Are You Ready for the Post-College SAT?

I think it's a good idea. We all know that grade inflation is real, it seems to follow that someone would begin to use a countermeasure for it.

 

I thought that to write the CalBar exam, you had to attend and graduate from a CalBar exam-authorized school - though not necessarily an accredited one. We've had numerous threads on exam-authorized-but-unaccredited California law-schools. If you don't have to go to law school at all, then why would anyone bother with a low-end school? Especially when many of them post dismal exam success-rates?

Certainly, people who enter professions on self-study are not "total BS artists." Far from it! Their diligence is to be admired. I was referring to myself with that remark. I am extremely good at tests - cold or prepared - and I am also a supreme and confident BS artist. I really hate to see people like myself in action - they sometimes get an undue advantage over people who have worked hard. :smile:

I, too, endorse competency-based testing. The trouble is, in my experience, some tests that claim to be, are not actually competency-based. Too often, they are memory-based, and THAT makes it easier for weasels, like me, to excel. The principle is good - the execution often faulty.

Let me repeat the earliest example of degree-inflation I remember. 50 years ago, when I was college-age, I read a newspaper article about a restaurant-owner in California, who'd placed a want-ad for a waitress. (Gender-specific was OK back then.) He required that she have a BA. People asked why.

"So she can write orders down and add up bills reliably," was the reply. Now - 50 years later - nobody would ask why an applicant had to have a degree. It's pretty well a given - like High School eventually became, years earlier.

To me, this post-college test is yet another in a long series of credential bolstering-and-inflation and the industry that teaches people to pass tests. I have nothing against real competency-based testing, or "testing out" in general either, although CLEPs etc. are not generally accepted for credit by universities in my country and we have no generic equivalent.

Johann

"I've got a major in rhythm and a minor in soul -- and a Ph.D. in the Blues." Delbert McClinton, "Road Scholar"

 

BTW - if anyone wants to see a fine example of real competency-based testing, they could start with a look at the CISCO tests - any level. They've been good at this for a long, long time. :smile:

Johann

 

Grade inflation is real. That much I'll agree with.

A sad day, indeed, when a degree needs "supplementing" after it's cost $10K, $25K or maybe $50K+ and a hell of a lot of work. We're not talking about a professional entrance exams, like law or engineering. The CLA is nothing like that.

Trouble is - I don't think of the CLA as a countermeasure. Just "certifies" and endorses the current system, with all its deficiencies. It's a silk purse that will handily contain and display a sow's ear in the best possible light.

Johann

 

Well, like it or not, that's where we are. There is a perception, among certain employers, that some college graduates today lack critical thinking skills. You may or may not agree, but the perception does exist, regardless.

So what's an employer to do ? Bemoaning the fact won't help, if hiring still has to go on. One pragmatic approach is to prefer students from more selective schools, in the hopes that they might be sharper. Another pragmatic approach is to prefer students who majored in fields deemed particularly rigorous (e.g. math or engineering).

These approaches obviously don't help students who studied, say, philosophy or business or English at a second-tier school. But is that fair? Couldn't someone develop rigorous critical thinking skills in that situation? Well, of course they could. And maybe a high CLA score would be a significant plus to someone like that.

 

In California (and some other states) it is still possible to qualify for the Bar exam the 19th-Century way -- by apprenticeship. You get a job at a law office, or in a judge's chamber's, and after several years of supervised work experience, you can take the Bar. No law school attendance (accredited or unaccredited) is necessary.

Another example is Vermont, where one of the current Justices on the State Supreme Court qualified for the Bar by this route.

 

Good to know, CalDog. Thanks.

But you already knew that a long time ago, right? :smile:

Johann

 

post-college SAT

When I started college (at a B&M) we all had to take the GRE so they could compare it with our GRE score when we graduated --- apparently a study to determine how our skills had developed.