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

Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

mitadmissions.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 1001 posts

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#241

Post by zozbot234 »

WalterBright wrote: post #208
ar_lan wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anecdotal/lived experience, to your point: The rich kids in my (public) school were the ones afforded not only tutors, but also just the insight into extra-curriculars. They were the ones who had parents who knew to sign them up for college courses at ~15-16 years old to ensure they could maximize their GPA (5.0 scale, so getting a 5.0 was literally impossible unless you did this). This created a competitive disa…

As far as extra-curricular activities go, like sports, etc., those aren't really the point. The point is for the candidate to demonstrate that they can accomplish significant things other than academics. This can be anything. For me, I didn't do sports, or any school extracurriculars. What I did do was run a small business (paper route), used the money to fund my hotrodding efforts, was an Eagle scout (back in the da…

There's also a lot of room to disagree as to whether playing sports counts as a meaningful accomplishment. Professional sports are pure entertainment, and succeeding even at that is extremely rare. The best argument for caring about it is that it's better than nothing, and it's something that ensures more average people have a chance to get to MIT too, even if they aren't all that intellectually minded.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#242

Post by icelancer »

ShaveTheTurtles wrote: post #157

A lot of folks focus on act/sat scores when talking about diversity when really these ivy league schools shouldn't have an express lane for legacy entrants. If you are trying to be different than how it was previously, how can you expect that to happen when you give preference to folks that benefited previously?

I agree, but MIT doesn't care about legacy admissions. They're one of the few schools that doesn't.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#243

Post by tharne »

danShumway wrote: post #178
tharne wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So much for that common, popular notion that standardized tests do not predict anything of value. To be fair, I don't think the debate was ever about the quality or predictive value of the tests. There is a small, but well-organized and vocal subset of the population that hates the idea of excellence and differentiation. They want, and have been quite successful in, the replacement of standards of excellence with v…

I've pushed back against standardized testing at certain points of my life, and I don't think this comment even remotely summarizes my views. If anything, I would say that my views are the opposite -- homogenization creates a lack of differentiation around skill and aptitude based on questionable science (and sometimes outright pseudoscience) and often leads to an oversimplification of human intelligence in general.…

> If anything, I would say that my views are the opposite -- homogenization creates a lack of differentiation around skill and aptitude based on questionable science

If that were true, you'd expect countries like South Korea, Japan, and German to perform poorly in science and engineering, among other things.

Diversity may be a worthy goal for societal reasons, but it certainly is not a perquisite for excellence, seeing as there are many highly successful countries that are very homogeneous.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#244

Post by MaximumYComb »

Invictus0 wrote: post #62
LewisVerstappen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's far easier for rich students to game GPA, college essays and extracurriculars than it is for them to game the SAT. For GPA, they can hire a private tutor in the subject they're struggling with. There are services out there that will basically write your english essay for you / do your math/science homework. For college essays, they can hire college counselors to help them draft a compelling essay. For extra curr…

I took one of those expensive SAT prep courses and yes, I agree that those don't increase scores very much, the program I took was awful. However, I totally disagree that rich people can't game the SAT. I used to be a moderator at /r/SAT and /r/ACT on reddit. All of the questions and answers for all of the exams, including subject tests are known and published online. Both SAT and ACT routinely reuse exams from prior…

Why do you say rich kids have more time? I grew up in an underprivileged area and I very much disagree that poorer kids are getting their free time hammered.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#245

Post by icelancer »

rosmax_1337 wrote: post #84
artful-hacker wrote: post #14

SAT scores correlate with IQ test scores. SAT is just a 'legal' thinly veiled version of IQ test.

Why are IQ tests controversial?

Because they're largely accurate in the aggregate and project outcomes quite well, and no one likes this.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#246

Post by Spooky23 »

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #7
paulpauper wrote: post #2

our ability to accurately predict student academic success at MIT 02 Our research shows this predictive validity holds even when you control for socioeconomic factors that correlate with testing. It also shows that good grades in high school do not themselves necessarily translate to academic success at MIT if you cannot account for testing. Of course, we can never be fully certain how any given applicant will do: we…

It's far easier for rich students to game GPA, college essays and extracurriculars than it is for them to game the SAT. For GPA, they can hire a private tutor in the subject they're struggling with. There are services out there that will basically write your english essay for you / do your math/science homework. For college essays, they can hire college counselors to help them draft a compelling essay. For extra curr…

Kids who aren't coached on the test strategy do worse. My high school did no SAT prep, and my parents weren't really aware of it. I was lucky in that I had an AP History teacher whose goal was for every kid to get a "5", that meant incorporating test strategy into the flow.

You needed to know stuff as the ante, but knowing the magic bullshit that would give you a good essay score was the key to get the top score. I increased my score ~120 points from taking the PSAT blind in 10th grade to the SAT because I understood at that point that strategy was key and found out about it.

All of this stuff is a red herring though. The nut of the controversy is that standardized tests correlate to IQ. IQ, rightly or wrongly, is perceived to be culturally biased.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#248

Post by WalterBright »

zozbot234 wrote: post #241
WalterBright wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as extra-curricular activities go, like sports, etc., those aren't really the point. The point is for the candidate to demonstrate that they can accomplish significant things other than academics. This can be anything. For me, I didn't do sports, or any school extracurriculars. What I did do was run a small business (paper route), used the money to fund my hotrodding efforts, was an Eagle scout (back in the da…

There's also a lot of room to disagree as to whether playing sports counts as a meaningful accomplishment. Professional sports are pure entertainment, and succeeding even at that is extremely rare. The best argument for caring about it is that it's better than nothing, and it's something that ensures more average people have a chance to get to MIT too, even if they aren't all that intellectually minded.

Succeeding in sports means you have put out focused effort over a period of time to accomplish something that nobody made you do.

This is worth something.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#249

Post by zozbot234 »

hooande wrote: post #234
david38 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a very rich town, like super rich. I work in tech so am rich by the standards of general population, but by the standards of Silicon Valley. My child did very well on the ACT. All she did was buy a $35 practice book, which almost anyone can do. Literally this was it. Furthermore, she doesn’t know of a single friend or acquaintance that hired a private tutor. All the nay-sayers belly-ache about this but for…

Do you honestly believe that if you were from a very poor town, poor by the standards of african american neighborhoods in Detroit, that giving your child a $35 practice book would have a similar outcome?

Those places are sadly lacking even in the most basic standards of education, so their potential ACT scores are frankly irrelevant as is admission to MIT. You gotta learn to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run.

Re: Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

#250

Post by JustLurking2022 »

smrtinsert wrote: post #64
paulpauper wrote: post #2

our ability to accurately predict student academic success at MIT 02 Our research shows this predictive validity holds even when you control for socioeconomic factors that correlate with testing. It also shows that good grades in high school do not themselves necessarily translate to academic success at MIT if you cannot account for testing. Of course, we can never be fully certain how any given applicant will do: we…

The current discussion I thought focuses around the idea that higher scores should just about guarantee acceptance due some fantasy notion of objective merit, and here they pretty much say that's not the case here: > To be clear, performance on standardized tests is not the central focus of our holistic admissions process. We do not prefer people with perfect scores; indeed, despite what some people infer from our st…

Seems like semantics - maybe they don't explicitly prefer perfect scores but it sounds like they're filtering out using a minimum bar, and I'd bet it isn't too far off perfect.
Post reply on HN