6 ms·

Eliminating demonstrated interest seems to go against the whole Carnegie Mellon ethos. After all the motto is "My heart is in the work." Demonstrated interest

by nsnick 8y ago

Eliminating demonstrated interest seems to go against the whole Carnegie Mellon ethos. After all the motto is "My heart is in the work." Demonstrated interest was a way of admitting people who have passion for the subject and who may not have been admitted with grades or test scores alone. With this change, CMU will likely get more of the same applicants that all top tier universities get who just study for the SAT constantly instead of the kids who spend all their time programming or competing in robotics. The argument advanced seems to be that eliminating demonstrated interest makes the admissions process more equitable because wealthy parents will push their children into the activities CMU is looking for and will know how to demonstrate interest. The counter to this argument is that wealthy parents will always be able to game an adversarial process. Parents will just push their children to study for the SAT more and pay more for SAT test prep. Parents will just push their children to work more on grades and classwork instead of things the children actually want to do like robotics or programming.

mdorazio 8y ago
Given that this change seems to have been pushed by the Diversity team, I think they were probably finding that minority and female demographics were severely underrepresented in the demonstrated interest category and probably did much poorer in alumni interviews as well. Eliminating those factors makes it more likely that minority and female candidates will get in on general academic merit and then hopefully make the choice to pursue engineering once they get there. Basically, I'm reading this as a diversity play, not a rich/poor play. Whether it will actually work or not is another question that's hard to answer without seeing their data. I can pretty much guarantee that on the male/female side, though, demonstrated interest massively favors male applicants. Female students just aren't encouraged to do (or maybe don't have as much interest in) the kinds of things that impress admissions committees in that category, regardless of what they may end up wanting to study by the time they graduate.
- forapurpose 8y ago
  > I'm reading this as a diversity play, not a rich/poor play Is there a factual basis for this reading?
  - C4stor 8y ago
    "Diversity" related words are used thrice in the article, "inclusive" ones six times, but neither rich or poor related ones are even mentioned. Seems factual enough !
  - mdorazio 8y ago
    I'm not sure what you're asking. It says multiple times in this press release that they're trying to increase diversity. It leads with the first sentence "The mission of Carnegie Mellon University includes the cultivation of a diverse community." and then follows with "The goal is to provide a more equitable, level playing field where all segments of our applicant population have the same opportunity in the admission process." They want diverse students, which includes poorer students, but also includes underrepresented demographics (looks like male/female split is 55/45, and hispanic/latino and black numbers are small).
- wastedhours 8y ago
  It's worth being said that "rich/poor" (or, socioeconomic diversity) is usually a diversity metric HE is also tracked on, so it'd be rare to see an organisation take a stance that would also negatively affect that. Contextual recruitment (which they say they're moving to), is the current industry best practice in this regard of looking at the issue across most of these factors, so not sure it's favouring one characteristic over another.
mlevental 8y ago
how about we recognize education for what it is in this country: indoctrination and grooming for your role in the economy. to make it more relatable: the mission statements (ethos) from schools are exactly like company culture statements from tech ("don't be evil"); they're meaningless as far as the real purpose of the organization. CMU doesn't care about passion - it cares about bottom line and its bottom line is a function of donations/tuition/research funding (in the form of institution overhead). with the harvard asian personality thing, the nyc public schools shsat thing, and now this i wonder how is that people don't recognize all of this hand-wringing over affluence begetting affluence and "hacking" for what it is: band-aids on a broken system. we should decouple education (which is essential for being productive) from social selection. how? i don't know because all of this is so highly coupled that you'd need a phd in market design and non-linear optimization to even start unwinding the relationships. edit: i'm getting downvoted. when microsoft/google/uber/etc. speak from their ethos does anyone believe them? when fb last year released chat for children and claimed to be interested in helping kids or whatever did anyone believe them? what's the difference here? CMU doesn't even operate under the guise of a public service - it is a private institution after all.
- forapurpose 8y ago
  > we should decouple education (which is essential for being productive) from social selection. how? It seems straightforward: Lower the cost of education significantly. The reasons you cite are the reasons for the public universities in the US, AFAIK. The number one predictor of college education, IIRC, is parental wealth or income; education wasn't always this expensive.
  - mlevental 8y ago
    great. now fund public institutions better than private so excellent researchers have the tools and the compensation they need in order to work for them rather than privates. california seems to get it.
    - mdorazio 8y ago
      Excellent researchers does not equal good education for the broader student body. It's also not at all clear that increased funding leads to better educational outcomes or higher likelihood of landing a good job (the data is a bit old, but the divergence is clear here: [1]). Either way, education funding is just something that the US population is demonstrably not interested in. Very few people push for more taxes to pay for education, which is what it would take, leading to things like teachers needing to strike just to get low-class income. And outside of specific demographic groups we do not have a culture that encourages academic study from a young age like many other countries do. These are big socioeconomic problems that are going to take a generation or more to change even a little bit. [1] http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/30/Shocking-Chart-on-Tuition-vs-Earnings-for-College-Grads http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/30/Shocking-C...
dub 8y ago
I'm grateful that, when I applied to CMU, the process allowed admissions to recognize that I was a passionate achiever in many areas, including my chosen area of study. Jumping through some of the arbitrary hoops and doing the busywork of high school turned out not to be among my passions, so if I'd been evaluated purely based on GPA I'd have probably been passed over in favor of someone better at following rules and perhaps less of a creative and independent thinker. I ended up having quite a high QPA at CMU. I was the same person, but CMU and I turned out to be far better matched than high school and I. I'm sad to hear that the admissions process no longer has an appreciation for these kinds of good matches.
murph-almighty 8y ago
CMU alum (CIT '17) here. During orientation there's a 1-2 hour ceremony where you're effectively welcomed in to the college- think like a graduation but the inverse of it (the exact phrase is slipping my mind right now), where the president speaks along with a few students. The one point that stuck out to me from that was the then-president, Subra Suresh, mentioning that they hadn't admitted a single student who had gotten a 2400 on the SAT, though some had applied. It was implied that they weren't looking for test scores, but rather for people who had potential beyond checking statistical boxes. My main question from reading this is "if your applicants are consistently getting 700+ SATs by category, and you don't want them to demonstrate the things they do in their field that demonstrates their passion, then how do you differentiate them?"
- jlebar 8y ago
  Demonstrated interest in CMU isn't the same thing as demonstrated interest in STEM.
sjbase 8y ago
> wealthy parents will push their children into the activities CMU is looking for I had the same thought, but there may be more to it... they unfortunately left us speculating as to what findings about their admissions process led them to this change. Trying on a slightly fringe hypothesis: engineering has surpassed finance as the perceived get-insanely-rich discipline. So the top engineering schools are now more vulnerable to those who will pretend their "heart is in the work" but really just want to get on track to becoming Lord Voldemort (take your pick of real-world unscrupulous CEO). I have nothing against financial success being a motivator. But as a university, or as a manager for that matter, I'd want to filter out anyone for whom it's the only motivator. Put another way: a demonstrated interest requirement selects for intense drive/motivation of any kind. Maybe CMU is looking for a specific kind, e.g. intellectual curiosity. As an aside, agreed there will always be admissions gaming. But if the game is going to be broken, changing the rules periodically at least prevents the hacks from becoming too commoditized.
pitt1980 8y ago
idk, I've always been pretty skeptical of early decision programs what's the demo of kids that can commit to a private college before knowing what potential scholarship/aid packages are actually on the table?
jlebar 8y ago
> Eliminating demonstrated interest seems to go against the whole Carnegie Mellon ethos. After all the motto is "My heart is in the work." "Demonstrated interest" is a term of art in college admissions that refers to "demonstrated interest in attending a particular school". Things like "I interviewed with a CMU alum", "I sent letters to the admissions department about how much I <3 CMU", etc. (All of these are in TFA.) It doesn't refer to "demonstrated interest in STEM." TFA is not talking about ignoring demonstrated passion in STEM.

by nsnick 8y ago

mdorazio 8y ago

Given that this change seems to have been pushed by the Diversity team, I think they were probably finding that minority and female demographics were severely underrepresented in the demonstrated interest category and probably did much poorer in alumni interviews as well. Eliminating those factors makes it more likely that minority and female candidates will get in on general academic merit and then hopefully make the choice to pursue engineering once they get there. Basically, I'm reading this as a diversity play, not a rich/poor play. Whether it will actually work or not is another question that's hard to answer without seeing their data. I can pretty much guarantee that on the male/female side, though, demonstrated interest massively favors male applicants. Female students just aren't encouraged to do (or maybe don't have as much interest in) the kinds of things that impress admissions committees in that category, regardless of what they may end up wanting to study by the time they graduate.

forapurpose 8y ago
> I'm reading this as a diversity play, not a rich/poor play Is there a factual basis for this reading?
- C4stor 8y ago
  "Diversity" related words are used thrice in the article, "inclusive" ones six times, but neither rich or poor related ones are even mentioned. Seems factual enough !
- mdorazio 8y ago
  I'm not sure what you're asking. It says multiple times in this press release that they're trying to increase diversity. It leads with the first sentence "The mission of Carnegie Mellon University includes the cultivation of a diverse community." and then follows with "The goal is to provide a more equitable, level playing field where all segments of our applicant population have the same opportunity in the admission process." They want diverse students, which includes poorer students, but also includes underrepresented demographics (looks like male/female split is 55/45, and hispanic/latino and black numbers are small).
wastedhours 8y ago
It's worth being said that "rich/poor" (or, socioeconomic diversity) is usually a diversity metric HE is also tracked on, so it'd be rare to see an organisation take a stance that would also negatively affect that. Contextual recruitment (which they say they're moving to), is the current industry best practice in this regard of looking at the issue across most of these factors, so not sure it's favouring one characteristic over another.

mlevental 8y ago

how about we recognize education for what it is in this country: indoctrination and grooming for your role in the economy. to make it more relatable: the mission statements (ethos) from schools are exactly like company culture statements from tech ("don't be evil"); they're meaningless as far as the real purpose of the organization. CMU doesn't care about passion - it cares about bottom line and its bottom line is a function of donations/tuition/research funding (in the form of institution overhead). with the harvard asian personality thing, the nyc public schools shsat thing, and now this i wonder how is that people don't recognize all of this hand-wringing over affluence begetting affluence and "hacking" for what it is: band-aids on a broken system. we should decouple education (which is essential for being productive) from social selection. how? i don't know because all of this is so highly coupled that you'd need a phd in market design and non-linear optimization to even start unwinding the relationships. edit: i'm getting downvoted. when microsoft/google/uber/etc. speak from their ethos does anyone believe them? when fb last year released chat for children and claimed to be interested in helping kids or whatever did anyone believe them? what's the difference here? CMU doesn't even operate under the guise of a public service - it is a private institution after all.

forapurpose 8y ago
> we should decouple education (which is essential for being productive) from social selection. how? It seems straightforward: Lower the cost of education significantly. The reasons you cite are the reasons for the public universities in the US, AFAIK. The number one predictor of college education, IIRC, is parental wealth or income; education wasn't always this expensive.
- mlevental 8y ago
  great. now fund public institutions better than private so excellent researchers have the tools and the compensation they need in order to work for them rather than privates. california seems to get it.
  - mdorazio 8y ago
    Excellent researchers does not equal good education for the broader student body. It's also not at all clear that increased funding leads to better educational outcomes or higher likelihood of landing a good job (the data is a bit old, but the divergence is clear here: [1]). Either way, education funding is just something that the US population is demonstrably not interested in. Very few people push for more taxes to pay for education, which is what it would take, leading to things like teachers needing to strike just to get low-class income. And outside of specific demographic groups we do not have a culture that encourages academic study from a young age like many other countries do. These are big socioeconomic problems that are going to take a generation or more to change even a little bit. [1] http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/30/Shocking-Chart-on-Tuition-vs-Earnings-for-College-Grads http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/30/Shocking-C...

dub 8y ago

I'm grateful that, when I applied to CMU, the process allowed admissions to recognize that I was a passionate achiever in many areas, including my chosen area of study. Jumping through some of the arbitrary hoops and doing the busywork of high school turned out not to be among my passions, so if I'd been evaluated purely based on GPA I'd have probably been passed over in favor of someone better at following rules and perhaps less of a creative and independent thinker. I ended up having quite a high QPA at CMU. I was the same person, but CMU and I turned out to be far better matched than high school and I. I'm sad to hear that the admissions process no longer has an appreciation for these kinds of good matches.

murph-almighty 8y ago

CMU alum (CIT '17) here. During orientation there's a 1-2 hour ceremony where you're effectively welcomed in to the college- think like a graduation but the inverse of it (the exact phrase is slipping my mind right now), where the president speaks along with a few students. The one point that stuck out to me from that was the then-president, Subra Suresh, mentioning that they hadn't admitted a single student who had gotten a 2400 on the SAT, though some had applied. It was implied that they weren't looking for test scores, but rather for people who had potential beyond checking statistical boxes. My main question from reading this is "if your applicants are consistently getting 700+ SATs by category, and you don't want them to demonstrate the things they do in their field that demonstrates their passion, then how do you differentiate them?"

jlebar 8y ago
Demonstrated interest in CMU isn't the same thing as demonstrated interest in STEM.

sjbase 8y ago

> wealthy parents will push their children into the activities CMU is looking for I had the same thought, but there may be more to it... they unfortunately left us speculating as to what findings about their admissions process led them to this change. Trying on a slightly fringe hypothesis: engineering has surpassed finance as the perceived get-insanely-rich discipline. So the top engineering schools are now more vulnerable to those who will pretend their "heart is in the work" but really just want to get on track to becoming Lord Voldemort (take your pick of real-world unscrupulous CEO). I have nothing against financial success being a motivator. But as a university, or as a manager for that matter, I'd want to filter out anyone for whom it's the only motivator. Put another way: a demonstrated interest requirement selects for intense drive/motivation of any kind. Maybe CMU is looking for a specific kind, e.g. intellectual curiosity. As an aside, agreed there will always be admissions gaming. But if the game is going to be broken, changing the rules periodically at least prevents the hacks from becoming too commoditized.

pitt1980 8y ago

idk, I've always been pretty skeptical of early decision programs what's the demo of kids that can commit to a private college before knowing what potential scholarship/aid packages are actually on the table?

jlebar 8y ago

> Eliminating demonstrated interest seems to go against the whole Carnegie Mellon ethos. After all the motto is "My heart is in the work." "Demonstrated interest" is a term of art in college admissions that refers to "demonstrated interest in attending a particular school". Things like "I interviewed with a CMU alum", "I sent letters to the admissions department about how much I <3 CMU", etc. (All of these are in TFA.) It doesn't refer to "demonstrated interest in STEM." TFA is not talking about ignoring demonstrated passion in STEM.