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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

#41

Post by nO0b »

onos wrote: post #2

USA is rich in universities. I wish people would focus less on the rankings and looking good credential aspect of college, and more on using it as an opportunity to learn / actually getting good at something. If we did the latter, we’d realize that people could go to pretty much any university (or coursera!) and get a high quality education here.

Malcolm Gladwell explains why it's statistically FAR better to be among the smartest kids at a 2nd or 3rd tier school than struggling to get into some elite institution where you will be below average among your peers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UEwbRWFZVc&t=220s

If you're borrowing money to pay for a degree, going to a school where you are not at the very top of the class is really taking a big risk.

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

#42

Post by nerdponx »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #35
petilon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Shaping the ethnic demographic of the school is a big component of the modern intent as well. Particularly, these "holistic" admission standards are designed to facilitate discrimination against Asian Americans. This is justified with transparently racist bullshit claims about Asian American students being too focused on academic performance, not "well rounded" whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. They reduce…

A more charitable interpretation is that a student body made up of too much of any one thing is not good. Part of the value proposition for going away to university for four years is to spend that time surrounded by diverse and interesting people.

That doesn't excuse the actual racism that we've seen in admissions, of course.

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

#43

Post by cdot2 »

tsunamifury wrote: post #37
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.

It’s really disappointing that many recent attempts of progressivism have just turned into new sexism and racism but defended as “the correct” versions of those. It erodes the intellectual validity of these institutions.

I'm not sure that wasn't the original intention for many if not most of the people advocating those positions.

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

#44

Post by whoooooo123 »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #33

It should be easy to make the student body reflect the diversity of applicants: select them at random.

I actually think this would be a good way to run admissions at ultra-selective elite universities - places like Harvard or Oxford where getting in or not can make a huge impact on the entire rest of your life. Everyone knows the evaluation process is bullshit and highly dependent on luck, so why pretend otherwise? Just discard those applicants who don't meet some minimum objective standard (SAT scores or whatever) then pick the remaining names out of a hat.

It's never going to happen, but still. If people don't like it then maybe the solution is to improve the quality of other universities so that getting rejected from Harvard isn't such a big blow in the first place.

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

#45

Post by petilon »

A selection process based on academic achievement alone yields a graduate more highly valued by corporate America [1].

Private universities should be able to use whatever criteria they want (as long as there is no illegal discrimination) including "building communities" and "shaping the student body". (It's a free country after all!) But public universities must use objective criteria. Students need to be able to control their own destiny through hard work. That's a basic principle of fairness that should apply in this land of opportunity. No "shaping" of the student body by universities that receive funding from taxpayers, because that is unfair to students. Imagine being denied admission by the only good public university in your state, not because your grades or test scores are not good enough, but because you didn't fit in whatever "shape" the university decided is appropriate for that year! For more on this see [2].

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-selection-method-can-bo...

[2] https://circles.page/5680a56b5c28af0998656e09/College-Admiss...

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

#46

Post by bradleyjg »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #33

It should be easy to make the student body reflect the diversity of applicants: select them at random.

Thomas suggested this as an alternative to using race as a plus factor in Grutter v. Bollinger. He claimed the existence of this alternative meant that the schools use of race was not narrowly tailored even if one conceded the compelling government interest in diversity.

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

#47

Post by MengerSponge »

dgacmu wrote: post #18
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.

I think you're misunderstanding the challenge. Teaching first year students doesn't require Ph.D.-level knowledge, but it requires more teaching experience and skills than teaching later levels: The classes are larger; the students are less experienced at learning on their own; the students are new to the environment and less familiar with how to navigate it. Large classes of novices are particularly sensitive to log…

It also takes a lot of expertise to understand why certain subjects are introduced in intro courses, and to frame those ideas in a way that will help those students learn more advanced topics.

It doesn't require Ph.D. level knowledge, but it helps a lot, especially when you're talking to one of those few students with more and deeper questions about the subject.

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

#48

Post by xfitm3 »

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.

Affirmative action is racist. It must stop, along with hiring biases.

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

#50

Post by indymike »

RobotToaster wrote: post #3

I find it hard to believe there's a shortage of people capable of teaching 1st year students, so this seems like a problem of artificial scarcity.

> I find it hard to believe there's a shortage of people capable of teaching 1st year students, so this seems like a problem of artificial scarcity. reply

The supply is short because at least in the US, entry pay is low in higher ed.

- $25/hour w/ benefits for semi-skilled labor

- $42k/year no benefits for adjunct

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