[HN Gopher] Harvard won't require SAT or ACT through 2026 as tes...
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Harvard won't require SAT or ACT through 2026 as test-optional push
grows
Author : ren_engineer
Score : 52 points
Date : 2021-12-17 14:50 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| Pigalowda wrote:
| It's perhaps to address lower scores amongst legacy and athlete
| students who are accepted? It can't be controversial if the
| comparison metric is removed.
|
| I'm guessing it also helps eliminate the "blue collar asian"
| applicants more easily. It removes one of their shining
| accomplishments.
|
| From a 2018 article from politico:
|
| https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/21/harvard-a...
|
| "But the data collected by the Education Department contained
| some explosive information. It showed the athletes and so-called
| legacies who were actually accepted had lower SAT scores than the
| rest of the class and were also deemed less attractive candidates
| by the admissions officers conducting Harvard's process.
|
| Some of the comments those officers wrote on the application
| folders of admitted legacies strongly suggested something more
| than a tiebreaker was at work. "Lineage is main thing," one
| reader wrote. "Double lineage, but lots of problems ... no
| balance," the notes on another successful application said. "Lots
| of lineage here ... Hard to explain a NO," yet another said.
| "Classical case that would be hard to explain to DAD."
| routerl wrote:
| It's so funny how the class of people who most criticize
| "entitlements" (read: social services paid for by taxes) are
| the same class of people who are most "entitled" (to admittance
| in (so-called) elite institutions).
| gotoeleven wrote:
| Umm I think you'll find the criticism of both things comes
| primarily from the right. To be clear, this push to remove
| standards is coming from the left (in the guise of racial
| justice blah blah blah) but the beneficiaries will primarily
| be the untalented children of the gentry class (the Lori
| Laughlin's of the world).
| ren_engineer wrote:
| >lineage
|
| just the way they refer to it is disturbing, bad enough
| favoring legacies but "lineage" makes it sound like they really
| think these people are somehow superior based on their
| bloodline. The new nobility, how dare these serfs with good
| test scores defile our institutions!
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| Is a Harvard education really that spectacular anymore or is
| it more a social indicator? Feels like it's prominence has
| wained over the past couple decades.
| skyde wrote:
| if Harvard is not spectacular then what is? I mean what is
| replacing it's role?
| DarylZero wrote:
| The education is probably nothing special but it's more
| about the social network.
| Jtype wrote:
| If you cut down on legacies then you lose the advantage
| of the social network. Kind of a catch-22.
| brian-armstrong wrote:
| Amazing to think that one movie could change a college's
| appearance so profoundly!
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > how dare these serfs with good test scores defile our
| institutions
|
| It's worth noting that the term "meritocracy" was actually
| coined by somebody criticizing the serfs defiling sacred
| institutions.
| recursive wrote:
| I still haven't figured out why meritocracy is supposed to
| be a bad thing or exactly what is going on with it.
| mdasen wrote:
| I think it gives Harvard a lot of cover for their admissions
| decisions. As you noted, Harvard has come under fire for
| rejecting a lot of Asian American applicants while also coming
| under fire for letting in less-qualified legacy applicants.
| While standardized tests have biases that are problematic, this
| move allows them to be more or less biased as they choose.
|
| It's possible that they will become less biased in their
| admissions, but it's also possible they'll become more biased.
|
| The University of California has also announced that they won't
| be considering SAT/ACT scores for admission. California forbids
| affirmative action in their state schools and while the SAT/ACT
| aren't objective tests, people often treat them as such and it
| provides a number for people to compare (whereas you can't
| really compare "really good at guitar" with "volunteers
| planting trees"). It's led to Berkeley being 2% Black and UCLA
| being 3% Black while Stanford is 7% Black and USC is 5% Black.
| Also notable, Berkeley is 24% White and UCLA is 26% White while
| Stanford is 32% White and USC is 37% White; Berkeley/UCLA are
| 36%/28% Asian vs 23%/21% for Stanford/USC. The University of
| California system is certainly having its admissions decisions
| impacted by California laws against affirmative action in their
| public universities.
|
| I don't expect Harvard's admissions makeup to change
| significantly. I just expect it to be harder for third-parties
| (who might want to sue) to compare data. If you're
| qualitatively comparing applications that take a lot of time to
| review, it makes a lawsuit very difficult. If you're able to
| compare a numeric score, it makes it less time-consuming (even
| if the numeric score is biased/inaccurate, people often treat
| it as unbiased/accurate). It's easier to argue qualitative
| differences in judgement too and means that you have to start
| challenging things individually rather than as a class (which
| basically makes it impossible).
|
| With the University of California, it will be interesting to
| see if they start coming closer to peer institutions in their
| student body.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Everyone seems to waaaaaay underestimate how hard it is to get
| an elite athletic scholarship or overestimate how common they
| are. They are uncommon and you have not only have to be good
| academically but outstanding athletically. it is harder than
| getting in with an athletic scholarship than without one.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| or the school just needs an excuse to admit legacy candidates
| isoskeles wrote:
| > it is harder than getting in with an athletic scholarship
| than without one.
|
| I agree with most of your comment, but I think you're using
| "harder" and "rarer" interchangeably here.
|
| One would guess that receiving a scholarship for elite
| athleticism or superior intellect are both quite difficult,
| and I have zero basis of comparison for which one is harder.
| I would not assume that athletic scholarships being _rarer_
| reflects on their difficulty. Rather, it 's most likely a
| reflection on what the main function of a university is, as a
| place of learning. They admit more students to learn than to
| play sports.
| osipov wrote:
| modern technology gives even the most mediocre elites the means
| to govern the society. as the result there is less demand by
| the elites for capable managerial talent so harvard et al don't
| need to focus on separating wheat from the chaff.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| It seems like society is hard-wired to create an aristocracy, one
| way or another. We tried using merit instead of nepotism for a
| while but I guess the pressure from "elite" parents with idiot
| children was too great.
|
| Human society, at least in the west, is reverting back to the old
| ways of doing things.
| dayvid wrote:
| Malcolm Gladwell has a great series of podcasts in Revisionist
| History on elite colleges and admissions that made a lot of this
| stuff click. Elite colleges want to be a desired place for the
| high class to attend.
|
| As a result of this, they have to keep a consistent ratio of high
| class students (with some baseline/distribution of ability) to
| talented students to miscellaneous students. Too many high class
| students, and they lose their academic prestige only to be an
| expensive private school. Too many talented students, then very
| few high class students can attend and the higher class will
| focus on other schools. If it's mainly other students, then it
| won't be a notable school.
|
| Viewing elite college admissions from this level makes a lot of
| their actions more sensible. People are now able to game their
| old system so they have to adjust things to keep the ratio
| intact. I imagine at the graduate level, things are lot more
| performance/talent based and less political (excluding maybe MBAs
| or Law School).
|
| https://open.spotify.com/episode/4CM4Q8lOoGrEOSnXmqp1D1?si=6...
| Erik816 wrote:
| I'm getting old, but at least 15 years ago, law school
| admission was almost purely LSAT score + College GPA (weighted
| by perceived difficulty/prestige of College).
| cblconfederate wrote:
| This must be good for everyone else. In particular european
| universities might want to attract those disillusioned hard-
| working asian students.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.md/0JRvz
| Beaver117 wrote:
| Why don't they add IQ tests as a parameter? Instead of SATs we
| can identify smart individuals from bad schools. No more
| privilege excuses.
| jlos wrote:
| One of the best ideas I've heard for college admissions is the
| following:
|
| - Small percentage (10-20%) based purely on performance (either
| academic or athletic)
|
| - All other admitted applications drawn randomly from a pool who
| achieve a base score on SAT's.
|
| With the following benefits:
|
| - Student population reflective of national demographics due to
| random sampling.
|
| - Elimination of bias and discrimination endemic to these
| institutions history
|
| - Could even mark our 5% for "legacy" status students to keep the
| elite donors happy.
|
| - Motivation for students: anyone who can achieve a baseline has
| a real chance of attending an elite university
| nwah1 wrote:
| The entire basis of elite status comes from the notion that not
| just anyone can attend.
|
| Your proposal effectively removes college as a signal of elite
| status, and thus people will organically invent new symbols
| that most will lack and we will be back to where we started
| very quickly.
| carabiner wrote:
| Have you seen the SAT score vs. race charts? This would just
| make Harvard 50+% Asian (like Caltech), when they make up 7% of
| the US.
| ijidak wrote:
| As a black person, standardized tests saved me from
| racism/prejudice.
|
| At my blue blood private school, I had a math teacher who
| explicitly told my dad that he gave me a bad letter of rec on an
| MIT summer camp application, because as a black person
| affirmative action would make life too easy for me.
|
| I'm happy it was only a summer camp and not my real college
| admissions the following year.
|
| Even though I was a top five math student in my class across the
| entire private school, he and the dean of the math department
| gave me lower grades for the same work. They also didn't let me
| test out of classes (wouldn't show me test results), etc.
|
| Thank God for SAT II's and AP exams.
|
| I destroyed those tests. 5's and 790's.
|
| Highest marks in the class for Math SAT II's.
|
| But it didn't help my GPA from those biased teachers.
|
| I did get into MIT for real the next year.
|
| Standardized tests helped protect me from teacher bias.
|
| Ultimately, the world is just a mess.
|
| Now, I just focus on teaching people that the only fix for our
| problems will not come from mankind (to see what I'm talking
| about, take a look at: https://jw.org).
|
| Humans are a mess.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| Not sure what I should take away from "taking a look" at your
| link. Do you mean "look at what comes from mankind ; we can't
| expect anything good from it when results like these are some
| of its outputs"? I'd hope that's what you intended but I fear
| that it's not.
|
| I personally do hope for either AGI or a 3rd type encounter to
| expend Humanity's philosophy.
| ijidak wrote:
| So, I look at climate change, division and gridlock in the
| world's great democracies, as well as social issues and
| unrest.
|
| Despite all of our wonderful technological and scientific
| advances, our basic problems still involve moral division and
| disagreement.
|
| This is in harmony with what the Bible predicted.
|
| Commenting on our intellectual capacity: "there is nothing
| that they may have in mind to do that will be impossible for
| them"
|
| Commenting on our moral situation: "men will be lovers of
| themselves, lovers of money...not open to any agreement"
|
| So, the Bible's thesis seems very accurate to me.
|
| We have unlimited scientific and engineering ability.
|
| But very limited ability to create harmony.
|
| That's why prejudice, jingoism, injustice, racism, and
| numerous other issues are stubbornly difficult to get rid of.
|
| But since the Bible's thesis is correct, I believe its
| proposed solution is likely correct as well.
| 533474 wrote:
| I agree that humans are a mess. Well done on making it to MIT,
| it is not the first time I read or hear an experience like
| yours. Still, some kids are not privileged enough to get good
| math education but they might be late bloomers. I've met a
| genius with horrible SAT scores, a late bloomer, self-taught
| who now publishes in renowned math journals
| vo2maxer wrote:
| And all that blue blood private schooling, mathematical prowess
| and MIT education has led you to conclude that the solution to
| all of humanity's problems, checks link, is the Bible.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into religious flamewar
| and certainly please don't cross into personal attack, which
| your comment arguably did.
|
| No doubt the link was a provocation but the whole idea here
| is to resist shallow provocations and focus on the
| interesting substance of a post, or an article, or a
| phenomenon.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| ijidak wrote:
| I know the Bible is very unpopular. But I've done a lot of
| research and feel confident that it's not the book of myths
| and legends people think it is.
|
| But that's a topic for another day. :)
| dang wrote:
| Please don't go there here. It won't work, and will just
| create a tedious ruckus.
| tomp wrote:
| This message would be much more believable if you didn't use it
| to advertise a (necessarily exclusionary) religion.
| [deleted]
| ren_engineer wrote:
| I see this as another way to pull the ladder to success away from
| talented poor kids under the guise of somehow being more fair.
| This really only benefits rich kids who can pad their
| applications in other ways and makes admissions standards even
| more opaque.
|
| Any kid can get a used copy of an SAT prep book for cheap and get
| similar results to a rich kid getting private test tutoring.
| dsizzle wrote:
| Right, and won't the fancy private school count for more
| comparatively now?
| kenhwang wrote:
| Relative performance compared to peers at the same school
| will likely be weighed much more heavily.
| dominotw wrote:
| > Any kid can get a used copy of an SAT prep book for cheap and
| get similar results to a rich kid getting private test
| tutoring.
|
| I would say the environment, social/parental expectations,
| exemplars within family/friends, peers ect matter more than a
| book.
|
| Talented poor kids acing SAT by reading a cheap book is stuff
| from the movies.
| echlipse wrote:
| There are many such examples in the real world. That's not
| stuff from the movies. I don't think these things get
| reported in US but in India we see this in the news all the
| time. You can make a generic google search[1] and find tons
| of such people.
|
| [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=poor+family+child+tops+ex
| am+...
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| There aren't enough to be statistically significant, which
| is why they are being reported in the media.
| simplestats wrote:
| I think every school, has its "smart kids" who define
| their identities by their academic achievement, and who
| seek to ace every test. It's their way of standing out
| and being special so they try extra hard to keep it that
| way.
|
| Unfortunately they often tend to be introverts which
| colleges want less than overachievers in other areas.
| Except for the science/technology departments, who were
| probably overruled by other departments if decisions like
| abandoning test scores are made.
| naravara wrote:
| If it's being reported in international media I would guess
| it's still newsworthy enough to not be a regular
| occurrence. Like India is huge so you'll find a steady
| stream of events that are common enough to be frequent in
| absolute terms, but still unusual in proportional terms.
| dominotw wrote:
| This doesn't counter my point through. From the first
| link[1]
|
| > "I could not study because of financial problems, so I
| thought I must send my children to school and wipe out the
| darkness from their lives,"
|
| > "I got tremendous support from my school teachers," he
| said.
|
| This is exactly what i said. Environment of achievement is
| more important. "poor" doesn't mean just lack of financial
| resources. you cannot simply overcome lack of parental and
| social investment and care by reading a SAT book.
|
| > I would say the environment, social expectations,
| exemplars within family/friends, peers ect matter more than
| a book.
|
| 1. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-32791175
| BadCookie wrote:
| Add me to the list of counterexamples to your claim. While my
| family was more lower-middle-class than poor, I was
| (evidently, according to the financial aid office) the
| poorest person in my graduating class. And my SAT score was
| likely the reason for that. (I increased my score by 200
| points to a perfect score using practice books.) I was also
| admitted to Harvard but didn't attend because of the
| insufficient (at the time) financial aid that was offered.
| dominotw wrote:
| > I increased my score by 200 points to a perfect score
| using practice books.
|
| what motivated you to do this at the time ?
|
| Also, I never said its not possible to do it with practice
| books.
|
| > I would say the environment, social/parental
| expectations, exemplars within family/friends, peers ect
| matter more than a book.
|
| my point was the word "more" in that sentence.
| Erik816 wrote:
| What motive would you need beside "a higher score gets me
| into better schools"? Surely someone smart enough to get
| a perfect SAT score can figure that out pretty easily.
| dominotw wrote:
| I guess what i meant was why gp had this motivation while
| their peers didn't, what is the difference.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| Yeah, no. I took the SAT back in the day and scored horribly.
| Bought a SAT prep book, worked through it during lunch and
| brought my score up 300 points in 6 months.
| ekam wrote:
| My sibling and I are were like this and we were definitely
| not the only ones. You're out of touch if you think this just
| stuff from the movies.
| gmadsen wrote:
| while rare, thats exactly how I got in a good school
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| I did it
| ren_engineer wrote:
| only way to effectively end that would be to have government
| seize all children upon birth so every child has an identical
| environment growing up.
|
| The fact is a standardized test is far less biased than the
| metrics they will use to replace them. That's the reason they
| were created in the first place
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Interesting. I see it as another way to pull another ladder up
| so that the kid who didn't get to go to the private prep school
| to train to take a test isn't being discriminated against for
| his parents' financial position. There are literally entire
| private schools where I grew up whose average student performs
| better than the best public school student.
| chernevik wrote:
| That's probably selection bias.
|
| The SAT is actually pretty tough test to game. Anxiety drives
| parents to pay a lot for test prep, but there isn't much
| indication that it actually improves scores.
| canaus wrote:
| Do you have any verifiable information to back up the claim
| that test prep doesn't improve scores?
|
| I have a handful of sources that disagree.
|
| https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/R17
| 1...
|
| https://collegefinance.com/college-admissions/does-sat-
| prep-...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/12/04/why-
| should-...
| simplestats wrote:
| Your third source summarizes the common knowledge that
| has already been stated here: anyone can practice on
| their own with cheap or free materials to achieve the
| same benefit of those expensive classes.
| sct202 wrote:
| Your second link clicks thru to Slate which links to
| this: https://nepc.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/Brigg
| s_Theeffe...
|
| "Powers and Rock concluded that the combined effect of
| coaching on the SAT I is between 21 and 34 points."
| foobarian wrote:
| If the rich kids are also getting SAT prep books AND tutoring
| on top, and everyone gets maxed out scores, seems like it's a
| waste of everyones's time and we're better off just skipping
| it.
| bryan0 wrote:
| SAT proposed an adversity score to address this, but it was
| extremely controversial and abandonded:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/us/sat-adversity-score-
| co...
| hpoe wrote:
| Ah yes the. We are going to modify your score based on the
| color of your skin. I think that is a good way of doing it.
| I am sure no one would lie about that just to get a few
| extra points on the SAT, besides treating people different
| based on their race is totally a good idea an never results
| in unintended consequences. I like the idea basically we
| are making sure each side is equal but slightly separate
| from each other.
| bryan0 wrote:
| here are the criteria they used in the adversity score:
|
| Crime rate, Poverty rate, Housing values, Vacancy rate,
| Family environment, Median income, Single parent,
| Adversity score, Education level, ESL, High school
| environment, Undermatching, Curricular rigor, Free lunch
| rate, AP opportunity
|
| Each school got a score.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/sat-to-give-students-
| adversity-...
| hpoe wrote:
| The alternative is to make it completely subjective and based
| on the whims of the committee. I can't see that going wrong
| at all, like because there are no committee members who might
| be racist or sexist or have a bias against religious people
| or anything like that. No the college acceptance committee
| stands as paragons of virtues moral giants in this land of
| ethical pygmys they alone are incorruptible unswayable and
| perfectly and completely fair in all things.
|
| So standardized merit based metrics serve only as a barrier
| to their ineffable judgement and pure deductions let it be
| them alone and their powerful "algorithm" that is too pure
| and holy for mortal eyes to sully with their gaze be the new
| standard by which we determine if a student can go to
| Harvard, for clearly this is the one true way forward and
| will never be manipulated by self serving or short sighted
| beauracrats to manipulate and politic in.
| stephenhuey wrote:
| I don't think you should be downvoted for asking an honest
| question. As someone who tutored in SAT test prep a couple
| decades ago, I'm aware of the issues with standardized
| testing. However, the solution you propose is not so simple.
| The parent had a good point: high test scores may have given
| many students a boost in the eyes of admissions teams,
| especially if they did not attend a high school that is
| notable in the eyes of those admissions teams. They may not
| see top grades as equitable to those from a top prep school
| if they don't know much about the school and don't have high
| test scores to confirm their view of the student. Again, it's
| not fair, but for these students, it's a way to stand apart.
| If you take that away, it could be harder for them to be
| noticed until we have something else that's sufficient.
| DnDGrognard wrote:
| The poor kid will have more motivation than "Tim nice but dim"
| who would need pushing by his parents.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Let's say there's two high schools, one is the ritzy private
| school (Eagleton Academy) and the public school that has a lot
| of poorer students (Pawnee High). Harvard needs a way to
| distinguish between students across schools. An A at Academy,
| after all, might be harder to achieve than an A at High, after
| all, Academy is a world-class institution. So, Harvard needs to
| tune its algorithm to factor that in.
|
| So, the A+ prodigy at High might not stand out against a sea of
| B+ students at Academy, after all, Academy is much more
| rigorous.
|
| Enter standardized testing: the prodigy gets a 2400 and the B+
| students at High get ~2000s. Suddenly the prodigy can actually
| catch the attention of the Harvard admissions.
| abduhl wrote:
| Yes, but the prodigy at Pawnee High happens to be Asian and
| we're full up on them so we take the B+ students at Academy
| whose parents went to Harvard.
|
| Sorry, we've been advised by legal to say that we're not
| really "full up" because that would imply we have quotas and
| also that we only consider race peripherally and only ever as
| a plus factor. It just so happens to not be a plus factor
| here, while it's a default plus factor for some other
| candidates.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I'm glad I live in a country where only grades and
| standardized tests are taken in account, and colleges don't
| even know the race or background of anyone.
| evergrande wrote:
| Contrarian opinion:
|
| Harvard devaluing their diploma is good because smart people will
| get off the credential treadmill and do something productive
| instead.
| merpnderp wrote:
| Not as contrarian as you think. It's not healthy that basically
| all of the US's ruling class comes from a few schools.
| odiroot wrote:
| (Article was behind a paywall)
|
| As a European, I have to ask, how can a university qualify the
| students without having any standardised test?
|
| At every level of my education I had country-level-standardised
| test. It was always the most important factor in getting in.
|
| It also had an effect of allowing students from very remote,
| small towns to study in the capital, because of their top scores.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I believe the only reason they removed it was because they see
| the writing on the wall.
|
| They don't want a lawsuit down the line.
|
| Harvard knows it a matter of time until the population knows how
| dumb rich kids get in.
|
| They get in because daddy was very wealthy, or very famous.
|
| I imagine Princeton will be next. How many idiot celebrities has
| that school admitted besides Brook Shields?
| mrkramer wrote:
| Yea go to hell with standardization. Smart idea.
| ipaul wrote:
| It's Harvard - about a third get in, preferentially, because
| their parents got in:
| https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/10/28/high-time-to-e...
| mrkramer wrote:
| Yea remember Michelle Obama. I heard it from Peter Thiel when
| he said something like this: "Michele Obama said all colleges
| are good for children not only elite one. The next thing you
| hear her children are going to Harvard."
|
| Edit: here is the Peter Thiel reference:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz4VYFAQGaA
| tfigment wrote:
| I guess Stanford is not an elite university then either. If
| he went to state or community college i might care more but
| his argument is not in good faith anyway.
| karaterobot wrote:
| But he's not the one who made the argument, he's saying she
| was being hypocritical.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| One of their daughters is at Michigan, right?
| hcknwscommenter wrote:
| This is a weird comment in my opinion. MO says regular
| colleges are good too. She doesn't say "just as good". Of
| course going to Harvard can (not necessarily does) provide
| certain advantages. She didn't deny that.
| mrkramer wrote:
| She said: "The one thing I've been telling my daughters is
| that I don't want them to choose a name university. There
| are thousands of amazing universities."
| chomp wrote:
| Yeah, she may not have wanted them to choose a big name
| university, and yet they did. I don't see any hypocrisy
| here- her daughters have their own choice (If I were her
| daughters, you better bet I'd choose whatever lets me
| leverage my parents' connections). My parents didn't want
| me to apply to Texas A&M, and yet I did anyway, and got
| accepted (didn't go because of lack of financial aid).
| That wouldn't have made my parents into hypocrites if I
| did go, however.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Was your father the president of US and your mother the
| first lady of US? You should get the point by now.
| foobarian wrote:
| That's a non-sequitur to begin with, clearly made in bad
| faith and intentionally misleading.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| good enough for plebs not future ruling elites.
| Claude_Shannon wrote:
| I don't see the logic with this. Standardised scores are the only
| thing that you can measure, and so only that should matter.
| gao8a wrote:
| As a Canadian who never grew up with standardized testing, and
| also graduating with an IB cohort (from a public school) whom
| none of them actually went to the US (just took their boosted
| canadian grade equivalents or went somewheres in europe), I
| really fail to see how this could be that bad of a thing. The
| first year, or semester even is a great filter that cuts a
| significant amount of folks where school isn't for them.
|
| I can also see this as a move like china did to kill tutorial
| services to give kids back their teen years. In a land where
| school is so expensive I think its worth it to spend summers
| working a job (and all the merits that come with that) to better
| prep for possibly the biggest financial decision ever for a still
| developing brain.
| impostergc wrote:
| Your point about schools filtering students who are not able to
| cut it is moot. Do you think standards won't (or haven't
| already) change to keep as many students as possible?
| Universities want money, the more students the better. The idea
| that this change happens in isolation shows a lack of systemic
| thinking.
| opportune wrote:
| In the US private universities do not use the first 1-2 years
| as filters deliberately. It's common to see 4 year graduation
| rates above 90% especially for schools like Harvard
| rgergerge3 wrote:
| This is the logical conclusion of our contemporary understanding
| of privilege. Anything a person does (or does not) accomplish can
| be directly attributed to the privilege he or she had (or
| lacked). High SAT scores means the person was privileged enough
| to afford tutoring, or privileged enough to live in a two-parent
| household, or privileged enough to be born without any major
| disability, etc.
|
| Once you accept that as your worldview you accept merit is
| meaningless. What separates Ramanujan and Newton from the average
| college dropout are extraneous factors. Any difference in
| outcomes is societal and environmental, and must be corrected.
| merpnderp wrote:
| I feel like we closer to the world of Harrison Bergeron than we
| really should be.
| kiba wrote:
| Merit is meaningful, but people confuse meritocracy with a just
| and equitable society.
|
| If you are committed to selecting for the best, then you must
| select for individuals that are aided by factors outside their
| 'control', whether that's luck, environment, people, or genes.
| It does not matter how arbitrary or unfair these factors are,
| only that they help select the best men and women for a given
| job or career.
| simplestats wrote:
| I'm not sure how much overlap ther is between the people who
| want meritocracy and the people who agree with your
| definition of a just and equitable society.
|
| Luck and genes are generally considered fair arbiters in a
| sense, at least when they are the source of one's merit. No
| one complains the chess champion only won because she was
| fortunate to be given a chess board at an earlier age than
| the competition or something.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| People also confuse a just society with an equal society.
|
| There is no particular reason to want everyone to be equal,
| and there are plenty of reasons you do not want this -- when
| everyone is equal, people are constantly fighting for who is
| best because if anyone just slightly increases their
| wealth/power, they will be the highest of all. People are
| fundamentally competitive, competing over social prestige,
| mates, etc. So creating a situation in which anyone can be
| king is a recipe for constant war. Thus the equal society is
| the most unjust society, because it is the society in which
| violence and conflict are maximized.
|
| Moreover, it's better to maximize well-being rather than
| worrying about whether you think it is "fair" that talent is
| not distributed equally. What you can do is tax those who
| earn more and use that to provide social benefits to others.
| That is, set up a society in which everyone benefits from the
| outperformance of the elite, rather than trying to pretend
| that everyone can be elite, or that there is no elite at all.
| dontcare007 wrote:
| And random chance. "When everyone is super, no one is super"...
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I agree that someone from a bad background will have to work a
| lot harder than someone from a good one, but in the end, it's
| the results that matter.
|
| Just to give a stupid example, when you call a painter to paint
| your house, you don't really care that the painter is in a
| wheelchair and cannot reach the ceilings, or if the painter is
| blind and cannot see the walls... you want a good result, ie. a
| nicely painted house.
|
| Same with colleges... (usually, atleast in "the rest of the
| world") they want the best students available to enroll. In my
| country, a formula taking grades and standardized tests results
| is used, students are sorted by their score, and if there are
| 60 spots and 100 aplicants, top 60 by score are accepted. The
| colleges don't know anything about the students except the
| scores, and the only valid measure is the score. (...there are
| some exceptions, eg. acting/art schools, with entrance exams)
| GoodJokes wrote:
| About time. Money and connections has been the biggest and most
| important requirement for awhile. Ridiculous that I had a smooth
| talk 3 or 4 admission officers AND get my child game the SAT to
| get into harvard. Absurd.
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