And that makes them perfect for poor kids who don't have much time or money, they can easily get similar levels of test prep as rich kid with little effort. GPA or extracurriculars however, no chance, those are much more dependent on home environment and wealth.
GPA is also much more subject to getting penalized because a teacher straight up hates you for being poor, disabled, male (this one is measurable by having teachers grade tests with different names), ugly, smelly, other thing K-12 teachers tend to dock you for even though on paper they shouldn’t.
Many extracurriculars are also expensive and poor kids don’t get to do a lot of them or excel at them to the same degree.
Extracurriculars I agree with, rich people are more likely to have connections to get the nice internships.
That is just nonsense. Lets say that you have 20 hours to study per year, like a couple of weekends that are calmer etc, you can spend those on SAT and you got basically the full benefits of studying for that test since studying more isn't very beneficial. But 20 hours to study per year wont budge your GPA much at all. Close to every kid can find 20 hours to study per year, I'm pretty sure.
Or do you think that people can either study all the time, or study none of the time, no in-between at all?
Edit:
> it's only theoretical that someone who isn't used to a studying environment can somehow have the foresight to invest their few hours on this particular exam.
Not at all, I never studied for anything in high school and got shit grades. But I spent a weekend to study for a SAT once, got good on that, and got into college that way. This isn't theoretical at all, it happens all the time. It is very different to do something for a very short time, or keeping that up for 4 years straight.
People who study a lot study a lot for the SAT, people who study little study little for the SAT, and in between people do an in between amount of SAT. That somehow seems like a good starting point, which we'll probably be stuck on given evidence will be hard to come by.
FWIW there were kids in my kid's class who had three tutors and studied every day over the summer holiday (the test is right after). They would have stopped if it was so obvious the benefits stop past some level. Just as there will be people who think it's a great idea to put 1000 hours into it, there's going to be people who think they'll just show up on the day and see how it goes.
Edit: seems this wasn't a direct descendent of the the thread I thought it was, about the UK 11+, but the point is the same.
I was one of those kids. I never had a stable home, I have 5 siblings with many parents, I moved between different parents, lived on the floor with mom and siblings at one of her friends homes for a few months etc. But mustering up the energy to put in effort for one test is still possible, doing that for everything, no way.
Kids aren't stupid, they have spent years doing things, reading things, it isn't hard to find out information about college, SAT etc. A bad home doesn't mean you are stupid even though you make it sound like it does.
I also know people who've been in your situation, and that's what I see more often than not.
I can understand if you think that's what the SATs are for though, a kind of lifeline for kids in bad situations. I just have reservations about it actually working enough of the time to not simply be another opportunity hoarding play by wealthier people.
The main effect of removing it is that disenfranchised smart kids don't get into college, replaced by dumb kids with stable homes who spent a ton of time studying yet were too dumb to score well on SAT. Colleges are already full of such kids, and so is the job market, we don't need more of them.
Realistically good test would require that multi-hundred hour build up.
The only exception I can think of are the temporarily poor; e.g. refugees from Southeast Asia or Africa whose families were well to do back home and still have that familial knowledge even if they are currently lacking in money.
All the data shows the exact opposite. Also, it's pretty obvious this is false if you spend 10 seconds thinking about it.
You're forced to give the test yourself. Whereas you can easily hire a tutor to read over and "check" (i.e. rewrite) your school essays/homework.
Rich kids can also easily get internships/research experience while in HS due to family connections.
Grades and extra circular can be gamed as well, but you have to do a lot more planning ahead of time...like you can't just start 6 months before a test date and maybe try again 6 months after that. You have to start form late elementary school and be consistent up until 12th grade.
When I read what you said and thought the same thing. I then looked up what the author wrote:
Rich kids who “don’t test well.”
He's just saying if you have a kid that doesn't test well (I am one of those) and happen to be wealthy, the rich have options that poor kids don't. He isn't saying rich kids don't tend to test well.
I'm not sure that premise is 100% accurate either. My parents were teachers and we didn't have extravagant lives, but my parents knew the value of an education and forced me to do test prep 6 days a week the summer after my Junior year. I ended up improving my scores and getting into a good state university and subsequently have a good career 25+ years and still going strong.
I think edge case success (students that don't test well) boils down more to parents giving a shit than anything else. It's not easy, that's for sure, even if you are moderately wealthy.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
The SAT is an IQ test.
Based on comments so far, I'm curious what you mean by this. My own take is that you are correct because standardized tests are 'easier to prep for' because, in many ways, they are IQ tests that you can't prep for, or rather that Bang for the Buck of prepping is low. So, poor, smart kids with no prep can take the test hung over and do well, as the author says. Rich folks can get tutors to spend tens or hundreds of hours prepping, and have only a modest impact on their score.
Meanwhile, GPA and extracurriculars are significantly reflections of socialization and parents rather than anyone's inherent or learned abilities.