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Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

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

#331

Post by jordanpg »

tzs wrote: post #240
jordanpg wrote: post #43

Part of the problem I see with standardized testing is that the stakes are so high. Some fraction of the people out there just get nervous or have a bad day. Nothing about these high pressure situations really reflects anything important in the real world. I'm a law student now. In law school, your entire grade usually comes from one 3-4 hour essay exam. Much depends on luck, how well you slept the night before, and…

> I'm a law student now. In law school, your entire grade usually comes from one 3-4 hour essay exam. Much depends on luck, how well you slept the night before, and how frantically you can type. It's absurd. It's been that way for some 100 years. Well, not quite that way for 100 years. When I was in law school 30 years ago (University of Washington) it would for most people be "how frantically you can handwrite" rath…

Law schools put so much energy into these exam procedures! And all under the banner of preventing cheating and producing a nice curve.

Now the technological arms race faced by law schools is how to get students to read anything in a world where case summaries (eg. Quimbee) and all hornbooks are freely, trivially available.

I suspect the schools will continue defend the case method for a long time to come, even as the vast majority of students don't read cases any more and even practitioners rely heavily on headnotes and other electronic research tools.

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

#332

Post by NikolaNovak »

uwuemu wrote: post #90
Animats wrote: post #20

All MIT students, regardless of intended major, must pass two semesters of calculus, plus two semesters of calculus-based physics, as part of our General Institute Requirements. ... There is no path through MIT that does not rest on a rigorous foundation in mathematics, and we need to be sure our students are ready for that as soon as they arrive. For a period in the 1980s-1990s, you could argue that calculus was not…

I would argue exactly otherwise... with the advent of the web platform and frameworks like .net, the vast majority (and I mean like 95%) of developers will never touch anything ML related in their careers. I mean, I get that this is MIT and many of their students will end up working with ML, but applying that globally to CS is nonsense. Back when I was studying CS (cze) more than a decade ago, we had to pass linear a…

I remember finding myself in 3rd year Calculus in a Computer Science degree, and realizing: I don't have to be here! (only two years were mandatory)

I've always enjoyed math and kept enrolling into it out of habit, until it became so esoteric, and my actual interests more solid and practical.

I find a lot of my university career was fascinating and... useless. Not just from "I will never use this directly perspective", but also largely from "this will give me broader understanding and framework and enable me to learn faster" perspective. We can have wonderful philosophical discussion on what University should be for - job prep or educational enhancement for the sake of it - but truth of the matter was that I envied those in Engineering fields who had fun AND learned AND were doing practical things AND were going to apply some of it. Whereas my 3rd and 4th year maths were just maths for the sake of maths.

I may be hanging out with uninteresting crowds, but same experience is broadly true for my friends and co-workers - Java developer, VMWare architect, Database Administrator, ERP developer, etc. We all value education and love learning and will go on our vacation with couple of technical books - but university Computer Science degree seems very mistailored, or at least, sold wrong.

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

#334

Post by stillsut »

paulmd wrote: post #21
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 don't really have evidence for this, but it's always felt like SAT/ACT coaching doesn't improve scores so much as get rid of some of the "dumb mistakes" that cost you score. It's gonna help you when the test writer was playing some gotcha tricks with phrasing or whatever, but if you don't understand the material, even narrowing it down to a 50/50 isn't going to get you a good score, and if you truly don't understan…

I'd say one of the valuable things an SAT tutor could teach is an attitude: to take initiative, and reject resignment to failure.

The biggest difference I noticed in how I would take a test versus other people I tried to coach is that I viewed the test as a fun game like a challenging video game level. And those who struggled on the test viewed it as dreadful judgement being rendered on them.

It's like when you can tell someone is extremely self-conscious while dancing: Beyond teaching them any actual dance moves, you have to turn off the part of their brain which is blocking their natural mental resources for problem solving, and that's often the fear they are inadequate to the task, will disappoint their supporters, and that it will hurt their future prospects.

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

#335

Post by samatman »

balls187 wrote: post #310
samatman wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> instead to guarantee a standard distribution of scores Which is precisely what you want in an assessment test. Any assessment test. You only want a normal distribution if the quality under assessment is normally distributed, but you do want a test where the worst candidate does better than chance, and exactly one candidate gets a perfect score. That's an ideal which is only approximated, but it is the ideal.

For context I graduated high school in the late nighties (I took the paper/scantron test). At the time, the SAT was purported to provide a score that predict ability to perform academically at higher learning institutions. Along with other factors such as GPA, and participation in extra curricular activities, a school could reasonably determine how well a student would do. In practice, the normal distribution for sco…

Your first post claims it isn't a test of scholastic aptitude, and then this one says that it does predict scholastic success, and what could reliably predict scholastic success other than a test of scholastic aptitude?

Sure, a big donation by the student's dad, but that's a known quantity. I took the same SAT you did if it matters.

Which certain backgrounds are you referring to? I'd ask you for the references to show the supposed boost that test prep gives to SAT scores, but then I'd have to find the papers that fail to reproduce it...

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

#336

Post by 0x20cowboy »

I grew up poor, and from my anecdotal experience people do better on the SAT if they "are rich". You can also pay people to take the test for you.

Maybe it's because they don't have to spend their days worry about getting shot, stabbed or beaten to the ground by gangs. Maybe it's because they get to eat every day. I guess, perhaps, they get more quality study time. Or, heck maybe you're all right, random questions - your ability to regurgitate the points on the unit circle at will - indicates the level of education you are qualified to attempt. Thank goodness these tests will let you know what you are capable of.

To be fair, I tried to get into several universities (over the pandemic) to round out my self taught education, but I was rejected everywhere I applied. So, I guess for some people - tests or no tests - it doesn't really matter. Apparently, I am too stupid to get an education. Good to know.

For anyone who is salty about this (I used to be quite angry about this and the "Google style" hiring process (which is essentially the same thing)), this realization helped me get over this:

_These tests are designed to filter out people like you. You have a qualities they do not want. That's why they are used. The tests are working from their point of view. They wont stop using them. Your life will be much easier if you just accept it, let it go, and go do something else._

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

#337

Post by LudwigNagasena »

danShumway wrote: post #312
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what you have written just feels like a more favorable to your side explanation of the same thing. Colleges are not trying to compress aptitude into a single number. It’s even worse. They are trying to compress aptitude into a single Boolean variable, you are either admitted or not. That’s it. And it seems that subject tests and general aptitude tests are very good indicators of college fit. I don’t know what s…

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. GP writes: > There is a small, but well-organized and vocal subset of the population that hates the idea of excellence and differentiation. I don't see how that applies to my comment above, and I don't see how saying: > They are trying to compress aptitude into a single Boolean variable, you are either admitted or not. That’s it. is doing anything other than backing up what I…

You conflate vertical differentiation with horizontal differentiation. Horizontal differentiation is what is usually understood as “diversity” and considered good among certain groups of people. Vertical differentiation is what is usually understood as “hierarchy” and considered bad among those groups of people.

MIT like many American universities does only general admission and that’s indeed would be considered weird in other countries, but it seems like a whole nother issue.

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

#338

Post by [deleted] »

opportune wrote: post #211

I am so happy to see this. I went to high school in a bit of a backwater in the US. People don’t really go to selective colleges or care much about applying. It was only doing very well on standardized tests and spending time on the internet looking for info about colleges that led me to believe I could go to one of these places. I got into several and attended one, and I believe it greatly positively changed my life…

[deleted]

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

#339

Post by adamsmith143 »

opportune wrote: post #211

I am so happy to see this. I went to high school in a bit of a backwater in the US. People don’t really go to selective colleges or care much about applying. It was only doing very well on standardized tests and spending time on the internet looking for info about colleges that led me to believe I could go to one of these places. I got into several and attended one, and I believe it greatly positively changed my life…

>Removing admission tests was a huge slap in the face to social mobility out of the middle class. To reiterate other commenters, admission tests are the hardest part of the process to game and the least biased towards things like having a tiger parent, while being the most predictive indicator of success in college. Wealthy and well connected people can easily game extracurriculars and essays, and HS grades are vastly inflated at this point across the country. That pretty much only leaves standardized tests for your average kid who isn’t being deliberately primed by their environment to stand out for selective college admissions.

I agree with most of this but Exams are absolutely gameable. There's a reason there is a multibillion dollar industry focused on them. There's a reason why Cram School exists across Asia and there's a reason why parents will pay thousands for ACT/SAT tutoring. Because it flat out works. You can increase your scores substantially by paying for these services. All else being equal I would expect that between 2 students with identical aptitudes where one has paid thousands of dollars for tutoring that the student with tutoring will score higher than the other. This can't be ignored. Can you mitigate this with self motivated preparation? Sure. But again, all else being equal and between 2 equally talented and motivated testers the one whose parents paid for a tutor that achieved a perfect score is almost always going to score higher.

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

#340

Post by nemo44x »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #6
notacoward wrote: post #3

This is just so beautifully written it brings a tear to my eye. It explains their rationale, points to evidence, acknowledges shortcomings or gaps in knowledge, and shows empathy for those affected. Worth reading just for its pedagogical value, plus it's on an important topic near and dear to many hearts.

Yeah, when you're doing something that is politically/ideologically unpopular or in the minority you tend to need to have bulletproof justification if you want to get away with it. Then again, with these sorts of things you can never be sure how much the tail wags the dog.

> Yeah, when you're doing something that is politically/ideologically unpopular or in the minority

I don't think they are though. I think there would be massively popular and wide support for this. You're seeing it in SF right now as the school board is being overthrown for trying to ruin the school system in the name of "equity" or some other garbage reason. The people finally found out and organized.

All this woke stuff today is actually very unpopular and it's why you see Democrats trying to separate themselves from it and make progressives own it. It's even unpopular with the arbitrary groups it claims it helps.

Most people want to be good people and treat others with respect and woke ideology sounds good on the surface ("anti-racist", sure sounds great!) until you get past the formal meaning and into the actual meaning. Sort of like how Democratic Republic of Korea sounds great until you actually read into it.

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