Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

mitadmissions.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 465 posts

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#161

Post by ghaff »

RandallBrown wrote: post #127
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this comment upvoted? MIT has not removed the requirement to take SAT tests. > We will continue to require the SAT or the ACT, because our research has shown these tests, in combination with a student’s high school grades and coursework, are predictive of success in our challenging curriculum. This is typical of a knee-jerk reaction without even understanding their policy. Let alone reading the actual post. It…

Probably because many (most?) people don't take or know about the subject tests. I thought I had never heard of them, but after looking at wikipedia, it looks like they were called the SAT II when I was in high school. I remember that existing, but never knew why you would take them and never knew anybody that did. It's not a stretch to imagine people being confused. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT_Subject_Tests

And way back, they were apparently called the Achievement Tests. I vaguely remember taking a few but don't otherwise remember much about them or what the requirements were.

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#162

Post by knzhou »

MichaelDickens wrote: post #156
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this comment upvoted? MIT has not removed the requirement to take SAT tests. > We will continue to require the SAT or the ACT, because our research has shown these tests, in combination with a student’s high school grades and coursework, are predictive of success in our challenging curriculum. This is typical of a knee-jerk reaction without even understanding their policy. Let alone reading the actual post. It…

GP comment seems completely relevant to SAT subject tests to me. The point is that removing a test from consideration, even if it's not the only test considered, makes it easier for rich people to game the application process.

Exactly. If you look at the comments on the linked article, or the ones that were on top here when I wrote mine, people are making comments that aren't specific to the SAT subject test at all -- "this is great, because I bombed that test", "this lowers stress", "that test was too easy anyway".

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#164

Post by ghaff »

triceratops wrote: post #129
0x8BADF00D wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re getting at is the government creates these types of monopolies due to massive regulations and licensing. The issue is not with the college prep companies. It’s with government getting involved in education, making it way more expensive than it should be. The free market will drive prices down, especially in the education market.

What does the government getting involved in education have anything to do with the monopoly power of ETS? MIT is private, ETS's owner is a company. The problem is that MIT accepts only SAT scores - they should be forced to accept other standardized test scores too. That would create an actual market for standardized testing, along with competition and lower prices.

According to the original article, MIT accepts SAT or ACT. I have no idea if SAT is preferred though. It was certainly the default way back when when I was applying to schools.

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#165

Post by pdonis »

dawg- wrote: post #91
knzhou wrote: post #57

Anybody cheering the exclusion of some test or other, because it was a pain to study for in high school, is simply not noticing the frog-boiling secondary effects going on. Every bit of emphasis taken out of objective results mean more advantage for smooth talking, photogenic, well-connected people. Yes, some misguided parents waste thousands of dollars on SAT courses. But students can also prep using the $20 officia…

What you call a "smooth-talker" is what someone else would call an articulate, socially well-adjusted person who can communicate their values and opinions in an intelligent way and who is comfortable making connections with others. Perhaps if this was the standard college admissions used, public schools would have more incentive to educate students as functional humans rather than test-taking drones.

The problem is that "articulate, socially well-adjusted person who can communicate their values and opinions in an intelligent way and who is comfortable making connections with others" is (a) highly subjective, and (b) only a means to an end. The end is to have a productive civil society where people do not prey on other people. Unfortunately, all these highly subjective characteristics are used by people to prey on other people instead of to help with having a productive, civil society. So by themselves they can't be used as a standard. There has to be some objective criterion to distinguish people who can actually contribute to a productive civil society from people who prey on other people.

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#166

Post by jessriedel »

saithound wrote: post #55
yardie wrote: post #8

I used to think the SATs were fair. Until I found out how much money was being spent on SAT prep. And those expensive prep courses had the potential to increase scores over 100 points. I took the recommended SAT prep course through my high school. It was 2 weekends of going over material that might be on the exam and a workbook recommended by The College Board. Imagine my surprise going to university and meeting stud…

The SAT is not fair. By taking an expensive prep course, you can potentially increase your SAT score by 100 (although that's quite extreme, the average improvement attributed to SAT prep is closer to 20 points). That's a significant, but not earth-shattering improvement: it moves you from the 75th percentile to the 84th, or from the 97th percentile to the 99th. Now let's compare that to other criteria used in the col…

Is that 20 point bump a comparison taking an expensive prep class to zero preparation? Or is it a comparison taking an expensive prep class to doing self-directed preparation with a $5 prep book? My guess is the former, when the latter is what's relevant for arguments about the advantages obtained through wealth.

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#168

Post by brlewis »

MichaelDickens wrote: post #156
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this comment upvoted? MIT has not removed the requirement to take SAT tests. > We will continue to require the SAT or the ACT, because our research has shown these tests, in combination with a student’s high school grades and coursework, are predictive of success in our challenging curriculum. This is typical of a knee-jerk reaction without even understanding their policy. Let alone reading the actual post. It…

GP comment seems completely relevant to SAT subject tests to me. The point is that removing a test from consideration, even if it's not the only test considered, makes it easier for rich people to game the application process.

No. The point about replacing a test with more subjective criteria is completely invalidated when, instead, multiple tests are replaced with a single test.

EDIT: Instead of completely invalidated, I should say irrelevant to MIT's change. In another context it could be an important point.

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#169

Post by austincheney »

knzhou wrote: post #158
austincheney wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with tests like the SAT is that on one hand they produce quantifiable results and the comparison of one student's score to another student's score is indeed objective, but that does not mean the test itself is an objective measure of performance. The primary fault is that the SAT is essentially a form of convergent IQ test. A convergent test is a test of questions with the accepted answered defined before…

I'm sure the writers of the SAT are well aware of this, but full IQ tests just don't scale. How are you going to provide the same test ten million times a year, when the test has to be administered one-on-one by a trained professional over the course of hours? You're going to have to hire tens of thousands of administrators, so how are you going to keep bias from creeping in? How are you going to prevent the question…

> I'm sure the writers of the SAT are well aware of this, but full IQ tests just don't scale.

First of all its generally faulty to presume what others are thinking.

Secondly, standardized admissions testing in its current form should be eliminated and there is a fair amount of data to support this[1][2]. If schools really want to discriminate on performance they should test for originality, composition, and decision capacity all of which can be done objectively with automated administration.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2019/12/11/lawsuit-...

[2] http://www.nea.org/home/73288.htm

Re: MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions

#170

Post by _fq4v »

SkyBelow wrote: post #43
hackinthebochs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an underrepresented minority and I increased my SAT score by 200-300 from the PSAT to SAT, depending on how you want to measure the change. This was just by doing self-study with off the shelf test prep material. The classes aren't what increases your score, its the consistent structured study and ones innate potential. For some people, no amount of study is going to get them into the 90+th percentile. While othe…

>But this is exactly what SAT is intended to measure, scholastic potential. But if you define the variable like this, you end up opening a can of worms. Do rich kids have more scholastic potential because they have better access to resources? Or should scholastic potential be the measurement of how a child performs assuming they had the same access to resources? Should children who belong to a racial/ethnic group tha…

> Do rich kids have more scholastic potential because they have better access to resources?

Do kids with involved parents have access to more scholastic potential because their parents cared? Almost certainly, and that's a good thing and we should harvest it, not attempt to force something that is not going to work.

Post reply on HN