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Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

mitadmissions.org

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

#551

Post by sparrc »

outlace wrote: post #470

I used to be against standardized tests, but I grew up as a low-income minority in a single-parent household and I ended up getting into good schools pretty much only due to my high test scores, which has been a life changer. Other than test scores, I couldn't afford to do any fancy extra-curriculars. It felt a lot more achievable to know I can change my life if I just focus and do well on a test than it would if I h…

100% agreed. I could also buy a test prep book on amazon plus get a few others from the school and public libraries for a grand total of $15 spent on test prep.

That's a lot cheaper than dedicating my working summer to smarmy volunteer/extra-curricular projects.

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

#552

Post by u2077 »

cwp wrote: post #471
paxys wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why so many people (myself included) advocate for a pure "software engineering" degree at more universities. Let people who are interested study graph theory, combinatorics, linear algebra, advanced probability and statistics and whatever else. For the rest, provide a path to be ready for an industry job building websites and applications, which is what 90% of graduates will end up doing. Every other…

If all you're interested in is getting a good job, you don't need a degree at all. The information is available for free in a variety of presentations and formats. The source code to just about all the software you'll use is available for free as are all the tools. You don't even need a bootcamp, just time and energy.

You may not need a degree to learn the material, but as someone new to the field, there are plenty of jobs that list a 2 year or 4 year degree as a requirement. Having that degree will open more doors than just learning on your own simply because that’s what they’re looking for.

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

#553

Post by lightup »

My son found out 2 days ago he didn't get accepted to his in-state land grant public university. The University of Minnesota. This was his fall back plan. Now he's screwed and may not be able to start college in fall.

His sins: - a 35 ACT score (legit with no studying or ACT prep classes) - a 3.8 weighted GPA (because he took multiple AP classes and actually was in college for his junior and senior years through Minnesota's PSEO program) - leader on robotics team - lettered in 2 extra curriculars - etc etc

Why? Because U of MN doesn't consider weighted grades nor do they accept test scores anymore. So why even try hard?

The only upside is that we weren't stupid enough to put his college savings in a 529 tied to MN. We would be superscrewed if we'd done that.

35,000 applicants. 7,000 freshman admissions. My kid not even in top 1/5 of applicaents? Complete BS.

EDITs: 2021 UMN Twin Cities admission stats: https://admissions.tc.umn.edu/competitive-admission-rate (20%)

MN 529 plan 20 years ago was MN-only from what I remember. Honestly don't care.

[redacted] is "okay" school for CSci. However they have a 120MM budget and are facing 15MM shortfall for the college that hosts it. Out of state tuition for this school is 20k per year with max scholarships.

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

#554

Post by ffggvv »

lightup wrote: post #553

My son found out 2 days ago he didn't get accepted to his in-state land grant public university. The University of Minnesota. This was his fall back plan. Now he's screwed and may not be able to start college in fall. His sins: - a 35 ACT score (legit with no studying or ACT prep classes) - a 3.8 weighted GPA (because he took multiple AP classes and actually was in college for his junior and senior years through Minn…

No post body was provided.

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

#555

Post by dangle1 »

outlace wrote: post #470

I used to be against standardized tests, but I grew up as a low-income minority in a single-parent household and I ended up getting into good schools pretty much only due to my high test scores, which has been a life changer. Other than test scores, I couldn't afford to do any fancy extra-curriculars. It felt a lot more achievable to know I can change my life if I just focus and do well on a test than it would if I h…

I can relate, and I appreciated the doors the PSAT and SAT opened for me.

OTOH, I test higher than my actual abilities in my opinion, and that was a relatively unfair advantage the test gave me.

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

#556

Post by gourabmi »

lightup wrote: post #553

My son found out 2 days ago he didn't get accepted to his in-state land grant public university. The University of Minnesota. This was his fall back plan. Now he's screwed and may not be able to start college in fall. His sins: - a 35 ACT score (legit with no studying or ACT prep classes) - a 3.8 weighted GPA (because he took multiple AP classes and actually was in college for his junior and senior years through Minn…

I'm curious. How many universities did he apply to ? How many accepts/ rejects from that pool?

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

#557

Post by js2 »

lightup wrote: post #553

My son found out 2 days ago he didn't get accepted to his in-state land grant public university. The University of Minnesota. This was his fall back plan. Now he's screwed and may not be able to start college in fall. His sins: - a 35 ACT score (legit with no studying or ACT prep classes) - a 3.8 weighted GPA (because he took multiple AP classes and actually was in college for his junior and senior years through Minn…

> If you’re worried about having the account in one state and attending school in another, don’t be. With most plans, your school choice is not affected by the state of your savings plan. You can be a resident of Minnesota and send your student to college in North Carolina.

https://www.mnsaves.org/plan/details.shtml

(This is generally the case for most 529 plans.)

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

#558

Post by spoonjim »

lightup wrote: post #553

My son found out 2 days ago he didn't get accepted to his in-state land grant public university. The University of Minnesota. This was his fall back plan. Now he's screwed and may not be able to start college in fall. His sins: - a 35 ACT score (legit with no studying or ACT prep classes) - a 3.8 weighted GPA (because he took multiple AP classes and actually was in college for his junior and senior years through Minn…

Asian?

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

#559

Post by rayiner »

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…

Also foreigners—a lot of these side activities and volunteer opportunities depend on having social capital and connections.

Same thing with essays. I’ve observed that working class Americans are reticent to talk about diversity and adversity in the way college admissions officers expect, and recall having a similar experience. My wife’s parents grew up so poor in rural America that “store bought meat” was a phrase they used when she was growing up. Meanwhile, my family left Bangladesh when I was 5 under political circumstances where one day my mom’s brother (a military officer) showed up to our house in uniform and my dad thought that he was coming to detain us (it was a social call). But she would have been embarrassed to write about how her father grew up poor or that she faced any adversity, and I would have been embarrassed to write about how I was a foreigner instead of a middle class kid from Virginia.

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

#560

Post by mywittyname »

paxys wrote: post #273
uwuemu wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is exactly why so many people (myself included) advocate for a pure "software engineering" degree at more universities. Let people who are interested study graph theory, combinatorics, linear algebra, advanced probability and statistics and whatever else. For the rest, provide a path to be ready for an industry job building websites and applications, which is what 90% of graduates will end up doing. Every other…

I don't think a "pure" software engineering degree really needs to be four years.

What you're talking about sounds an awful lot like the program I went into initially at a community college. They taught you some coding in a few popular languages, some database concepts and sent you on your way. I dropped out after a year and found a job.

I ended up going to a four year program after a while. Turns out, a lot of the good jobs in software engineering require understanding those peaky abstract fundamentals.

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