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

UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

auditor.ca.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 456 posts

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#331

Post by saagarjha »

solveit wrote: post #300
strombofulous wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking about the SAT and ACT, I would challenge the idea that they can accurately distinguish between the good and outstanding. At most they provide a rough indication. I know this because I got a much higher score than I deserved to on the ACT because you can read the test pretty easily if you put yourself in the shoes of the people making it (I got a 31 overall and a near-perfect 35 on the science portio…

I'm specifically not talking about the SAT and ACT since they're widely used by elite universities. Those tests top out way too early and can't reliably distinguish between the top 1% and the top 0.1% (The fraction of perfect scorers is much smaller than 1% but the standard error of measurement is way too large). The exams I have in mind are those like the science olympiads and the Cambridge STEP. STEP in particular…

In the US the appropriate exams would likely be the qualifiers for the International Olympiads.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#332

Post by saagarjha »

lumost wrote: post #302
solveit wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sufficiently prestigious schools are drowning in perfect applicants. This is by design. There exist tests that can distinguish between the merely very good and the outstanding. Elite US universities go out of their ways to not use them, precisely so they can admit the merely very good legacies.

A test that splits the top .1% of test takers vs. the top 1% likely isn't the best indicator of future career performance ( the source of university prestige ), or necessarily academic performance.

Ok, a test that splits between the top 0.01% and the top 1%. One student goes to national competitions, the other is merely a decent student at your local high school. The SAT lacks the granularity to distinguish between them.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#333

Post by bnralt »

mywittyname wrote: post #89

People are always going to use their money to buy status. So as long as these college offer prestige & status, people with money are going to use it to get in. Much like doping in sports, you have two paths you can take: try to combat cheating, or accept the cheating as part of the game. I think these universities should accept that they are providing an education, but they are selling prestige, and split their admis…

Another way, which would solve other problems as well, would simply be to uncouple credentials and education, and require any institution that receives federal funding to open the credentialing to everyone. Just as anyone who meets the requirements is eligible to take the exam for the CFA or CPA, anyone who meets the requirements should be eligible to take whatever exams or projects a college uses for it's credentials to obtain a degree (colleges could opt in to using a nationwide credentialing system instead of creating their own if they prefer). Open internships and the like to everyone as well.

This would theoretically lead to college degrees representing what they claim to represent (skill of an individual at graduation, not at their junior year of High School), would solve most of the cost issue (self studying and taking the exam would be a viable option that wouldn't be penalized), and admittance would be much less important (since it'd be disconnected from credentials). Of course it would also defang the leverage universities currently hold over society, so I imagine they'd fight tooth and nail against it.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#334

Post by saagarjha »

yakz wrote: post #245
mywittyname wrote: post #89

People are always going to use their money to buy status. So as long as these college offer prestige & status, people with money are going to use it to get in. Much like doping in sports, you have two paths you can take: try to combat cheating, or accept the cheating as part of the game. I think these universities should accept that they are providing an education, but they are selling prestige, and split their admis…

Why not just let students sell their slots? Sell at any time, but any earned credits are forfeited and they can't be re-accepted to the institution for some number of years.

Why wouldn’t you just sell your slot for a gap year?

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#335

Post by TuringNYC »

solveit wrote: post #300
strombofulous wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking about the SAT and ACT, I would challenge the idea that they can accurately distinguish between the good and outstanding. At most they provide a rough indication. I know this because I got a much higher score than I deserved to on the ACT because you can read the test pretty easily if you put yourself in the shoes of the people making it (I got a 31 overall and a near-perfect 35 on the science portio…

I'm specifically not talking about the SAT and ACT since they're widely used by elite universities. Those tests top out way too early and can't reliably distinguish between the top 1% and the top 0.1% (The fraction of perfect scorers is much smaller than 1% but the standard error of measurement is way too large). The exams I have in mind are those like the science olympiads and the Cambridge STEP. STEP in particular…

It those were used for admissions, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a huge market for answers (from somewhere in the production chain), stand-in test takers, etc.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#337

Post by harpratap »

kondu wrote: post #146
mywittyname wrote: post #89

People are always going to use their money to buy status. So as long as these college offer prestige & status, people with money are going to use it to get in. Much like doping in sports, you have two paths you can take: try to combat cheating, or accept the cheating as part of the game. I think these universities should accept that they are providing an education, but they are selling prestige, and split their admis…

This is pretty much what happens in most of the top private engineering schools in India. About a third of the seats are earmarked for "management quota", meaning you pay the management to get in. The rest qualify via various exams. Works well, doesn't really devalue the prestige of the uni or the students who get in by paying like some of the sibling comments are speculating.

And the private ones aren't really prestigious like the public funded IITs.

> Works well, doesn't really devalue the prestige of the uni or the students who get in by paying like some of the sibling comments are speculating.

Not sure which part of India you lived in but private engineering schools like Manipal, SRM, Vellore aren't considered prestigious. BITS is the only private one which has good clout but they don't have any management quotas.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#338

Post by alphachloride »

mywittyname wrote: post #89

People are always going to use their money to buy status. So as long as these college offer prestige & status, people with money are going to use it to get in. Much like doping in sports, you have two paths you can take: try to combat cheating, or accept the cheating as part of the game. I think these universities should accept that they are providing an education, but they are selling prestige, and split their admis…

In this case there will possibly be a new market for paying to be admitted through the merit path.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#339

Post by jerzyt »

mywittyname wrote: post #89

People are always going to use their money to buy status. So as long as these college offer prestige & status, people with money are going to use it to get in. Much like doping in sports, you have two paths you can take: try to combat cheating, or accept the cheating as part of the game. I think these universities should accept that they are providing an education, but they are selling prestige, and split their admis…

I'd agree with this if the diploma had an indication which bucket the degree came from. When I need a brain surgeon, I'd like to know if he/she got the degree on merit or connections.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#340

Post by kortilla »

jerzyt wrote: post #339
mywittyname wrote: post #89

People are always going to use their money to buy status. So as long as these college offer prestige & status, people with money are going to use it to get in. Much like doping in sports, you have two paths you can take: try to combat cheating, or accept the cheating as part of the game. I think these universities should accept that they are providing an education, but they are selling prestige, and split their admis…

I'd agree with this if the diploma had an indication which bucket the degree came from. When I need a brain surgeon, I'd like to know if he/she got the degree on merit or connections.

Is the implication here that the college doesn’t not actually test knowledge? If so, I’m not sure I’d want a doctor from there whether or not he/she happened to be smart as a 17 year old.
Post reply on HN