollegefix.com]
Progressive war on science takes dead aim at math [uncommondescent.com] ("trigger warning")
What could possibly go wrong?
A 'Dubious Expediency': How Race-Preferential Admissions Policies on Campus Hurt Minority Students [ssrn.com]
Why teen girls who are as good at math as male peers pick humanities jobs [nypost.com]
Asians get the Ivy League's Jewish treatment: Column [usatoday.com]
Microsoft staff are openly questioning the value of diversity [qz.com]
Bonus:
Medieval Studies scholars deem field too white [thecollegefix.com]
‘The Unbearable White of Medieval Studies’ [spectator.org]
how businesses will hire (Score:3, Insightful)
Replace with ASVAB (Score:3, Insightful)
how about we replace with ASVAB and have those who are physically able to, to serve time in military then have govt pay for education. Hopefully by the time they're done with military they'll know what they want to do with their lives instead of Gender studies.
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how about we replace with ASVAB
That's an excellent idea. The ASVAB is already built to determine one's fitness for a variety of occupations/ratings/specialties. There's a single composite score that is used to determine if one is even eligible for enlistment. The scores from the individual sections of the test can show one's fitness for certain majors in university.
and have those who are physically able to, to serve time in military then have govt pay for education.
You do realize that this already happens, don't you? Of course you do.
Hopefully by the time they're done with military they'll know what they want to do with their lives instead of Gender studies.
One way to end this abundance of worthless degrees in "whatever studies" is to base one's ability to
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Another thing I learned while attending university under the GI Bill is that a lot of people at universities don't like the military. They'll happily take GI Bill money but then have professors tell students in class that people in the military are stupid, racist, rapists, and baby killers. Either they didn't know I was a veteran, or they didn't care.
When I was in grad school I found quite a few of my classmates had never known anyone in the military and were surprised when they found out I was a veteran. Their outlook was shaped by popular media and it was not that they didn't like the military but they didn't understand it. They didn't know the "military" isn't a monolithic group of similarly minded people, but a group with a broad set of experiences and viewpoints focused on a common mission. I never had a professor that denigrate the military, most
Re: Replace with ASVAB (Score:2)
how about we replace with ASVAB and have those who are physically able to, to serve time in military then have govt pay for education.
No one's saying it but the problem with the SAT is that, despite what a pile of shit it's become, it's still too effective at separating out the dummies. If anything, implementing an ASVAB-type test would worsen things: you'd find out that most applicants don't have any aptitude for anything other than a sex change (jury's out on whether they retain the topknot).
Reading between the lines (Score:2)
So studies show that test scores are linked to family income and the mother's education...
Okay but does that mean the test proves that low income and/or undereducated mothers raise children that cannot keep up or does it show that smart children don't get into college due to their moms/financial situation?
Because if it's the former, it would be the freaking point of the test and I'd have to agree with another poster here that this smells like a money grab by the schools.
If it's the latter, it would be a sen
They don't need no book smarts! (Score:2)
While the test-optional list has some schools with specific missions -- there are religious colleges, music and art conservatories, nursing schools
* religious schools
Ok
* music and art conservatories
Ok
* nursing schools
Wtf
These tests aren't very good (Score:2)
The year I took the SAT I placed very highly in Math contests and the National Math Olympics (4th and 9th). I also placed 2nd in a National Practical Physics contest. I also did well in Math later in college. However, the Math contests I was good at had few, very very hard questions. The SAT was essentially a speed test. I didn't practice enough so my score, while not terrible, wasn't that awesome either.
These tests test how well you've studied for them. Not your natural ability.
I'm glad that for grad schoo
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Exactly. It means you have practiced the test and can solve the problems quickly. It helps when you have taken/seen the test before, or have had prep classes and know the type of questions. I took the SAT three times and scored better each time, even though the questions were different each time.
You don't think... (Score:2)
...that this means the schools have replaced these relatively objective (but by no means perfect) tests with anything more objective, do you?
No, the requirement now merely is for someone dumb enough to believe any degree is of equal value ("marketing", "sports medicine"), willing to sign up for some ridiculous lifetime loan, while checking some "diversity" virtue-signaling boxes. The school gets a pile of $ while the student gets debt and a degree likely of little actual value (well, it gives you something
It's not about education. It's about getting a job (Score:2)
In the US, higher education is all about getting a job.
Scores on any testing can be shown to be generally linked to income, and mother's education. Why? Because mom has the greatest impact on the kids if she stays home. Which mom's stay home? The one's with the dad with the highest income. Or alternatively, the one's that work and can pay for the tutors. Opportunity and outcome are not the same.
Is this causation? Is race linked? No - it's only correlation. There are many kids who don't have these advantages
Predicter of outcomes (Score:2)
SAT is also correlated with finishing college (Score:2)
The summary conveniently omits the fact that SAT scores are also correlated with the probability of finishing college.
Could it be that these colleges are lowering the bar so they can collect more tuition?
Liberals arts schools don't need SAT scores (Score:2)
Sure, why not? (Score:2)
You know when I watched idiocracy I thought it was a sad potential for some distant future but didn't really think it would happen. Now we sit solidly on that path with the collapse seeming to have entered free fall less than a decade ago.
I mean sure, why base college admissions on proven aptitude that is just silly. It isn't like liberal arts relate to merit anyway.
Reminiscent of late-Victorian era reforms (Score:2)
It will worsen problems of the most vulnerable. (Score:4, Interesting)
I was raised in a country where university is subsidized. Tuition is low, 1k dollars-ish. But if you live far from the cities and you are poor, you are still screwed because the housing expenses are high. The same if you live in a bad place where studying is hard, like a noisy one or a small household where you don't have a place to study.
Also, there are no requisites for most higher education: Got a high school degree ? You are in ! You suck at maths ? No problem !
So ? Progressive paradise ? Of course not ! Flunking rates, especially at first year, are very high. After too many failures, you are expelled from the system. Selection of the underclass through failure.
We had a few ghetto people in my faculty. I recall one who was very happy he had chosen engineering in lieu of physics. Why ? Because engineering has an entrance exam and a low flunking rate while the science faculty has not. 90 % of first year physics students flunked. He came from a bad school so he thought he was unlikely to be part of the happy 10%. He said "if i managed to pass the entrance exam like the others, i have the same chances as the others".
Passing an entrance exam was reassuring to us. It meant we had decent chances of completing our degree. Also, it served as justification for the prep course we took in high school. It improved the chances of the serious ones and allowed us not to be dragged down by the low requirements of high school in general. It was empowering.
If you water down the preparation of the disadvantaged, you weaken them even more. Sure, they will enrol in first year. But they will end up dropping out or choosing worthless degrees where the requirements are weak too.
P.S. What is a "top 100 lib art college !?" Isn't it like a top chart of elevator music ?
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*It is
*than
Here we see some prime examples of why we need testing.
Re: is more easy then in the past to get loan to g (Score:2)
Here we see some prime examples of why we need testing.
It's quite easy to tell that English isn't Joe's first language (it's far better than my Japanese, which sadly was one of mine).
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This is also just the comments section on a message board. Most people aren't bothering to proofread and in many cases are posting while working on other things.
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High School? Those are grade 2 level errors.
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High School? Those are grade 2 level errors.
You would be surprised. When I entered college, I was shocked by the competency (or lack thereof) of most of the students in my ENG 101 class. I was enrolled in a college level English course but it felt like a remedial class some days.
Re:is more easy then in the past to get loan to go (Score:4, Insightful)
What incentive does a lender have to make sure the borrowers plan is a good one given the current state of things?
Re:is more easy then in the past to get loan to go (Score:5, Funny)
Ahh the rich profit of first year university students. Those ohh so annoying pests who clog university car parks for the first six months, making parking awkward and then slowly disappear as the year progresses with many gone before the year is half done and all the carparks have plenty of space, year in and year out, the same thing over and over again. There be lots of profit there and clearly they intend to allow the dumbest possible individuals to take out that loan for the first year of University and the drop out in the first six months, some gone after a few weeks.
The test should be required to obtain the loan, end of story, fail the test no loan because it is just a waste of time and a fiscal trap, sure it feeds the greed of for profit higher education that provides no real education but really. I can imagine a whole suite of cheap 1st year only universities starting up specialising in and targeting students who will drop out. Make classes, really large and hard and they will drop out really fast but do not forget to promote the leisure facilities, sort of run it as a Club Ed, party for six months, never attend classes and leave, wohoo 100 students per class, what difference does it make only about ten turn up, the rest are partying running up debt, like there is no tomorrow.
Bonus they actually pay to use many of the recreational facilities.
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The big bubble pop that puts an end to this economic cycle is going to be student debt.
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How does such a bubble pop, though? When we have a stock bubble, it's because people kept buying pets.com for way more than it was worth, eventually everyone realized this and those still holding pets.com stock were screwed when the bubble popped. When we had a housing bubble, it's because people were buying homes for greater and greater prices, eventually everyone realized this and the homeowners couldn't sell their homes for more than what was owned on the mortgage.
It's the resale value falling far below
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It's the resale value falling far below the purchase price that pops a bubble. But college degrees never had a resale value to begin with. By what mechanism does the bubble "pop?"
The next generation can't afford to go to college because their parents are still paying off their own college debt.
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Yes they can. They take out a bigger loan. Their alternative is digging ditches, because even the call center jobs require a degree.
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There is a problem because back then I never studied for SATs or new they existed, it was just bam out of the blue.
Today though there's a lot more gaming the syst
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Wealthy people also take private "SAT Prep" classes. It definitely creates an advantage. When I was a kid I was in the National Honor Society (not sure why) and I was allowed to take the SAT a year earlier than everyone else as "practice". That gave me a big advantage too, since I was able to know what the test was going to be like. I wasn't even that smart, but did well on the SAT. Basically, prepping helps with the tests, and lots of kids don't have the advantage.
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So now expecting someone to be self-motivated to succeed is asking too much?
Letting your kid fail because of poor decision making at age 16 is bad parenting.
As adults, it is our responsibility to provide advice and guidance to children, and to occasionally compel them to do what is right.
She is now in college, self-motivated to succeed, and very grateful that I didn't let her fail when she was young and naive.
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Wealthy people also take private "SAT Prep" classes. It definitely creates an advantage. When I was a kid I was in the National Honor Society (not sure why) and I was allowed to take the SAT a year earlier than everyone else as "practice". That gave me a big advantage too, since I was able to know what the test was going to be like.
Hell, when I was in middle school there was a program that allowed 7th graders to take the SAT. That would have been about 20 or so years ago. Once I took that I knew not to really sweat the SAT since even then I scored over 900.
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its decision, along with an increase in financial aid and outreach, led to a 20 percent increase in first-generation, low-income and rural students and veterans to commit to the school.
What would be more interesting is what it did to academic scores and graduation rates. By this logic, the perfect admission policy would be to let anyone with a pulse in, which would really get the numbers up.
Not saying that this is a bad thing or not, but I'd like to see some long-term results before I declare it a success. In particular, if you saddle people with a low chance of graduating with a huge amount of student debt, you're most likely doing them a disservice rather than helping, a la predatory
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Free education:
"is more easy then in the past to get a loan to go to to school now days"
should be:
"It's easier today than it was in the past to go to school."
or
"is more easy than in the past to go to school nowadays."
"Then" indicates a process: First this then that. "Than" indicates a comparative operation: He was better at English than she was.
"Any ways" - just no. It's "anyway".