[ZooCow]

I wonder how much this has to do with LLMs making the essay portion of college applications (and even high school grades) somewhat useless at distinguishing among students.

Having a tightly controlled exam without the possibility of AI assistance seems to be the best option left for determining scholastic aptitude.

[RhysU]

Standardized tests are interesting in that they measure both raw aptitude and socioeconomic resources. Either measurement is good from the perspective of long-term positive outcomes for matriculated college students but only the former is politically palatable these days

The conflation of the two measurements is a feature, not a bug. After all, the SAT is not an isolated FAFSA and it's not an isolated IQ test. It'd be easier for the SAT company to be just one of those but they choose not to be.

I recently learned just how much raw aptitude matters because my family began hosting a wickedly bright war refugee this past year. She flubbed the SATs on her first attempt, relative to her raw intelligence and her English competence, because she had received no ancestral wisdom about how to approach the SAT itself.

So it goes.