By that broader definition of “need blind/aware”, that means that nearly all highly selective colleges that are the common focus of these forums are “need aware”, including those that are “need blind” by the narrow definition that is most commonly used.
I don’t believe there has been any court ruling in any of these situations that has indicated that “the objective . . . is to reduce the overrepresentation of Asian kids.” For example, the order in the Lowell case didn’t address alleged discriminatory intent, it addressed a procedural flaw in the process; the lack of a properly noticed hearing. As the judge noted, the Board could try reenact the same changes provided it followed proper procedure this time.
People often mistake income as the causal effect, when in fact income is often just correlated with other causal effects. That is also the main thing wrong with Jon Boeckenstedt’s article earlier–he does not understand statistics well enough to realize that correlation does not imply causation.
I suspect that the most relevant metric for the SAT discrepant scores is not income, but actually HS Rigor, as shown on page 12 of that presentation. The kids that got high SAT scores but a lower GPA had a much higher HS Rigor metric compared to the other two groups.
It’s a separate question whether the SAT still has predictive power if HS Rigor is considered in addition to grades. I believe @Data10 has made some previous postings about that in other threads.
Correct, but note that few colleges ask for parental income on the admissions application, unlike UC.
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The SF school board explicitly said that was its aim: “We believe this likely encouraged more students from a range of backgrounds to select Lowell on their application”.
And according to the school board’s adviser, Irene Lo, assistant professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University, “the shift [in mix] at Lowell can be completely attributed to the new admissions policy.”
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This whole board is talking past each other, and I don’t want to keep repeating myself, so I will take a different tack.
If tests are so bad, why do we have any of them in our society? Would you like to be operated on by a doctor that didn’t pass his board? Why can’t they just provide their college transcript and a few essays? How about an unlicensed lawyer? Electrician? If standardized tests are so biased, why have any of them?
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While the impact may be the same, there is a difference in intent between trying to attract students from “a wider range of backgrounds” and trying to reduce the representation of Asian kids.
This last statement is continuing to talk past others. In the world of standardized testing, the tests most commonly used for US college admissions seem to be unusual, in that most others focus on learned content knowledge and skills applicable to the applicant’s goal, rather than trying to measure “aptitude”.
Both the SAT and ACT measure skills and knowledge, neither is designed to measure aptitude. The ‘A’ in SAT used to stand for aptitude, but that was changed in the early '90s, when the test was changed.
ACT:
What the ACT Measures
The ACT contains four multiple-choice tests—English, mathematics, reading, and science—and an optional writing test. These tests are designed to measure skills that are most important for success in postsecondary education and that are acquired in secondary education.
SAT:
What the SAT Measures
The SAT reinforces what students are learning in their
classrooms while measuring the skills and knowledge that
research shows are the most important for success in college
and career.
Perhaps the discussion would be more productive if you would point to some actual evidentiary support your oft-repeated claim that going test blind is meant to (and will) favor the admissions chances of rich private school kids. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary, yet you have been unswayed, so I am curious as to what if any actual support you have for your position?
I’m not sure anyone has argued that all tests are necessarily bad. I know I haven’t. But some tests are more closely tailored to serving the purpose for which they are intended, and some are only tangentially related to the purpose for which they are being used.
Take your specific examples. I would not want to to be operated on by someone who did not pass their medical board, but once this standard is met, I am not concerned with their specific score. Rather I am more concerned with their experience, skills, track record, etc. There are much better indicators for the quality of a surgeon than slight differentiations in medical board score relative to others who also passed the test.
Same for attorneys. The bar exams are pass/fail. There is no 1560 vs. 1500 bar score comparison for attorneys. It would be ridiculous to choose a lawyer based on her having a slightly higher bar score than another attorney. There are other much more relevant factors on which to determine their effectiveness as an attorneys.
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As @CateCAParent pointed out, it’s a zero sum game. You only create the spaces for the other students by excluding ones who would have attended otherwise. The intent is to prioritize “diversity” over what was previously described as “merit”.
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Understood. That’s why I wrote the “impact” may be the same. But intent matters in discrimination law, and impact and intent don’t necessarily walk hand in hand. You keep attributing the “objective” (intent) as being anti-Asian and in some cases it could be, but I am not sure we can conclude that the “objective” is anti-Asian based solely on the fact that the percentage of Asians is disparately impacted.
(Note that it is not clear yet that the UC changes disparately impact the percentage of Asians in the UC system.)
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More comparable to what we’re discussing here are tests like MCAT and LSAT, not the medical board exam or the bar exam.
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I was addressing the questions asked, but since you mentioned them, I most certainly would not choose my surgeon based on their MCAT score, nor would I choose my attorney based on their LSAT score.
The MCAT and LSAT are more specialized than the SAT and ACT, but as to whether these scores are the best way to choose medical and law school students, I’ll leave that up to the law schools and medical schools. I imagine that if Yale’s law school scrapped the LSAT they’d still manage to suss out a well qualified class.
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Some patients do choose their doctors based on what medical schools they went to, indirectly selecting their doctors based on their higher MCAT scores and college GPAs. Some law firms do hire based on what law schools their applicants went to, indirectly selecting candidates with higher LSAT scores and college GPAs.
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If there is a point here relating this discussion, I’m missing it. Boalt Hall may find the LSAT very useful in choosing its class, while UC may find the SAT/ACT unnecessary and/or counterproductive. They are different tests, different departments, different goals, and different requirements.
You and I aren’t really in a position to tell Boalt Hall the basis on which it should select its 1Ls, are we? Why is it any different with the undergraduate program?
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The point is that some tests do serve a purpose. I agree with you that institutions should decide for themselves what, if any, tests are useful for their purposes. However, the original decision to phase out SAT/ACT was made by UC Board of Regents, almost all political appointees, overriding a unanimous vote by the Faculty Senate to keep the tests.
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Malcolm Gladwell has an interesting episode on the LSAT and how timed tests in general favor fast thinkers, the so called hares in the tortoise vs. hare fable. In the book by Paul Tough that I read, he examines how successful SAT (and other standardized test) tutors teach test takers how to develop strategies or loopholes so that they don’t actually have to do the math or the critical thinking to come up with an answer because that usually takes more time. Malcolm Gladwell also talks to tutors that coach for the LSAT using the same techniques. He was flabbergasted that in order to do well on the LSAT he was being coached to speed read without deeper understanding.
As someone that was educated in Europe (in four countries by the time I was done) I never took a timed test, nor a multiple choice test for that matter. Of course our exams were timed but there was never a time crunch; the high stakes ones usually ran for four hours. No one took four hours but that’s how long the rooms and proctors were booked for. I’m fascinated with the focus on speed in the US and think I would never have done well under the time crunch presented in most examination settings.
Anecdotally, my friend’s daughter used Khan academy to improve her math score and she actually dropped in her math the second time she took the test. She eventually worked with a tutor that taught her some shortcuts and almost aced the math portion. She said that Sal teaches for understanding but it was the time pressure she was having a hard time with, not the understanding.
This is totally random but does anyone else find Sal Khan’s voice soothing? I can listen to his videos for hours and I actually sometimes use them as background noise in my lab when things are being randomly noisy. 
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Earlier in the thread there were links to studies that compared average income of submitter and non-submitter enrolled students at test optional colleges. Without exception, at all of the 20+ more referenced colleges, test submitter kids had higher average income than the test optional kids. Kids who apply test optional consistently average lower income than test submitters, so going test optional is expected to decrease average income of student body, outside of external influences. These “external influences” could be things like a need aware college choosing to keep tuition revenue where they want it to be, regardless of test optional/submitter policies.
Looking at it a different way, there were ~1000 test optional/blind colleges prior to COVID. Have you heard of any one of those ~1000 colleges that had a large increase in average wealth of applicants or enrolled students upon going test optional, as you claim? Or is this all just a personal theory, with no supporting evidence?
Tests aren’t inherently good or bad. Instead one needs to consider their purpose and how much value they add to existing available criteria in doing/predicting whatever the test is trying to do/predict. Tests may be useful in one situation and useless in another. As discussed in earlier in the thread, several studies have found that SAT scores do not add much to several key prediction metrics beyond existing available criteria. This existing criteria includes more than just HS GPA in isolation.
Your first example was a surgeon. ABS certification has a very different primary purpose from SAT/ACT and different degree of overlap between exam content and target. Ignoring that, if you were choosing a surgeon to do your operation, what criteria would you focus on? Would you focus on their MCAT score, ABS score, or similar standardized test score (if they were public)? Or might you more focus on things like their experience and history with doing that type of surgery, and your experience with talking with them about the surgery? Suppose you found a surgeon who had great experience and past history with doing that surgery, great recommendation from colleagues, great reviews from patients, great personal experience when talking/interviewing him about the operation, etc. Do you think scores on a multiple choice standardized test would add a lot of predictive value beyond the available existing criteria?
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If you review my posts, you’ll find I said almost exactly this a few posts above . . .
I’m not sure anyone has argued that all tests are necessarily bad. I know I haven’t. But some tests are more closely tailored to serving the purpose for which they are intended, and some are only tangentially related to the purpose for which they are being used.
The potential usefulness of the MCAT or LSAT for professional school admissions is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, and the question of whether SAT/ACT tests serve a worthwhile purpose is up to the UC Board of Regents, not a faculty senate leadership committee.
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