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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday August 15 2018, @12:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the just-getting-to-know-you dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Students are suing a major college admissions test maker for allegedly selling information about their disability statuses with universities, which they say could hurt their chances at getting into schools and impact the rest of their lives.

When students register to take the ACT—a standardized test used for college admissions taken by more than a million high schoolers each year—they answer a barrage of personal questions. As part of this, they are asked to note if they have disabilities that require "special provisions from the educational institution."

The ACT, which is administered by ACT, Inc., is the only real competitor to the College Board's SAT exam. The lawsuit claims that the ACT is selling the data it gleans from those student questionnaires—connected directly to students' individual identities—to colleges, which then use it to make important decisions about admissions and financial aid.

"A lot of students and parents have no idea how these testing agencies, which are gatekeepers to college, are using very sensitive and confidential data in the college admissions process," Jesse Creed, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, told me in a phone call. "[Colleges are] hungry for disability data, because they have limited resources, and it's expensive to educate people with disabilities."

Source: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43pbep/lawsuit-claims-the-act-sells-students-disability-data-to-colleges


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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday August 15 2018, @05:02AM (3 children)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @05:02AM (#721682) Journal

    Depends on the college. There's no general standard. Most colleges will look at both. But high school standards can vary widely, hence the "standardized" score offered by SAT or ACT.

    Many big colleges with overall high acceptance rate will sometimes have a minimum of X score on SAT/ACT *or* minimum grade average of X from high school.

    More selective colleges often look at both, and the most selective programs will seriously consider lots of other factors (essays, recommendation letters, extracurricular activities, etc.).

    Some colleges recently have decided the SAT/ACT are not as important and don't require them at all.

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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday August 15 2018, @05:20AM (2 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday August 15 2018, @05:20AM (#721686) Homepage Journal

    My high school GPA was 3.6. The valedictorian of the other high school in my town didn't even get interviewed.

    The reason I got such low grades was that I regarded most of my high school classes to be a complete waste of my valuable time.

    Instead, I was heavily into the theatre. I was a very poor actor so I focussed on sets and was the director of the set crew during my Junior and Senior years.

    Also I started grinding, polishing and figuring my own telescope mirrors when I was twelve and kept that up partway through Caltech. Even among the astronomy department there was only one professor who had ever made his own telescope.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @05:28PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @05:28PM (#721856)

      I graduated with a 2.1 GPA. My ACT scores were good though (perfect scores on English sections, near perfect science, 30 in math I think?), so I still got accepted everywhere I applied. Ultimately, finances were the deciding factor for choosing where to attend.

      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday August 15 2018, @06:05PM

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday August 15 2018, @06:05PM (#721866) Homepage Journal

        Half of my class had 4.0 GPAs in high school. Some schools count pluses and minuses in their GPAs, so there were also lots of people who had 4.25 GPAs.

        Oddly, many of my class were _required_ to attend a summer class before we started the regular school year. That class taught writing - despite having straight-As many of my classmates were unable to write even very simple essays.

        I got 890 out of 900 on the Math II Achievement Test. That put me in the bottom half of my class.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]