Ending the SAT/Immigration

Ending the SAT

Findings

A new research study -- based on simulations using actual student applications at competitive colleges that require the SAT or ACT for admission -- has found that ending the requirement would lead to demonstrable gains in the percentages of black and Latino students, and working class or economically disadvantaged students, who are admitted.

These models suggest that any move away from the SAT or ACT in competitive colleges results in significant gains in ethnic and economic diversity. But the gains are greater for colleges that drop testing entirely, as opposed to just making it optional.

In terms of other measures of academic competitiveness, the study found that going SAT optional would result in classes of students with higher grade point averages. Dropping testing entirely, on the other hand, would result in higher levels of academic achievement in the entering classes at the public institutions studied, but not the privates.

One conclusion of the new study that is sure to be closely watched by admissions offices is this one: "The results show unambiguously that increased racial and socioeconomic diversity can be achieved by switching to test-optional policies."

The findings appear to confirm what SAT critics have said for years: that reliance on the SAT in college admissions favors applicants who are white and/or wealthier than other applicants.

Key Terms

SAT-optional or adopting what they called the "don't ask, don't tell" approach in which a college says that it won't look at standardized test scores.

Comments

Bob:

As noted by others, of course all of this movement toward not utilizing standardized tests is so that minorities with lesser academic abilities can be admitted. The same thing is happening with medical school admissions and I assume with other professional schools.

Jayvee:

Who should go to college? What do you mean by "the best students"? If higher education's purpose is solely to take the academically best-qualified students and make them even more academically proficient, then the SAT is a valuable tool. But if the purpose of higher education is to provide all sectors of American society with well-educated and thoughtful leaders, the net should be cast more widely...

Common Sense:

Entire post.

Shazamm:

Entire post.

DFS:

Entire post (nasty).

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Immigration

Gordon Hanson:

Most low-skilled immigrants are able-bodied individuals who have come to the United States to improve their lives. While they might take menial jobs in our country, their skills would place them solidly in the middle of the pack back home. Many low-skilled natives, on the other hand, are individuals who are from unstable homes or grew in poor neighborhoods, or they simply do not have what it takes to succeed in a technologically sophisticated society.

Immigrants outcompete low-skilled natives for jobs because they are more motivated or because they are more productive.

Michael Fix:

Immigrants have always been more likely to move in search of a job than natives and they have proved to be more adaptable in moving across sectors of the economy (for example, from construction to agriculture). Immigrants — especially illegal immigrants — are working in jobs and sectors of the economy that natives have gradually left, may be reluctant to re-enter and to which they may have limited access because the internal networks that control information about the availability of new jobs in these sectors now operate largely within immigrant communities.

Pablo Alvarado

Migrants and day laborers, like most Americans, are hard-working entrepreneurs who deserve a shot at the American Dream. They are an integral part of the United States economy that we must cherish and protect.

Comments:

We may be disappointed now that our unemployment rates do not fall as quickly as we might expect since many of these jobs may again be taken by Mexicans.

Have you forgotten Operation Wetback from the Truman Administration? This was when a great many hispanic illegal aliens were shipped back home (at US taxpayer expense) to provide for jobs for US soldiers returning from war.
Not a bad policy, eh?

#9: Black Saint

#11: Cpotato

#12:

This is nuts! I don’t normally respond to things like this, but I just couldn’t sit here any longer and be silent.