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Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

mitadmissions.org

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

#151

Post by chernevik »

dijit wrote: post #126
Psyladine wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but the idea of standardised testing being equivalent across all factors just strikes me as being fundamentally untrue. What's your take on MIT's stance? 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.

My take is exactly what I said. The same factors that lead to success for SATs can lead to further academic success. I believe that MIT is probably right, in fact, I'm quite certain of it. Many people will drop out of university or perform poorly than their peers for socio-economic reasons, the person working while studying will probably do worse than the person who just studies. MIT wants the most graduates and espe…

What's "inhumane" about trying to select those who will benefit most from your program?

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

#152

Post by TrinaryWorksToo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #148
TrinaryWorksToo wrote: post #108

Buried in the details it says that MIT will be accepting anyone over a (presumably secret) threshold, not using it as a ranking tool as some people might indicate.

> MIT will be accepting anyone over a (presumably secret) threshold I don’t think it’s a hard threshold. Some people are bad standardised test takers. If the rest of their application shows they won’t flunk their math tests, a lower score could be fine. If, on the other hand, it looks like a pattern, a marginal score could be seen to not make the cut.

Yeah that's probably right. It's not a ranking mechanism which is what I think some people believe it is advocating. More isn't necessarily better.

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

#153

Post by didibus »

paulpauper wrote: post #2

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…

I guess the issue in their analysis is that they are trying to predict MIT grade success, which is possibly another flawed metric. If say exams at MIT resembled SAT, it seems more logical that you'd find a correlation between SAT success and MIT academic success.

What would be a more interesting measure of real value is to study for academic innovation and invention (valuable to society), as well as future success on the job market or at new business ventures (valuable to the student and economy).

I'm making the assumption here that since we have limited educational resources, we'd want to provide the best education to those most likely to advance an academic field through new discovery or insight or invention, as well as those who'd best innovate or provide for existing business and services to society.

And I'm curious if we've ever had any study looking into that? Or if this one did?

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

#154

Post by hatsunearu »

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #7
paulpauper wrote: post #2

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…

Anecdotally I improved 600 to 400 points from test prep, depending on what you count as my "first SAT test" and my last SAT test.

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

#155

Post by spywaregorilla »

azinman2 wrote: post #61
erdos4d wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

How common is this? I would guess not very. Either way, if you cheated your way into MIT, expect to fail out. The hand holding stops there.

MIT is one of the more rigorous schools but I expect its still pretty easy to avoid failing out.

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

#156

Post by tedmiston »

It's very difficult to read a webpage with huge red rectangles covering up so much of the text that it looks like a redacted document [1].

I imagine it must not look like this for everyone... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edit: It seems like this is an issue with the Dark Reader extension. Here's an archived version that renders as expected [2].

I wish they'd used an existing popular tool like Hypothes.is [3] for annotations rather than rolling their own isolated system.

[1]: https://imgur.com/a/jWkVFgd

[2]: https://archive.ph/v1Rm1

[3]: https://web.hypothes.is/

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

#157

Post by ShaveTheTurtles »

A lot of folks focus on act/sat scores when talking about diversity when really these ivy league schools shouldn't have an express lane for legacy entrants. If you are trying to be different than how it was previously, how can you expect that to happen when you give preference to folks that benefited previously?

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

#158

Post by someguydave »

pooper wrote: post #74
sjg007 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In my personal experience, about seventeen years ago, retaking the test raised my score some 90 points (iirc) out of 1600, excluding writing section.

the relevant question in that in that case is: what would your average score be with and without prep over say 10 tests

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

#159

Post by msdrigg »

sjg007 wrote: post #49
paulmd wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My own anecdotal experience confirms that sat and act tests are very studiable. Honestly even more than average tests just because there is so much material available to study with.

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

#160

Post by mirker »

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…

There are discrete forms of “gradients” which generalize classical CS concepts. Submodular optimization, for example, covers many algorithms that search for optimal configurations of discrete sets, and it does so by arguments that are analogous to convex optimization.
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