5 ms·

Why are they bad ideas? I took the SAT and GRE for undergraduate and graduate schools respectively and neither was worthwhile preparation for anything I studied

by memexy 6y ago

Why are they bad ideas? I took the SAT and GRE for undergraduate and graduate schools respectively and neither was worthwhile preparation for anything I studied. If we want to put up barriers to entry then I think we can find better and more predictive ways than measuring general pattern matching skills with the SAT and GRE.

xvedejas 6y ago
To quote Scott Aaronson: Admissions to the top US universities—and hence, most chances for social advancement in the US—will henceforth be based entirely on shifting and nebulous criteria that rich, well-connected kids and their parents spend most of their lives figuring out, rather than merely mostly based on such criteria. The last side door for smart noncomformist kids is now being slammed shut.
- vkou 6y ago
  And to quote someone on HN: Colleges, as insitutions, care about progressive, equality of opportunity values. Those nebulous criteria will coalesce to produce roughly the same outcomes that they currently do.
  - jbay808 6y ago
    Will they? They might adjust their admission picks until e.g. aggregate ethnic/racial admission stats look the same as before, but at the same time picking more of the rich, well-connected black/other minority kids and fewer of the poor but hardworking ones.
    - memexy 6y ago
      How many brilliant poor kids do they choose now?
      - jbay808 6y ago
        Some? I think the assumption implicit in this thread of the conversation is that scoring well on the SATs is a way for brilliant poor kids to compete with rich well-connected kids.
        memexy 6y ago
        Yes. I understand this is the assumption but why is this the assumption? I can imagine poor kids doing just as well if not better without artificial barriers to entry like the SAT and GRE. For some reason everyone is assuming these tests are "good" and "meritocratic" but I don't see it. Everyone seems to assume there need to be tests and no one is wondering what happens when there are no tests. I suspect no one is wondering because without tests people have to face some harsh truths about economic and social class structures that most people in the US like to pretend do not exist. If these tests were about meritocracy then they would be enforced without exceptions and rich kids wouldn't be able to buy their way into their favorite schools like they do now after their parents make a generous donation. The existence of the test does not matter if you're rich enough so the argument about meritocracy rings hollow.
        sct202 6y ago
        Poor kids aren't going to have the resources to compete as equitably on extracurriculars. A kid in a wealthy school might be able to host a fundraiser for charity and raise thousands of dollars easily, while a kid at a poor school would be able to raise only a fraction of that. That poor student is also going to have more trouble showing excellence in art/sports/intellectual hobbies if their parents aren't able to pay or take time off to send them off to competitions. The schools might be adjusting for the difficulty, but they'll be doing it in a very non-transparent way.
        memexy 6y ago
        > Poor kids aren't going to have the resources to compete as equitably on extracurriculars. Yes, that's my point. Given fewer learning opportunities poor kids end up at a disadvantage even though the next Einstein is more than likely somewhere in a poor neighborhood. The SAT might be a good way to find this person but it would be better if we required a standardized minimum from everyone and helped them as much as possible to achieve those minimum standards. That way the next Einstein wouldn't be like finding a needle in haystack with very poor objective measures of learning potential (Einstein himself being famously unfit for his own educational system based on standard measures of the time).
- beaner 6y ago
  It reminds me of a section of Thomas Sowell's book Discrimination and Disparities. It was talking about automatic background checks for applicants at businesses. Some people wanted such processes to be illegal, on the grounds that they were supposedly racist. In reality, automatic (i.e. indiscriminate) background checks actually resulted in more blacks being hired. Even if the local black population had a higher or much higher percentage of people with bad marks on background checks, being able to screen them out and allow those blacks with no bad marks to apply was made easy. Without automatic background checks, employers fell back on their own biases, resulting in fewer blacks being hired. The SAT is like an automatic background check. Without this indiscriminate screening, the schools have more ability to discriminate based on biases.
  - Balgair 6y ago
    Credit checks had a similar impact for minority and disadvantaged communities. Before, if you wanted to get a mortgage or a car loan, the bank would assess you based on a number of factors. Many banks explicitly used race as a criteria for denial. Now, with near instant credit checks, race has been removed as an explicit criteria, rightfully leading to much higher rates of loans and mortgages for minority and disadvantaged communities. Are credit checks anywhere close to reliable or fair? Can you correlate race based on zip code or other factors? Yes, these methods are not anywhere close to 'good enough'. But they are miles ahead of the explicit racism that preceded these form of financial product applications.
- Upvoter33 6y ago
  Eh, this kind of "the sky is falling" argument doesn't hold much water to me. So, some "smart nonconformist kid" doesn't get into Harvard. Is that the end of the world? Larry Page went to Michigan, Brin to Maryland - they did fine. There are a lot of great public schools out there. Talented people like that aren't getting locked out of anything. A much bigger problem in education starts much earlier. If your parents don't provide a stable and education-leaning home life, or you live in a school district where safety is a bigger concern than educational quality, well, social mobility becomes a lot harder then. These are some hard problems, but reach way beyond education, into the social safety net and beyond. Guaranteeing that a bright kid who is not born into the best circumstances gets a fair shot at life is still a work in progress, but has little to do with whether they get into Harvard or MIT.
  - govg 6y ago
    That's really not the argument though is it? Saying "so what if someone are left out of X, Y is a comparable alternative" doesn't change the fact that X is being shut out. If you remove these "objective" measures, it starts being reliant on "holistic factors", and feels like this inherently gives an advantage to well off kids whose parents can send them on different summer schools or labs or whatever. Harvard (and the Ivy league) still maintains a reputation and the industry still does care about it (especially in liberal arts / banking etc), so these fields will reduce in accessibility to those who can't develop "holistic skills". The other problem you point to is very real, but that's independent of the issue currently being discussed in this post.
Fezzik 6y ago
I am hard pressed to think of better methods to fairly and uniformly measure if person A is more qualified for college than person B. There has to be something to differentiate, as objectively as possible, between candidates. And, while not perfect, standardized tests fit the bill. I, for one, find standardized tests far more stomach-able as barriers to entry to a university than the exclusive whims of administrators attempting to gauge the qualities of applicants. Universities just need to do a good job of weighting the exams - I had lackluster LSAT scores, though not awful, but wrote an amazing law school entry essay and had a unique background: AmeriCorps, ski bum, tutor, etc... that catapulted me in to law school. Entirely removing any type of exam from the college entry process just seems antithetical to what college is about. Edit: a word.
- memexy 6y ago
  Why aren't high school class grades enough? If we want predictive measures then why not make the preparation for college the actual measure instead of tacking it on at the end as another exam. I can see it being useful for people who don't go through the traditional path and need to prove that they have the equivalent knowledge of a typical American high schooler but otherwise I really think there is no value in these tests.
  - CamperBob2 6y ago
    Because there's nothing even remotely standardized about high school education. A kid growing up in Seattle learns about evolution, while a kid growing up in small-town Oklahoma learns that Jesus rode a dinosaur to work. Cultural differences aside, a student who graduated #1 in a class of 50 probably enjoyed a fraction of the learning opportunities available to a child who graduated #12 of 500 at a larger school. These are the problems that standardized tests were supposed to solve. Eliminate the tests, fine, but you'd better have an adequate replacement for them in mind.
    - memexy 6y ago
      I'm not arguing for their elimination. I'm sharing anecdotal evidence that they weren't useful for me and probably people like me who got an adequate education and had access to a local community college and a library. Re: uneven distribution of education. This is the fundamental problem and standardized tests don't actually address the root cause. We really shouldn't be confused about what skills and concepts people need to learn up until high school and the rigor with which they need to learn them. Addressing this confusion is a hard problem so post high school standardized tests end up being the band aid. We can keep the tests and work to address the underlying root causes for uneven educational outcomes. Test preparation industry is essentially a form of tax on something that we should have democratized by now.
WalterBright 6y ago
The SAT is an objective measurement. By dispensing with it, all the other measures are subjective. This means that it leaves the administration free to admit whoever they please, based on any agenda.
- memexy 6y ago
  Are there any laws about SAT score requirements for school admission? Because if there aren't then the administrators are not obligated by any rules/laws for objective measures. If that's the case then they are free currently as well. No law means no actual requirement to abide by any rules that reduces freedom in their decision making process.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    The SAT scores open the colleges to lawsuits that they are discriminating.
    - memexy 6y ago
      Do you have a list of such suits and success stories that ended in favor of the poor student?
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]

by memexy 6y ago

xvedejas 6y ago

To quote Scott Aaronson: Admissions to the top US universities—and hence, most chances for social advancement in the US—will henceforth be based entirely on shifting and nebulous criteria that rich, well-connected kids and their parents spend most of their lives figuring out, rather than merely mostly based on such criteria. The last side door for smart noncomformist kids is now being slammed shut.

vkou 6y ago
And to quote someone on HN: Colleges, as insitutions, care about progressive, equality of opportunity values. Those nebulous criteria will coalesce to produce roughly the same outcomes that they currently do.
- jbay808 6y ago
  Will they? They might adjust their admission picks until e.g. aggregate ethnic/racial admission stats look the same as before, but at the same time picking more of the rich, well-connected black/other minority kids and fewer of the poor but hardworking ones.
  - memexy 6y ago
    How many brilliant poor kids do they choose now?
    - jbay808 6y ago
      Some? I think the assumption implicit in this thread of the conversation is that scoring well on the SATs is a way for brilliant poor kids to compete with rich well-connected kids.
      - memexy 6y ago
        Yes. I understand this is the assumption but why is this the assumption? I can imagine poor kids doing just as well if not better without artificial barriers to entry like the SAT and GRE. For some reason everyone is assuming these tests are "good" and "meritocratic" but I don't see it. Everyone seems to assume there need to be tests and no one is wondering what happens when there are no tests. I suspect no one is wondering because without tests people have to face some harsh truths about economic and social class structures that most people in the US like to pretend do not exist. If these tests were about meritocracy then they would be enforced without exceptions and rich kids wouldn't be able to buy their way into their favorite schools like they do now after their parents make a generous donation. The existence of the test does not matter if you're rich enough so the argument about meritocracy rings hollow.
        sct202 6y ago
        Poor kids aren't going to have the resources to compete as equitably on extracurriculars. A kid in a wealthy school might be able to host a fundraiser for charity and raise thousands of dollars easily, while a kid at a poor school would be able to raise only a fraction of that. That poor student is also going to have more trouble showing excellence in art/sports/intellectual hobbies if their parents aren't able to pay or take time off to send them off to competitions. The schools might be adjusting for the difficulty, but they'll be doing it in a very non-transparent way.
        memexy 6y ago
        > Poor kids aren't going to have the resources to compete as equitably on extracurriculars. Yes, that's my point. Given fewer learning opportunities poor kids end up at a disadvantage even though the next Einstein is more than likely somewhere in a poor neighborhood. The SAT might be a good way to find this person but it would be better if we required a standardized minimum from everyone and helped them as much as possible to achieve those minimum standards. That way the next Einstein wouldn't be like finding a needle in haystack with very poor objective measures of learning potential (Einstein himself being famously unfit for his own educational system based on standard measures of the time).
beaner 6y ago
It reminds me of a section of Thomas Sowell's book Discrimination and Disparities. It was talking about automatic background checks for applicants at businesses. Some people wanted such processes to be illegal, on the grounds that they were supposedly racist. In reality, automatic (i.e. indiscriminate) background checks actually resulted in more blacks being hired. Even if the local black population had a higher or much higher percentage of people with bad marks on background checks, being able to screen them out and allow those blacks with no bad marks to apply was made easy. Without automatic background checks, employers fell back on their own biases, resulting in fewer blacks being hired. The SAT is like an automatic background check. Without this indiscriminate screening, the schools have more ability to discriminate based on biases.
- Balgair 6y ago
  Credit checks had a similar impact for minority and disadvantaged communities. Before, if you wanted to get a mortgage or a car loan, the bank would assess you based on a number of factors. Many banks explicitly used race as a criteria for denial. Now, with near instant credit checks, race has been removed as an explicit criteria, rightfully leading to much higher rates of loans and mortgages for minority and disadvantaged communities. Are credit checks anywhere close to reliable or fair? Can you correlate race based on zip code or other factors? Yes, these methods are not anywhere close to 'good enough'. But they are miles ahead of the explicit racism that preceded these form of financial product applications.
Upvoter33 6y ago
Eh, this kind of "the sky is falling" argument doesn't hold much water to me. So, some "smart nonconformist kid" doesn't get into Harvard. Is that the end of the world? Larry Page went to Michigan, Brin to Maryland - they did fine. There are a lot of great public schools out there. Talented people like that aren't getting locked out of anything. A much bigger problem in education starts much earlier. If your parents don't provide a stable and education-leaning home life, or you live in a school district where safety is a bigger concern than educational quality, well, social mobility becomes a lot harder then. These are some hard problems, but reach way beyond education, into the social safety net and beyond. Guaranteeing that a bright kid who is not born into the best circumstances gets a fair shot at life is still a work in progress, but has little to do with whether they get into Harvard or MIT.
- govg 6y ago
  That's really not the argument though is it? Saying "so what if someone are left out of X, Y is a comparable alternative" doesn't change the fact that X is being shut out. If you remove these "objective" measures, it starts being reliant on "holistic factors", and feels like this inherently gives an advantage to well off kids whose parents can send them on different summer schools or labs or whatever. Harvard (and the Ivy league) still maintains a reputation and the industry still does care about it (especially in liberal arts / banking etc), so these fields will reduce in accessibility to those who can't develop "holistic skills". The other problem you point to is very real, but that's independent of the issue currently being discussed in this post.

Fezzik 6y ago

I am hard pressed to think of better methods to fairly and uniformly measure if person A is more qualified for college than person B. There has to be something to differentiate, as objectively as possible, between candidates. And, while not perfect, standardized tests fit the bill. I, for one, find standardized tests far more stomach-able as barriers to entry to a university than the exclusive whims of administrators attempting to gauge the qualities of applicants. Universities just need to do a good job of weighting the exams - I had lackluster LSAT scores, though not awful, but wrote an amazing law school entry essay and had a unique background: AmeriCorps, ski bum, tutor, etc... that catapulted me in to law school. Entirely removing any type of exam from the college entry process just seems antithetical to what college is about. Edit: a word.

memexy 6y ago
Why aren't high school class grades enough? If we want predictive measures then why not make the preparation for college the actual measure instead of tacking it on at the end as another exam. I can see it being useful for people who don't go through the traditional path and need to prove that they have the equivalent knowledge of a typical American high schooler but otherwise I really think there is no value in these tests.
- CamperBob2 6y ago
  Because there's nothing even remotely standardized about high school education. A kid growing up in Seattle learns about evolution, while a kid growing up in small-town Oklahoma learns that Jesus rode a dinosaur to work. Cultural differences aside, a student who graduated #1 in a class of 50 probably enjoyed a fraction of the learning opportunities available to a child who graduated #12 of 500 at a larger school. These are the problems that standardized tests were supposed to solve. Eliminate the tests, fine, but you'd better have an adequate replacement for them in mind.
  - memexy 6y ago
    I'm not arguing for their elimination. I'm sharing anecdotal evidence that they weren't useful for me and probably people like me who got an adequate education and had access to a local community college and a library. Re: uneven distribution of education. This is the fundamental problem and standardized tests don't actually address the root cause. We really shouldn't be confused about what skills and concepts people need to learn up until high school and the rigor with which they need to learn them. Addressing this confusion is a hard problem so post high school standardized tests end up being the band aid. We can keep the tests and work to address the underlying root causes for uneven educational outcomes. Test preparation industry is essentially a form of tax on something that we should have democratized by now.

WalterBright 6y ago

The SAT is an objective measurement. By dispensing with it, all the other measures are subjective. This means that it leaves the administration free to admit whoever they please, based on any agenda.

memexy 6y ago
Are there any laws about SAT score requirements for school admission? Because if there aren't then the administrators are not obligated by any rules/laws for objective measures. If that's the case then they are free currently as well. No law means no actual requirement to abide by any rules that reduces freedom in their decision making process.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  The SAT scores open the colleges to lawsuits that they are discriminating.
  - memexy 6y ago
    Do you have a list of such suits and success stories that ended in favor of the poor student?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]