College Board
OK, who is familiar with <a href="http://www.collegeboard.com" target="_blank">them</a>?
OK, so they create every standardized test (well almost every)... Fine. They charge a fee for these tests.... Fine. THESE TESTS ARE REQUIRED FOR MOST COLLEGES... THEY PROVIDE THE MATERIAL TO HELP STUDY FOR THESE TESTS ($$)... THEY ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE TO ANYONE OTHER THEN THE SCHOOLS....
anyone else see the problem with this system??
OK, so they create every standardized test (well almost every)... Fine. They charge a fee for these tests.... Fine. THESE TESTS ARE REQUIRED FOR MOST COLLEGES... THEY PROVIDE THE MATERIAL TO HELP STUDY FOR THESE TESTS ($$)... THEY ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE TO ANYONE OTHER THEN THE SCHOOLS....
anyone else see the problem with this system??
Comments
but what are you gonna do. It would take the government to make changes but they aren't gonna mess with it.
Anyone take the ACT? How was that. That sounds like a more accurate gauge of intelligence
<strong> That sounds like a more accurate gauge of intelligence</strong><hr></blockquote>
Neither the SAT I nor the ACT are measures of intelligence. They are measures scholastic aptitude and though there is a correlation between scholastic aptitude and intelligence(IQ), it is flaky at best.
Standardized tests are a moderately good predictor of college performance. The problem is, nothing else, NOTHING ELSE is any better. They're the best predictor of college performance there is. HS GPA isn't as good of a predictor in most of the studies I've seen.
The whole issue comes down to affirmative action. When you rely on OBJECTIVE tests like these, you have to let the chips fall. When you drop them, you invite all kinds of other shenanigans.
That's why places like the Cal state U. system are probably going to drop the tests. It's a way of getting more people in who don't do well on the tests, and aren't as likely to do well in college. If there was some other fair method of selecting people based on ability, that would be great, but there just isn't.
So what happens is a committee of morons gets together and reads these bullshite admissions essays and uses their "judgment" to make decisions. Those committees do much worse at predicting college success than that test.
If we don't want to use ability as a qualification for getting into college, fine. Let's just drop the pretense.
(Yeah, you touched a nerve. <img src="graemlins/surprised.gif" border="0" alt="[Surprised]" /> )
NOTE--I am not some kid who scored badly on these tests and is bitter... I did quite well--I just am not happy with the system as it is...
<strong>AP tests....(these are another problem, according to them a 3 is passing, but no college gives credit for it?--you have to pay $78? rediculous...)</strong><hr></blockquote>
You obviously are from a wealthy area. In some schools here in Houston, it costs all enrolled students as little as $5 to take an AP test.
[ 05-12-2002: Message edited by: Nostradamus ]</p>
<strong>What?!?! I had to pay $78.</strong><hr></blockquote>
as did I
<strong>it's ridiculous.
but what are you gonna do. It would take the government to make changes but they aren't gonna mess with it.
Anyone take the ACT? How was that. That sounds like a more accurate gauge of intelligence</strong><hr></blockquote>
I took the ACT instead of the SAT for my college entrance applications. I wasn't terribly swift on the math sections of tests, and the way the ACT is scored allows you to pretty much bomb one section and not have it drag everything else down as much as it would on the SAT. The ACT is four sections if I remember correctly.
I can't remember exactly what my score was... something like a 32 or 33 out of 36... in any case, it was overkill for art school, they just wanted to see my portfolio
Our system work this way: When I took what is equivalent to your high school I had twelve 30 minutes oral exams, three 5 hours written exams and one 20 page paper, all evaluated by my teachers and censors from other schools. You get a grade between 00 and 13. Then the average grade is worked out and based on that I am accepted or not for a certain education based on its popularity. A lot of people want to become anthropologist but here in Copenhagen they only accept about 70 student. So those 70 applicants out of perhaps 700 that have the higest grades get accepted. CS in NOT popular so everybody get accepted (there IS some minimum requirement for math).
Its the perfect capitalist system without money Those who can offer the most (higest grades) get the goods (the education). The more populare the goods (a lot of applicants) are the more you have to pay for it (have higher grades to get accepted).
Would it be possible to make such a system in US?
Anyway, there are a lot of great high schools, but some really, really bad ones. So admissions procedures to colleges don't usually trust GPA completely, and so they started relying on these tests, which DO predict better than HS GPA.
The problem is that they found that whites do better on the tests than blacks and hispanics, and that's become a big problem. So they tend to "norm" the tests to even things out, and now many people want to get rid of them completely, because they result in adverse impact on minorities.
It's funny, because the tests were designed to select the best students in a non-discriminatory fashion, but now people want to get rid of them so they can "discriminate" (use affirmative action) again. People claim the tests are biased, but out of all the different factors, the tests are the LEAST biased. The tests just show clearly that there is inequality in our ed system.
(sorry for the long-winded rants on this subjects, but I've been thinking about this and dealing with it for the past couple of years at my job)
The ammount of money they chage is insane. Does it really take $78 to run a sheet of paper though a machine and then mail back the score to you?
The problem I have with standardized testing it that they treat it as a way to see the amount a person excels in a subject. To me, this cannot be tested. a baseline aptitude test, basic skills, knowledge standardized is one thing. If you're American and you don't know that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, that should be evident to your future place of study or work. But to try and measure "achievement" (the "A" in SAT used to stand for "Aptitude") with answers comprised of A B C or D is not doing anyone a favor. Even studies done by ETS back in the late 1940's showed that this system of testing was a poor metric, it emphasized the process of testing rather than the content of the test.