Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles • Hacker News Board

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

#531

Post by Hasu » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 9:56 PM UTC

tonguez wrote: post #508

colinmhayes wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you seriously believe the Fed isn't a government entity? I'm legitimately struggling to understand how you came to such a misguided conclusion.

How can you believe it is? I'm legitimately struggling to understand how you came to such a misguided conclusion.

Because it:

- was created by the US government

- is ran by US government appointees, who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate

- has to make annual reports to Congress

- returns all its profits to the US government

- describes itself as a government agency. [0]

Does the Fed have more independence than, say, the Department of Agriculture? Yes, but an independent government agency is still a government entity.

[0] "The Federal Reserve, like many other central banks, is an independent government agency..." https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_12799.htm

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

#532

Post by kragen » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 9:56 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #519

kragen wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but 38% of AP Calculus BC takers get a 5 so it doesn't give you much information.

Taking the Calculus BC test already puts you in the upper echelon of high school math students though. According to a quick google only 15% of high schoolers will take the BC exam, so getting a 5 is something only 5% of students achieve.

That's the student providing 2.7 bits of information ("I want to take this exam") and getting an additional 1.4 bits from the result. By contrast, being valedictorian is about 10 bits of information, and being in the 99th percentile on a test (1510+ on the SAT) is 6.6 bits. Scoring 1600 on the SAT is 12 bits.

So the SAT can easily give you 7 times as much info as the AP BC, and it's more about your aptitude than your achievement.

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

#533

Post by johnnyanmac » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 9:57 PM UTC

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #191

Definitely for the best. Standardized testing was pretty much the only reason I and many other working class folks I know could get into good schools -- I was never going to do a million side activities, and my summers were spent working, not building my academic resume. Of course the real tragedy is that we fixate so much on college, even prestigious ones, at all given how unnecessary they are for making people into…

>Of course the real tragedy is that we fixate so much on college, even prestigious ones, at all given how unnecessary they are for making people into productive and happy human beings. This change is significant but affects less than one percent of the population each year..

I'm ambivalent because I sympathize with both sides of the equation. One one hand, I have the hindsight now that I didn't at 18 to realize that the world didn't end because I couldn't get into Harvey Mudd. And in many ways it turned out 100x better; instead of staying in LA-ish areas, I explored a whole new area I never would have considered otherwise, still got a great education for a small fraction of what Mudd woulda cost me, and was exposed to a completely different flavor of computer science that helped me decide my career.

But on the other hand, college really does open a ton of doors that for many non-upper class people would never open otherwise. While I was still in tech and had many choices, I imagine people at MIT or Mudd would be fighting off recruitment at top companies with a stick, with many opportunities coming from certain companies who only recruit at such universities. It can accelerate your career on the order of 5-10 years if you stick it out. And you'd likely be unparalleled in resources and opportunities if your focus is on research. If your goal is as lofty as being the next household name or to pivot into creating your own business, there are oodles more oppurtunities there.

I wouldn't trade the education I got for an MIT one, but I can understand why 18YO me (and many others) do feel that way.

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

#534

Post by thewebcount » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 10:00 PM UTC

duckhelmet wrote: post #525

QuikAccount wrote: post #368

My problem with SAT/ACT actually has nothing to do with the test itself. I grew up very poor in suburban middle of nowhere and even with a waiver for the fee, I had no way of actually getting to a testing center. Parents worked 24/7 to make ends meet, no real public transport and this was before Uber and Lyft. The real culprit here is the lack of public infrastructure.

Have you ever tried using a bicycle?

Have you ever been to the rural US? Things are very far apart (often 10s of miles) and riding a bike may not be practical for things in the same way as in an urban or suburban area.

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

#535

Post by mypalmike » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 10:00 PM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #514

verve_rat wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. As someone that isn't in the US, but grew up watching a lot of US TV, I had this same assumption. How the fuck is the primary method of judging student admission to University not a government run service? Wow. As you say, contrast that to my experience where everyone took University Entrance exams in their final year of school. Score over X and you have the right to go to a university. Don't score high enough?…

College Board is a nonprofit organization[0] and thus is partially funded by the government to say nothing of any other grants they may have received. ACT Inc is the same way. Instead of funding The One True Test, the US government partially funds every test competing to be the best college placement test. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Board

How does being a nonprofit imply "partially funded by the government"?

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

#536

Post by QuikAccount » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

gpt5 wrote: post #477

QuikAccount wrote: post #368

My problem with SAT/ACT actually has nothing to do with the test itself. I grew up very poor in suburban middle of nowhere and even with a waiver for the fee, I had no way of actually getting to a testing center. Parents worked 24/7 to make ends meet, no real public transport and this was before Uber and Lyft. The real culprit here is the lack of public infrastructure.

It's really weird to see this as the top comment. Is there evidence physical access to the test center still a problem today (small or large)? Is SAT worse than other criteria (such as extra-curriculum achievements) when looking at those poor suburbun middle of nowhere students? i.e. even in this example, did SAT actually made thing worse for those people when comparing against the alternative.

Sorry buddy, I can't give you anything other than my anecdata. No knowledge on whether anyone has done any studies on this specifically but lack of public infrastructure contributing to the income disparity has been widely studied.

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

#537

Post by jp0d » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

shmde wrote: post #484

gime_tree_fiddy wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure how it compares but India suffers through the same problem. It is essentially a rat race. A lot of those problems could be trick questions, but to be able to identify it, especially on a regular basis takes longer(when the question has less than a minute dedicated to it).

Yes exactly, I remember our Physics teacher in 11-12th grade used to just solve trick questions and asked us to remember shortcuts and rote memorise formulae. I completely fucked up the physics portion of entrance exam and got a mere 7 out of 120 on a national test. I fucking hate physics now.

The Indian education system doesn't care about learning at all. It's all about scoring good grades and getting a job at the end. It's quite important as every individual needs to be able support themselves. However, it's really bad for learning. I'm a product of that. I've been struggling a lot with an online course from MIT but at least I'm enjoying learning a lot of stuff as I'm employed now. Physics and Mathematics are the most beautiful things if done right and not under stress. Good luck, man!

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

#538

Post by torginus » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

lliamander wrote: post #386

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. I agree, but arguably the benefits of the SAT with regard to class mobility is less than it was when it was introduced. The heritability of IQ, combined with assortative mating, means that increasingly class divides are forming around differences in IQ. I think many people are rightly concerned that this will eventually…

The heritability of wealth, combined with assortative mating, means that increasingly class divides are forming around differences in wealth. I think many people are rightly concerned that this will eventually result in simply a different entrenched class hierarchy.

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

#539

Post by frankchn » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 10:03 PM UTC

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #308

tomkat0789 wrote: post #293

I hated taking the SAT/ACT, but holy cow are we in the US in a better situation than Chinese students dealing with the Gaokao. A Chinese pen-pal once showed me some calculus problems from the Gaokao and the example I saw (a bunch of integrals) looked like a math test a sadist would create: long, complicated expressions just for the sake of complexity, "ugly" numbers that turned into messy fractions you have to carry…

Yeah, a lot of tests like that are actually testing for memorization, and not problem solving ability.

I don't think the math part of the Gaokao tests memorization.

Looking at a sample paper (https://medium.com/@yujia_jo/2016-jiangsu-gaokao-national-hi...), it seems like the examination really tests for the ability to do math and problem solve under fairly heavy time pressure (150 minutes total for all questions if you are in the science stream).

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

#540

Post by spaetzleesser » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 10:04 PM UTC

musicale wrote: post #485

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?

Here's how "former MIT admissions director" McGreggor Crowley justified providing preferences to children of alumni and wealthy donors: "What about university donors, though? Don’t they have an unfair advantage in this process? In truth, for every office of admissions there is a development office that builds a university’s endowment through donations from alumni and wealthy individuals. And every year, regardless of…

This stuff allows for way too many back doors and intentionally makes the process more opaque. If they were honest they would just name an amount that guarantees admission so rich guys could buy their way into the school instead of hiding behind “charity”.