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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 sh

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).
      - WalterBright 6y ago
        When I attended Caltech, I didn't notice any bias towards rich kids. The ones whose families I knew were all economically ordinary. None of the kids had a Porsche or Ferrari or BMW or anything expensive. Hal Finney had an ancient VW bug, and I had my 67 Mustang. Another friend bought a Chevette upon graduation with his own money. I was on financial aid myself.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      >Fifty-five percent of Harvard College students receive need-based scholarship aid, and the average grant this year is more than $53,000. https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance#:~:text=Undergraduate%20Cost%20And%20Financial%20Aid&text=Fifty%2Dfive%20percent%20of%20Harvard,year%20is%20more%20than%20%2453%2C000 https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance#:~:text....
      - memexy 6y ago
        This reminds me of an article about tuition cost going up by just the right amount to make sure 55% of people qualify for financial aid. I don't remember where I read this but I remember the argument making sense. What numbers do we get when we look at what percentage of people qualify for financial aid at Harvard and how has this number changed? I wonder if they keep track of and make this data available?
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.

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).
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      When I attended Caltech, I didn't notice any bias towards rich kids. The ones whose families I knew were all economically ordinary. None of the kids had a Porsche or Ferrari or BMW or anything expensive. Hal Finney had an ancient VW bug, and I had my 67 Mustang. Another friend bought a Chevette upon graduation with his own money. I was on financial aid myself.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    >Fifty-five percent of Harvard College students receive need-based scholarship aid, and the average grant this year is more than $53,000. https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance#:~:text=Undergraduate%20Cost%20And%20Financial%20Aid&text=Fifty%2Dfive%20percent%20of%20Harvard,year%20is%20more%20than%20%2453%2C000 https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance#:~:text....
    - memexy 6y ago
      This reminds me of an article about tuition cost going up by just the right amount to make sure 55% of people qualify for financial aid. I don't remember where I read this but I remember the argument making sense. What numbers do we get when we look at what percentage of people qualify for financial aid at Harvard and how has this number changed? I wonder if they keep track of and make this data available?

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.