DannyDuberstein said:

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I posted test scores and grades should be primary measures. Nowhere have I posted that we should test scores as the only criteria, yet you keep posting like I did. It should be one of the two leading criteria. I also already posted a solve for taking it multiple times - let these bleeding heart DEI schools pay for the economically disadvantaged kids. I also don't see an issue with capping how many times for each at maybe 3 to meet in the middle.

I come from the private sector where we try to solve issues vs finding excuses not to do so.

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I responded to a message saying Standardized testing should be the ONLY criteria and said it was a terrible idea. Then you responded to that message.

GPA also is very flawed. You have no standardized GPA and the difference between someone taking AP Physics C and AP Calculus BC vs someone taking on level Pre Calculus and not even taking Physics is night and day. Much less quality of school. You can't just plug in a GPA and compare apples to apples from High School to High School.

Most Selective schools look at about a dozen factors when looking at who to admit and the number of schools that have a Sub 20% Admit rate is to the point that schools that were once considered easy to get into now have become harder than what Ivies used to be. At the other end you still have the overwhelming majority of schools that have extremely high admit rates, most are 70% plus. Essentially you have more kids than ever trying to get into Selective schools and due to the Common App and the Internet they have the tools to both apply to 20 plus schools and the information they need to prepare a strong application. Most Selective schools admit that the majority of applicants are academically qualified for their school but they simply have limited seats, thus you get the ever shrinking admit rates. For instance the estimated OOS admit rate for UNC last year was under 4%, that's not because they have a lot of dumb kids applying. More and more schools are not only Sub 10% but Sub 5%.

You are arguing as though this is about schools simply wanting to meet DEI standards and while that is a factor for some it is not the real issue. The real issue is far, far more complicated. I say this as someone who thinks anything having to do with race or sex should be removed from admission criteria. Not only is it morally wrong it ends up making the problem it was designed to solve worse because Math doesn't care so the only way to make it work is to lower standards or adjust the program to fit those goals.

BTW, here is a good breakdown of why we are having these issues. This is a college advisor who broke down why a kid who got a lot of publicity for having a 4.42 GPA and a 1590 SAT didn't get in to a lot of Selective colleges. It had nothing to do with DEI.

It is a DEI issue if a URM with a lower GPA and lower SAT score is accepted over the Asian kid.

What was his Socioeconomic Disadvantage Score? Probably low right? Why should this matter unless these institutions are social engineering?

You use exceptional examples to justify standardized tests and use of GPA aren't valid criteria for college admissions. I don't know anyone in my circle of friends, colleagues, and kid's friends who started taking the SAT in middle school. And if someone did, good for them! Why penalize them? For one example of a poor test taker who succeeds in college academically, there are 9 who are good test takers who also succeed. Therefore we should not make rules to justify the exceptions.

The middle and middle upper classes who work hard and diligently to prepare their children for college are already heavily marginalized with little to no need based FA. Which is bs. In addition, why should anyone penalize students who study and prepare for these tests by making std tests optional/obsolete? Then incentivize those students who attend schools that offer a few or no AP courses? Why is housing in a good school district more expensive??? For reasons like this. But of course the middle class gets penalized again.

Quote:

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A brave institution should make SAT score their sole solitary admissions criteria just to prove how much utter bull**** we've tolerated in college admissions.

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See, to me, this was tongue in cheek. No way TriAg2010 really believes the SAT should be the sole criteria. His point was a floccinaucinihilipilification (this may be the first time Ive ever used this word in my life) of the college admission process.

I do like your suggestion of AP test score as an admission criteria. Since SAT no longer has subject tests, I also believe ACT subject tests (english, math, science, and history) are great. So use the following:

• GPA
• AP # and Test Scores
• SAT/ACT & Subject Tests
• Class Ranking
• EC (Awards, activities, and accomplishments)

Is college admission really that much more complicated? I think not. It's more complicated because they make it so.

I believe there are many countries with national college entrance exams and the test result determines who gets into what school. I'm not suggesting we do that. But on the polar opposite is the US methodology that includes DEI. It shouldn't be that way either.

Those acceptance by race charts prove its DEI.

DannyDuberstein said:

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Those acceptance by race charts prove its DEI.

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No doubt about it.

Get rid of this once and for all. Get rid of "RACE" inquiry from our society. It does nothing more than perpetuate racism.

AggieDruggist89 said:

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It is a DEI issue if a URM with a lower GPA and lower SAT score is accepted over the Asian kid.

What was his Socioeconomic Disadvantage Score? Probably low right? Why should this matter unless these institutions are social engineering?

You use exceptional examples to justify standardized tests and use of GPA aren't valid criteria for college admissions. I don't know anyone in my circle of friends, colleagues, and kid's friends who started taking the SAT in middle school. And if someone did, good for them! Why penalize them? For one example of a poor test taker who succeeds in college academically, there are 9 who are good test takers who also succeed. Therefore we should not make rules to justify the exceptions.

The middle and middle upper classes who work hard and diligently to prepare their children for college are already heavily marginalized with little to no need based FA. Which is bs. In addition, why should anyone penalize students who study and prepare for these tests by making std tests optional/obsolete? Then incentivize those students who attend schools that offer a few or no AP courses? Why is housing in a good school district more expensive??? For reasons like this. But of course the middle class gets penalized again.

Quote:

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A brave institution should make SAT score their sole solitary admissions criteria just to prove how much utter bull**** we've tolerated in college admissions.

---

See, to me, this was tongue in cheek. No way TriAg2010 really believes the SAT should be the sole criteria. His point was a floccinaucinihilipilification (this may be the first time Ive ever used this word in my life) of the college admission process.

I do like your suggestion of AP test score as an admission criteria. Since SAT no longer has subject tests, I also believe ACT subject tests (english, math, science, and history) are great. So use the following:

• GPA
• AP # and Test Scores
• SAT/ACT & Subject Tests
• Class Ranking
• EC (Awards, activities, and accomplishments)

Is college admission really that much more complicated? I think not. It's more complicated because they make it so.

I believe there are many countries with national college entrance exams and the test result determines who gets into what school. I'm not suggesting we do that. But on the polar opposite is the US methodology that includes DEI. It shouldn't be that way either.

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Never said it wasn't a DEI issue. Schools definitely love to Play God and the current system makes that easy for the Selectives to do so with so many highly qualified applicants.

I also completely agree Standardized Tests and GPA matter and matter a lot, they just aren't the whole story. Most of the Selectives now actually are putting Course Rigor as probably the #1, they want kids that are pushing themselves. The sticky part is that can mean very different things at different schools. For a kid at one school that could mean taking a dozen AP's minimum. For another they may not have any AP's offered. It also matters if a kid only does academics and doesn't have any EC's, the purely academic kid often struggles because they aren't socially well prepared for college.

Personally I think they are trying too hard to put in kids from disadvantaged or small school backgrounds at elite schools. Most of those kids would actually be better off going somewhere closer to home and being less of a fish out of water. It's just a massive cultural shock and it puts tremendous pressure on them to make a huge leap forward while competing with kids who have been prepped their entire lives. Some can swim but many will sink and others who might have been an Engineer end up majoring in something in Liberal Arts that they can pass and likely waste a lot of their potential. It's well intentioned idiocy that usually backfires. It also creates a "barbell" at those schools with super rich and elite kids and folks on the other end without much in the middle. "Preferential Policies" by Sowell laid all that out over 30 years ago and it is still true today.

It's just a complex problem. I honestly believe most of the problem isn't even that schools have an evil agenda to enact social engineering as much as they are mainly a group that doesn't practice what they preach in terms of diversity. Admissions departments are overwhelmingly female Liberal Arts Majors with a decent amount of males. Most worked as Campus tour guides and realized after graduation they couldn't get a real job or didn't want one so they went to work for the school. Thus the natural reaction is to want to admit people that look and think like them. They just are too blind to see their own bias.

DannyDuberstein said:

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Those acceptance by race charts prove its DEI.

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There is a subtle difference between DEI and affirmative action. DEI stated goal is about providing a welcoming environment for all people once they are here, or if they are considering coming here OR if you don't like DEI, then the goal is to indoctrinate people that racism/sexism/homophobia is a thing and white men are bad. Affirmative Action's goal would be to straight up make it easier for "discriminated" (whatever that means in 2024) races to get into college.

However, the truth of the matter you can completely remove race from the equation and you will still get skewed acceptance rates because a lot of it is correlation not causation. Top 10% rule will do that in Texas. America as a whole loves the idea of the underdog and the American dream, so if financial status and first generation student status continue to play a role in decisions it will skew it.

Doing admissions solely by SAT scores would remove race from the equation but there are a few major problems I see.

1. Public universities will not have anything close to equal representation in the districts their tax payers live.
2. Private universities can do whatever the hell they want within the laws of the land, so you would literally have to pass a law that states that all universities must do it this way, and the party for Small Government run by Ivy alums is the one that would have to lead that charge.
3. At Elite privates, like it or not the top professors and top students don't want to be at schools that are an Asian sausage party, and it would play a factor in where they end up. So sure a 1600 gets you into Harvard, but now Harvard is no longer Harvard.


On a personal note, both my college aged white kids were top ~20% in there class, high test scores, and neither had great extra curriculars . Both got into top 25 overall universities, top 10 publics and full ride or free tuition offers at Tier 1 schools.

So, my advice is pump up those test scores, apply early, apply often, expect some rejection and make an effort on the applications and you will be fine. And if that liberal institution they go to is filling up with less qualified minorities, then your white kid will have no problem riding the curve to a 4.0.

God Bless America

and now, Cornell drops the test-optional lunacy. Only three idiotic Ivy institutions left...