[HN Gopher] Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder...
___________________________________________________________________
Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly
choose students
Author : gmays
Score : 170 points
Date : 2022-10-22 13:55 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hechingerreport.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (hechingerreport.org)
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Who could have seen that coming? The whole point of ditching
| quantitative tests is to empower the bureaucrats who want to make
| qualitative judgements based on their personal whims and biases.
| "Holistic" my ass.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The problem with "quantitative" tests is that they are not
| without their own bias - they select for students that had the
| luck (or the right parentage) to go to either a private school
| or to a public school in a well-funded school district. The
| result is that the student base will be overwhelmingly white
| rich kids, which is pretty problematic (see e.g. [1], fresh out
| of the press).
|
| Additionally, at least when one goes by the original purpose of
| academia - that is, to provide education and research
| opportunities to the actually gifted instead of _yet another_
| way for employers to bypass ADA and other anti discrimination
| regulations - it _should_ be the way that qualitative
| judgements by humans prefer the academically gifted and
| _interested_!
|
| [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03251-0
| [deleted]
| mindslight wrote:
| Families with more resources are going to be able to use
| those resources to game _anything_. The question is then,
| which metrics have the most resistance to gaming? Testing
| would seem more resistant to gaming than extracurricular
| activities or how well "you" write essays.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Or, to crib the aphorism, _' Standardized testing is the
| worst method of ranking students... except for all the
| other ones.'_
| blep_ wrote:
| > they select for students that had the luck (or the right
| parentage) to go to either a private school or to a public
| school in a well-funded school district
|
| You're not wrong, but I interpret this as evidence that the
| problem is earlier in the pipeline and trying to fix it here
| is a hack.
| overrun11 wrote:
| > they select for students that had the luck (or the right
| parentage) to go to either a private school or to a public
| school in a well-funded school district.
|
| They select for math ability, it just so happens that
| students with access to great resources get better at math
| than those without them.
|
| > The result is that the student base will be overwhelmingly
| white rich kids, which is pretty problematic Pretty clearly
| not true. It is overwhelmingly asian kids and while wealth
| plays a factor, poor asians still do exceptionally well (IIRC
| poor asians do better than rich whites). This can never be
| acknowledged because it makes people less sympathetic to your
| point.
|
| > purpose of academia - that is, to provide education and
| research opportunities to the actually gifted instead
|
| A students innate ability is irrelevant for college
| admissions. What matters is what are your actual
| capabilities. Are you capable doing mathematics at the
| highest level or are you not? An innately talented student
| who is bad at math due to life circumstances out of their
| control is still bad at math.
| texaslonghorn5 wrote:
| > They select for math ability, it just so happens that
| students with access to great resources get better at math
| than those without them.
|
| So we just throw our hands up and lament that those without
| preexisting opportunities stay down?
|
| I completely disagree. Colleges should be looking for high
| ceiling students who have the potential to do great things
| if the college throws their resources at the kid for four
| years.
|
| > A students innate ability is irrelevant for college
| admissions. What matters is what are your actual
| capabilities. Are you capable doing mathematics at the
| highest level or are you not?
|
| Last time I checked, the whole point of college is to
| develop these skills!
|
| Should every single person who didn't get to take advanced
| math in high school be immediately disqualified from
| studying high level math, even if they have the potential
| to do incredibly well given the tools? This isn't to say
| that students who have the foundation should be kept down,
| more that those without it shouldn't be excluded if they
| have the potential to succeed.
| petilon wrote:
| Absolutely agree. In the US, "holistic" admissions were
| introduced to deny admission to students suspected of being
| Jewish [1].
|
| [1] https://www.economist.com/united-
| states/2018/06/23/a-lawsuit...
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Shaping the ethnic demographic of the school is a big
| component of the modern intent as well. Particularly, these
| "holistic" admission standards are designed to facilitate
| discrimination against Asian Americans. This is justified
| with transparently racist bullshit claims about Asian
| American students being too focused on academic performance,
| not "well rounded" whatever the hell that is supposed to
| mean. They reduce Asian American students to the stereotype
| of dull people with no personality because they spent too
| much time doing homework and learning piano, and use this
| stereotype to justify discriminating against them. Flagrantly
| racist.
| rayiner wrote:
| The idea of a "well rounded student" reflects the WASP
| roots of these elite institutions. The ideal "Harvard man"
| was a well bred WASP who didn't appear to try too hard
| (which would be unseemly) and balanced academic pursuits
| with sports and social activities accessible to people who
| had connections and didn't work for a living. That's who
| you wanted running your Wall Street banks, corporations,
| etc. Holistic admissions is just the modern incarnation of
| that.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| In slight defense, if you must hand the keys to the
| kingdom (or a substantial amount of power) to one person,
| you can do worse than putting them through a battery of
| enculturation that reduces their inclination to abuse it.
|
| And an effective part of that litmus test could be
| 'already has substantial power, but is able to self-
| restrain their abuse of it.'
|
| Caligula vs the recent British monarchy, etc.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Is there any evidence that Harvard educated politicians
| or business leaders behave more ethically than their
| peers from less prestigious schools?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C10&q=
| %22...
| nerdponx wrote:
| A more charitable interpretation is that a student body
| made up of too much of any one thing is not good. Part of
| the value proposition for going away to university for four
| years is to spend that time surrounded by diverse and
| interesting people.
|
| That doesn't excuse the actual racism that we've seen in
| admissions, of course.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| In that case, maybe some universities could specialize on
| having racially diverse student bodies, and others on
| other attributes (say, political diversity, or something
| completely different). This way, everyone could choose
| their preferred institution according to their wishes and
| values.
| wincy wrote:
| I don't know, universities in Israel seem to keep
| magically pumping out geniuses that invent all sorts of
| incredible technologies despite not being particularly
| diverse.
| rayiner wrote:
| > A more charitable interpretation is that a student body
| made up of too much of any one thing is not good.
|
| So what would you say is "not good" about a "student body
| made up of too [many]" Indians? Or Jews? Or Chinese
| people?
|
| Are schools in India or China or Israel inherently worse
| than those in America because those schools have "too
| much" of a single race?
| csa wrote:
| > Are schools in India or China or Israel inherently
| worse than those in America because those schools have
| "too much" of a single race?
|
| Both China and India are countries with a number of
| different races, some/most of which are represented at
| the top schools (I imagine all of the large racial
| groups). I'm not sure about Israel, but it wouldn't
| surprise me if it were true there as well.
|
| That said, the prestigious schools in these countries
| (not sure about Israel) heavily use tests as an admission
| standard to the best schools. I think that this is part
| of what makes them less prestigious than their American
| counterparts.
|
| Elite American universities use social capital as part
| the admissions criteria, with a reasonably broad
| definition of social capital. I think that this social
| capital along with intellectual capital (not always in
| the same student) is part of what makes the magic work at
| these schools.
|
| Notes:
|
| - In China (and probably other places), historically the
| admissions exam was a proxy for social capital, since
| families with high social capital could prepare their
| kids better via tutors. This is still somewhat true
| today, but it's not as powerful as it was in the distant
| past.
|
| - State schools in the US, which seem to be the focus of
| this article since they don't have a history of holistic
| admissions, should probably stick with a grades-test
| score combo for most admissions, and maybe add some
| "social capital" admits (similar to athletes, who also
| fall into the social capital category, with the extent of
| exceptionalism required being equivalent).
|
| - Schools that admit based on tests alone without having
| some sort of built-in social capital component will end
| up defaulting towards the creation of a lot of middle
| management drones rather than future leaders of the
| country. Many people seem to wish that social capital is
| not the primary driver of success, but results
| (historical and anecdotal) seem to suggest otherwise.
| rajin444 wrote:
| There's infinite ways you can define diversity. Choosing
| to define it in the way you're referring to (skin color,
| sex, sexual orientation) is just discrimination.
|
| Colleges should be about furthering academic knowledge
| and preparing our best and brightest to make the world a
| better place. Diversity for diversities sake harms that.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Believe parent's point was that "spend[ing] that time
| surrounded by diverse and interesting people" is an
| effective way of "preparing our best and brightest to
| make the world a better place".
| thegrimmest wrote:
| But since when is superficial appearance the primary
| measure of "diversity"?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| "Skin color, sex, sexual orientation" all drastically
| impact an individual's experience in our world.
| Therefore, having interactions with someone with
| different varieties thereof increases the diversity of
| ones experience.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| More so than economic, cultural, geographic or domestic
| factors? Do you have a citation?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Sure, if you can give me ones supporting your preferred
| measures.
| britch wrote:
| It sounds simple, but it's difficult to do
|
| Who are the best and brightest? How do you determine
| that?
|
| Do the best&brightest from one community or circumstance
| always have the same traits as the best&brightest from
| another community or circumstance?
|
| My understanding is diversity initiatives attempt to
| address the latter part (effective or not).
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _Do the best &brightest from one community or
| circumstance always have the same traits as the
| best&brightest from another community or circumstance?_
|
| Can the answer to this question be "yes"? In the same way
| that the best NBA players share traits, I don't see any
| reason why the best physicians, engineers, etc. also
| wouldn't share traits across cultures/backgrounds.
|
| Going further, can't we measure these traits with
| outcomes of standardized testing? Given you agree these
| traits exist, can you propose an better alternative?
| mook wrote:
| In that case shouldn't they also diversify the
| administration, and say that the university president
| should be Asian (or Black or Hispanic) x% of the time?
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| By that logic if it's okay for 60% of the student body to
| be white because 60% of the United States is white then
| you are explicitly saying it's okay for the university to
| be 60% of the same race which means it should be equally
| acceptable for the university to be 60% Asian regardless
| of them being x% of the United States and merit based
| admittance should be acceptable.
|
| The only logical reason for discriminating against so
| many Asians in our current setup needs to be attempting
| to mirror the population statistics of the United States.
| I don't approve of that logic to be clear and think the
| universities will be issuing apologies to the Asian
| American community in X years similar to the ones they
| just made to the Jewish American community recently.
| petilon wrote:
| At UW they call it "race equity" [1]. Meaning that you
| can't have more than x% of Asian Americans in the UW if the
| percentage of Asian Americans in the community is x%. The
| Supreme Court will soon decide if this practice is legal
| [2], and it is going to be interesting either way!
|
| [1] https://www.washington.edu/raceequity/
|
| [2] https://edsource.org/2022/as-supreme-court-considers-
| affirma...
| 0x445442 wrote:
| And yet somehow they never decry the race inequity of
| lucrative ventures like the NBA player pool.
| bombcar wrote:
| Arguably there you have an exterior reliable measurement
| of ability (and if there was inappropriate discrimination
| against Asian basketball players, you should expect a
| team to realize it and get a winning team for cheaper).
| thegrimmest wrote:
| But somehow we can't have an exterior reliable
| measurement of intellectual ability? And have no
| controversy testing for it across ethnic groups? Oh
| wait..
| 0x445442 wrote:
| Of course there is objective measures, that's the point.
| And it's why no sane person thinks the race inequity
| within the NBA player pool is a problem. The problem lies
| in the hypocrisy of crying about systemic racism or
| sexism as the reason for inequity when talking about
| college admissions or C level jobs but never talking
| about the same inequities in nursing or iron workers or
| NBA players.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Here's a question to those in control of these so-called
| "equity" rules at UW: do these also go for e.g. sex? In
| other words, if the percentage of women in the population
| is 49% there can not be more than 49% female students? If
| not, why not? The answer is already clear of course given
| the data but it would be interesting to hear their
| defence of their untenable position.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I think that's why the idea of a protected class has
| typically been central to US legal definitions of
| equality: application to every individual characteristic
| is untenable, but blindness to all impinges on justice
| too.
|
| Or in essence, how to address the historical inequities
| of racism and sexism, without also ushering in something
| ridiculous like "mentalism" that attempts to help people
| who are "bad at tests and grades."
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| If that is not racism, and illegal according to the
| myriad anti discrimination laws the US must have, I do
| not know what could be.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| It's really disappointing that many recent attempts of
| progressivism have just turned into new sexism and racism but
| defended as "the correct" versions of those. It erodes the
| intellectual validity of these institutions.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| It is not just neo-racism and neo-sexism.
|
| It is also a weird kind of neo-feudalism, excluding outsiders
| that cannot or won't fit the expected mold. In the court of
| Versailles, you had to behave according to a certain stiff
| etiquette. If the same is required in institutions of higher
| learning, how many really creative people will be willing to
| put up with it?
| jimmaswell wrote:
| > If the same is required in institutions of higher
| learning
|
| Can you give an example? At my colleges there were no rules
| about "stiff etiquette"
| chitowneats wrote:
| They won't. Can't wait for all the great music in the next
| few decades.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Fair point. The 60s wouldn't have happened without the
| 50s. The 90s without the 80s.
|
| Artistic creativity brews strongest when there's an
| omnipresent dogma to reject, and the current pastiche of
| thoughtlessly-implemented progressivism is fertile
| ground.
|
| It's been bubbling up in standup comedy for a while, but
| that tends to be the quickest turnaround on cultural
| commentary.
|
| No nuanced good idea ever survives contact with a
| brainless bureaucracy.
| 0x445442 wrote:
| kenjackson wrote:
| As a society we got ourselves into a situation where ignoring
| race now I promotes inequality as it helps those that have
| benefited from racism in the past. And doing ANYTHING
| proactive now is racism not.
|
| The question is just -- what type of injustice do you prefer?
| tjs8rj wrote:
| The answer is really simple: discrimination not on race,
| but on inequalities. Don't discriminate because someone is
| black or white, but give due consideration to factors like
| family situation/income/legacy/etc
|
| This seems like the most reasonable solution. If you
| believe that systemic racism exists in the background, then
| this corrects for its real effects. If you don't, I'm sure
| you at least accept that all else equal, a smart poor
| person will have accomplished less than a smart rich person
| due to lack of resources, so if you can correct for that in
| admissions you better identify smart people.
|
| Need-oriented discrimination, with no accounting for race,
| is the answer
| sroussey wrote:
| You should apply some second order thinking on this
| argument.
|
| In the welfare days, those that were in more need were
| women with children where the man ditched the family. So
| more effort and money was applied there which seems
| totally reasonable.
|
| But it also incentivized men to leave their families to
| qualify, and they did in high numbers.
|
| These type of things made to correct something in the
| past also have a tendency to incentivize something bad in
| the future.
|
| This is part of why these things are so difficult in
| practice.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Yeah, like it says in the constition:
|
| > "All men are created equal. From each according to his
| ability, to each according to his needs"
| overrun11 wrote:
| Or we could acknowledge that society functions best when
| the most qualified people are chosen and decide to only
| discriminate on merit.
|
| These selection criteria are meant to match students with
| schools filled with students of the same ability level.
| Of course there will always be factors in life that make
| it harder or easier for people to succeed.
|
| Having had exceptionally difficult life circumstances
| doesn't somehow change the fact that you need to have
| already mastered Algebra to succeed at MIT for example.
|
| We should focus more on mitigating the extent that
| difficult circumstances hinders learning not just
| manipulating selection criteria after it already has.
| kenjackson wrote:
| > We should focus more on mitigating the extent that
| difficult circumstances hinders learning not just
| manipulating selection criteria after it already has.
|
| This is harder, but I agree the right place to focus our
| energies. The problem is that the people that want to
| solve the problem are those in higher education. The
| people at the root of the problem are probably the same
| ones that don't want to solve it. A bit of a catch-22.
| tjs8rj wrote:
| To be clear, this is about university admissions where
| their goal is to identify the most capable people for the
| school, and a smart but poor person might very well be
| the most capable (even if it's not clear on paper given
| their previous lack of resources). This IS merit-based,
| but it's an attempt to find the diamonds in the rough.
|
| Someone with an IQ of 140 but poor might not have
| accomplished as much as a rich person with an IQ of 100,
| so on paper the rich person looks better, but correcting
| for circumstances the poor (smart) person is wayyy
| better. This is meritocratic.
|
| And I'm certainly not suggesting you take the objectively
| worst person, especially in a job market. Universities
| are given public money to provide societal benefits. If
| they aren't properly able to give people opportunities,
| they don't deserve my tax dollars.
| brigandish wrote:
| > ignoring race now I promotes inequality as it helps those
| that have benefited from racism in the past
|
| Does it?
| kenjackson wrote:
| This is a much longer discussion and one that tends to
| devolve. And there is a camp that believes that black
| peoples have it better than whites people today. I find
| it hard to believe, but they exist.
| hhmc wrote:
| I think the argument goes something like: if racial
| groups and socioeconomic outcomes are correlated due to
| previous inequalities, and social mobility is limited,
| then doing nothing further entrenches the inequalities.
| tjs8rj wrote:
| Then discriminate on the socioeconomic inequalities. A
| poor white person and a poor black person should get aid.
| Obama's daughter (black, but rich and powerful) doesn't
| need any aid or discrimination in her favor.
|
| Discriminating on the basis of race for these programs is
| so stupid. Ask why and people say "because socioeconomic
| status", but then why don't you discriminate on that? I
| think people know this but it's a political move (black
| people vote for democrats for the vast majority, so
| making it means tested instead wouldn't be popular with
| them).
| kenjackson wrote:
| tjs8rj wrote:
| I disagree that poor whites are specifically against
| welfare because they think it helps black people more.
| That's just another way of saying they are all racist.
|
| Ive grown up around poor whites and dislike for welfare
| among them was pretty much always a dislike of government
| generally, and the perception that welfare makes people
| lazy (often because they knew other poor people who would
| take advantage of welfare. One of whom got their kids
| taken away because they couldn't financially support
| them, were told they could get them back if they could
| hit some financial milestones, then proceeded to use
| their tax return to buy a used mustang).
| kenjackson wrote:
| The discussion tends to devolve right around here. Let's
| just say we have different data points and agree to
| disagree.
| hhmc wrote:
| Sure, just do _anything_ that's a directional
| improvement.
|
| I think a lot of bad faith prevarication prevents any
| improvement (such as the question I was replying to).
| nerdponx wrote:
| Fortunately I feel convinced that it's a passing fad. I just
| hope that the pendulum does not swing too far the other way.
| macrolocal wrote:
| I worry about illiberalism becoming more prominent on the
| left _and_ right.
| tenpies wrote:
| themitigating wrote:
| What does this have to do with being woke?
|
| You said "countries that go to woke" then listed a bunch
| of horrible things.
|
| The definition of woke is "alert to injustice in society,
| especially racism."
| FredPret wrote:
| Maybe I'm in a bubble, but every anecdote I read online in
| the past year or two is someone royally fed up with liberal
| politics. On Twitter, Reddit, and real life, the majority
| of people keep complaining about crime, drugs,
| homelessness.
|
| Sounds like a perfect environment for a generation of
| conservatives to get elected. Hopefully they stay close to
| the center for a long time.
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| Thats not exactly how pendulums swing.
|
| Think about how far we have swung in one direction. Its
| going the same distance in the other. May god help us.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Sounds like a perfect environment for a generation of
| conservatives to get elected. Hopefully they stay close
| to the center for a long time.
|
| The conservative groundswell is because generations of
| conservatives have _already_ been getting elected,
| especially in less flashy positions that wield influence.
| Conservatives have really played the long game, at least
| since the New Deal.
| [deleted]
| D13Fd wrote:
| I think people's need to frame seemingly every issue and
| even their entire worldview as liberal vs conservative is
| the biggest problem in politics.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| Yes, I agree. It's like sports teams now, where people
| cheer on whoever has the correct letter next to their
| name rather than bases on their actual personal policies
| or beliefs.
|
| It's also resulted in an effect I've noticed in most
| debates now where people just shout the advantages of
| their position and the disadvantages of their opponents
| position at each other without any attempt at addressing
| what their opponent is counter-arguing, if that makes
| sense.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| I agree, I think it blinds people to the sort of problem
| that user macrolocal mentions in a nearby comment, rising
| illiberalism among both 'liberals' (more accurately
| called progressives, but this terminology is all twisted
| in America..) and conservatives. I'm concerned that both
| use the other to justify or rationalize their own
| declining liberalism.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > I think people's need to frame seemingly every issue
| and even their entire worldview as liberal vs
| conservative is the biggest problem in politics.
|
| I don't know if that was addressed to me for speaking of
| conservative political movements or to the conservatives,
| but it is not a label that I pin on an unwilling
| recipient; I am referring to a self-described
| conservative movement.
| themitigating wrote:
| You know what trick I love?
|
| When someone points out something Democrats did and they
| say "that's why I'm conservative" then when you point out
| something Republicans did they say "We need more than two
| parties"
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I think many things can be framed as "change things" or
| "leave them".
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| "change things" vs "change things but ostensibly back to
| the way they were before".
|
| For instance, ruling against Roe v. Wade. Regardless of
| what you think of that, it, such a ruling was a deviation
| from the status quo. It was "changing things" as surely
| as the original ruling changed things.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Sure, or "we made a mistake changing things, let's put
| them back". It just depends on the timescales you
| consider when determining the status quo.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Putting things back where they were depends on our
| recollection of the past, which is imperfect and subject
| to various biases and confusion with myth. But even
| ignoring that, the circumstances of the present are
| different than the circumstances of the past so past laws
| won't work the same in the present as they did in the
| past. Even if you could perfectly replicate past laws in
| the present, you couldn't get the same effect out of
| those laws because the inputs (the state of society) have
| changed.
|
| Nobody can roll back the clock. What conservatives
| actually do in fact is propose ways to change things
| going into the future.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _depends on our recollection of the past, which is
| imperfect_
|
| We do have pretty good records to help us sort it out,
| especially for recent history.
|
| > _the circumstances of the present are different than
| the circumstances of the past_
|
| Surely some circumstances, such as human nature and
| social biology, have not changed. I'm not sure that "the
| state of society" is the primary differentiating factor
| in the effectiveness of laws, particularly laws relating
| to fundamental human behaviours like violence or
| reproduction.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _I 'm not sure that "the state of society" is the
| primary differentiating factor in the effectiveness of
| laws, particularly laws relating to fundamental human
| behaviours like violence or reproduction._
|
| I think it is, since there is great cultural variation in
| the ways humans think about violence and sex. Monogamy or
| harems; human sacrifice or the abolition of the death
| penalty. Any combination of these can be "normal" to
| people raised in that context, there is little which is
| fundamental about the way human societies are structured
| with respect to these subjects.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| And yet, some things are near universally constant
| amongst large scale agrarian civilizations. For instance
| the confinement of violent criminals or the institution
| of marriage.
|
| You're right in that there is some variation, but there
| do actually seem to be some choices in this regard that
| are more conducive to a stable, prosperous, society. Just
| like there are many ways to run a company, but only some
| of them lead to success. Point being that if you live in
| such a society, "changing things" may lead you off the
| golden path that brought you where you are. It's true
| that some change is inevitable, but any operator of any
| system that prioritizes stability above all is always
| wary of any unnecessary change.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _And yet, some things are near universally constant
| amongst large scale agrarian civilizations. For instance
| the confinement of violent criminals_
|
| Certainly not. Imprisonment for violent crimes is far
| from being a universal constant of human culture. There
| have been and are cultures in which violent criminals are
| only detained so they can be executed. Or beaten and then
| released. Or simply fined. Or not charged at all. What
| even counts as violent crime varies considerably even in
| developed countries today. Legal self-defense in one
| country may be murder in another.
|
| Similarly, marriage is only culturally universal in a
| very abstract sense. Who are you allowed to marry? How
| many consecutive marriages are you allowed to have? Under
| what conditions can a marriage be broken? Can you be sold
| for marriage against your will?
|
| > _You 're right in that there is some variation, but
| there do actually seem to be some choices in this regard
| that are more conducive to a stable, prosperous, society.
| Just like there are many ways to run a company, but only
| some of them lead to success. Point being that if you
| live in such a society, "changing things" may lead you
| off the golden path that brought you where you are. It's
| true that some change is inevitable, but any operator of
| any system that prioritizes stability above all is always
| wary of any unnecessary change._
|
| I agree. My point is that liberals, progressives,
| conservatives.. pretty much everybody except the most
| apathetic, seek to make a change to society to turn
| society in a direction they think will be for the better.
| Each have different value systems and experiences, and
| accordingly have different opinions about what's wrong in
| society and what would constitute society being better.
| Conservatives frame themselves as apart from this by
| saying they don't want change, but "not change" is itself
| a change they want to impose on society to bring society
| back into line with their values.
| D13Fd wrote:
| > We do have pretty good records to help us sort it out,
| especially for recent history.
|
| But why does it even matter, other than setting things up
| as "us" vs. "them"?
| D13Fd wrote:
| I think that is mostly imagined. Lots of "conservative"
| positions involve deep societal change and lots of
| "liberal" policies maintain the status quo. The reverse
| is true as well.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I think you're conflating (US) "Republican" and
| "Democrat" with "liberal" and "conservative". Most
| dictionaries define "conservative" in contradiction to
| your comment.
| themitigating wrote:
| I'm angry about the loss of abortion rights federally,
| the rise of Christian nationalism, politicians lying
| about election fraud, people calling their enemies
| pedophiles and communists, politicans not knowing what
| those words mean, and facism
|
| What is this center you think we are going back to
| because all I see are far right politicans and the end of
| American democracy
| FredPret wrote:
| By the way, I don't know where you're from, but I bet it
| isn't currently fascist. In the same vein, most leftists
| shouldn't be called communists. Examples of fascism are
| the Nazis, Mussolini, that Spanish chap, and apartheid.
| The only modern incarnation that springs to my mind is
| the Phillipines.
|
| I'm not saying I like the American right with their
| religion and their fixation on abortion (I do agree with
| them on some other things). I'm saying maybe there's a
| growing trend to the right, globally, and if there is, I
| hope it stops in the center and stays there for a long
| time, because I am a centrist.
| themitigating wrote:
| Who is more of a centrist right now, the republican party
| or the democrats?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _the end of American democracy_
|
| Granting all the problems you've cited, things have still
| been much worse in the past than they are today. Maybe
| not in the recent past, the 90s and 00s look quite rosy
| today in some (not all) respects, but think a bit further
| back. America has gone through civil war, anti-communist
| witch trials, frequent politically motivated bombings and
| assassinations, etc. Throughout all of that, people have
| remained hopeful that things could get better.
|
| The greatest threat facing America today is
| demoralization. The belief that demise is inevitable and
| cannot be prevented could do America more permanent harm
| than anything else.
| themitigating wrote:
| So people don't trust the government and the election
| system. Could that is why they think demise will occur?
| That's the doing of the republican party.
|
| Trump is constantly saying America is a failed state. A
| democracy fails because people don't believe it works.
| All of this is republican
| pseudo0 wrote:
| It's weird how the "Christian nationalism" meme has been
| pushed by the usual suspects when US church attendance is
| at an all-time low, and religious influence on politics
| is a shadow of its former self. My guess is it's a
| mixture of obsession with The Handmaid's Tale, and the
| need for an alternative pejorative term that can be
| applied to black and Hispanic conservatives.
| themitigating wrote:
| https://www.npr.org/2022/01/14/1073215412/christian-
| national...
|
| Evangelicals are key backers of the republican party.
| defterGoose wrote:
| Maybe those with countervailing opinions are too busy
| working for a living instead of commenting on the
| internet.
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| > Hopefully they stay close to the center for a long
| time.
|
| I feel like the "the left" is undergoing a purity spiral
| whereas other parties are scooping up everyone pushed
| out.
| paulcole wrote:
| > On Twitter, Reddit, and real life, the majority of
| people keep complaining about crime, drugs, homelessness.
|
| Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment but in the US,
| these issues are the result of _conservative_ politics.
| wincy wrote:
| Which is why there's so much violent crime in
| conservative bastions like Philadelphia, Chicago, New
| York, and Baltimore.
| paulcole wrote:
| Think of it like climate change. The weather today is the
| result of poor decision making 30, 40, 50+ years ago.
|
| Additionally, politics and policies exist at the national
| level as well and can influence what happens in even
| liberal cities.
| themitigating wrote:
| This doesn't include the last two years, which I'm sure
| have gone up, but the crime rate for most types of crimes
| in NYC has gone down significantly for the last 50 years.
|
| https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/nycrime.htm
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I'm not sure that's true at all. There have been many
| demonstrably effective short-term crime reduction
| strategies. Broken window theory being the most famous
| example. Shockingly, arresting and confining violent
| antisocial people reduces violence in society.
| paulcole wrote:
| Well as long as you're not sure that's good enough for
| me. I retract what I said.
| themitigating wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/22/nypd-
| fewer-a...
|
| The 'clearances paradox': could less policing actually
| reduce gun violence in New York?
|
| Your over simplifying the complex reasons behind crime.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I think you're oversimplifying the complex nature of
| policing. If we want peaceful, stable, societies we
| should model our policing systems on the places that most
| effectively deliver peace and stability. Two notable
| examples being Israel and Japan. Both places give police
| wide latitude to accomplish their goals and punish
| criminals _harshly_. Is Israeli policing discriminatory
| against Arabs? Yes. Is it effective? Also yes. Is
| Japanese prison inhumane by US standards? Yes. Is it
| effective in preventing the establishment of a criminal
| culture? Also yes.
|
| Violent antisocial behaviour presents itself in a small
| percentage of young (mostly) males. It can be predicted
| as early as age 4 and effective intervention is _very
| difficult_. Most people who present with it tend to age
| out of the behaviour by around 30. Therefore the only
| effective strategy to protect the rest of us from this
| tiny fraction of people is to confine them until they age
| out. This is basically what our criminal justice system
| does, however imperfectly.
|
| If we were to design a system eyes-open, knowing these
| constraints, with the goal of minimizing violent crime,
| we'd:
|
| 1. Enact age-based confinement - teenagers who present
| with violent antisocialism are very likely to reoffend in
| their 20s. Violent teenagers and young adults should be
| confined until they've aged out.
|
| 2. Structure prison culture - prison should not be crime
| university. Criminals should not be permitted to form a
| culture. Violent antisocialism should not be tolerated in
| prison. Instead they should be given the tools to find a
| legitimate place in society upon their eventual release.
| Japan does this quite well.
|
| 3. Seal records after release - criminal records relating
| to youth-associated violent antisocialism should be
| sealed. People we release should have a clear path to
| reintegration without discrimination.
| themitigating wrote:
| What if we model it after nordic countries which seems to
| be the complete opposite
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I actually think nordic countries do 2. and 3. quite
| well, and their crime rate has risen significantly due to
| the large number of migrants. The baseline number of
| violent antisocial people in a society also does vary -
| but avoiding the _creation_ of these people is different
| that dealing with the ones who already _exist_.
| themitigating wrote:
| Maybe you should check the crime rate in other cities.
| Also consider Covid and the economy as a more probable
| factor in an increase in crime.
|
| Here's just one set of statistics-Most Murders 2022
|
| St. Louis, MO (69.4)
|
| Baltimore, MD (51.1)
|
| New Orleans, LA (40.6)
|
| Detroit, MI (39.7)
|
| Cleveland, OH (33.7)
|
| Las Vegas, NV (31.4)
|
| Kansas City, MO (31.2)
|
| Memphis, TN (27.1)
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-
| rankings/cities-wi...
| moviewatcher333 wrote:
| And why rural Appalachia and small, highly religious
| towns across America are absolutely ravaged by meth and
| fentanyl and the crime around it, which you really should
| not ignore.
|
| You'll find a lot of "lock em up and throw away the key!
| ... But not my son. Or my daughter. Or my nephew and his
| children and my former coworker. Or my pastor's children.
| But everyone else, yeah"
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| Overly-liberal cities (SF, Vancouver, LA, etc) are
| killing far more of their citizens with failed drug
| policies than COVID, and with circumstance they've
| engineered such as giving _extra_ "safe" fentanyl to
| people, telling dealers they won't be arrested, and never
| institutionalizing against their wishes.
|
| The difference between approaches isn't "lock them up /
| don't" or "my kids / their kids". It's not a left/right
| or conservative/liberal divide, it's on another axis -
| more about the philosophical difference of personal vs
| group responsibility and meaning vs nihilism.
|
| We need to look at the path these front running cities
| are taking, and where everyone else will be dragged, to
| see the difference. The same cities which refuse to lock
| up a violent junkie _will_ lock up a parent who complains
| too loudly to the school board. It 's not that they
| aren't authoritarian, often more than conservatives. It's
| that they don't feel there's any degradation of the
| individual which is ultimately wrong. Like, an individual
| can "choose" to be a street whore and die painfully from
| heroin. That's valid. This is how all junkies eventually
| live and die, and without a strong moral consensus that
| this is all bad - for the junkie and society and that we
| must stop it, you can't make progress on the base issues.
|
| Vancouver will leave a junkie in their own vomit, to
| continue hitting the drugs that almost killed them,
| because "nobody should be committed against their will"
| but it will fine or confine an otherwise fit college
| student who drinks in public, or who commits any of the
| other offenses the junkie is committing (littering,
| starting fires on the sidewalk, having a violent dog,
| openly carrying a weapon, and so forth). The junkie has
| somehow "chosen" his or her role and now it's a beautiful
| thing, like a butterfly, that should be left to unfold,
| unmolested, in the parks.
|
| Portugal, often held out as a utopia for drug users, has
| a "not even once in public" policy where they will jail
| you and assign you to a multi-year rehab program. They
| know nobody _wants_ to die in their own vomit, in the
| street.
|
| We need to regain the compassion we've thrown away in the
| "everything is okay!" anti-conservative backlash such
| that we can help people in obvious distress. Once we all
| look at things that way we can see that our policies
| won't actually be too different, or rather, it doesn't
| matter if they are and we can work in a spirit of
| cooperation from different angles rather than fighting
| about the issue itself.
|
| Ultimately, Portugal is a more liberal society (for drug
| users) than Vancouver.
| themitigating wrote:
| "and with circumstance they've engineered such as giving
| extra "safe" fentanyl to people"
|
| Fentanyl is cut with other drugs and there's no fentanyl
| distribution that I can see. Care to provide a source?
| The drug is extremely potent to be consumed alone.
|
| ----------------------------------------
|
| Here's a DEA warning about mass overdose events from
| Fentanyl "Fentanyl-related mass-overdose events,
| characterized as three or more overdoses occurring close
| in time and at the same location, have happened in at
| least seven American cities in recent months, resulting
| in 58 overdoses and 29 deaths. Cities impacted include
| Wilton Manors, Florida; Austin, Texas; Cortez, Colorado;
| Commerce City, Colorado; Omaha, Nebraska; St. Louis,
| Missouri; and Washington, D.C."
|
| I don't' see SF or LA mentioned here. I'm sure some of
| these are Democrat controlled but You are claiming that
| liberal policies cause an increase in overdoses. Do you
| have a source for your death rates?
|
| https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2022/04/06/dea-warns-
| incr...
|
| ------------------------------
|
| Top 10 states by drug overdose in 2020 (latest year for
| this source)
|
| West Virginia 81.4 1,330 Kentucky 49.2 2,083 Delaware
| 47.3 444 Ohio 47.2 5,204 Tennessee 45.6 3,034 Maryland
| 44.6 2,771 Louisiana 42.7 1,896 Pennsylvania 42.4 5,168
| Maine 39.7 496 Connecticut 39.1 v1,371
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_
| mor...
|
| -------------------------------------
|
| "We need to regain the compassion we've thrown away in
| the "everything is okay!" anti-conservative backlash such
| that we can help people in obvious distress."
|
| Ant-conservative backlash? Republicans, as in elected
| officials, are calling their political opponents
| pedophiles and communists. They claim guns are going to
| be taken away for the last 40 years guess what actually
| gets banned? Abortion. Multiple Republicans are still
| lying about election fraud and you wonder why there's a
| backlash?
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| > Multiple Republicans ... and you wonder why there's a
| backlash
|
| I'm generally not in the USA so I'm trying to speak of
| things more internationally, and broader than just the
| divisive Dem/Rep mob.
|
| And no, the backlash I'm talking about is the last eighty
| or more years. The hippies are boomers, after all.
|
| > Top 10 states by drug overdose ...
|
| I'm not talking about deaths but deaths that society
| encourages. What would happen in that area if you tried
| to shoot up in front of a cop?
|
| > there's no fentanyl distribution that I can see. Care
| to provide a source?
|
| The programs aren't very well documented because they're
| "just" a doctor treating their patients, many of whom
| they never meet. The newspaper articles aren't great.
| Here's a transcript of the Alberta government examining
| Vancouver's drug situation for the purposes of setting
| their own policies. There are also other days of
| testimony and citizen input if you look around. https://d
| ocs.assembly.ab.ca/LADDAR_files/docs/committees/ess...
|
| > The drug is extremely potent to be consumed alone.
|
| Yeah. The dealers intentionally kill a few every now and
| then as an ad for their product and they manipulate the
| potency in competition with other dealers. The police
| warn non drug users that a cheap street dose is many
| times more likely to kill an inexperienced user than a
| similar dose from a decade ago.
| themitigating wrote:
| You provided a link to a Canadian program. If you don't
| have other sources then why do you think it happens in
| the us
|
| "The police warn non drug users that a cheap street dose
| is many times more likely to kill an inexperienced user
| than a similar dose from a decade ago."
|
| This is a conspiracy theory. Evidence?
|
| And about your first comment, I'm showing numbers of
| deaths, you're claiming that some part of that is
| encouraged and that percentage is higher for liberal
| cities. But the death rate doesn't correlate either way.
| So it doesn't make sense, even if it was encouraged
| apparently it's not making things worse
|
| Most of what you said is speculation and you haven't
| provided meaningful evidence besides linking to a paper
| in another country.
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| > You provided a link to a Canadian program. If you don't
| have other sources then why do you think it happens in
| the us
|
| Because the cities literally follow the same public
| policy. Don't arrest for "simple usage", camping on the
| streets is allowed, etc. They're getting advice from the
| same people. But yes, the USA does not that I know, have
| _vending machines_ for drugs yet, that 's still afaik a
| Canadian thing. In the USA you have to go to a "clinic"
| and ask a worker for your dose by hand and generally they
| want you to consume the drug there.
|
| > [Street doses growing in strength] is a conspiracy
| theory.
|
| Not even a little. I'm not talking about the why or the
| who. When tested the bags sold contain more active drug
| and many first-time users are reported dying when
| generally opioids (read erowid, etc) don't do that.
|
| > Evidence?
|
| Your googling fingers are busted but the ones you use to
| complain are working?
|
| > Most of what you said is speculation and you haven't
| provided meaningful evidence besides linking to a paper
|
| No, I've provided enough evidence to show that things are
| run by people who don't know what they're doing and are
| misrepresenting the studies to the city. If you can't
| find the public documents talking about your own cities
| you aren't trying hard enough.
|
| > in another country.
|
| Lol, so sorry the world doesn't end at your borders.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| What solutions are the conservatives offering to crime,
| drugs, and homelessness?
| thegrimmest wrote:
| The usual ones: effective policing and punitive justice.
| It works pretty well actually if your goal is to keep
| law-abiding citizens safe without much regard for the
| fates of criminals.
| themitigating wrote:
| Policing is the responsibility of the state. Are you
| saying Republican led states have less crime?
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Policing and crime are fundamentally local concerns. The
| main predictor of exposure to crime or likelyhood of
| police encounter is zip code. Some (local) policies are
| more effective at crime reduction than others. Among the
| most famously effective is the broken windows theory of
| policing. The basic principle being that arresting and
| confining antisocial people is an effective method of
| maintaining social order and stability. I'm not saying
| these ideas are "Republican", only that they are
| "conservative" in the sense that we've been practicing
| them for milenia.
| themitigating wrote:
| The concept of broken windows started in the 1980s and
| according to a recent paper it's not effective.
|
| https://news.northeastern.edu/2019/05/15/northeastern-
| univer...
|
| Here's an npr article showing that the effects in nyc
| were overstated
|
| https://www.npr.org/2016/11/01/500104506/broken-windows-
| poli...
| orangecat wrote:
| As a representative example, maybe arrest somebody when
| they assault a woman and kill her dog
| (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/nyregion/dog-attack-
| park-...).
| themitigating wrote:
| Who is responsible for arresting people?
| overrun11 wrote:
| Promoting strong family structures and communities.
| Supporting social norms that dissuade destructive
| behavior.
| staticman2 wrote:
| "Promoting strong family structures and communities"
|
| What does this actually mean in practice? This vague
| comment could mean anything from running for office,
| passing no laws and shouting "Hey don't get divorced" to
| passing laws making it illegal for anybody to get
| divorced.
|
| "Supporting social norms that dissuade destructive
| behavior"
|
| Nobody is for "destructive behavior". What is
| "destructive behavior" and what changes does this vague
| comment mean in practice? It could mean anything from
| passing no laws and shouting "don't do drugs" to
| dissuading homeliness by throwing all homeless people in
| jail.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I wonder - which Conservative would you look to as a good
| example to model such behavior and lead the nation?
| themitigating wrote:
| Really? promote or force?
|
| Can you name any policies or bills that Republicans have
| to make this happen? Can you prove that social norms have
| an effect on crime or homelessness? Are you claiming gay
| people are more likely to be criminals because they
| don't?
|
| Homeless: "Research shows that, compared to homeless
| families, homeless single adults have higher rates of
| serious mental illness, addiction disorders, and other
| severe health problems." How would social norms fix that?
| If an adult has a mental illness and can't afford care
| are you willing to have universal health care? You don't
| think if they had family that could take them in and they
| were willing they would do that?
|
| https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-
| about-ho...
|
| ------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here's some GOP news about social norms
|
| 1.https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/29/cawthorn-
| orgies-fre... 00021548
|
| 2.https://people.com/politics/madison-cawthorn-wife-
| cristina-d...
|
| 3.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/09/29
| /marj...
|
| 4.https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/07/jd-vance-
| violent-mar...
|
| "GOP SENATE CANDIDATE J.D. VANCE: IF PEOPLE LOVE THEIR
| KIDS, THEY'LL STAY IN VIOLENT MARRIAGES"
|
| 5.https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/23/matt-gaetz-sex-
| trafficking-p...
|
| and you damn well I know go on
| [deleted]
| cdot2 wrote:
| I'm not sure that wasn't the original intention for many if
| not most of the people advocating those positions.
| jeff-davis wrote:
| Less-powerful people tend to appeal to principles more,
| because principles tend to align with their benefit. You
| don't know whether the principles really exist until you
| see currently-powerful people hold themselves to the
| principles.
|
| I suspect nearly all people would fail this test, execpt
| those who've been on both sides (at least in small ways)
| enough times.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > The whole point of ditching quantitative tests is to empower
| the bureaucrats who want to make qualitative judgements based
| on their personal whims and biases.
|
| I can completely believe that this is the _result_ , but I find
| it very hard to believe that it is (at least in all cases) the
| _point_. At my university, the decision to stop considering
| some standardized tests came from the department and college
| level, where we don 't even make the decisions, not from the
| admissions department. While it is easy for me to believe that
| there were unintended consequences, I can say for sure that
| what you describe was not our goal.
| xfitm3 wrote:
| Affirmative action is racist. It must stop, along with hiring
| biases.
| revlolz wrote:
| >We used racism, to fight racism. Only fascists subscribe to
| meritocracy.
|
| -years later-
|
| OH no, we're taking the pr hits for our disgustingly
| discriminative and biggoted admissions processes.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| The greatest source of admissions inequity is childhood
| socioeconomic status. Dropping the SAT is so obviously not a fix
| for that I question the competency of the administrators who
| thought doing so was a good idea.
|
| The SAT is probably the most attainable piece of the application
| process for a poor kid to succeed at. You literally just need a
| guide book or two and enough time to study. One good smart friend
| helps if you're lucky enough to have one. Literally the lowest
| barrier to entry for a kid stuck in a shitty school with parents
| that aren't around and no money to your name. Is it still a
| hurdle for poor kids? Undoubtedly, but I can't think of anything
| that can show academic capacity that requires fewer resources.
| robomartin wrote:
| > The greatest source of admissions inequity is childhood
| socioeconomic status
|
| If we are talking about the US, no, I disagree.
|
| The greatest source of admissions inequity are shit K-12
| education.
|
| I'll give you a direct example from when my kids were at the
| local middle school. Their science teacher --a Chiropractor-
| turned-teacher-- was, well, there's no other way to put it, a
| moron. The guy actually taught the kids that the moon does not
| spin...at all. They, quite literally, had to answer the
| question that way on a test in order to get the points. I can't
| even remember the number of horrifically wrong things this guy
| was teaching his students. By the time my kids got to his class
| he had been there for about twenty years.
|
| It didn't end there. This guy was a bad teacher. He was angry,
| had self-confidence problems, would yell and scream at the
| kids, etc. If a kid had a question he would sometimes tell them
| "That's stupid question" in front of the entire class. Just
| horrible.
|
| I lost count of how many times I met with the school principal
| and vice principal to file complaints. I had many (friendly)
| conversations with him. He was clearly intimidated by someone
| who's daily life was about science and engineering. I offered
| to come in once a week to help out and bring stuff with me to
| inspire the kids (robots, space-related stuff I was working on,
| etc.). Heck, I offered to arrange for the kids to take a tour
| of a rocket-making factory. He never took me up on the offer.
|
| My kids, to this day, tell me their science education happened
| at home because that guy was a clown and other teachers were
| ineffective. There was no way to get this guy fired. He did not
| belong in a school, at all. He is still there. That school
| might get a better science teacher once he retires...with full
| benefits for life.
|
| I have other examples of truly bad teachers doing the kids a
| horrible disservice. Unions protect them. You can't get rid of
| them. We somehow accept this and it permeates the land.
|
| The bottom line is that we, the inhabitants of this land, pay
| taxes and fund schools that are going a horrible job of
| educating our children. The school is where we can clearly make
| an effort to provide kids from all walks of life with better
| outcomes, regardless of socioeconomic status. They can be
| learning calculus and science even if their parents didn't
| finish high school and are not in a position to help or advise
| them. They can be using computers even if they can't afford
| them at home. They can take inspiring field trips to the most
| amazing universities, museums and companies even if they don't
| have the means to do that outside of school.
|
| And yet, we don't do that. We don't have a unified nation-wide
| standard of excellence based on an absolute dedication to
| giving kids the best opportunities to learn, regardless of
| socioeconomics. Instead we hire people like the moron from my
| story, who, for thirty years, will not only teach nonsense to
| class-after-class, he also manages to destroy any potential
| opportunity for kids to get excited about learning science by
| being an absolute asshole.
|
| Put a different way: If we had really good K-12 schools and
| results, university admissions would not be a problem for
| anyone at all and success rates would be amazing.
| davidgay wrote:
| > > The greatest source of admissions inequity is childhood
| socioeconomic status
|
| > If we are talking about the US, no, I disagree.
|
| > The greatest source of admissions inequity are shit K-12
| education.
|
| You've missed the step where the higher socioeconomic classes
| opt-out of the shit K-12 education by moving to better school
| districts, sending their kids to private schools, or
| homeschooling them.
| robot1 wrote:
| This rings true for myself and a couple of my friends who grew
| up relatively poor in a wealthy area - our test scores on the
| SAT and relevant subject tests boosted us into private schools
| that we would not have gone to otherwise, which then led us to
| well-paying jobs right out of college. Last I checked, my high
| school implemented affordable/free SAT tutoring for all
| students and I hope to see more of it nationwide as I believe
| it helps immensely in socioeconomic mobility.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _You literally just need a guide book or two and enough time
| to study._
|
| I think it's important to realize just how extremely non-
| obvious this is, though, for many high school
| sophomores/juniors.
|
| I went to a decent high school and was in honors classes, and
| even _I_ would have had zero idea test prep was even a thing,
| if a single science teacher hadn 't randomly mentioned it in
| class once. I went to the school library and found the
| "Princeton Review" and practice exams and everything. I
| absolutely credit it with raising my score by probably a couple
| hundred points.
|
| But I never would have discovered it except for that single
| teacher's offhand comment. I just assumed it would be a test
| that was an accurate reflection of your knowledge/intelligence,
| so as long as you were going to school, you'd just take the
| test and get your grade. If someone had pressed me, I probably
| would have said that test prep would be something kids in rich
| schools wasted their money on that wouldn't make a difference
| anyways. I just had no idea.
|
| Yes, I absolutely agree that the SAT is the most attainable way
| for a poor kid to succeed at. I personally don't support the
| movements to remove standardized testing, not at all. But I
| also want to highlight how there's still an utterly gigantic
| step needed to reliably educate kids both about the importance
| of the SAT and how to prepare for it.
|
| Very often barriers aren't even primarily a question of
| money/time/effort -- they're simply a question of awareness
| that an option even exists or that it matters.
| Meekro wrote:
| I don't know when all of this happened to you, but these days
| there's no excuse. I just googled for "how to increase my sat
| score" and the first result was this collegeboard.org page[1]
| called "How to Improve Your SAT Score." It referred me to the
| Khan Academy's free SAT practice course[2].
|
| [1] https://blog.collegeboard.org/how-to-improve-your-sat-
| score [2] https://www.khanacademy.org/sat/confirmed
| matai_kolila wrote:
| Cool so when exactly is a student supposed to spend this
| time to study?
|
| I really think HN should stop for a moment and think about
| how insidious and pervasively poverty creeps into every
| aspect of a poor child's life, because some of what's being
| written here is embarrassingly naive.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| As someone who grew up super poor, time tends to be one
| of the only things poor kids have as much of as rich
| kids. Is that universal? Of course not, but name
| something better.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Let me reiterate: that requires for it occur to a student
| that you even _can_ increase your SAT score.
|
| That remains non-obvious. After all, IQ tests aren't
| supposed to be something you can prepare for. So why should
| the SAT be, if it's this kind of supposedly holistic
| aptitude test? Why isn't "school overall" all the possible
| preparation you could do?
|
| Again, the difficulty isn't primarily in getting the extra
| resources. It's in even _knowing_ that it 's something
| extra resources would help with at all.
|
| So the idea that there's "no exuse" is awfully judgmental.
| It's not just what kids don't know -- it's what they don't
| even _know_ they don 't know. You're not going to Google
| something if you'd never even suspect it existed, and you
| shouldn't be blamed for that.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| That's right. And guess who _does_ know that SAT prep is
| a thing and takes full advantage of it? If you said "rich
| kids and their parents," you win the prize.
| Meekro wrote:
| Not just the rich. I was an immigrant kid, and knew
| plenty of other immigrant kids. None of our families had
| much money, but we all had a do-or-die attitude about
| education and the SAT. You can bet we all knew about prep
| options, scholarships, etc. and we milked every advantage
| for all it was worth.
| Meekro wrote:
| So what if they call themselves an aptitude test?
| Believing what it says on the label is naive. I prefer to
| think of it as Jordan Peterson would say: it's a dragon
| guarding the treasure you wish to obtain. Your goal is to
| find a way to slay it. Family money can help, but I can
| tell you from experience that it's not a requirement.
| Some kids _fully devoted themselves_ to the slaying of
| this dragon; others had a more "whatever happens,
| happens" attitude.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Especially because the entire purported schtick of the SAT is
| to measure aptitude (the "A" in the acronym). In principle,
| if the SAT is true to its name, getting a study book
| shouldn't help at all. But since study guides or repeated
| testing does improve the score, it can't be a true
| measurement of aptitude.
| dlg wrote:
| It changed its name from the Scholastic Aptitude Test in
| 1990. (Over time they've also eliminated some of the
| sections most correlated with IQ.)
|
| There's a good history of the SAT and where it succeeded
| and failed in its goal of making college admissions more
| fair, The Big Test by Nicholas Lehmann.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| I don't think they meant aptitude in the strictest sense.
| You ability to learn and apply ideas is an aptitude in and
| of itself. That is something studying is a part of
| demonstrating, and the the type of aptitude these tests, I
| believe, are intended to measure.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Part of the argument for dropping the SAT is that the SAT has
| been shown to be a proxy for family socio-economic status and
| is no better an indicator of success at college than GPA,
| honor/AP/IB course participation, and extracurriculars.
|
| (I'm not making that argument myself, I haven't seen numbers
| explained well enough to form a solid opinion)
| dirtyid wrote:
| You can watch SAT prep videos and pirate prep books for free.
| GPA gets juiced all the time. Honor AP/IB had a solid
| premium. Very few extra curriculars that don't cost money /
| resources.
|
| The handful of kids (including me) that didn't pay 5 digits
| for fancy SAT prep at my school poured over some study guides
| and watched pirated VCDs and ended up doing better than kids
| who half hearted their private prep.
| ecshafer wrote:
| There are a lot of issues with this argument which any
| administrator should immediately see the issue with.
|
| GPA: Schools weigh GPA differently. One thing I saw was that
| some schools with honors / AP you can get above a 4.0 to the
| point of a 5/4. Also GPA can be messed up when someone has a
| bad home life, or works a job.
|
| honors/ap/ib: These are often related to which school you go
| to. Poor schools have few to no AP classes available. My
| school had 2 AP courses available, 0 IB. I was shocked when I
| went to college and talked to people that had 10 or 20 AP
| classes. Sure anyone can just take the AP exam, but I didn't
| know that at the time.
|
| Extracurriculars: Bad and poor schools have fewer
| extracurriculars.
|
| When you compare good schools (which are in wealthier more
| exclusive neighborhoods) with bad schools, not even
| accounting for private schools, its absolutely astounding the
| differences.
| civilized wrote:
| Almost everything colleges use to admit students is a proxy
| for socioeconomic status. Some things, like extracurriculars,
| could be far more correlated to SES. The only exception would
| be when a student gets points for being from a race or
| neighborhood that tends to be less affluent.
|
| Which raises the question: why single out the SAT?
| wisty wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
|
| "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good
| measure"
|
| SAT is a rugged system that performs well while withstanding
| concerted efforts by hackers to undermine it. Replacing it
| with systems that perform no better (when not under anywhere
| near as much fire, and appearing to have no real security) is
| probably not going to work so well.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| It doesn't matter what the numbers show on that, because it's
| a strawman argument. Most people promoting the preservation
| of the SAT, (certainly the OP by implication of his comments)
| is that a high score on it is a _sufficient_ metric for
| college aptitude, which has a low cost barrier of entry for
| the poor but intellectually gifted. The people who look to do
| away with it seem to wrongly assume that the former group are
| all saying a high score should be a _necessary_ condition for
| a competitive applicant.
| HarveyBungus wrote:
| 1) The SAT is obviously a superior and more objective indicator
| of "will do well on schoolwork" than the other components of
| college applications. Essays on political topics, biggest
| weaknesses, and a time you had to overcome a challenge are
| obviously less standardized, more subject to whims of reviewer,
| and this is why they are being promoted. The idea that there are
| kids with terrible scores but great portfolios of work worthy of
| admission seems wrong to me. The people with portfolios of work
| were likely already getting in.
|
| 2) "If you can study for the SAT that defeats the point" is
| wrong. Nassim Taleb made a point of demonstrating that these
| tests are study-able. The idea that you can't really study for
| the SAT is loserthink promoted by the SAT. Nearly everyone I know
| who wanted to succeed in school studied multiple times, took the
| test multiple times, and greatly improved their scores. It might
| still be unfair insofar as the better-prepared<->better-supplied
| kids get a head start but if you grind out a 1600 from a bad
| school that is still impressive and demonstrates hard work.
|
| 3) The solution to inequities in SAT/admissions is to devalue
| education via school, a la Caplan/ScottAlexander.
| joezydeco wrote:
| The "avalanche" of applications isn't just from the lack of
| standardized test scores, but the rise of the Common application
| platform.
|
| It's incredibly easy to fill it out once and then fire off a
| dozen applications in an afternoon.
| sbilstein wrote:
| common app is over 20 years old.
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| This is why, in the UK system, you're only allowed to apply to
| five or fewer universities in the same academic cycle. (It's
| possible to enforce this because all applications go through
| the same centralised system.)
|
| You're also not allowed to apply to both Oxford and Cambridge
| in the same year - otherwise both universities would get twice
| as many applicants.
| notart666 wrote:
| Honestly it wouldn't be as big of a deal if colleges accepted
| more applicants than they have seats for. The UofMN does just
| that and has a 70% acceptance rate and is a top public
| school. They have yet to run into any problems by doing so.
| While this might not work for colleges in say California or
| Ivy Leagues, for competitive and selective schools it's
| definitely an option almost none of them do.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Colleges do overadmit, including elite colleges, because a
| predictable percentage decline the admission.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| The term for the percentage of accepted students who enroll
| is "yield".
|
| Every college predicts its yield and admits enough extra to
| get a full class. It's basic college admissions.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_(college_admissions)
| https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-yield-788445
| slavboj wrote:
| Yes, that was the intention - to admit more "diverse" students
| without embarrassment, at the expense of kneecapping themselves
| with crappier heuristics for the general admissions pool.
| remote_phone wrote:
| > One college purchased a data service that ranked high schools
| and factored those high school rankings into each application.
| Students from underserved high schools received a lower ranking,
| an admissions officer explained. It wasn't a fair process.
|
| This is the crux of the affirmative action fascists. They picked
| what they thought was a "fair" set of criteria and it didn't
| produce the outcome they wanted. They concluded it wasn't "fair"
| because it didn't produce they wanted. That's garbage.
|
| Backing into an outcome simply based on skin color that they want
| is racist and truly unfair.
|
| If you want certain communities to do better in education, you
| don't manipulate the outcome by changing the selection criteria,
| you produce better candidates. Invest in education and safety in
| lower income areas. No one does this. South side Chicago and St.
| Louis Missouri and Baltimore aren't filled with stupid people.
| They are filled with people who have suffered generational
| poverty, living in some of the most violent areas of the world.
| If you dump money into schools, jobs, and police in those areas,
| you will produce a thriving middle class in a single generation
| and from there you can create hundreds of thousands and millions
| of educated "underrepresented" people that are COMPETITIVE.
| thefaux wrote:
| For everyone who finds the removal of admission tests ridiculous,
| how do y'all feel about leetcode?
| bombcar wrote:
| From what I've seen interviewees hate it (this is dumb busy
| work) but interviewers love it because of the absolute deluge
| of incredibly inappropriate candidates they receive.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Leetcode easies are fine, and that's all most companies outside
| of FANG ask in my experience. I've done interviews myself, and
| atleast 30% of candidates fail a problem that simply required a
| for loop to solve (no trees, no algorithms, just simple loop
| through list and do x).
|
| And if companies dropped the degree requirement and only asked
| leetcode mediums, I'd consider that fine honestly. Most of what
| I learned through college was useless to my career, 6 years out
| of college and I think I'd struggle to name even 25% of the
| classes I took.
| grumple wrote:
| I don't expect my employees to solve problems on the spot, why
| would I expect it of interviewees? I give them a short take-
| home challenge, and it has worked well so far - I have a great
| team.
| throwawayu64 wrote:
| I spend my time working on open source or other products
| instead of leetcode prep. This means I don't apply to FAANG
| roles.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > "I think the students that do have the strong test scores still
| do have that advantage, especially when you have a student that
| has strong test scores versus a student who doesn't have test
| scores and everything else on the academics is more or less the
| same," an admissions officer
|
| Why would we expect this to not be the case? It's literally
| additional evidence of scholastic aptitude and, if you want it to
| not have any effect on admissions, you have to prevent its
| inclusion* rather than making it optional, as optional means
| "those with strong scores submit those scores."
|
| * Or, accept them in the application but prevent their inclusion
| in the admissions process and use them only for
| research/analytics and only after the fall semester starts.
| rayiner wrote:
| What surprises me is how many Asians support these measures. Make
| no mistake: our ability to progress as we have in America has
| depended on the fact that objective metrics cannot easily be
| gamed. The cost of test prep is a minor barrier to entry compared
| to the cultural knowledge required to write an essay that moves a
| WASP admissions officer, or the social capital and connections
| required to get involved in charitable or social activities that
| stand out in an application.
| [deleted]
| WalterBright wrote:
| The value of test prep is way, way overblown.
|
| Besides, the idea that you have to be wealthy to avail yourself
| of test prep is absurd. I buy books at the thrift store all the
| time, and there are always test prep books there for a couple
| dollars. The local public library has them for free. yootoob is
| loaded with test prep videos. There are no excuses.
|
| If you want to prep for the test,
|
| 1. read lots of books meant for adults
|
| 2. pay attention in math class
| bushbaba wrote:
| Test prep is not overblown. Prior to test-prep I got a 630 on
| my math section. Post test prep I got an 800.
|
| Why? Prior to test prep I was solving the problems as I was
| taught in calculus. Deriving equations. The test prep re-
| inforced memorizing key formulas and how to think not about
| solving the problem but eliminating options and determining
| when it's faster to validate if a given answer is correct.
|
| SAT test prep does work. Similar to how FANG interview prep
| also works.
| WalterBright wrote:
| You'll wind up just knowing the formulas from paying
| attention in math class, and especially from doing all the
| homework problems and taking all the math classes your high
| school offers. To be sure, maybe your high school is
| deficient in teaching math (mine was). For test prep, then
| you need some extra math instruction, not test prep.
|
| > not about solving the problem but eliminating options and
| determining when it's faster to validate if a given answer
| is correct
|
| Those skills are not specific to test taking, they are
| general problem solving skills. You'll use them all the
| time in industry.
|
| BTW, I picked up an SAT vocabulary prep book to see what
| was in it. I knew nearly all the words. That's simply from
| reading a lot. I kinda doubt that memorizing words from a
| vocabulary book is going to help. The SAT prep book had
| "hundreds" of words in it. The typical high school graduate
| has a vocabulary of 10,000 words, for college graduates
| it's 30,000 words. Hundreds of words isn't going to make
| much difference. Besides, memorizing words is not the same
| as organically learning them from routinely encountering
| them.
|
| The TV vocabulary is 3,000 words if I recall correctly.
| That's right, TV is dumbed down. (On the other hand, that
| means one can learn a foreign language by only learning
| 3,000 words!)
| tester756 wrote:
| >You'll wind up just knowing the formulas from paying
| attention in math class, and especially from doing all
| the homework problems and taking all the math classes
| your high school offers. To be sure, maybe your high
| school is deficient in teaching math (mine was). For test
| prep, then you need some extra math instruction, not test
| prep.
|
| I don't agree that math classes are enough because
| teachers do vary, some sucks, some are great, but also at
| the end of the day they have to teach whole class, not
| just you, meanwhile maths on youtube runs at your pace
| stale2002 wrote:
| > For test prep, then you need some extra math
| instruction, not test prep.
|
| This is a worthless distinction, that is correct only on
| an irrelevant technically.
|
| The point being, that when people prepare for the test,
| they get better scores.
|
| Yes, there are multiple ways to prepare for a test. But
| preparing is a good thing, regardless of what you call
| it, or if you are saying that regular math class also
| covers it.
| WalterBright wrote:
| What I mean by "test prep" is learning how to game the
| test, not actually learning the material the test covers.
| kelnos wrote:
| Why does it seem so odd to you that learning how the test
| works, and learning about strategies that work for the
| specific test, can increase your score? It seems obvious
| that this would be the case, and it's pretty clear that
| this actually has helped many people (myself included)
| get a better score on subsequent attempts.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > What I mean by "test prep" is learning how to game the
| test
|
| You'd also be wrong here. Let me give you a simple
| example, that might not be immediately apparent to
| someone who doesn't know the rules of these tests.
|
| At one point in time, on some tests, there was a
| "guessing penalty" for getting a wrong answer.
|
| Having a basic understanding of how that works, and
| different guessing strategies, can increase your score.
|
| EX: questions like should you guess? Should you rule out
| answers, and guess on the remaining?
|
| There are even other things to think about, such as one's
| strategy for how long to spend on a question, and if/when
| you should give up on that one.
|
| A person not experienced in test taking, might make a
| mistake of spending too much time on one single question,
| for example, when instead it could make more sense to
| skim the test first, for easy questions, and answer those
| first, so you don't run out of time and miss easy points.
|
| Just learning the material doesn't automatically prevent
| you from making this mistake.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I think your metric of a deficient high school is clearly
| lacking. My high school math class was taught by an
| actual mathematician with over a decade of research
| experience and it was highly skewed towards understanding
| and derivation instead of memorization. This was highly
| successful in making for better math students and the
| class was a statistical anomaly in performance - and
| since everything shown was proven in class, it was not
| necessary to memorize anything. Homework was really only
| to improve mechanical abilities.
|
| I don't see how spending more time on memorizing formulas
| instead of actually understanding formulas, deriving
| them, and going above and beyond the high school
| curriculum would be a deficiency, and you would
| definitely be penalised in the SAT with such an approach
| over an objectively worse education where students are
| exposed to less math and more memorization. There is
| objectively no value to memorizing what amounts to trivia
| that you will then immediately forget.
|
| That is to say, I strongly disagree that SAT prep is
| actually going to be just making you a better student,
| and we seem to both agree that it is strongly correlated
| to SAT score, while using such prep is correlated to SES.
| kelnos wrote:
| It's a little weird that you're trying to tell someone
| that SAT test prep doesn't work, when test prep
| absolutely did work for them.
|
| It worked for me, too, though I already had a high score,
| and wanted to see if I could get it even higher. (It
| worked; I did.)
|
| That's great that you managed to develop SAT-ready
| vocabulary and math techniques on your own before taking
| the test. Many, many people don't, and test prep can help
| fill that gap, not only in their knowledge, but in
| strategies that work well for the test itself. And that
| last bit was probably what helped most for me: I, too,
| had a solid vocabulary (I read a _lot_ growing up), and I
| never had trouble acing my math classes. But
| understanding how the test itself worked was helpful too,
| and netted me a nearly-perfect score.
|
| It's pretty irrefutable that this can work; not sure why
| this is the hill you've decided to die on.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I've never taken the SAT, but I did take the GMAT. IIRC I
| used books by Kaplan and The Princeton Review.
|
| Preparation absolutely did help. I didn't develop any new
| generally-applicable skills, but I did:
|
| 1. Practice the style of essays these tests require.
|
| 2. Improve my speed at spotting specific types of incorrect
| answers.
|
| 3. Learn a few grammatical rules that were different from
| the way I learned English growing up. (It was a long time
| ago, and sadly I don't remember the specifics.)
| objclxt wrote:
| > Besides, the idea that you have to be wealthy to avail
| yourself of test prep is absurd. I buy books at the thrift
| store all the time, and there are always test prep books
| there for a couple dollars [...] There are no excuses.
|
| Not quite. You have assumed that money is the only barrier,
| but that is not the case.
|
| Arguing that "test prep is free - or nearly free - so anyone
| must be able to prep", doesn't account for the fact that both
| money _and time_ are barriers to test prep.
|
| What if you have no time prep because you must support your
| family through work? You have no free time to prep - or do
| any extracurricular - because you have a job. This is not
| uncommon! Or you have a parent or guardian who is
| incapacitated in some way and you must act as their care-
| giver? Again, not uncommon.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Or you have a parent or guardian who is incapacitated in
| some way and you must act as their care-giver? Again, not
| uncommon.
|
| It's _very_ uncommon for minor children to have to act as
| caregivers for their parents.
| WalterBright wrote:
| If you have a job, that will look good on an admission
| form. I certainly listed my job on mine.
| texaslonghorn5 wrote:
| With all due respect, college admissions have drastically
| changed over the past forty to fifty years!
| WalterBright wrote:
| How? And why wouldn't a job look good? A job shows a
| person is capable of being responsible, independent, and
| deferred gratification.
| alistairSH wrote:
| A job might look good, but not good enough to offset poor
| test results or grades due to hours spent working instead
| of prepping and studying.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Nothing's perfect. But a job will look good.
|
| BTW, admissions officers _do_ look for diamond-in-the-
| rough applicants. Those whose test scores are lower, but
| have a solid reason for why. An example could be a
| significant accomplishment at their job.
| dirtyid wrote:
| >many Asians support these measures
|
| (East) Asians that support these measures get the media
| platform. In East Asian dominant neighbourhoods I've been in,
| opposing these measures are one of the few things that has
| politically activated the community in decades.
| onetimeusename wrote:
| I don't think WASPs are given an edge here. I feel like it is
| actually racist to make this assumption also. White people as a
| broad category are the only racial group that is
| underrepresented relative to their population percentage in Ivy
| League schools. Maybe you could make the argument that WASPs
| are a subset of white people who are overrepresented
| specifically because of that faculty benefit for admissions but
| then I am not sure why, for example, you couldn't make that
| claim about other groups who are overrepresented in the faculty
| and student body. There are other groups who fit that critique
| but the people who argue Ivy League admissions are unfair seem
| to make a scapegoat out of WASPs exclusively.
| rayiner wrote:
| I didn't say WASPs are given an edge. But the institutions
| are controlled by them. And minorities must appeal to their
| fancy to get in.
| tdba wrote:
| > institutions are controlled by them Citation very much
| needed. Have you actually looked at who occupies the high
| level executive positions at Ivy league tier universities?
| It's not predominantly WASPs.
| onetimeusename wrote:
| _I didn 't say WASPs are given an edge_
|
| You are making a nuanced argument for sure then. But the
| Students for Fair Admissions have explicitly made the case
| that whites are given an advantage that takes Asian seats
| at Harvard via the children of faculty admissions,
| donations, essays, athletics, etc. But this discounts
| donations from certain foreign governments and I think it
| creates a misconception about the average white student
| there and pressures Harvard to specifically accept fewer
| whites (WASPs in particular imo) because that is the only
| socially acceptable result of their lawsuits despite whites
| being underrepresented there anyway. No one questions
| whether any other group has a backdoor admissions advantage
| though.
|
| _But the institutions are controlled by them. And
| minorities must appeal to their fancy to get in._
|
| If you had said this about any other group it would not be
| socially acceptable even though a case could plausibly be
| made that Harvard is not run by the stereotypical blazer
| and khaki wearing WASPs. That's really what I am trying to
| point out is how strange it is that only WASPs can ever be
| criticized. I am not even trying to play a race card and I
| am strongly in favor of free speech. I am just trying to
| point out that in my opinion there is misdirection going on
| and that WASPs are probably being scapegoated in the fight
| over Harvard. Especially since anti-WASPishness has been
| the esprit de corps in academia for some time, I doubt they
| have any real control there. See other commenter's posts
| for example.
|
| edit: this is a deep topic for sure and touches on a lot of
| American history. Given that every US president until
| Kennedy was a WASP, and that Harvard was started by WASPs
| for WASPs, Harvard's student body was undoubtedly slanted
| towards WASPs. But I personally doubt this has been true
| for at least a decade now but probably longer.
| rayiner wrote:
| > You are making a nuanced argument for sure then.
|
| It's not a nuanced argument at all. Harvard and similar
| universities are WASP institutions run by WASPs. When you
| have non-objective admissions standards, you have to
| appeal to their WASP sensibilities to get admitted. That
| doesn't necessarily mean they prefer other WASPs. They
| also like minorities that affirm their worldview (but not
| so much minorities that don't affirm their worldview).
|
| The root of your confusion seems to be thinking that I'm
| using "WASP" to mean "white people" generically. White
| people aren't a monolith. Harvard WASPs have nothing to
| do with folks in Appalachia (who may literally be white
| and Protestant).
| trafficante wrote:
| I think the person you're replying to is referring to the
| current(?) standardized testing regime that heavily rewards
| test prep above all else.
|
| There's a very obvious correlation between the SATs de-
| emphasizing essays (~2000-2005ish) and Asians absolutely
| blasting past Whites in terms of average SAT score.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| "White people as a broad category are the only racial group
| that is underrepresented relative to their population
| percentage in Ivy League schools."
|
| A better measure to consider: 4-year completion rates.
|
| At elite universities, Asians tend to have the highest
| completion rates (even higher than whites) suggesting that
| you could improve completion rates by admitting a few more
| Asians, and fewer from other groups (including whites).
|
| On this measure, Asians are the most 'underrepresented'
| group.
| pannSun wrote:
| If culturally-discriminating WASP admissions officers were the
| main barrier, one would not expect non-Jewish whites to be the
| most underrepresented group in the Ivy League. Circa 2019,
| looking at non-international students only:
| Ivy League US Ratio Mean SAT score [1] Jewish
| 17.2% 2.4% 7.16 n/a Asian
| 19.6% 5.3% 3.71 1216 White (incl. Jewish)
| 50.3% 61.5% 0.82 1148 Hispanic
| 11.4% 17.6% 0.65 1043 Black
| 7.8% 12.7% 0.61 966 White (non-Jewish)
| 33.1% 59.1% 0.56 ~1141 (lower estimate)
|
| Percentages don't sum to 100 because multi-ethnic students, a
| few minor ethnicities (American-Indian, Pacific Islander..),
| and students categorized as "unknown"/"other" by the
| universities were excluded. Data on university undergraduate
| demographics was taken from the universities own diversity
| reports. Jewish representation was gathered from
| http://hillel.org/college-guide/list/,
| https://forward.com/jewish-college-guide/, and
| https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/how-many-jewish-
| undergraduat..., taking the _lowest_ estimate when sources
| conflicted. ejewishphilanthropy.com (eJP) points out flaws in
| Hillel 's data gathering (e.g. showing Harvard as 30% Jewish,
| when eJP found it only 16%) Hillel seems to have since fixed
| these flaws, as the estimates they now give are in-line with
| those of eJP.
|
| [1] https://www.ednc.org/eraceing-inequities-the-influence-of-
| ra...
| rayiner wrote:
| Sure you would. WASPs don't like Jews and never have. Only
| the justifications have changed.
| pannSun wrote:
| It's the opposite. In a poll, WASPs gave Jews the 2nd
| highest rating (69, higher than Catholics, rating only
| themselves higher at 82), while Jews rated themselves at
| 89, and gave Evangelical Christians the lowest rating, 34.
|
| In other words, WASPs have a positive view of Jews, while
| Jews have a very negative view of WASPs.
|
| Source:
| https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2014/07/16/how-
| american... 2nd table
|
| In fact, no country has a more positive view of Jews than
| the US (at least among those polled by Pew research): https
| ://www.pewresearch.org/global/2008/09/17/chapter-1-view...
| - 2nd graph
|
| But this sampled all US residents, not just WASPs.
| rayiner wrote:
| That's counting evangelical Protestants, which aren't
| "WASPs" in the context of elite northeast educational
| institutions.
| someguydave wrote:
| Do you have a citation that demonstrates the effectiveness of
| test prep?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Make no mistake: our ability to progress as we have in
| America has depended on the fact that objective metrics cannot
| easily be gamed.
|
| Objective metrics can easily be gamed, and usually are, at the
| moment they are chosen. Metrics are almost always imperfect
| proxies, and the choice of metric is almost always driven by
| chosing the one that produces the most desirable results to the
| decision maker that can be sold given the notional purpose.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| >" compared to the cultural knowledge required to write an
| essay that moves a WASP admissions officer, or the social
| capital and connections required to get involved in charitable
| or social activities that stand out in an application."
|
| When I was in high school we were advised, in no uncertain
| terms, that the mixed race students should not hesitate to
| identify with their Non-White ancestry on their application and
| that doing so gives them an advantage.
|
| Universities and Colleges are all about diversity and I can't
| imagine the admissions department being an exception to this.
| Diversity scores also factor into university rankings and I
| can't imagine there are many schools that are actively trying
| to be less diverse in their admissions process.
|
| I don't follow the logic of needing social capital in order to
| get involved in charitable or social activities. I can't really
| think of a local charity that would turn down volunteers
| because they aren't WASP-y enough.
| filoleg wrote:
| > When I was in high school we were advised, in no uncertain
| terms, that the mixed race students should not hesitate to
| identify with their non-white ancestry on their application
| and that doing so gives them an advantage.
|
| One important caveat to this - I am not quite sure this would
| accomplish the desired effect if the other parent of such a
| kid was asian. Listing themselves as an asian instead of
| white for pretty much all top schools would almost definitely
| decrease their chances.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| That was actually a big concern. Especially for the Pacific
| Islander students who were worried about being lumped in
| with Asians. Nevertheless, they were still advised to
| identify as Asian/Pacific Islander rather than White.
| exhilaration wrote:
| I'm not sure where you're getting this impression, just read
| the Wikipedia page for SFFA
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions
|
| Asians are a pretty big and diverse group but I would say
| there's pretty strong support the lawsuits that will soon
| dismantle affirmative action.
| notart666 wrote:
| Realistically everything you listed here all requires you to
| come from at least an upper middle class family to attempt. My
| family couldn't even afford for me to join a club in high
| school. There is in reality no real fair way of selecting
| candidates without knowing more personal information such as
| their families tax history, income level, demographics,
| citizenship, etc.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I'm not aware of any clubs in my high school that charged its
| members. Not even the Boy Scouts.
|
| None of the colleges I applied to asked for my family's tax
| history or income level, except for on the separate financial
| aid application.
| metalforever wrote:
| I can answer this because I was in this position. Parents
| couldnt afford the gas. They worked long hours to make ends
| meet and couldn't take time to drive me to this stuff even
| if they had the gas money. Finally, there's just not a lot
| of ECs available in a lot of poor areas , like the one I
| came from. I filled that space in the app talking about my
| hobbies instead because there was no money. Yeah.
| atonse wrote:
| Not sure where you went to school but I went to a public
| school in DC.
|
| Both my immigrant parents worked crazy hours so I spent
| my evenings playing with friends and in various clubs.
|
| Computer Club, Orchestra (early morning practice),
| various sports like tennis and soccer.
|
| None of it cost my parents a penny, it was all free. Even
| school uniforms were free. I know generally in public
| schools, things are almost always free. If they aren't,
| there are pathways to pay for it.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| No, not remotely. Your experience is hilariously atypical
| of public school experiences.
| Izkata wrote:
| Same here. You were expected to find your own way home
| afterwards since the buses were long gone (parents drive
| you, upperclassmen gives you a ride, bike, walk, etc, so
| I guess cost of gas could factor in here), but in general
| none of the clubs cost anything to join.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The school clubs met after school, one was there anyway.
| The Boy Scouts also met within walking distance. The
| Scouts used to meet at public schools, but the people who
| hate the Scouts got them kicked out because they had a
| religious requirement for one of the ranks.
| fortran77 wrote:
| > but the people who hate the Scouts got them kicked out
| because they had a religious requirement for one of the
| ranks.
|
| Actually people who love our Constitution got them kicked
| out.
| WalterBright wrote:
| In my career in the Scouts, there was not one religious
| thing done in any of it. There was "trustworthy loyal
| helpful ... brave clean reverent", and AFAIK the reverent
| was only a word, with even less meaning than "under God"
| in the Pledge of Allegiance at school, or "in God we
| trust" on the currency.
|
| There was no religious requirement for being a Boy Scout,
| there were never any religious ceremonies at meetings,
| religion was never even mentioned in any of the
| activities or meetings.
|
| The only thing was one requirement for the Eagle Scout.
|
| The religious thing was just a convenient excuse for the
| people who hated the Scouts.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _The school clubs met after school, one was there
| anyway._
|
| And how did students get home after the club meetings
| were over, since the school buses weren't running
| anymore?
|
| > _The Boy Scouts also met within walking distance._
|
| Is it really that hard to understand that many people
| don't live within walking distance of their school, or of
| where clubs might meet?
|
| Or at least _safe_ walking distance; the last house I
| lived in before college was certainly within walking
| distance of quite a few things, but that would require
| walking along sidewalk-less, shoulder-less, limited-
| visibility, twisty roads with cars zipping around corners
| at 45mph. Even if my parents would have allowed me to
| walk along those roads (they wouldn 't), I don't think
| even my "invincible" teenage self would have felt
| comfortable with that.
|
| I was lucky that my mom was available to drive me to and
| from places after school, and on days when she wasn't, I
| could sometimes find a neighbor, or a schoolmate's
| parents to help. But many kids just don't have that
| option. More kids than it seems you realize.
| metalforever wrote:
| Can you please explain how the child would get home from
| the after school activity, if it existed?
|
| I'm being clear when I am saying there really aren't any
| EC options . In poor areas , there's no money because
| school funding comes from property tax . Where I went,
| the funding was so tight they had to fire the foreign
| language , art teachers and music teachers . If they
| can't afford regular instructors , where is the money
| coming from for the ECs?
| Mezzie wrote:
| Poor or rural. One of my school systems had less than 100
| kids in the middle school over an area of several square
| miles. There just wasn't the population density for
| many/any non-sport ECs (and even those were difficult).
| WalterBright wrote:
| Then create your own extracurricular activity. There
| aren't any rules about it. It just has to be something
| that shows initiative, drive, and ability to accomplish
| something significant. I did things like build a gokart
| out of scrap (had a lot of fun with that, too!). No
| adults were involved in any way.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Next you're going to tell this group to lift themselves
| up by their bootstraps....
| WalterBright wrote:
| Overcoming obstacles makes one an attractive candidate
| for admission.
| atonse wrote:
| Our school was in a better neighborhood but still a part
| of the historically pretty dysfunctional DC Public
| Schools system.
|
| Not sure how much was teachers volunteering, but we did
| have old instruments, old computers, etc.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I walked home from school. I can't recall my parents ever
| picking me up.
|
| The Boy Scouts didn't run on money. A chess club, book
| club, drama club, dance club, photography club, math
| club, etc., don't require money.
|
| Besides, creating something from nothing is going to look
| a lot better on an application than following a course
| that is laid out by instructors and papered with cash.
| atonse wrote:
| Yup same here. Public school was walking distance (20 min
| walk but not a big deal) so I didn't rely on my parents.
| We also had a public metrobus route with discounted fare.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| > I walked home from school. I can't recall my parents
| ever picking me up.
|
| In the United States in the 2020s being able to walk
| yourself to and from school without A) having your life
| in grave danger from motor vehicle traffic and B) having
| someone call CPS or the police on your parents is an
| incredible luxury.
|
| The neighborhood where I grew up was built in the early
| 90s and its elementary school and middle school are on
| the opposite side of an eight lane highway that has no
| crosswalks or sidewalks (on the school side) for at least
| a quarter mile. The town believes so strongly that no one
| should walk or bike to school that they zoned the school
| and built out the roads such that attempting to do so
| would sooner or later result in certain death.
| WalterBright wrote:
| We're talking high school, not elementary school. College
| admissions don't look at elementary school activities.
|
| High schoolers can walk around unattended. Even a quarter
| mile, both ways. It's not a big deal. In the summer I
| often try to get in 5 miles a day of running/walking.
|
| > incredible luxury
|
| Don't overstate your case.
|
| The irony in this thread is all the complaining about
| "can't do things that will look good on a college
| application" just means that another student who does
| find a way around obstacles is going to be the one
| admitted. Surmounting obstacles makes one a standout
| candidate.
| kelnos wrote:
| You seem to have had a pretty privileged upbringing. I
| did too. School bus was always available during normal
| hours, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom, and was
| (nearly) always available to drive my sister and me
| places.
|
| My schools were never within walking distance, and my
| parents wouldn't have been comfortable with the type of
| roads I'd have to traverse even if they were, even when I
| was in high school.
|
| Your assumption that everyone -- or even most kids --
| have a situation like you had is just flat-out wrong.
|
| > _Surmounting obstacles makes one a standout candidate._
|
| This is just hogwash; being in a position to surmount
| obstacles is privilege too. And you seem to be ignoring
| the fact that some kids _didn 't_ have obstacles, and so
| it was easier for them to participate in all these other
| activities: they started out with a built-in advantage.
| Even if you do have obstacles, and are able to overcome
| them, you're still going to have a harder time than the
| kids without the obstacles. And not in ways that are
| obvious to admissions departments such that your
| experience would give you a leg up.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| > High schoolers can walk around unattended. Even a
| quarter mile, both ways. It's not a big deal. In the
| summer I often try to get in 5 miles a day of
| running/walking.
|
| _Extremely_ location dependent. Where I live today, in
| Virginia very close to DC, I commute by bike and do lots
| of biking /walking for fun and to run errands. What you
| are saying about walking around as a means of getting
| from place to place is just completely untrue in many
| parts of the United States.
|
| I made a specific point about my ES/MS because of how
| egregious it was to have them at a half mile's walk away
| but with unacceptably dangerous terrain, in the very
| place I grew up. My HS was a couple miles away and, until
| ~2010 when they built a protected ~800ft long MUP, would
| have required walking/riding on the highway to reach
| without a car as well.
|
| The point of that is that if you live in an area like
| this and your parents work, you are extremely handicapped
| in what you can do by yourself. You would need a third
| car to get yourself around and if you cannot manage that
| then you are completely subservient to your parents'
| availability and your local school bus schedules for all
| of your transportation needs. Which has repercussions on
| clubs, extracurriculars, your social life, really the
| full range of experiences you can have growing up.
|
| When I was in K-12 my life consisted mainly of school,
| sleep, and playing video games in the basement. Now that
| I am in a city and can go wherever I want whenever I want
| I find I am extremely active and social and have many
| different hobbies.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I'm sure there are places where it is difficult to walk
| anywhere. Those are not the norm, however. I don't recall
| any places like that in Seattle.
|
| Most parents with kids try to pick places to live that
| are reasonably kid friendly. Real estate people know
| that, and advertisements emphasize things like
| walkability and distance to schools.
| metalforever wrote:
| Yeah this was the issue. It's probably a common one in
| rural areas like the one I am from. These areas also tend
| to lack public transit.
| andrepd wrote:
| /r/fuckcars moment, but yes you're absolutely right.
| Transportation in the US seems to be getting _worse_ as
| time passes, it 's actually incredible.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| Yes, absolutely an /r/fuckcars moment, growing up in
| suburbia with no survivable means of transportation
| besides the car made me extremely receptive to the thesis
| of that subreddit.
| poorbutdebtfree wrote:
| No one would dare complain if the incoming student body went from
| 80% white/asian to 80% black/hispanic.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| What if they eliminated racial consideration and it went to 0%
| black/hispanic? I wonder if anyone would celebrate?
| geraldyo wrote:
| People like you would
| hairofadog wrote:
| No? Nothing close to that has happened and many people are
| already complaining.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| Right now, you are complaining about how nobody would complain.
| absrd wrote:
| > No one would dare complain
|
| It hasn't even happened and you're complaining about it!
| Yujf wrote:
| It is honestly fascinating to look at the US (and many other
| countries) college system as a Belgian. Except in few cases
| (becoming a medical doctor is the only one I can think of but
| there might be others) you can just study what you want, where
| you want.
|
| Obviously the US can not do that as some colleges would be
| overrun by students but it is so foreign to me.
| mynameishere wrote:
| They are very upfront in terms of rhetoric about wanting more
| black and Hispanic students, but their policies are a lot of
| shuck-n-jive, trying to get that result while pretending to be
| fair. Nothing has worked so far. The pretending-to-be-fair sure
| hasn't either.
|
| So, one thing that will work and keep it all simple: Just
| establish quotas. "We will admit the highest scoring black
| students until we hit x%." But I suppose that would make legal
| challenges easier.
| kenjackson wrote:
| A better alternative is to fix the problem upstream. Push much
| more test taking prep for poor students. And reevaluate the
| SAT. It's well known the stories of the SAT not including
| questions blacks score higher on and using questions that
| whites score higher on. Try to remove the bias from the test
| even if that gives surprising results.
|
| I'm not a fan of quotas, but I do think taking race into
| account up until a point is reasonable. It's just a really
| tricky line.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Cite?
| kenjackson wrote:
| Cite what?
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| I assume the stories of black questions being dropped.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Ahh. See:
|
| https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar
| tic...
|
| There are some good snippets, but I'm on my phone. The
| whole thing is worth a read though.
| int_19h wrote:
| Hard quotas were already tried, litigated, and declared illegal
| by the Supreme Court - in the very same decision that allowed
| affirmative action in general.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_University_of_C...
| kewrkewm53 wrote:
| It seems like modern wokeism was designed to make it easier for
| rich elites to exploit their privilege. Stuff like this makes it
| easier for lazy kids with rich and connected parents to get into
| best colleges/universities. All the talk about race and gender
| also conveniently turns attention away form real solutions that
| could help the underprivileged, like progressive taxation, which
| the rich elites oppose.
|
| At least Marx was smart enough to understand that ultimately who
| has the money/assets is the key, unlike modern progressives and
| their obsession with other less relevant qualities. We should tax
| the rich and fund the poor regardless of their ethnicity or
| identity.
| int_19h wrote:
| It wasn't _designed_ for this, but you 're correct in that, so
| long as existing structures of economic power remain as they
| are, the rest is mostly just virtue theater.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I think this implies a personal philosophy along the lines of
| negative utilitarianism. I'm not sure everyone shares that.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Oh, you mean the correct one?
|
| Well, we need to make them understand that some ethical
| systems are better than others. Negative util is truthtil.
| 5mv2 wrote:
| It reminds me of European universities switching from selecting
| on humanities to selecting on maths a century ago.
|
| The idea was to remove the social upbringing's impact on test
| scores, as candidates from higher socioeconomic status are
| heavily advantaged from using a larger vocabulary from birth.
|
| A PhD friend who studied this told me it had no measurable
| impact. Put aside raising math tutors salaries of course.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I'm from a former socialist european country, and we use grades
| + standardized tests results to get into most colleges (art,
| music and acting colleges are an exception, due to obvious
| reasons). Everybody has to pass a standardized test at the end
| of highschool, 5 subjects, for most, the first three are
| slovene (our native language), english (second language) and
| math + two subjects chosen by the student (eg. physics and
| sociology, or chemisty and informatics, or whatever).
|
| The colleges just give out rules how to calculate "points"
| (usually 40% are the grades, 60% is the test score, but some
| (eg medicine back in my time) require you to choose chemistry
| or biology as one of your subjects and that is worth 20%, next
| to 40% for the other ones and 40% for the grades).
|
| Students know those rules, apply for a college they want,
| finish the year, do the standardized tests, get the results,
| colleges calculate them into points, and if there are 60 spots
| for _that_ study course, top 60 students are accepted... you
| don 't even have to wait to get your letter, colleges publish
| that the cuttoff was 82 points to get accepted, and if you're
| above that, you're in, if not, you compete in other
| colleges/programmes that still have open spots left over.
|
| No races, no letters, no subjective stuff, no problems with
| -isms.
| tester756 wrote:
| 40% are grades?!
|
| taking grades into account seems weird as hell
| gumby wrote:
| Why even pretend that admission is in some sense "fair"?
|
| I don't mean this as a "anti-woke" or "pro-woke" harangue, or as
| a middle school cynical pose.
|
| Admission in the USA is a manual and largely arbitrary process.
| Just like judges' rulings, it's influenced by which person
| happened to read the application, what they had for breakfast and
| what time of day it is. Plus random factors like the orchestra's
| french horn player having just graduated.
|
| We recognize this for hiring, why not school applications?
| Acknowledging it will reduce a lot of heartache.
|
| (Another heartache reducer would be the elimination of the
| "common application")
| forinti wrote:
| Just forget about trying to be fair: use some kind of test and
| pick out by lottery from the n best results.
| hawaiianbrah wrote:
| Why would removing the "common application" remove heartache?
| I'm not familiar with that idea.
| andrepd wrote:
| >You care about fairness and justice? Well why don't you
| simply... not? Then your problem is gone.
|
| Well that's hardly an interesting solution is it? x) Yes things
| are not good, and they might never be perfect. But that can be
| better.
| WalterBright wrote:
| A point is reached in that any improvement in fairness to one
| group will decrease fairness to another.
|
| For example, I'm bald. That's unfair. At some point, one has
| to just accept it and move on.
| VLM wrote:
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| It should be easy to make the student body reflect the diversity
| of applicants: select them at random.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| I'd have them selected randomly from those that clear the
| standardized testing bar. Otherwise, without selecting for
| academic performance, universities become a continuation of
| highschool where high achievers are surrounded by riffraff who
| don't really want to learn but rather spend a few years
| partying with student loans before hitting the workforce.
| causi wrote:
| _continuation of highschool where high achievers are
| surrounded by riffraff_
|
| One of the best things about adulthood is no longer spending
| every day with what one teacher called "the peanut gallery"
| hooting and squawking from the back of the room.
| bombcar wrote:
| The solution is to make high school more selective - which is
| done in some countries. Around 12 it is determined if you're
| on the college path or the tradeschool path and you go from
| there
|
| Then suddenly you have the ability to boot non-performers on
| the college path into something else.
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| I actually think this would be a good way to run admissions at
| ultra-selective elite universities - places like Harvard or
| Oxford where getting in or not can make a huge impact on the
| entire rest of your life. Everyone knows the evaluation process
| is bullshit and highly dependent on luck, so why pretend
| otherwise? Just discard those applicants who don't meet some
| minimum objective standard (SAT scores or whatever) then pick
| the remaining names out of a hat.
|
| It's never going to happen, but still. If people don't like it
| then maybe the solution is to improve the quality of other
| universities so that getting rejected from Harvard isn't such a
| big blow in the first place.
| texaslonghorn5 wrote:
| > places like Harvard or Oxford where getting in or not can
| make a huge impact on the entire rest of your life.
|
| ??
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| What part don't you understand?
| bombcar wrote:
| It's often not the quality as it is the network. It's well
| known that many state schools have excellent business
| programs (think MBA) but that you should only ever go to your
| local one, because the network you get will be limited to
| that locality.
|
| Whereas NYU Stern or whatever is a world-wide network.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Thomas suggested this as an alternative to using race as a plus
| factor in Grutter v. Bollinger. He claimed the existence of
| this alternative meant that the schools use of race was not
| narrowly tailored even if one conceded the compelling
| government interest in diversity.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| I find it hard to believe there's a shortage of people capable of
| teaching 1st year students, so this seems like a problem of
| artificial scarcity.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| It's all about margins. They want to squeeze teachers and get
| minimum-wage adjuncts to teach 1st years. At the same time,
| they want future rich people to be students, so they will
| donate back.
|
| Harvard, MIT, and Oxford have no problem finding future rich
| people. Random schools can't compete for smart people, so it
| makes sense for them to try to find prospects based on
| alternative criteria.
| efficax wrote:
| far from a shortage, there's a surplus of phds in almost every
| discipline. despite charging the highest tuition ever and
| sitting on massive endowments, the mbas in university
| administration don't want to have to pay for them
| hattmall wrote:
| Why would they even need phds at all. Teaching first year
| student should be more of a side job thing.
| hbbwebw wrote:
| If you're representing the college, how do you know the
| individual you're about to hire has sufficient knowledge to
| both teach the material and cover any questions on the
| material students may raise.
| youainti wrote:
| Just like any other skilled job, there is an interview
| process.
| dgacmu wrote:
| I think you're misunderstanding the challenge. Teaching
| first year students doesn't require Ph.D.-level knowledge,
| but it requires more teaching experience and skills than
| teaching later levels: The classes are larger; the students
| are less experienced at learning on their own; the students
| are new to the environment and less familiar with how to
| navigate it.
|
| Large classes of novices are particularly sensitive to
| logistical and teaching errors. You make a question on a
| homework or exam a bit confusing, you have 400 students
| utterly perplexed who may not have the domain expertise to
| know it's the question that's broken.
|
| At Carnegie Mellon, our teaching-track faculty generally
| own the large intro classes for this reason. They're the
| best we have at the process of teaching & education. It's
| the exact opposite of a side job. You want people who are
| deeply expert and passionate about teaching so that you
| don't completely botch the job, because the opportunities
| to botch it are huge.
| [deleted]
| MengerSponge wrote:
| It also takes a lot of expertise to understand _why_
| certain subjects are introduced in intro courses, and to
| frame those ideas in a way that will help those students
| learn more advanced topics.
|
| It doesn't require Ph.D. level knowledge, but it helps a
| _lot_ , especially when you're talking to one of those
| few students with more and deeper questions about the
| subject.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| The local community college will have openings for adjuncts.
| You go first and teach a semester, then you'll have a better
| understanding of the problem field.
| indymike wrote:
| > I find it hard to believe there's a shortage of people
| capable of teaching 1st year students, so this seems like a
| problem of artificial scarcity. reply
|
| The supply is short because at least in the US, entry pay is
| low in higher ed.
|
| - $25/hour w/ benefits for semi-skilled labor
|
| - $42k/year no benefits for adjunct
| bombcar wrote:
| Sounds more like the supply is overflowing that they can
| charge factory rated for it. Same reason flight instructors
| are so cheap.
| yasp wrote:
| Was this not obvious from the outset? Do these people not
| consider the consequences of their actions beforehand?
| warbler73 wrote:
| As Nelson in The Simpsons would say: "Ha ha!"
|
| In other words, this was a foreseeable consequence.
|
| > Without SAT and ACT scores, he explained, the job of admitting
| students had become more subjective and more time-consuming.
|
| It's amazing we are doing a nationwide experiment to find this
| out.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I am confused as to why this wasn't expected. "We removed our
| objective measures, but then the process became more
| subjective." Riiiiiiight.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Alternate headline: "Colleges that ditched
| admissions tests have to actually holistically evaluate
| applicants rather than reduce them to two numbers"
|
| No doubt that it's more subjective and more difficult; human
| beings are complex, multi-dimensional entities and I find it sad
| that in many of these selection processes, they are reduced to a
| few numbers for the sake of low effort filtering.
| ferrocarraiges wrote:
| petilon wrote:
| With the 10s of thousands of applications top universities get,
| there isn't enough time to evaluate the "complex, multi-
| dimensional entities" behind each application.
|
| At University of Washington, applications are not reviewed by
| "admissions people". They hire temporary workers (grad
| students, retirees etc.) to review applications, and give them
| 8 minutes per application [1]. And this is typical of most
| universities.
|
| [1] https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/a-look-inside-
| admis...
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| It's not that it's not possible but rather we've simply been
| so lazy that we don't have the right heuristics.
|
| No; I don't have the answer. I'm not an economist nor an
| admissions expert. But I've qualified and hired software
| engineers over the years and my process never focuses on a
| score or outcome of an assessment.
| kenjackson wrote:
| But at highly competitive schools you still have several
| times more students with 1500 SATs than you have available
| spots. So you eventually need to use holistic judgement
| anyways.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| They could just admit at random from among that group. What
| would be the downside?
| hotpotamus wrote:
| That's my suggestion - who wants a school full of unlucky
| kids?
| ctoth wrote:
| Okay, great Ringworld reference.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I'm not sure if you mean the book or the game (I've only
| read the book) but I think it might go back further than
| that. But maybe I got it from there.
| kenjackson wrote:
| So no cutoff, just an SAT score? And then a cutoff based
| on that? What about GPA? Weighted GPA? AP tests matter?
| Creating a cure for COVID matter?
|
| I think for the very top schools they care about the
| intangibles. For mid-tier schools the SAT cutoff lottery
| is fine. But the cut off is probably like 1150, and these
| arguments aren't about those schools.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Just an SAT cutoff. Maybe cure Covid kid ends up at
| Vassar instead of Princeton. So what? Will his life be
| over? Will the US decline into irrelevance?
| kenjackson wrote:
| That's an interesting race to the bottom for those
| schools. They'd end up with kids who basically ditched
| studying advanced math, physics, research, etc and just a
| lot of kids who prepped for the SAT for four years.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| The "advanced math, physics, research, etc" in high
| school is all just college admissions prep too. When you
| major in math you have to take an analysis sequence
| starting at the beginning because AP calculus isn't
| actually math. It's just memorizing and learning to
| execute some math related algorithms.
|
| It's all just signaling. Let's be open about that instead
| of hiding the ball.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Again there's levels to this. Harvard Math 55 is filled
| with exceptionally strong math students. I'm a 1500 SAT
| student, but not a Math 55 student. Them not being able
| to differentiate these classes of students seems
| problematic.
| droidist2 wrote:
| So basically the SATs are too easy. They could put more
| advanced math on the test.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Problematic is such a vague word. Connect the dots for
| me.
|
| The top N schools in the nation, collectively
| representing enough seats to account for 5% of SAT
| takers, all change their admissions policies to select
| randomly among applicants in the top 5% of SAT scorers.
|
| After ten years of these policies being in place we will
| likely see the following negative effects:
| kenjackson wrote:
| Here are some of the connection. The SAT is a basic test
| where strategy can come into great affect. And honestly,
| it's surprising how little some of the strategy is talked
| about -- but I suspect amongst the wealthy it's well
| known.
|
| But back to the topic. A 1550 on the SAT says very little
| about your mathematical ability. The test just doesn't
| measure your ability to do more than basic algebra and
| has no real measure of writing ability. And honestly
| probably has a somewhat inverse relationship on your
| ability to read nuance into text (which is one of the
| first strategies I teach -- this isn't English class --
| there's no nuance in anything you read on the SAT).
|
| On advanced college math -- kids who are actually good at
| math likely have a high math SAT score, but their verbal
| score can vary a fair bit. I regularly see kids with
| 1400-1450 SATs, with perfect math scores who are Math
| Olympiad stars.
|
| The likely end game of this though is that schools REALLY
| start teaching to the test. Why even offer AP tests if
| they don't help admission? Why even teach biology or
| physics at all? Simply teach SAT math, reading
| comprehension (which is comprehension of the worst kind)
| and what the SAT calls writing. So no more calculus or
| statistics. Even most of what is taught in algebra II is
| thrown out the window.
|
| Today the 95%ile of SATs is around 1440. It would
| probably move up to around 1550, once schools teach to
| that test year around for four years. And any actually
| advanced undergrad courses are tossed because they can't
| get enough students to fill them.
|
| And other countries will realize that the US left a huge
| gap -- the ability get students who strong in like areas
| and train them. They'll target the best math students,
| the best programmers, the best artists, etc...
|
| Interestingly, the best meritocracy we have in society is
| sports. And in sports they recruit holistically -- that
| is they don't exclusively use HS stats (these are
| generally worthless) or combine numbers (these have some
| value, but limited). They use scouting services. And the
| very best athletes tend to congregate in programs that
| will develop them the best. Many hold up sports as a
| great example of meritocracy, yet it actually doesn't
| rely solely on measurables (in fact they are moving
| further and further from it).
|
| What sports has though is a good objective function. What
| is the objective function of school? Answering that
| question will greatly help determine what the best path
| forward is.
| 0x445442 wrote:
| This is genius and would probably accurately capture the
| overall demographic makeup of that group of 1500 SAT
| applicants.
| Jabbles wrote:
| Well you have to reduce them to a single bit eventually: either
| they get admitted or not.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| There is plenty of evidence to doubt the whole "holistic
| evaluation" line of thought, which is often a tool for subtle
| discrimination. And pretty much all of these schools already
| did "holistically evaluate" students; test scores were just one
| part of that evaluation.
|
| Besides, at the end of the day _everything_ boils down to a
| single number - applicants are ranked and those that make the
| cutoff get in, those that are below the cutoff don 't.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| > Besides, at the end of the day everything boils down to a
| single number
|
| This is about as silly as dating app profiles that cut off at
| 6'.
| boppo1 wrote:
| >This is about as silly as dating app profiles that cut off
| at 6'.
|
| But it's reality. Women extremely rarely think of men under
| 6' as _ideal_ mates.
| Spivak wrote:
| Holistic evaluation in practice really means "present your
| best self in your application whatever that might be." It
| allows for a range of impressive feats outside "was good at
| the arbitrary selection of school subjects and
| extracurriculars."
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| In practice it _also_ often means, "This Asian isn't 'well
| rounded' enough and they're only into math and chess club."
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-
| enrollme...
| Spivak wrote:
| I don't really know what you do to combat this kind of
| thing because what would you do as an admissions officer
| trying to create a student body with a wide range of
| skills and experiences but you have thousands of
| applicants who are "focused on having perfect grades to
| the detriment of everything else and participated in the
| 'look how smart I am clubs'."
|
| And I say this with full self-awareness that this was me.
| It's probably the thing I regret most about my high
| school experience because of how unnecessary it was and
| how much it set me back on all the things that mattered.
|
| I consider myself extremely lucky that any university
| took a chance on me because my application was 100% "I
| have no real interests except playing the game of school
| and winning by min-maxing the point system" which looking
| back is so obviously the worst applicant. I for sure lost
| out on my dream school because of it.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Easy:
|
| 1. Have some minimum objective criteria (test scores,
| grades, class rank, etc.)
|
| 2. Accept students who meet that minimum with a lottery.
|
| Of course, that would never happen at highly selective
| colleges, because it would shatter the notion that "only
| the best and brightest" got in and would ruin colleges'
| role as a maintainer of social hierarchy in the US.
|
| I say this as a person who went to one of the most
| selective colleges in the world: the idea that colleges
| set up their application systems to build a "diverse"
| student body is complete and total bullshit. The reason
| being that some of the most important diversity comes
| from interacting with people of widely varying economic
| levels _and intelligence levels_. The idea that you can
| have a socially diverse student body, but only made up of
| people who got 4.0 GPAs and above, is bullshit on its
| face.
| derbOac wrote:
| Yeah, I almost felt like flagging this submission. It's taking
| something that on its own could be interpreted in many ways and
| giving it a strong political spin.
|
| For the sake of argument, let's imagine a college doing the
| opposite: admitting students _solely_ on the basis of a
| standardized test score. You submit your SAT score, and
| everyone above a certain percentile is admitted. People below
| the threshold are not. Many of the comments here seem to think
| this is optimal.
|
| In _that_ scenario, there wouldn 't be _any_ complaints from
| admissions committees at all about them having to put effort
| into the situation, _because they wouldn 't be involved at
| all._ So is it being difficult a sign that reality is more
| complex than suggested by a test score, or that they've lost an
| objective indicator?
|
| Most of the statistics thrown around in the article could also
| be turned on their head. For instance, just hypothetically, if
| getting rid of the test isn't changing the student body, what's
| the point of the test?
|
| Having an objective number is useless on its own. Even if it's
| roughly correlated with the outcomes you desire, if it's that
| roughly correlated with outcomes, and subject to biases,
| there's no point in having it.
|
| I feel like these tests are kind of like buying a house based
| on nominal square footage alone. Sure, it's probably correlated
| with satisfaction and resell value, it's an objective indicator
| that involves some measurement, and so forth, but no one would
| buy a house that way. It's subject to all sorts of manipulation
| and fuzziness, and doesn't tell you anything about the
| architecture, lot, or anything else. And yet that's kind of how
| standardized tests are used.
|
| I'm fine with using standardized tests in theory, but they're
| far too abused and misused. It's not so much the tests I have
| problems with, as it is how it seems once you introduce them,
| it seems they can't be interpreted rationally in making any
| sorts of decisions about human beings. It's like people take
| something that has a sliver of information value with all sorts
| of limitations, and then treat it like an infallible signal
| just _because_ it 's easy to use.
|
| Its ease of use could be seen as a problem, not something
| desirable.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| > I feel like these tests are kind of like buying a house
| based on nominal square footage alone
|
| Great analogy.
|
| Buying a house is about far, far more than just the square
| footage. How are the neighbors? How's the walkability? Noise
| levels? Schools? Access to transport routes? Access to jobs?
| Property taxes? HOA fees? Access to activities of interest?
|
| There are so many factors to buying a house that it would be
| ridiculous to look at any single dimension alone and make a
| determinate based on that one dimension.
| luckylion wrote:
| > There are so many factors to buying a house that it would
| be ridiculous to look at any single dimension alone and
| make a determinate based on that one dimension.
|
| But that's not what they've been doing. Standardized tests
| played a role, but were not the only factor.
|
| To continue the house analogy: look at everything _but_
| square footage before you make an offer.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "holistically evaluate applicants"
|
| How likely is it that this _holistic evaluation_ will end up
| preferring individuals conforming to the current Zeitgeist
| (e.g. using all the momentarily popular buzzwords in their
| applications) rather than truly talented candidates? Thus
| contributing to further ossification of current elites?
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| An academic institution shouldn't only be about picking truly
| talented candidates; that's the exact opposite of holistic.
|
| My take is that part of the function of an academic
| institution is to help individuals discover and develop
| talents.
|
| A good teacher isn't one that helps A students get A's but
| one that can develop any student into an A student.
|
| To merely select and propel those who already have the talent
| rather than select for the capacity to grow and develop
| talent is precisely why score based systems are biased in the
| first place.
| rainsford wrote:
| Exactly. Of course having numerical values you can directly
| compare is going to be the easiest way to select students, but
| it's only "fair" to the degree those numbers accurately reflect
| the relative academic performance and potential of the
| students.
|
| I think the reason people so vigorously defend the use of
| standardized test scores in admissions is that we all have a
| built in bias towards viewing quantifiable comparisons as
| inherently more objective because it's easy to justify how you
| arrived at a decision. After all, who can argue with a decision
| based on one number being larger than the other?
|
| The problem though is that this approach doesn't really remove
| the subjective, complex elements at all, it just moves them
| from the decision step to the measurement step. Sure, an SAT
| score is just a simple number. But how the test is constructed
| to arrive at that number is much more complicated. And the
| value of a simple score comparison is only as good as the
| process of constructing the test, leaving you with the illusion
| of having made the decision simpler and more objective when you
| really just move the complexity behind a curtain.
|
| In tech terms, I think the analogy is project managers trying
| endless different ways to measure software development
| performance. Number of tickets closed, "velocity", commits,
| releases, etc, (lines of code if you're very unlucky), all give
| you nice simple numbers to look at. And while they're not
| entirely useless, it's easy to become overly reliant on them
| and assume they are more objective measures than they actually
| are.
| 0x445442 wrote:
| > Sure, an SAT score is just a simple number. But how the
| test is constructed to arrive at that number is much more
| complicated.
|
| But you're ignoring the other side of that number. That test
| score provides a hell of a lot of information about the
| individual beyond just doing well on a single test.
| antasvara wrote:
| Removing SAT scores doesn't remove the subjective and complex
| elements, but it does give a measure that took more than 8
| minutes to arrive at.
|
| As a previous commenter mentioned, UW spends about 8 minutes
| looking at applications at first. This isn't nearly enough
| time to make a "holistic" decision, especially when the
| application is largely subjective.
|
| SAT scores, on the other hand, take longer than 8 minutes to
| arrive at. The subjective evaluations that go into designing
| the test can be determined over the course of months, leading
| to a measure that is imperfect but likely better than 8
| minutes of a grad student's time.
|
| The larger point is that in order for "holistic" admissions
| to work, you need to design an admissions process that
| actually evaluates candidates holistically. Removing SAT
| scores doesn't automatically fix those issues, it just
| removes one more piece of data to aid the process.
| luckylion wrote:
| > But how the test is constructed to arrive at that number is
| much more complicated.
|
| Is that done per student behind closed doors though, with the
| people calculating the score knowing who the student is and
| the ability to alter the scoring based on that knowledge?
|
| Standardized tests are bad, but they're a giant step up from
| the corruption that is other forms of selection.
| subradios wrote:
| On the contrary, test scoring is the most objective thing we
| had to evaluate students based on the diligent work of a
| company whose entire business is maintaining that perception
| of objectivity. Sure, it's "the perception of", but if you
| think there aren't smart people analyzing college board exam
| scores across the country for signs of skewed testing so they
| can write an expose on it, you're far from reality.
|
| In fact - the line that you're walking is the reason there
| was briefly a suggestion of an "adversity score": https://www
| .google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/college...
|
| Which is the first time that's been considered, because in
| the current climate - working extremely diligently to try to
| ensure that no particular student or group of students has an
| advantage, some students _do_ have an advantage. They are
| smarter, or have better parenting, or better education, or
| their parents simply have more money to throw at tutoring
|
| You can say "that's unfair! This is about selecting the best
| students and locks smart people from worse off backgrounds
| out of university!"
|
| It does the second thing, sometimes, as a side effect - but
| it is also true that those students are still better
| students, regardless the path dependence.
|
| Meanwhile, universities are enacting racial and gender
| preference schemes, Cites: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&so
| urce=web&rct=j&url=https:/...
|
| https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/.
| ..
|
| Additionally, the primary winner of the policies this line of
| argument promotes are white women - with the primary loser
| being Asian men. Asian students in particular are bringing
| the suit against Harvard for these practices.
|
| So while your epistemic humility ("is this REALLY objective?
| How do we measure that?") is well intentioned, it's the exact
| sort of reasoning used to cover up a strict ideology of "more
| black good, more women good, less white good, less men good"
| in universities, and the actual behavior of universities shoe
| that.
| Spivak wrote:
| You're glossing over the core issue which is that
| universities (and employers when hiring juniors for that
| matter) need to measure _potential_ and many of the
| objective measures do correlate but do so weakly. It's why
| we don't hire based on Leetcode, whiteboard algorithms
| problems or GPA. Doing better on those is a positive sign
| but I can get a much much stronger signal through a
| conversation, probing to find out their strengths and
| passions and then setting them up to show off.
|
| And look, race and gender ends up being a component but not
| in the way you're describing. I'm not being like "woman
| good" it's that a woman sitting across the table describing
| her technical achievements is made more impressive because
| I know first hand what women have to go in CS programs --
| you don't put up with all the bullshit unless you're really
| passionate. An example based on real life, a woman
| _leading_ her capstone project group is unfathomably
| impressive because of how decisively strong her technical
| and communication skills have to be to earn the respect of
| the men in her class.
| subradios wrote:
| Who is we?
|
| Literally every major tech company hires on effectively
| leetcode alone.
|
| https://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-
| to-ma...
|
| Men perform (slightly) etter on technical interviews when
| modulated as women, and women perform the same.
|
| The idea that women are "putting up with so much more
| bullshit" when we have every major university and large
| tech employer bending over backwards to find more women
| who are interested, sky high salaries, and that we can
| show notable although weak bias in favor of women in
| settings where gender is obscured is out of date at a
| minimum.
| Spivak wrote:
| > when we have every major university and large tech
| employer bending over backwards to find more women who
| are interested
|
| I swear this is always at the core of it. Trust me it's
| not as glamorous as you make it out to be. Yes tech
| companies are bending over backwards to find and hire
| competent women because we're rare (and why!) but that
| statement is not _at all_ the same as women have lower
| standards. You have to understand that literally no team
| ever is going to burn their hire on a perceived less
| qualified woman because she's a woman. The desire to have
| the best person because the team is lazy and wants
| someone who will make their lives easier always wins. And
| not to put too fine a point on it but your average team
| of tech folks is pretty anti-woke liberal-tarian
| meritocracy so you're not getting a whole lot social
| justice bias there. I guess this could happen if you have
| HR hiring in a vacuum but I've never seen a place where
| the team doesn't have the final say.
|
| > putting up with so much more bullshit
|
| The bullshit is the culture. Look I wish this wasn't true
| but it's the unfortunate reality of being a woman in a CS
| major. Your male classmates do not see you as an equal.
| there is an in-built presumption that you don't know what
| you're doing; any normal mistake you make that guys make
| too just cements it. When you're doing group work nobody
| listens to you and you get the "fun" experience of
| waiting for them to catch up and then having no
| recognition at all that you had already told them.
| Getting study groups together is awful one because guys
| will not let you join because they think you'll be a
| drain, or they will let you join and then hit on you. Do
| you know how many fucking times I got told to go make me
| a sandwich? In more than one class I just asked the
| professor to do group projects alone. And that's _before_
| dealing with how isolating it is to be the only girl in
| class and having the shock and head turns the first time
| you speak.
|
| It's not perfect by any stretch of imagination but I
| would have been driven out of tech had I not by chance
| landed at a few companies with older teams and realized
| that maturity makes a huge difference.
|
| > and that we can show notable although weak bias in
| favor of women
|
| Well yeah, of course you expect that. I just talked about
| a situation where a woman saying something is more
| impressive than a man saying the same thing. Context
| matters.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Even very high scorers sometimes find it impossible to get into
| top schools. Part of the problem is supply of slots has not kept
| up with population growth. It's not like Harvard's enrollment has
| kept up with population growth. Another problem is that the
| ceiling of standardized tests has been lowered, so top scores
| more more common.
| bombcar wrote:
| Universities like to limit themselves somewhat because they
| don't want to endanger the brand, but it takes an insane amount
| of money and effort to get a new college or university off the
| ground.
|
| The state schools may be able to sidestep this a bit.
| kelnos wrote:
| Not just an insane amount of money and effort, but likely
| decades to develop a reputation that could rival that of a
| Harvard or MIT. When you're starting from zero, you're not
| going to be able to attract top-notch faculty.
| wincy wrote:
| I know a guy who got a perfect on his SAT at my lower middle
| class suburban high school back in 2004 or so. He got rejected
| from Harvard. Even the most prestigious school around the
| Kansas City Metropolitan area only gets 1 or 2 people going to
| Ivy League schools every year out of maybe 200. Which I think
| is funny because they definitely bill themselves as an "Ivy
| League Prep" type of school.
| wallscratch wrote:
| You mean Pembroke? Probably more like 5-10 kids a year. Even
| my public suburban kc high school had 7ish kids going to
| ivies my year.
| ordinaryperson wrote:
| I'd encourage everyone to read Emily Shaw's research on this
| topic: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED563202.pdf
|
| "Validity of the SAT for Predicting First-Year College Grade
| Point Average"
|
| TL;DR: High School GPA + SAT score produce correlation
| coefficient values between 0.44 and 0.62, depending on the
| population. How strong are those values?
|
| > A general rule of thumb for interpreting correlation
| coefficients is offered by Cohen (1988): a small correlation has
| an absolute value of approximately 0.1; a medium correlation has
| an absolute value of approximately 0.3; and a large correlation
| has an absolute value of approximately 0.5 or higher.
|
| From Dr. Shaw's paper on page 7, linked above.
|
| In other words it's very strong, the strongest correlation
| coefficient that has been found for any signal associated with
| first year GPA at college.
|
| This has been well understood in the academic community for
| decades, it's only outside of professional education circles that
| the validity of the SAT and ACT (when combined with high school
| GPA) as a predictor of future performance at college is even
| questioned.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Colleges should admit everyone then let those who pass pass and
| those who fail drop out. That is the fair way to run your
| admissions policy. Everything else is BS.
| raincom wrote:
| Just take a look at kids of all Harvard faculty, top
| administrators. These kids get admitted to Harvard. I know of
| some MIT faculty, who jumped to Harvard, only to have his kids
| get admitted there.
|
| Sure, any testing, any measurement would have problems. Replace
| that with a better one. Instead, these people hide behind "well-
| rounded" admit pool. Since SCOTUS is going to put an end to
| affirmative action, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, etc will
| get rid of SAT/ACT requirement. Also admission committees will
| implement a secret system for admissions, where all comments
| about applicants are recorded and then get deleted after three
| months.
| crackercrews wrote:
| I've heard that lots of professor kids get into the colleges
| where their parents teach. But is that surprising? They would
| presumably be much more well-qualified than the average
| applicant, based on both nature and nurture.
|
| Most administrators are not professors, but are former
| professors. The same rationale would apply to their kids.
| melony wrote:
| University staffs' (that are reasonably high up) kids are
| always given priority. That's just how it works. The reason
| is that you don't want the parent to leave or complain.
| crackercrews wrote:
| What's your source for this? What makes you think this is
| the reason, as opposed to the nature and nurture
| rationales?
| melony wrote:
| Just ask anyone in academia? It barely counts as an open
| secret. Most admission forms (for the Cali and other
| state schools/private schools) would ask you explicitly
| if you have any relatives working for the school and
| their specific title and role.
| Madmallard wrote:
| Water is wet.
| petilon wrote:
| A selection process based on academic achievement alone yields a
| graduate more highly valued by corporate America [1].
|
| Private universities should be able to use whatever criteria they
| want (as long as there is no illegal discrimination) including
| "building communities" and "shaping the student body". (It's a
| free country after all!) But public universities must use
| objective criteria. Students need to be able to control their own
| destiny through hard work. That's a basic principle of fairness
| that should apply in this land of opportunity. No "shaping" of
| the student body by universities that receive funding from
| taxpayers, because that is unfair to students. Imagine being
| denied admission by the only good public university in your
| state, not because your grades or test scores are not good
| enough, but because you didn't fit in whatever "shape" the
| university decided is appropriate for that year! For more on this
| see [2].
|
| [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-selection-method-can-
| bo...
|
| [2] https://circles.page/5680a56b5c28af0998656e09/College-
| Admiss...
| nickpinkston wrote:
| I think it's not about doing away with all tests, but providing
| various kinds of tests / process to get in, so various types of
| students can get in.
|
| For instance, like some here, I never knew about SAT prep, etc.,
| but I did run a business in high school and did a ton of
| hardware/science projects, which both in retrospect made me far
| better prepared for startup life than anything school taught me.
|
| However, this more makes me think we need a better way of
| matching students with schools, training, and other programs that
| fit their style. People think the "Learning Styles" approach has
| been discredited, with in specific they're right, but that
| doesn't mean that the current style of school is good for
| everyone either.
|
| I went to school in rural Western Pennsylvania with parents who
| went to community college, and I definitely didn't have anyone
| helping me think through any of this stuff. Big shame, because
| plenty of people have everything but the right environment /
| people around them to help them succeed. I was lucky to go to
| Pittsburgh and found the startup scene basically by random.
| harrisonjackson wrote:
| > I think it's not about doing away with all tests, but
| providing various kinds of tests / process to get in, so
| various types of students can get in.
|
| This. Same goes for hiring. You don't want to eliminate a
| successful pool of candidates but rather unlock more pools and
| places to recruit from.
|
| Although I don't think education should be limited the way
| hiring is. There may only be 1 position that can be filled at a
| company but there are so many ways IMO we could expand class
| sizes at exclusive universities and/or improve online college
| options.
| c7b wrote:
| > Admissions officers at selective colleges were also
| "overwhelmed" by the volume of applicants that test-optional
| policies had unleashed.
|
| Given that acceptance rates are used as a ranking metric, and
| given what we have learnt about the lengths that even elite
| colleges like Columbia will go to to game those rankings, how
| sure can we be that the increased volume of applications wasn't
| the actual reason why they adopted test-optional policies (plus
| the nice side effect of likely raising the average scores of
| those admitted students that did submit scores, another common
| ranking metric)?
| metalforever wrote:
| I came from poverty and was able to go to a top CS school because
| of standardized testing . I didn't score as well as my peers ,
| but the admissions committee looked at district and county
| percentiles . I checked test prep books out of the library . I
| took the SAT test with low income fee waivers. I was saddened at
| the news regarding removing testing because my parents couldn't
| afford extra curriculars and the tests were the only way I was
| able to level the playing field.
| flashgordon wrote:
| Well duh. SATs maybe useless and completely unrepresentative of
| real world application. But they are just that - standardized.
| You know 10 years in advance what you are prepping for as opposed
| to "oh well I am this background so doing this set of activities
| optimizes my college application because the application reviewer
| is so totally allowed to bring in their own biases".
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| This is not surprising, because the whole point of ditching the
| admissions test was to make the process _less_ fair, and _more_
| biased.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I'm looking at this and thinking: Did the colleges have no
| forsight, at all? Why did they think admission tests existed? Did
| they honestly think, "wow, the tests are flawed, so get rid of
| them, problem solved?"
| leeroyjenkins11 wrote:
| Because people like taking down fences without knowing why they
| are there, because they are of course smarter than everyone who
| came before them.
| bombcar wrote:
| factsarelolz wrote:
| No it made it easier to discriminate and make more money money.
| Simple as.
| dougSF70 wrote:
| MIT admissions concluded that SAT scores were the _least_
| inequitable method for selecting students that would be
| successful at MIT.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Many progressives argue that MIT has systematic racism
| preventing the success of the low SAT scoring students of only
| minority background. /sarcasm
| geraldyo wrote:
| What's the sarcasm? You could argue the SAT is designed for
| testing skills that can only/primarily be learned within the
| current school system. And that System is designed to keep
| minorities out, so I could argue there's a correlation there
| tester756 wrote:
| >You could argue the SAT is designed for testing skills
| that can only/primarily be learned within the current
| school system
|
| go ahead then and argue using that point, I'd want to know
| what makes you think so
|
| I've prepared for SAT's equivalent in my country mostly
| from the youtube videos, so I'm curious what makes you
| think like that
| humanizersequel wrote:
| "that System is designed to keep minorities out"
|
| That is an extraordinary claim to make with such poorly
| defined terms and lack of evidence.
| ratsmack wrote:
| This argument is parroted constantly regarding many
| things and not a shred of evidence is ever required.
| thelock85 wrote:
| The evidence is literally in the federal and state
| legislation passed since late 1800s to support public
| education with extreme prejudice toward women and
| minorities. And the subsequent battle to make the system
| inclusive, culminating with the 1964 Elementary and
| Secondary Education Act (commonly grouped with "civil
| rights acts"). And even this law is continuously
| reauthorized by both sides on the aisle in the name of
| less discrimination (most recently "No Child Left Behind"
| and "Every Student Succeeds").
|
| It is very true that "systemic discrimination" is an
| argument often parroted without evidence, especially in
| audiences that prefer rigorous scientific method to be
| persuaded. But it's also true that counter arguments
| often lack evidence that systems are inclusive, and
| almost never take on anthropological context which take
| time and effort to build.
| ratsmack wrote:
| > (most recently "No Child Left Behind" and "Every
| Student Succeeds")
|
| And now for the worst thing that ever happened to the
| government education system.
| thelock85 wrote:
| No argument here. Though there's tough competition for
| some of those Nixon-Reagan era reauthorizations of ESEA
| which set the stage for standardized tests being the
| primary benchmark for everything (and priming the pump
| for education publishers to create/expand the test prep
| industry).
| analyst74 wrote:
| People are not arguing SAT is 100% fair, but that it's most
| fair compared to alternatives.
| dougSF70 wrote:
| I agree, it also provides a counterpoint to GPA scores.
| These scores are not standardized and are subject to
| school and school district policy.
| erdos4d wrote:
| The math part is not so bad, but I definitely would agree
| that the verbal/written strongly favors students educated
| in affluent private schools. You just not going to get that
| vocab prep down in a poor public school with a lot of
| minorities. The SAT tests in the language of the US white
| elite.
| mackatap wrote:
| It tests in grammatically correct English. Libraries are
| free. The internet exists. You can't expect a college to
| cover basic English writing that should have been learned
| over a lifetime.
| xienze wrote:
| > The SAT tests in the language of the US white elite.
|
| How do Asians manage to do well on it? And let me guess,
| you're specifically talking about the analogy question
| that refers to a regatta? That question is repeatedly
| trotted out as evidence of the SAT's bias but it, or
| anything similar, hasn't been found in the test in
| decades...
| WalterBright wrote:
| Reading books targeted at adults will help immensely with
| vocabulary. It's fun, too. I read a lot of scifi in high
| school.
|
| I suspect that the _only_ way to get a large vocabulary
| is to do a lot of reading. Certainly, watching TV won 't
| do it (TV vocabulary is around 3000 words).
| Aunche wrote:
| Let's say you have two students of the exact same baseline
| intelligence. Student A goes to a rich school district and
| scores well on the SAT. Student B goes to a poor school
| district and schools poorly on the SAT. That's a problem of
| the school districts, not of the SAT. Student A is
| objectively stronger student, and it does no one any favors
| to try to obscure this.
| funstuff007 wrote:
| One of the most bone-headed directives I've ever seen. I truly
| believe the progressive goals are true and noble, but they have
| the aim of a blind man.
| uri4 wrote:
| Maybe the "minorities" are actually smarter than you think, do
| they actually want to study there? What were rejection rates for
| minorities?
|
| In many cases college is a scam, investment is simply not worth
| the money (future earnings). Diversity studies referenced in
| article were mostly performed on "liberal arts colleges". Maybe
| this type of study is good hobby for rich white kids. But most
| normal people will not throw away their future on such schools!
| gdss wrote:
| colleges are worth it if you get into the top 10 ones. Also, if
| you get scholarship.
| fny wrote:
| In time, maybe universities will collapse under the weight of
| their own idiocy. I went back to school to finish my degree for
| fun at 25 t a top school. To my dismay, many online courses were
| better taught.
|
| In retrospect, the only courses in I enjoyed were small seminar
| passion projects.
| tomohawk wrote:
| It's the illusion of control. It may be possible to select the
| obviously great candidates, but its foolish to think that this
| can be carried out for all of them.
|
| Set aside 15% of the slots for the highest ranked candidates.
|
| Set another threshold for "nope".
|
| Then all the candidates that do not get into the 15% but are
| better than nope go into a lottery.
| TinkersW wrote:
| Removing SAT harms lower class people and benefits upper class
| people, so of course that removed it.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| The theory was that standardized tests harm lower class people
| and help upper class people. _That_ is why they removed it [1].
|
| This article demonstrates that the theory was wrong, but the
| intention was opposite of what you describe.
|
| 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-us-colleges-
| are-...
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Kind of a big assumption that admission was fair before.
|
| Having test scores to fall back on is more useful as a CYA
| exercise than anything meaningful. "Nobody ever got fired for
| hiring McKinsey" indeed.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Nobody thinks admission was _completely_ fair before, but it
| was without a doubt _more_ fair with objective test scores than
| without.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| The headline says it was easier to fairly choose students
| with the exams, and I'm calling bullshit on that assumption.
| It implicitly assumes that selecting for standardized test
| scores is more fair.
|
| College admission has been unfair for generations. TBH I'm
| not sure "fairness" is even a good metric. Is it fair that I
| didn't have to work after school to support my family? No. Is
| it fair that my parents have advanced degrees and read to me
| as a young child? No. Is it fair that I got to take the SAT
| twice, because I wanted a higher math score? No. None of that
| is fair, and all of it helped me get into highly selective
| colleges.
| ok123456 wrote:
| I thought that was the actual point of ditching admission
| testing. They wanted to return to the pre-SAT days when they
| could just admit any legacy, no matter how unacademically suited
| an alumn(us|a)'s progeny was.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| Matt Parlmer on Twitter recently stated it this way:
|
| > The university is primarily for theological indoctrination
| and secondarily for rich kids to get the same credentials as
| smart kids so they can maintain their status
|
| > This has not changed one iota since Oxford was chartered,
| it's what the system is for, take the Caplanpill
| yieldcrv wrote:
| This is _not_ saying the SAT is good. It is saying they don 't
| have something _better_.
|
| A lot of people are misinterpreting this.
|
| The zeal of reaction to the problems with the framework left
| everyone without _any_ framework. A very common failure mode that
| exacerbate the division in "culture wars".
| onos wrote:
| USA is rich in universities. I wish people would focus less on
| the rankings and looking good credential aspect of college, and
| more on using it as an opportunity to learn / actually getting
| good at something. If we did the latter, we'd realize that people
| could go to pretty much any university (or coursera!) and get a
| high quality education here.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| You are absolutely missing one of the primary points of US
| universities, which _is_ to maintain a social hierarchy.
|
| I mean, if you just want to _learn_ stuff and get a good
| education, there are loads of resources where you can do that,
| often for free or near free. College is about much more than
| just learning new things, and if that 's the only framework
| through which you value a college education, you'll be doomed
| to misunderstand the institution.
| bushbaba wrote:
| You get 1000 resumes for a job. How do you drop 95% of the
| applicants. One easy way is to look at the University and GPA
| as a quick snuff test. After running that cheap low-pass
| filter you now only have 50 Resumes. You now spend ~3mins on
| each of those resumes to determine the 10 people you plan to
| interview.
|
| That's why university matters, it helps you get past the
| first level of screening. It's also fair of employers to
| assume that the average Top 25 university graduate is better
| than the _AVERAGE_ bottom 50% university graduate.
| catiopatio wrote:
| There are far more effective ways to stand out as an
| applicant than your GPA and university -- in particular, by
| actually contributing notable work to the field, but also
| by making social connections and leveraging those into a
| job.
|
| I didn't even graduate from high school, but I've never
| struggled to find employment with the companies I wanted to
| work for.
|
| The idea of a degree as a first-pass filter is oversold at
| best.
| nmeagent wrote:
| > I didn't even graduate from high school, but I've never
| struggled to find employment with the companies I wanted
| to work for.
|
| This experience does not apply in the vast majority of
| fields. For instance, unless you're some kind of unicorn
| you will not break into almost any STEM field (e.g.
| biochemistry, astrophysics, aeronautical engineering)
| without learning a great deal from experts and having the
| sheepskins as proof. In some cases, that may not even be
| enough.
| onos wrote:
| Yeah you're right, that is the aspect of uni that this
| article is about. Who gets to get the premo credential.
| Onanymous wrote:
| Nonsense. Education is not about taking a course or reading
| bunch of books. The big part of education is being able to
| directly ask a knowledgeable person once you're stuck. You
| can ask the community of course but the quality of community
| answers is more than often just trash.
| 2devnull wrote:
| I think you've defined a tutor. Tutors cost less than
| college tuition. And top professors answer emails from non-
| students, sometimes they teach for free on MOOCs. Perhaps
| you're on a very narrow field where knowledge is extremely
| scarce, but that's atypical.
| bombcar wrote:
| For the cost of a college education at some places you
| could likely hire a knowledgeable professor of the skill
| set you're interested in to live with you for four years.
|
| Nobody will loan you money to do that, howvevr.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| People would probably loan you money for that if you have
| the income or collateral to support a loan.
| preommr wrote:
| > The big part of education is being able to directly ask a
| knowledgeable person once you're stuck.
|
| Stuck on what? For an undergrad, those problems can easily
| be solved by going online or to a tutor for a fraction of
| the cost. And that's for STEM based problems, humanities is
| all about flattering whatever opinions the professor
| personally holds.
|
| The best piece of advice I got was from one of my english
| highschool teachers who told me a story about how when he
| was in university he was getting graded really poorly on
| essays until he basically regurgitated what he thought the
| the professor wanted to hear.
|
| It's been a while since I've been to university, but I
| think it probably still holds.
| necrotic_comp wrote:
| "humanities is all about flattering whatever opinions the
| professor personally holds" - maybe at some universities,
| but not at a good liberal arts school.
| telotortium wrote:
| Good liberal arts schools don't really exist in the US
| anymore, unless we're talking about something like St.
| John's College or maybe some Catholic universities. I
| believe the capture of university humanities departments
| by critical theory is pretty complete at this point, and
| the sciences are rapidly being colonized.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| It seems possible to me that people of a less analytic
| personality type can improve learning using the cue,
| "imagine you wanted to socially impress a particular
| person, an academic". The same way a weightlifter who
| doesn't study the anatomy of external hip rotation can
| get good results with "screw your feet into the floor",
| or GPT-3 from "Let's think step by step". It leverages
| instinct to do what isn't understood consciously. I agree
| you're going to need originality to really excel.
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| Now you know why businesses love university graduates!
| Being told what you want is a prime mover in business.
|
| Now back to my TPS reports.
| aeonik wrote:
| Another unique bonus of university education: in my
| undergrad one of the professors noticed that I cared
| about the subject material more than my classmates.
|
| Due to this he gave me opportunities to perform research
| in areas that I didn't even know existed.
|
| Had I not gone to a university I never would have been
| exposed to these areas of technology.
| nO0b wrote:
| Malcolm Gladwell explains why it's statistically FAR better to
| be among the smartest kids at a 2nd or 3rd tier school than
| struggling to get into some elite institution where you will be
| below average among your peers:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UEwbRWFZVc&t=220s
|
| If you're borrowing money to pay for a degree, going to a
| school where you are not at the very top of the class is really
| taking a big risk.
| giardini wrote:
| Thank you for posting Gladwell's talk, which should be
| required viewing for any young, bright and hopeful high-
| school graduate. I wish all my nephews and nieces had watched
| it.
| texaslonghorn5 wrote:
| that's such a loser mindset, you should want to be challenged
| and pushed by peers stronger than you
|
| edit: I agree that the first part of this comment is too
| harsh, see child thread
| bushbaba wrote:
| What! A 2nd tier school still has strong peers which you
| can surround yourself in. If you're at the top of a 2nd
| tier school you can push yourself to be near the PHD
| researchers and graduate students giving you similar
| academic peer rigor.
| texaslonghorn5 wrote:
| I agree with you from an academic standpoint! Maybe my
| comment was too harsh, I think surrounding yourself with
| PHD researchers and graduate students counts as
| challenging and pushing yourself.
|
| But it's more fun when the people pushing you are your
| friends and peers. In contrast, how many PHD researchers
| with a spouse and kids want to study and get coffee with
| a 19 year old undergrad?
| WalterBright wrote:
| I thoroughly enjoyed being around students a lot smarter than
| me in college. I also enjoy working with people smarter and
| better educated than me.
|
| It's just more fun, and it also puts me on my best game.
| kelnos wrote:
| Given all the trash Gladwell has spouted as truth over the
| years, it's hard to take him seriously. Even if sometimes
| what he says has merit, it's hard to know when to believe him
| and when not to.
|
| I especially cringe at the idea that Gladwell is saying it's
| _statistically_ better to do something, when he has a known
| history of deliberately misinterpreting data and massaging
| numbers to get the result he wants.
|
| While I think people should be much more accepting of 2nd-
| and 3rd-tier schools as options than they often are, kids
| should absolutely push themselves for the best-ranked school
| they can get into (assuming they also have a solid program
| for whatever field/major they're interested in). Not only is
| it beneficial to surround yourself with people who are
| smarter than you are, there are also second-order effects to
| attending an elite university, like making connections that
| can help you along with your career later. Not to mention
| that if a recruiter sees two recent-grad resumes that are
| identical except for the name of the school, they're going to
| pick the candidate that went to the "better" school.
|
| Certainly you don't want to set yourself up for failure; if
| that elite school is going to be such a struggle that you're
| eventually going to be washed out, that's probably not a good
| outcome, and a lower-tier school would have been a better
| choice. But, absent that, I think it's good advice to attend
| the best school you can get into.
| mjhay wrote:
| The highest quality education I received was at a community
| college. The undergraduate education I got after transferring
| to a well-regarded research shool was lower quality, with
| larger classes and professors who weren't incentivized to put
| effort into teaching.
| nova22033 wrote:
| 1. Spend more money to give kids all the extra assistance they
| need 2. Remove/Reduce the testing criteria and lower standards
|
| Schools and colleges are overwhelmingly choosing option 2...to
| the detriment of ALL students.
| high_derivative wrote:
| But...that was exactly the purpose? To be able to more freely
| select amongst racial and gender lines as desired
| hbbwebw wrote:
| I think it's more complicated than that because the students
| expect to get jobs after completing the degree, if they even
| can complete the degree.
|
| For example, Im not great at art and don't really have a
| passion for it. Should an art school accept me even though I'll
| never have a career as an artist? Keep in mind I'd be taking a
| spot from someone who could. I have no doubt they'll be able to
| improve my abilities but that's not why many students apply.
| bombcar wrote:
| I wonder what percentage of people work in the field their
| degree is in. I suspect it's very high for some (law, pilot,
| doctor) and very low for others (history).
| WalterBright wrote:
| I was trained in mechanical engineering, but write
| software. I still find my college education to be of great
| help.
| TrinaryWorksToo wrote:
| Sat should be pass or fail. It's not precise enough to rank
| students
| 2devnull wrote:
| Admissions tests are the best tool to fight racism, specifically
| institutionalized racism, that we have in our tool kit. When
| racism increases in the future the tests will be ushered back in
| with great urgency, but because institutionalized racism takes
| decades to slowly grind away at, I think we'll be doomed to such
| cycles. On some level it's hard not to see that process play out,
| notice that it benefits the elites by acting as a sort of moat
| around their comfy middle class lifestyle while hurting racially
| marginalized groups, and also hurting groups which are rapidly
| closing the gap like Asians, and not see it as at least
| potentially misguided.
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