If anything most of the high school counselors in predominantly poor and black schools just don’t push very hard. They would tell you MIT was too far of a reach. They would tell you the best you could hope for was a private local, community college, or public state university. Who would ever consider Devry and MIT as equivalent?
The downvotes are the aggressive reactionary tide through HN, that rises and falls. Your personal observation suggests that some 'progressive' action might be valuable, that there's a systemic problem, and therefore it is shut down.
Don't stop telling it please. We need more voices from the real world here.
> they didn’t need to lie about it to still be untrue and absurd
What basis do you have for saying it's untrue?
That is hearsay.
> What basis do you have for saying it's untrue?
I was pointing out that it could be untrue without needing to be a lie. As to the “basis” for my saying it is untrue, I’ve been over that.
Why do you say that?
The minimum score for the SAT if you do nothing is 400, not 600.
Average SAT Score of admitted students: 1525
It sounds absurd to you, but isn't that your own ignorance? You weren't there; they were. I've heard many tell similar stories. Again, look in the NY Times from a few years ago; elite colleges not only accept it, but have tried to mitigate it.
> one that actually sounds realistic
Isn't this just saying that it agrees with what you already believe?
Or my experience.
Of course, perhaps schools in poor areas really are pushing the children hard to go to extraordinary heights and it’s just the fault of poor people for being so damned useless that they ignore it or fail.
Or, perhaps, there’s a middle ground to be found, but I doubt it includes people who no one would describe as bright being unaware of the scores they need to enter the next stage of education, if that’s what they desire.
That's not how I understood it - are we talking about the same comment. I understood the commenter to be saying that their school didn't give students the resources to understand and apply to top colleges, including basic understanding of colleges (e.g., who MIT is) and the admissions process. Are we talking about the same comment?
The comment that you paraphrase is, I agree, absurd!
https://www.prepscholar.com/sat/s/colleges/MIT-SAT-scores-GP...
Reading and Writing 730-780, Math 780-800
[0] - https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/sat/whats-on-the-test/stru...
Getting rid of SATs from my perspective sounds like a fantastic idea.
> Getting rid of SATs from my perspective sounds like a fantastic idea.
There are two types of standardized tests. The first kind you reference measures the school. They are not used for college admissions. They can affect school funding.
The second type of test measures the student. Sometimes a school will report those numbers. But they do not affect the funding a school gets.
Getting rid of the SAT would have zero effect on contingent funding for schools.
Consider this: if the schools weren't dependent on the test scores, then they could use that same energy-for-testing to teach their students methods for improving their SAT scores. I genuinely doubt they'll switch energy, but the fact remains that the requirement to game a test-well-or-lose-funding system by necessity removes education opportunity for students in order to focus on the tests over education, especially for schools in lower income areas because they stand to suffer the most. We're relying on a system that ensures that people stay where they are. Now, if there isn't a correlation between lost education opportunity and SAT scores, then you might be right, but...
Edit: This article goes into the problem in the context of No Child Left Behind and confirms my point: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/03/...
Your immediate parent comment indicates that if school testing were eliminated then students would improve their SAT scores. I agree with that. But it is beside the point. This thread is about whether the SAT should be eliminated, not whether school testing should be eliminated.
At the end, you start to make a point about correlation between "lost education opportunity" and SAT scores. But my reading is that you're saying there's a correlation between LEO and SAT scores. Are you saying it's a positive correlation? Or are you saying students are spending time prepping for SATs, and what they are learning there is negatively correlated with actual learning?
I am trying to understand what you mean. Are you advocating elimination of the SAT? If so, why?
So, I'm opposed to standardized tests, in general, as a strong measure for capability because of their tendency to force the focus of schools on testing over education and in doing so, deep and localized problems are reinforced. I gave the example of my own school, because the school barely touched on the SAT since the focus was, by necessity, focused on the ACT. The SAT was an afterthought. For the teachers, it was a legitimate existential crisis if the ACT wasn't taught well, while the SAT was effectively irrelevant to them.
A large body of students don't know how important the SAT is, nor whether or how they should push themselves to test well -- we weren't taught that because of a shift in priorities. In some ways, both tests were expressed as on the same level of importance, despite the ACT not mattering in the slightest to the future of the individual student, leading to confusion by students about what is actually important.
For schools that the SAT isn't an afterthought, the SAT might make sense, but in doing so, we are culturally prioritizing the reinforcement of already-strong communities while simultaneously continuing to weaken already weak communities.
In other words, a proxy besides the SAT should be sought after, at least while we have so many broken systems and wildly different implementations of incentive systems in-place. I don't know what that proxy is.
The ACT and SAT are two tests used for college admissions. If you take one, you don't need to take the other.
> despite the ACT not mattering in the slightest to the future of the individual student
The ACT is used for college admissions. Are you thinking of a different test?
It sounds like you have an issue with the teach-to-the-test mentality and the fact that "the test" isn't the SAT. I understand the concern that students are pulled in too many directions. But according to what you've written "the test" is the ACT. That is a substitute for the SAT. They are only being pulled in one direction. It is the direction that will help get them into college.
When Covid hit, schools in poor communities tried to implement distance learning and discovered that only half (for example, in one city which I don't remember) of families had a desktop or laptop for the student to use - probably those kids aren't going to become programmers. Programming classes are non-existent, at least based on limited knowledge - seriously, look up the programming classes in a nearby poor school district.
There's been a lot of research and work on that, though I don't know what progress has been made. You can find NY Times articles from a few years ago.
> eliminating SATs is shortsighted
Why does the above make SATs any better? They don't predict college outcomes, and they are structured and written in ways that favor wealth, thus providing bad data on students (other than their wealth). Why use them?
Before the exam, I couldn't understand why the higher income kids were paying for SAT training classes. What is the point of scoring 1600 if 800 could get you in the "best" school. It would have interfered with my after school job anyway.
To add further, I thought MIT was just DeVry for rich people but otherwise equivalent and that only black kids get scholarships (ironic since I am Latino). Are things different now ? Are most kids from lower socio-economic backgrounds still clueless about the college admissions process, the difference between colleges, and scholarships. It seems like that is the part that needs to be fixed and eliminating SATs is shortsighted.