Harvard, then, and soon all the rest because of them. I’m not going to rehash all of my SAT stuff here. If you want the litany –
- Your anger at the SATs is actually anger at broader social conditions which the SATs reveal
- None of the arguments against the SAT are correct, or even internally coherent
- Essays, too, are income stratified – because affluent kids actually are better prepared
- Grades (and all other educational data) are race and income stratified too, because those gaps in preparedness are real, so what the fuck are we even talking about here
- Educational testing is in fact remarkably valid, reliable, and predictive
- Why eventually ability reigns
Here is what I want to say to you: at the end of this process, no matter how you change it, no matter how many statements the schools put out about diversity, no matter how many thumbs you put on all the scales to select for a certain kind of student, at the end of this process are self-serving institutions of limitless greed and an army of apparatchiks who are employed only to protect their interests. That’s it. You can’t make college admissions fair by getting rid of the SAT because colleges admissions can’t be “fair.” College admissions exist to serve the schools. Period. End of story. They always have, they always will. College admissions departments functioned as one big anti-Semitic conspiracy for decades because that was in the best interest of the institution. Guys who the schools know will never graduate but who run a 4.5 40 jump the line because admissions serves the institution. Absolute fucking dullards whose parents can pay – and listen, guys, it’s cute that you think legacies are somehow the extent of that dynamic, like they won’t let in the idiot son of a wealthy guy who didn’t go there – get in because admissions serves the institution. Some cornfed doofus from Wyoming with a so-so application gets in over a far more qualified kid from Connecticut because the marketing department gets to say they have students from 44 states in the incoming class instead of 43 that way, because admissions serves the institution. How do you people look at this world and conclude that the problem is the SAT?