Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#21

Post by ghaff » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 1:10 PM UTC

paulsutter wrote: post #10

Employers should embrace standardize testing: we're on the cusp of a revolution in education driven by the tireless personalized tutoring and feedback of LLMs Of course not all schools are ending testing, MIT for example: "We are reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles" https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/we-are-reinstating-our...

I had a professor in grad school who had studied how admissions inputs correlated to various measures of success (which is of course a fraught subject of uts own). This was a while back though I assume not much as changed. As I recall, standardized tests followed by some sort of adjusted class rank were the best predictors while a lot of the softer stuff like interviews and letters of recommendation were pretty close to worthless. I expect schools could drop some of the more time-consuming softer stuff with very little impact on the admissions process.

In MIT's case it probably is especially important to assess certain types of skills, because someone who doesn't have a reasonable math background for example is going to have a bad time. (Though problems doing math is a surprisingly common theme in higher ed including at the grad level--even with programs you wouldn't think were especially quantitative.)

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#22

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 1:12 PM UTC

As one of the comments to the article mentions, a lot of this dropping of standardized tests is likely being driven by the fact that the Supreme Court will likely rule against affirmative action for college admissions. The colleges want to remove as many objective measures of student achievement as possible to allow them to pick and choose they type of students they want.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#23

Post by medler » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 1:17 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #5

Standardized tests remain the only criteria totally in the control of the student. You can study for them and objectively do better, become a better applicant. Everthing else is either circumstantial or based in the opinion of others, mostly highschool teachers. If i had to rely on my highschool teachers' opinion of me i would not have ever gone to university let alone have won scholarships. Standardized testing allo…

> You can study for them and objectively do better, become a better applicant

The thing is, attempts to measure the effect of test prep show they have little effect. According to these studies, SAT test prep courses might add ~30 points to your score: https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/sat-prep-courses-do-the...

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#24

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 1:21 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #21

paulsutter wrote: post #10

Employers should embrace standardize testing: we're on the cusp of a revolution in education driven by the tireless personalized tutoring and feedback of LLMs Of course not all schools are ending testing, MIT for example: "We are reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles" https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/we-are-reinstating-our...

I had a professor in grad school who had studied how admissions inputs correlated to various measures of success (which is of course a fraught subject of uts own). This was a while back though I assume not much as changed. As I recall, standardized tests followed by some sort of adjusted class rank were the best predictors while a lot of the softer stuff like interviews and letters of recommendation were pretty close…

> while a lot of the softer stuff like interviews and letters of recommendation were pretty close to worthless

It’s telling we’re seeing testing attacked while these are preserved.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#25

Post by oofnik » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 1:23 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #7

djaouen wrote: post #2

The only reason I was able to break into programming was because of high standardized test scores. The SAT and others like it really are a great equalizer. Dropping the requirement is a shame.

Sorry, but what do you mean? If you said any other career except programming I'd agree with this, but programming is literally the least gate-kept of the high-paying careers. Anyone can break into programming, all you need is the internet, interest and aptitude to understand code.

In my country at least, having friends or family with a foot in the door is pretty essential to landing that first interview. You still need to demonstrate competence, though.

I think the newness of software engineering relative to more traditional professions like medicine, law, and even other kinds of engineering is a large part of the reason why gatekeeping is less of a barrier. Given enough time, though, I'm sure this will change for the worse.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#26

Post by Overtonwindow » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 1:24 PM UTC

I finished high school with a 2.2 GPA and my SAT score was 1380. I was a terrible student, and I hated being in school, but somehow I did really well on the standardized test. That got me into the community college.

Standardized tests equalize things. It's everything else that should be banned, because all of those steaks get manipulated.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#27

Post by wunderland » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 1:25 PM UTC

All of this debate about what measures should be used to gatekeep higher education ignore that the US system is only loosely about teaching students; the goal of an American university degree is class differentiation.

There is not a shortage of textbooks or qualified teachers who could explain calculus or history or economics. As a society, the could easily produce far more educated people (and for a lower cost), but that is not the goal of a degree. The diploma -- especially from an elite school like Columbia -- first and foremost is a signifier that you deserve entrance into an upper middle managerial class. Unless the goals of higher education are teaching (or god forbid actual job training), the entrance requirements will always be arbitrary enough that class lines can be sufficiently preserved.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#28

Post by civilized » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 1:25 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #18

sandworm101 wrote: post #5

Standardized tests remain the only criteria totally in the control of the student. You can study for them and objectively do better, become a better applicant. Everthing else is either circumstantial or based in the opinion of others, mostly highschool teachers. If i had to rely on my highschool teachers' opinion of me i would not have ever gone to university let alone have won scholarships. Standardized testing allo…

Where you go to school still greatly affects how well you are likely to do on standardised tests. Better schools can easily bump students up 2 or 3 grades compared to poorer schools. To some extent this will also improve students’ ability to complete degree courses, but there’s also a great extent to which this is just teaching students how to pass standardised tests well. It’s true that truly excellent students will…

You seem to be saying that "better schools" (mostly) don't actually select or train better students, but (mostly) merely train them to pass standardized tests better. Is there any evidence or reason to believe this?

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#29

Post by ghaff » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 1:26 PM UTC

medler wrote: post #23

sandworm101 wrote: post #5

Standardized tests remain the only criteria totally in the control of the student. You can study for them and objectively do better, become a better applicant. Everthing else is either circumstantial or based in the opinion of others, mostly highschool teachers. If i had to rely on my highschool teachers' opinion of me i would not have ever gone to university let alone have won scholarships. Standardized testing allo…

> You can study for them and objectively do better, become a better applicant The thing is, attempts to measure the effect of test prep show they have little effect. According to these studies, SAT test prep courses might add ~30 points to your score: https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/sat-prep-courses-do-the...

That is SAT test prep courses specifically though. Not going in completely cold versus having prepped for the test. I mean, if I took the SAT today many years on, I'm sure I wouldn't do very well--at least on the math section. There's too much that isn't muscle memory any longer because I haven't done a lot of the high school math stuff in years.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#30

Post by lumb63 » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 1:28 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #24

ghaff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a professor in grad school who had studied how admissions inputs correlated to various measures of success (which is of course a fraught subject of uts own). This was a while back though I assume not much as changed. As I recall, standardized tests followed by some sort of adjusted class rank were the best predictors while a lot of the softer stuff like interviews and letters of recommendation were pretty close…

> while a lot of the softer stuff like interviews and letters of recommendation were pretty close to worthless It’s telling we’re seeing testing attacked while these are preserved.

It’s not a mistake, that’s for sure. I’ll be more blunt since a lot of other comments in this thread beat around the bush: higher education institutes are removing objective admissions criteria so that they can admit less qualified minorities on subjective grounds.