Anybody cheering the exclusion of some test or other, because it was a pain to study for in high school, is simply not noticing the frog-boiling secondary effects going on. Every bit of emphasis taken out of objective results mean more advantage for smooth talking, photogenic, well-connected people.
Yes, some misguided parents waste thousands of dollars on SAT courses. But students can also prep using the $20 official book, which is what I did, and what I still regard as the best option. Even if money helps incrementally for tests, it helps for everything else even more. International volunteer work? An inspiring (i.e. college counselor approved) essay? Recommendation letters from authoritative people? Anything that requires equipment, like computer labs or robotics? It all costs money -- and in many cases literally measures nothing besides how much money you have.
I used to think the SATs were fair. Until I found out how much money was being spent on SAT prep. And those expensive prep courses had the potential to increase scores over 100 points.
I took the recommended SAT prep course through my high school. It was 2 weekends of going over material that might be on the exam and a workbook recommended by The College Board. Imagine my surprise going to university and meeting students much richer than I who had multi year SAT prep courses with actual exam questions!
The SAT is not fair. By taking an expensive prep course, you can potentially increase your SAT score by 100 (although that's quite extreme, the average improvement attributed to SAT prep is closer to 20 points). That's a significant, but not earth-shattering improvement: it moves you from the 75th percentile to the 84th, or from the 97th percentile to the 99th.
Now let's compare that to other criteria used in the college admissions process.
It's way easier to have impressive and relevant extracurricular activities if you're rich and go to a good school. And unlike SAT prep, acquiring good extracurriculars will definitely take years of your time and money.
Well-written admissions essay? MIT requires one. But you do it at home, instead of a tightly controlled testing center. So if you're rich enough, you can have ghost-written admissions essays. Needless to say, this process can turn even a completely worthless essay into an impressive one.
Creative portfolio? Unless you're in the 99th percentile of musical talent, the difference between "I write songs that I play on an old guitar" and "an orchestra performed my composition" is money. The former is probably not even 75th percentile; the latter, probably 95+.
Alumni parents who would be likely to donate big bucks? You don't need an expensive prep course to get that, yet it can provide your application with a much bigger boost than 100 SAT points. And unlike the SAT, if you don't have alumni parents to begin with, then you'll never get this boost, no matter how much extra work you put in.
The SAT is not fair. But it's the fairest admissions criterion used by U.S. universities today.
(note: MIT still relies on the SAT; today's announcement concerns the SAT Subject Tests)
I'm an underrepresented minority and I increased my SAT score by 200-300 from the PSAT to SAT, depending on how you want to measure the change. This was just by doing self-study with off the shelf test prep material. The classes aren't what increases your score, its the consistent structured study and ones innate potential. For some people, no amount of study is going to get them into the 90+th percentile. While others who have the capacity to do well but haven't had the best instruction over the years can cover a lot of ground with the right prep. But this is exactly what SAT is intended to measure, scholastic potential. That some people can increase scores dramatically through preparation does not indicate a failure of the test, but rather its success.
SAT prep courses advertise that they can increase scores by 100 points but generally they're lying in order to sell more test courses. But the real number is closer to "11 to 15 points on the math section and 6 to 9 points on the verbal."[1]
The real scandal that I can't believe hasn't gotten more attention is that wealthy families are hiring psychologists to claim their child has a learning disability. They can then get more time to take the test and due to a policy change a few years ago, this information is hidden from the schools when students report their scores.
Anyone can study the SAT prep books for free at a bookstore a few hours at a time daily.
If your offended by that, what about professors or HS teachers who teach certain sections of the textbook because it's going to be on the exam.
One can self-study the SAT prep book or self-study their biology book and in both cases can potentially be more knowledgeable than those who attended a formal university class or prep workshop. Most students aren't driven to do that though.
This goes to the fundamental problem, that our university system at present is really just a credentialing and signaling system.
The question shouldn't be is the SAT unfairly biased towards families with money, since of course it is, but is the SAT less biased towards families with money then other criteria. Having parents with money and connections lets you get tutoring to increase your GPA, tutoring to write essays, connections to get internships, the free time to do clubs, training to excel in sports, and so many other things.
The question isn't "can the SATs be gamed?", though. The question is "can the SATs be gamed more than whatever other criteria you use?". Simply analyzing one half of the equation won't produce a correct answer.
Rich people can game standardized tests. They can also game grades. They can game admission essays. They can game interviews. If colleges admitted students based on brain fMRI data, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that rich people managed to exploit that, too.
Are the SATs unfair? Absolutely. Are they more unfair than the alternative? I'm not convinced. I usually prefer the devil I know.
100 points isn't that much. The average score is 1000-1100. The elite universities expect 1500. Tutoring, even if it gave you 100 points, isn't going to cross that gap.
I'd say it's still relatively fair. Fairer than essentially any other admissions criterion: grades aren't comparable across schools, extra-curriculars are much more about money spent, etc.
I've worked as an SAT prep tutor and I've worked in the oil industry.
Actually, I felt way more guilt about my SAT tutoring work than the oil industry. The world runs on oil, but no one needs expensive SAT tutoring to give rich kids an edge over the poor ones.
While it's true that prep courses can help dramatically, the SAT subject tests are also not really that hard. I don't consider myself terribly smart (certainly not MIT level) and I managed to get an 800 on the Math II and 800 on Chemistry with a minimum of studying using pretty inexpensive books. This applied to many of my friends as well.
I was shamed by some older fellow alums when I told people that my parents had hired someone to go over my application and essays. Their stance was that my parents gave me an unfair advantage (note, both of my parents are immigrants who did not even finish high school). My retort to them was point out that most of them didn't exactly grow up in the crime ridden rural parts of the world (quite the opposite in fact). Their parents paid a higher tax rate to support the world class public education they got, which they just assumed is the norm. That shut them up rather quickly.
SAT prep classes or not, coming from a more advantageous social-economic background grants you so many benefits in many ways. My parents wouldn't have to hire someone to review my applications if my school had a good college counselor (50% of my classmates do not go on to college).
The main thing that frustrated me about the SAT, at least when I took it, was that it essentially boiled down to an IQ test, not a true "scholastic aptitude" test. I did barely any prep (aside from, I think, a flip calendar with questions), but I scored 1510 out of 1600 at the time which qualified me for a prestigious program in my university.
Then I narrowly avoided flunking out because I'd never actually learned to study or manage my time properly in high school because I'd never needed to until college. Study skills and time management seem like pretty important factors in a true measure of scholastic aptitude.
That's a fair criticism of the general SAT - I used to teach those classes, and the test is very gameable in the sense that there really are "A FEW SIMPLE TRICKS!" to learn that have nothing to do with actually knowing the material in a useful way.
But at least some of the subject SATs are not like that at all, specifically the math/science ones. There really aren't many tricks or traps, they really are like normal school tests (if multiple choice) where doing well on them requires you to know the material they cover. Nobody who is "good at tests" is going to 800 the physics one without knowing physics well enough that they'd do well in a freshman mechanics course, and someone who gets a 400 either slept through class or is going to struggle at college level.
Coming from someone who took said expensive prep courses, I can tell you that just taking practice exam after practice exam is easily 90% of the benefit. The test taking strategy they teach is something anyone with serious prospects of getting into MIT would have learned years ago.
What really increases your score is having a good night's sleep and a healthy breakfast before school every day of your life prior to taking the test. The test doesn't really measure aptitude because it can't control for those inputs.
I work for a company that collects aggregated SAT data. I was pretty upset when I discovered there is a very strong, direct correlation between family income and SAT score, with a credible spread of several hundred points between the average scores of the highest and lowest income groups. I knew that there would be a correlation, but seeing how strong it was was pretty depressing.
I think the courses mostly help with discipline in studying for the test. There’s nothing magical about them. I’ve taken many standardized exams with and without prep courses and it’s quite possible to do very well with inexpensive self study material if you’re incredibly disciplined about studying.
That's true, but at the same time it's a standardized test so anyone can replicate those prep courses. There's tons of prep books with practice questions, tips, etc.
It's a matter of awareness and taking it seriously (obviously a simplification, but hope you get my point).
I realized how much of a scam standardized testing was when I used to do the PSATs and increased my score mostly by using a different strategy rather than getting smarter or anything. The SAT prep class my high school offered for like $40 was a complete joke because they were designed for public school students where you get around 1250 and it's pretty good for state school admissions. Until I learned to treat the test as a game and understand its scoring I went from 1330 to 1520 simply by _not_ answering anything I wasn't fully confident with my answer - this is literally the opposite strategy I was instructed to do where they encouraged people to guess. To get to the higher end, you are best off never getting even a partial deduction for getting something wrong. When I got my best score, I only got 3 questions wrong but far more unanswered.
This is indeed a strange decision for MIT. The conventional wisdom has long been that the SAT subject tests are MORE predictive of future success at MIT, because the influence of test prep, cramming, test coaches, etc. is minimal for the subject tests. While there are reports of people raising their scores artificially on the non-subject tests by hundreds of points through these short-term methods, the subjects tests have long had a reputation as being more representative of what you really know.
> The conventional wisdom has long been that the SAT subject tests are MORE predictive of future success at MIT, because the influence of test prep, cramming, test coaches, etc. is minimal for the subject tests.
Who cares what the conventional wisdom says? The psychometric results are that SAT I scores and SAT II scores predict performance about equally well in isolation and don't have more predictive value in combination than they do in isolation. In other words, they measure exactly the same thing.
(Contrast the other major predictor, high school GPA, where the predictive value of considering GPA + SAT in combination somewhat exceeds the predictive value of either metric individually.)
>The conventional wisdom has long been that the SAT subject tests are MORE predictive of future success at MIT, because the influence of test prep, cramming, test coaches, etc. is minimal for the subject tests.
Citation needed? The admissions office has much better data on this stuff, but in my experience, MIT students who performed well on these tests did so because their schools offered AP exams that were relevant. For students like me, we were S.O.L. and had to teach ourselves a year's worth of test material entirely by self-study while still maintaining top grades in school, doing research, and studying for the SAT.
To clarify: not disputing that there's less cramming, just that it's a better predictor.
I'm assuming most everyone taking the SAT subject test is also taking AP tests. AP tests were significantly more rigorous than SAT subject tests and would have provided more useful information to admissions. It took more prep to get a 5 on an AP Chemistry test vs a top score on the SAT subject test.
Some rich trustee's dumb kid probably got "screwed over" by a poor kid who put in insane hours. I dont see how this leads to egalitarian access to education given that on every other metric spoilt idiots carrying rich parents DNA will have an advantage.
If the reason is benign, I'm guessing it's just because AP tests have gotten so watered down that they're just a stand-in for the SAT subject tests at this point.
A number of comments here seem to be confusing SAT subject tests, which are domain-specific tests about subjects like biology, with the "standard" SAT. It's only the former that MIT is dropping from consideration in admissions:
> We will continue to require the SAT or the ACT, because our research has shown these tests, in combination with a student’s high school grades and coursework, are predictive of success in our challenging curriculum.
Note to those who haven't been in high school for some time: these aren't the main test. The main test still gets considered (in addition to your parents' money)
I'm sure that I will get in trouble for this but...
The SAT/ACT system is corrupt. It's plain an simple. Follow the money. It's as simple as that. The root of most issues involve simple economics. (Maybe a little broad of a statement, so take it with a grain of salt, but certainly applies in this case.)
The tests are built on revenue from the taking the tests and industry selling you prep material. I don't have time to find the article but the SAT organization got busted a while back for charging different prices for different zip codes.
Although I can't prove it, but I'm sure there were kickback for universities that used the tests. It's a little unsubstantiated claim but we already know you can bribe your way into to school. (The Rick Singer debacle) Why wouldn't these "Testing" companies be doing the same.
Memorizing a method/strategy to take test is a waste of time and national resources.
Slightly unrelated but could be useful to any HS seniors here: My n=1 study method got me a 1520. I would study for the SAT in a dark room, with horror movie music or war sound effects playing in earbuds, while planking. For every incorrect answer, I'd do 10 pushups or 3 pull-ups (can adapt to your own level). Rationale was that if I could do well in the worst conditions possible, then I'd do better sitting in a quiet room.
I'm a pretty bad student also, I had like a 3 GPA.
"And last, but certainly not least: I know we are making this announcement during the COVID-19 pandemic. We had already been planning to make this change, and decided to announce as soon as possible in part because we wanted to make sure no one was spending more time or energy studying for tests they wouldn’t have to take for us, especially during a public health emergency. "
Riiiiiiiight. 'Cuz nobody that applies to MIT ever applies to a back-up school. You know, just in case they don't get accepted. I've heard that can happen.
The SAT subject tests just felt like a joke to me anyways. My high school was a public high school in Singapore, a country generally considered to have great education. With a generally good mastery of the normal high school curriculum, these tests were considered very easy. Pretty much all my friends and I got 800 out of 800 for all the subject tests. And these perfect scores ended up not mattering that much in college admissions anyways.
The normal SAT I tests, on the other hand, seemed to require more critical thinking, higher reading comprehension and reasoning skills, skills that are sorely needed in an age of blatant misinformation. These are much harder to score well, which is why so many people spend a lot studying for them. Not so much for the SAT subject tests.
In my home country Iran we had the equivalent of SAT general and subject tests. I did pretty poorly in general tests, but the subject tests saved me (near perfect scores in physics and math) and opened the door for me to go to a good university in my country. Just to get a clear understanding of my financials, I was living off 1$ per month at that time which was just enough to buy heavily subsidized food stamps in college. I ended up graduating with a PhD degree and worked at several top companies in the US later. This seems to me like a case of a cure that is worse than the disease.
To be fair, the SAT is pretty useless when you have enough applicants with 99 percentile scores that you can fill your class multiple times over. It was never a differentiator.
If they ever extend this to the SAT / ACT itself (and not just the subject tests) I will have lost a lot of respect for MIT.
A goal of higher education is to give the opportunity to people who will likely make the best use of the education, and have the greatest chance of succeeding given their preparation. Spots at top colleges are a limited resource. There has to be a selection function, and an unbiased test that asks questions about math, reading comprehension, etc. is as close as you're going to get.
The SAT, regardless of your opinion of whether it exacerbates or merely reflects inequities in the system, is a very strong indicator of whether a person has the preparation to succeed at university. You cannot get around that fact.
Whether high-priced prep courses or studying out of a book from the library help you pass the test, the person doing either of those things has gotten education and skills along the way. God forbid you consider the idea that someone actually learned something even though the test was standardized. And the fact that even poor families will pay to put their kids through test prep courses suggests they see value in it. It's not like they're paying to be given instructions on how to cheat the system.
People who want to water down the admissions criteria to be a social equalizer ought not mask their motives by saying that the test is flawed. The test is perfectly fine, and it reflects people's preparation and abilities to succeed at university. If you want to change the outcome, change the inputs -- and work on getting more people qualified to pass that test.
Most of this is to obscure their admission criteria. Harvard has come under fire for actively discriminating against Asian applicants. By removing a standard test, these colleges can actively discriminate whilst making it more difficult to prove admissions bias from a numerical and arguably more objective standard.
It makes intuitive sense to me that MIT wouldn't find these useful. They test subjects that students study in school. They're tests of knowledge, and have multiple choice questions like "One purpose of the Marshall Plan of 1948 was to..."
As far as I know, everyone's score on these tests correlated extremely well with 1) their school grade in the relevant course 2) the relevant Advanced Placement test.
Honestly welcome change. The SAT Subject tests (at least for people around me in HS) were always considered as a much easier test you'd take after the AP for that very same subject. I just equated it to another way for collegeboard to get money especially since the questions were way more straightforward than AP. I am slightly concerned about what this means for schools where AP classes are not offered (I imagine SAT Subject tests presented the most accessible opportunity for these students to demonstrate their aptitude in a subject).
EDIT: changed wording in response to child comment.
These were called "Achievement Tests" in the early 90s, and man, they were
much harder than the SAT. If the current "Subject Tests" approximate their
level of difficulty, then it's a clear mistake for MIT to disregard these
datapoints. When I was applying to college, yes, people paid for SAT prep but
very few paid for Achievement Test prep, and so Achievement Tests were a superior
indicator.
[+] [-] knzhou|6 years ago|reply
Yes, some misguided parents waste thousands of dollars on SAT courses. But students can also prep using the $20 official book, which is what I did, and what I still regard as the best option. Even if money helps incrementally for tests, it helps for everything else even more. International volunteer work? An inspiring (i.e. college counselor approved) essay? Recommendation letters from authoritative people? Anything that requires equipment, like computer labs or robotics? It all costs money -- and in many cases literally measures nothing besides how much money you have.
[+] [-] yardie|6 years ago|reply
I took the recommended SAT prep course through my high school. It was 2 weekends of going over material that might be on the exam and a workbook recommended by The College Board. Imagine my surprise going to university and meeting students much richer than I who had multi year SAT prep courses with actual exam questions!
[+] [-] saithound|6 years ago|reply
Now let's compare that to other criteria used in the college admissions process.
It's way easier to have impressive and relevant extracurricular activities if you're rich and go to a good school. And unlike SAT prep, acquiring good extracurriculars will definitely take years of your time and money.
Well-written admissions essay? MIT requires one. But you do it at home, instead of a tightly controlled testing center. So if you're rich enough, you can have ghost-written admissions essays. Needless to say, this process can turn even a completely worthless essay into an impressive one.
Creative portfolio? Unless you're in the 99th percentile of musical talent, the difference between "I write songs that I play on an old guitar" and "an orchestra performed my composition" is money. The former is probably not even 75th percentile; the latter, probably 95+.
Alumni parents who would be likely to donate big bucks? You don't need an expensive prep course to get that, yet it can provide your application with a much bigger boost than 100 SAT points. And unlike the SAT, if you don't have alumni parents to begin with, then you'll never get this boost, no matter how much extra work you put in.
The SAT is not fair. But it's the fairest admissions criterion used by U.S. universities today.
(note: MIT still relies on the SAT; today's announcement concerns the SAT Subject Tests)
[+] [-] hackinthebochs|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Symmetry|6 years ago|reply
[1]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228337033_Using_Lin...
[+] [-] aliston|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duckMuppet|6 years ago|reply
If your offended by that, what about professors or HS teachers who teach certain sections of the textbook because it's going to be on the exam.
One can self-study the SAT prep book or self-study their biology book and in both cases can potentially be more knowledgeable than those who attended a formal university class or prep workshop. Most students aren't driven to do that though.
This goes to the fundamental problem, that our university system at present is really just a credentialing and signaling system.
[+] [-] neaden|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scythe|6 years ago|reply
Rich people can game standardized tests. They can also game grades. They can game admission essays. They can game interviews. If colleges admitted students based on brain fMRI data, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that rich people managed to exploit that, too.
Are the SATs unfair? Absolutely. Are they more unfair than the alternative? I'm not convinced. I usually prefer the devil I know.
[+] [-] losvedir|6 years ago|reply
I'd say it's still relatively fair. Fairer than essentially any other admissions criterion: grades aren't comparable across schools, extra-curriculars are much more about money spent, etc.
[+] [-] asdfman123|6 years ago|reply
Actually, I felt way more guilt about my SAT tutoring work than the oil industry. The world runs on oil, but no one needs expensive SAT tutoring to give rich kids an edge over the poor ones.
[+] [-] realtalk_sp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hangonhn|6 years ago|reply
I was shamed by some older fellow alums when I told people that my parents had hired someone to go over my application and essays. Their stance was that my parents gave me an unfair advantage (note, both of my parents are immigrants who did not even finish high school). My retort to them was point out that most of them didn't exactly grow up in the crime ridden rural parts of the world (quite the opposite in fact). Their parents paid a higher tax rate to support the world class public education they got, which they just assumed is the norm. That shut them up rather quickly.
SAT prep classes or not, coming from a more advantageous social-economic background grants you so many benefits in many ways. My parents wouldn't have to hire someone to review my applications if my school had a good college counselor (50% of my classmates do not go on to college).
[+] [-] indigochill|6 years ago|reply
Then I narrowly avoided flunking out because I'd never actually learned to study or manage my time properly in high school because I'd never needed to until college. Study skills and time management seem like pretty important factors in a true measure of scholastic aptitude.
[+] [-] sushid|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bermanoid|6 years ago|reply
But at least some of the subject SATs are not like that at all, specifically the math/science ones. There really aren't many tricks or traps, they really are like normal school tests (if multiple choice) where doing well on them requires you to know the material they cover. Nobody who is "good at tests" is going to 800 the physics one without knowing physics well enough that they'd do well in a freshman mechanics course, and someone who gets a 400 either slept through class or is going to struggle at college level.
[+] [-] manfredo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thedance|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JamesBarney|6 years ago|reply
But money also buys you grades, gpa, extracurriculars, and recommendations.
[+] [-] CapmCrackaWaka|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] outlace|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] askafriend|6 years ago|reply
It's a matter of awareness and taking it seriously (obviously a simplification, but hope you get my point).
[+] [-] koboll|6 years ago|reply
I took one of those expensive scores and got the exact same score after the course as I did before the course.
It turned out the cheap study book was every bit as effective as the expensive course.
[+] [-] devonkim|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] underpand|6 years ago|reply
As compared with self-studying with free online practice tests and resources having the potential to increase scores over 100 points.
[+] [-] albntomat0|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RedBeetDeadpool|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dalrymple|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thaumasiotes|6 years ago|reply
Who cares what the conventional wisdom says? The psychometric results are that SAT I scores and SAT II scores predict performance about equally well in isolation and don't have more predictive value in combination than they do in isolation. In other words, they measure exactly the same thing.
(Contrast the other major predictor, high school GPA, where the predictive value of considering GPA + SAT in combination somewhat exceeds the predictive value of either metric individually.)
[+] [-] whymauri|6 years ago|reply
Citation needed? The admissions office has much better data on this stuff, but in my experience, MIT students who performed well on these tests did so because their schools offered AP exams that were relevant. For students like me, we were S.O.L. and had to teach ourselves a year's worth of test material entirely by self-study while still maintaining top grades in school, doing research, and studying for the SAT.
To clarify: not disputing that there's less cramming, just that it's a better predictor.
[+] [-] DevX101|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thecleaner|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knzhou|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pulisse|6 years ago|reply
> We will continue to require the SAT or the ACT, because our research has shown these tests, in combination with a student’s high school grades and coursework, are predictive of success in our challenging curriculum.
[+] [-] jimbob45|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT_Subject_Tests
[+] [-] chad_strategic|6 years ago|reply
The SAT/ACT system is corrupt. It's plain an simple. Follow the money. It's as simple as that. The root of most issues involve simple economics. (Maybe a little broad of a statement, so take it with a grain of salt, but certainly applies in this case.)
The tests are built on revenue from the taking the tests and industry selling you prep material. I don't have time to find the article but the SAT organization got busted a while back for charging different prices for different zip codes.
Although I can't prove it, but I'm sure there were kickback for universities that used the tests. It's a little unsubstantiated claim but we already know you can bribe your way into to school. (The Rick Singer debacle) Why wouldn't these "Testing" companies be doing the same.
Memorizing a method/strategy to take test is a waste of time and national resources.
[+] [-] hhs|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] legionof7|6 years ago|reply
I'm a pretty bad student also, I had like a 3 GPA.
[+] [-] dbcurtis|6 years ago|reply
Riiiiiiiight. 'Cuz nobody that applies to MIT ever applies to a back-up school. You know, just in case they don't get accepted. I've heard that can happen.
[+] [-] kccqzy|6 years ago|reply
The normal SAT I tests, on the other hand, seemed to require more critical thinking, higher reading comprehension and reasoning skills, skills that are sorely needed in an age of blatant misinformation. These are much harder to score well, which is why so many people spend a lot studying for them. Not so much for the SAT subject tests.
[+] [-] codelord|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chatmasta|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] supernova87a|6 years ago|reply
A goal of higher education is to give the opportunity to people who will likely make the best use of the education, and have the greatest chance of succeeding given their preparation. Spots at top colleges are a limited resource. There has to be a selection function, and an unbiased test that asks questions about math, reading comprehension, etc. is as close as you're going to get.
The SAT, regardless of your opinion of whether it exacerbates or merely reflects inequities in the system, is a very strong indicator of whether a person has the preparation to succeed at university. You cannot get around that fact.
Whether high-priced prep courses or studying out of a book from the library help you pass the test, the person doing either of those things has gotten education and skills along the way. God forbid you consider the idea that someone actually learned something even though the test was standardized. And the fact that even poor families will pay to put their kids through test prep courses suggests they see value in it. It's not like they're paying to be given instructions on how to cheat the system.
People who want to water down the admissions criteria to be a social equalizer ought not mask their motives by saying that the test is flawed. The test is perfectly fine, and it reflects people's preparation and abilities to succeed at university. If you want to change the outcome, change the inputs -- and work on getting more people qualified to pass that test.
[+] [-] codingslave|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xibalba|6 years ago|reply
If only we had a test for that...
[+] [-] jkaptur|6 years ago|reply
It makes intuitive sense to me that MIT wouldn't find these useful. They test subjects that students study in school. They're tests of knowledge, and have multiple choice questions like "One purpose of the Marshall Plan of 1948 was to..."
As far as I know, everyone's score on these tests correlated extremely well with 1) their school grade in the relevant course 2) the relevant Advanced Placement test.
[+] [-] abhisuri97|6 years ago|reply
EDIT: changed wording in response to child comment.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jimmyvalmer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] totalZero|6 years ago|reply
Subject tests helped me get into MIT from a public school in one of the states in the bottom 5 for education spending.
Take away the tests, and you take away the merit.