181–190 of 1001 posts
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 backed up by research, for example: https://news.uchicago.edu/story/test-scores-dont-stack-gpas-...
I don't doubt that MIT's study showed otherwise for their needs. But UChicago is also a top-tier school and is not requiring standardized tests, for educational not political reasons.
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…
My child did very well on the ACT. All she did was buy a $35 practice book, which almost anyone can do. Literally this was it. Furthermore, she doesn’t know of a single friend or acquaintance that hired a private tutor.
All the nay-sayers belly-ache about this but for most children, even the “rich” ones, this simply isn’t true. It’s most definitely not necessary.
Considering the weight of the SATs/ACTs you would figure a student would at least buy a cheap book and put in two hours per week for a few weeks in practice. In practice, the vast majority of students who do this do quite well. The improvement is dramatic.
Everyone wants to always blame “the system” which yes, has an influence, but nobody wants to put ANY responsibility on the student themselves.
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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.
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Which is also tied to socioeconomic status. If you can pay, your score will go up the more you take it, according to my experience, and the college board. If you can't pay, you take it the one time it's offered for free if your school offers that. Then you get what you get.
I think we should learn from the gaokao and only test once a year. The fact that you can pay for more tests (and pay more for "score choice") is the most unjust part of the whole thing.
We should probably make the SAT nearly free, though, if that price actually keeps people who’d otherwise go to college from taking it more than once.
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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.
The SAT is a test of your academic preparation, not Raven's progressive matrices. That you can study for it is not inherently a bad thing. Portions that are highly susceptible to coaching are bad, and that's why there aren't analogies any more. If students learn the vocabulary and practice the math to do better on the test, at some point it just becomes the Key and Peele Heist sketch: "That's called a job!" https://w…
There's probably another 20 points that can be picked up by learning to read the questions very carefully -- so that you don't race to show how quickly you can spin-up an off-task answer that precisely matches the wrong question. Getting that right also "is not an inherently bad thing."
The verbal section is a bit more of a swamp, and there might be a larger element of gamesmanship there. But for schools like MIT, where math aptitude is the main event, I think keeping a math-focused role for the SAT can help a lot.
It identifies not just the elite-school wizards with lots of AP and math SAT 800s -- but also the teens from humbler public schools that didn't have an AP track, but whose 790s on the (pre-calc focused) math SATs speak to their ability to play at a higher level.
Apropos of analogies, I think the test-takers got rid of those because they can be ridiculously skewed to particular (affluent) cultures. For some people, it's obvious if yacht-to-dingy is akin to symphony-to-quartet. For people who grew up with less money, it is a total WTF moment.
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…
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?
Bluntly, if one can't handle the stress of the SAT, then the stress of exams at a university like MIT is going to be overwhelming.
Exam week at Caltech was called "compression", and after the exams was "decompression". The moniker is not a joke.
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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.
But saying you got into MIT, plus the connections there, probably would still help