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MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

mitadmissions.org

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Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#71
post #57

Anybody cheering the exclusion of some test or other, because it was a pain to study for in high school, is simply not noticing the frog-boiling secondary effects going on. Every bit of emphasis taken out of objective results mean more advantage for smooth talking, photogenic, well-connected people. Yes, some misguided parents waste thousands of dollars on SAT courses. But students can also prep using the $20 officia…

College Prep is a giant business that needs to be dismantled. They have a monopoly in this area.

IMO each college should be doing their own objective test. Definitely agree about subjective tests - smooth talkers will get ahead. But that's already the case in getting a job after they graduate - interviewing process is already broken.

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The conventional wisdom has long been that the SAT subject tests are MORE predictive of future success at MIT, because the influence of test prep, cramming, test coaches, etc. is minimal for the subject tests. Who cares what the conventional wisdom says? The psychometric results are that SAT I scores and SAT II scores predict performance about equally well in isolation and don't have more predictive value in combin…

> Who cares what the conventional wisdom says? The psychometric results are that SAT I scores and SAT II scores predict performance about equally well in isolation and don't have more predictive value in combination than they do in isolation. In other words, they measure exactly the same thing. This is point where you take a step back and conclude that if this is your measured result, you may have been measuring noth…

Did you miss the first part?

> SAT I scores and SAT II scores predict performance about equally well in isolation

They're both good predictors. They're just the same predictor twice, as opposed to being two different predictors.

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#73
post #8

I used to think the SATs were fair. Until I found out how much money was being spent on SAT prep. And those expensive prep courses had the potential to increase scores over 100 points. I took the recommended SAT prep course through my high school. It was 2 weekends of going over material that might be on the exam and a workbook recommended by The College Board. Imagine my surprise going to university and meeting stud…

SAT prep courses advertise that they can increase scores by 100 points but generally they're lying in order to sell more test courses. But the real number is closer to "11 to 15 points on the math section and 6 to 9 points on the verbal."[1] [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228337033_Using_Lin...

Those estimates are generally in line with what other independent investigators find, maybe a bit smaller.

The elephant in the room in these kinds of discussions is the validity of the tests to begin with. MIT makes a statement that the general tests are predictive in combination with other criteria, but how predictive?

Generally studies of these sorts of things find that they're moderately predictive of first-year GPA (like .4 correlation), and then trail off to zero as the interval between testing and outcomes increases. The effects are even smaller in studies in relatively unselected samples (due to court orders or legal decisions, for example).

So one argument always goes that you should use whatever empirically-supported stuff you can to make fair decisions, but we treat them as if they're more than they are. Sure, you could have a lot of things that are significantly predictive but with small effect size, or where there's lots of noise, but why as a society to we pretend these are huge effects?

The other thing about that paper is the hint that the practice effects are larger in higher-performing examinees, which also makes sense and is consistent with other studies. Why is this a problem? Because those are exactly the types of students for whom these issues are more applicable. A 12 point average gain with practice doesn't matter if you're including people who never had a chance at MIT anyway, but a 20 point gain might in a highly competitive group where small differences are being magnified tenfold.

The issue in all of this isn't the people in the 99th percentile versus the 50th percentile, which is the bulk of what's going into these predictive models and effect sizes, it's the 99th versus the 95th. There's a ton of real-world noise, but society acts as if the noise is nonexistent. It's like we're idolizing the outcome of some kind of survivorship bias process.

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree completely. SAT isn't perfect or perfectly objective. No test is. As long as a test controls admission to a highly desirable school, there will be exorbitantly expensive courses for it. However, it is a far more objective test than the rest of the admission packet, and it's being dropped with no alternative. This will make admissions less fair, precisely because SAT is still a test that you can ace with discipl…

To clarify, this announcement is only about the SAT subject tests.

For now.

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#75
post #57

Anybody cheering the exclusion of some test or other, because it was a pain to study for in high school, is simply not noticing the frog-boiling secondary effects going on. Every bit of emphasis taken out of objective results mean more advantage for smooth talking, photogenic, well-connected people. Yes, some misguided parents waste thousands of dollars on SAT courses. But students can also prep using the $20 officia…

Agree completely. SAT isn't perfect or perfectly objective. No test is. As long as a test controls admission to a highly desirable school, there will be exorbitantly expensive courses for it. However, it is a far more objective test than the rest of the admission packet, and it's being dropped with no alternative. This will make admissions less fair, precisely because SAT is still a test that you can ace with discipl…

Agreed. In my opinion, the best way to make admissions more fair is not to eliminate the SAT but to eliminate score choice.

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#76
post #8

I used to think the SATs were fair. Until I found out how much money was being spent on SAT prep. And those expensive prep courses had the potential to increase scores over 100 points. I took the recommended SAT prep course through my high school. It was 2 weekends of going over material that might be on the exam and a workbook recommended by The College Board. Imagine my surprise going to university and meeting stud…

I'm an underrepresented minority and I increased my SAT score by 200-300 from the PSAT to SAT, depending on how you want to measure the change. This was just by doing self-study with off the shelf test prep material. The classes aren't what increases your score, its the consistent structured study and ones innate potential. For some people, no amount of study is going to get them into the 90+th percentile. While othe…

This. I’m a college freshman and took the SAT and PSAT when in high school. I’m also not a minority. While I and my parents could have afforded the expensive prep courses the students around me were taking , I decided to skip these and focus purely on solo prep. Across the PSAT and SAT, I spent a total of $50 for my prep–a $35 dollar, thick book of SAT problems, and a $15 PSAT prep book. Technically, you don’t even need to buy these books—many libraries offer the books to borrow for free.

Just going through those books and drilling incessantly on weekends and in my free time was enough to get me a 1520 on the PSAT (the max score, which helped in gaining merit scholarships, which is the reason I go to school for free right now), and a 1540 on the SAT (99th percentile). I also used Khan Academy extensively, which provides free prep sponsored by Collegeboard.

In my opinion, prep courses are just a means for unmotivated students to put in the same amount of work as a highly diligent, self-studying student. There’s plenty of free and relatively inexpensive resort resources out there nowadays, it just requires time and attention (which sadly a lot of my generation doesn’t have).

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#77
post #8

I used to think the SATs were fair. Until I found out how much money was being spent on SAT prep. And those expensive prep courses had the potential to increase scores over 100 points. I took the recommended SAT prep course through my high school. It was 2 weekends of going over material that might be on the exam and a workbook recommended by The College Board. Imagine my surprise going to university and meeting stud…

The SAT is not fair. By taking an expensive prep course, you can potentially increase your SAT score by 100 (although that's quite extreme, the average improvement attributed to SAT prep is closer to 20 points). That's a significant, but not earth-shattering improvement: it moves you from the 75th percentile to the 84th, or from the 97th percentile to the 99th. Now let's compare that to other criteria used in the col…

Truth be told: the culture of those institutions is based on extremely synthetic virtue-signalling and superficial values and is very far from being meritocratic or open to social mobility.

This might be great for rich kids, though in case you are ambitious, clever, gritty but come from not-so-privileged background (not necessarily low-class or third world - just temporary economic turmoil is enough) - you are going to hate every single second you spend there with all your heart.

So maybe this way it is a win-win in the end. The aristocracy get their titles and the plebs their opportunities for self-realisation. No harm done.

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#78
post #57

Anybody cheering the exclusion of some test or other, because it was a pain to study for in high school, is simply not noticing the frog-boiling secondary effects going on. Every bit of emphasis taken out of objective results mean more advantage for smooth talking, photogenic, well-connected people. Yes, some misguided parents waste thousands of dollars on SAT courses. But students can also prep using the $20 officia…

College Prep is a giant business that needs to be dismantled. They have a monopoly in this area. IMO each college should be doing their own objective test. Definitely agree about subjective tests - smooth talkers will get ahead. But that's already the case in getting a job after they graduate - interviewing process is already broken.

Won't each college having to have their own test lead to many/most colleges, especially smaller ones, finding it easier or more cost effective to purchase their test from a central source, leading to some large College Board-like company making exams and a prep industry for that standard exam?

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#79
post #57

Anybody cheering the exclusion of some test or other, because it was a pain to study for in high school, is simply not noticing the frog-boiling secondary effects going on. Every bit of emphasis taken out of objective results mean more advantage for smooth talking, photogenic, well-connected people. Yes, some misguided parents waste thousands of dollars on SAT courses. But students can also prep using the $20 officia…

College Prep is a giant business that needs to be dismantled. They have a monopoly in this area. IMO each college should be doing their own objective test. Definitely agree about subjective tests - smooth talkers will get ahead. But that's already the case in getting a job after they graduate - interviewing process is already broken.

Is the evidence really that suggestive that college prep makes such a huge difference? I am skeptical, it seemed pretty easy to just study from the blue book.

Probably the biggest way to stop the affluent from taking advantage of the system would be to eliminate school choice.

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#80
post #57

Anybody cheering the exclusion of some test or other, because it was a pain to study for in high school, is simply not noticing the frog-boiling secondary effects going on. Every bit of emphasis taken out of objective results mean more advantage for smooth talking, photogenic, well-connected people. Yes, some misguided parents waste thousands of dollars on SAT courses. But students can also prep using the $20 officia…

Maybe if money weren't an obstacle for getting a good education, then we could actually have the best and brightest going to schools like these instead of just the most well-prepared because of family money and the advantage that wealth brings.
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