There's a lot of commentary here about larger trends towards not requiring the SAT, but Harvard says this isn't part of a larger trend. They just don't want to require students to go to a testing center in the middle of a pandemic, and nobody knows at this point what remote administration options will be available before 2021 applications are due.
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
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an Asian American myself, I don't understand this notion of discrimination against Asian Americans by Ivy League schools. Per Harvards Class of 2023 Admissions data [1], Asian Americans makeup 25.3% of the admitted class. They're the largest minority group admitted. [1] https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics
They make up 25.3% of the admitted class but would probably make up 75-80% of the admitted class in a system truly based on merit. 4 out of 5 strong applicants are rejected simply because they're Asian American.
Let's not exaggerate things. Comparing UC or Caltech is probably best (granted they use less controversial socioeconomic factors). Caltech is 43% Asian American vs 27% at MIT. Note that the race-neutral number is somewhere in between (Asians disproportionately yield to schools that don't use racial preferences because they are discriminated against elsewhere)
Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year
#163This 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.”
>allow high performing students to objectively differentiate themselves
Except the argument by people is it's NOT objective. I think the argument goes something like this: rich kid gets full time tutor privately or through school and is able to do significantly better on the SAT/ACT because they have specifically prepared for it.
It doesn't mean they are smarter, or even a better student. It means they have been prepped better for it than their peers that don't have the same luxuries.
If 95% of the time a student scores higher after taking an expensive prep course, does that mean scoring higher really means much? Especially with SO many people taking the test, that little bit makes a difference where are you on the curve.. perhaps people are thinking that the kids whose parents can afford the time and money to give them a slightly advantage on the test doesn't translate into that person being a better student.
Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd bet a large part of the reason is cultural. For just about any American high school student who's been exposed to the mainstream culture their entire lives (including myself at the time), the idea of missing out on the "college experience" (i.e. mostly partying) that just about every conventionally successful person they've ever met will have gone through and instead going to "small salary vocational training" wo…
American culture also devalues community college in this way. The way we break this is by changing our hiring decisions. If you have a Harvard grad (or other private university grad) in front of you, consider if they really are the right candidate. Consider recruiting from local community and public colleges, including public non-traditional colleges. Build a rapport with the job placement offices at these schools. I…
Is there any difference in hiring between someone who attended four years at a college vs transferred in after two years at community college? (At UC Berkeley, about a third of graduates are transfers and at least while I was a student there I didn't get any perception they were less capable)
Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year
#165This 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 acco…
>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…
> The argument is that lack of privilege causes poor SAT scores which is preventing certain minorities from realizing their potential, and that this justifies selectively lowering the bar and allocating additional resources.
The UC system also removed SAT recently arguing it discriminates.
I haven't seen clear evidence though that the SAT discriminates more against poorer students than any other admissions factor. In fact given that richer kids go to elite colleges at higher rates than middle income, conditioned on same test score, I'm inclined to think it's being underweighted.
Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a system based on merit, they would get more placements.
Merit is not a perfectly objective concept. Someone has to come up with criteria based on whatever goals and values they think are important.
> Merit is not a perfectly objective concept
Perhaps, but sure as hell is better than race to qualify a candidate.
Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year
#167I 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…
Anyone intimate with Germany's vocational training system, that's used as an alternative to college by approximately half of all graduating high school students? 2-3 years small salary vocational training straight out of HS at 1 of 400k participating companies in 1 of 400 role types. I want to know why implementing this isn't a national debate in US, it seems like such an obviously good idea.
Most of those who go for vocational training don't have a "high-school degree" in the sense of 12 or more years of schooling. They may leave one of several types of secondary school with a degree after 10 years or even less. I believe the American term for someone like that is "high-school dropout". So a better analogy might be "The majority of German high-school dropouts spend 2-3 years as small-salary interns before they can get a real job."
Surely manual workers in the US are already learning to do their jobs somehow. What makes you think the German system would be an improvement?
Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year
#168I have a hard time understanding the logic here. GPAs are essentially useless, so what else do we have to go off of? "Hollistic admissions" processes seem to be even more skewed towards rich kids, as they have far greater opportunities outside of the class room to pad their resumes in exactly the way that colleges look for. This seems entirely backwards to me. If there is a systemic bias in test scores, it is still b…
SAT scores are also pretty useless, when Harvard has enough applications with perfect scores to fill their class multiple times.
Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
They make up 25.3% of the admitted class but would probably make up 75-80% of the admitted class in a system truly based on merit. 4 out of 5 strong applicants are rejected simply because they're Asian American.
Let's not exaggerate things. Comparing UC or Caltech is probably best (granted they use less controversial socioeconomic factors). Caltech is 43% Asian American vs 27% at MIT. Note that the race-neutral number is somewhere in between (Asians disproportionately yield to schools that don't use racial preferences because they are discriminated against elsewhere)
The competitive admissions high school I went to (which has an SAT average similar to Ivy League universities) has a completely race/SES-blind admissions system and is now 70% Asian.
Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year
#170The SAT has always generally been a test showing how well you prepared for the SAT. For top schools all viable candidates had very good scores so it wasn’t much use. It was just one of those things everyone did because everyone did it. With more opting out that momentum goes away and increasingly now people are asking “so why did we use this test again?” Likely won’t be long until the SAT just disappears entirely and…
Studies seem to show that SAT prep helps 20-30 points on average. AFAICT it does help to do SAT prep but it is a relatively minor factor. for example: https://www.thoughtco.com/are-sat-prep-courses-worth-the-cos... .
That's the average, which tells us nothing about the distribution. If you're looking at the top n% of scores, the distribution is important.
Furthermore, those studies weren't looking at kids who were prepping for 2 hours a day like many kids with perfect and near perfect scores are doing.
Also here's a study from 2017 that shows an average gain of 115 points with only 20 hours of practice (plus 16,000 students who gained more than 200 points).
https://www.collegeboard.org/releases/2017/average-score-gai...
Another issue is that scores have gone up dramatically over the last 20 years, so given that and the fact that Asian American kids are so overwhelmingly dominant, I think preparation being a major factor is the most likely explanation.