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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

#551

Post by tharne »

ryandrake wrote: post #506
tharne wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero sum thinking is probably the most central tenet of the broader philosophy of the American left. That's why there's so much talk of "disparity" or "inequality" vs. actual improvements to standards of living and quality of life. Almost all economic growth creates inequality for the simple reason that the more wealth there is, the more potential you have for skew. In China, for instance, there was much less income…

> Similarly, I don't really care how much a CEO makes, I care about my own quality of life. Your quality of life depends very much on how much other people make. It's all relative. If the average income in an area goes up by 50% but your own income only goes up 5%, then you are worse off than you started, because prices for everything will rise with the market. If you don't believe me, look at Bay Area housing. Injec…

> On a percentage basis, the world is zero sum

This is circular statement. Percentage is defined as a fraction of a some specified thing, so of course it's fixed. Ten percent of something is ten percent no matter how big or small that thing gets...

Anyway, I'm still not following your reasoning here. If you cut everyone's salaries where I work by 50% and only cut mine by 20%, that's still a bad day for me, even though I'm getting a bigger share of the total compensation paid out. People can argue about whether or not, or to what extent, wealth should be redistributed, but zero sum thinking is a bad path to go down and completely ignores humanity's ability to better its lot through innovation, trade, etc. It's a depressingly pessimistic worldview that prioritizes taking from others instead of creating things that others find valuable. At it's core it's a selfish ethos.

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

#552

Post by travisoneill1 »

ylem wrote: post #226
travisoneill1 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else are you going to keep the Asians out?

I'm a bit confused, but isn't this a one year response to the effects of Covid? I saw that there were difficulties even with AP exams this year.

Nothing to do with COVID. Harvard systematically discriminates against Asian applicants by giving them lower "personality scores" than other races. There is a big lawsuit about this going on.

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

#553

Post by macspoofing »

thelean12 wrote: post #464
macspoofing wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't make any strong arguments. Look back at see. All I argued was the following: 1) Harvard is not necessary for quality education (true) 2) Harvard is a great school and great a degree (true) 3) If you need to go into debt to pay for Harvard tuition, the Harvard degree isn't worth it, but if you can get it paid for (by whatever means) you should do it! (true) Which part do you disagree with?

A big part of your argument relies on the cost of a Harvard education. This was completely dismantled at least 3 times that I see in this thread. At some point you should have stepped back and said to yourself "maybe I don't know enough about Harvard to voice my opinion on it".

>A big part of your argument relies on the cost of a Harvard education.

Cite where I argued that please.

The argument was always framed as IF you have to pay $85k/y to go to Harvard and have to get loans to do it THEN it isn't worth it. Never wavered on that part. Never wavered on the part that Harvard is a great school. What I was informed about was a tangential point that Harvard has scaled tuition where nobody who can't afford tuition actually pays the full price. Good to know but that doesn't actually make a difference to my point.

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

#554

Post by pelliphant »

syshum wrote: post #313
webmaven wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classism may not be quite as "trendy" as racism or sexism right this minute, but I think you'll still find plenty of interest in the topic (and it's intersections with the others) on the left.

>>I think you'll still find plenty of interest in the topic (and it's intersections with the others) on the left. Please provide examples because I am not aware of any.

maybe the problem here is "american left" vs "other countries left".

In "other countries left" the left tag is defined by this topic (and this topic alone).

So, for someone not from america, your statement is a bit weird...

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

#555

Post by hindsightbias »

intended wrote: post #549
hindsightbias wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think SAT/ACT/AP scores took power away from provosts/admins and there was some accomadation to meritocracy. Underprivileged had a chance, but it was a long shot. It’s too many trying to get into too few colleges. We need more, smaller universities. Federal funds/grants should be reoriented away from the Ivies. Zero Federal funds for schools that don’t have lower than 30:1 class sizes. That would stop admin bloat o…

That would also kill schools that are in places with few resources. Ivies don’t need fed funds - they play a different game since the underlying markets tend to be asymptotic - the upper end of students, the upper end of professors, the upper end of athletes, the upper end of wealthy legacies.

“the average amount of money that the eight Ivy League schools received annually over that time period — $4.31 billion — exceeds the amount of money received by 16 of the 50 states.”

Fund those with few resources or create new ones away from the Ivies. You can’t democratize the Ivies but you can give a lot more people a better education. The status quo is that the Ivies have their cake and eat it too.

https://www.thedp.com/article/2017/04/ivy-league-tax-report

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

#556

Post by selimthegrim »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #140
travisoneill1 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else are you going to keep the Asians out?

By throwing them in a gladiatorial death-match with the Jewish applicants, of course. The winner has an athletic character, and is therefore real Harvard material!

This is like that story where Dershowitz drops into Stephen Jay Gould’s class and asks the students how to deal with a pushy Jewish mother who insists her rejected kid is Harvard material

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

#557

Post by selimthegrim »

pc86 wrote: post #110
beaner wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it, aren't most colleges non-profits? Why do they seek such high tuition fees if they're not profiting? Or are they, somehow?

"Non-profit" doesn't mean you don't make any money, it means you spend all your money. I went to a tiny liberal arts college you've never heard of, with a 1300-student enrollment today. The president makes well over half a million dollars a year. There are half a dozen deans making anywhere from $75-250k. A career services department run by a six-figure employee who has never held a job outside of that college (for r…

Is this RPI?

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

#558

Post by [deleted] »

intended wrote: post #548
torstenvl wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's to explain? Universal college education cannot be done without tax increases, and increasing taxes on the rural working class to pay for a program that doesn't benefit them is a huge disadvantage to them. If I'm a 21yo man in North Dakota working the oil fields to support my young family, how would you expect me to react to the idea of increasing my taxes so that white collar kids don't have to pay as much?

Well tax your rich and corporations more - education is singularly able to propel people out of poverty. For your tax increase you get a way out of poverty. Tanstafl. Frankly though- the American education problem is just people talking about the loss of manufacturing jobs at two degrees removed.

[deleted]

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

#559

Post by torstenvl »

intended wrote: post #548
torstenvl wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's to explain? Universal college education cannot be done without tax increases, and increasing taxes on the rural working class to pay for a program that doesn't benefit them is a huge disadvantage to them. If I'm a 21yo man in North Dakota working the oil fields to support my young family, how would you expect me to react to the idea of increasing my taxes so that white collar kids don't have to pay as much?

Well tax your rich and corporations more - education is singularly able to propel people out of poverty. For your tax increase you get a way out of poverty. Tanstafl. Frankly though- the American education problem is just people talking about the loss of manufacturing jobs at two degrees removed.

> education is singularly able to propel people out of poverty

You're using education in an ambiguous way here. Either you're including vocational training, in which case the argument for universal college doesn't follow, or you only mean college, in which case the premise is false.

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

#560

Post by sarchertech »

itsmeamario wrote: post #281
learc83 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However with covid, all that is removed, It's very unlikely that this lasts more than another semester or so though. If you're looking to enroll in the fall or the next year, it shouldn't be a big concern.

I'd like to see your sources on that.

There are multiple vaccine candidates that have passed phase I trials, have demonstrated they produce antibodies in humans, and have demonstrated they are successful in animal challenge trials. The chance's are good that we have a working vaccine by end of year, and the chances are very good that we have one sometime next year.

In the unlikely event it turns out that we can't develop a vaccine in the near future, we'll have to just deal with the disease long term. If we try to keep the world economy shut down for more than a few months at a time, we'll kill more people than COVID would. And as other people have pointed out, college students are very low risk.

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