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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   18614 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

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...system leaders voted to phase standardized-test scores out of admissions decisions.

Institutions ... that have self respect have pivoted back to some form of standardized testing....

Standardised tests are the worst method of determining college admissions, except for all the others that have been tried.

As someone who wishes it was easier to use them as a part of my hiring process, I don't understand why people dislike them in the least (other than the race hustlers, etc). If I am hiring a paralegal who is going to be in the research division, I want to give that paralegal 10 cases to read about a topic and 1 hour (which is obviously unreasonable) and give them 10 questions to answer about those 10 cases. Then I can weed out lots of people who are too slow or too incompetent at reading.

The only real problems with American standardized testing right now is 1) It is way too easy. Most students should not be capable of finishing standardized tests. and 2) The special needs time accommodations make them even more useless in the middle section. A person who is slowly able to do the things a person did them on time is not the same.

Standardized tests are excellent for what they are: A first-pass filter to reduce the candidate set.

If you're planning to enroll 500 students, then use standardized testing to bring the 100,000 applicants down to a candidate set of 5000. After that, you can use affirmative action, holistic evaluation, essays or personalities to evaluate the remaining 5000. A student with a 1550 SAT won't be noticeably smarter than one with 1500. But going from a 1550 SAT student to one with a 4.0 GPA and 1200 SAT is worlds apart.

A student with a 1550 SAT won't be noticeably smarter than one with 1500. But going from a 1550 SAT student to one with a 4.0 GPA and 1200 SAT is worlds apart.

And "holistic evaluation" is doing the latter while pretending it's the former.

And "holistic evaluation" is doing the latter while pretending it's the former.

I generally agree with you on this. One of the big lies about affirmative action is that it's used only to choose between highly qualified candidates.

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