There seems to be a lot of bending over backwards here to say over and over again the SAT/ACT aren't objective. I'm not discounting the role socioeconomic status, parental influence, school district, family income etc. have on one's life, but at the end of the day if you get more questions right, you have a higher score. That's what objective means. We can talk about making the test more equitable, whether or not we should do that, and whether or not that's a good thing for college admissions specifically or education in general, but it doesn't change the fact that the tests are by definition objective measures of whether or not you know the things on the test at the time you take it.
You take the test twice, once with a blindfold on, and once without a blindfold. As an objective measure of your intelligence, I expect you to get the same results on both tests
You are considering whether it's objective only by that the reader at the end sees the final score, but there's many spots in between an empty sheet of paper and that score where somebody's subjective experience comes into play
That's like saying putting something on a scale isn't an objective measure of its weight because you can just take the batteries out of the scale. I'm considering it objective because the more correct answers you get, the higher your score.
We can argue about whether or not the stuff on the test is important. We can discuss the various environmental, cultural, and socioeconomic factors that go into the kids taking it and how that impacts scores statistically. We can even talk about the various medical and neurological factors that go into test taking generally and standardized test taking specifically that can affect some people more than others. I'll even concede that the SAT/ACT isn't a test of your intelligence so much as it is a test of how well you did on the SAT/ACT, just like putting things on a scale may at best be a measure of its weight relative to other things on that specific scale.
But at the end of the day, more right answers === a higher score, and I'm not sure how you get any more objective than that when it comes to something as fluid as academic ability.
Exactly right. I think the critique is that it serves little value in college admissions because aptitude at taking the test is not an indicator of anything else. But IMHO, defining a difficult task and judging people on their ability to prepare for and execute on that difficult task is a useful means of measuring whether that individual is capable of doing that very thing when facing other difficult tasks, as they certainly will at college and in life. That alone has value and relevance in college admissions.
Everything has bias and nobody can agree on what "student quality" means even on a single admissions panel at a single school. Isn't that the whole point of having a wide and varied application? One that has standardized testing, grades throughout school, life experience, extracurricular activities, volunteerism, and more?
Getting rid of one of these because it's easier if you have money (when all of these things are easier if you have money, because life is easier if you have money) is just setting the stage for more explicit bias.
Perhaps you misunderstood my comments as advocacy. I was not, and would advocate for keeping the standardized tests. I was answering someone else's questions about the choice.
