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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

#561
As someone from the UK I am confused by this. What were they using to decide who to admit without SAT/ACT tests?

In the UK all students pick at least 3 A levels at the end of their high school. Each degree and university then has different requirements like 3 As in Math, Physics, IT (with some alternative subjects) for Computer Science. So my understanding of SAT/ACT testing is limited.

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

#562
MIT grad here. The achievement tests are more of a counter-indicator If you score under 700 on either test, you probably cant handle the coursework. The tests only test a 10th grade level.

I likely would not get into MIT this decade this decade with my test score 1480.

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

#564

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…

They might be the least gameable, but this is kind of a “bare minimum” for diversity/equity practices. It is the cheapest way to get little bit of reliable signal. Because let's be clear about the standardized test situation. Test takers had time to take the test, they weren't doing work on the side for their parents instead to make ends meet. They had transportation to the test location, they were able to pay the fe…

> Test takers had time to take the test, they weren't doing work on the side for their parents instead to make ends meet. They had transportation to the test location, they were able to pay the fees, and they were not being discouraged from college as “we can never afford that, I’m sorry.”

In Chicago, the taking the SAT is required to graduate from high school. The school district pays for it. It is taken at school, during the school day.

Some of these barriers are not the same as they used to be.

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

#565
post #130

> as a result, not having SATs/ACT scores to consider tends to raise socioeconomic barriers to demonstrating readiness for our education It all come down to me to what this point touches. When you have a test, you have something definite to prepare for. Even if you do not have dedicated mentors or well-wishing, caring teachers, you simply know there is a test that significantly improves your chances for MIT. When you…

The no-test policy is espoused by two groups who find themselves to be unlikely allies: naive progressives and actual racists. The naive progressives think what you’d expect: “Minorities and poor people can’t possibly be expected to do well on anything objective, so it’s unfair to test them”. It is bigotry, but at least it’s well-meaning. The actual racists are more cynical: “I don’t want Yale to be 67% Asian.” Obvio…

right, I think that type of bigotry is commonly identified with the phrase the soft bigotry of low expectations. Never knew the origins of that phrase until today. Interesting to see the word implicit show up in the definition, sounds about right. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/soft_bigotry_of_low_expectati...

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

#566

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?

He applied to [redacted] State, Rice, UNC, Duke, and U of MN - Twin Cities. Accepted at [redacted] State (they have a formula for everyone). He also got their highest out of state "scholarship" - which is more like a break on out of state tuition - no reciprocity with MN. No word from Duke yet but that probably won't happen either.

Complete disaster for his future and really a shot to his otherwise happy and optimistic life. He's really upset as are we all.

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

#567
As a minority, i think those pushing for removing the SAT/ACT are racist in that they think certain minorities cannot perform as well as others. The whole point is that the SAT is the only objective piece of an application that can be easily compared between applicants. They want to reduce to only subjective qualifications which they can easily manipulate to benefit groups they deem under-represented. Its the bigotry of low expectations.

Their problem isnt that the SAT can be gamed, its that it has an objective score which cant be manipulated to benefit who they deem worthy.

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

#568
post #557

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.)

Off topic. Doesn't apply. However, yes, when we started saving it was MN schools only. I don't know what the rules are now. Remember, we're talking about something from 20 years ago.

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

#569
post #458

College Admissions in the US is broken. This is a great move at restoring normalcy though. The SAT or ACT are the best thing for leveling the playing field between the rich and the poor. If anything I would like to see more reliance on this. If I had my way the US would model the college admissions process on the Chinese Gao Kao. Have everyone take the the exam, have students list their preference for university, the…

This is kinda how medical residency is filled in the US, med students rank their top choices, residency programs rank their’s. It’s called The Match, and generally results in a very fair equitable outcome.

While the match isn’t completely terrible, it still has some pretty bad qualities. The most notable one is the “pay for applications” issue. The odds of getting into your top picks is constantly declining, and so the dominant strategy is to apply to many residencies to maximize your chance of a successful match - the number of picks the average applicant submits has doubled in the past 15 years. But applying to more programs can cost thousands of dollars, for no apparent reason other than the enrichment of ERAS to the tune of about $100 million per year. This obviously creates a system where people with more money to burn can artificial create better results for themselves.

The simple answer here is to give each applicant a finite number of picks regardless of means, but the ERAS admin has no interest in this for obvious reasons.

The other thing this pick arms race has done is produced far more applicants for positions than makes any sense (the average Otho placement gets 150 applicants). Not only does this irritate program directors, this has also led to an increase in automated filtering, and therefore an increase in attempts to game automated filtering though things like bogus publications (see: things like the stupid medbikini publication which seemed like a poor attempt to add another pub to somebody’s resume).

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

#570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How the fuck is the primary method of judging student admission to University not a government run service? Wow. Probably the same reason that the Federal Reserve Bank is not a government entity (they only have a meaningless government "oversight board") even though it loans all money to the US Government with interest and has never been audited.

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.

The ownership structure of the Federal Reserve's 12 constituent reserve banks makes the Fed a mix of private and public banking. Commercial banks hold shares in each of the reserve banks. As shareholders, they elect 6 of the 9 regional directors. So while it's largely a governmental organization, ownership and influence from private banking is certainly present.
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