I understand. I truly believe if you go back over her history of posts, you’ll be similarly disturbed.
Do you think that a business program is any easier to get into?
I think soon it wont be majority whites - change is already happening and colleges are eager to make their campuses diverse by offering those with life experiences and potential a place. The work place will follow. This is the beginning of a new time! Yay!
Got into: Yale, Berkeley, Cornell
3.95 GPA, 1450 (SAT- test optional), Ok ECs (not many, honestly) LoR presume were good, great essays, all B’s last semester. Brother goes to Tulane and other to UCLA. Hook: Ethiopian, came to this country as an immigrant 6 years ago because my parents wanted a good education for me (us kids) - they were both educated here. Parents both college educated (worked federal service jobs in Ethiopia now professional jobs in US).
- Thank you for honoring my venting
- Thank you to those who read https://archive.ph/2021.11.23-001604/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/why-university-california-dropping-sat/619522/ “The University of California Is Lying to Us”
- It would probably be easier to just put me in a box labelled “non stop disrespectful” than to read that article and discuss the points it raises
- “holistic” is just whitewash for “we can do whatever we want and not have to explain it to anyone”. Though readers may occasionally have to justify their 10-minute read internally vis-a-vis their Institutional Priorities.
- The problem with the whole “blame the victim” of “just apply to other colleges” is, where exactly are these other colleges, for California residents? (and at the lower in-state rate). The UC and the Cal State systems all willfully ignore SAT. And colleges are thin on the ground in the western half of the USA.
- It used to be, the SAT could lift people out of poverty. I have a Black friend and a poor White friend, from difficult family circumstances, poverty, terrible public schools, whose lives were changed by this criteria. As we speak there are similar kids out there, and they’re getting shafted by the “test free” fad. And if you’re going to tell me “rich people prep their kids for the SAT”, well now they just spend their money on an essay coach, the essay being one of the vaunted holistic criteria.
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Please know we are all honoring your venting - regardless of what other people think.
Did you apply to any CSU’s? There are some fantastic programs at some campuses. Some campuses are not impacted, have much smaller class sizes and you can get a more ‘hands on’ experience rather than sitting in a lecture hall with 200 other students.
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I’m still not sure it’s really about being “better.” Sometimes it’s just what meets current institutional priorities. Like, what is better - a trumpet player or a tuba player? One isn’t “better” than the other, but one may be more prioritized in a certain year. It’s a lot more complicated than some quasi-objective measurement of “better,” imo.
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I support your argument that UC should be merit based first holistic second. Removing standard test such as SAT without other standard test replacement is the wrong move.
I wonder if the cheating on the SAT is much more prevalent than we’re aware of? Certainly the publicity of the admissions scandal didn’t help, but you have to wonder if it became such a huge problem (and we are not privy to those details) the only thing to do was to remove it completely?
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They do check ID. MIT still requires SAT. Interestingly, SAT will soon be online, and adaptive.
Yes. I know they check ID which has always made me wonder how people cheat on the SAT, but I guess people figured out a way to get around it?
I’m only speculating as we don’t have enough information to know.
Reminder that CC is supposed to be a friendly and welcoming site. Please refrain from disparaging other posters.
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UC was forced to ditch the SAT due to a court settlement/ruling. That’s why it happened against the recommendations of their own faculty. I strongly disagree with test blind/test optional admissions as well (although I’d rather have test blind than test optional which is the worst of both worlds).
For one thing, test blind hurts “late bloomer” smart young men in particular who don’t care to “please the teacher” in high school but do well on standardized tests (even without prep) and then flourish once in college studying what they WANT to study instead of reading books like “The Joy Luck Club” they just aren’t interested in. Maybe this is one reason male enrollment in college is dropping (alarmingly). I tried to read the Atlantic story you linked to but the link didn’t work. I’ll log in (I’m a subscriber) and try to find it in their archives.
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The rich will always have an advantage. If not test prep and as you mentioned essay prep, then it is the “internships” at family friend owned companies or 501c3’s set up with a lot of help from the parents, a private college coach, the ability to volunteer a million hours because they don’t need a paid job, and the list goes on.
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I believe they are beginning to take APs into consideration, if not formally. They definitely are seeing them within the application, and I saw a report out from a counselors’ conference in which UCLA mentioned seeing AP scores as part of the application. It’s on Ms. Sun’s Instagram and she described it as enough to make her consider telling applicants to keep APs more in mind.
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UCB states in their Freshman selection criteria that AP/IB scores are considered.
Your scores on AP or IB exams and SAT subject exams
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“Is academic performance only about test scores? That’s what this person is asserting. I would vehemently argue against that position.”
My view is that test scores, and grades, should both be heavily weighted. There is plenty of evidence that both predict college grades. Assuming that’s an Institutional Priority.
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Thanks. I’ve edited my reply!
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Amen to all this.
I’ve been following your daughter’s journey since you first posted on the UCSC board. While you mention her SAT score quite a bit, you haven’t shared much about her GPA, course rigor, major and other parts of her application. It looks like she applied to schools where she was able to submit her SAT. Did she receive a better response from admissions at those schools?
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