Dropping the SAT Requirement Is a Luxury Belief Disguising self-interest as virtue

Substack ^ | March 5, 2023 | Rob Henderson

[karpov]

Suppose you’re a poor teenager in a dysfunctional environment.

You have to work a part time job to help make ends meet. Your parents are absent or completely checked out. So you have to help take care of your younger siblings. You’re smart, but you’re not in a position to devote much time to homework; to getting top grades in every class. But you set a few hours aside in an afternoon, and receive an outstanding score on the SAT. Suddenly, options become available to you.

Our ruling class is doing all they can to prevent this possibility.

Remember:

If you come from poverty and chaos, you are up against 3 enemies:

1. Dysfunction and deprivation

2. Yourself, as a result of what that environment does to you

3. The luxury belief class, who wants to keep you mired in it

Columbia University, has just become the first Ivy League school to permanently abandon the SAT/ACT requirement for college admission.

Elite colleges are eliminating standardized tests before they eliminate legacy admissions. Tells you all you need to know.

The reasoning, according to Columbia’s announcement, is “to best determine an applicant’s suitability for admission and ability to thrive in our curriculum and our community, and to advance access to our educational opportunities.”

The ability to effortlessly produce buzzwords and gibberish and euphemisms has become a precondition for advancement in our institutions of higher learning. Which is how ambitious mediocrities have gained control.

[gundog]

[SamAdams76]

I had a similar situation in the late 1970s.

I would not say my family was poor but they barely got by.

During high school, I had a paper route, worked in a supermaarket bagging groceries and then washed dishes on weekends at a restaurant.

Not much time for study but I did okay. Other classmates got to cram for the SATs and got great scores. Some even got private tutoring. So I did not make the cut for any scholarships. Back then, student loans were out of the question.

I ended up joining the Marines. Which worked out just fine.

[marktwain]

Excellent essay, worth reading.

[NTHockey]

Pretty much the same for me.

Semper fi, brother
Do or Die

[Tired of Taxes]

Colleges started dropping the SAT/ACT requirements for admission 10 years ago.

But, they kept them for scholarship requirements. That’s how one of my self-taught, never-been-to-school kids went to college on a full ride.

[nicollo]

I wasn’t aware these tests are thinly veiled IQ tests. The SAT, ASVAB, and the ACT are all highly correlated with IQ at about r = .8.

There you have it, and that's what they don't like about it.

[Prince of Space]

I’ve been saying that for years. My 2 daughters took the SAT in the early to mid 2000s and their scores of 1260 and 1310 correlated heavily with their IQs.

[Maine Mariner]

I am glad you did not mention the Miller Analogies Exam.

[napscoordinator]

It’s bazaar that you can recite your children’s SAT scores. I guess that’s the difference with only having two children. We have four so that’s 12 total SAT scores to know. Lol. 4 PSAT, 8 SAT junior and senior years. I’m still wondering if you just grabbed those scores out of your ass. Either that or you were a helicopter parent from hell.

[Myrddin]

Being admitted to a student body that has academic prowess head and shoulders above your own is a path to disaster. I've seen exam scores posted by a prof so class members could see the distribution of scores. The hard core academics would cluster at 92 to 96 percent. A few stragglers appeared in the 80% 70% and 60% ranges. If you're in the 60% range, you need to be examining alternative options. Especially if you land in the 60% range on a regular basis.

[nicollo]

Actually, the old SAT, called “SAT I: Reasoning Test” was similar.

[frank ballenger]

Degrees without merit after admission without deserving it will lead to a pilot and copilot on your flight and a surgeon and staff performing your operation. As each looks around hoping someone else can do the right thing, we will be the ones at risk.

P.S. Someone interviewed recently said Covid refusal has already led to the best pilot and copilot being unavailable and the need for replacements causing two people, both less qualified sent out on many flights. New hires, young or without experience, rules relaxed. But didn’t refuse the jabs.

[Myrddin]

Many of my classmates were studying like demons for the PSAT and had private tutors. I was totally oblivious. My aim was to graduate from high school at 16 and move on to UCSD to pursue a pre-med program. Molecular Biology was my major. I went to the SAT exam cold. Not so much as a review manual. After the morning session, I zipped down to 7-Eleven and grabbed a quart of eggnog for lunch. Returned for the afternoon session. In January 73, I applied for the Winter 74 quarter at UCSD. Admitted. Dad was a Commander in the Navy. We made too much for scholarships. My dad agreed to cover the cost. I agreed to finish ASAP before his retirement. I graduated at age 19 with the degree in Molecular Biology. GRE followed with admission to SDSU Microbiology department for Fall 1976. Grad school on my nickel, so 42 hours a week at Radio Shack, 16 units of grad work. 2nd semester I came down with bacterial pneumonia. Nearly died. Reassessed my options. Earned a Tech class ham license and 2nd Class Radiotelephone license. Later upgraded to Extra Class ham and 1st Class Radiotelephone with Ship's RADAR endorsement. A couple years doing radio/sonar/radar work in the tuna fleet, then off to Pacific Telephone. Eventually full time software engineer. Credentialed college instructor for embedded systems. Private pilot. Still pounding the keys at age 66 doing software engineering.

My middle son is also a Marine. Served in Iraq. Returned home to earn degrees in Business Administration and Physics. He keeps food on the table as a real estate broker.

[Myrddin]

IQ is a very helpful thing. That said, I've worked with some brilliant people from Bellcore. Technically outstanding. In everyday life, they lacked good sense and ability to do simple stuff like buying a new trash can at Home Depot and getting it home. Have a complex question about queuing theory and the ideal model for a given kind of traffic? You'll get the right answer. Everyday life issues...maybe.

[Maine Mariner]

I did not take the SAT test. I did take the ACT test and did okay.

[olivia3boys]

My 4th teen is waiting for college decisions now and so these types of issues are top of mind. Apps have doubled now that colleges are either test blind or test optional. Admit rates as a result are dropping like a rock—soon Cal Tech for example will have a 1% (!) admittance rate. Big state flagships admit rates dropping too.

It’s brutal. Now teens apply to 20 colleges instead of 10, due to the uncertainty. But as for the SAT: the best predictor of 1st year college success is not GPA alone or SAT alone but GPA+SAT combined. With grade inflation rampant these objective standardized tests should return. In a sane world.

[House Atreides]

Wow… didn’t know things had changed that much.

[Tired of Taxes]

Of course, students who score higher on the SAT probably have higher IQ scores, but the same would be true for any test.

In the old days, the SAT might’ve been more like an IQ test, but not anymore. The test has gone through many changes. For example, in the 2000’s, the analogy questions were dropped, an essay section was added, and another hour was added to the test time. Later, the vocabulary questions were dropped. Then, later, the essay section was made optional. And so on.

Also, for a long time, the SAT included one extra section that did not count toward a student’s score, and the students weren’t told which section wasn’t scored. But, it added another 25 minutes to their test time.

I still believe colleges should consider SAT scores for admissions and scholarships. But, the test has had problems, so other tests should be considered, too.

Ten years ago, people were pushing for more colleges to accept the ACT, which is considered a more straightforward test.

[Soul of the South]

If I knew what I know today, in today’s world I would not go to college. I would learn a trade, develop my skills, and build my own business offering high quality services for customers willing to pay for high quality, reliable work. While I went the corporate route, and have a comfortable retirement, today I have many friends and associates who mastered a trade, worked hard and developed a successful business, and retired extremely wealthy.

These entrepreneurial tradesmen are all extremely intelligent, have a boatload of common sense, and have a tremendous work ethic. They started as carpenters, barbers, welders, HVAC installers, and even fast food burger flippers. How many 18 year olds know the average Chick fil A franchise owner takes home $300,000 per year and a highly productive employee in a Chic fil A store, who is willing to work hard and save, can own a franchise in their 30’s.

Why go deeply into debt in order to gain the sheet of paper needed to be hired by a woke corporation where you slave away for a meat grinding system and where ruthless internal politics, not ability and performance, determine many outcomes?

One of the many great failings of the American public school system is the role the “guidance counselor” which seems to exist primarily to facilitate the college admissions process for secondary students. Imagine if these bureaucrats actually opened the eyes of students to the incredible array of career opportunities open to them whether or not they went to college. They could actually be educators instead of administrators!