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Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

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

#851

Post by passivate »

rayiner wrote: post #642
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to high school in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and almost all of the top academic students in my class were first or second generation immigrants (mostly Indian) that had no interest in extra-curricular activities like sports, band, choir, or really anything. It's important that people, especially immigrants, can get into these schools based solely on their test scores and not have to do any of the other trivial…

The notion of a “well rounded student” who does music, art, and extra curricular activities, is a legacy of blue blood WASP culture. That is not to say that I think only test scores should matter. But the kinds of extracurriculars colleges value—in particular that they don’t value having a job or working in the farm—smacks of old money ideals.

If these colleges don't value what you bring, why apply to those colleges? For many areas of study, we have amazing and relatively inexpensive access to instruction/training/knowledge - if that is one's goal. If ones goal is simply to get trained for a job/industry - then colleges are probably not a good fit either.

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

#852

Post by hn_99 »

jp0d wrote: post #537
shmde wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Mathematic…

>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.

MIT OCW is absolutely amazing, I've learned a lot from there as well.

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

#853

Post by tcmart14 »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #757
davesque wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course the real tragedy is that we fixate so much on college This is what gets me. The whole concept of college, and especially selective, high profile colleges such as Harvard, MIT, etc., seems antiquated and almost entirely manufactured at this point. It's artificially crafted scarcity designed to create a market and brand. I feel the true, primary function of these institutions is to give the rich and powerfu…

> I feel the true, primary function of these institutions is to give the rich and powerful a means to identify each other and their respective pedigrees. That has been true for a long time. And before then, the primary function of those institutions was training ministers. Joking aside, there's lots of evidence (assembled in a book like The Cult of Smart [1]) that the effects of education are saturated in developed c…

The VP of Global Operations where I work who has his undergrad in Mechanical Engineering from Harvard and MBA from Dartmouth will tell you, all those schools bought him over a public institutions was a network for after he graduated.

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

#854

Post by lupire »

a-dub wrote: post #808
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…

i mean... integrals are weird. there's a whole slew of ways of doing them and usually there's a handful of techniques that are taught for a handful of integrals of specific forms and then those show up on tests with the forms sometimes slightly hidden. how do you know it wasn't just forms and techniques you were unfamiliar with? any math you're unfamiliar with can appear as complexity for the sake of complexity.

Part of the point is that pointless trivia is on the curriculum. Math is usually the most immune of all subjects.

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

#855

Post by Stupulous »

aj7 wrote: post #613
davesque wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course the real tragedy is that we fixate so much on college This is what gets me. The whole concept of college, and especially selective, high profile colleges such as Harvard, MIT, etc., seems antiquated and almost entirely manufactured at this point. It's artificially crafted scarcity designed to create a market and brand. I feel the true, primary function of these institutions is to give the rich and powerfu…

No no no. The thesis topics are in graduate schools are more cutting edge, and the opportunity to interact with real science as an undergraduate are invaluable. I would tend to agree that excelling at a second tier university with a comprehensive program is an acceptable start. It generally gets you to a higher level. Competitiveness is about speed. Anyone can look something up. It’s about knowing things right off th…

We did lockdowns and mask mandates and rapidly created and distributed a vaccine. I don't think the US response was perfect, but I find it unlikely that politicians' numeracy would reduce the death toll by a further 80% when we've already picked the low-hanging fruit.

Are there specific shortcomings that you think would account for that gap?

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

#856

Post by Stupulous »

chii wrote: post #831
stjohnswarts wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a trade-off. I'd rather live in a democracy and take my chances with Covid-19 than live under an authoritarian regime. Even authoritarians are correct at least twice a day.

> live in a democracy and take my chances with Covid-19 than live under an authoritarian regime. that's a straw man false dichotomy. It's not mutually exclusive. Just because trump and his administration handled it poorly, doesn't mean it can't be handled well under a democracy. Look at new zealand and australia - they handled it fairly well.

I think it's an appropriate reply to someone specifically holding up China's COVID response as an example of the right answer.

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

#857

Post by TheRealNGenius »

userbinator wrote: post #678
strikelaserclaw wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder why these asian countries aren't doing laps around USA or other western countries if they were learning calculus in pre school.

Look at where the design and manufacturing skills (especially electronics) went...

I don't know the answer to this and hence, don't know what this is trying to imply.

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

#858

Post by fdgsdfogijq »

alskdjflaskjdhf wrote: post #778
frankchn wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

This honestly looks perfectly reasonable to me. It's obviously far harder than the SAT math section (which isn't saying much since SAT math is a bit of a joke), but the questions look completely fair and not at all like they're trying to trick or screw the student. Makes the comment upthread that started this come across as just more racist prejudices about China, unless the commenter has something to back up their c…

very odd that you called my post racist

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

#859

Post by cauthon »

alskdjflaskjdhf wrote: post #778
frankchn wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

This honestly looks perfectly reasonable to me. It's obviously far harder than the SAT math section (which isn't saying much since SAT math is a bit of a joke), but the questions look completely fair and not at all like they're trying to trick or screw the student. Makes the comment upthread that started this come across as just more racist prejudices about China, unless the commenter has something to back up their c…

Yeah the SAT and the GRE suffer from the same problem - they’re meant to be taken by everyone, so the math is made basic and the non-STEM folks aren’t penalized when looking at total score.

Completely agree regarding the Gaokao sample. This all looks like it should be well within the means of a high school senior.

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

#860

Post by Aeolun »

chii wrote: post #815
30829984 wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP but I am an abnormally good "tester." It was always easy for me to see what the questions were asking for and could make a go of anything multiple choice. I'm also good at writing essays. It does not make me smart, it makes my abilities especially suited to standardized tests.

Being able to infer information fast, being able to write essays well, etc, are signs of good intelligence and high cognitive capability. There's no abnormality here i can see. Your score reflects your real ability.

If you cannot solve the same problems given an open ended question, is it real ability? There is definitely something there, but I’m not sure I could be proud of it.
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