NCAA task force recommends no test scores

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NCAA task force recommends no test scores - BostonCard - 10-15-2021

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/32405869/ncaa-task-force-recommends-removing-minimum-standardized-test-scores-effort-advance-racial-equity

BC

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - Softball Fan - 10-15-2021

It seems to me if test scores are racist then requiring a minimum GPA would also be racist. I don't have a problem with the NCAA getting completely out of imposing academic requirements. Let each college decide individually what requirements they want to establish for students coming to their school.

I assume the NCAA's position would be to allow schools like Stanford to require test scores and their own academic requirements that would apply to all student applicants.

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - 82lsju - 10-15-2021

(10-15-2021, 06:30 PM)paloalto Wrote: It seems to me if test scores are racist then requiring a minimum GPA would also be racist. I don't have a problem with the NCAA getting completely out of imposing academic requirements. Let each college decide individually what requirements they want to establish for students coming to their school.

I assume the NCAA's position would be to allow schools like Stanford to require test scores and their own academic requirements that would apply to all student applicants.

schools are abandoning the SAT and ACT already, I'd expect Stanford to stop requiring them soon, and they were not required last year and won't for the applicants this year due to COVID. Not requiring them last year is thought to be part of the reason why Stanford applications were up 23% for the class of '25

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - akiddoc - 10-15-2021

The SAT score issue affects kids from multiple races. Any kid with learning difficulties tied to diagnoses such as ADHD or auditory processing disorders or dyslexia can be affected by those types of tests being used to screen out potential students. If the kid has figured out how to navigate school but not navigate those tests a disservice is being done. On the other hand, the kid's GPA tells you a lot about whether he or she has found a way to succeed academically.

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - 82lsju - 10-15-2021

(10-15-2021, 06:50 PM)akiddoc Wrote: The SAT score issue affects kids from multiple races. Any kid with learning difficulties tied to diagnoses such as ADHD or auditory processing disorders or dyslexia can be affected by those types of tests being used to screen out potential students. If the kid has figured out how to navigate school but not navigate those tests a disservice is being done. On the other hand, the kid's GPA tells you a lot about whether he or she has found a way to succeed academically.

I heard about a guy, Rick Singer, he can apparently get kids extra time and "help" taking the SAT/ACT....for a price....

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - winflop - 10-15-2021

(10-15-2021, 06:33 PM)82lsju Wrote:
(10-15-2021, 06:30 PM)paloalto Wrote: It seems to me if test scores are racist then requiring a minimum GPA would also be racist. I don't have a problem with the NCAA getting completely out of imposing academic requirements. Let each college decide individually what requirements they want to establish for students coming to their school.

I assume the NCAA's position would be to allow schools like Stanford to require test scores and their own academic requirements that would apply to all student applicants.

And also why the acceptance rate dropped to another all-time low of 3.95%.

I'm not convinced that there are more qualified applicants than in the past. It's easier to apply and so many more people are applying.

schools are abandoning the SAT and ACT already, I'd expect Stanford to stop requiring them soon, and they were not required last year and won't for the applicants this year due to COVID. Not requiring them last year is thought to be part of the reason why Stanford applications were up 23% for the class of '25

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - akiddoc - 10-15-2021

(10-15-2021, 07:07 PM)82lsju Wrote:
(10-15-2021, 06:50 PM)akiddoc Wrote: The SAT score issue affects kids from multiple races. Any kid with learning difficulties tied to diagnoses such as ADHD or auditory processing disorders or dyslexia can be affected by those types of tests being used to screen out potential students. If the kid has figured out how to navigate school but not navigate those tests a disservice is being done. On the other hand, the kid's GPA tells you a lot about whether he or she has found a way to succeed academically.

I heard about a guy, Rick Singer, he can apparently get kids extra time and "help" taking the SAT/ACT....for a price....

HA. Well, there's another reason to get rid of the SAT. People with money spend up to $50,000 in tutoring to get their kids to top off those SAT scores. Even without the hiring of test takers to pretend they are the kid.

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - Farm93 - 10-15-2021

Not only are a number of schools stopping their use of standardized tests, a few states have adopted or proposed guidelines that actually prohibit the public schools from using the test scores. It becomes a bit of a tricky situation for the NCAA to have test score minimums when most students in a state didn't take tests.

The original approach would actually have started to impact public schools in California. The UCs and CSUs are no longer allowed to consider test scores for admissions. Therefore at CSUs and UCs the only HS students that could have been negatively impacted by a bad test score would have been the student-athletes. We were not that far away from a place where only the HS athletes would even need to take the test, so the NCAA is just catching up with the reality that many schools don't even want to know standardized test scores now.

FWIW - Applications were up at most selective schools last year for a number of reasons. There were a lot of kids across the USA that declined to enroll for fall 2020 and then applied at a number of schools for fall 2021.

Ultimately, Fall 2020 proved to be a relatively easy year at many places as a lot of schools went deep into their waitlist to try to build a class. Fall 2021 proved to be really difficult with many schools getting unexpected yield rates and overcrowding despite being rather stingy on acceptances.

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - BostonCard - 10-15-2021

Yeah, it is hard to look at the NCAA too askew given the broader moves on testing nationwide. Still, 10 years from now, when colleges are basically homes to semi-pro teams, this will be one things we'll point to as part of the inexorable rise.

I've seen data showing a correlation between test scores and college achievement, but that correlation largely disappears once you account for high school grades, so I get the desire to eliminate it. On the other hand, relative to a lot of other things (essays, recommendations, and even grades) it seems like short of outright cheating, it is a bit harder to game test scores. While rich families can provide tutoring to improve a kids test score, it's not like rich parents can't pay for tutors to help "hone" essays, or that they can't cow teachers and guidance counselors into writing superlative recommendations, or that grade inflation in affluent schools doesn't make it so that grades are going to be of limited value. It's not that I don't think test scores weren't largely a reflection of socioeconomic status; it's just that pretty much every other metric is just as bad or worse.

BC

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - Snorlax94 - 10-15-2021

(10-15-2021, 09:42 PM)BostonCard Wrote: I've seen data showing a correlation between test scores and college achievement, but that correlation largely disappears once you account for high school grades, so I get the desire to eliminate it. On the other hand, relative to a lot of other things (essays, recommendations, and even grades) it seems like short of outright cheating, it is a bit harder to game test scores. On the other hand, rich parents can easily provide tutors to help "home"essays; local, powerful people can probably cow teachers and guidance counselors into writing superlative recommendations, and grade inflation in affluent schools makes it so that grades are going to be of limited value. It's not that I don't think test scores weren't largely a reflection of socioeconomic status; it's just that pretty much every other metric is just as bad or worse.

BC

There was a fascinating article in the Atlantic a little while ago about how super-rich families can demand what they want from schools, and schools, beholden to the wealthy donors, no longer stick up for teachers.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/private-schools-are-indefensible/618078/

So, to BC’s point, maybe you can pay someone $50k to take a test for you, but that’s actually hard to do and you may go to jail for it, but it sounds like it’s easier, cheaper, and more effective to control a wealthy child’s GPA. It’s a lot easier to cheat on your essays and homework than it is to cheat on a standardized test.

As to whether this will make things better or worse for the UCs, people who used to play the test score game will just super-focus on the GPA/essays game, which I suspect will lead to an even worse outcome, but who knows? We will see in a few years.

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - Mick - 10-16-2021

(10-15-2021, 07:07 PM)82lsju Wrote:
(10-15-2021, 06:50 PM)akiddoc Wrote: The SAT score issue affects kids from multiple races. Any kid with learning difficulties tied to diagnoses such as ADHD or auditory processing disorders or dyslexia can be affected by those types of tests being used to screen out potential students. If the kid has figured out how to navigate school but not navigate those tests a disservice is being done. On the other hand, the kid's GPA tells you a lot about whether he or she has found a way to succeed academically.

I heard about a guy, Rick Singer, he can apparently get kids extra time and "help" taking the SAT/ACT....for a price....

Bernard already knows about him... ;)

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - 82lsju - 10-17-2021

(10-15-2021, 10:13 PM)Snorlax94 Wrote: As to whether this will make things better or worse for the UCs, people who used to play the test score game will just super-focus on the GPA/essays game, which I suspect will lead to an even worse outcome, but who knows? We will see in a few years.

At "top tier" schools I think a large number of people will still take the tests, especially if they have "marginal" grades, but only submit the test scores if they do well.

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - martyup - 10-18-2021

Just give them Brawndo. It's got electrolytes, which makes you smart.

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - Leftcoast - 10-18-2021

I'd watch the unintended consequences of throwing out SAT scores. For all their flaws they provided a measure of objectivity to an applicant pool.

That objectivity often helped show the kid from the wrong school or a school with limited AP classes was just as good as the kid from the prep school with an inflated resume. In a post SAT world it will be tempting to just select the kid from the right school with the right background of inflated extra-curriculars, travel, and charity work. Note that all of these favor the well off.

As a kid with two teaching parents who went to a rural school I'm pretty sure it wasn't my GPA that got me in. On the other hand at Stanford 4 years of FFA may have helped more than I realized at the time ... but nonetheless, I'm glad my SATs were high.

By damning SATs we may have just made successful applicants much less diverse.

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - teejers1 - 10-18-2021

(10-18-2021, 06:27 PM)Leftcoast Wrote: I'd watch the unintended consequences of throwing out SAT scores. For all their flaws they provided a measure of objectivity to an applicant pool.

That objectivity often helped show the kid from the wrong school or a school with limited AP classes was just as good as the kid from the prep school with an inflated resume. In a post SAT world it will be tempting to just select the kid from the right school with the right background of inflated extra-curriculars, travel, and charity work. Note that all of these favor the well off.

As a kid with two teaching parents who went to a rural school I'm pretty sure it wasn't my GPA that got me in. On the other hand at Stanford 4 years of FFA may have helped more than I realized at the time ... but nonetheless, I'm glad my SATs were high.

By damning SATs we may have just made successful applicants much less diverse.

Um . . . do you really believe that? If so, I suspect you are in a very small minority.

In your example, do you think there are more rural school kids with great GPAs (who will benefit from dumping the SATs), or (ii) rural school kids with medium GPAs and terrific SAT scores (who will not benefit from this change)? Apply that to question to all target sectors of diversity.

BTW, I'm not saying the decision is bad policy - there is an argument that GPA over the long term better reflects intelligence than does a standardized test. There of course is an argument on the other side, too.

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - JustAnotherFan - 10-19-2021

(10-18-2021, 06:27 PM)Leftcoast Wrote: I'd watch the unintended consequences of throwing out SAT scores. For all their flaws they provided a measure of objectivity to an applicant pool.

That objectivity often helped show the kid from the wrong school or a school with limited AP classes was just as good as the kid from the prep school with an inflated resume. In a post SAT world it will be tempting to just select the kid from the right school with the right background of inflated extra-curriculars, travel, and charity work. Note that all of these favor the well off.

As a kid with two teaching parents who went to a rural school I'm pretty sure it wasn't my GPA that got me in. On the other hand at Stanford 4 years of FFA may have helped more than I realized at the time ... but nonetheless, I'm glad my SATs were high.

By damning SATs we may have just made successful applicants much less diverse.

This is a commonly held belief that is not supported by much of anything other than marketing statements from corporations like the college board. Numerous books have been written that strike down this belief one of which I can recommend off the top of my head is The Years That Matter Most by Paul Tough, and if I remember correctly The Price of Admission by Daniel Golden.

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - JohnR34231 - 10-19-2021

(10-19-2021, 03:22 AM)JustAnotherFan Wrote:
(10-18-2021, 06:27 PM)Leftcoast Wrote: I'd watch the unintended consequences of throwing out SAT scores. For all their flaws they provided a measure of objectivity to an applicant pool.

That objectivity often helped show the kid from the wrong school or a school with limited AP classes was just as good as the kid from the prep school with an inflated resume. In a post SAT world it will be tempting to just select the kid from the right school with the right background of inflated extra-curriculars, travel, and charity work. Note that all of these favor the well off.

As a kid with two teaching parents who went to a rural school I'm pretty sure it wasn't my GPA that got me in. On the other hand at Stanford 4 years of FFA may have helped more than I realized at the time ... but nonetheless, I'm glad my SATs were high.

By damning SATs we may have just made successful applicants much less diverse.

This is a commonly held belief that is not supported by much of anything other than marketing statements from corporations like the college board. Numerous books have been written that strike down this belief one of which I can recommend off the top of my head is The Years That Matter Most by Paul Tough, and if I remember correctly The Price of Admission by Daniel Golden.

My impression is you usually see the reverse. People comment that since wealthy parents can afford expensive, extensive, SAT/ACT prep courses for their kids, that standardized tests favor the applicants from the wealthy prep schools.

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - martyup - 10-19-2021

Standardized tests should level the playing field, giving kids from any socioeconomic background an equal opportunity for a college education. Throwing out the standardized tests because they are biased against minorities does not achieve a level playing field. In fact, I would argue that it will make it more difficult for smart kids from poor neighborhoods and coming out of bad high schools to gain admission to top colleges.

If the standardized tests are not "standardized," why not fix the tests rather than throw them out? These tests should be color blind, culture blind, and religious blind. The tests should be a gauge of the students' grasp of reading, writing, and math.

I'm sorry to bring common sense to such a complex issue that touches on the delicate third rail of racial and social justice by suggesting an Occam's Razar approach. Maybe I've just been drinking too much Brawndo these days.

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - OutsiderFan - 10-19-2021

If it were up to me, I'd give psychopath tests to everyone applying to college, and decline people like Elizabeth Holmes college admission.

As I went through life, the less value I assigned hard skills and more I put on soft skills. You can teach hard skills to people with well developed soft skills and emotional intelligence in educational settings. You can't teach soft skills and emotional intelligence to those with hard skills in educational settings.

Integrity and emotional intelligence are far, far, far more important than the ability to perform tasks, but both our education and employment systems value task performance - no matter the quality of the individual performing - more than integrity and emotional intelligence to society's detriment.

RE: NCAA task force recommends no test scores - teejers1 - 10-19-2021

(10-19-2021, 08:38 AM)martyup Wrote: Standardized tests should level the playing field, giving kids from any socioeconomic background an equal opportunity for a college education. Throwing out the standardized tests because they are biased against minorities does not achieve a level playing field. In fact, I would argue that it will make it more difficult for smart kids from poor neighborhoods and coming out of bad high schools to gain admission to top colleges.

If the standardized tests are not "standardized," why not fix the tests rather than throw them out? These tests should be color blind, culture blind, and religious blind. The tests should be a gauge of the students' grasp of reading, writing, and math.

I'm sorry to bring common sense to such a complex issue that touches on the delicate third rail of racial and social justice by suggesting an Occam's Razar approach. Maybe I've just been drinking too much Brawndo these days.

Aren't you assuming that "smart kids from poor neighborhoods and coming out of bad schools" have bad GPAs? Why would you make that assumption? Mine would be the opposite. Stated differently, if smart kids in bad schools have great GPAs (which I think far more likely than them having non-stellar GPAs), then how would keeping standardized tests help them in college admissions process?