re: #362 kirkspencer

No, grades do not correlate better — at least, not in the studies I’ve been reading. Instead they’re about as well-correlated as the SAT. Worse, consider the grade inflation that occurs when the grades are made. (see Georgia and grade inflation in high schools in response to HOPE scholarship adjustments.)

As to the rest of your points - sure. I agree. But how do you do this in any effective fashion? Interviews? Portfolios?

Well - the studies I’ve seen show that grades correlate better, slightly better, and one might expect that since the “domains” are more similar.

Sure, using grades is problematic because of factors like grade inflation - but there is a parallel with SATs, as they are affected by how much test prep a student has had, which is not likely to correlate very much at all with how well they will do on the tasks asked of them at a college.

I think of the international graduate students I’ve worked with from China (or other countries) who needed to score very highly on TOEFL tests to get into elite schools - but who can’t communicate in English worth a damn. Why? Because they are masters in the art of test-taking.

Or there’s the phenomenon (I think with GMATs for MBA students ) where students would take the tests and then go home and type the questions and answers onto bulletin boards so that students taking the tests at a later time would know the answers as soon as they read the first few questions on the test (without actually figuring the answers out). That’s why at business schools they have different levels of minimum test scores for students from different parts of the world - because of “grade inflation” for students coming from countries where they master certain kinds of test-taking skills.

“Grade inflation” is a conceptual frame that when you think about it, applies in lots of ways to components other than just course grades in high school.

And even at it’s best - SAT’s are what, 70% reliable and maybe their validity coefficient is even lower than that? What kind of a standard is that to use? It’s better than throwing darts at a dartboard, but it doesn’t manifest educational principles - and wouldn’t you think that should be a pre-condition of what colleges do to decide what students to admit?

And the use of standardized testing perpetuates a process of the status quo, where some students by virtue of their SES are less likely to get admitted to colleges. And it also perpetuates the status quo whereby divergent thinking is not sufficiently valued or focused on in our processes of education. And it fosters the notion that education is a competitive process, whereby teachers and schools can only evaluate students not by telling them more about themselves, but by telling them how well they compare to other students. Basically useless, IMO.

You say that it takes too much time to do it comprehensively, and I say that it is not cost-effective to use a method that has “numbers” and is supposedly “objective,” but in the end the numbers don’t really tell you much and the process is highly subjective. I think it would be cost-effective to use a comprehensive process and (1) have fewer students fail and, (2) enable students who would otherwise be excluded on poor criteria enabled to succeed, and thus, affectively begin to deconstruct SES barriers.