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Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

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Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#61

Post by kxrm »

My first job during and out of college back in 2003, we were entirely remote. We hired exclusively over the phone which resulted in a mix of people that were completely diverse in their backgrounds and at the same time truly qualified to do the work.

The company went on to grow quite successfully until it was acquired 6 years later. I feel that zoom and video conferencing allows some of that "appearance" factor back in. Based on my experience though, if I had my way, job interviews would be exclusively audio only.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#62

Post by mgfist »

keiferski wrote: post #9
aurareturn wrote: post #5

One thing I like about China's education system is the Gaokao entrance exams for universities. It doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, ugly, or beautiful. All it matters is how you score. It's as meritocratic as education can be.

Don’t wealthier families hire tutors to prepare their children? That’s what happens in the US with the SAT/ACT. I think you’d need free, universal SAT tutoring available to everyone in order to be more meritocratic.

Well nothing is truly meritocratic - even with free tutoring, kids will still have different genetics, different home environments, different upbringings etc..

Colleges in the US that removed standardized testing from their applications, in the pursuit of trying to be more meritocratic, found that fewer students from underrepresented backgrounds got in, not more. In hindsight (and to some in foresight) this makes sense because now schools leaned more heavily on grades and extracurriculars, both of which can be gamed by wealthy families far more easily than a standardized test.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#63

Post by pxc »

aurareturn wrote: post #5

One thing I like about China's education system is the Gaokao entrance exams for universities. It doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, ugly, or beautiful. All it matters is how you score. It's as meritocratic as education can be.

Chinese education is also extremely constrained by the practice of "teaching to the test" to the point that the Gaokao indirectly stands in the way of innovation and reform in education. Schools doing interesting things to improve the quality of education are historically not very competitive on the Gaokao anyway (e.g., some unusual rural schools where students historically have bad prospects anyway and parents are overburdened or indifferent) or explicitly trying to carve something out outside the college track (e.g., private tech/entrepreneurship schools created by big tech companies).

There may be some good things about the Gaokao but having spoken to some (Chinese) teachers in China, it's also a limiting factor for education prior to university in a lot of ways, limiting the freedom of teachers and driving up risk aversion in parents.

(It's also effectively graded on a regional curve, which might be a good thing but isn't meritocratic in the straightforward way you suggest.)

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#64

Post by crocodile10203 »

crims0n wrote: post #6

> When education is in-person, attractive students receive higher grades in non-quantitative subjects, in which teachers tend to interact more with students compared to quantitative courses. I wonder how much of this is less about attraction and more about social skills. Granted, higher attraction affords more opportunity to develop those skills, but I have met plenty of charming people who were not conventionally at…

It's very sad people on this site still fall for this rhetoric.

Attractive people have advantage even without the social skills. We have all observed it. Don't cope.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#65

Post by mgfist »

alistairSH wrote: post #30
StefanBatory wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, but... What's the alternative? Obviously someone's going to have better academic performance if you have tutors, there's no way around. Still, if you have good academic performance - you have it. American system feels more unfair when you're given points for extracurriculars like playing instruments or sports, like that's not going to hold poorer children even more (also how's that related to academic pe…

The university will argue that a well-rounded student body improves the experience for everybody. IE, a college that's 100% "nerds" won't be as good as college that's 80% "nerds", 10% "smart jocks", and 10% "band geeks" (or whatever other categories you want). I probably agree with that, but also acknowledge there's no good way to make that completely objective.

> I probably agree with that, but also acknowledge there's no good way to make that completely objective.

Even worse, rich kids have far more means to engage in extracurriculars than poor kids.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#66

Post by CalRobert »

nyeah wrote: post #51
StefanBatory wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, but... What's the alternative? Obviously someone's going to have better academic performance if you have tutors, there's no way around. Still, if you have good academic performance - you have it. American system feels more unfair when you're given points for extracurriculars like playing instruments or sports, like that's not going to hold poorer children even more (also how's that related to academic pe…

One important thing is whether the tutoring is making better students, or just gaming the test.

And after graduation they can grind leetcode, and after that they can practice social cues to get in the management class. It's gamed tests all the way down.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#68

Post by TrackerFF »

People that have used to be fat, and then lost a lot of weight, will know how brutally different people will treat you. Whereas you'd practically be a ghost before weight loss, random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you.

Some will of course argue that you losing weight will also make you more confident, and thus you become more approachable. I think there's a lot of bias against fat people, against "unattractive" people, etc.

This also shows in the classroom, work, etc.

Of course, actually being conventionally attractive will come with its own perks. People will go out of their way to help you, and to support you. Over time this could very well boost your ego to also become more confident and decisive.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#69

Post by crocodile10203 »

heraldgeezer wrote: post #39
aurareturn wrote: post #5

One thing I like about China's education system is the Gaokao entrance exams for universities. It doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, ugly, or beautiful. All it matters is how you score. It's as meritocratic as education can be.

[flagged]

Don't american right wingers like the SATs too?

Your country has very black-and-white politics. Anything does / says is bad.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#70

Post by pxc »

xyzzyz wrote: post #34
steve1977 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know this specific exam, but most of these can be gamed in the sense of learning to the test. So depending on what training resources someone has available (e.g. rich parents who can afford tutors), I'd consider them only partially meritocratic.

If this is the case, then why doesn’t everyone get the top a score? The answer is, of course, that it’s not so simple, and you can’t just learn to the test. That’s just like with sports: anyone can learn how to train himself, and anyone can improve with training, but in the end, some people will end up faster, and some people will end up slower.

The question is what you're measuring. You can have a test that gives you whatever distribution of scores you like. But is the thing it measures competency in the subjects it tests, general intellectual ability, familiarity with the test format, etc.? The worst negative outcome is usually subordination of learning itself to preparing for the exam, which can happen even when the gatekeeping function of an exam still works perfectly.
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