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Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

robkhenderson.substack.com

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Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#551

Post by hijghula »

orthoxerox wrote: post #362
pmoriarty wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

The USSR under Khruschev tried something similar: they were worried that people were becoming stratified: university-educated people would send their children into universities, factory workers would send their children into technical schools. Surely in a perfect world the demographics of university students should reflect the demographics of their parents' generation? So, a lot of restrictions and quotas were added…

They were not just researching "how to rain nuclear fire on the US" but also how to send the first satellite into space, send a probe on Venus, put the first man in orbit, etc.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#552

Post by WalterBright »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #536
WalterBright wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

P.S. It's possible I was simply blind to the upper class signalling. Things like word choice, manner, etc.

I was one of the richer kids in what was one of the more "bohemian" houses, as another commenter referred to them. Page was actually toward the top of the wealth spectrum when I was there (recently). There was also a lot of wealth disparity within each house, too, by the way. However, the signals are more subtle than you think. Things like being happy to go out to eat on weekends, having a big wardrobe, having techni…

At the University of Washington, there are kids with Lambos and Ferraris.

I was well-read, at least in the field of scifi books!

I don't recall anyone's parents flying in or them flying out for vacations. You might see them dropping their kid off at the beginning of the year, or picking them up at the end.

I eventually got a car for my senior year, but it was my beater Mustang from high school I'd rescued from oblivion.

But, just because I didn't notice these things, doesn't mean they weren't there.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#553

Post by docandrew »

torstenvl wrote: post #538
docandrew wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far you’ve used straw man (you don’t support poor kids going to college?) and an ad-hominem (complaining that people who aren’t you are making money…) attack in your responses, which indicates a lack of argument in good faith. I spelled out pretty clearly why somebody might have issues with taxpayers subsidizing the tuition of a Harvard graduate.

OP said you opposed federal funding here. Pell Grants are federal funding. Accurate descriptions aren't straw men. OP expressed disapproval of the fact "that public funds can go to private schools like Harvard." I tried to guess what OP might mean, but it appears you have found those guesses insulting. So, assuming you think similarly, why don't you just clear it up so we aren't left guessing? What are the specific c…

It’s not about specific changes to law, it’s about the principle of “Organizations with $50B in the bank probably don’t need federal funds.” Having them put skin in the game with an endowment tax would also be acceptable.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#554

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #545
tptacek wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one study for the SAT, would you say, and what impact do you believe that studying has?

The SAT assumes a baseline vocabulary and familiarity with basic logic, which a lot of kids don't meet now that so many people take the test. My score went up by 120 points from my first practice test in 8th grade to the real thing in 11th grade, but some of that was just covering the ground on the expected high school math and vocabulary.

I tend to agree that studying and practicing for the SAT has a material impact, but most people on your side of the issue dispute that.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#555

Post by CrazyStat »

chaostheory wrote: post #528
CrazyStat wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you ban legacy, then you lose needed donations. If you lose donations, then costs go up for everyone else. Or the universities could spend a bit less money. Most donations go to things that aren't exactly central to the supposed mission of a university, like football fields or $90 million dining halls [1]. The explosion of administrative staff over the last couple decades also doesn't help. [1] https://www.bizjo…

Sports programs, just like legacy entries, earn a lot of money for universities.

Do they? The WSJ disagrees:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/march-madness-is-a-moneymaker-m...

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#556

Post by hijghula »

tptacek wrote: post #506
civilized wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Different populations perform differently on average Does this mean that today's IQ tests have racial bias? > There’s also a historical association with IQ assessment and eugenics. Does this mean that today's IQ tests have racial bias?

Yes, structurally if not deliberately (it is unlikely that mainstream IQ tests are anything but diligently designed to avoid overt bias, unlike those of the middle 20th century). If you measure something that has a large SES causative component, and SES is for whatever reason itself highly correlated with race, then your measurements will encode a racial bias. The big debate in academic psychology is the extent to wh…

Your second statement is incorrect. Having a racial bias would mean that IQ tests are incorrect (having significantly different errors) for certain samples/groups. But no one is saying that.

Imagine a test to measure the resistance of various materials. Is the test biased because it shows that concrete is stronger than rotten wood? No, it just measures the resistance of different materials. If the measurement error (not the measurement itself) was significantly different for different materials then yes you could say the test is biased.

You are just saying that SES affects intelligence, which is most likely true and immediately prompts the question of what affects SES.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#557

Post by dan-robertson »

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 wonder if it would be better to just have a system where there are some number of elite university places set aside at some very high price for the rich. Perhaps the problem is the price would be too high / number of places too small that there would still be an incentive to try to get in through the ‘normal’ route. Plenty of top schools already set tuition prices based on family income.

It should satisfy people who want elite universities to be places to rub shoulders with other elites. My hope is that such a policy would reduce the incentive to game the ordinary system by throwing money at it.

But I guess the whole thing feels terribly unegalitarian and so couldn’t happen.

Perhaps an easier improvement would be if enrolment could be massively (say >2x) increased at elite schools.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#558

Post by tyoma »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #155
LewisVerstappen wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point is you can't just give preference based on income as its incredibly easy to fudge. Okay, well this is the US. Your tax returns are a very good indication of how much money you make. If you lie on your tax returns then you have much bigger issues than college admissions counselors.

Taking a $0 salary for a few years is feasible for most rich people. That's why the FAFSA (financial aid form) also asks about assets.

Or they could just have their kid “adopted” by a friend and avoid having to list parents income: https://www.propublica.org/article/university-of-illinois-fi...

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#559

Post by leishman »

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.” >…

If legacy wealthy kids can’t go to elite schools then the schools will not be elite. The schools the elite’s children go to are, by definition, the elite schools.

Re: Dropping the SAT requirement is a luxury belief

#560

Post by AussieWog93 »

999900000999 wrote: post #502
bushbaba wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you can check any race and they will never question it. You could state you identify as Black and so long as the name and application looks 'black', they'll never know. You'll start your first day at university and what will they do, ask you to take a genetic test?

As a thought experiment couldn't you just say your from South Africa. Thus being "African American". For the record I hate affirmative action, but I also hate the notion of having some elite 10 schools everyone strives to get into. You can do just fine going to a state school, and you'll probably have a much more relaxed experienced. You can also do what I did and hit 100k no degree at all. With all this talk of stud…

Holy shit, my wife's a Saffa and I'd never considered the fact that it means my daughter technically has African heritage in her.

Sadly, I can't imagine it being much use when she's old enough to go to university. Most of the (African) black people in Australia come from recent migrant backgrounds, are fairly religious/conservative and believe strongly in education. I suspect they'd run into similar problems to Asians if we had the same affirmative action policies down here in Aus.

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