Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles • Hacker News Board

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#41

Post by adfgadfgaery » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 5:16 PM UTC

gameswithgo wrote: post #16

tharne wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Is the current push back against coding tests in job hiring perhaps similar to this push back against the SAT?

The SAT has been demonstrated to be effective at predicting success in university. We have almost no evidence about the computer industry's hiring practices. It is completely unscientific. Interviews operate on folklore, not statistics.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#42

Post by satsuma » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 5:16 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #27

paulpauper wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This times 10. GPAs have been rendered close to useless, especially at identifying above average ability, due to grade inflation, and also extreme variability between schools. Same for valedictorian and other appellations.

yeah this is a really hard problem and I don't see a fix outside of standardized testing. Every school is individually incentivized to use every trick - grading out of 5.0, grading loosely, giving a bonus score for AP/IB courses "because of difficulty", etc and teachers are obviously very sympathetic to the future of their students and the impact that being a Grading Nazi could have. And parents are obviously incenti…

i came from a rural high school that didn't have any ap/ib courses. i wonder how much that affected my college applications.

i still got to go to the college of my choice (fire up chips!) but i have to wonder -- if i was able to boost my gpa using ap/ib courses, would i have received more scholarship opportunities/better offers from other schools?

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#43

Post by jordanpg » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 5:17 PM UTC

Part of the problem I see with standardized testing is that the stakes are so high. Some fraction of the people out there just get nervous or have a bad day. Nothing about these high pressure situations really reflects anything important in the real world.

I'm a law student now. In law school, your entire grade usually comes from one 3-4 hour essay exam. Much depends on luck, how well you slept the night before, and how frantically you can type. It's absurd. It's been that way for some 100 years.

I've always been able to play ball with standardized, timed exams, but I have had enough exposure to neuro-diversity that I can empathize with many. I just wish there was a way to de-stress these kinds of exams somehow. I don't know the solution, but I think it would answer of a lot of objections to them.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#44

Post by paulpauper » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 5:17 PM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #39

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> A 30 point increase out of 2400 points is not material to college admissions. Not so sure about that. Beyond the fact that that number is an average, the question is from where to where. So many kids get perfect 2400 scores that going from 2370 to 2400 might be the difference of getting eliminated from competitive admission pools altogether. Whereas nobody will care about you going from 1850 to 1880. P.s. I am dati…

But test prep is marketed to people who are average or below average. Saying you can gain hundreds of points is clearly misleading/deceptive advertising.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#45

Post by LewisVerstappen » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

erdos4d wrote: post #36

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As a counterargument, a fake ID is all that a rich person needs to put a smart kid in their place at the testing center. Those places are usually huge, nobody knows anyone, and if you flash a legit looking ID, you will have no trouble sitting the test. GPA and such require effort over years to game (and maybe the kid actually learns something from all that tutoring, who knows).

Sure. So, 2 things.

1) The solution to that is to improve security measures. Not to remove the SAT entirely.

2) It is significantly harder to find someone who can score well on the SAT and is willing to take the test for you compared to gaming GPA, extra curriculars, etc.

I've heard of tons of instances of people hiring homework-help services, their dad paying $5k to get their extra-curricular club going, private tennis lessons, etc.

But I've never personally heard of someone paying someone else to take the SAT for them.

I'm sure it occasionally happens, but it's a lot harder to pull off compared to manipulating GPA, extracurriculars, college essay.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#46

Post by artful-hacker » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #28

artful-hacker wrote: post #14

SAT scores correlate with IQ test scores. SAT is just a 'legal' thinly veiled version of IQ test.

IQ Tests aren't illegal though? If colleges wanted to administer IQ tests they absolutely could.

Maybe "more politically correct" or "easier to get away with" would be a better way to phrase what I meant.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#47

Post by baja_blast » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

amalcon wrote: post #9

globuous wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The boringness could actually be a big part of the effectiveness. Efficient study habits and ability to work through boredom certainly help with some undergrad classes. The test would have some predictive power even if it's just measuring those.

Also it's hard to standardize something that is not boring.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#48

Post by rossdavidh » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #20

All MIT students, regardless of intended major, must pass two semesters of calculus, plus two semesters of calculus-based physics, as part of our General Institute Requirements. ... There is no path through MIT that does not rest on a rigorous foundation in mathematics, and we need to be sure our students are ready for that as soon as they arrive. For a period in the 1980s-1990s, you could argue that calculus was not…

True, but the usefulness of calculus to a working developer in ML is pretty marginal. The difference between different ML algorithms for hill climbing or gradients, is orders of magnitude less than the effect of having the right training data, formatted the right way. Statistics or data science is far more applicable to nearly any field on real-world programming.

But, you know, like Latin in the 19th century was always still useful to one's education, calculus is still useful. It is also something a lot more people know how to teach, than know how to teach statistics (or other more useful topics). I think the latter is the primary reason it remains central to most engineering programs.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#49

Post by sjg007 » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #21

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't really have evidence for this, but it's always felt like SAT/ACT coaching doesn't improve scores so much as get rid of some of the "dumb mistakes" that cost you score. It's gonna help you when the test writer was playing some gotcha tricks with phrasing or whatever, but if you don't understand the material, even narrowing it down to a 50/50 isn't going to get you a good score, and if you truly don't understan…

Coaching and studying improves SAT scores. People learn the type of questions they do poorly on and can study to improve. The SAT is a test you can study for.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#50

Post by giantg2 » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #39

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> A 30 point increase out of 2400 points is not material to college admissions. Not so sure about that. Beyond the fact that that number is an average, the question is from where to where. So many kids get perfect 2400 scores that going from 2370 to 2400 might be the difference of getting eliminated from competitive admission pools altogether. Whereas nobody will care about you going from 1850 to 1880. P.s. I am dati…

Are there really that many kids getting perfect scores?

I got a pretty low/average score, but took the test early in junior year so I hadn't taken some of the more advanced math courses yet. I never took it again since I got into everywhere I applied to (didn't apply to ivy league, obviously). Seemed like most other kids I knew did similarly with the smartest kids maybe 150 points higher (2400 time-frame). Nobody I know got a perfect score, or even close to it.

Edit: man, after talking about this I want to see what my score was exactly. No way am I paying $30 for an archived score though. I want to say it was only 1200/1600 (the schools only wanted 2 of the sections). But I'm not sure I trust my memory for something so inconsequential from that long ago.

Extra edit: found my old score report. It's worse than I thought. The writing was 570 (74th percentile) and math was 510 (47th percentile). I'm a lot dumber than I remember.