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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

#381

Post by thelean12 »

macspoofing wrote: post #371
defen wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But let's be clear here, a family with a household income of $66k/year (up to, I don't know, $200k/year) cannot afford $85k/year tuition without the student going into massive debt. Click the link - "Families with incomes between $65,000 and $150,000 will contribute from 0-10% of their income, and those with incomes above $150,000 will be asked to pay proportionately more than 10%, based on their individual circums…

>Essentially nobody graduates from Harvard with a significant amount of debt. That's great! No argument from me. If Harvard structures their tuition in such a way that students aren't graduating with a massive student loan debt, awesome!

You shouldn't have such strong opinions on things when you aren't willing to do even the most basic research.

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

#382

Post by devmunchies »

fortran77 wrote: post #262
travisoneill1 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else are you going to keep the Asians out?

Exactly. They had similar quotas to keep Jews out several generations ago. > Certain private universities, most notably Harvard, introduced policies which effectively placed a quota on the number of Jews admitted to the university. According to historian David Oshinsky, on writing about Jonas Salk, "Most of the surrounding medical schools (Cornell, Columbia, Pennsylvania, and Yale) had rigid quotas in place. In 1935…

Yeah but not anymore. There is a higher jewish population at harvard (~28%) than non-jewish whites (~22%) despite non-jewish whites making up 60% of the population of the US and jews making up less than 2% of the population. No skin off my nose since I went to a mormon school in Utah.

There is clearly an anti-white, anti-asian agenda at these top schools now.

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

#383

Post by jgwil2 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #323
0d9eooo wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Colleges can look at both weighted and unweighted GPA.

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

#384

Post by memexy »

WalterBright wrote: post #81
memexy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they bad ideas? I took the SAT and GRE for undergraduate and graduate schools respectively and neither was worthwhile preparation for anything I studied. If we want to put up barriers to entry then I think we can find better and more predictive ways than measuring general pattern matching skills with the SAT and GRE.

The SAT is an objective measurement. By dispensing with it, all the other measures are subjective. This means that it leaves the administration free to admit whoever they please, based on any agenda.

Are there any laws about SAT score requirements for school admission? Because if there aren't then the administrators are not obligated by any rules/laws for objective measures. If that's the case then they are free currently as well. No law means no actual requirement to abide by any rules that reduces freedom in their decision making process.

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

#385

Post by throwaway287391 »

honkycat wrote: post #375
throwaway287391 wrote: post #136

Earlier 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…

This is pure conjecture. The younger generation currently consumes way less alcohol and is overall much more studious and serious than previous generations. Years of austerity have eroded the "animal house" culture you are picturing from your youth. They are pushing college WAY less and pushing vocational training WAY MORE. I've had my younger cousins reach out to me interested in vocational training and my opinions…

Interesting. Thanks for making an actual counter-argument. I have to admit I have a little trouble believing the cultural connotations around college could have changed that much in the time since I graduated from HS (2007), but I'll take your word for it -- I don't have any current connections to kids that age myself.

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

#386

Post by Apocryphon »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #302
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…

The problem with laying bare this purpose of these institutions is it destroys their credibility. If everyone knows it's just a social club, and that is formalized, it loses its prestige. It's beneficial to students who are enrolled due to family gifts that some students are enrolled due to being truly academically skilled. It furthers the impression the gift-giving segment may be skilled as well.

Hasn't this been the case for Ivies for generations? Maybe in the 20th century they moved away from the stereotype of East Coast prestige and old money to something more meritocratic, but that's probably been a few decades at best.

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

#387

Post by oh_sigh »

gizmo686 wrote: post #206
mauflows wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It certainly doesn't improve the quality of education of the students who were rejected in favor of someone with a different color skin.

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

#388

Post by Loughla »

fiftyfifty wrote: post #376
Loughla wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last I knew: SAT: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia. ACT: Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming. Also, the implementation of SAT prep is spotty at best. As with most things, whet…

One of the drivers for Colorado moving to the SAT from the ACT was the amount of free SAT prep courses online. SAT partnered with Khan Academy to offer a lot of test prep and practice tests online for free.

Illinois was the same way. ACT charges for every damned thing, whereas SAT is free. That's one good thing, at least.

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

#389

Post by fiftyfifty »

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 have 2 kids in college right now. One goes to a non-Harvard Ivy League school, the other one is at a state school. My wife and I both went to an average state school (as far as college rankings are concerned). We've gotten more insight than usual into our kid's academics as both of them have been home this spring and taking online classes due to the Covid outbreak. The level of academic rigor and the high expectations at the Ivy league school are through the roof compared to my own college experience and my other kid's academics. I frankly don't think I could have handled it had I been able to attend a school of that caliber. I can't speak for Harvard specifically but I have my doubts that an average student would survive for very long at some of these elite schools. I also have my doubts that their teaching style would scale real well to a large number of students. They rely heavily on hiring exceptional professors and giving them a significant amount of autonomy in the classroom. The class sizes are very small by university standards and the vast majority of assignments and tests are hand written and graded by the professor.

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

#390

Post by Apocryphon »

retortio wrote: post #261

Ah, those pesky standardized tests. Sure they're the hardest part of admissions to game and are a major part of establishing an even intellectual playing field for applicants, but it just looks so bad when we discard a much higher proportion of qualified Asian applicants than qualified applicants from other groups! We were even sued over this issue and the suit is going to appeal! And we're trying so hard to increase…

> they're the hardest part of admissions to game

Are they really?

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