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Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

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Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#101

Post by [deleted] »

jfim wrote: post #70
ahupp wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 24,000 high schools in the US (not even considering international students) with wildly varying grading standards. You have one applicant from Podunk City High School, valedictorian with a 4.0. Is that ... good? How does it compare to the thousands of other kids with 4.0s you have applying? I'm completely sympathetic to the idea that grades should be a better predictor of performance than one day of testing…

> There are 24,000 high schools in the US (not even considering international students) with wildly varying grading standards. You have one applicant from Podunk City High School, valedictorian with a 4.0. Is that ... good? How does it compare to the thousands of other kids with 4.0s you have applying? Some other places in the world admit based on the Z-score for each subject, with the average and standard deviation…

[deleted]

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#102

Post by hnthro12564 »

WalterBright wrote: post #78
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people self study and pass GRE subject tests without having done the relevant undergraduate degree. Especially in fields such as mathematics and physics where testing results are easily quantified, this is a gradually growing long-term threat to the credentialing power of universities. If an independent company comes along that can reliably get students to equivalent GRE subject test scores in a hard science mos…

I was rather intimidated by the GREs, but when taking the test I was shocked at how easy it was. None of it went beyond sophomore level, if even that. I concluded that the only purpose of the GRE was to filter out the complete frauds.

I had a GRE score in the 50th percentile and was still accepted because of my research focus. My PhD was fairly successful with a track record that was better than most of my peers. So, my disdain for these general-purpose tests is quite personal.

In my opinion, the GRE mostly checks how good you are as a test taker. None of that is important to academic success. It invariably filters for a fairly streamlined and optimized class of people, who have the money and time to invest into such a test.

The fact that the ETS seems to have a clear profit motive really rubs me in the wrong way. It is a private organization attaching itself to education and siphoning the money off students by selling their tests and training materials. Universities should design their own admissions tests and not rely on such parasitic entities.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#103

Post by [deleted] »

WalterBright wrote: post #78
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people self study and pass GRE subject tests without having done the relevant undergraduate degree. Especially in fields such as mathematics and physics where testing results are easily quantified, this is a gradually growing long-term threat to the credentialing power of universities. If an independent company comes along that can reliably get students to equivalent GRE subject test scores in a hard science mos…

I was rather intimidated by the GREs, but when taking the test I was shocked at how easy it was. None of it went beyond sophomore level, if even that. I concluded that the only purpose of the GRE was to filter out the complete frauds.

[deleted]

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#104

Post by WalterBright »

hnthro12564 wrote: post #102
WalterBright wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was rather intimidated by the GREs, but when taking the test I was shocked at how easy it was. None of it went beyond sophomore level, if even that. I concluded that the only purpose of the GRE was to filter out the complete frauds.

I had a GRE score in the 50th percentile and was still accepted because of my research focus. My PhD was fairly successful with a track record that was better than most of my peers. So, my disdain for these general-purpose tests is quite personal. In my opinion, the GRE mostly checks how good you are as a test taker. None of that is important to academic success. It invariably filters for a fairly streamlined and opt…

I don't agree with the idea that one can "optimize" for the GRE without knowing anything relevant to the field the GRE is in.

I did not optimize for the GRE, I did not prep for it, I did not look at a study guide for it, I simply went and took the test cold. The questions were on material one would expect to cover in basic engineering and science courses.

I don't buy the notion that anyone who does well on the GRE is doing it with tricks and fake/useless knowledge and/or cheated.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#105

Post by DethNinja »

throwawaysea wrote: post #55

This recent trend of eliminating the SAT/ACT reads to me like: “Let’s eliminate these measures that allow high performing students to objectively differentiate themselves, in favor of a more opaque admissions process where we can implement discriminatory policies without scrutiny.”

I’m originally from a third world country and those practices look unbelievably awful to me.

If this happened at a corrupt country, you can bet that university would be full of students that entered there just by nepotism, it is also very effective for discriminating against minorities.

I get that USA isn’t as corrupt as many of the third world countries but it is going there with slow and steady steps, removing SAT scores might make USA lose it’s scientific status in near future.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#106

Post by FisForFlight »

filereaper wrote: post #31

I highly recommend watching the video by Scott Galloway on The College Implosion. [1] "Colleges have become luxury brands and are adopting a strategy of artificial scarcity to create irrational margins" There's a large movement right now where many are saying the large tuition fees for Zoom lectures aren't worth it. Colleges sell themselves for the experience and are a luxury lifestyle brand almost, but with covid th…

A friend of mine goes to Harvard. He says once you get into Harvard... it's smooth sailing from there.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#107

Post by phonon »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #98
mtgp1000 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This makes sense: Harvard has a huge issue with discrimination against Asian Americans, who are not represented according to their ACT/SAT score distribution. If Harvard could waive away these scores, they can continue their admissions policy that favor students from wealthy families who pay full price, and are likely to be institutional givers after graduation by focusing on admission factors that are much less acc…

> Not wealthy donors Harvard's admission rate is 30% for "legacies" which make up one in six of their students, and even higher for donors. These are the kids who get in while being thick as a brick. The injustice is not primarily the black kid with 1400 SAT getting in over the east Asian kid with 1580 -- the injustice is the hundreds of CEOs/senators' kids being assured admission even being dumber than a sack of ham…

25th percentile for Harvard SAT scores is 1460...so there is a limit for how many dumb as a brick legacies matriculate :-)

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#110

Post by pc86 »

beaner wrote: post #36
filereaper wrote: post #31

I highly recommend watching the video by Scott Galloway on The College Implosion. [1] "Colleges have become luxury brands and are adopting a strategy of artificial scarcity to create irrational margins" There's a large movement right now where many are saying the large tuition fees for Zoom lectures aren't worth it. Colleges sell themselves for the experience and are a luxury lifestyle brand almost, but with covid th…

I don't get it, aren't most colleges non-profits? Why do they seek such high tuition fees if they're not profiting? Or are they, somehow?

"Non-profit" doesn't mean you don't make any money, it means you spend all your money. I went to a tiny liberal arts college you've never heard of, with a 1300-student enrollment today. The president makes well over half a million dollars a year. There are half a dozen deans making anywhere from $75-250k. A career services department run by a six-figure employee who has never held a job outside of that college (for real). They're technically a non-profit but with a sticker price of $40k a year and actual per-capita revenue somewhere in the high $20's, that is a lot of money to spread around to administration while you have 150-person lectures taught by a $25k/yr adjunct.
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