Colleges are dropping SAT scores because boys do better on those.

[LJ_Reloaded]

http://www.businessinsider.com/colleges-are-dropping-the-sat-2015-7

Conversations about SAT and ACT scores are ubiquitous for high school students applying to college. Increasingly, however, colleges and universities have begun to eschew mandatory standardized test scores as requirements for their application process.

On Monday, George Washington University became the latest school to drop the requirement for incoming freshmen, the Washington Post reported.

That makes GWU — with 10,000 undergraduates and 25,000 total students — the largest private university in the top 100 best ranked schools to forego rigid testing requirements in favor of a more holistic application review process.

The National Center for Fair and Open Testing tracks the schools with open testing policies and has compiled a list of over 800 schools that do not use SAT or ACT scores for admitting substantial numbers of students into bachelor degree programs.

Here's why.......
https://www.aei.org/publication/201...rn-persisted-40-years-boys-better-math-girls/

The 2014 math SAT test results confirm a pattern that has persisted for 40+ years — boys are better at math than girls

 

[hssh345Alt]

??
doesn't ring right to me.
Don't know much about US, but most things that I read online point to women outdoing guys in most areas (although sometimes their 2nd "job. aka family&kids pushes them backwards, a bit)

 

[hssh345Alt]

And I'm not implying that women are more intelligent than men (in my class, for example, both genders did equally well).

But I believe that there is something about our modern society that causes boys/teenagers to get easily sidetracked or lost

 

[Yardley]

Not at all surprising. Boys on average exceed girls on average in STEM related fields. It was thought (wrongly) that that was caused by cultural biases and not inspiring girl's confidence in these areas. All of the concessions made to insure that Universities not only admitted an equal number of women, but now a surfeit of them has resulted in us having to import workers (usually male) in the STEM fields. False confidence awarded does not equate to competence achieved.

Pretending every person regardless of gender or IQ has equal aptitudes for every field is destructive. Testing should be rigorous and those with aptitude should be the candidates selected. This is not at all the case in America.

Testing has gotten better and more predictive. Since tests do not show the desired results, the tests are blamed. Lunacy.

 

[hssh345Alt]

Just bringing up one of the variables that needs to be put in the equation :

In my class, boys and girls did equally well in math. But the teacher was extremely gifted. The reverse with other STEM related fields.
I wonder what teachers are selected and what sort of standards are imposed in different schools (particularly in unisex schools)

 

[SgtSpiderMan]

It's mostly multiple choice, it won't give an accurate reflection of math skills in all cases.

 

[hssh345Alt]

What I was trying to get at :
I am perplexed by these discussions about gender inequality, that I've seen in Au/Nz, and now on Lit (US forum).

Back home, outside of sex and kitchen duties, men related to women as equals. Or that was my perception, at least.

 

[BabblingBrooke]

Not at all surprising. Boys on average exceed girls on average in STEM related fields. It was thought (wrongly) that that was caused by cultural biases and not inspiring girl's confidence in these areas. All of the concessions made to insure that Universities not only admitted an equal number of women, but now a surfeit of them has resulted in us having to import workers (usually male) in the STEM fields. False confidence awarded does not equate to competence achieved.

Pretending every person regardless of gender or IQ has equal aptitudes for every field is destructive. Testing should be rigorous and those with aptitude should be the candidates selected. This is not at all the case in America.

Testing has gotten better and more predictive. Since tests do not show the desired results, the tests are blamed. Lunacy.

This is an interesting perspective and very relevant to a project I'm working on.

When I am home later, mind if I PM you with some specifics? I could use a sounding board and I do have some questions that may lead to answers supporting your above statements, but they could also contradict them.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Back when I was a larval psychologist we gave folks a battery of tests titled GATB or General Aptitude Test Battery. It was the famous round peg in the square hole test but included several diverse tests measuring IQ, dexterity, color recognition, pattern recognition, etc.

The exam was normalized for every vocation that existed, and scores were compared to the scores the best people made. My scores matched the best research physicians, petroleum engineers, landscape architects, and sheet metal workers. I was once a union sheet metal worker.

But what happened was: Blacks don't do well on the exam. Their scores matched what janitors and maids and veggie pickers scored. So the Feds dropped the exam. The exam is still around if you wanna know what your real talents are.

 

[Yardley]

This is an interesting perspective and very relevant to a project I'm working on.

When I am home later, mind if I PM you with some specifics? I could use a sounding board and I do have some questions that may lead to answers supporting your above statements, but they could also contradict them.

Sure.

There are also some fairly unpopular studies about actual, measurable biomechanical differences between male and female brains. All of these things are on average of course there are outliers.

When dealing with something as complex as human aptitude there's always a continuum. There are malel brains exhibit strong typically female aptitudes and of course there are women's brains who exhibit strong male typical aptitudes.

And of course anybody that works hard enough at anything can learn to do Anything that they set their minds to. 10000 hours in any field will make you an expert.

Raw ontelligence plays a part as well. A woman with a high IQ is of course going to make a better engineer than a man with a low IQ. The thing is nobody is telling men with low IQs that they can be a engineers because we intuitively know that's not likely.

The numbers on college admissions on men vs women suggest only two possibilities. Either women are being and given extraordinary encouragement and assistance to get into college or men are being discouraged actively.

It is not possible that this particular generation somehow has smarter women and dumber men than previous generations.

 

[BabblingBrooke]

I've seen it firsthand on multiple levels. I am all for encouraging girls and building up girls and there was a need for leveling in the availability of some academic opportunities. Yet, offering opportunities to girls should NOT lead to discouraging boys, but it often has.

Girls have always been smart and capable, by the way. They didn't have the same opportunities. Likewise for boys who had interests that weren't "manly."

I'm off for a bit, but looking forward to talking to you, Yardley.

 

[hssh345Alt]

Good topic for debate, LJ.

But also taking this opportunity to express my thoughts on something that baffles me.

Some of the talks in this forum project an image of US + americans being quite conservative / gender biased.
Not the impression that I got from the americans I interacted with - to me, they seemed v. liberal & open-minded.

 

[Yardley]

Back when I was a larval psychologist we gave folks a battery of tests titled GATB or General Aptitude Test Battery. It was the famous round peg in the square hole test but included several diverse tests measuring IQ, dexterity, color recognition, pattern recognition, etc.

The exam was normalized for every vocation that existed, and scores were compared to the scores the best people made. My scores matched the best research physicians, petroleum engineers, landscape architects, and sheet metal workers. I was once a union sheet metal worker.

But what happened was: Blacks don't do well on the exam. Their scores matched what janitors and maids and veggie pickers scored. So the Feds dropped the exam. The exam is still around if you wanna know what your real talents are.

The analogs given for your scores sound like your strengths are in spatial reasoning. I always did well at those skills. No cares about that aptitude anymore. With computer-aided drafting, there is no need to be able to mentally visualize things to be made.

The failing of standardized testing is not that those that applied actual scientific method failed to successfully sort people, it was that statistical analysis actually works. On people too. The better they got at it the less the people buying the tests liked what the results indicated.

I took some vocational guidance test in, I would guess, 1977. I was always very adept at reading the intent of a test creator and manipulating the results. I had an interest in being an airline pilot, so I answered the questions as a pilot would. Sure enough, it said my round butt fit the round seat in an airliner cockpit at soaring heights.

The Navy decided in 1983 that my square butt fit in the square seat below decks as a nuclear engineer lighting up the boilers on a boomer at deepest depths.

I've done neither.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Sure.

There are also some fairly unpopular studies about actual, measurable biomechanical differences between male and female brains. All of these things are on average of course there are outliers.

When dealing with something as complex as human aptitude there's always a continuum. There are malel brains exhibit strong typically female aptitudes and of course there are women's brains who exhibit strong male typical aptitudes.

And of course anybody that works hard enough at anything can learn to do Anything that they set their minds to. 10000 hours in any field will make you an expert.

Raw ontelligence plays a part as well. A woman with a high IQ is of course going to make a better engineer than a man with a low IQ. The thing is nobody is telling men with low IQs that they can be a engineers because we intuitively know that's not likely.

The numbers on college admissions on men vs women suggest only two possibilities. Either women are being and given extraordinary encouragement and assistance to get into college or men are being discouraged actively.

It is not possible that this particular generation somehow has smarter women and dumber men than previous generations.

You know shit about psychology and human traits. So STFU and pay attention.

Each of us comes from the factory hard-wired for few or many activities. If you think I lie consider what animals do that you cant. My pattern recognition part is so sophisticated I see patterns almost no one else can see. Its because I discriminate colors and shades or grey/black so well. I see thru camouflage. Others hear better or whatever. I feel almost no fear because I don't have the part to sense it. Its like being blind or deaf.

So all of us have different sets of brain parts. Girls generally get parts other girls get, boys get what boys get and many girls don't get. No blind girl can see as well as a fucking eagle.

 

[Yardley]

double post

 

[Yardley]

You know shit about psychology and human traits. So STFU and pay attention.

Each of us comes from the factory hard-wired for few or many activities. If you think I lie consider what animals do that you cant. My pattern recognition part is so sophisticated I see patterns almost no one else can see. Its because I discriminate colors and shades or grey/black so well. I see thru camouflage. Others hear better or whatever. I feel almost no fear because I don't have the part to sense it. Its like being blind or deaf.

So all of us have different sets of brain parts. Girls generally get parts other girls get, boys get what boys get and many girls don't get. No blind girl can see as well as a fucking eagle.

I was guilty of sugar coating it. The truth rarely goes down, much less easily. Even girls that excel in traditional male roles can be shown to be using entirely different portions of the brain to accomplish the task. Yes some can do the exactly the same function, but they do it in a different way.

Sprinters and marathoners are both athletes. Pick a medium distance and you might have a horse race.

 

[LJ_Reloaded]

Not at all surprising. Boys on average exceed girls on average in STEM related fields. It was thought (wrongly) that that was caused by cultural biases and not inspiring girl's confidence in these areas. All of the concessions made to insure that Universities not only admitted an equal number of women, but now a surfeit of them has resulted in us having to import workers (usually male) in the STEM fields. False confidence awarded does not equate to competence achieved.

Pretending every person regardless of gender or IQ has equal aptitudes for every field is destructive. Testing should be rigorous and those with aptitude should be the candidates selected. This is not at all the case in America.

Testing has gotten better and more predictive. Since tests do not show the desired results, the tests are blamed. Lunacy.

Good points, but they don't import STEM workers because of college admission policies. There are plenty of men who graduate with STEM degrees. There are Stanford graduates fighting over STEM jobs on Facebook with employers all the time.

They import STEM workers because they want cheaper wages. And yes, they get around H1B wage requirements QUITE easily.

Foreign workers are ALWAYS about cheaper wages. Always.

 

[Yardley]

Good points, but they don't import STEM workers because of college admission policies. There are plenty of men who graduate with STEM degrees. There are Stanford graduates fighting over STEM jobs on Facebook with employers all the time.

They import STEM workers because they want cheaper wages. And yes, they get around H1B wage requirements QUITE easily.

Foreign workers are ALWAYS about cheaper wages. Always.

That is localized and anecdotal. Stanford has a good program (and a history of discrimination in the interest of diversity) Engineers gravitate to that program and to jobs in California. This is not the case nationally.

The lack of STEM graduates as a percentage of all graduates is exactly the justification for those visas. There are more STEM graduates then ever before but the rate of increase has not kept pace with either population or jobs in those fields. Because of the watering down the pool of every University with non STEM degrees because of a myriad of reasons, it makes it look like it is statistically necessary to approve those visas. So the two are very much related.

I can guarantee you that lowering admissions standards even further so that women (who are already the strong majority of admissions, degrees, admissions to advanced degree programs) will capture even more market share will not result in more STEM degrees.

Smart, capable women with engineering aptitude already are more than welcome and universally admitted as they have been for my entire lifetime.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I was guilty of sugar coating it. The truth rarely goes down, much less easily. Even girls that excel in traditional male roles can be shown to be using entirely different portions of the brain to accomplish the task. Yes some can do the exactly the same function, but they do it in a different way.

Sprinters and marathoners are both athletes. Pick a medium distance and you might have a horse race.

Sure. Its called TRANSFERABLE SKILLS. Some people type with their toes.

 

[hssh345Alt]

[Quote:
Even girls that excel in traditional male roles can be shown to be using entirely different portions of the brain to accomplish the task. Yes some can do the exactly the same function, but they do it in a different way.]


pray elaborate on this. I'm dying to hear the rest.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

[Quote:
Even girls that excel in traditional male roles can be shown to be using entirely different portions of the brain to accomplish the task. Yes some can do the exactly the same function, but they do it in a different way.]


pray elaborate on this. I'm dying to hear the rest.

Think of it this way, Einstein, lips can suck cocks or tits. Its transferable skills. The act is called IMPROVISATION.

 

[hssh345Alt]

[Quote :
I can guarantee you that lowering admissions standards even further so that women (who are already the strong majority of admissions, degrees, admissions to advanced degree programs) will capture even more market share will not result in more STEM degrees.]

BadBabysitter, you need to join me here. This thread is good material for ball-busting

 

[wistfulwench]

[Quote :
I can guarantee you that lowering admissions standards even further so that women (who are already the strong majority of admissions, degrees, admissions to advanced degree programs) will capture even more market share will not result in more STEM degrees.]

BadBabysitter, you need to join me here. This thread is good material for ball-busting

Are we trying to encourage more US college students to pursue STEM degrees? Or just get them into certain subsets of STEM?

If we are, I think getting kids interested and involved in those areas when they are very young is important.

Although I believe that exposure at a young age can breed interests, I do also think that some people, probably more men, are wired to be more naturally interested in those fields. Fewer women in STEM fields is probably not about capability as much as natural interest. I'm of course speaking in generalities, not absolutes.

 

[SgtSpiderMan]

http://www.businessinsider.com/colleges-are-dropping-the-sat-2015-7



Here's why.......
https://www.aei.org/publication/201...rn-persisted-40-years-boys-better-math-girls/

You have no idea how wrong you are.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/education/25math.html?_r=0

"Three years after the president of Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, got into trouble for questioning women’s “intrinsic aptitude” for science and engineering — and 16 years after the talking Barbie doll proclaimed that “math class is tough” — a study paid for by the National Science Foundation has found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests.

Although boys in high school performed better than girls in math 20 years ago, the researchers found, that is no longer the case. The reason, they said, is simple: Girls used to take fewer advanced math courses than boys, but now they are taking just as many."

 

[hssh345Alt]

Finally, two posters who are more ok in my books. Especially since the OP intended it as a discussion about male (espec. minorities) disadvantage & oppression, which somehow evolved into a not-so subtle attack on women's IQ.
Saying again : I'm dumbfounded by some of the misogyny on the board, and that includes a couple of female posters too, unfortunately.