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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

#411

Post by aaron425 »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #396
colllectorof wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also worth noting that 20% of Harvard students pay 0 tuition, and more than 50% get needs-based scholarships. https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid . So if you're smart enough, and/or fit into the financial aid brackets, why not go to Harvard? Are you seriously suggesting that 50% the most talented students in the country have $313,000 for tuition? If financial aid and scholarships worked as advertised, Ivy Leag…

Two kinds of students: Legacy and sports. 1. Legacy: If your parents went to Harvard, you're much more likely to get in. This allows the meritocratic wheel to keep turning, in theory, but in practice allows Harvard to let in many rich/privileged individuals who will not cost them and who may bring in big $$ donations over time. 2. Harvard brags about its myriad sports programs...WHY? If it's the best school in the wo…

To be fair for your second point, speaking as someone attended an Ivy but is from a low income household and terrible at sports, many of the people who manipulated spherical objects adeptly also had brilliant minds.

I was always impressed with my friends who had the mental fortitude to wake up at 6 every day, practice for 3-4 hours, go to class, practice after class, and still take the courses/do the research necessary for elite graduate schools. Meanwhile, I woke up at 11 AM on a good day and only started going to the gym regularly my senior year. I honestly can't say the proportion of "regular" athletes to "smart" athletes was any different from that of students in the general population.

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

#412

Post by rococode »

defen wrote: post #341
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 inst…

The big takeaway I have from reading this thread is how many people think of the top Ivies as rich kid schools where most students are paying exorbitant amounts of money to attend. Probably a stereotype perpetuated by movies and TV shows...

There are certainly a lot of upper middle class students at Harvard (55% are getting aid and it's vaguely implied the cutoff for aid is around 200k, so around half of families make more than that), but that's not because poorer families can't afford to go to Harvard, it's a more systemic issue with wealthier families having more time and money to invest in their kids' education - good schools and neighborhoods, time for clubs and competitions, money for tutors and pricier extracurriculars, etc.

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

#413

Post by hackinthebochs »

Spivak wrote: post #362
hackinthebochs wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out actually learning the material on a test over the span of a few years helps you do well on the test. That used to be called getting an education.

Right! But the problem is that you don’t actually get much of an education along the way. You get a bunch of not super useful knowledge that you’ve almost surely forgotten and some test taking skills. This is the downfall of so many programs that teach to the test.

The problem with this reasoning is that the SAT isn't an arbitrary test. Presumably the course material came before the SAT was developed to test mastery of the material. Sure, the course material then changes to better capture what the SAT measures, and the SAT adjusts in kind. But this adversarial process doesn't optimize arbitrarily. Learning SAT material (rather than say learning tricks) is learning substantial math and reading skills, the kind that serves you well in college. So characterizing this as anything other than getting an education is disingenuous.

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

#414

Post by pnw_hazor »

usaar333 wrote: post #165
mtgp1000 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

The Regents argued that the tests discriminated w/o evidence.

Internal UC studies that looked into how the test scores were applied to admissions determined there was no discrimination.

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

#415

Post by dheera »

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…

> What they are doing is changing a known transparent standard

Unfortunately, the standard is a bad standard and I'm fully in support of abolishing the SAT as a requirement.

For engineers, the SAT math section basically amounts to measuring how many mistakes you make doing stupid easy math under 90 minutes of stress. The SAT verbal section basically measures how well you memorize word lists. Let's not BS ourselves -- I memorized word lists in high school and I almost never use any of those words.

For liberal arts, vocabulary knowledge is rarely the bottleneck in their ability to succeed, and the math is largely unimportant.

Neither part of the test is a good indicator of one's preparedness to receive a high quality university education, and much less an indicator of the type of education most people look for at Harvard.

Someone who wants to major in East Asian studies, for example, really doesn't need to know what "obstreperous" means, let alone an engineer or scientist.

Harvard doesn't need standards. They need a bunch of unique, bright people that are prepared to make change in the world in their own unique ways.

I went to "the other school" down the street from Harvard and from what I remember the application was heavily focused on extracurricular activities. I think that's a much better qualitative indicator of one's motivation and ability to go beyond courses and exams in their desire to learn and make impact.

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

#416

Post by tarboreus »

bfieidhbrjr wrote: post #400
L_Rahman wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was accepted and got to see their financial aid package, I have to mention that it's extremely generous as well. They don't just cover room and board and tuition, there's an understanding that you're poorer than your peers at the university so there's general spending money, money to buy winter clothes, money to fly home 2x-3x a year. This is a rounding error for Harvard, but I didn't realize how limit…

So where was better than Harvard for you?

Hogwarts, obviously.

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

#417

Post by yorwba »

watwut wrote: post #251
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…

It is distinctively not the same as "high school drop out". These are people who do go to school, finish it and get a degree. These are people "within the education system" who were taught to do specific thing. High school drop out did not finished the school he intended to and does not have degree. This is person who is "out of the education system" who are not assumed to know anything.

The social status is of course different due to the lack of recognition for the "high school drop out", but the years of education received are similar.

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

#418

Post by criddell »

josephcsible wrote: post #250
TechBro8615 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAT scores are also pretty useless, when Harvard has enough applications with perfect scores to fill their class multiple times.

Ignoring the results of a test seems like the wrong solution to this problem. Why not make the test harder instead, so that a perfect score could be a ticket to the school of your choice?

Depends on what they want from their students.

Any kid with an excellent (but not necessarily perfect) SAT score will likely be able to complete the coursework and graduate. After that point, why not judge on other aspects of the students lives? Test taking is a skill and outside of academia, not terribly useful.

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

#419

Post by treis »

rococode wrote: post #412
defen wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inst…

The big takeaway I have from reading this thread is how many people think of the top Ivies as rich kid schools where most students are paying exorbitant amounts of money to attend. Probably a stereotype perpetuated by movies and TV shows... There are certainly a lot of upper middle class students at Harvard (55% are getting aid and it's vaguely implied the cutoff for aid is around 200k, so around half of families mak…

> top Ivies as rich kid schools

They're definitely that as well. Everyone that gets into Harvard is very talented, but the general groups of differentiation on top of that I see is:

(1) Rich kids who's parents can buy them opportunity, bribe the school with donations, and legacies.

(2) White/Asians from modest backgrounds that are "holy shit" levels of exceptional.

(3) Other minorities that are exceptional but more on the level of being a really good student.

Harvard and the other ivies aren't exactly transparent so I don't really know how accurate my perception is but that's what it seems like to me.

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

#420

Post by cycrutchfield »

hintymad wrote: post #374
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 started the institutionalization of "hollistic admission": https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in . According to the article, it was not about being fair, it was about limiting the admission of a specific group of people. In general, the more complex a system is, the easier it is for people to game the system, and therefore the easier it is to hide inequality. It's hard to believe that Harva…

Imagine looking at China and its massively wasteful system of cram schools and rote learning and thinking that's a system you would like to emulate.
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