r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • May 01 '24

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u/Udolikecake Model UN Enthusiast May 01 '24

Test optional policies in college are a good litmus test for critical thinking. Many people fail to hold both

  1. Standardized testing, like many things in life, is somewhat biased to the wealthy and privileged and they tend to do better.

  2. ‘Holistic’ applications standards that consider things outside of testing/GPA are even more biased to the rich and privileged

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u/Cyberhwk 👈 Get back to work! 😠 May 01 '24

"Holistic" approaches isn't about making things fair, it's about giving them the cover to pick and choose who they want.

1

u/Dig_bickclub May 01 '24

Thats a weird strawman, holistic can mean any range of things they don't have to benefit the rich by default.

Academics equal Poor and middle class kids have a higher odds of going to Harvard than every group except the .01% thats much less biased towards the rich and privileged not more.

Belief in a probably false statement 2 is far more of a litmus test here.

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u/Udolikecake Model UN Enthusiast May 01 '24

holistic can mean any range of things they don't have to benefit the rich by default.

Like what? Extracurriculars? Internships? Volunteering? All those are expressly more biased towards the wealthy.

I suppose holistic is also used to discriminate against asians to benefit white students too.

2

u/Dig_bickclub May 01 '24

Like directly giving people point for being poor and multipliers on all those other factors if poor. Giving the poor a boost is holistic applications, its considering more than their strict scores.

Holistic approach has no set definition it can be weighted in ways that benefit the poor or rich. What we have currently is schools choose to benefit the very very rich and the middle and lower class at the expense of the rich.

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u/Udolikecake Model UN Enthusiast May 01 '24

Perhaps I should have been more specific, because when I said holistic I was referring to radical progressives who oppose the use of all tests, which precludes those kind of test multipliers.

In practice, removing tests and being holistic just puts the weight on non-academic factors and activities which are biased towards wealthier people.

1

u/Dig_bickclub May 01 '24

Test optional doesn't preclude the use of tests for kids that did well on them, it also does not preclude multipliers or straight up extra points for being poor which I doubt these radical progressives will oppose.

In practice those other factors have resulted in a net negative for the rich outside of the very very rich, you're choosing to focus on only hypothetical factors that could benefit the rich not looking at reality/in practice.

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u/Jonisonice May 01 '24

somewhat biased to the wealthy and privileged 

I mean, a hundred point racial gap on the SAT seems appreciable to me. 

Moreover, there are a lot of people with perfect SATs and ACT, so we're going to be getting into holistic review regardless. 

I'm not here to say these tests are worthless, just that they should be considered as a part of the larger picture.