10-16-2021, 01:58 PM
There is a difference between the predictions based on aggregated school grades and a prediction based on school grades at a single institution or school grades for a single student.
Suppose a private school wanted to increase their profit by promising parents of potential students that all school grades will be A+ so all students will get a perfect GPA, thus increasing their chance of getting into schools that use GPA as a major criteria.
Suppose a school wants a winning tiddlywinks team and lets it be known to potential students that teachers & administrators will preferentially grade higher for students on that team, thus increasing their chances of getting admission, scholarships, and NIL in college.
How do you think the GPA of the principal's child relates to other students' GPAs that get the same standardized test scores?
Suppose a school has "AP" classes that give a basic level of instruction.
More than a handful of decades ago, it wasn't clear how a GPA in one state corresponded with a GPA in another state, or that you could trust a GPA for a particular student. Did Senior year math or history in one state teach the same material as the same course in another state and grade it similarly. Indeed, in the school system I attended, it wasn't clear that a particular GPA in my school was equivalent to the same GPA in another school.
I know a teacher who retired in the past decade who retired partly because he/she was tired of the administration telling her/him to grade easier for particular students.
Standardized testing was intended to be a better measurement that was less subject to local or personal distortions. The complaint these days seems to be that such tests don't take into account factors other than testable knowledge or reasoning abilities.
My opinion is that the UC is making another mistake, but it certainly isn't its first nor last. Obviously the UC Board of Regents has a different opinion.
Suppose a private school wanted to increase their profit by promising parents of potential students that all school grades will be A+ so all students will get a perfect GPA, thus increasing their chance of getting into schools that use GPA as a major criteria.
Suppose a school wants a winning tiddlywinks team and lets it be known to potential students that teachers & administrators will preferentially grade higher for students on that team, thus increasing their chances of getting admission, scholarships, and NIL in college.
How do you think the GPA of the principal's child relates to other students' GPAs that get the same standardized test scores?
Suppose a school has "AP" classes that give a basic level of instruction.
More than a handful of decades ago, it wasn't clear how a GPA in one state corresponded with a GPA in another state, or that you could trust a GPA for a particular student. Did Senior year math or history in one state teach the same material as the same course in another state and grade it similarly. Indeed, in the school system I attended, it wasn't clear that a particular GPA in my school was equivalent to the same GPA in another school.
I know a teacher who retired in the past decade who retired partly because he/she was tired of the administration telling her/him to grade easier for particular students.
Standardized testing was intended to be a better measurement that was less subject to local or personal distortions. The complaint these days seems to be that such tests don't take into account factors other than testable knowledge or reasoning abilities.
My opinion is that the UC is making another mistake, but it certainly isn't its first nor last. Obviously the UC Board of Regents has a different opinion.