Colleges turning their backs on the SAT and ACT scores

'
I think your observation is skewed. Many African Americans will tell you that things may have changed but they're still the same. I once heard Don King say "no matter how much money you have, in Amerikkka, if you're black, somebody is going to call you a nigger."
The problems for African Americans is now at a different level than it was 20, 30 50 or 200 years ago. They are still oppressed. It's just not as open.

 

Class rank is used by some schools and that's extremely unfair. The best student at Podunk High School could be roughly equal to the 100th-best student at Big Suburban High School.

 

Actually, On, in a competitive admit process, class rank isn't used by some schools, it's pretty much used by ALL schools. And, the scenario you mention isn't really accurate. The ranks aren't compared, apples to apples. The ranks are weighted, based on both the grading scales (including advance placement classes, core academic vs. general classes) used at the particular high schools, as well as the historic academic success of like ranked students, from the same High School, over time.

Let's see......tests are unfair.....class rank is unfair......GPA's aren't equitable becasue not every HS is of the same quality......Aint admissions fun??

 

Fine. We have common ground. I think the difference is that many things are not nearly as bad as you and others think. That the legal impediments to assimilation and opportunities are nearly all gone. The wall is no longer built by others to keep you out, but built by yourselves to keep you in. And to the extent impediments to full entry into American society exist, they can be overcome by following the prescribed rules. All I can offer is the example of Jewish Americans. As Hesche said on the Sopranos, we were the white man's niggers while you people were still chasing Zebras. We used education and business to force open the doors. We did it without affiramtive action and did it when quotas were used keep us out. My experience is that people still don't like or trust Jews, but they do like and respect individuals that are Jewish. The parallells were so close, yet for some reason African American failed to follow path of the immigrants and Jews. Thus my problem with your stand on standardized tests. We felt that given an opportunity at something close to a level playing field, we will succeed and the SATs and other standardized tests were the means to do it.

I bet if you took a look at the lifetime earnings of the classes of 1958 at Choate in Connecticutt and DeWitt Clinton High School in The Bronx, the largely Jewish & Italian kids who graduated from DeWitt Clinton may surpass the preppy WASPs OF Choate if not be very very close.

 

But check this out. Africans didn't ask to come here. They were brought here in bondage. The chains may not be steel but they still exist. They exist economically. They exist socially.The playing field is far from even.

 

I like the Chris Rock joke...

"The SAT is biased... against stupid people..."

 

The conditions of your current state of bondage is self impossed. If every black man, woman and child is waiting for the welcome wagon to come around to your house with the key to the city, an apple pie and the password into WhiteWorld, y'all be sittin still forever. Take the intiative, work hard and stop the bullshit.

 

Abbott, you are not black. I'm not black but have been raised around many. You can't begin to know the shit they have to put up with on a daily basis.

 

Layman, welcome. Your presence here is a godsend to a question that has been plaguing me and Mrs. Birdscribe for the better part of a decade...

You touched on it earlier when you said you don't think you'd get into the college you went to and I'd love for you to elaborate on this further.

Why has college admissions become so much more competitive over the last 10-15 years?

For example, back in the early 80s, I graduated 17th in my class of 264. I had a 3.7 GPA in college prep/AP classes (before they were weighted heavier) and not a thrilling SAT score (1,000), largely because I sucked HARD at math. Played two sports, had extracurriculars up the wazoo, etc.

I got into Cal and a few other semi-selective schools with no problem. Our class valedictorian was accepted into Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Cal and wait-listed at Brown with a 4.0 and a 1,250 SAT). Today, with those credentials, the admissions office at Berkeley would laugh my application out of the room and our valedictorian wouldn't have a prayer of seeing anything but thin letters from all of the above.

My wife and I, who both teach college (she teaches history, I teach journalism), see students on a regular basis who can't put a coherent sentence together and misspell words my third grader can spell. So there is no possible way anyone can convince me the kids are smarter now than they were 20, 25 years ago. None.

So my question to you is twofold: First, with the Ivies and other high-profile schools like Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc, who the hell is getting into these uber-selective schools when they're turning down entire classes of 4.0s and near-perfect SATs? Legacies? Affirmative Action admits? Exeter, Choates and other prep school alums?

And second, what the hell is going on with this? Why would someone with a 3.7, 3.8 these days be lucky to get into a garden-variety state school?

Sorry for the threadjack, but with a son about to enter high school next year, this has been an issue for my wife and I for quite some time.

 

I believe the criteria changes every year for selection.

 

Not to answer for layman, whose posts on this matter have been great, but I heard that in years past kids would send applications to 3-5 schools. Now kids are sending applications to 10 or more. Thus causing the competition as more applications are received. What would be interesting is to find the percentage of students who are accepted compare to enrolled. And how this compares with the late 70's through the 80's.