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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

#321

Post by nordsieck »

kenjackson wrote: post #180
nordsieck wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I’d add “most likely to become famous for a good reason.” Most likely to graduate is interesting. Almost everyone I know who didn’t graduate, it was due to finances. Purely academic reasons, at least anecdotally, seem relatively uncommon now.

> Almost everyone I know who didn’t graduate, it was due to finances. Purely academic reasons, at least anecdotally, seem relatively uncommon now.

That's probably true for the Ivy's since they get the cream of the crop.

The community colleges near me have a 25% 6 year graduation rate. I guarantee you that's not all due to finances.

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

#322

Post by KoftaBob »

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…

Couldn't have said it better.

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

#323

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

0d9eooo wrote: post #241
ylem wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb question, but are GPAs useless? I mean a plot of say high school GPA vs say college graduation rate or college GPA would be rather informative.

No. Empirically, they're as predictive as or more predictive of future educational performance (usually first-year college GPA) than test scores, despite grade inflation (which isn't as extreme as some would have you think). The advantage of GPA is it's an average over a long time period, unlike a test, which is a slice at a very brief moment. The disadvantage of GPA is variability in course difficulty and grading st…

They can be gamed too easily. My high school gave a 1 point bonus for AP courses. It it fair to compare someone with a 4.2 against students without that opportunity?

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

#324

Post by amznthrwaway »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #269
iagovar wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds bad if you're a white non-rich kid.

Who cares about those? Definitely not the new American left.

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys the curiosity this site exists for.

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

#325

Post by mathattack »

“Not requiring” is about ratings. It allows schools to increase the amount of applicants making the school seem more selective. Meanwhile, they only report the test scores of good test takers, so the average increases too.

For a school like Harvard, once you’re in it’s hard to fail out. If you have a 4.0 GPA, the SATs won’t help you keep from failing. So better for them to only report the 1500s and not the 1300s.

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

#326

Post by pnw_hazor »

grumple wrote: post #294
cambalache wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And that person will still get into a great school. It just doesn’t have to be Harvard.

Not necessarily. I have a niece who is a textbook A-plus Asian student, she didn't get into any top school nor did any UC-school accept her. She is in a CA community college now hoping to transfer later. (She did get into an expensive 2nd tier private college, but since Covid shut everything down she withdrew and transferred to a CC near home.)

Years ago I tried to counsel her parents into letting her do extra-curricular activities that did not fit the stereotypical Asian student profile, but they would not hear it. Piano it was, rather than sports or other non-academic work/volunteering. They did not understand that an Asian girl with a 4+ GPA and years of piano training was not going to get a fair shake when it came to college admissions.

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

#327

Post by macspoofing »

That's not really a good thing. What they are doing is changing a known transparent standard for entry to something completely arbitrary, ad hoc, and opaque from the point of view of the applicant. Also, the applicant pool will rise because there is no SAT filter.

Having said that, I don't think it's a big deal because nobody needs to go to Harvard. In fact, if you aren't affluent enough to afford Harvard tuition, or if you don't have a full scholarship, Harvard tuition is not worth the degree and student loans you end up with.

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

#328

Post by r-zip »

Pfhreak wrote: post #263
tinyhouse wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not hiding it doesn't mean it's OK. Maybe corrupt is not the right word but it's not that important. Things like this are exactly what people are talking about when they protest against privilege.

Harvard has 2400 professors and admits about 6000 students each year. Each professor might have a child that is at college age, but most won't. And parental admittance isn't a guarantee. We're talking about a negligible number of students on this path weighed against the employee happiness and retention.

The total undergrad population of Harvard isn't even 7,000, so I'm not sure where you pulled the 6,000 number from. A quick look at their website will show you they admit around 2,000 per year.

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

#329

Post by eli_gottlieb »

iagovar wrote: post #243
mrfredward wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That sounds bad if you're a white non-rich kid.

Also a PoC non-rich kid. My wife's students in an inner-city school serving a mostly immigrant populace are not going to write fine-sounding essays about their time volunteering in Haiti, because they're working at Starbucks instead of volunteering in Haiti. Hell, their parents came from Haiti.

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

#330

Post by helen___keller »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #311
asdf9240 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very great portion of the American left that cares about economic status. I do believe that admissions should factor in socioeconomic status rather than just race, gender, etc., but believing this does not require me to generalize a very wide reaching political stance.

It isn't generalizing a political stance, but summarizing the dominant narrative given to us by the media and what I call the new American left. If the narrative was mostly about economic status, we would hear more about that and about universal programs. Rather than disparities and identity politics.

> If the narrative was mostly about economic status, we would hear more about that and about universal programs

Like.... Universal healthcare? One of the most (perhaps THE most) discussed topics at democratic presidential debates?

Just because neither Bernie nor Elizabeth Warren didn't win the nomination doesn't mean that their ideas aren't part of the left.

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