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

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

#421

Post by samatman »

pannSun wrote: post #328
rayiner wrote: post #100

What surprises me is how many Asians support these measures. Make no mistake: our ability to progress as we have in America has depended on the fact that objective metrics cannot easily be gamed. The cost of test prep is a minor barrier to entry compared to the cultural knowledge required to write an essay that moves a WASP admissions officer, or the social capital and connections required to get involved in charitab…

If culturally-discriminating WASP admissions officers were the main barrier, one would not expect non-Jewish whites to be the most underrepresented group in the Ivy League. Circa 2019, looking at non-international students only: Ivy League US Ratio Mean SAT score [1] Jewish 17.2% 2.4% 7.16 n/a Asian 19.6% 5.3% 3.71 1216 White (incl. Jewish) 50.3% 61.5% 0.82 1148 Hispanic 11.4% 17.6% 0.65 1043 Black 7.8% 12.7% 0.61 96…

Well, and there's the rub, right?

Jews and Asians are overrepresented because they give the hard signal. Some absurd double-digit number of Asian students at Harvard have a perfect SAT score.

What's taking assessment tests out of that picture likely to do to the percentage?

It's not more WASPs, there are exactly twenty of those matriculating per year and they all drink blood out of a skull†. It's less Asians and more, heartfelt college essays about: you can fill that in, I'm sure.

†I'm not actually blood-libeling WASPs, something about how conversations have gone here recently compels me to point this out. Remember the 2004 election? Me neither.

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

#422

Post by malborodog »

davidgay wrote: post #397
robomartin wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The greatest source of admissions inequity is childhood socioeconomic status If we are talking about the US, no, I disagree. The greatest source of admissions inequity are shit K-12 education. I'll give you a direct example from when my kids were at the local middle school. Their science teacher --a Chiropractor-turned-teacher-- was, well, there's no other way to put it, a moron. The guy actually taught the kids th…

> > The greatest source of admissions inequity is childhood socioeconomic status > If we are talking about the US, no, I disagree. > The greatest source of admissions inequity are shit K-12 education. You've missed the step where the higher socioeconomic classes opt-out of the shit K-12 education by moving to better school districts, sending their kids to private schools, or homeschooling them.

Well that's cause his _actual_ point is that they shouldn't have to, and that public schools should be run differently so as to eliminate the advantage of rich people just circumventing them, ya dig?

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

#423

Post by kelnos »

themitigating wrote: post #241
FredPret wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, I don't know where you're from, but I bet it isn't currently fascist. In the same vein, most leftists shouldn't be called communists. Examples of fascism are the Nazis, Mussolini, that Spanish chap, and apartheid. The only modern incarnation that springs to my mind is the Phillipines. I'm not saying I like the American right with their religion and their fixation on abortion (I do agree with them on some…

Who is more of a centrist right now, the republican party or the democrats?

That's... actually a really good question. I expect you are perhaps trying to push the idea that Republicans are more centrist than Democrats, but I don't think I'd agree with that.

If you were to suggest that your average Republican US citizen is more centrist than your average Democrat US citizen, I would probably agree. But when it comes to the politicians and the people running the parties, I think the GOP is much farther right than the Democrats are far left.

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

#424

Post by ajsnigrutin »

tester756 wrote: post #330
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from a former socialist european country, and we use grades + standardized tests results to get into most colleges (art, music and acting colleges are an exception, due to obvious reasons). Everybody has to pass a standardized test at the end of highschool, 5 subjects, for most, the first three are slovene (our native language), english (second language) and math + two subjects chosen by the student (eg. physics…

40% are grades?! taking grades into account seems weird as hell

Grades for each subject are calculated into end-of-year grades (for that subject), and a final "total" grade is calculated (some special formula, not a pure average). A mix of those is then calculated into those 40%... I can look up the formula, but yeah, the grades are used too.

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

#425

Post by [deleted] »

FredPret wrote: post #92
nerdponx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately I feel convinced that it's a passing fad. I just hope that the pendulum does not swing too far the other way.

Maybe I'm in a bubble, but every anecdote I read online in the past year or two is someone royally fed up with liberal politics. On Twitter, Reddit, and real life, the majority of people keep complaining about crime, drugs, homelessness. Sounds like a perfect environment for a generation of conservatives to get elected. Hopefully they stay close to the center for a long time.

[deleted]

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

#426

Post by elgenie »

zdragnar wrote: post #408
davidgay wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > The greatest source of admissions inequity is childhood socioeconomic status > If we are talking about the US, no, I disagree. > The greatest source of admissions inequity are shit K-12 education. You've missed the step where the higher socioeconomic classes opt-out of the shit K-12 education by moving to better school districts, sending their kids to private schools, or homeschooling them.

That's why so many parents advocate for vouchers and school choice. Kids shouldn't be locked into shit schools just because their parents can't afford to move.

Kids would instead be locked into shit schools because their parents aren't there, don't care, or simply don't have the time to research alternate schools, but (yay!) private and charter schools get to siphon off money from the public school system.

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

#427

Post by actionablefiber »

WalterBright wrote: post #394
actionablefiber wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> High schoolers can walk around unattended. Even a quarter mile, both ways. It's not a big deal. In the summer I often try to get in 5 miles a day of running/walking. Extremely location dependent. Where I live today, in Virginia very close to DC, I commute by bike and do lots of biking/walking for fun and to run errands. What you are saying about walking around as a means of getting from place to place is just compl…

I'm sure there are places where it is difficult to walk anywhere. Those are not the norm, however. I don't recall any places like that in Seattle. Most parents with kids try to pick places to live that are reasonably kid friendly. Real estate people know that, and advertisements emphasize things like walkability and distance to schools.

This is just not a take that squares with how it is to live anywhere in America outside of the denser urban cores and some shallow radius of the suburbs around them. Perhaps it was correct at some time in the past before the suburban expansion of the post-WWII era. Perhaps Seattle is different from the overwhelming majority of the United States and is uniquely walkable or upzoned. I would not know since I have not been there before.

In the United States today it is the norm for middle and upper middle class parents to raise their children in car-dependent suburbia. Particularly in the last half century, most new residential developments have been exactly this. The defining features of these places are sprawling circuitous developments of detached single-family homes, massive parking lots, impassable highways, and strip malls.

If you'd like an example, please come visit Loudoun and Fairfax counties. I grew up in that area. They are some of the wealthiest counties in the country, a common destination for families in the DMV, and you will see how much walkability and proximity to schools that money has bought them.

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

#428

Post by matai_kolila »

zdragnar wrote: post #403
matai_kolila wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool so when exactly is a student supposed to spend this time to study? I really think HN should stop for a moment and think about how insidious and pervasively poverty creeps into every aspect of a poor child’s life, because some of what’s being written here is embarrassingly naïve.

They'll certainly have more time to study than they will for extracurricular activities, social clubs, volunteering and all of the other "soft" ways kids pad out their college applications. In terms of fairness across racial and economic strata, standardized tests like the ACT and SAT are the fairest ways to judge college applications.

ACT and SAT measure free time as much as they measure anything else, which overall is exceptionally little.

And I would very much love to live in a world where the sum total possible things a child has to worry about are extracurriculars or studying. Good lord what a better place we’d live in if that were true…

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

#429

Post by elgenie »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #411
kleinsch wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grades you got on actual schoolwork are a much more obvious predictor. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-22/grades-v...

Grades from different schools are not equivalent. It's extremely difficult to compare grades from hundreds or thousands of different schools. You have to really know how rigorous each individual school's grade scale is.

Grades from different schools are not remotely equivalent in representing material learned.

However, they are comparable with respect to the hoop-jumping conscientiousness of the students involved, and there's a decent argument that it's the latter is what matters for successful completion of college.

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

#430

Post by kelnos »

overrun11 wrote: post #151
hotpotamus wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What solutions are the conservatives offering to crime, drugs, and homelessness?

Promoting strong family structures and communities. Supporting social norms that dissuade destructive behavior.

> Promoting strong family structures and communities.

That's not actionable. What does that even mean? What law or laws would you want proposed and passed that would accomplish that? Are there any political candidates that have a list of these laws, justifications -- with hard data -- why these sorts of laws will fix the stated problems, and a plan to get them put into place?

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