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Comment by tessierashpool | Hacker News Reader

that is entirely a guess, though. there's actual documented evidence of colleges admitting less Asian-Americans and Jews than the test scores of either group would suggest, and Altman refers to this phenomenon in the thread.

> It seems the SAT is increasingly considered "racist" because it reveals racial disparities in learning. What's next? Get rid of the driver's license test because it turns that white kids pass it at a higher rate than black kids?

the SAT's a way of laundering discrepancies in generational wealth, which is indeed due to racist public policy as well as racist private actions. it may be intended not that way, but that's how it functions.

so what's next would be removing other methods of laundering racist public policy and racist private action. probably drivers' licenses would not show up on that list, and your assertion that it might is so ridiculous that it's hard to believe you're examining this topic with good faith.

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> the SAT's a way of laundering discrepancies in generational wealth, which is indeed due to racist public policy as well as racist private actions. it may be intended not that way, but that's how it functions.

Wealthy students do score better than poor students on the SAT. Do you know who also scores well? Students who study very hard, including poor students. If you get rid of the SAT then the poor students will find it harder to stand out. The rich kids will have ghost-written essays and extracurriculars. They won't be hurt at all.

> so what's next would be removing other methods of laundering racist public policy and racist private action. probably drivers' licenses would not show up on that list, and your assertion that it might is so ridiculous that it's hard to believe you're examining this topic with good faith.

I have never heard someone say that disparate impacts only matter if there is a laundering of wealth or public policies or private actions. Where have you seen this distinction drawn?

>the SAT's a way of laundering discrepancies in generational wealth, which is indeed due to racist public policy as well as racist private actions. it may be intended not that way, but that's how it functions.

But what are SATs being replaced with? "holistic admissions"? A poor kid can prepare for the SAT by studying his ass off, with mostly free/cheap materials from the internet. How can you do the same with "extracurriculars" (eg. going to africa to dig a well) and "hobbies" (going the country club every week)?

From my viewpoint in Europe I never understood the whole extracurricular, hobby or even the essay or recommendation letter part of admission process. All of those felt like nothing to do with actual capability to study. If SAT is a bad idea, replace it with field specific national entrance exam.

Other fun alternatives, just outright auction off certain number of admission slots. Or just award slots randomly to all applicants.

> From my viewpoint in Europe I never understood the whole extracurricular, hobby or even the essay or recommendation letter part of admission process.

First, a meta-point about questions like “why doesn’t the US have policy X Y or Z”: The US is essentially set up to be ungovernable by design (any meaningful reform requires the cooperation of both major political parties, a situation that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the developed world), you can’t really find rational reasons for most policies.

I notice this a lot, actually: the fundamental thing Europeans miss about the US is they think “a rule exists, thus it must be there on purpose”, because in your countries, unlike in the US, you have functioning parliaments and governments that can change laws as necessary.

Anyway, the US arrived at its education system, as with most things, through a long and largely random process. The catalyst for the weird non-academic admissions standards in particular is well-documented to have been pure anti-Semitism: college administrators felt that with purely academic admissions standards, too many Jews were being admitted.

The United States does not use the European system of forcing kids to choose an area of study when they apply. Kids can, and do, study whatever they want, and change their majors at will.

So a field specific exam doesn’t really work.

And, besides that, would be opposed by the exact same people opposing the SAT.

Yep, the New York marathon has way more applicants than slots, so they in fact use a mix of some of the mechanisms you mention. I think Nepal should do the same for Everest climbers - auction off half the slots and randomly award the other half.

>the SAT's a way of laundering discrepancies in generational wealth, which is indeed due to racist public policy as well as racist private actions. it may be intended not that way, but that's how it functions.

I'm not aware of data on SAT scores and family net worth, but there is plenty of data on SAT scores and family income. Controlling for income doesn't come close to accounting for racial gaps; the richest black kids barely do better than the poorest white kids.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ezekiel-Dixon-Roman/pub...

> the SAT's a way of laundering discrepancies in generational wealth

this is a ludicrous modern reinterpretation of SAT testing.. sure, testing has lots of downsides.. linking it to "wealth laundering" is your own obsessions showing IMO

The average math SAT for kids whose families make over 250k would put you in the bottom ten percent at fucking Boston university.

I teach at a top 40 university in the South and I promise you, the coaching for the math SAT shows, especially with COVID, there is a huge amount of overfitting going on.

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