College Board

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
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??

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    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
  • Reply 2 of 12
    nostradamusnostradamus Posts: 397member
    [quote]Originally posted by applenut:

    <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.
  • Reply 3 of 12
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    I'm in favor of them. I'm on a committee that decides on admissions to graduate school, and there's a big push to drop the GRE. I'm totally opposed to it.



    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]" /> )
  • Reply 4 of 12
    paulpaul Posts: 5,278member
    I'm not saying there shouldnt be an objective test that people should take so admissions comittees ahve something to base performance on... But what I am saying is that the College Board is corrupt and controls too much of this proccess... they give the tests, they score the tests, they control the NMS thing (right?) from the PSAT, SAT IIs, 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...), the sell old tests to people like Kaplan, Princeton Review... they sell the books to us for $$$.... very corrupt system.... it needs to be reformed



    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...
  • Reply 5 of 12
    nostradamusnostradamus Posts: 397member
    [quote]Originally posted by Paul:

    <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>
  • Reply 6 of 12
    tigerwoods99tigerwoods99 Posts: 2,633member
    What?!?! I had to pay $78.
  • Reply 7 of 12
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    [quote]Originally posted by TigerWoods99:

    <strong>What?!?! I had to pay $78.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    as did I
  • Reply 8 of 12
    [quote]Originally posted by applenut:

    <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
  • Reply 9 of 12
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    Hmm. I still don´t really get this. Are these tests that colleges use to sort between the applicants? Why don´t they just use the grades from high school? Wouldn´t that be more fair?



    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?
  • Reply 10 of 12
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    Anders, the problem with GPA is that schools vary so widely in the US. Being first in your class at one school might put you at the bottom of another. IMO, it's because of the funding models, that vary widely by state, and more importantly, by school district. The funding is usually based on property taxes. So the bigger the houses in a particular school district, the more money the school gets, so the richer communities get more money for their schools.



    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)
  • Reply 11 of 12
    dogcowdogcow Posts: 713member
    What about sending accual assiments from classes (reports, labs, tests, etc). Then you get an idea of the education given and how well the student does with it. It shows you what the student can do in a REAL academic enviroment not just on a standard test.



    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?
  • Reply 12 of 12
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    I worked for ETS one summer assisting the graders for the English AP test (the graders are teachers from around the country that they treat like royalty for a weekend). They pay well for college and high school students too. Basically, they have a huge guilt complex for creating this lazy and self-perpetuating beast they call standardized testing. They give a lot to the community and have a very nice campus with a resort-like reception and convention center in a bucolic setting.



    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.
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