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Job application asked for my SAT scores

mrmarket.lol

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Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#261

Post by sinuhe69 »

jawns wrote: post #48

As a manager, there are several qualities that I value highly in an engineer, and they all happen to begin with the letter C: Competent, Consistent, Curious, Caring, and Clear Communicators. While SAT scores might act as a proxy for competency and possibly curiosity, they're not going to tell you much about whether the person is consistently reliable, whether they care about others and cooperate well, or whether thei…

You forgot that the SAT requirement is not exclusive but an additional data point. While I agree that it could narrow the path for truly good employees, I’d argue that an additional data point like SAT (+ GPA) could tell the employer a lot about consistency of the applicants. Or at least an interesting talking point (“I see you got a very high SAT score but your GPA was lower, what happened?”), if they care.

I think it could serve the purposes of hiring fresh/young graduates. However, it’s still weird if they requested it for people already 5-10 years or more in the industry.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#262

Post by everybodyknows »

apparent wrote: post #98
delichon wrote: post #28

Last month 2,400 University of California faculty asked for admissions to resume using the SAT "to ensure foundational fluency." Of course many employers want to ensure that too, especially when college degrees don't anymore. The widening abilities gap followed the 2020 elimination of the SAT/ACT, a temporary measure that has now become a permanent vulnerability. This outcome was explicitly predicted by the Academic…

The UC faculty opposed the SAT requirement being discarded in the first place. They were overruled by the UC Regents, and that may happen again. And even if the SAT is brought back, I'm sure it will be given much less weight and subjected to the "in a local context" process in the name of equity.

Regents are selected by Sacramento. At bottom, it's a political failure.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#263

Post by annzabelle »

SoftTalker wrote: post #259
annzabelle wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I've seen some interesting data that kids who could've been successful premeds or engineers at their state flagship but instead eke their way into Harvard or Princeton (sports scholarship, legacy etc) will instead graduate with a flaky studies major because they couldn't cut it in their intended major and the switching costs of transferring were too high. There are downsides if you end up a small fish in a bi…

Is the actual premed or engineering coursework at Harvard or Princeton really that much more rigorous than that at a flagship state school? I'm doubtful.

I'm no expert on that particular situation, but I compared my syllabi and projects from a state flagship (not Georgia Tech, Berkeley, or UIUC) with my brother's from Carnegie Mellon, and the expectations of first/second year CS majors were extremely different. Sometimes we used the same textbook but CMU covered more chapters and their projects were more involved. Some courses that typically waited until senior year at the state flagship were common to take spring sophomore year at CMU. There were a lot of courses that were numbered as undergraduate at CMU but covered content that was only covered in graduate courses at the state flagship.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#264

Post by boring_twenties »

wavemode wrote: post #56
spullara wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sadly my kids were just recently taught cursive in elementary school for some unknown reason

Learning it is mostly useful for being capable of reading it, esp. when encountering historical documents (or when encountering old people)

I can tell you that while women appreciate romantic electronic messages, they appreciate handwritten ones 10-100x more

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#265

Post by jimbokun »

andrecarini wrote: post #158
WalterBright wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always enjoy the advocates who claim that students have mastered their subjects, but "don't test well". Would you want a pilot on your flight who flunked flying school exams, but somehow "really knew how to fly!"?

My understanding is you're equating `failing a test` to `lacking the relevant skills and knowledge to do a certain task competently`. The reality is sometimes tests in academia are just not very well made and don't really test what they are supposed to be testing, and that's usually due to multiple reasons like misaligned incentives, staffing shortages and maybe lack of resources / funding. I don't think the comparis…

[flagged]

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#266

Post by jimbokun »

Maxatar wrote: post #157
WalterBright wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always enjoy the advocates who claim that students have mastered their subjects, but "don't test well". Would you want a pilot on your flight who flunked flying school exams, but somehow "really knew how to fly!"?

Not really comparable... the overwhelming majority of flight tests involve flying an aircraft. There is no meaningful way someone can be excellent at flying an aircraft but can't pass a test which involves flying an aircraft. The same can't be said for many other tests. If the test involves the practical application of the very skill being tested, then that test has direct relevance to he competency of said skill. Bu…

Is there a reason you left out the SAT and ACT?

Because both have been shown to have predictive power for success in college.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#267

Post by jimbokun »

eikenberry wrote: post #150
delichon wrote: post #28

Last month 2,400 University of California faculty asked for admissions to resume using the SAT "to ensure foundational fluency." Of course many employers want to ensure that too, especially when college degrees don't anymore. The widening abilities gap followed the 2020 elimination of the SAT/ACT, a temporary measure that has now become a permanent vulnerability. This outcome was explicitly predicted by the Academic…

Why is a lossy testing filter better than just failing out those who can't make it? Maybe allow for larger freshmen classes and smaller latter classes or adopt community colleges and have all students start there and advance into the UC system sophomore year on. Instead they bring back what is basically an IQ test for admission.

Because it’s a complete waste of time and money for both those students and the instructors.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#268

Post by nsagent »

WalterBright wrote: post #257
nsagent wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you also think LLM leaderboards accurately reflect the capabilities of the models being tested? If you do, then I can easily point you to numerous academic papers pointing out the various flaws in many leaderboards (from poorly designed benchmarks like bABI and the original SQuAD, to data contamination, and more). In that same way, any test, including the SAT and GRE have flaws. They can be gamed in ways similar t…

I took the GREs, I don't recall a writing section. Anyhow, the questions were all about freshman engineering knowledge.

There are three major parts of the modern GRE: Verbal, Quantitative, and Analytical Writing. You could easily look that up, or ask if you didn't know.

Responding off the cuff without any reflection on the comment you're responding to doesn't move the conversation forward in any meaningful way. It just comes across as disrespectful.

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#269

Post by jimbokun »

cute_boi wrote: post #138
lern_too_spel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAT score is known to be predictive of college grades. Is it also predictive for whether a mid-to-late career candidate will pass a phone screen? It is used for early career candidate filtering in finance, but I have not heard of anybody caring beyond that because of the availability of signal on the actual tasks they will be performing.

> Is it also predictive for whether a mid-to-late career candidate will pass a phone screen? The answer is probably no. I got many friend they got good marks in SAT, but they were average.

Would you include the ability to differentiate between anecdotes and peer reviewed studies in your assessment of intelligence?

Re: Job application asked for my SAT scores

#270

Post by jimbokun »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #39
delichon wrote: post #28

Last month 2,400 University of California faculty asked for admissions to resume using the SAT "to ensure foundational fluency." Of course many employers want to ensure that too, especially when college degrees don't anymore. The widening abilities gap followed the 2020 elimination of the SAT/ACT, a temporary measure that has now become a permanent vulnerability. This outcome was explicitly predicted by the Academic…

how many elected leaders are in STEM? would high SAT scores and grades exclude many US presidents and congressmen? (yes) winning elections seems kind of important to me. so if you were just like, selecting for leadership - and many of our leaders are brilliant people, just not in the sense of being good at taking tests - would that be good or bad? or... what is your real opinion? what are you actually mad about? obvi…

In the US or China?
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