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Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirement

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirement

#71

Post by iaw »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #58
kdmccormick wrote: post #37

Have all the commenters here assuming that this is a misguided attempt that'll end up letting any idiot into degree programs as long as they are labeled "diverse" considered that maybe, possibly standardized tests aren't necessarily a good measure of one's ability to a learn well through a degree program? That maybe the ability to answer hundreds of multiple choice questions and write five-paragraph essays in several…

If you have a data driven alternative measure for predicting student success, by all means offer one. The reality is, schools want to discriminate against whites and Asians in favor of dumber middle-class blacks and hispanics. Edit: You have to understand, these people genuinely, religiously believe that a racially diverse student body is somehow better. It's utterly naive to think their motivation is better evaluati…

> discriminate against whites and Asians in favor of dumber middle-class blacks and hispanics

I think there's ample evidence to indicate that it's not just intelligence at play but the opportunities available to individual students that makes their relative academic success possible. It's a naive argument that the under-representation of particular classes in higher education is because they're 'dumb'

Re: Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirement

#72

Post by xyzzyz »

chongli wrote: post #60
zelly wrote: post #55

How about a SAT test but instead of getting into a college you get a job. Bring back aptitude testing for employment so we don't have to go through this college rigmarole.

I don’t think employers want that. They like 4 year college degrees not only because they demonstrate a modicum of intelligence but also because they demonstrate conformity and conscientiousness, as well as the ability to delay gratification. Employers like conformist workers who will put up with boring work without complaint. A person who does really well in high school and aces their SATs but refuses to go to colle…

They won’t be able to verify it for fresh high school grads, granted, but for people in their mid twenties and older, their conscientiousness and conformity will be apparent in their employment history.

My friend runs a retail business, and he keeps repeating that in his experience, for the relatively simple jobs he has, best predictor of employee quality is whether they had and kept a single job for past 2 years. If they cannot keep a single job for any significant amount of time, it’s bad sign.

Re: Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirement

#73

Post by fierarul »

chongli wrote: post #60
zelly wrote: post #55

How about a SAT test but instead of getting into a college you get a job. Bring back aptitude testing for employment so we don't have to go through this college rigmarole.

I don’t think employers want that. They like 4 year college degrees not only because they demonstrate a modicum of intelligence but also because they demonstrate conformity and conscientiousness, as well as the ability to delay gratification. Employers like conformist workers who will put up with boring work without complaint. A person who does really well in high school and aces their SATs but refuses to go to colle…

This explanation seems somehow off... Wouldn't a 1-2 years degree still show conformity and conscientiousness and delayed gratification? 1-2 years is no small thing.

Don't normal employees also get bored and leave for a different job?

I know for one I would hire kids out of high-school at my company if I had the need for extra work. If they pass the same tests as a college student does, I don't see why not?

Not to mention that from past experience college students learn their 'trade' at the 1st job. There is really not a lot of value add in many college degrees.

Re: Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirement

#74

Post by xyzzyz »

reilly3000 wrote: post #22
mrfusion wrote: post #20

What’s the alternative to these tests?

Grades and all of the other factors admissions people like to look at, like volunteer work, extra-curricular activities, projects, essays, etc.

Ah yes, those are clearly harder to game than independently administered tests, and totally won’t advantage those families with resources to buy projects and essays, can afford extra curricular activities, and are able to freely choose school with lenient grading policy.

Re: Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirement

#75

Post by freetime2 »

As someone who dealt with severe depression during high school, I feel like the SATs really helped me out during college admissions time. Just getting out of bed every day was a real struggle for me and as a result my attendance was poor, my grades were spotty, and I didn’t have any formal extra curriculars I could show off. But I did get the highest SAT scores in my class, and I feel like that helped demonstrate that I had some raw potential even if it wasn’t expressed in all the traditional ways.

It made my high school teachers and principal who might otherwise have written me off pay more attention to me. This was helpful in terms of getting recommendation letters, and also just being allowed to graduate despite a substantial number of absences. It helped get me into a college with a decent computer science program, and I met with much more success there than I had in high school. The freedom and challenges of the college environment really brought something out of me that high school hadn’t.

I think there are a lot of kids in my situation, who are smart but haven’t really “figured it all out yet” in high school. Hopefully there are other ways aside from standardized tests for them to demonstrate that they have potential, and hopefully teachers and colleges are paying attention.

Re: Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirement

#76

Post by xyzzyz »

docbrown wrote: post #70
xyzzyz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also learned a lot in my degrees, and greatly enjoyed my time in the university. However, I’ve only ever needed a tiny fraction of what I learned there in my jobs at Google and Facebook.

Depending on your job, i think people confuse the true idea of what a college education is meant to be. It is not a trade, nor is it career-prepping with the exception of a handful of programs (engineering, nursing, accounting). So in your case, depending on your field, your education was designed to give you a basic understanding of the fundamentals that you will need and the critical thinking skills that will allow…

That’s the theory that people keep repeating, but research keeps failing to substantiate that. University syllabuses keep teaching people things that is not going to be useful to anyone, or will only be useful to tiny fraction of people, who’d likely just learn it as needed anyway. Experiments show that transfer learning basically doesn’t exist, average people simply cannot apply principles they’ve learned in one context in a completely different context. Finally, many people have very successful careers in one field despite having a degree in a completely different field, which suggests that whatever people learn in their degrees doesn’t really matter all that much.

Again, I’d like to emphasize that I personally have greatly enjoyed my time at the university, and have learned a lot of extremely interesting things. It’s just not the learning you get that is responsible for correlation between higher education and life outcomes. I recommend Bryan Caplan’s book “The Case Against Education”.

Re: Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirement

#77

Post by analog31 »

freetime2 wrote: post #75

As someone who dealt with severe depression during high school, I feel like the SATs really helped me out during college admissions time. Just getting out of bed every day was a real struggle for me and as a result my attendance was poor, my grades were spotty, and I didn’t have any formal extra curriculars I could show off. But I did get the highest SAT scores in my class, and I feel like that helped demonstrate tha…

Yup, a relative of mine, who shall remain nameless, will get into college thanks to his test scores. And like you, it has insulated him from being completely written off by his teachers.

Re: Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirement

#78

Post by thawaway1837 »

xyzzyz wrote: post #66
dragonwriter wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ex professor here. Faculty have the power to end this bezzle if we admit students are learning nothing and we'd all be better off with real jobs. I learned quite a lot in most of my classes in college; if your students weren't maybe that's not an indictment of the education system so much as their particular institution & instructors.

I’ve also learned a lot in my degrees, and greatly enjoyed my time in the university. However, I’ve only ever needed a tiny fraction of what I learned there in my jobs at Google and Facebook.

I use literally nothing I learnt in college in my day to day work.

At the same time, I’m almost 100% sure I wouldn’t be half as good at my job if it wasn’t for the stuff I learned in college.

Right from technical courses which taught me to analyze, and convert words and images (documentation) into actual working products, to the writing courses which mean I communicate much better than I would have otherwise to the economic and financial courses that help me understand the dynamics of the company that I work for.

Re: Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirement

#79

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

xyzzyz wrote: post #66
dragonwriter wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ex professor here. Faculty have the power to end this bezzle if we admit students are learning nothing and we'd all be better off with real jobs. I learned quite a lot in most of my classes in college; if your students weren't maybe that's not an indictment of the education system so much as their particular institution & instructors.

I’ve also learned a lot in my degrees, and greatly enjoyed my time in the university. However, I’ve only ever needed a tiny fraction of what I learned there in my jobs at Google and Facebook.

> "However, I’ve only ever needed a tiny fraction of what I learned there in my jobs at Google and Facebook."

That's interesting. What did you do at those positions?

I was at a different FAANG and used the hell out what I learned at university. RF knowledge, embedded systems, creating physics simulations, and a bunch of other stuff. Hell, I wish I'd learned more; some DSP knowledge would be hella handy right about now.

If people are finding that they aren't using what they learned at university in their career, it's the career that's the problem, not the university education. The university is not responsible for the career path people choose to take.

Re: Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirement

#80

Post by yters »

Standardized testing is a good predictor of someone's ability to do well in our STEM oriented society. I score high on these things, but I've also found I'm missing something important compared to people who don't score highly on these things. I think our society is optimized to favor a certain kind of intellectual talent, which certainly exists and is very useful, but does not seem to be the only or even most important personal characteristic.

That being said, these tests should not be abolished, but we should also look at other human characteristics that are beneficial.

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