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Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

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Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#171

Post by dolni »

kiba wrote: post #156
dolni wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be blunt, this sounds like a lot of flowery-language bullshit that isn't backed by anything. Anybody who has been through education has observed that there are the people who "get it" and the people who struggle. And similarly, if you take an expert in some field and have them start explaining concepts to a random person that are at the very edge of the expert's knowledge, said person will be completely lost. This…

The higher classes are probably where the best resources and teachers are available. Winners tend to win more.

Indeed. That's a legitimate, actionable concern.

I don't think this is something that is trivially solvable. I suspect (though don't know) that teachers are happier when they have gifted students than not. You'd feel like a success, even if you didn't really need to do much. I imagine teaching spots in honors courses would be coveted.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#172

Post by jnwatson »

el_benhameen wrote: post #128
jnwatson wrote: post #117

I wonder how this impacts lower-tier schools. My n=1 data point: my child just received a rejection notice from a middle-tier out-of-state university. Top test scores, top of her class, International Baccalaureate (IB). Obviously not a lot of activities. I am curious what kind of students are getting accepted.

Was just reading about how common that trend is this year. It seems that the n is much greater than 1: https://news.yahoo.com/uc-explains-admissions-decisions-reco... I’m sorry about your kid’s rejection letter. Larger societal trends aside, that’s not a fun experience.

Thank you for that link. From the article, it seems there's also a longer-trend issue that is at play in my daughter's case. If more students are applying for the same 10 STEM majors, there's an additional selection bias against those.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#173

Post by gugagore »

dolni wrote: post #169
gugagore wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anybody who has been through education has observed that there are the people who "get it" and the people who struggle. I've been through education, and my take-away is that it's quite a bit more nuanced than that dichotomy. Get what? Struggle with what? > The idea that "we all can do it" because "we're all equals" is doing a disservice to the kids who struggle. You better prepare them by putting them in courses th…

> I've been through education, and my take-away is that it's quite a bit more nuanced than that dichotomy. Get what? Struggle with what? Seems like a bit of a bad faith take here. Of course I didn't mean that there "are kids who are good at school and kids who suck" and that's it. Some kids are really strong in a particular subject. Some kids really struggle in a particular subject. Growing up, we have all observed p…

> It's flowery language. Some people are dumb, some people are geniuses, and most people are just mediocre. It's not fair, but that is the way life is.

What you are dismissing as "flowery language" appears to be a different epistemology from yours. I cannot reconcile "there is a wide range in between" with these concrete categories you are giving.

If you believe in these categories wholeheartedly, then it makes sense to figure out the true category a person is in. It is wholly consistent to believe that you cannot ever know with complete certainty the true category someone is in, but that there is some underlying truth. You can imagine measurements that provide information about those categories (no one seriously believes a test could directly detect such a thing, however).

I am confident that I understand the appeal of that worldview. It certainly is tidy (maybe this is the bluntness you speak of)! But I have a different take on education, and the purpose of education. I do not see myself arguing in bad faith. If you can express your worldview without so heavily relying on [ad hoc] dichotomies and categories, then I will respond to that.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#174

Post by gnicholas »

jnwatson wrote: post #117

I wonder how this impacts lower-tier schools. My n=1 data point: my child just received a rejection notice from a middle-tier out-of-state university. Top test scores, top of her class, International Baccalaureate (IB). Obviously not a lot of activities. I am curious what kind of students are getting accepted.

I'd be curious to know more, since 'top' means different things to different folks. Is 'top' 1480 SAT or 1580? If your child is at the top of an IB high school, that is certainly impressive in its own right.

One thing I would note is that some schools 'manage' their acceptances in order to keep their yield numbers looking good. That is, they may have determined that your child was overqualified for their school and very unlikely to come. They'd rather reject/wait-list applicants like this because then their yield numbers (percent of accepted students who matriculate) look better.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#175

Post by endisneigh »

slibhb wrote: post #163
endisneigh wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would an employer hire someone for their "good" job that wasn't a "good" student? No matter what criteria you use to define a good job, all things being equal the better students would go to college and therefore employers are incentivized to only select those who went to college to begin with. Why do you think college is a requirement now to begin with? Is it some sort of conspiracy? What I'm describing has alre…

> Why would an employer hire someone for their "good" job that wasn't a "good" student? No matter what criteria you use to define a good job, all things being equal the better students would go to college and therefore employers are incentivized to only select those who went to college to begin with. The number of good jobs is not a function of the number of college grads. If there are fewer college grads, employers…

> The number of good jobs is not a function of the number of college grads. If there are fewer college grads, employers will have to broaden the search. Let high school graduates apply to entry level positions that aren't manual labor.

Again most if not all good jobs require skills - skills that must be taught. What is this hypothetical "good job" that requires no training? You're seriously not living in reality, this is 2021, not 1950.

No matter what, if the people with more skills are going to college, employers will make college a requirement, even if a college education is not strictly necessary to do the job. This isn't some hypothetical, it's already happened.

No one is forced to go to college, they do so because the opportunities are there and employers want college educated employees. Conversely, employers need not hire exclusively college graduates, but it turns out that people who don't go to college generally do not perform (of course there are exceptions).

> I'm saying that people who are going to college to get a degree so they can get an entry level job should not be in college. They should just be able to apply to those jobs out of high school.

They already can, they will just likely be rejected.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#176

Post by jfengel »

endisneigh wrote: post #41
beforeolives wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> beyond a reasonable doubt the school itself has improved the persons educational prospects. How many people do genuinely care about this? People go to top schools in order to improve their life prospects, not necessarily to get the best education (but they get that too anyway).

I agree with you. I went to a top school in order to improve my life prospects as well. However as a civilization it's important that a school like the one I'm hypothesizing exists because selection bias is not really sustainable, nor does it help those who genuinely want to improve but are otherwise not particularly able. I also imagine if a "performance school" actually existed its influence would extend far beyond…

I'm not sure what kind of data you would use to drive it. A lot of the most important aspects of education aren't readily measurable: the ability to write, the network connections you make (to fellow students, professors, alumni, donors, etc), capacity to work in teams, and so on. You risk the same things you get with tech firms using leetcode and puzzles to select... well, to select those who are good at leetcode and puzzles.

You can measure it in terms of career success, but even there it's very hard to deal with the selection bias. Those who succeed are those who succeed.

I'm a big fan of Signum University, which is an online-only university dedicated to the soft skills that have to be taught personally, rather than a MOOC. It can't develop connections like Harvard and Stanford but it can develop those skills that make the hard-to-measure differences between those who succeed and those who are merely very good at taking tests. It remains, however, impossible to factor out those connections, which seem to make the biggest difference.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#177

Post by silicon2401 »

endisneigh wrote: post #7

It's a shame that we're here in 2021 and the best we can do is basically just "selection bias." Basically all universities have no statistical proof that they can educate people beyond this. This is not to say that the schools are bad, but most of the education is simply due to the types of peers you have, not really due to the school itself. Princeton and Harvard admit, for the most part, people who already excelled…

> Ideally our fixation would be on a hypothetical institution that admits people entirely at random

This is subjective and not a universal truth. I wouldn't want that at all, nor would I consider that ideal. My ideal is keep everything the way it is, just bring other institutions up to the level of ivy leagues (since we're talking ideals and not practical options).

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#178

Post by candybar »

bko wrote: post #149
bumby wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe there’s research that shows elite schools do not improve ones life prospects, with the exception of those from lower income households. They looked at those who were accepted to elite schools and went to “lesser” schools. Those people did not have worse outcomes, indicating the elite schools are selecting those who would have done well regardless. I do think this makes an interesting case for admitting more…

It appears the opposite may be true > But it turns out that the proportional increase for those who grew up poor is much less than for those who did not. College graduates from families with an income below 185 percent of the federal poverty level (the eligibility threshold for the federal assisted lunch program) earn 91 percent more over their careers than high school graduates from the same income group. By compari…

This isn't measuring the same thing though - a college degree vs a high-school degree is a very different question than a college degree from an elite school vs a college degree from a slightly less elite, but still very good school.

This also appears to lack any kind of control, whereas the other study tried to control for the student's abilities.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#179

Post by endisneigh »

silicon2401 wrote: post #177
endisneigh wrote: post #7

It's a shame that we're here in 2021 and the best we can do is basically just "selection bias." Basically all universities have no statistical proof that they can educate people beyond this. This is not to say that the schools are bad, but most of the education is simply due to the types of peers you have, not really due to the school itself. Princeton and Harvard admit, for the most part, people who already excelled…

> Ideally our fixation would be on a hypothetical institution that admits people entirely at random This is subjective and not a universal truth. I wouldn't want that at all, nor would I consider that ideal. My ideal is keep everything the way it is, just bring other institutions up to the level of ivy leagues (since we're talking ideals and not practical options).

What do you mean up to the level of ivy leagues? I think you missed my entire point.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#180

Post by amznthrowaway5 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #165
amznthrowaway5 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you think explains the difference? The Asians, at least the ones who come to the US, being a far more elite group in terms of genes for academic success.

LOL and you got mad at me for saying that you were "dogwhistling" earlier. I call it as I see it, and I'm generally not wrong.

I don't see what's wrong with suggesting genes are causing the gap. I'm not "dogwhistling" anything, this is the most powerfully supported scientific explanation. Science denialism seems to be extremely common on this forum. Genes definitely cause other gaps like sports gaps (or do you seriously believe that is because of racism in favor of blacks?) and are known to play a huge role in ability. Even if races have equal ability, do you seriously believe the extreme selection process for elite immigration won't affect outcomes?
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