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 had to somehow do a bunch of random things to look competitive on paper.
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.
This thread is filled with people arguing false dichotomies: "test scores" vs. "fancy extra-curriculars" or "rich experiences" vs. "working class experiences."
I recently saw one child into college, and have another on the way. I've spoken to many admissions officers, counselors, and similar folks making admissions choices for public and private universities.
To a one, they all claim to be looking for two things: (1) students who will succeed at their university, and (2) a diverse range of students to avoid a monoculture.
This means they try to look at the "whole student." For some students, that means academics and test scores to show academic prowess. For others, it's working summers to pay for their college to show it's a personally meaningful step for them. For others, it's being a primary caregiver to siblings or parents while still meeting college requirements to show grit and determination. For others, it's demonstrating consistent progress in pursuing a passion (e.g., volunteering or music or art) with a trajectory that continues through college.
Admission officers say they want a student body comprised of all of the above, and that's how they get the diverse range of students to create a dynamic learning environment.
Some of the least interesting students are "box checkers" who have a bunch of disconnected extra-curriculars that don't show passion, direction, or a proclivity towards success. If a student defines "success" as "getting into college," then what will they do once they get there? Probably flounder.
Test scores can be a useful data point towards determining collegiate success, but it certainly won't be the only one used. Nor will extra-curriculars or any other single factor.
The single biggest piece of advice for any applying student: create a narrative that shows how your activities (whatever they are) demonstrate why you will be a successful student that achieves your major-related goals. Your grades, scores, work life, home life, interests, and personal experiences should all be connected to show you are thoughtful, motivated, driven, and have your shit together. Do that, and you'll have the best chance of success at most admissions offices.
Bingo. I came from an economically challenged background with a very chaotic family life. Grades were impossible to keep up let alone extra curricular activities. Tests were how I was able to demonstrate my academic potential.
I gamed the SAT by "studying". It took an SAT book checked out from the library and a few hours of practice. The SAT is not particularly hard for a bright student of any background that puts some effort into it. And these days there are more free resources available than ever before.
I get the feeling policies to remove standardized tests are set by those who have no idea what real intelligence and achievement is.
Seriously, is there no talk about how unfair the notion of extra-curricular activities is in the US? It is one of these things that gave me a major culture shock moving into the US. Things like giving an advantage to people that have so many hours of volunteer work feels a really blatant way to give an unfair advantage to folks that are already way privileged and over represented.
it's very likely that i would have never gone to college had there not been an option to test-in. instead i got offers from several top tier institutions based on test scores, essays, work experience and the equivalent of a ged alone.
as such, i'm immensely thankful that the route exists and believe that it should continue to exist as part of a variety of routes for prospective students to demonstrate their aptitude, grit and readiness for higher education.
just as exams and associated scores should not discourage anyone from applying, neither should grade averages or k-12 school experiences. the application process should provide those with all manner of experiences and strengths to make cases that suit their situations best.
I'm not against standardized tests. What I am against is a test ran by a private company as a barrier of entry into a public institution. Private schools who want to require SAT/ACT, fine, they are private institutions, I see no issue them requiring a test administered by a private company. University of North Carolina, eh, can't we have a test ran by a public institution as a barrier of entry into a public institution?
There are intelligent people though that don't do well on standardized tests (or at least don't get top tier results). I agree that standardized testing is a good metric to get a general idea of aptitude, but I think it hugely fails in appreciating people who are able to solve 'non-standardized' problems. And those are actually the people who should be placed in top institutions
I used to work for a place that did the summer fancy extra-curriculars.
Basically, think a very very fun summer camp, BUT we would package in X service features, one per week. This was a win win. Parent's would pay because kid could put the stories of painting the walls in X town on the application, or cleaning up Y pollution on a beach. And the rest of the times the kids could have fun and learn cool stuff (I'm being vague because I liked the program even though you had to have good money to go).
I didn't see your point in the beginning, but as I read this thread I realized how much pressure we are putting on these kids. Even for kids whos parents can afford the extra curricular stuff, it just seems bonkers to me how much they have to do to "stand out". I don't know where I am going with this, but just wanted to say this is too much pressure.
May I ask on what basis you were against them? Was it just ignorance of the facts (like the canard that they just measure wealth), or did you change your opinion of something subjective?
I imagine that test preparation is far more accessible when you have well funded schools and parents who can cover any additional tutoring/preparation. For me the game changer was community college, it gave me a second chance at a price I could afford and with a clean slate I earned a 3.9 GPA and got into a top 10 engineering program.
They literally wrote again, it's a multiple factor process. Why is there this concept "test vs no test"? No one expects meritless acceptance to anything.
Using that as a metric for society is exactly why we have out of control poverty, drug abuse, and homelessness.
If you were able to get good grades in school it wasn't because of your efforts, as a child and teen your brain is largely programmed by the community and environment you grow in. There are no gifted children, only those with educated parents that started early. This is becoming an ever more common theme, especially of kids with teachers for parents whom make too little yet know the systems enough to know exactly how to get their kid past the trite systems created for class warfare.
The solution is to defund universities and stop this elitist nonsense. Just like COVID has shown we don't need to show up to the office, we don't need universities either. We are a better society without their control and political agendas. There is little of value that isn't better done by a YouTube video today.
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 productive and happy human beings. This change is significant but affects less than one percent of the population each year..
>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.
> 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 powerful a means to identify each other and their respective pedigrees. Sure, they throw the unwashed a few bones and let them take home some degrees. But what do you actually get for your effort and money? I can't believe the competitiveness is justified by an actual difference in the quality of the experience or the person that results from it.
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.
Kind of the same. I was too poor to participate in extracurriculars. I was lucky to have clothes on my back and food on the table and electricity to do my homework and run my hacked together computer. I still graduated valedictorian. No sports, no music, nothing. I was on the chess team as a senior because we moved closer to the school, and I was able to walk to school in only 15 minutes which was huge for me. I was already a senior at that point, and it felt silly to start joining extracurriculars at that point. I had more time than some of the rich kids who were in everything in addition to keeping their grades top-notch. Between my great SAT scores and being valedictorian, I was able to go to great university that I might not have been able to attend otherwise.
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 around. I (a graduate engineering student at the time) couldn't identify any trick or educational point to the complexity, only the malice of the people giving the test.
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).
I have a hard time seeing US standardized testing as "better." All of my Korean peers who have studied for the CSAT or Suneung laugh at how easy the SAT/ACT math section is in comparison. K-12 education in the US is years behind at this point from many Asian countries. The fact that we are debating whether standardized testing for colleges and prestigious high schools (Lowell in SF, Stuyvesant in NYC, etc) should be banned is just laughable and only sets us further back.
As someone who uses to be very good at this kind of "math" in high school...it's not even real math. It's a bunch of teenagers being tested on how good they are at being poor man's computers. And I don't just mean standardized tests - almost the entirety of the high school math "education" is sad.
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.
I really don't understand how many tests still allow trick questions like that when we have so much data that indicates that it's an awful metric. To me it indicates incompetence of the test creators.
sounds painful, the only thing I could think of would be to test the precision of transcribing step by step. Sounds like the surface area for loss of precision is wider when you just add the noise of messy figures into a problem. A clever student could just replace the messy figures with constant variables that are shorter to write of course and at the very end substitute everything back to evaluate what comes out in the end.
This is just so beautifully written it brings a tear to my eye. It explains their rationale, points to evidence, acknowledges shortcomings or gaps in knowledge, and shows empathy for those affected. Worth reading just for its pedagogical value, plus it's on an important topic near and dear to many hearts.
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. (For the record, I had more going for me than just tests, but having a more objective way to compare myself to people across the country was very helpful, since I could easily attribute things to my area being backwards).
Removing admission tests was a huge slap in the face to social mobility out of the middle class. To reiterate other commenters, admission tests are the hardest part of the process to game and the least biased towards things like having a tiger parent, while being the most predictive indicator of success in college. Wealthy and well connected people can easily game extracurriculars and essays, and HS grades are vastly inflated at this point across the country. That pretty much only leaves standardized tests for your average kid who isn’t being deliberately primed by their environment to stand out for selective college admissions.
I hope more colleges are brave enough to reinstitute standardized test requirements. I know they want to do “class building” by hitting minimum representations across many groups (including legacy, but I don’t think that’s as big at MIT), and not requiring test scores makes it easier, but for institutions to keep up high standards and continue to give opportunities to kids, I really think it’s most beneficial to require scores.
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.
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.
Major factor reduced to a bullet point: they acknowledge the existence of other testing and evaluation frameworks, but that those are even worse distributed in socioeconomic access than the SAT
Thats pragmatic, and sobering, since people hoping for more diverse representation in admissions are faulting the SAT pipeline itself (access to study prep, study materials, wording of questions in the test) but the known alternatives are more niche exacerbating the outcome
I don't think people appreciate the radical nature of the attacks on standardized testing. Standardized tests have been critical to higher education and the professions for almost a century. Virtually everyone in an elite academic, government, scientific, legal, medical, or financial role attained that role based, in part, on the SAT and similar exams like the LSAT or MCAT. Not only them, but everyone who taught and mentored them, and everyone who taught and mentored those people. If the SAT is not predictive, as some claim, we've been selecting our elites and professionals the wrong way for three generations.
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, then sort from top ranked to the bottom ranked filling open positions at universities. This is fair, the only bias is ability, and it removes all legacy, wealth and athletics factors.
All MIT students, regardless of intended major, must pass two semesters of calculus, plus two semesters of calculus-based physics, as part of our General Institute Requirements. ... There is no path through MIT that does not rest on a rigorous foundation in mathematics, and we need to be sure our students are ready for that as soon as they arrive.
For a period in the 1980s-1990s, you could argue that calculus was not essential in computer science. It was all discrete math for a while. But then came machine learning, and it's all about hill climbing and gradients now.
Footnote 21 (containing "the most important components to demonstrate academic readiness in the absence of SAT/ACT scores would be other standardized exams") is quite telling.
I was a crappy student in HS and the only good thing about me was my SAT scores. They got me into a good school. I ended up as a highly ranked engineer at Microsoft. My heart sank when people started not using the SAT. I hope this becomes a trend.
I have also read that it is really really hard to show that tutoring pays off for the SAT. I think the SAT is the fairest part of the admissions package.
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.
My brother-in-law was ill-prepared for technical coursework because he had no choice but to attend a shitty (undemanding, backwoods, rubber-stamp) high school in Minnesota. He got talked into vo-tech training for transmission repair.
Years later, his weaknesses were evaluated at a Community College. He went to work on a one-year remedial skills plan. Then he was admitted to a state University. Four years later got a chemistry degree with honors. IMO it's likely he'd have succeeded at MIT as well. The man was a born techie.
Moral: shitty schools are everybody's loss. And we've continued to lose a lot because some of them are designed that way. Slyly, deliberately, officially sanctioned sly.
I would like to know how much of an “improvement” in outcomes these tests bring.
From another article linked in the one from this discussion:
“In short: Our research has shown that, in most cases, we cannot reliably predict students will do well at MIT unless we consider standardized test results alongside grades, coursework, and other factors. These findings are statistically robust and stable over time, and hold when you control for socioeconomic factors and look across demographic groups. And the math component of the testing turns out to be most important.”
There seems to be a lot of hand-waving in that quote.
If the improvement is only marginal, we really need to ask, as a society, if the improvement is worth all the money, potential for cheating, angst, and outright conflict that come with maintaining these tests.
If we want better talent, we can invest more money and energy into building better schools and paying better salaries to teachers. If we want more diversity, we can target vulnerable communities specifically.
The test prep industry is milking families that care about (and might even be obsessed with) education. It encourages folks to think of the whole system as a rat race, and leads to selfishness and hoarding of knowledge.
If we did away with standardized testing and spent more money on schools and teachers, we could cultivate a perception of education as a public good. It would be less about who has more resources and more about raising the tide and giving more people a fair shot.
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?
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.
I was kind of hoping that the inline citations would lead to how they reached their conclusions. But it's just more "our research shows" conclusions without the meat underneath. Do they publish their methodology anywhere?
(It's pretty funny that the first red highlight hover is explaining that you can hover over red highlights to see more information. The only people reading it are the ones who no longer need to be told.)
[+] [-] outlace|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sparrc|4 years ago|reply
That's a lot cheaper than dedicating my working summer to smarmy volunteer/extra-curricular projects.
[+] [-] agar|4 years ago|reply
I recently saw one child into college, and have another on the way. I've spoken to many admissions officers, counselors, and similar folks making admissions choices for public and private universities.
To a one, they all claim to be looking for two things: (1) students who will succeed at their university, and (2) a diverse range of students to avoid a monoculture.
This means they try to look at the "whole student." For some students, that means academics and test scores to show academic prowess. For others, it's working summers to pay for their college to show it's a personally meaningful step for them. For others, it's being a primary caregiver to siblings or parents while still meeting college requirements to show grit and determination. For others, it's demonstrating consistent progress in pursuing a passion (e.g., volunteering or music or art) with a trajectory that continues through college.
Admission officers say they want a student body comprised of all of the above, and that's how they get the diverse range of students to create a dynamic learning environment.
Some of the least interesting students are "box checkers" who have a bunch of disconnected extra-curriculars that don't show passion, direction, or a proclivity towards success. If a student defines "success" as "getting into college," then what will they do once they get there? Probably flounder.
Test scores can be a useful data point towards determining collegiate success, but it certainly won't be the only one used. Nor will extra-curriculars or any other single factor.
The single biggest piece of advice for any applying student: create a narrative that shows how your activities (whatever they are) demonstrate why you will be a successful student that achieves your major-related goals. Your grades, scores, work life, home life, interests, and personal experiences should all be connected to show you are thoughtful, motivated, driven, and have your shit together. Do that, and you'll have the best chance of success at most admissions offices.
[+] [-] team_bacon|4 years ago|reply
I gamed the SAT by "studying". It took an SAT book checked out from the library and a few hours of practice. The SAT is not particularly hard for a bright student of any background that puts some effort into it. And these days there are more free resources available than ever before.
I get the feeling policies to remove standardized tests are set by those who have no idea what real intelligence and achievement is.
[+] [-] runarberg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a-dub|4 years ago|reply
as such, i'm immensely thankful that the route exists and believe that it should continue to exist as part of a variety of routes for prospective students to demonstrate their aptitude, grit and readiness for higher education.
just as exams and associated scores should not discourage anyone from applying, neither should grade averages or k-12 school experiences. the application process should provide those with all manner of experiences and strengths to make cases that suit their situations best.
[+] [-] tcmart14|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thedstrat|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onphonenow|4 years ago|reply
Basically, think a very very fun summer camp, BUT we would package in X service features, one per week. This was a win win. Parent's would pay because kid could put the stories of painting the walls in X town on the application, or cleaning up Y pollution on a beach. And the rest of the times the kids could have fun and learn cool stuff (I'm being vague because I liked the program even though you had to have good money to go).
[+] [-] dangle1|4 years ago|reply
OTOH, I test higher than my actual abilities in my opinion, and that was a relatively unfair advantage the test gave me.
[+] [-] tomatowurst|4 years ago|reply
standardized test is the only way to measure somebody on their aptitude for doing well like the LSAT.
yet somehow asian americans being discriminated at ivy leagues even with good standardized test score is not seen as systematic racism.
[+] [-] acchow|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newswasboring|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wutbrodo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Salgat|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] toreply2021|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] bannedbybros|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] devwastaken|4 years ago|reply
If you were able to get good grades in school it wasn't because of your efforts, as a child and teen your brain is largely programmed by the community and environment you grow in. There are no gifted children, only those with educated parents that started early. This is becoming an ever more common theme, especially of kids with teachers for parents whom make too little yet know the systems enough to know exactly how to get their kid past the trite systems created for class warfare.
The solution is to defund universities and stop this elitist nonsense. Just like COVID has shown we don't need to show up to the office, we don't need universities either. We are a better society without their control and political agendas. There is little of value that isn't better done by a YouTube video today.
[+] [-] femiagbabiaka|4 years ago|reply
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..
[+] [-] johnnyanmac|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] davesque|4 years ago|reply
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 powerful a means to identify each other and their respective pedigrees. Sure, they throw the unwashed a few bones and let them take home some degrees. But what do you actually get for your effort and money? I can't believe the competitiveness is justified by an actual difference in the quality of the experience or the person that results from it.
[+] [-] rayiner|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] stjohnswarts|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomkat0789|4 years ago|reply
EDIT: wording
[+] [-] gime_tree_fiddy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muh_gradle|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ken47|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fdgsdfogijq|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a-dub|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] wraptile|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jxramos|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mountain_Skies|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notacoward|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] opportune|4 years ago|reply
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. (For the record, I had more going for me than just tests, but having a more objective way to compare myself to people across the country was very helpful, since I could easily attribute things to my area being backwards).
Removing admission tests was a huge slap in the face to social mobility out of the middle class. To reiterate other commenters, admission tests are the hardest part of the process to game and the least biased towards things like having a tiger parent, while being the most predictive indicator of success in college. Wealthy and well connected people can easily game extracurriculars and essays, and HS grades are vastly inflated at this point across the country. That pretty much only leaves standardized tests for your average kid who isn’t being deliberately primed by their environment to stand out for selective college admissions.
I hope more colleges are brave enough to reinstitute standardized test requirements. I know they want to do “class building” by hitting minimum representations across many groups (including legacy, but I don’t think that’s as big at MIT), and not requiring test scores makes it easier, but for institutions to keep up high standards and continue to give opportunities to kids, I really think it’s most beneficial to require scores.
[+] [-] lightup|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] vmception|4 years ago|reply
Thats pragmatic, and sobering, since people hoping for more diverse representation in admissions are faulting the SAT pipeline itself (access to study prep, study materials, wording of questions in the test) but the known alternatives are more niche exacerbating the outcome
[+] [-] rayiner|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ecshafer|4 years ago|reply
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, then sort from top ranked to the bottom ranked filling open positions at universities. This is fair, the only bias is ability, and it removes all legacy, wealth and athletics factors.
[+] [-] Animats|4 years ago|reply
For a period in the 1980s-1990s, you could argue that calculus was not essential in computer science. It was all discrete math for a while. But then came machine learning, and it's all about hill climbing and gradients now.
[+] [-] bluenose69|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucidbee|4 years ago|reply
I have also read that it is really really hard to show that tutoring pays off for the SAT. I think the SAT is the fairest part of the admissions package.
[+] [-] QuikAccount|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8bitsrule|4 years ago|reply
Years later, his weaknesses were evaluated at a Community College. He went to work on a one-year remedial skills plan. Then he was admitted to a state University. Four years later got a chemistry degree with honors. IMO it's likely he'd have succeeded at MIT as well. The man was a born techie.
Moral: shitty schools are everybody's loss. And we've continued to lose a lot because some of them are designed that way. Slyly, deliberately, officially sanctioned sly.
[+] [-] ralmidani|4 years ago|reply
From another article linked in the one from this discussion:
“In short: Our research has shown that, in most cases, we cannot reliably predict students will do well at MIT unless we consider standardized test results alongside grades, coursework, and other factors. These findings are statistically robust and stable over time, and hold when you control for socioeconomic factors and look across demographic groups. And the math component of the testing turns out to be most important.”
There seems to be a lot of hand-waving in that quote.
If the improvement is only marginal, we really need to ask, as a society, if the improvement is worth all the money, potential for cheating, angst, and outright conflict that come with maintaining these tests.
If we want better talent, we can invest more money and energy into building better schools and paying better salaries to teachers. If we want more diversity, we can target vulnerable communities specifically.
The test prep industry is milking families that care about (and might even be obsessed with) education. It encourages folks to think of the whole system as a rat race, and leads to selfishness and hoarding of knowledge.
If we did away with standardized testing and spent more money on schools and teachers, we could cultivate a perception of education as a public good. It would be less about who has more resources and more about raising the tide and giving more people a fair shot.
[+] [-] diebeforei485|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ShaveTheTurtles|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WalterBright|4 years ago|reply
Bluntly, if one can't handle the stress of the SAT, then the stress of exams at a university like MIT is going to be overwhelming.
Exam week at Caltech was called "compression", and after the exams was "decompression". The moniker is not a joke.
[+] [-] peter303|4 years ago|reply
I likely would not get into MIT this decade this decade with my test score 1480.
[+] [-] Strilanc|4 years ago|reply
(It's pretty funny that the first red highlight hover is explaining that you can hover over red highlights to see more information. The only people reading it are the ones who no longer need to be told.)