Report on the role of standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions [pdf]

Post by foobiekr » Tue, Feb 06, 2024, 7:00 PM UTC

waswaswas wrote: post #50

SnooSux wrote: post #5

To measure academic achievement they use First Year GPA. It makes sense they're correlated, both require studying known material for a test. But is GPA the best measure, especially first year? I would be interested in other metrics like 3rd-4th year GPA or placements into jobs and such.

Later GPA is subject to distortion via less prepared or capable students switching into easier majors. Here's a paper indirectly showing the effect at Duke with a racial framing: https://izajole.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2193-8997-...

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 06, 2024, 7:02 PM UTC

light_hue_1 wrote: post #33

If this was a paper submitted by one of my students, they would fail. Why would these faculty members sign their names to this drivel? If you read carefully, you see how useless SAT and ACT scores really are. Here are just a few insane things. > Figure 1 shows a linear relationship between SAT scores and cumulative first-year GPA for Dartmouth students. SAT scores are grouped into 16 equal-sized bins, and we plot mea…

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 06, 2024, 7:48 PM UTC

light_hue_1 wrote: post #33

If this was a paper submitted by one of my students, they would fail. Why would these faculty members sign their names to this drivel? If you read carefully, you see how useless SAT and ACT scores really are. Here are just a few insane things. > Figure 1 shows a linear relationship between SAT scores and cumulative first-year GPA for Dartmouth students. SAT scores are grouped into 16 equal-sized bins, and we plot mea…

Post by sokoloff » Tue, Feb 06, 2024, 8:53 PM UTC

grdgyredb wrote: post #391

sokoloff wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAT has has been around almost 100 years and ACT around 2/3 of that, so they've had pretty long to hone the tests as well. This is far from their first stab at it.

And indeed they seem to have produced a test that is correlated with success.

Post by thfuran » Wed, Feb 07, 2024, 2:27 PM UTC

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #352

zahma wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a silly idea. Universities are not just in charge with academic education but rather with the formation of a person’s character. To succeed with the latter, academic capability must be held alongside the estimation of one’s character, for it is not only about one’s intellectual capacity but rather how one uses it.

If academic education is not their top priority, it would be beneficial to separate research facilities from universities and let universities be glorified fraternities. It's a waste to spend resources of top professors on "formation of a person's character" when they can help build the next generation of elite scientists and engineers.