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Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

hechingerreport.org

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Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#21

Post by hbbwebw »

hattmall wrote: post #10
efficax wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

far from a shortage, there’s a surplus of phds in almost every discipline. despite charging the highest tuition ever and sitting on massive endowments, the mbas in university administration don’t want to have to pay for them

Why would they even need phds at all. Teaching first year student should be more of a side job thing.

If you’re representing the college, how do you know the individual you’re about to hire has sufficient knowledge to both teach the material and cover any questions on the material students may raise.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#24

Post by petilon »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #22

Who could have seen that coming? The whole point of ditching quantitative tests is to empower the bureaucrats who want to make qualitative judgements based on their personal whims and biases. "Holistic" my ass.

Absolutely agree. In the US, "holistic" admissions were introduced to deny admission to students suspected of being Jewish [1].

[1] https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/06/23/a-lawsuit...

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#25

Post by sokoloff »

> “I think the students that do have the strong test scores still do have that advantage, especially when you have a student that has strong test scores versus a student who doesn’t have test scores and everything else on the academics is more or less the same,” an admissions officer

Why would we expect this to not be the case? It’s literally additional evidence of scholastic aptitude and, if you want it to not have any effect on admissions, you have to prevent its inclusion* rather than making it optional, as optional means “those with strong scores submit those scores.”

* Or, accept them in the application but prevent their inclusion in the admissions process and use them only for research/analytics and only after the fall semester starts.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#26

Post by hbbwebw »

high_derivative wrote: post #19

But...that was exactly the purpose? To be able to more freely select amongst racial and gender lines as desired

I think it’s more complicated than that because the students expect to get jobs after completing the degree, if they even can complete the degree.

For example, Im not great at art and don’t really have a passion for it. Should an art school accept me even though I’ll never have a career as an artist? Keep in mind I’d be taking a spot from someone who could. I have no doubt they’ll be able to improve my abilities but that’s not why many students apply.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#27

Post by mynameishere »

They are very upfront in terms of rhetoric about wanting more black and Hispanic students, but their policies are a lot of shuck-n-jive, trying to get that result while pretending to be fair. Nothing has worked so far. The pretending-to-be-fair sure hasn't either.

So, one thing that will work and keep it all simple: Just establish quotas. "We will admit the highest scoring black students until we hit x%." But I suppose that would make legal challenges easier.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#28

Post by 5mv2 »

It reminds me of European universities switching from selecting on humanities to selecting on maths a century ago.

The idea was to remove the social upbringing's impact on test scores, as candidates from higher socioeconomic status are heavily advantaged from using a larger vocabulary from birth.

A PhD friend who studied this told me it had no measurable impact. Put aside raising math tutors salaries of course.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#29

Post by youainti »

hbbwebw wrote: post #21
hattmall wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they even need phds at all. Teaching first year student should be more of a side job thing.

If you’re representing the college, how do you know the individual you’re about to hire has sufficient knowledge to both teach the material and cover any questions on the material students may raise.

Just like any other skilled job, there is an interview process.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#30

Post by petilon »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #5

Alternate headline: "Colleges that ditched admissions tests have to actually holistically evaluate applicants rather than reduce them to two numbers" No doubt that it's more subjective and more difficult; human beings are complex, multi-dimensional entities and I find it sad that in many of these selection processes, they are reduced to a few numbers for the sake of low effort filtering.

With the 10s of thousands of applications top universities get, there isn't enough time to evaluate the "complex, multi-dimensional entities" behind each application.

At University of Washington, applications are not reviewed by "admissions people". They hire temporary workers (grad students, retirees etc.) to review applications, and give them 8 minutes per application [1]. And this is typical of most universities.

[1] https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/a-look-inside-admis...

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