Are there any accommodations available for students of need for the bar or medical licensing exams?
I don’t know about the professional exams. I assume lawyers have to be constantly on their toes. Doctors can’t tell their patients to wait until they figured it out. Money managers and traders can’t freeze the markets so they can plan their next move.
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Yes.
Even within a field, the necessity of quick thinking differs. For physicians, an emergency room physician may have more need for quick thinking than a dermatologist or radiologist.
Of course, whether a given standardized test is an appropriate test of thinking speed necessary in a particular activity is another question entirely.
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This was really interesting and I learned something new — UCLA does not use capped weighted GPA at all.
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I posted AN element of success- not the only element of success. Speed is critical in some fields, neutral in others, a negative in some. I had a potentially fatal medical emergency a few years ago, and was grateful to see the wide range of skills in the professionals I saw. An air traffic controller needs a different way of processing information than a hematologist. An army ranger responds differently to visual stimuli than a cryptologist.
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Some other points to consider is that there are far more students today and especially students whose parents are college graduates. That has an impact on both intelligence and the value placed on education. Parents are spending far more money to prepare their kids for school, standardized tests, tutoring, etc.
Second, todays students have much more access to technology and information. It’s much easier to find information on a computer than to slog through the library to do research. It’s also much easier to work on equations on a graphing calculator than even the old scientific calculators. We have far more students today taking advanced mathematics courses or science courses. It’s no wonder we see many more top students both with excellent grades but also excellent standardized tests.
When my oldest D was in HS almost a decade ago (about the time I started on CC) she had to read a book called “The Overachievers”. It was written in the mid 2000’s and the goal was for students interested in the Ivy League schools to achieve at least a 1400 on their SAT’s. Today those number would not guarantee one admission to certain state flagships. Not only are the numbers to be considered higher today. The shear number of students with these higher numbers is staggering. Grade inflation is part of the problem but I think some of the answer is the preparation of a good portion of our students today. Unfortunately, the gap between the best and the worse seems to be growing and there aren’t as many options for those who don’t have parents who value their children’s education.
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The discussions around this topic and its offshoots are always lively. The original post as I understand it, concerns students with lower test scores possibly having trouble with STEM courses. I couldn’t find it for this string, but I read a research study conducted by U of Michigan engineering professors that basically stated that kids needed a 27 ACT score to have success in engineering courses. I think they correlated it with the ability to obtain a “C” in college calculus. I could be wrong. But 27 was the “magic” number.
I see both sides of the issue. However, it seems to me that the true divide (not always specifically expressed) between the camps is whether or not the primary factor in test-score success has to do with native ability or is it socioeconomic factors. Your view on that also colors your opinion on whether or not it is fair to heavily weigh or not weigh test scores.
Correction-27 ACT in math
Its certainly a myth that today’s abundance of 1500+ scores is a result of better preps. If they want to make SAT and ACT a high ceiling test like a SHSAT they can easily do it. Despite proliferation of tutoring and Asian kids prepping it like crazy the top score of SHSAT has not budged in the last half a century—its always in the low 700s out of a perfect 800. Can you imagine the top scores of SAT never exceed 1500 year after year?
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I will assume your stats are accurate. I don’t know. But one of the controversies surrounding that test is practically the same as on this thread. Namely, whether or not success on the test had to do more with native ability versus socioeconomic factors. New York faced a NAACP lawsuit over the impact the testing had in minority high school admissions. Some folks opposing the lawsuit argued that the test was fair to Asian-American kids. Again, the nature versus nurture argument was essentially raised. That’s what I find interesting. All facts and arguments seem to break down to that point.
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But the adjustment is the same for everyone, 1.5 time extension. So if the average speed is 10 per minute, and you test at 9 per minute, you are going to get 1.5 the time. Now the person with a ‘disability’ actually gets an advantage.
My daughter is very slow, especially in reading. In school, she took 2 or 3 times as long to do her assignments, to read the problems, but always turned in her homework and usually got As. Her test scores weren’t great, so she applied to colleges with a good (not outstanding) gpa and just average ACT. I know she would have scored higher with more time. She did fine in college, and yes most assignments took her longer but she sat in the chair until she was done. An hour, six hour? Whatever it took.
Daughter never had trouble finishing tests in college in the time allotted. Those exams didn’t seem to require lightening speed or working for 45 minutes on a section. She sat in the regular testing room and used only the allotted time. She finds that as a working person, who bills by the hour, she completes work faster than the time allotted by the employer (they bid on jobs and she’s responsible to do the work in the time listed on the bid sheet).
I don’t know of any college professor who gives exams where they expect some students not to complete a good portion of it, but that is the expectation of the SAT and ACT. I don’t know of employers who expect you to complete everything as a timed test. Deadlines? Yes, but not work where they are trying to trip you up.
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Agreed that the discussions usually come down to nature vs nurture, but that’s oversimplified.
Consider, just to take the most obvious one, that (as @lvvcsf alluded to just a few posts upthread) the population of SAT/ACT test-takers is materially different now when compared to X years ago. Given that, one has to ask whether the SAT/ACT should be used the same way as they were X years ago.
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I think the top schools are going test optional partly because those tests are so low ceiling they lose their value.
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@dfbdfb raises their hand.
It’s rare, but I certainly have written tests where I don’t expect all (or even any) of the students in my college courses to complete them in the allotted time. (Including the students who receive 1.5x or 2.0x time accommodations.) I only do it when I have a solid reason for it, and I only use that setup very rarely, but I do know I’m not alone in that. Of course, you only do this sort of thing when you’re testing rather different sorts of things than the SAT/ACT are testing, but there’s a counterexample.
That said: I, like a pretty large chunk of other college faculty out there, am moving away from exams anyway. It’s possible to write a good exam, but there are less stressful (for both students and teachers) and more elegant ways of getting at the same level of assessment, and many of those have been demonstrated to result in better knowledge retention on the part of students than you get with exams.
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So test optional does not only apply to students who choose not to submit but also to students who COULD NOT TAKE due to multiple cancellations.
Also, not all accepted students major in STEM and student athletes do just fine at Ivy’s.
Obviously, logistically it is not possible to give the exact adjustment by individual and nothing is ever going to be perfectly fair. Life just does not work that way. I could make arguments about students being advantaged on countless factors, but accommodating someone’s disability does not give them an advantage over a person without a disability. It is intended to adjust for the advantage those without the disability inherently have.
Someone who is slightly off the norm in processing speed (9 v 10) in theory should not be getting diagnosed as having a disability. Disability and accommodations generally require a ‘significant impairment’ standard, similar to someone who has 20/80 vision is not considered legally blind, but someone with 20/200+ vision is considered legally blind.
Yes, not all scenarios will require accommodations and there is no requirement to use them. I think the fact that many college scenarios do not come with a need to be lightening fast calls into question the value of the timed standardized tests all the more and as you pointed out taking a timed standardized test is not something that happens in work world.
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I think you are overstating the difference in scores between the mid 2000s and today. Some example comparisons are below are for Yale. Note that the scores are nearly identical in 2005 and 2020, after concordance conversion to the new 2018+ SAT format. And 1400 would have been well below average in mid 2000s, regardless of concordance.
Yale 25th and 75th Percentile SAT scores
2005 Yale (without concordance) – 700/700 and 790/790
2005 Yale (with concordance) – 730/720 and 800/790
2020 Yale – 740/720 and 800/790
Yale has no doubt become more selective since 2005 . In 2005 the admit rate was 9.7%; and in 2020, the admit rate decreased to 6.5%. However, rather than trying to admit the pinnacle of highest scores; Yale appears to have emphasized other criteria.
Similarly admission to typical state flagships also depends on other criteria besides just score. I doubt that a 1400 guaranteed admission to typical state flagships in 2005, just as it does not guarantee admission today. Some flagships do have guaranteed admission based on GPA or rank alone, but I am not aware of any that guarantee admission based on score alone
The relationship is far more complex than the 24 ACT kid will fail or drop out, the 27 ACT kid will get a C, the 30 ACT kid will get a B, and the 33 ACT kid will get an A. Instead being successful in engineering depends on wide variety of factors, some of which are correlated with ACT score and some of which are not. However, this correlation does not mean that ACT score is the primary driver or adds much beyond the available information in rest of the application. I expect score more typically serves as more of a confirmation of information obtained from the rest of the application (at “holistic” highly selective colleges), when considered. Based on the rest of the application, the reader may expect the engineering applicant at a “top school” can answer ACT-style simple multiple choice algebra/geometry type questions rapidly, with few careless errors. If he/she cannot, then that could raise some questions about why – has he/she has truly mastered algebra/geometry, has slow processing speed, is prone to careless errors, has test anxiety, didn’t get a lot of sleep the previous night, etc.?
For example, the study at https://peer.asee.org/prediction-of-sophomore-retention.pdf reviews what factors contribute to engineering students continuing to sophomore year rather than dropping out of engineering at Norte Dame. Even though Notre Dame is a highly selective college, ~30% of students switched out of engineering by sophomore year. In all evaluated combinations of controls, SAT scores were not a statistically significant predictor of persisting in engineering (ND freshmen engineering students averaged 710 math in study years, so there was compression). However, the other factors were significant, including ones related to HS curriculum preparation and personal motivations. The author summarizes by stating, “Certain students are more likely to be retained to sophomore year: those with strong college preparation backgrounds from high school, those with reasonably good academic performance in the first year, those who come to college from families with at least one engineer, and students who have experience with applied engineering activities.”
A more detailed list is below. Note that number of AP credits was one of the most statistically significant predictors in all models except the ones where they controlled for first year grades at Notre Dame. I interpret this as suggesting that number of AP credits was somewhat predictive of first year grades, and those first year grades were somewhat predictive of persisting in engineering. Some of the other motivations remained significant after controlling for grades, such as having firm engineering related plans upon graduation. I’m sure various aspects of the study could be improved, but my main point is that there are many relevant factors in succeeding in an engineering major, rather than a simple and direct relationship with ACT math score.
Statistically Significant Predictors of Persisting in Engineering at Notre Dame
- Number of AP credits (at 0.1% level without ND grade control, not significant with grades)
- Plan to work in eng, eng grad school, or pursue MBA immediately after college (at 0.1% level)
- Motivations include wanting to make use of skills or serve/help others (at 0.1% level without grades, ~1% level with grades)
- Hopes to work in R&D or be engineering manager (at 1% level)
- Family member is engineer (at 1% level without grades, 5% level with grades)
- Has installed HW/SW and has NOT worked on a car engine (at ~5% level)
Not Statistically Significant Predictors of Persisting in Engineering with Controls
- SAT Math Score
- SAT Verbal Score
- Race
- Gender
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This was my older child too. Even getting the time and a half modification, it still wasn’t enough time. She did have a processing delay. And yes she didn’t do well on the SAT. Ironically She’s doing very well in college.
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