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

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#481

Post by umvi » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 9:10 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #439

jadengeller wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the data supports this: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobilit... I do think it's true that Caltech students are all very passionate about STEM, so the average family wealth is less apparent.

> the data Keep in mind that I attended in the 70s. Nothing stays the same. I have little idea if Caltech is the same today as then, and rather doubt it. One obvious change is their mission statement has changed drastically. In the 1978 "Caltech Information for Students" pg 105 it says simply: > The primary purpose of the undergraduate school of the California Institute of Technology, as stated by the Trustees, is "t…

Caltech is very different today than it was 50 years ago. Modern Caltech recently cancelled Robert Millikan (the founder)

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#482

Post by mynameishere » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 9:11 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #375

erikpukinskis wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The basic hypotheses for the pro-affirmative action crowd are: 1) Black people are not actually less “good at stuff”, we just have a habit of defining “stuff” in a way that excludes the things that black people are more likely to excel at. And, 2) Where black people do statistically worse, it’s not due to any innate difference, it’s because socially accepted “normal” support systems are more useful for people with ch…

Sorry, but I take offense at this "it is all a matter of opinion and all opinions are equally valid" BS. 1) It is trivially true that if you define your measure right, you can make anyone succeed. For example black people are better at looking like black people. But we try to define "stuff" in a way that correlates with ability to do economically useful tasks. There are excellent reasons to do so. 2) You are ignoring…

we have no data either way that can even begin to address whether one group is innately better than any other

Does all of world history count as data? What should we go by? Propose a test.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#483

Post by lordnacho » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 9:11 PM UTC

onetimeusename wrote: post #441

QuarterReptile wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These schools are no longer about providing an elite education to talented students who want to get ahead. This is the arbitrage opportunity for lower-ability legacy students. If the schools provided elite educations, they would chew up and spit out lazy rich kids (and probably generate parental acrimony toward the schools in the process, weakening the donor connections.) As affirmative action of all shapes and size…

> arbitrage opportunity for lower-ability legacy students Is that generally true or is that a stereotype? Legacy students also had a higher average SAT score than non-legacy students, at 1523 for legacy students and 1491 for non-legacy students. [1] [1]: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/9/8/2025-freshman-su...

"The average SAT score of students with family income under $40,000 was 1443, while those with a family income of more than $500,000 averaged 1520."

Would the legacies tend to have much higher income, or is any old person who's a child of an alumnus considered a legacy?

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#484

Post by pjscott » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 9:16 PM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #353

Kon-Peki wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if I was a recent immigrant, or a lower middle class kid in Iowa, I'd be pretty outraged about this. It may be worth mentioning that one of the, if not the , most powerful IP lawyers in the Bay Area is “only” a University of Iowa Law School grad. https://www.quinnemanuel.com/attorneys/verhoeven-charles-k/#...

It isn't that anyone things that folks from Iowa, going to the nearest in-state State college, can't make it. It happens. It just probably won't, but you might be more comfortable than someone that didn't go. Just don't, say, be a public defense lawyer or be a teacher. It is that we know that going to places like Harvard, you are much, much more likely to have a well-paying job, comparatively. Bonus points if you are…

In the case of Iowa specifically, the trick (if you can handle the coursework) is to go to Iowa State and major in engineering. They're reasonably affordable and surprisingly high-tier. Quite a few other flyover states that you wouldn't intuitively expect to have really good engineering schools actually do.

(The trouble, of course, is with career paths in which networking and prestige matter a lot more.)

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#485

Post by ahepp » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 9:16 PM UTC

It seems to me that what's being debated here is a point of fact. Shouldn't the article be presenting directly applicable evidence rather than telling anecdotes about the Vietnam War?

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#486

Post by wheelinsupial » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 9:18 PM UTC

kwhitefoot wrote: post #390

whack wrote: post #120

The following paragraphs were especially powerful: > The chattering class is using poor kids as pawns to eliminate standardized testing. Which helps their own kids. Rich kids who “don’t test well.” But they know how to strategically boost their GPAs, get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” >…

> legacy preferences Why does this even exist?

"In the United States, legacy admissions in universities date back to the 1920s. Elite schools used legacy admissions to maintain spots for Anglo-Protestants amid fears that Jews, Catholics, and Asians were increasingly taking spots at the schools.[7][8]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#487

Post by wheelinsupial » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 9:20 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #164

whack wrote: post #120

The following paragraphs were especially powerful: > The chattering class is using poor kids as pawns to eliminate standardized testing. Which helps their own kids. Rich kids who “don’t test well.” But they know how to strategically boost their GPAs, get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” >…

"Or ban legacy preferences at the very least" It would be interesting if there was a rule that forbid you from attending the same school as your parents.

They could just implement a reciprocal legacy status instead for your children.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#488

Post by Gunax » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 9:20 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #469

whack wrote: post #120

The following paragraphs were especially powerful: > The chattering class is using poor kids as pawns to eliminate standardized testing. Which helps their own kids. Rich kids who “don’t test well.” But they know how to strategically boost their GPAs, get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” >…

I've made this proposal several times: judge an applicant by his/her delta relative to their cohort. For example (highly simplified) a kid from a wealthy family in a nice neighbourhood statistically scores 70% on average, if he scores 80 that's a +10. A kid from a poor single-parent household going to a dilapidated school where scores are 40% on average, if he scores 70 that's a +30. Very rough example but the idea i…

There is always a way to manipulate it. In this case, one would seek to downplay their own cohort.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#489

Post by 2snakes » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 9:23 PM UTC

moomoo11 wrote: post #466

jcranmer wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes I don’t give a shit about homework, I understand the material which is why I’m slaying each test. I hated that about college. We are adults. I’m paying to get an education, why the fuck is homework 20% of the grade? It’s practice, for people who don’t get the material. So what you're admitting is that you are willing to not to do required parts of your job because you don't feel they're important. If you go out…

Homework being worth 20% is dumb for school. Besides I worked the entire time in college to pay for college. Being penalized because I don’t have time to do homework without which I can’t pay for school helps nobody. I don’t think I ever got anything lower than a B on an exam, and nothing lower than A on a final/midterm/project. And yeah, homework is for people who need it. Work and school are totally different one y…

Learning theory of repetition and stretch goals have been found to help many trying to learn. Some sort of neuron network establishment neuroscientifically.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#490

Post by berjin » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 9:23 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #120

The following paragraphs were especially powerful: > The chattering class is using poor kids as pawns to eliminate standardized testing. Which helps their own kids. Rich kids who “don’t test well.” But they know how to strategically boost their GPAs, get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” >…

I've seen this play out in a non-US country. My friend with wealthier parents got his loans paid because his parents didn't earn an 'income' and thus the state interpreted them as being poor. In reality they were fairly well off business owners who had a good accountant who channeled the cash flows through the lowest taxed entities.