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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

#171

Post by azinman2 »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #155
azinman2 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you speak from experience? I attended it for grad school and not undergrad, but there was the expectation that you stand on your own. I was in one of the rare programs that was a terminal masters and you had to reapply for the PhD, and only 50% were accepted to the PhD.

I think there probably aren't too many failing out of undergrad simply because they do a great job of filtering in the first place. But I know people who attended that certainly struggled... one who came a C student and still want on to a great medical school and a successful career. There isn't grade inflation.

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

#172

Post by hkt »

deanCommie wrote: post #123
rossdavidh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 alwa…

> Latin in the 19th century was always still useful to one's education, Was it? Or was it perpetuated by a community that happened to already know it and so they leveraged it?

I suspect the answer is "both".

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

#173

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

neon_electro wrote: post #137
hiq wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the current push back against coding tests in job hiring Is there such a pushback? As in, is the percentage of the workforce refusing to take such tests increasing?

It very much depends on the style of coding test - personally, I'm more than happy to do take-home style tests where I prepare something in a matter of a few hours, but I can't stand "leetcode" interviews or anything where I'm pressured to produce in 30 minutes or less; perhaps that's because that's typically not how I work in the real world and in my experience, they do a really poor job of demonstrating my skill se…

From the other part of the table - we'd lose more candidates if we did take-homes. People in general prefer to study once and use that knowledge for multiple companies at once, you can't optimize take-homes like that.

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

#174

Post by hkt »

flatiron wrote: post #99
solveit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that calculus is essential in discrete maths, but ML is not essential in Computer Science.

professional developer for close to 20 years, never used calculus. but i also a dumb java on the backend javascript on the front end web jockey.

Some might say that's representative of the majority of the field..!

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

#175

Post by erdos4d »

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.

Well, Trump did it, that's one data point. Also, he did fine at U Penn, an Ivy, so why should we assume MIT is so awesome that another rich kid couldn't cheat his way through there?

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

#176

Post by azinman2 »

erdos4d wrote: post #175
azinman2 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, Trump did it, that's one data point. Also, he did fine at U Penn, an Ivy, so why should we assume MIT is so awesome that another rich kid couldn't cheat his way through there?

Technically MIT isn't an ivy league school. But either way, what makes you think all Ivy's are the same?

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

#177

Post by throwaway7033 »

rosmax_1337 wrote: post #84
artful-hacker wrote: post #14

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

Why are IQ tests controversial?

The Griggs v. Duke Power Co. decision (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.) makes them legally problematic.

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

#178

Post by danShumway »

tharne wrote: post #10
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…

> 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…

I've pushed back against standardized testing at certain points of my life, and I don't think this comment even remotely summarizes my views.

If anything, I would say that my views are the opposite -- homogenization creates a lack of differentiation around skill and aptitude based on questionable science (and sometimes outright pseudoscience) and often leads to an oversimplification of human intelligence in general. It always feels very strange to me that people trying to compress aptitude into a single number say that they're defending differentiation or diversity of talent.

MIT's findings here don't really change my view of the value of SATs, although the findings are interesting and I think they're worth looking into further. I'm not sure "they're more predictive than GPAs" is the glowing recommendation that SAT proponents think it is. You can agree or disagree with me on that point, I'm not here to debate the entire idea of testing or IQ or whatever -- I just want to point out the above comment is a pretty big oversimplification and (in my mind) a borderline complete misrepresentation (I assume unintentionally) of what people like me believe. I can only speak for myself though, maybe there are people out there who do hate the idea of excellence.

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

#179

Post by TuringNYC »

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…

>> 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.

As i learned in college, the real "coaching" was rich parents getting rich kids more time on the SAT by getting psychiatric diagnostic classifications that give you more time.

Time has been the real challenge on SATs for most people beyond a certain score threshold, and money can buy time.

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

#180

Post by qubitcoder »

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…

I'm not so sure about that. About 20 years ago, counselors advised taking the SAT/ACT only once, since your score wouldn't really change.

I took the SAT several times. Each time my score went up significantly. My high school ended up creating a new award category for "greatest score increase", or something to that effect. I believe it was ~200 points.

I'd taken a prep course being offered by a local instructor. However, the biggest benefit was from dedicated self-study (Kaplan books, as I recall).

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