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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

#341

Post by defen »

macspoofing wrote: post #327

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…

Harvard doesn't offer academic scholarships. If you can't afford Harvard tuition it's free - e.g. if your parents make less than 65,000 (20% of Harvard students) you don't pay anything. So yes, it's actually massively worth it if you can get in, because you graduate with no debt and have a name-brand diploma and access to an extremely well-connected group of people. It's the kids who go to second- and third-tier institutions and take on massive debt who should reconsider college, not the ones going to Harvard.

https://college.harvard.edu/guides/financial-aid-fact-sheet

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

#342

Post by eli_gottlieb »

gruez wrote: post #218
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…

>improving the prestige of the college by admitting top athletes What's the logic here? I'll admit I'm not a big fan of college sports myself, but who assesses the credibility of a college by their athletics program?

The kind of upper-class people who actually run Harvard, and especially who run the feeder prep-schools for Harvard, have a really weird fixation on sports. Seriously.

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

#343

Post by csa »

macspoofing wrote: post #327

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 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.

Ivy League schools are famously generous with financial aid. If the tuition cost is an issue for your family, odds are that you won’t be paying sticker price.

It would not be uncommon for a typical “middle class” family (not upper middle class, definitely not FAANG programmer) to pay no tuition, and loans, grants, work study, and family contributions go towards room, board, and miscellaneous expenses.

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

#344

Post by jankyxenon »

aiisahik wrote: post #242

As an Asian who went to an Ivy, I welcome this change. Yes, it will mask a policy of keeping the proportion of Asians lower than a race neutral policy. Yes, it's racially discriminatory. Yes, it's somewhat unfair to Asians who are trying to get in. But no, being fair isn't the point of these schools. Nor is having the most academically excellent student population. If you want that, go to Berkeley or CalTech. The poi…

I dunno why race is the primary organizing principle for a college.

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

#345

Post by Chathamization »

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…

> Of course colleges do all these things already

That's an important thing to keep in mind. Particularly with the more elite schools, the goal isn't to educate as many people as possible, but to keep their inflated prestige through artificial scarcity. The Harvard Extension School is a great example of this - they have tens of thousands of students and advertise themselves as giving students a true Harvard education taught by Harvard educators, but the students aren't "official" Harvard graduates because the institution wants to keep that number artificially low and selective.

edX is another good example - sure, we'll give you the opportunity to learn these things, we'll even offer to assess you and give you a certificate, but we're not going to use technology to really open up the education system.

These institutions will pay lip service towards increasing underrepresented demographics (including racial and economic), but they're never going to embrace truly substantive solutions because they desperately want to keep the education credentials scarce.

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

#346

Post by devxpy »

csa wrote: post #343
macspoofing wrote: post #327

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 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. Ivy League schools are famously generous with financial aid. If the tuition cost is an issue for your family, odds are that you won’t be paying sticker price. It would not be uncommon for a typical “middle class” family (not upper middle class,…

Please, some data to back this claim?

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

#347

Post by Spivak »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #291
Spivak wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High Schools are on the student’s side when it comes to college admissions. So when you’re on the honors track of your HS you almost literally can’t fail because your HS is trying to get you into better schools. Your HS is playing the game with you. The secret of being an honors kid isn’t aptitude but being told that you’re smart and your parents/peers expecting it of you.

> The secret of being an honors kid isn’t aptitude but being told that you’re smart and your parents/peers expecting it of you. How much teaching experience do you have? I'm including any time you tried to convey a skill to any other person.

Sure! I tutored the majority of my classmates in Calc and Physics and I did not find one person I believed couldn’t do it. I did find a lot of people who believed they couldn’t do it, weren’t good at math, and wanted to give up though.

Some of the main problems:

* A lot more people than you would expect have attention issues and just needed someone to give them one-on-one attention. They would get distracted in class for a minute and then be lost for the rest of the lecture. I got permission from our teacher to record the lectures and then had people work through them with the advantage of a pause and rewind button.

* Some people were really independent and our textbooks were utter trash. I brought them “more advanced” books like Spivak ayyy that didn’t treat the reader as an idiot too stupid for a rigorous explanation. Having someone not “teach down” to them opened up so much. Easiest tutoring sessions ever when they just needed some quiet space to read. It’s amazing how much lack of understanding comes from years of teachers treating them as stupid and trying to have them memorize shortcuts that convey no understanding and don’t generalize.

* A few people were very tactile and so I brought in my laptop with Mathematica and had a bunch of examples coded up and let them play with the sliders. So many people groked limits and integrals with this.

* Some people needed more or less abstraction. Symbol overload is real. I loved saying something like “and this is true for any 17.” Connecting problems to “real life” wasn’t as effective as I had hoped but putting numbers in or having a variable cheat sheet they could quickly reference the meaning / value worked great!

* Some people learn by machine learning. They need a bunch of problems to work algorithmicly to feel the pattens. I called them numeric tactile. Once they’ve done it 50 times or so they’re ready to hear the abstract explanation because they’ve oriented themselves.

* A lot of people struggled because HS has so little focus on rote memorization. People didn’t have the toolbox of identities and little tricks at the forefront of their minds but some flashcards and cheat sheets fixed that right quick. I had like 5 people suddenly get trig identities once I made them memorize a few of the core ones. Constantly asking them to repeat something back to me whenever it came up was way more effective than I thought.

As you can clearly see I didn’t have much of a social life in HS.

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

#348

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#349

Post by mennis16 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #258
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…

Harvard's reason for doing this is the coronavirus pandemic, standardized testing may skew more heavily towards the rich than usual. They would have better access to extended home schooling during the lockdown, are less at risk for getting ill, and the ongoing financial issues wouldn't hamper their preparation. I don't know why everyone else seems to be talking long term reasons, but both options seem pretty bad.

I get what you're saying but A) I don't see how they can bring them back after this and B) doesn't the same argument about other application dimensions just extend to the effects of coronavirus? I would imagine richer students are also completing more coursework (possibly paying for online college courses), are more able to find alternative extracurriculars, etc.

The SAT actually seems easier to keep somewhat level during this time to me, as long as admissions counselors have some recognition of the drawbacks.

I also wonder about the distinction between "not required" versus "not considered". It becomes a weird mental game if submission is still considered just not required.

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

#350

Post by camelNotation »

csa wrote: post #343
macspoofing wrote: post #327

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 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. Ivy League schools are famously generous with financial aid. If the tuition cost is an issue for your family, odds are that you won’t be paying sticker price. It would not be uncommon for a typical “middle class” family (not upper middle class,…

The point still stands that what you are paying for in college is a network and credentials. Harvard offers the best of both, but success is still a thousand inputs and statistical probabilities, no guarantees.

I've worked with several Ivy League grads, including some from Harvard. Some succeed, some still fail miserably. A good education improves your chances of success, but it isn't necessary. So unless you are getting that free tuition or come from a wealthy background, it doesn't make a lot of sense to go through the effort required for a school like that.

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