11–20 of 159 posts
Next: no grades needed to get BS, MA, PhD. and no attendance necessary. After all some groups are at a disadvantage and they will not be able to attend the classes.. While we're at it - why don't we have The Degree Lottery (tm), or better yet, give degrees right after conception.
"Soft-science" degrees from diploma-mill universities are already waaay ahead of you!
This is because they want to enroll people too stupid to solve basic math problems.
Here[0] is a story about a group arguing (a bit successfully, I might add!) that "forcing" students to have the ability to at least pass algebra to get a college degree is a civil rights issue!
[0] https://www.npr.org/2017/07/19/538092649/say-goodbye-to-x-y-...
Next: no grades needed to get BS, MA, PhD. and no attendance necessary. After all some groups are at a disadvantage and they will not be able to attend the classes.. While we're at it - why don't we have The Degree Lottery (tm), or better yet, give degrees right after conception.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/10/magazine/coll...
Common sense should tell us that standardized tests like this are not fair assessments of actual student academic potential. To the extent these tests predict success in college, it's only because they are biased in the same ways that most college support structures are biased. And once the "predictive" tests are in place and accepted, they form a reinforcement loop with college results, each proving the other "right…
> Common sense should tell us that standardized tests like this are not fair assessments of actual student academic potential. Common sense should tell you no such thing! Why wouldn't a test that measures a list of aptitudes (writing, comprehension, logic, math, etc.) not correlate to some extent to academic success in a liberal arts degree? Literally the classes you have to take are related to writing, comprehension…
This is a rational thing to do, because "pure academic results" are hard to get a useful measure from.
Here's an analogy. Suppose you are looking for the most secure encryption algorithm. One thing you could measure is the number of unbroken messages generated from the algorithm. This seems to make sense, because good algorithms will be broken less easily than bad ones. But a bit of thinking will demonstrate this is a bad idea. There are a ton of DES messages in the world, most of which nobody has bothered to break. So by sheer numbers we would conclude DES is more secure than AES, and both are much more secure than any brand née algorithm. Since this is untrue, our heuristic must be wrong. Meanwhile, another heuristic of giving intentional and honest consideration to new, unproven algorithms seems likely to work better.
In the same way, if you want to select for academic potential or * aptitude, measuring prior academic results* may not be the highest-value signal.
Next: no grades needed to get BS, MA, PhD. and no attendance necessary. After all some groups are at a disadvantage and they will not be able to attend the classes.. While we're at it - why don't we have The Degree Lottery (tm), or better yet, give degrees right after conception.
Next: no grades needed to get BS, MA, PhD. and no attendance necessary. After all some groups are at a disadvantage and they will not be able to attend the classes.. While we're at it - why don't we have The Degree Lottery (tm), or better yet, give degrees right after conception.
Common sense should tell us that standardized tests like this are not fair assessments of actual student academic potential. To the extent these tests predict success in college, it's only because they are biased in the same ways that most college support structures are biased. And once the "predictive" tests are in place and accepted, they form a reinforcement loop with college results, each proving the other "right…
Common sense should tell us that standardized tests like this are not fair assessments of actual student academic potential. To the extent these tests predict success in college, it's only because they are biased in the same ways that most college support structures are biased. And once the "predictive" tests are in place and accepted, they form a reinforcement loop with college results, each proving the other "right…
> Common sense should tell us that standardized tests like this are not fair assessments of actual student academic potential. Common sense should tell you no such thing! Why wouldn't a test that measures a list of aptitudes (writing, comprehension, logic, math, etc.) not correlate to some extent to academic success in a liberal arts degree? Literally the classes you have to take are related to writing, comprehension…
Poor kids don't get second or third tries at tests that cost money to take. Even the most brilliant students can have a bad day.
Colleges are held financial accountable to enroll students they can retain, so they can collect a full-term tuition. They aren't going to risk giving a valuable spot to a student that won't be able to perform well academically, just because they are 'diverse'.
Professors would rather teach exceptional, motivated students from all walks of life than the wealthy, entitled children that can afford to spend $5000 on a test prep coach.