11–20 of 1001 posts
Footnote 21 (containing " the most important components to demonstrate academic readiness in the absence of SAT/ACT scores would be other standardized exams ") is quite telling.
Thats pragmatic, and sobering, since people hoping for more diverse representation in admissions are faulting the SAT pipeline itself (access to study prep, study materials, wording of questions in the test) but the known alternatives are more niche exacerbating the outcome
our ability to accurately predict student academic success at MIT 02 Our research shows this predictive validity holds even when you control for socioeconomic factors that correlate with testing. It also shows that good grades in high school do not themselves necessarily translate to academic success at MIT if you cannot account for testing. Of course, we can never be fully certain how any given applicant will do: we…
What's surprising though, is that APs and similar exams are not enough. In the UK, I though they essentially looked at A Level results, which are much more representative of what you'll actually study at uni. But I guess both SAT/ACTs & APs must be a better measure that just APs. I just remember fucking hating studying for the SATs though. So boring. SAT IIs were somewhat fun to study for though. In France for instan…
That said, outside of admissions, I don't think I got academic value out of them. They were hard for the sake of being hard. I'd rather have taken the SAT or ACT any day.
(also apropos of nothing but I don't think much of the writing section on the SAT either, which was a hot topic 15 or so years ago... a huge amount is dependent on the graders, and it's fundamentally a "blackboard programming" type scenario where the student is separated from basic resources like word processing and graded on the resulting product... that's not how you would actually work in an academic setting.)
(It's pretty funny that the first red highlight hover is explaining that you can hover over red highlights to see more information. The only people reading it are the ones who no longer need to be told.)
our ability to accurately predict student academic success at MIT 02 Our research shows this predictive validity holds even when you control for socioeconomic factors that correlate with testing. It also shows that good grades in high school do not themselves necessarily translate to academic success at MIT if you cannot account for testing. Of course, we can never be fully certain how any given applicant will do: we…
> So much for that common, popular notion that standardized tests do not predict anything of value. To be fair, I don't think the debate was ever about the quality or predictive value of the tests. There is a small, but well-organized and vocal subset of the population that hates the idea of excellence and differentiation. They want, and have been quite successful in, the replacement of standards of excellence with v…
our ability to accurately predict student academic success at MIT 02 Our research shows this predictive validity holds even when you control for socioeconomic factors that correlate with testing. It also shows that good grades in high school do not themselves necessarily translate to academic success at MIT if you cannot account for testing. Of course, we can never be fully certain how any given applicant will do: we…
What's surprising though, is that APs and similar exams are not enough. In the UK, I though they essentially looked at A Level results, which are much more representative of what you'll actually study at uni. But I guess both SAT/ACTs & APs must be a better measure that just APs. I just remember fucking hating studying for the SATs though. So boring. SAT IIs were somewhat fun to study for though. In France for instan…
That isn't what they said. They said that access to those tests is not universal. Students from high schools that don't offer AP classes would have a hard time taking AP exams. This would exclude people from rural or impoverished areas.
This is why the SAT and ACT are useful: they are meant to be aptitude tests. They are IQ tests in disguise. If properly designed, they will measure intelligence with minimal influence from education or cultural background. Theoretically something like these tests could be administered to elementary school students and still be useful for predicting success in college a decade later.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, when you're doing something that is politically/ideologically unpopular or in the minority you tend to need to have bulletproof justification if you want to get away with it. Then again, with these sorts of things you can never be sure how much the tail wags the dog.
I think I get where you are going with this, can you expand a little bit on the wagging the dog part? I am not familiar with that term. I get what it means, having looked it up, but being new to the concept I want to make sure I understand the context of that segment of the comment correctly.
our ability to accurately predict student academic success at MIT 02 Our research shows this predictive validity holds even when you control for socioeconomic factors that correlate with testing. It also shows that good grades in high school do not themselves necessarily translate to academic success at MIT if you cannot account for testing. Of course, we can never be fully certain how any given applicant will do: we…
It's far easier for rich students to game GPA, college essays and extracurriculars than it is for them to game the SAT. For GPA, they can hire a private tutor in the subject they're struggling with. There are services out there that will basically write your english essay for you / do your math/science homework. For college essays, they can hire college counselors to help them draft a compelling essay. For extra curr…
For a period in the 1980s-1990s, you could argue that calculus was not essential in computer science. It was all discrete math for a while. But then came machine learning, and it's all about hill climbing and gradients now.