[HN Gopher] Yale will again require standardized test scores for...
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Yale will again require standardized test scores for admission
Author : pseudolus
Score : 89 points
Date : 2024-02-22 14:21 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| pseudolus wrote:
| http://archive.today/9Q6Z1
| yeknoda wrote:
| how would you describe the 21, 22, and 23 vintages?
| chestertn wrote:
| Lucky
| pxmpxm wrote:
| if they recenter the GPA distribution for every class year, one
| should be more discerning when hiring 21-23 yale kids, since
| the distribution won't be comparable to the pre/post cohort.
|
| It's a bit ironic they've managed to dampen the one signal
| that's embedded in a yale degree. It's almost as if reality
| doesn't want to cooperate with these ___ Justice efforts.
| barryrandall wrote:
| More likely to leave college/university with debt, but no
| degree.
| sebg wrote:
| See also Dartmouth:
| https://www.npr.org/2024/02/06/1229405722/after-a-pause-for-...
| sokoloff wrote:
| And MIT: https://news.mit.edu/2022/stuart-schmill-sat-act-
| requirement...
| jdefr89 wrote:
| Ironic I am researcher at MIT and a college dropout lol.
| lapcat wrote:
| A crucial proviso, though, is that they're comparing the
| applicant's test scores to their high school peers rather than
| to other applicants.
|
| > They don't know that their 1400 might be a great score given
| the challenges of their neighborhood and educational
| environment.
|
| "standardized testing--when assessed using the local norms at a
| student's high school--is a valuable element of Dartmouth's
| undergraduate application"
| https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/apply/update-testing-policy
| sokoloff wrote:
| > The decision comes after officials found that the scores were
| the single best predictor of students' academic performance and
| that not considering them could be a disadvantage for those who
| have already faced daunting challenges.
|
| Neither half of this sentence is surprising. Some people love to
| hate on standardized testing, despite it having been repeatedly
| shown to have high predictive capability.
| anon291 wrote:
| It's almost as if those of us who used critical reasoning
| before the decision was made to scrap these tests were right. A
| lot of introspection needs to be done to determine why these
| decisions were made. At the time of the decision, the
| admissions committees claimed the exact opposite was true, that
| the tests are poor predictors and disadvantaged already-
| disadvantaged students. Now they're claiming the opposite.
| Based on what data? Why did we allow the admissions committees
| of so-called 'elite' institutions to be so easily swayed? Are
| these institutions really worthy of their 'elite' status? It
| would seem to be called into question if they can't answer a
| question as straightforwards as this.
|
| Especially institutions like MIT... one would expect that they
| have a solid understanding of data analysis.
| megaman821 wrote:
| I think the groups championing stuff like this had a lot of
| clout a few years ago. Unfortunately for them, concrete
| positive results never materialized. In the meantime, the
| Supreme Court ruled negatively on race-based admissions and
| DEI offices are facing public backlash. If there really were
| any ideas with pursuing, those groups squandered their
| chance.
| lapcat wrote:
| > I think the groups championing stuff like this had a lot
| of clout a few years ago.
|
| Alternative explanation: the pandemic happened. "When the
| coronavirus pandemic scrambled testing, Yale and many other
| colleges dropped requirements that applicants submit
| standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT."
| jvanderbot wrote:
| That is indeed a possibility. However that was not the
| popular narrative. I'd be interested to see if that was
| the reason given and how often
| lapcat wrote:
| > However that was not the popular narrative. I'd be
| interested to see if that was the reason given and how
| often
|
| "For nearly four years Yale's undergraduate admissions
| process has been test-optional. The experience,
| originally necessitated by the pandemic..."
| https://admissions.yale.edu/test-flexible
|
| "I am writing to announce that, due to the ongoing
| COVID-19 pandemic, our office will be suspending our
| usual SAT/ACT testing requirement for the coming
| application cycle."
| https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/we-are-suspending-
| our-...
|
| "When Dartmouth suspended its standardized testing
| requirement for undergraduate applicants in June 2020, it
| was a pragmatic pause taken by most colleges and
| universities in response to an unprecedented global
| pandemic." https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/apply/update-
| testing-policy
| asoneth wrote:
| I thought the popular narrative was that this was
| primarily driven by the pandemic? The debate about the
| value of standardized test scores has been raging for
| decades and up until the pandemic most elite colleges and
| universities still required them. (Upon reflection, there
| was a prior movement at some schools to boost declining
| enrollment by making tests optional, but that seemed more
| driven by profit-seeking than morality.)
|
| The primary explanation I have heard both in the news and
| from friends in admissions departments for so many elite
| schools going test-optional at the same time was for the
| pandemic, and most of the ones I am aware of explicitly
| called it a temporary measure as Yale did.
|
| Now I could buy that the testing debate may have played a
| role in why some schools have been dragging their feet to
| return to requiring tests post-pandemic because anti-test
| folks are exploiting this opportunity. But having worked
| in academia I also would not discount the immense inertia
| in university admissions playing an equally large role.
| anon291 wrote:
| I'm sorry... no. The pandemic also messed with ...
| grading. Why is a one day exam considered enough of a
| danger to merit ignoring it, while mandating continued
| schooling? Many disadvantaged students obviously were
| going to be more disadvantaged with online schooling. We
| could have easily found ways to administer tests safely
| (outdoors, fewer people in larger, well-ventilated
| buildings, etc). No... no attempts were made to even
| encourage that, realizing that making this opportunity
| available would mean more disadvantaged kids able to
| attend these schools.
| kcrwfrd_ wrote:
| I'm out of the loop on the Supreme Court decision, could
| you briefly fill me in?
| ezymandias wrote:
| Here is the ruling: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions
| /22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
| lapcat wrote:
| > A lot of introspection needs to be done to determine why
| these decisions were made.
|
| Not really. It started with the pandemic, which messed up
| everything, including testing.
| ejb999 wrote:
| It _didn 't_ start with the pandemic, it just continued
| during it.
|
| This article from the Washington Post, in October 2019
| (before the pandemic started) reported that as of then, 40%
| of accredited schools had already dropped this requirement.
|
| >>> Nearly 50 accredited colleges and universities that
| award bachelor's degrees announced from September 2018 to
| September 2019 that they were dropping the admissions
| requirement for an SAT or ACT score, FairTest said. That
| brings the number of accredited schools to have done so to
| 1,050 -- about 40 percent of the total, the nonprofit said.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/10/18/record-
| n...
| lapcat wrote:
| The article is about Yale, and it did start for Yale with
| the pandemic.
| bombcar wrote:
| I think we have a both/and situation - there was a strong
| current to remove SAT/ACT score consideration _already in
| play_ and the pandemic was enough to force it through _at
| Yale and others_.
|
| What schools did _not_ drop the requirement during the
| pandemic would be more interesting.
| lapcat wrote:
| > What schools did not drop the requirement during the
| pandemic would be more interesting.
|
| It might be interesting... if you named any.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's hard to find (as in a one second google search
| didn't find it, but man found a lot of lists of SAT/ACT-
| free admissions) but I did find this:
|
| https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-
| lis...
|
| At least one on there (MIT) we know dropped and brought
| it back, so it's clearly not a list of those that
| _always_ required it.
| yau8edq12i wrote:
| It's a bit more nuanced than what you're describing. I
| suggest listening to this (or reading the transcript):
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/podcasts/the-daily/the-
| wa...
| verteu wrote:
| Doesn't seem very nuanced to me. The transcript directly
| supports anon291's claim.
|
| Transcript: "So this in-depth study looking at college
| admissions that was released last summer ended up finding
| that the richest applicants have huge advantages in college
| admissions, and a lot of people have assumed that the SAT
| must be one of the advantages that richer applicants have."
|
| Then they controlled for the obvious confounders, and the
| assumption was wrong. (Big surprise: Wealthy people attend
| better schools.)
|
| I, too, am curious why schools changed their admissions
| policies before studying the matter closely.
| ejb999 wrote:
| >>I, too, am curious why schools changed their admissions
| policies before studying the matter closely.
|
| Probably for the same reason Oregon decided to
| decriminalize most drugs thinking it would reduce usage
| and harm (it didn't).
| PeterHolzwarth wrote:
| I understand your good intentions, but a poor response is
| one that says "go spend time listening to this podcast."
| That's someone else's article-length response. If you think
| that podcast/article made interesting points, briefly
| summarize them in your comment and provide the link for
| those who want to dig in a bit more.
| nradov wrote:
| Who is "we"? We are generally not in a position to allow or
| disallow anything. Most of those elite institutions are
| private non-profit corporations. They can do pretty much
| whatever they want (within certain legal bounds) and are
| accountable only to their own Boards.
| anon291 wrote:
| "We" are the people who continue to associate these schools
| with academic excellence. Yes, I agree they can do what
| they want. My local evangelical bible school can also do
| what they want but no one associates them with academic
| excellence.
| burnerburnson wrote:
| We didn't allow them to do anything. They're just not
| accountable to us.
|
| If you've been following Harvard's anti-Semitism drama over
| the last 4 months, it appears they're not really accountable
| to anybody. Neither US Congress nor their wealthiest donors
| have been able to force action from them.
| verteu wrote:
| But Harvard's president was forced to resign?
| azinman2 wrote:
| Due to a citation scandal, that wasn't as big a deal as
| it was presented in context.
|
| The wrong reason to go...
| btilly wrote:
| A better reason to go was that her research was crap
| based on bad statistics.
|
| Things like the citation scandal are a signal for the
| kind of problem that lead to that.
| sokoloff wrote:
| It's not at all obvious to me that (or why) Yale or Harvard
| _ought to be accountable to us_. They 're private
| universities and, as far as I know, they appear to be
| following the laws that they're subject to. (Following the
| law is a form of accountability, but a very weak form.)
|
| If they want to suddenly condition admissions on a hash
| function of the applicant's name, I think that would be
| absurd, but I don't think I ought to have any say in that
| matter.
| nimbius wrote:
| chances are excellent the decision to abandon standardized
| testing came directly from the colleges bean counters instead
| of its laureates.
|
| running a college is very lucrative, with most institutions
| being nothing more than taxpayer subsidized sports team
| franchises. Yale isnt one of these, so its only alternative
| to boost revenue is to relax admissions criteria.
|
| chances are also great that cloistered elites found this idea
| so dyspeptic as to demand the bar be raised oncemore. Yale is
| also a critical litmus for the social signaling of americas
| capital class.
| btilly wrote:
| Yale definitely is that. Elon Musk put it bluntly in https:
| //twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1526975113597489154?lang...
|
| _Yale is the epicenter of the woke mind virus attempting
| to destroy civilization._
|
| Paul Graham's response to this was:
|
| _Bizarre as that last sentence sounds, I have to say that
| when I asked someone with a lot of experience in freedom of
| speech issues which universities to avoid, Yale was the
| first he mentioned._
|
| When my son was applying to colleges, Yale and Stanford
| were at the top of his list of schools not to consider
| because he didn't like DEI.
|
| Maybe someone is finally waking up to the fact that this is
| becoming a long-term reputation problem for the university?
| anon291 wrote:
| Now consider that the Supreme Court Justices are
| basically all from Harvard / Yale.
| Ajay-p wrote:
| _A lot of introspection needs to be done to determine why
| these decisions were made._
|
| These decisions were purely political and social in nature,
| and it will happen again as soon as there is another
| opportunity. University administrators, under political and a
| little bit of social pressure, ignored science and data in
| pursuit of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The bulk of Ivy
| League schools have determined that some groups of people
| cannot make it without help, and it is up to those
| universities to correct this wrong by reducing as many
| roadblocks and responsibilities as possible.
|
| I doubt there will be any introspection because many of the
| people who made these disastrous decisions are still in power
| and will likely be so for some time.
| credit_guy wrote:
| > Especially institutions like MIT
|
| MIT dropped the standardized test requirement only during
| Covid (in 2020 and 2021). One could argue that in those time
| keeping the requirement would be tantamount to endangering
| people. Maybe they made that argument, maybe not, but the
| fact is that they were the first to reinstate the
| requirement, so not clear why you decided to pick on them.
| silverquiet wrote:
| > scores were the single best predictor of students' academic
| performance
|
| I wonder what the best predictor of high scores is?
| megaman821 wrote:
| Probably parents' level of educational attainment.
| ytx wrote:
| since we're not talking causality, maybe it's students'
| future success that predicts parents level of educational
| attainment!
| slily wrote:
| IQ isn't real according to some, so clearly we need an
| inferior proxy.
| francisofascii wrote:
| The state standardized test scores kids take in middle
| school.
| btilly wrote:
| When did the officials find this out?
|
| It's only been known for close to a century. It is the reason
| why standardized tests were accepted in the first place. It has
| been confirmed in many ways since. If they were ever ignorant
| of this fact, it is because they were willfully choosing to be
| ignorant of it.
|
| Research also found that IQ tests are a better predictor of job
| performance than other available measures, such as interviews.
| This was first established in the military, then in the 50s and
| 60s was confirmed for a variety of jobs. Unfortunately the case
| _Griggs v. Duke Power Co._ make it illegal to use IQ tests,
| because it results in hiring fewer blacks.
|
| But IQ tests can still be done indirectly. For example coding
| boot camps can use what is essentially an IQ test to decide who
| will be a student, and then graduation from said boot camp
| serves as a signal to companies that this inexperienced person
| is smart, motivated, and willing to learn. That signal is
| likely to be more valuable to the company than the training
| itself.
| PeterHolzwarth wrote:
| I appreciate your point, but the nuance to remember is that
| IQ tests are also influenced by education (or, as you point
| out minorities, access to education as well). IQ tests do
| have value only within the context of what they essentially
| require to be able to take them and have a shot and
| demonstrating your innate problem solving and reasoning
| ability, etc.
| verteu wrote:
| > IQ tests are also influenced by education (or, as you
| point out minorities, access to education as well).
|
| Presumably, so is job performance?
| silverquiet wrote:
| I suspect we'll get to scientific racism sooner or later in
| this thread.
| mbg721 wrote:
| The cure to that would be letting colorblind standards
| work over time, but that's politically unacceptable
| because too many people derive their income from nonsense
| like "merit is a white colonial construct". Quit treating
| people differently based on race, and racist kooks will
| be irrelevant.
| btilly wrote:
| I agree with the spirit of this comment, but note that
| quitting treating people differently requires fixing the
| school system so that minorities don't consistently start
| off in second rate schools.
|
| It isn't just one side that finds talking about real
| solutions politically unacceptable.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I think it's more precise/actionable to say that quitting
| treating people differently "includes" fixing
| discrepancies in the primary and secondary school
| systems, rather than "requires" it.
| btilly wrote:
| I strongly disagree.
|
| But saying that it is required, I'm drawing attention to
| the fact that it must be done to succeed. I believe it
| must be done because, starting with Piaget's work, we
| have evidence that children go through important
| developmental stages. Some lessons missed at specific
| ages, can be missed forever.
|
| If I had merely said included, that makes it easy to walk
| away thinking that it is just one of many things that
| advance the goal. Which takes away from a must, to a nice
| to have. And then we can excuse not doing it based on the
| price tag. While imagining that the other things we're
| doing somehow will add up to a real fix. A piece of
| imagination that we make easier by discounting the
| evidence of standardized tests which demonstrate exactly
| how badly we, as a society, are failing.
|
| My whole point is that, since the popular rejection of
| school busing, neither party has been willing to try to
| honestly tackle this problem.
| samatman wrote:
| > _IQ tests are also influenced by education_
|
| [citation needed]
| yanslookup wrote:
| > because it results in hiring fewer blacks.
|
| You wrote this yet you still are here championing the
| usefulness of IQ tests?
|
| The concept of "IQ" is fake science, invented by bigots to
| provide cover for bigots.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| I definitely question the legitimacy of reducing human
| qualities like intelligence down to a single number or
| composite score.
|
| However, IQ was not initially invented for bigot reasons.
| IQ may have been used by bigots, but the initial inception
| of IQ was for a very legitimate purpose.
|
| My understanding is the Binet created the first IQ tests
| because as French society was rapidly industrializing, more
| rural people were moving to cities. Some of the children of
| these rural people had ages that were unknown as were their
| educational abilities.
|
| So, the tests were basically used to calculate the "mental
| age" of these children so that the children could be
| appropriately placed in the correct classrooms. For
| example, an 9 year old child with a mental age of 6 would
| more than likely not benefit from being thrown into the
| same classroom as other 9 year olds. Likewise, a 6 year old
| child with the mental age of 12 might not benefit from
| being in a classroom with other 6 year olds.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _Griggs_ did not make the use of IQ tests illegal. It simply
| required businesses to prove a job-related business necessity
| for requiring such a test. (And this was codified into law by
| the Civil Rights Act of 1991.)
|
| Some businesses are able to prove a job-related business
| necessity for IQ tests, and do require applicants to take
| those tests for certain positions. Most businesses can't show
| a business necessity for any positions, and so don't require
| IQ tests.
| btilly wrote:
| To prove a job-related business necessity for IQ tests, you
| need a large group of people who have been through IQ
| tests, and whose performance you can measure. The US
| military has collected this data and can use that.
|
| Your average company with < 100 employees almost certainly
| CANNOT have collected this kind of data. And larger
| companies will have trouble putting large groups through an
| IQ test with no apparent purpose, and so are unlikely to
| have ever collected the data needed to attempt to make the
| case. The practical effect is that such tests are usually
| illegal to use. Even though we know that they are very
| often useful.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| That's still false. You don't need to have a large group
| of people go through IQ tests to prove a business
| necessity, you need to prove that IQ specifically is
| relevant to the specific job in some way.
|
| And the thing is, that it's very difficult to show that
| IQ (as measured by an IQ test) is relevant to a specific
| job versus something like experience, education, etc.,
| because "IQ" is a made up number that doesn't actually
| test intelligence or problem-solving abilities.
|
| Businesses test applicants _all the time._ But instead of
| a useless IQ test, they test job-specific performance
| through things like coding tests, draft patents or legal
| documents, etc.
| btilly wrote:
| You ALMOST get it, but then entirely missed the point.
|
| You need to demonstrate that the test is consistent with
| a business necessity. If you have a large enough people
| who have taken the test, and enough data on how they
| perform, you can make that demonstration. You've got the
| data, and it is enough to cover the military despite
| people like you who think that it "doesn't actually test
| intelligence or problem-solving abilities." Because,
| whatever it actually tests, it predicts real world
| performance well enough to pass legal muster.
|
| The US military is the only organization that I'm aware
| of which has an IQ test with enough data that they can
| pass legal muster. Very specifically I'm talking about
| the AFQT, which is the core of the ASVAB. See
| https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/asvab details
| on the ASVP. And see https://asvabmilitarytest.com/asvab-
| compared-other-iq-tests to see that it really is an IQ
| test to tell if you're smart enough to be in the
| military. And not just whether you can join, but which
| jobs inside of the military they will allow you to
| pursue.
|
| The military has documented that this is an effective way
| to find people who can do things like fill out paperwork
| properly, and follow orders in the field. The reason why
| other businesses can't do the same is not because the
| test is useless, but because they don't have the data to
| demonstrate how useful the test actually is.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| It demonstrates how wishy-washy and irrational these entities
| are.
|
| They jumped on the "standardized testing is racist" train
| against their own interests. As soon as that was no longer
| politically expedient, they reversed course. This took place in
| a matter of a few years, hardly enough time to gather requisite
| data. But that was never the goal.
| lapcat wrote:
| > They jumped on the "standardized testing is racist" train
| against their own interests. As soon as that was no longer
| politically expedient, they reversed course. This took place
| in a matter of a few years, hardly enough time to gather
| requisite data. But that was never the goal.
|
| That's not what happened. From the article: "When the
| coronavirus pandemic scrambled testing, Yale and many other
| colleges dropped requirements that applicants submit
| standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT." Now that the
| pandemic is over, they're reassessing.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| It should be concerning that Yale as an institution is dumber
| than the majority of people here who called this out as such.
| drewcoo wrote:
| >> The decision comes after officials found that the scores
| were the single best predictor of students' academic
| performance and that not considering them could be a
| disadvantage for those who have already faced daunting
| challenges.
|
| > Neither half of this sentence is surprising. Some people love
| to hate on standardized testing, despite it having been
| repeatedly shown to have high predictive capability.
|
| What's surprising is what's not in the sentence.
|
| How could an Ivy League school's administrators have not
| figured that out before the policy change?
|
| What actually caused the policy reversion, because it wasn't
| the sudden discovery of obvious facts?
|
| How much of a black eye is this for Yale's reputation? They're
| clearly playing a game of nobody being responsible . . .
| because who could have known! That indicates that it's not
| nothing. What's the impact of this?
|
| These are also some questions an actual journalist should have
| been asking. I guess we don't have those anymore, though. Does
| "access journalism" extend beyond politics to academic
| administrators now? H.L. Mencken spins in his grave.
| JCM9 wrote:
| Grade inflation and bonus points for honors or AP classes has
| long made GPA a useless metric. One persons 4.0 is another
| school's 4.27 (on a 4 point scale). Standardized testing isn't
| perfect but it is one datapoint on how everyone did against the
| same task. Yes there can be differences in prep and training, but
| that's life. Some folks will have more advantages than you. Those
| that work past that will succeed in life. That's that don't
| won't.
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| Yep. Universities tried to track relative strength of GPA to
| school districts, but ultimately that is a hopeless task. Our
| own district has been guilty of severe grade inflation and
| teaching 2-3 grades behind grade level to the point where a "B"
| here would be a D or F in a college prep private school.
|
| Standardized tests are imperfect, but they are not entirely
| flawed the way high school grades are.
|
| This will also re level the playing field for poor families
| with smart kids who can't afford all the extra-curricular
| wealthy families lean heavily into.
| bumby wrote:
| _This will also re level the playing field for poor families
| with smart kids who can't afford all the extra-curricular
| wealthy families lean heavily into._
|
| Is this really leveling the playing field? If a wealthy,
| average student can get prep work to score as well as a
| gifted, poor student, that doesn't seem like it's leveling
| the playing field of socioeconomic disadvantage.
| jhanschoo wrote:
| Ime tuition is far more accessible than many
| extracurriculars, and has better feedback (assuming that
| standardized testing is the only metric).
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| Maybe not perfectly level, but more so when colleges did
| not look at standardized test scores.
| paulmd wrote:
| the problem is what better idea do you have? the idea of
| favoring "holistic student" just selects for students who
| have the time, money, and parental support to juggle 2-3
| extracurriculars _in addition to_ sustained effort in
| classwork.
|
| it's goodhart's law in action: any measure that becomes a
| target will cease to become effective. _for any metric you
| choose_ , a wealthy student will be able to deploy their
| familial resources to fiddle the metric, because that's
| literally what money is - "stored power and influence". My
| stored influence allows a pizza to appear at my door or a
| lawyer to appear to defend me, and it makes a violin and a
| tutor appear for your kids, if that's what the metric
| becomes. Wealthy families will always be able to fiddle
| _something_.
|
| The dirty truth is that a small, fixed, standardized exam
| is actually not a bad solution to that problem. Things that
| require sustained effort (grades) actually tend to bias
| towards wealthy families, as do extracurriculars and other
| "holistic metrics". Wealth buys all of those things. But
| getting a smart kid through a standardized test
| successfully actually is a much smaller, more equitable
| hurdle. The unpopular answer is that ultimately pretty much
| anyone short of the completely destitute can afford a
| couple hundred bucks for a month of test prep (and the book
| alone gets you most of the way there), and in the cases
| where that's not true it certainly isn't improved in those
| cases by requiring 6 years of violin lessons and 2
| instruments etc.
|
| I mean think of it like a job interview... is it really
| fair to ask the applicant to do a big take-home assignment
| that takes a couple nights to complete? Now imagine that
| you have to start preparing in middle school, and your
| parents have to provide financial support while you do it.
| We all have this intuitive sense as developers that a
| short, deep interview is probably better, and that a long
| convoluted process is neither fair to the applicant nor
| particularly useful due to false negatives/etc. And in fact
| for many positions there is likely a fairly low "good-
| enough" bar where anyone reasonably competent is probably
| gonna be fine even if they're not hyperspecialized in the
| exact thing you're looking for.
|
| Honest question, if you are looking at this in the sense of
| "college as a hiring interview": if you want true
| equitability, isn't the best approach to "fizzbuzz and give
| an offer to anyone with no major red flags" (for whatever
| fizzbuzz/small task is appropriate for an interview
| question for your position)? Obviously college applications
| outnumber slots, but if you have 100k "qualified"
| applications for 25k slots, just give a slot to the top 10k
| and randomize acceptance for the other 15k? That kinda
| seems to be what people want for colleges, if you want a
| true "background-blind system" - cherrypick the best and
| then just give everyone else who has a reasonable chance of
| success an equal shot at admission.
|
| Otherwise you do end up in these "well candidate X is 82.3%
| likely to graduate but candidate Y is 82.4% likely to
| graduate" scenarios and effectively you are making
| decisions inside the margin of error. And that is the point
| where your parents' money comes into play - even a small
| edge helps you in a decision that is made on these super
| marginal factors.
| bombcar wrote:
| I think that's the thing people are forgetting - the
| whole point of college admissions is NOT to discriminate,
| or even find the smartest; it's to attempt to make sure
| that those admitted can complete the coursework and
| benefit from it.
|
| Once that bar has been cleared _then_ you can start
| trying to improve things above it, but a problem has been
| that removing the bar meant you had many people who
| failed out (or, worse, you watered down the degree such
| that graduation becomes meaningless).
|
| At the root of all this is the "everyone has to go to
| college to be happy and successful" - as long as we hold
| that AND there are people not suited to college as it
| currently is, we have a major problem. We need to make
| sure we have a society where non-college educated people
| can survive and thrive, or we're going to turn college
| into high school.
| swatcoder wrote:
| It's not leveling the playing field among social classes,
| but it is leaving an official door open for individuals who
| have a knack for tests but lack the support resources of
| richer folk. That's better then a closed door, and is
| easier to audit and evaluate than informal "holistic"
| admissions that may carry all sorts of implicit and hard to
| detect biases of their own. I'm certainly glad it was a
| door open to me some decades ago.
|
| Truly leveling the playing field of society is probably not
| a thing that can happen.
| stevage wrote:
| It's a big question. You could also argue that the poor
| student has an unfair advantage for being born with better
| intelligence, and the money is helping even that out.
| Clamchop wrote:
| You could but you shouldn't.
| philwelch wrote:
| You run into diminishing returns on test prep pretty fast.
| You obviously could blow thousands of dollars on a private
| test prep tutor but you'd be wasting your money compared to
| the poor kid with a $40 book grinding away at practice
| problems every night.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Does prep work have that big of an effect? I don't think it
| can make an average student beat a gifted one unless the
| gifted one completely phones it in.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| It's not perfect but IMO it's the best acceptance criteria
| available. The alternative is evaluating people based on
| subjective criteria like "well roundedness".
| bumby wrote:
| > _Yes, there can be differences in prep and training, but
| that's life_
|
| Some feel that we should be working towards evening out that
| playing field of opportunity. That doesn't mean using
| standardizing is wrong, but that we shouldn't be treating it as
| a panacea. It's a brick in a bigger wall.
| slily wrote:
| That's perfectly reasonable as long as you don't have
| unrealistic expectations, like thinking that differences can
| or must be completely eliminated, as if students are dolls
| we're playing with and don't have their own agency and
| varying abilities.
| xbar wrote:
| I know I am operating as a bad scientist when I am happy that the
| data supports my bias.
| BadHumans wrote:
| My only hang up with standardized testing is that it isn't
| accessible but not in the ways people might think. When I was in
| high school, I saw a good number of people who could not travel
| to a testing center. The closest testing center to my high school
| was the next city and with no public transport and a variety of
| family circumstances they couldn't take the test.
|
| Test also cost money and you could find yourself in the middle
| class trap where you are too rich to get a waiver but too broke
| to afford the test.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Ideally, said tests are part of the normal tests done in the
| last year of highschool, right?
|
| Shit, having to travel and pay for _another_ test before you
| can go to college is borderline dystopian...
| lapcat wrote:
| Way back in the day, I remember having to travel to take the
| SAT. In fact, I got a speeding ticket on the way to the test!
| Naturally, that didn't help my score.
| btilly wrote:
| No. They are done in specific locations, administered by the
| testing organization.
|
| They do a lot to try to avoid cheating, limit memorizing
| answers, and so on. There is a conflict of interest with
| actually trusting the school whose reputation depends on how
| well their students do. Over the years, I've run into quite a
| few cheating scandals with other tests where teachers tried
| to improve scores. Because of that, I think that their
| precautions are very reasonable.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Many high schools do force every junior to take the SAT in
| school. Mine did. We all got to skip class for the day and
| took it in the gym.
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| I know the PSAT and SAT can be taken multiple times, and
| often starts with PSAT as a sophomore. Very common to take
| SAT as a junior, and then again as a senior if you weren't
| happy with your junior score.
|
| Have not heard of traveling outside your district for SAT's,
| I'm not sure why that would happen.
| tekla wrote:
| No? We took it in the school.
|
| Hell I took the SAT in the 6th Grade and I also took in the
| school
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Many schools offer the SAT, but I'd agree it likely just should
| be all.
|
| >Test also cost money and you could find yourself in the middle
| class trap where you are too rich to get a waiver but too broke
| to afford the test.
|
| This test in particular is only $60 even if not subsidized, so
| it's hard to believe anyone who doesn't qualify can't scrounge
| up enough for at least the one attempt. However this is a real
| issue with financial aid as a whole, just 10-20k more a year
| can have a negative impact on what scholarships/financial aid
| you can receive, and that can easily end up at over six figures
| of 'lost' aid.
| throwaway24124 wrote:
| $60 + lost income for a student who works outside school
| hours and also has to take the test outside school hours +
| transportation which could be over an hour in rural areas and
| you can see how this could quickly add up, especially for a
| teenager who may be smart but may not see the proper
| cost/benefit of skipping the SAT
| slily wrote:
| You are looking for corner cases within corner cases at
| this point. I know it's uncool to assign the responsibility
| of children to their parents these days... but if you
| subscribe to the idea that every system in place has to
| cater to every possible living situation, you'll just end
| up with one that doesn't work well for anyone, as evidenced
| by this post.
| redeeman wrote:
| and if they know how it is, they probably are able to make
| it happen by planning for it over the course of a year.
|
| honestly, im not sure i would ever wish to hire someone who
| couldnt make this happen
| ramblenode wrote:
| All this seems like a small investment compared to properly
| preparing for the test. An average student would probably
| want to study at least 10 hours if they care about their
| test score.
|
| > especially for a teenager who may be smart but may not
| see the proper cost/benefit of skipping the SAT
|
| The SAT is for students who want to attend college. If $60
| and a two hour round trip is going to tilt the scale on
| whether you spend 4 years in college, then from the
| college's point of view, you may not be the type of
| applicant they are looking for.
| EchoChamberMan wrote:
| "I mean, it's one banana Michael. What could it cost? 10
| dollars?"
| throwaway24124 wrote:
| Absolutely agree. If these tests are not offered in the school
| during normal school hours, students should receive
| compensation for taking the test. It's bonkers to me that
| students have to pay to take it. Travel should also be provided
| if the test cannot be offered in the student's school. I think
| that would be a much fairer way to close the equity gap for
| standardized testing, rather than remove one of the few ways a
| student from a low-income background can prove their academic
| worth.
| legitster wrote:
| I think this trap is rarer than you would think. I qualified
| for Pell Grant but still had no problem arranging transport to
| testing.
|
| I can think of all of my friends who couldn't be assed to go to
| the test or ask for voucher, but I couldn't imagine them being
| academically successful in college anyway.
| tekno45 wrote:
| "i was poor, but nobody is THAT poor" is a bad argument.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| I don't think these tests are unaffordable to middle class
| people
| bumby wrote:
| Why did you constrain it to "middle class people"?
| ejb999 wrote:
| because the post s/he is responding too specially mentions
| the middle class getting squeezed.
| bumby wrote:
| Got it. Thanks for clarifying, I think I lost the thread
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| LMAO, this is so bizarre. The biases on this site and the
| weird attention you get for criticizing them.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if the mods get involved.
| ryathal wrote:
| My state currently uses the SAT as it's high school
| standardized test, I believe for Juniors. Everyone gets at
| least one shot at it then.
| BadHumans wrote:
| I haven't remained up to date with how testing is handled now
| since I'm an old fart but before the test was not given
| during school hours. If it is now then wonderful.
| bombcar wrote:
| When I was a youngster we got the PSAT for "free" in Junior
| year, but the SAT we had to schedule and take ourselves.
|
| Then again, back then there was no essay part for the SAT,
| so lol.
| graeme wrote:
| All of the tests have fee waivers:
| https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/sat/registration/fee-waive...
|
| The alternative to testing is looking at resumes and various
| resume-boosting extra-curriculars are substantially more
| inaccessible to those without means. Merely identifying some
| edge cases in the current method doesn't make a good argument.
| BadHumans wrote:
| I specifically mentioned fee waivers and ignoring edge cases
| doesn't make the current method good. But I'm not making a
| large case about why standardized testing is bad. Like I
| said, these are my only hang ups. I'm not trying to put you
| out of business.
| graeme wrote:
| Ah my mistake, didn't read your final line properly.
| legitster wrote:
| I admire that they actually stuck with it and tried it, but it's
| still crazy to me that anyone thought this was a good idea.
|
| I don't know how anyone who spent decades within school and then
| academia could convince themselves and others "let's get rid of
| the one part of the Kabuki theatre application process that isn't
| a massive performative time suck". In the name of equality!
| lapcat wrote:
| > In the name of equality!
|
| No, that's not why. From the article: "When the coronavirus
| pandemic scrambled testing, Yale and many other colleges
| dropped requirements that applicants submit standardized tests
| such as the SAT or ACT."
| legitster wrote:
| That's a bit revisionist. Covid was justification at the
| time, but the idea clearly didn't happen in a vacuum, and the
| policy was reinstated several times even after testing
| resumed.
| lapcat wrote:
| > That's a bit revisionist. Covid was justification at the
| time
|
| Many colleges suspended the requirement simultaneously in
| 2020, citing the pandemic, and you're claiming that it's
| revisionist? Occam's razor suggests the cited justification
| _was_ the reason, and with the pandemic over, this explains
| why many colleges are now going back to requiring test
| scores.
| ejb999 wrote:
| the movement was _well_ underway before covid hit - you
| are trying to rewrite history.
| lapcat wrote:
| > you are trying to rewrite history.
|
| No, I'm not. Yale (along with a number of college
| colleges) suspended the testing policy in 2020 due to the
| pandemic. That's an indisputable historical fact.
|
| "For nearly four years Yale's undergraduate admissions
| process has been test-optional. The experience,
| originally necessitated by the pandemic, has been an
| invaluable opportunity to think deeply about testing
| policy and to generate new data and analyses. With
| testing availability now fully restored for prospective
| applicants around the world, we have reevaluated our
| policy with the benefit of fresh insights."
| https://admissions.yale.edu/test-flexible
|
| Let me put it this way: before the pandemic there was
| already a work-from-home movement. But when countless
| companies suddenly decided to do WFH in 2020, it wasn't
| because of the movement! It was because of the pandemic.
| And a lot of those companies are now calling for return-
| to-office.
|
| It's the exact same thing with standardized testing.
| There's literally no difference between the two cases. We
| don't need a political conspiracy theory when there's a
| very obvious and logical explanation for what happened.
| The pandemic was a forced experiment for WFH and a forced
| experiment for many other things, such as the omission of
| standardized testing. We had students taking classes from
| home too!
| legitster wrote:
| > The experience, _originally_ necessitated by the
| pandemic, _has been an invaluable opportunity to think
| deeply about testing policy and to generate new data and
| analyses._
|
| You are kind of ignoring everything Yale themselves said
| after the words "originally necessitated by the
| pandemic".
|
| Nothing in their long, thoughtful writeup says "it was
| only done for convenience, sorry". If anything, it's a
| carefully worded and researched examination of them
| earnestly pursuing the policy on academic grounds and
| examining why the policy failed.
| lapcat wrote:
| It's funny how your tone has changed from the scornful
| "it's still crazy to me that anyone thought this was a
| good idea" to praising Yale for "their long, thoughtful
| writeup" and "a carefully worded and researched
| examination of them earnestly pursuing the policy on
| academic grounds".
|
| 1) It wasn't a crazy idea. As ejb999 noted, a number of
| colleges had already done it before the pandemic.
|
| 2) It wasn't crazy to suspend the testing requirement
| during the pandemic.
|
| 3) It wasn't crazy to continue an experiment that had
| already been in progress in order to get conclusive
| results.
|
| 4) Yale didn't say the policy was a disaster. They simply
| decided that the other policy is better for them, in
| light of the empirical results.
|
| 5) There was no official end date of the pandemic. Thus,
| different institutions will move at a different pace. And
| Yale also mentioned as a factor for them, "With testing
| availability now fully restored for prospective
| applicants around the world".
| legitster wrote:
| Several states did not cite slavery as a reason for
| seceding from the US, but it would be foolish not to read
| the context.
|
| Given the thousands of op-eds and the barrels of ink
| spilled over the situation at the time, the organization
| surely knew the context of the decision they were making,
| especially given they extended the policy several times.
| lapcat wrote:
| > it would be foolish not to read the context.
|
| Indeed, it would be foolish not to read the context, and
| the context in 2020 was a global pandemic.
|
| Serious question: are you _denying_ that the pandemic
| disrupted the administration of standardized tests? It
| certainly disrupted education in general, at every level.
| legitster wrote:
| No, but most state universities still found a way to
| proctor tests temporarily. Especially by 2022. And by the
| time classes resumed, so did the College Board test
| centers - if anything, the tests were easier to conduct
| than classes during Covid.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Especially by 2022. And by the time classes resumed
|
| You're already tacitly granting the fact that the testing
| requirement was suspended in 2020 because of the
| pandemic.
| tqi wrote:
| I think it was a pretty healthy mix of both. Look at
| these two articles from the same day in 2020:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/article/sat-act-test-optional-
| colleg...
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/us/university-
| california-...
|
| One focuses on the pandemic related reasons, one focuses
| on equality concerns.
| lapcat wrote:
| It's not quite that simple. "In March, UC temporarily
| suspended the current standardized test requirement for
| fall 2021 applicants to mitigate impacts of COVID-19 on
| students and schools, effectively making UC "test-
| optional" for that year." So the May decision had no
| immediate practical effect, since the requirement was
| already suspended.
|
| https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-
| room/university...
|
| In this case there was a coincidence, because California
| had started reconsidering the test requirement back in
| 2018, and the process happened to reach culmination in
| 2020... but not until after the pandemic started.
|
| The decision was also very much about guaranteeing spots
| for California residents in California schools.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Ahem, it's _equity_ now. That old word was replaced when you
| weren 't looking.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| most of these progressive measures is about getting rid of one
| framework and leaving an absence of any frameworks
|
| a void
|
| when you ask about that you'll hear "doing _something_ is
| better than doing nothing", where "nothing" includes planning,
| and something is addressing an inequality that needs to go away
| immediately
|
| in this case, people are misreading the University's stance out
| of their own giddiness, the University lacks a _better_ way to
| assess people. Both the university and the activists have
| accurately identified the problem, they haven't identified a
| solution and scrapping the tests wasnt a solution
| imgabe wrote:
| It's too late. Ivy League schools are a joke. They've been
| coasting on the accomplishments of alumni from 50 years ago.
| Serious kids of the current generation should not worry about
| trying to get into Ivies.
|
| Why would you go to an Ivy? Do you think you're going to learn
| calculus better than you would at flagship state U? You aren't.
| Do you think you're going to work with famous professor there?
| You aren't. They wouldn't touch an undergrad with a 10 ft pole.
| They will hand off all your classes to adjuncts and grad
| students. Don't waste your money on a fancy brand.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| financial aid
| Upvoter33 wrote:
| look, I'm a public school guy through and through, but to say
| people who go to Harvard don't get any benefit from going there
| is pretty silly.
| addicted wrote:
| The results of people going to Ivies is significantly better.
| You make better contacts and you have access to better
| resources.
|
| This would be better described as Ivy+ which is the usual Ivies
| and colleges that are considered at that tier such as Stanford.
|
| Putting it another way, if you are going to college and you had
| an Ivy+ college as an option, why would you not choose that?
| bumby wrote:
| > _The results of people going to Ivies is significantly
| better._
|
| The studies I've seen contradict this. Students who are
| accepted to elite colleges but instead go to "lesser" schools
| do just as well as their Ivy counterparts. The exception is
| extremely poor students who do better by going to elite
| schools; researchers speculate that is due to networking
| effects. But that effect doesn't generalize well like your
| comment implies.
| antasvara wrote:
| Note: I can't find the article on this, so no data
| unfortunately.
|
| The reason for this (at least from what I've heard) is that
| when you've got the credentials to get into an Ivy, the
| limiting factor for your success is "being able to complete
| your degree."
|
| If you choose an "easier" school, your odds of completing a
| degree go up by a lot. You also stand a chance of being one
| of the best students there, further bolstering your
| transcript and opportunities for doing research while at
| the university.
| bombcar wrote:
| There's quite a number of variables that go into college
| selection, and just because you qualify for a bunch
| doesn't mean that the "most elite" would be the best.
| Sometimes it _is_ better to be the big fish in the small
| pond; other times you 're better off being smaller in a
| bigger pond.
|
| Part of the problem is trying to work all this out at an
| age where you're not even allowed to vote, let alone buy
| a beer or a gun.
|
| One of the surest things to aim for, in my opinion, is
| minimizing external debt carried afterwards, which for
| low income but high achieving students, may mean aiming
| at the very top, where full scholarships are available.
| alexcannan wrote:
| Surrounding yourself with the smartest people possible, during
| the most formative years of your life, is always a good idea.
| Get into the best school you can
| imgabe wrote:
| Are they the smartest people possible? Recent court cases
| have exposed that "smartest possible" is not what Ivies are
| selecting for.
| azinman2 wrote:
| I've yet to be surrounded by better people in any
| environment than when I was at MIT (not an Ivy, but is what
| people often mean colloquially).
| imgabe wrote:
| When did you go there?
| xanderlewis wrote:
| > Why would you go to an Ivy?
|
| It's not got much to do with the quality of teaching as you
| point out; it's largely for signalling purposes.
|
| Apparently there are now would-be students getting into Ivy
| League colleges with no intention of ever matriculating and
| paying the vast fees. They simply attach their offer as proof
| of their intellectual potential/elite group membership to their
| CV and get a job where they'll learn far more than they would
| in four years at an old academic institution (and get paid to
| do it!).
|
| If you ever wanted proof that the certification is worth more
| than the experience itself, that must be it.
| EchoChamberMan wrote:
| Wow, the snake eating its own tail!
|
| Good thing Harvard has a $50bn endowment to carry them into
| the future. /s
| okdood64 wrote:
| This is very divorced from reality. Past a certain point your
| classes and professors don't matter much.
|
| You go there to be surrounded by smarter people, with better
| connections, better extracurricular programs, and the name
| brand recognition to get a headstart on adult life.
| imgabe wrote:
| It's true. There are brainless hiring managers who will
| greenlight anyone with a fancy school on their resume just
| like there are consumers who will fork over a month's salary
| for a handbag with right logo. If you want to work for people
| like that, by all means, knock yourself out jumping through
| Ivy school hoops.
|
| If you care about results, focus on results and the rest will
| follow.
| Balgair wrote:
| I mean, the Ivies have a pretty darn good track record of
| 'results' too.
|
| Where do you think are places with better 'results'?
|
| Not trolling here, I am genuinely curious as to your metric
| and the places/things that fit it.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Kids that just graduated don't have any results to look at,
| besides the schooling they've managed to complete. With no
| other knowledge, if you had to choose between a kid with a
| stanford degree and a kid with a south harmon institute of
| technology degree, which would you imagine is more capable?
| hirvi74 wrote:
| I am probably quite wrong on this, but I have always believed
| that the people smart enough to get into MIT, Harvard, Yale,
| etc. were probably smart enough that they didn't even truly
| need to go there. It's more for connections and a formality
| than for pure educational attainment.
|
| For example, Bill Gates left Harvard after two years. He did
| quite fine without graduating by most metrics. I imagine he
| would have been quite successful, perhaps in a different way,
| had he not attended at all.
| bombcar wrote:
| They may not have needed to go, but they almost certainly
| received advantages for having gone.
|
| Even Billy G would have had two years of knowledge of
| people whom he could tap - and if you go back and research
| early Microsoft, I bet you'd see evidence of that.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| Harvard works more for people like steve ballmer than it
| does for bill gates.
| kerzs wrote:
| I go to Cornell so I want to provide my perspective on this:
|
| 1. Do you think you're going to learn calculus better than you
| would at flagship state U? - No. There might be a small
| difference but I would not claim to have received an education
| that is significantly better than any state university. I was
| able to take very specific grad-level classes and learn
| basically whatever niche subject I wanted to - which might be
| an issue at schools which do not have comparable funding. But
| overall, not significantly better than a state U.
|
| 2. Do you think you're going to work with famous professor
| there? - In my experience every student who was competent and
| wanted to work on a research project was able to - even as soon
| as their second semester in freshman year (might not get the
| exact professor and project you want - but in my experience all
| professors have an incredible reputation and you will gain a
| lot out of whoever you get to work with)
|
| 3. They will hand off all your classes to adjuncts and grad
| students. - In all my classes, grad students have been
| responsible for grading assignments and exams, but never for
| teaching - only the professors teach.
|
| 4. Don't waste your money on a fancy brand - I didn't. Coming
| from a low-income household, Cornell covered all my expenses
| and I have not paid a single cent my entire 4 years (and no
| loans). It is significantly more likely for an Ivy League
| university to provide full financial aid as they have the
| endowment to do so.
|
| Additionally, the biggest advantages for me with regards to the
| brand name were: 1. Recruiting - recruiters from FAANG and
| other top companies come to you - pretty much everyone I know
| was going into FAANG or a top fintech company their sophomore
| or junior year internship. 2. Networking - Since there are so
| many alumni already at top firms, it is significantly easier to
| get referrals.
| imgabe wrote:
| We're talking about Ivy League schools here, not Cornell.
| sand500 wrote:
| Cornell is ivy league.
| imgabe wrote:
| I mean sure, technically, yeah.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Yeah, it's funny, that Cornell while being Ivy League
| does not get any of the blame. I guess it is because they
| are doing something right.
| noslenwerdna wrote:
| Is this not a deeply cynical reason to go to an Ivy league
| school? Recruiters target those schools so you get a job that
| will allow you to make more money, and simply because you get
| access to better connected people (again to make more money)?
| It's not about the quality of education at all, then.
| kerzs wrote:
| I would not say it's not about the quality of education at
| all - it's not hugely better than state universities but
| definitely not worse. I firmly believe I could not have
| received a better education anywhere else (except maybe
| even better institutions like MIT or Stanford).
|
| As an individual, my decision then is: do I want to choose
| a place that sets me up for a high paying job and with
| connections I can rely on for life, and does not take my
| money for it, while also not having any downsides (that I
| can see) compared to a state university? Choosing a school
| for these reasons seems like the most rational choice
| anyone could make in that scenario.
|
| Please correct me if I am misunderstanding your argument.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Nearly every school will give you a quality education, but
| elite schools will allow you to put that education to
| better use. There's nothing cynical about thinking of your
| education as an investment you'd want to optimize, indeed
| many people suffer for years because they spent way more on
| an education than they actually valued it.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| > It's not about the quality of education at all, then.
|
| As the saying goes, "It ain't the grades you make, but the
| hands you shake."
| bombcar wrote:
| It's literally the main reason to go. It's most explicit in
| the MBA schools, where the admissions office of various
| schools would tell me "we're great if you're going for this
| area, or live in this area, otherwise we recommend another
| school". The MBA _teaching_ is almost the same everywhere,
| what you _learn_ - but the whole value is who you meet.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _Coming from a low-income household, Cornell covered all my
| expenses and I have not paid a single cent my entire 4 years
| (and no loans)._
|
| For students in your situation, it makes sense to go to a
| private college with lots of financial aid, since there's
| basically no downside. For middle class students, it makes
| much less sense since they and their families have to take on
| huge loans. Even for wealthy students, it's not as clear a
| case as for low-income students. You have to be very wealthy
| for your family to be able to easily afford $320k per kid.
| kerzs wrote:
| This is an absolutely valid point.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Youve completely missed the point of ivies. It's not to get a
| better education. Its not to do research or have better
| professors. The point of ivies is to be around the other
| students who got in. The alumni network at these institutions
| is unbelievably valuable, and theyre full of rich legacies who
| can boost the careers of the whole network.
| imgabe wrote:
| It's not to get a better education. It's not to do better
| research. Yes, you are proving my point.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| There's a massive advantage for likely-to-succeed students to
| be embedded in an environment where they will primarily
| interact with other likely-to-succeed students. Somewhat
| perversely, it doesn't really matter WHY they're likely to
| succeed, which creates the situation that rich parents buying
| their kid's spot actually creates a net benefit to the students
| who got in on merit.
|
| THAT's why you go to an Ivy. It's where the successful go.
| gist wrote:
| > THAT's why you go to an Ivy. It's where the successful go.
|
| I'd rephrase that as 'going to an Ivy (or equal non Ivy
| notable school like Stanford) - gives you - all things equal
| - a better chance of success' (by various points made by
| others who have replied to the parent comment).
|
| Now what's interesting is the parent comment 'why would
| anyone ... a joke' clearly shows that they don't understand
| at all the value or branding. As if it's some type of mass
| delusion of stupid people.
| imgabe wrote:
| The value of branding. An interesting concept. What value
| does branding provide? Does it make you smarter? More
| competent? Or does it just convince people to give you more
| money for no reason?
|
| Interesting that you place such a high value on branding
| compared to actually being able to do your job.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| You seem to be now arguing that prestigious universities
| provide a WORSE education than lower-tier institution.
| That's very different from what you said in your original
| comment, which is that they're no better. The latter is
| probably true, or at the very least not dramatically
| better. They certainly don't offer a worse education,
| though.
|
| So the additional competency from direct instruction is
| negligible. That doesn't mean that the value of attending
| a top-tier university is negligible, because the direct
| instructional education is only a small part of what
| someone gains access to at a university.
|
| There's the social network aspect: There is a lot of
| value in having personal connections with other
| successful people. People need business partners,
| investors, advisors, etc. in order to be successful, and
| top tier universities intermingle you with others who are
| likely to be helpful in those regards. At top tier
| universities, the majority of people you interact with
| will either talented, wealthy, or both. At a lower tier
| university, the pool is far more diluted, reducing the
| utility of your social network in pursuing success.
|
| There's the branding advantage: if you're choosing
| between two people, and one has someone you trust
| vouching for them that they're competent, and the other
| doesn't, you're going to go with the first person every
| single time. A top-tier university is basically that
| third party, vouching for its graduates: they're more
| likely to be successful, and people want to surround
| themselves with successful people.
|
| And then there's the educational advantage: If you're
| surrounded by other smart, motivated people, you're going
| to gain real educational advantages by cooperating with
| them. You learn from each other, bounce ideas off each
| other, etc. If you're by far the smartest person in the
| room, you don't get nearly the same added value out of
| your education. At a top-tier university, you're going to
| be surrounded by substantially more high-quality students
| than at a lower-tier school.
|
| And yeah, convincing people to give you money is BY
| DEFINITION valuable. As measured by the value of the
| money they're giving you.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| This is essentially the premise of good k-12 public schools.
| The good schools are the schools with the good students. In
| some states, the worst schools are the most funded, and they
| continue to be the worst schools.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| You don't go to an Ivy League to learn calculus. You go to an
| Ivy League for the prestige and to build a network of
| connections with people who are likely to be successful.
| imgabe wrote:
| And would you say it's a good thing that this is the reason
| as compared to actually learning calculus?
|
| Ultimately, you're going to have to drive across a bridge
| someday designed by John or Jane Q. Ivyleageue. Would you
| prefer they got the bridge designing contract because they
| were good at calculus or because their college roommate's
| uncle was in charge of awarding the contract?
| jjk166 wrote:
| The people at Ivy Leagues still do learn calculus. You're
| not sacrificing anything academically to go to a better
| school, the perks are on top of a first rate education.
| imgabe wrote:
| Sure,ok. Look at the state of things run by Ivy League
| graduates in the US and carefully reconsider that. The
| financial system. The cost disease in infrastructure
| projects. Government. Healthcare. Are you sure about
| that?
| jjk166 wrote:
| Show me a country where institutions are run by people
| who went to mediocre institutions that is dramatically
| outperforming the US. Indeed show me any evidence of
| elite education attainers underperforming.
|
| I can see the argument that the perks of elite education
| do not justify the increased cost, but I've never seen
| anyone argue that elite education is actually of
| substantially lower quality.
| gist wrote:
| Believe it or not a larger percentage of students at an IVY (or
| otherwise notable university say Stanford) have busted their
| ass to get into that school and not coasted 'oh I don't want to
| work that hard'. Absolutely there are people who have been
| admitted that have not (family, money, legacy whatever). Just
| the same there are the same type of students who have gone to a
| non notable school that may have been Ivy material and not
| gotten admitted for various reasons (didn't care, couldn't
| afford, family, whatever).
|
| The thing is about the student body at a top school (IVY or
| notable again) is the percentage and general feel of the
| student body that fits the 'busted their ass to get to that
| school' instead of not caring that much. And really living
| working and dreaming about going to the top school including
| but not limited to sacrifices that they might have made.
| ramblenode wrote:
| > Do you think you're going to learn calculus better than you
| would at flagship state U?
|
| Yes. Compare this Harvard Calc I final [0] to that of UNC
| Charlotte [1]. The test format of the Harvard exam works in the
| student's favor, but the questions are more difficult, more
| conceptual, and encompass optional topics that are not in a
| typical Calc I course (PDFs, Midi function). The Harvard class
| also requires students to demonstrate competency in various
| proofs that would not be required in a purely computational
| Calc I class.
|
| [0]
| https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/teaching/math1a2020/f...
|
| [1]
| https://math.charlotte.edu/sites/math.charlotte.edu/files/me...
| ubj wrote:
| Related: MIT's detailed blog post about why they reinstated the
| SAT/ACT requirement (2 years ago):
|
| https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/we-are-reinstating-our...
|
| Some quotes from the MIT blog post:
|
| > [S]tandardized tests also help us identify academically
| prepared, socioeconomically disadvantaged students who could not
| otherwise demonstrate readiness because they do not attend
| schools that offer advanced coursework, cannot afford expensive
| enrichment opportunities, cannot expect lengthy letters of
| recommendation from their overburdened teachers, or are otherwise
| hampered by educational inequalities.
|
| > [O]ur findings directionally align with a major study conducted
| by the University of California's Standardized Testing Task
| Force, which found that including SAT/ACT scores predicted
| undergraduate performance better than grades alone, and also
| helped admissions officers identify well-prepared students from
| less-advantaged backgrounds.
| Upvoter33 wrote:
| Seems like an important thing to do: it gives smart people, no
| matter the background, and chance to show their stuff.
|
| That said, we should be putting work in to level the "prep"
| playing field. Some people have the resources to do a lot of
| prep, some not so much. The more the prep situation is addressed,
| the better these tests are.
| curiousllama wrote:
| It's important to remember that the legal context around
| admissions has changed over the past few years. 2-3 years ago, it
| seemed clear that (1) the courts were likely to strike down
| policies that support diversity via admissions and (2) they were
| going to use test scores as a way to measure the inequity. [A]
|
| It appeared then that schools were no longer requiring test
| scores as a defensive move - if they don't require tests, it's
| harder to use them in court.
|
| Today, the court appears to be signaling that they won't continue
| cracking down. [B] [C]. Accordingly, we should not be surprised
| that that admissions offices are reacting by reinstating the
| requirements - they've always been useful; they were just briefly
| dangerous.
|
| [A] https://www.harvard.edu/admissionscase/wp-
| content/uploads/si... [B] https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-
| supreme-court-rejects-virgi... [C]
| https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2024/02/05/s...
| lapcat wrote:
| > It appeared then that schools were no longer requiring test
| scores as a defensive move - if they don't require tests, it's
| harder to use them in court.
|
| From the article: "When the coronavirus pandemic scrambled
| testing, Yale and many other colleges dropped requirements that
| applicants submit standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT."
|
| Why is everyone looking for a convoluted theory when there's a
| very obvious explanation?
| bombcar wrote:
| Remote computer proctoring is a solved problem, way before
| Covid, so the pandemic may be _part_ of the reason, but it 's
| unlikely to be the _whole_ reason.
|
| Universities bandwagon just as much as anyone else does, and
| the reasons they give afterwards may not be the reasons they
| went into it.
| lapcat wrote:
| That's like saying remote instruction was a solved problem
| before Covid.
|
| The problem with the pandemic was that almost every student
| in the country was suddenly thrown into a remote situation,
| and nobody was prepared for that.
|
| It's the same with remote work. It may have been a "solved
| problem" before the pandemic (and I personally WFH before
| the pandemic), but nobody was prepared for a huge portion
| of the country's workforce to be suddenly thrown into
| remote work.
| barryrandall wrote:
| A significant portion of the US population wants to believe
| the convoluted theory over the obvious explanation.
| karaterobot wrote:
| It seems like many universities (especially Ivy league schools)
| who made testing optional during the pandemic did so for
| logistical reasons: they couldn't ask students to sit in a big
| room with a hundred other kids to take a test. I can't say
| whether COVID provided cover for the motives you list above,
| but the proximate reason given was sufficient.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/coronavirus-s...
| EchoChamberMan wrote:
| This makes a lot of sense, thanks.
| polski-g wrote:
| FDB predicted this: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/why-the-
| fuck-do-you-tru...
|
| > You can't make college admissions fair by getting rid of the
| SAT because colleges admissions can't be "fair." College
| admissions exist to serve the schools. Period. End of story. They
| always have, they always will.
|
| Elite colleges exist to get donations from graduates. If said
| graduates are stupid because of lack of meritocracy in the
| admissions process, they will be poor donors (because they're
| poor post-graduation).
| Ajay-p wrote:
| That.. did not last long. In my opinion it was a disastrous thing
| to even attempt. There is really no way to judge a random
| person's ability to learn, or even address the act of learning,
| without a standardized test. The ACT and SAT will always need
| work as culture changes, but throwing it out in search of
| restorative justice is extremely unwise.
| asoneth wrote:
| > throwing it out in search of restorative justice is extremely
| unwise.
|
| I see this claim a lot, but it seems partially true at best. As
| per the article and conversations with friends in admissions
| departments, the testing requirement at many elite schools was
| suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.
|
| However, the debate over how tests impact disadvantaged
| students may be why "many schools continued their test-optional
| policies even as the public health crisis eased" as per the
| article, so you're partially right that it probably played a
| role in why some schools have dragged their feet. (Contrast to
| schools like MIT which also dropped their testing requirement
| during the pandemic but reinstated it more quickly afterwards.)
| bombcar wrote:
| I think what was more prevalent was a "unequal outcomes can
| be explained away by this standardized test" and then we got
| a chance to experiment with it and learn new data.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| I have no real qualms with this under one wishful condition. My
| condition is that I think if schools are going to start selecting
| for this type of individual again, it would be quite beneficial
| to start _heavily_ screening children for learning disabilities
| and other disorders that can impact educational attainment.
|
| I had an undiagnosed learning disability, and had I known at the
| time, I could have received proper accommodations and treatments
| that I believe would have greatly improved my abilities to better
| perform on standardized tests and academics in general.
|
| However, screening children for such disabilities was not common
| in the public education system of the South East, US during my
| time. Based on my academic achievements, GPA, etc. the
| standardized test I took (ACT) was by no means an accurate
| reflection of my abilities. In fact, the ACT actively _harmed_ my
| educational opportunities.
|
| While these tests may help children with poorer socioeconomic
| status, I think the tests currently discriminate against
| neurodivergent people, and are probably significantly worse for
| neurodivergent people with poorer socioeconomic backgrounds.
| EchoChamberMan wrote:
| Unfortunately, screening requires spending time and money, and
| both are things businesses/schools would rather not do.
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