College Exit Exams

[Mevara]

Are You Ready for the Post-College SAT

Next spring, seniors at about 200 U.S. colleges will take a new test that could prove more important to their future than final exams: an SAT-like assessment that aims to cut through grade-point averages and judge students' real value to employers.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Mevara

Next spring, seniors at about 200 U.S. colleges will take a new test that could prove more important to their future than final exams: an SAT-like assessment that aims to cut through grade-point averages and judge students' real value to employers.

Great idea, because one isolated test score is always a reliable indicator of "real value to employers" than a track record accumulated over a number of years.


Yes, I know the potential problems with GPAs. And I've seen enough lawyers with degrees from "top" law schools who can't reason, write or argue their way out of an open field to know that where someone went to school might mean zilch. But I don't think a single SAT-like test is the answer. References, personal interactions and homework on potential employees are better indicators to my mind.

[Xidelt]

We really need more testing. I don't think my colleagues and I test enough. Local quarterly benchmarks, pretests and posttests, state exams, reading records, timed sight word tests, timed multiplication tests, scantron testing.....

[Mevara]

Originally Posted by Xidelt

We really need more testing. I don't think my colleagues and I test enough. Local quarterly benchmarks, pretests and posttests, state exams, reading records, timed sight word tests, timed multiplication tests, scantron testing.....

I wish there was a like button, this comment deserves it.

[amIblue?]

Standardized testing FIXES everything wrong with education, y'all! Clearly it must be or our illustrious leaders wouldn't keep mandating them.

[knight_shadow]

So Bonnie Business and Andy ArtHistory would take the same exit exam? Seems legit.

I didn't like most of my undergraduate courses because they focused too much on theory rather than application. A few of my final courses were much more application based (and one of my professors was actually my boss at a post-grad job for a while, so his instruction was great), but those types of classes were seemingly few and far between. A test that tests you on theory would be useless to me.

I'm a hiring manager now and I'd NEVER look at a test like this (or GPA, for that matter). I'm more interested in past experience, be it internships or paid jobs. That shows me how critically you can think and if you know how to use your resources.

[Xidelt]

Data!!! We need more data!!! The data team needs to go the data room and drill down on the test scores!!! Auugghh!!!