Thanks again for the lengthy reply. You are brining up many good points here.
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Charles was referring to California experience will racial quota. He had some other comments.
Here is the link:
https://medium.com/ruminato/affirmative-action-was-racial-stereotyping-b6ecbc1ed4dd
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I've had about five years at looking at SAT tests. I believe that they are a reasonable testing procedure to determine which students are better prepared for the rigors of study.
SAT tests level the playing field for high school performance. Unfortunately, there are differences in teacher grading, school and school board objectives, and state/province curriculum objectives. For example, my experience suggests that Alberta has a higher standard of high school STEM subjects than Manitoba. In other words, a Grade 12 student from Manitoba is not as prepared for college than a Grade 12 student from Alberta. So there is a problem when comparing high schools marks from two jurisdictions. If we Canadians had a SAT test, we could sort this out rather quickly.
But SAT is an expensive program to administer. Many, many rules. Many rules. Maybe just using high schools marks is more efficient. Manitoba is not that far behind Alberta.
If college and universities are dropping out of the SAT program, I would say the economic reasons ply more than the ability of SAT to determine the better students.
BTW, SAT requires a big investment from the student as well. So much personal time is lost to prepare and take the test.
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If it is no big deal that whites are simply not competitive enough to get admitted just because a few blacks jump over them due to Affirmative Action programs, why should we care if blacks don't graduate from college? Isn't that just a matter of them being unprepared for the rigors of college? Why does your level of concern change based on the race of the students? Are you racist Dave?
As an educator, I have seen the outcomes when institutions lower admission standards to fill "unsold" spots. Maybe 1 in 10 students who gets into college in this way manages the academic rigors. But 9 out of 10 get a bad experience with college study. It would have been better for them to re-take their high school courses, get a higher grade, then go to college.
So this is not about race. It is about selecting the best people to find success.
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I liked your 100/55 goldfish analogy.
The post-secondary institution know they are playing a probability game when accepting students. One student with a high SAT score may take on a party-party culture and fail. Another student with a low SAT score may take study more seriously than when in high school.
Even though there always will be a probability game, the colleges should always be looking for ways to increase their graduation rate. Lowering admission standards is not a good way.
And putting more resources to the K-12 schools in poorer neighborhoods is something worthy of experimenting for a decade.
