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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

#201

Post by ylem »

It's often good to question assumptions. I happened to do well on SATs/ACTs, so I could be biased in their favor. But, I was curious--what is the actual predictive value of SATs/ACTs on college outcomes such as say GPA or graduation rate. This study would suggest that it's actually more predictive (at least in Alaska) than test scores: https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectI...

Has anyone else found other studies? I would be shocked if there isn't some kind of meta-analysis. Before getting into any discussion about social issues, let's see whether the tests are actually predictive. Or, if it's just a cargo cult.

My intuition was that these tests (ACT/SAT) would help to normalize for different levels of schools, but I will go with data over intuition.

In some sense, this move by Harvard will allow for a natural experiment to see if there are actually changes in outcomes when GPAs are/are not considered.

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

#202

Post by gizmo686 »

akyu wrote: post #115

I 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…

(Disclaimer; I only read the non-paywalled preview).

The argument is that the SAT/ACT is uniquely broken this year; including in the ability of applicants to take the test. Even among the people who did take the test; circumstances are so weird this year that it would be difficult to interpret the results based on historic data; and the results would be relatively meaningless for future data.

With GPA, you can still see the pre-crisis grades of the students; as well as the historic performance of the school that provided those grades. These are signals that can be calibrated against historic data; and which admissions likely already uses.

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

#203

Post by C1sc0cat »

arbitrary_name wrote: post #181
yorwba wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 befor…

Because from my limited understanding, it allowed them to easily participate in further vocational training to become well paid specialists or leaders. In addition, the support system was such that there were numerous opportunities across the Mittelstand, whereas in the USA is easy for dropouts to be stuck flipping burgers long term without support or guidance to turn their job as fry lord into a career or job that i…

Not all of those apprenticeships are high level ones and I suspect there is much less possibility of starting as an apprentice and going all the way to a degree as say Mech Eng apprentice at BAE Systems might.

This is the route I took BTW.

I have had interviews just stop dead (with European companies) when it turned out I didn't have a Degree.

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

#204

Post by pcurve »

tinyhouse wrote: post #197

Harvard can be corrupt. There's a very average girl in my town who wouldn't get admitted to grad school at Harvard if her dad wasn't a law professor at Harvard. Regarding asians. It's not about race. Diversity in academia is important for many reasons. It's not about being asian, it's about living in a rich family at a top school district, regardless of your race. A poor kid from a bad neighborhood cannot compete wit…

"I have a very average girl in my town who got admitted to grad school at Harvard only because her dad is a law professor at Harvard."

I'm not saying Harvard isn't corrupt, but admitting professor's kid isn't really the best indicator of corruption. It's nothing unusual in many schools and they don't hide it.

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

#205

Post by cousin_it »

nordsieck wrote: post #111
dwaltrip wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Merit is not a perfectly objective concept. Someone has to come up with criteria based on whatever goals and values they think are important.

> Someone has to come up with criteria based on whatever goals and values they think are important. The most obvious criteria is: most likely to graduate. Some others that aren't bad: * Highest expected value of future donations * Highest expected value of impact (publication) * Highest expected value of future salary * Highest expected value of holding public office (the weighting here might be contentious) As long…

Not sure that's the right approach. Admitting people who are most likely to succeed is credit-taking in the guise of teaching. To maximize college's benefit to society, I think you should admit people whose success would be most improved by college. It would be a bit counterintuitive though, you would mostly admit average applicants (because top ones will succeed anyway).

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

#206

Post by gizmo686 »

mauflows wrote: post #199
jerf wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sarcastically phrased, but it's the real answer. The colleges need to shed objective measures so they can continue their social programs unimpeded by any objective standards that might reveal their increasingly obvious biases. If you want to get into Harvard, I recommend striving to demonstrate greater fealty to the hardest of hard left-wing ideals than your fellow applicants, as that will become the real criterion f…

Couldn't diversity be considered an objectively good thing to strive to have? Anecdotally, I went to a technical school but some of my biggest shifts in perspective came from interacting with liberal arts and minority students.

Yes. The legal justification for affirmative action getting an exception to anti-discrimination laws is that a diverse student body improves the quality of eduaction for all students; so there is a compelling interest to discriminate.

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

#207

Post by ylem »

mc32 wrote: post #193
cosmodisk wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If every candidate has the same score, the score itself becomes meaningless. Imagine getting 200 identical applications for a job,where all you see is John Smith with x years at corp Y. How do you select the best candidate on this info?

Right so you’re saying they could randomly pick from their applicant pool because right now only perfect scores apply. But wouldn’t that cease being the case once scores are not taken into account? Presumably (retroactively speaking) I could have applied or my friends could have applied... now if they do a random selection they could get one of us...

This is an excellent question--that should be answered by data. Is there a thresholding effect? It could be that say there's not much difference in a hundred points in the SAT. But, maybe GPAs actually are more predictive. I assume that rec letters are useless to first approximation unless the recommender writes something about the student that raises flags.

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

#208

Post by CapricornNoble »

cambalache wrote: post #82
shreygineer wrote: post #47

Earlier 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

You dont understand until your kids get rejected despite having straight A, high SAT scores and strong background, just because many other people whose ancestors come from a similar region on earth were as highly qualified too. So your kid is out not because of her fault but because of her race. I suppose many people are OK because deep down they think they will be in the accepted portion but still.

Just say that your child identifies as [insert popular identitarian group of the day] and put them between a rock and a hard place. They'll either have to accept your kid anyway, or admit that their agenda is BS and watch the facade crumble.

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

#209

Post by Spivak »

mrfredward wrote: post #187
akyu wrote: post #115

I 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…

A very cynical answer to what's the logic here: objective measures get in the way of many non-academic college admission goals, so colleges want to do away with them. One of those goals is racial diversity, and that's the only one colleges openly talk about because it's the only one that can positively impact society. Other goals include raising more money by admitting the children of major donors, improving the pres…

I think there’s a silver lining to all of this behavior in that it demonstrates that nothing really matters when it comes to determining if you’ll be successful in college.

Test scores don’t prove much except who had the resources, time, and motivation to study the most. You could replace the SAT and ACT with obscure movie trivia and you’d see roughly the same distribution of scores and it would have the same predictive power. The people who signal that they’re willing to put it a lot of time, money, and effort into their education do well… surprised pikachu.

There’s no such thing as qualified for college outside of a genuine desire and motivation to do it.

So I don’t see any sort of contradiction in colleges admitting people based on novelty, coolness, and straight-up effort.

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

#210

Post by crimsonalucard5 »

Vervious wrote: post #200

I remain skeptical that admissions committees can distinguish between great students and good students through their personal statements. (Not that the SAT would have helped there either)

The objective here isn't to identify good students. That's just the cover story.

The objective is to select on criteria other than intelligence. For example, race.

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