Current Events > Do you believe that colleges in the u.s. should get rid of act/sat testing

(+) Yeah! (+)

DragonClaw01 posted...

You can say that about everything in this world. Although, if people are spending money on learning and bettering themselves, I can't see how that is a bad thing. A lot of the mega rich cheat the system entirely by just buying thier kids way into the school. At least in your scenario the kid is actually learning something

That's the thing with these test torturing. They are t teaching you the materials on the exam they are just teaching you how to take the exam. I can't speak on all of them of course, but the ACT prep that I went to only taught us what to look for in verbiage. How the question is structured? Finding clues on what the answer is based on the layout of the question. That's not exercising intelligence. That's how to game the system.

Slaya4 posted...

That's the thing with these test torturing. They are t teaching you the materials on the exam they are just teaching you how to take the exam. I can't speak on all of them of course, but the ACT prep that I went to only taught us what to look for in verbiage. How the question is structured? Finding clues on what the answer is based on the layout of the question. That's not exercising intelligence. That's how to game the system.

do you remember how much your act prep class was? never really considered using one

I dont disagree that there should be more avenues to being considered for college success, but I felt like I had relatively few opportunities for volunteer work where I loved and not having a parent that could drive. Extracurriculars and a lot of other stuff of that stuff was limited to me. Grades + the ACT/SAT were the best ways for me to distinguish myself. Now, whether the ACT was what got me into college was one thing, I probably wouldve gotten in, but it definitely allowed me to get through college without paying too much.

Im aware Im biased, but I took the ACT and SAT once each, and I did fine. I wasnt going for top tier schools, but Im pretty sure they were a help in me graduating without debt.

Yeah, and nix the GRE for grad school as well

Standardized tests are too easy to game/buy your way through to be any reliable measure of academic performance

PerseusRad posted...

I dont disagree that there should be more avenues to being considered for college success, but I felt like I had relatively few opportunities for volunteer work where I loved and not having a parent that could drive. Extracurriculars and a lot of other stuff of that stuff was limited to me. Grades + the ACT/SAT were the best ways for me to distinguish myself. Now, whether the ACT was what got me into college was one thing, I probably wouldve gotten in, but it definitely allowed me to get through college without paying too much.

Im aware Im biased, but I took the ACT and SAT once each, and I did fine. I wasnt going for top tier schools, but Im pretty sure they were a help in me graduating without debt.

oh you had high act scores and they gave you a scholarship because of that?

CedarPointcp posted...

oh you had high act scores and they gave you a scholarship because of that?

Indeed. Grades + either ACT/SAT score of a certain level. And then I had to maintain my GPA throughout university. I'd have to check again which scholarships I got, but there was one main one that definitely had both of those criteria.

Of course, it should be clear that its not like I want people with a bad test score but great or amazing other things to get snubbed, just personally things would've been tougher for me.

PerseusRad posted...

Indeed. Grades + either ACT/SAT score of a certain level. And then I had to maintain my GPA throughout university. I'd have to check again which scholarships I got, but there was one main one that definitely had both of those criteria.

Of course, it should be clear that its not like I want people with a bad test score but great or amazing other things to get snubbed, just personally things would've been tougher for me.

oh, you didn't have to pay anything at all for college?

Standardized testing is fucking stupid and has no reason to exist.

CedarPointcp posted...

oh, you didn't have to pay anything at all for college?

I had to pay some, but it was much, much less than it could have been. I didn't have to take out any loans, despite growing up in a low income household.

But then, as I said, it wasn't the most top tier school ever, and it was in-state, so my tuition was less cause of that as well.

bumph

Euripides posted...

I am a college professor and I don't know a single prof at my university that uses "test bank" exams. We all write our own tests.

The students who can economically afford to spend hundreds of dollars for test tutoring do the best on the test. It's classist gatekeeping

By the same logic, students who can afford to do volunteer hours (instead of working), who can afford to participate in sports or play a musical instrument (because some sports/instruments are pretty expensive), etc etc... you can argue anything is "gatekeeping".

On a side note (and I'm sure I'm not unique in this).... my high school had a mandatory "volunteer" hours requirement.
Isn't that an oxymoron?