I wouldn't place much stock in small studies like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
I wouldn't either. The difference for female and males reeks of the law of small numbers.
It's comment catnip for HN though.
Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching
81–90 of 535 posts
Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching
#82> 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…
> Granted, higher attraction affords more opportunity to develop those skills
I think this is largely a distraction from the direct effect. For any level of social skill, good-looking people at that level are perceived much more positively than others at the same level.
The question of the causal effect between physical attractiveness and social skill is interesting, though. There are plausible stories both ways, imo: your version, and the contrary one saying that pretty people coast on their looks and the rest of us have to try harder to be interesting or appealing in other ways.
(It's also hard to fully separate the skills from the looks, because the same behaviours that work for a good-looking person might backfire terribly for someone at the other end of the scale. Do we say those two people are equally socially skilled, or the pretty person is more skilled because they chose a strategy that works in their context and the other person didn't?)
Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching
#83Earlier 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.
In Europe, university is treated as education for adults, not your entire life. Most universities are not campus resorts like in the US, but just buildings in the city itself, students live a normal life in the city, they rent a apartment or live in a dorm, take public transit to get to places, do sport at a sport place independent of the university, etc. You can live a well rounded life that way. The university is there so you learn your specialization. Of course people make friends there, but it doesn't have to be your entire life, and the university administrators job is not to meddle with people's social lives to make them "interesting", but to allow learning.
Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
merit doesn't mean equal wealth spending to obtain a result. And it's not black and white. Someone rich spending a lot of money to obtain tutoring doesn't necessarily make their score higher, and there's also diminishing returns. Someone poor who do not afford private tutoring can also receive good score due to their natural talent and/or hard work in self-teaching/practicing. > universal SAT tutoring available to ev…
> Someone rich spending a lot of money to obtain tutoring doesn't necessarily make their score higher, and there's also diminishing returns. Someone poor who do not afford private tutoring can also receive good score due to their natural talent and/or hard work in self-teaching/practicing. If these are outliers it isn't really meritocratic. If there 100 desired spots that are allocated by the exam, and 1000 students,…
> If these are outliers it isn't really meritocratic.
Merit is about demonstrated ability, not how much effort, time, or money was put into getting the ability.
As long as you convert money into ability and ability into results, that's merit. Nepotism is when you convert money directly into results, buying a score.
Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching
#85People 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 bi…
Or as 30 Rock put it, attractive people live in the "bubble".
Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching
#86Once it’s all AI learning we’ll be set.
Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching
#87People 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 bi…
I feel this as a guy trying to lose weight very seriously this year. On one hand, I can lose weight but I will forever be short unless a miracle occurs lol. I’ve made my peace with being unattractive for the most part, the attempt to lose weight is primarily for health reasons.
Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching
#88One 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.
Taiwan and Korea have even "fairer" systems. In China different provinces got different test problems. Especially students from Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin get completely different ones. In Taiwan/Korea everyone takes the exact same test. However I've never met anyone from these countries who have a high opinion of their systems. Personally I do think our standardized exams cause massive 'overfitting' issue (borrow…
The problem is the high stress generated by the one-shot approach. There has to be a balance between the objectivity of a single test and practical concerns (like choking because you were sick or got bad sleep the night before).
Ultimately, the only "fair" outcome is an abundance of opportunity. The vast majority of people are worth something to their community and society. And even then, as long as there's enough food and shelter to go around, no one should have to justify their mere existence.
Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching
#89People 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 bi…
I think being conventionally attractive gives you a lot more chance practice socialising and my observation is that, people who use that chance get so good at it, they remain very good at relationships even at old age.
Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
And a side note from me as a Pole - online I see many Americans speaking about how cruel Gaokao is, but... It's America that's outlier. I had the same style of exam in Poland to get to uni, and it's the same in the entire EU, and rest of the world. So I have no idea why Gaokao is singled out.
We have the SAT and ACT, and those are objective. The wealthy still pass disproportionately due to better tutoring specifically oriented to those tests. It’s Goodhart’s law.
Wouldnt wealthy people on average be better educated and potentially more intelligent than the poorest group?
I would expect wealthy to always be well represented.