F**King Lowers Admittance Standards for Dummies

Group blasts new LSU admissions policy, calls 'holistic' process 'lowering standards'
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_r...cle_1b805e18-b06c-11e8-8e21-8fec99aa852c.html

 

They should be raised, continuously.

 

It seems this approach is a different end-around getting to the same destination which has been an increasing trend over the last 5-10 years or so, and that is test-optional. I've read 3 or 4 studies on the purpose and whether or not the stated purpose is achieving the actual goal.

Pretty much every school pursuing this action says they want to increase diversity on campus by targeting what they consider to be underrepresented groups...minorities and those in the lower socioeconomic strata. Minorities have complained for decades that the formalized tests are racist in nature so by minimizing both the test and the test score, that goal is accomplished. Those who are low-income have complained that they can't afford expensive test-prep courses, so another way to minimize. Personally, I find it to be one more way of liberalizing college campuses. In another decade or so, maybe less, there won't be a conservative point of view represented anywhere....not in research, not in practice, not in the idea of free discussion. Bad for America.

That said, at least a few studies suggest that despite test-optional, or in LSU's case, not eliminating based on scores, campuses have not become more diverse. Furthermore, there is the suggestion that the real reason colleges are doing this is to manipulate numbers. When schools eliminate or reduce testing requirements, they see an increase in applications, allowing them to reject more applicants, thereby reducing acceptance rates, and appearing to be more select in all the college ranking services. And when schools go test-optional, it tends to be students with higher test scores, who choose to submit, thereby increasing the average score for incoming freshman....another ranking service identifier.

In some ways, I get why some schools go this route. Competition for students with high scores, high GPA's has become ridiculous. It's gotten to the point that kids with 4.0+ and 1550 SAT or 34 ACT aren't getting in. So where are all these kids going to go? I've heard college admissions counselors say that they prefer a kid with a great GPA and a not so great SAT score over the reverse because one suggests continued success and a bad test-taker over just plain lazy over time. Maybe schools have come to understand that not everyone excels at test-taking and they may be eliminating great students with tons of potential for not such great reasons.

 

How can a standardized test be racist? Isn't it based on things you should have learned?

 

"For years, the SAT has come under attack for having a certain bent. From the Harvard Educational Review to the Princeton Review, the measurement tool has been called a “white preference test.”

Last year, Harvard published a study arguing that SAT questions in the verbal section favored white students by using language with which they were more familiar compared to other non-white groups. The study said black students of equal academic aptitude scored lower on the section, Education Week reported."

There's this thought process....

"Each year, when students take the SAT, one of the sections on the test is not scored. Instead, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) “pre-tests” the questions in the unscored section for potential use on a future SAT. During this pre-testing process, test developers also gather the race and gender of the test taker.

If questions perform well, then they are used on a scored section in the future. If they perform poorly, then they are scrapped. How does the ETS judge the performance of a question?

“Each individual SAT question ETS chooses is required to parallel the outcomes of the test overall,” writes Rosner of The Princeton Review Foundation. “So, if high-scoring test-takers — who are more likely to be White (and male, and wealthy) — tend to answer the question correctly in pretesting, it’s a worthy SAT question; if not, it’s thrown out. Race and ethnicity are not considered explicitly, but racially disparate scores drive question selection, which in turn reproduces racially disparate test results in an internally reinforcing cycle.”

This discriminatory process is known as “point bi-serial correlation.” According to Rosner, it is “a key methodology used by psychometricians to construct admission tests such as the SAT, ACT, GRE, LSAT, GMAT, MCAT and many other bubble tests.”

Rosner analyzed a data set of 276 verbal and math questions from the 1998 and 2000 SATs. He found what he calls “Black questions,” in which more Blacks than Whites answered correctly in the pre-testing phase.

“But it appears that none ever make it onto a scored section of the SAT,” Rosner says. “Black students may encounter Black questions, but only on unscored sections of the SAT.”

Instead, SATs only contain what he calls “White questions,” in which more Whites than Blacks answer correctly in the pre-testing phase. That is the principal reason why Whites consistently perform better. They are supposed to. The questions are literally geared toward them, as test developers are mandated to recreate the norm, the norm of White males outperforming their peers.

We no longer need to use unequal outcomes to deductively prove racist intent in the SAT. The use of point bi-serial correlation, the eliminating of the Black questions, the retaining of White questions is the heartbeat of racism in the SAT."



Bottom line is, there is a belief by some that the test shows racial bias toward whites and asians in it's use of language. Math-wise, is a whole different concept.

 

I never took any test prep courses and my ACT and SAT scores would have gotten me in anywhere. I chose to go to LSU for 2 reasons: I grew up in Baton Rouge expecting it would be LSU all my life and my parents couldn't afford to send me out of state or to an expensive private school.
We weren't poor but we weren't rich either.

At that time LSU's policy was to admit any Louisiana resident with a high school diploma so I could have gotten in even if I had been as clueless as tiga, and lots of students were. These days I would have to think the the quality of the student body is better and thusly the quality of education. F King Alexander is a moron for wanting to bring it back to the stone age.

 

I'm just the messenger....and a novice taking guesses. My oldest is a high school senior....I am literally drowning in information, options, numbers.

Test prep for instance....I could make a case for none at all, or anything from more affordable group programs all the way to expensive 1-on-1 tutors. It depends on the student, the major, need/requirements for financial aid. Adding to that, test prep is as much about learning HOW to take the test as it is what's ON the test itself. It's stressful. Time management is key. Even knowing that if you have a section of multiple choice that hasn't been answered and just seconds left to finish, it makes more sense to at least fill in the bubbles randomly. Leaving them blank is a guarantee of zero since you don't get punished for wrong answers, only for NO answers. Lots of really smart kids just don't test well.

Clearly it's more affordable to stay in-state. The Cal State system has a program in place that assigns all kids to a geographically desirable campus and if they graduate, meet minimum standards, they are automatically in. Consequently, not all schools are equal and Cal States are a long way from the UC system. In LSU's case, it appears to me that the mindset is to provide college access to more minorities, more low-income students, and more kids who don't test well whether it's stress or a learning disability.

Tiga ain't clueless. He just plays that way. Folks like him are brilliant when they focus on one thing and they'll focus the shit out of it. We all have our gifts.

 

I'm all for everybody that wants it to have access to a college education but I don't think that the state's flagship university should lower it's standards to do it.

I don't know if this is unique to Louisiana but all of the locations of the LSU system are run by the Board of Supervisors and all other state colleges (Southeastern, McNeese, ULL, ULM, etc. are rune by a separate governing body. There are plenty of opportunities for those who don't meet LSU's standards.

 

Other than saying LSU won't eliminate a potential student for a test score that is "too low", is there anything else? I'm trying to consider all the consequences and the why's about the decision. And maybe I missed it, but what would be the cutoff for too low?

 

I don't know what the cutoff should be but I can see making some exceptions for gifted athletes. Also those with some special talent like a musician or an artist.