MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by hackinthebochs » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 7:31 PM UTC

bermanoid wrote: post #110

closeparen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SAT is designed to be an intelligence test, not a course final, and it's possible that the large team of education and psychometrics people who've been working on it for decades know what they're doing. Armchair speculation: there are probably some really bright kids out there with poor test-taking skills, and prep likely has a dramatic effect on scores for them , but most students are not that. Did you actually…

Not GP, but also a test prep teacher in a previous life. I always scored well on the SAT and test well in general, so I can't speak to personal improvement there, but a few points: First, the test prep companies heavily encourage (and may even require?) students to take the test multiple times. That change alone will boost most people's top score by a solid margin, because it's a noisy test. The first response they a…

But for someone who did well on the SAT, you would be expected to do well on the GRE too. That you were able to prep your way into a good score doesn't indicate the GRE is measuring the wrong thing. You already previously showed a strong aptitude for g-loaded tests. What you needed was familiarity with the content and the kinds of questions asked. But that doesn't invalidate the test.

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

#172

Post by BurningFrog » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 7:31 PM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #71

knzhou wrote: 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.

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

Is there really a single company called "College Prep"?

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

#173

Post by trentnix » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 7:32 PM UTC

knzhou wrote: 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…

Bingo. The less objective their evaluations are, the easier it will be to hide the cronyism, bribery, and racial bias. Going to be a lot easier to discriminate against Asian kids when you don’t have to notice their test scores are better than the kids you admitted.

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

#174

Post by ghaff » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #128

saithound wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> it's the fairest admissions criterion I have yet to see an "abolish standardized tests" type suggest a workable alternative (or even an unworkable one).

You don't need to use the SAT or ACT as a criterion. The problem if you don't is probably two-fold.

1.) You're throwing out a signal that has proven to be pretty reliable in at least establishing a floor as what students have a good chance of succeeding and

2.) As a related matter, it's a very simple, quantitative, standardized metric (with decent predictive power) that lets you bucket applicants pretty easily.

Do you maybe throw out some applicants who are really bad at standardized tests, but would otherwise thrive in an undergraduate academic setting? Probably. But the data suggests that standardized testing is a pretty good predictor of success in school (which, of course, is not necessarily the same as success in life).

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

#175

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

dawg- wrote: post #91

knzhou wrote: 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…

What you call a "smooth-talker" is what someone else would call an articulate, socially well-adjusted person who can communicate their values and opinions in an intelligent way and who is comfortable making connections with others. Perhaps if this was the standard college admissions used, public schools would have more incentive to educate students as functional humans rather than test-taking drones.

> test-taking drones

I've never done well on a test when I didn't understand the material, and I've always done well on test when I did.

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

#176

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

pge wrote: post #118

MiroF wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And eliminate legacy preference and ability for sports coaches to influence admissions.

I was rejected by MIT even though my father attended. I don't think MIT does legacy admissions, or sports admissions.

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

#177

Post by SkyBelow » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

_fq4v wrote: post #170

SkyBelow wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But this is exactly what SAT is intended to measure, scholastic potential. But if you define the variable like this, you end up opening a can of worms. Do rich kids have more scholastic potential because they have better access to resources? Or should scholastic potential be the measurement of how a child performs assuming they had the same access to resources? Should children who belong to a racial/ethnic group tha…

> Do rich kids have more scholastic potential because they have better access to resources? Do kids with involved parents have access to more scholastic potential because their parents cared? Almost certainly, and that's a good thing and we should harvest it, not attempt to force something that is not going to work.

Once they are in college, the impact of parents is quite minified. So if you have a stupid whose default academic potential is 10 but has a parental multiplier of 2 for having involved parents and another kid whose default academic potential is 15 but has a parental multiplier of 1 for parents who don't care, once they get into college and the parental multiplier goes away the one who has a 15 should do better than the one who has a 10.

Now, numbers aren't that easily available. And maybe parents caring has a permanent effect that lasts even once they are gone. Real life is far more complicated than my example. But it shows a very simple possibility of why measuring potential while ignoring environmental failures can lead to a sub-optimal ranking.

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

#178

Post by pulisse » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

A number of comments here seem to be confusing SAT subject tests, which are domain-specific tests about subjects like biology, with the "standard" SAT. It's only the former that MIT is dropping from consideration in admissions:

> We will continue to require the SAT or the ACT, because our research has shown these tests, in combination with a student’s high school grades and coursework, are predictive of success in our challenging curriculum.

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

#179

Post by manfredo » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 7:39 PM UTC

dawg- wrote: post #91

knzhou wrote: 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…

What you call a "smooth-talker" is what someone else would call an articulate, socially well-adjusted person who can communicate their values and opinions in an intelligent way and who is comfortable making connections with others. Perhaps if this was the standard college admissions used, public schools would have more incentive to educate students as functional humans rather than test-taking drones.

It's hard to create an accountable system to identify "smooth-talkers". We already know that perceived charisma is highly dependent on attractiveness, ethnicity, and other innate factors.

What we could do is gauge students' communication ability in a way that is less subject to these factors. Which we already do, by examining students' writing.

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

#180

Post by pulisse » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 7:39 PM UTC

jimmyvalmer wrote: post #104

These were called "Achievement Tests" in the early 90s, and man, they were much harder than the SAT. If the current "Subject Tests" approximate their level of difficulty, then it's a clear mistake for MIT to disregard these datapoints. When I was applying to college, yes, people paid for SAT prep but very few paid for Achievement Test prep, and so Achievement Tests were a superior indicator.

> These were called "Achievement Tests" in the early 90s, and man, they were much harder than the SAT. If the current "Subject Tests" approximate their level of difficulty, then it's a clear mistake for MIT to disregard these datapoints

Difficulty as perceived by test takers is irrelevant. What MIT cares about is how well test performance predicts undergrad performance. As TFA notes, MIT is retaining the standard SAT because their data indicates that performance on that test is predictive.