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> Sufficiently prestigious schools are drowning in perfect applicants. This is by design. There exist tests that can distinguish between the merely very good a

> Sufficiently prestigious schools are drowning in perfect applicants. This is by design. There exist tests that can distinguish between the merely very good and the outstanding. Elite US universities go out of their ways to not use them, precisely so they can admit the merely very good legacies.

MiroF 6y ago
Elite schools don't use them at least partially so they can take the same tests as every other school.
lumost 6y ago
A test that splits the top .1% of test takers vs. the top 1% likely isn't the best indicator of future career performance ( the source of university prestige ), or necessarily academic performance.
- rdtwo 6y ago
  That’s because future career is mostly influenced by how much money your parents have.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Ok, a test that splits between the top 0.01% and the top 1%. One student goes to national competitions, the other is merely a decent student at your local high school. The SAT lacks the granularity to distinguish between them.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    Throughout my academic career, I've met quite a few brilliant mathematicians with no interest in such competitions. And quite a few "goes to competitions" folks with little interest in higher pursuits. Placing too much faith in any measure is fraught
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      I’m not saying it’s the only measure we should have. But in the context of the chain this was in I was feeling a sort of “does it really matter if we can separate these people” and I just wanted to illustrate that in actual competitions that discriminate to this level you get a meaningful difference out of it. Now, whether that is an effective indicator of success…I’m not completely sure. A lot of the math competition winners I know are doing startups and HFT, so there’s that.
      - klyrs 6y ago
        > A lot of the math competition winners I know are doing startups and HFT, so there’s that. That's in line with my experience, too. Selecting olympiads is a preference for highly competitive people. In math, at least, collaboration is much more important.
        MagnumOpus 6y ago
        Most of 21st century Fields medal winners are IMO medalists, so that seems to contradict your hypothesis. Terence Tao, Venkatesh, Miryam were all famously young and/or good contestants.
  - lumost 6y ago
    My point was that there is likely diminishing likelihood that the a test with such granularity would return a meaningful score. One would need to include a both a wider and deeper set of subject matter that still conforms to the context of the test. Eventually such a test would pick out the best studiers of generalized aptitude tests. While studying for a test is useful in academia - it's not "The" skill. It's much simpler to have a candidate include notable achievements on their CV including competitions and after-school programs. However, even here you'll find factors that don't correlate to future performance e.g. those with the means and desire to min-max a CV for college admittance ( A very important life skill ) may not be the best leaders, academics, or students. While both of the above skills will be correlated to future performance there are almost certainly diminishing returns from selecting the top .1% according to a single dimension. Curiously the list of fields medalists does not appear to contain a mathlete at present. Providing at least one datapoint that performance in math competitions may not be correlated to future (Academic) mathematics achievement.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      I just included that to point out that there is a tangible difference at the high end, it’s not just “everyone getting 800 on the math SAT is similar in their mathematical ability”. Whether competition performance correlates to mathematical achievement in college later in life is unclear, although I do want to point out that many do end up becoming professors and such. Many of the rest don’t show up on the “math radar” because they major in computer science instead and get jobs in the industry.
- solveit 6y ago
  It doesn't have to be the best, merely better than what is used now. And what is used now is some obfuscated proxies of socioeconomic status.
strombofulous 6y ago
If you're talking about the SAT and ACT, I would challenge the idea that they can accurately distinguish between the good and outstanding. At most they provide a rough indication. I know this because I got a much higher score than I deserved to on the ACT because you can read the test pretty easily if you put yourself in the shoes of the people making it (I got a 31 overall and a near-perfect 35 on the science portion without studing)
- clankyclanker 6y ago
  Further, the only thing that the SAT claims to be able to predict is a student’s first semester performance, and wasn’t found to be a better predictor than other factors on other measures. Of course I can’t find a reference for that right now, but it certainly doesn’t predict college graduation rates best. https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2018/06/11/what-predicts-college-completion-high-school-gpa-beats-sat-score https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2018/06/11/what-...
  - travisoneill1 6y ago
    Useless. They topped out the SAT buckets at 1100.
- jerf 6y ago
  No, there are other ways to separate the pack. A perfect score on those tests isn't rare enough, plus you're still going to see a lot of exceptional candidates who got a few wrong. They aren't being used, so they aren't the existing standardized tests, which are being used. But it's not that hard to simply extend the difficulty gradient higher. Stick some math olympiad-type problems on there, for instance.
- MiroF 6y ago
  > I got a much higher score than I deserved to on the ACT because you can read the test pretty easily if you put yourself in the shoes of the people making it I don't understand why that is some secretly accessible knowledge that is only available to some. FWIW, the ACT always seemed more game-y to me what with its hard time crunches and stuff.
analog31 6y ago
I suspect the schools are trying to curate their student body so it doesn't turn into a freak show, which would itself reduce prestige. It would be like a zoo that contains exactly one species of animal. This is the dilemma. Taking the top 1000 scorers on some particularly difficult exam, and putting them all together in one place, would be a freak show. Not because they are freaks per se, but because any monoculture of an extreme trait will turn itself into a freak show.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Perfect students are not “freaks”.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    On the other hand, a Mensa gathering (not a member, myself) is one of the few situations I've been in that was hard to characterize as anything other than freakshow on earth. Shows that you can maximize a single dimension so much that you are left with people incapable of communication. Similarly, an organization of students maximizing academic performance has a certain vibe that definitely doesn't feel "perfect". It doesn't even seem like that useful of a skill, but I'd have to know the purpose of a uni to comment further.
    - Alekhine 6y ago
      Mensa is for those who are insecure about their intelligence and like the idea that they can easily rank themselves above others with a number designed to check if you're mentally handicapped. I'm not surprised they can't communicate.
      - analog31 6y ago
        I always thought to myself, what if I take the test and pass it? Then what? If I fail, that's easy. I lick my wounds and go home. But if I pass? The shape of the distribution -- basically slicing off one end of a bell curve -- means that in all likelihood, I would be at the lower end of the IQ scale within the group, even if at the upper end within the overall population. So I'd be taking a test and paying money for the privilege of being the dumbest person in the room. It hardly seemed attractive to me.
godelski 6y ago
> There exist tests that can distinguish between the merely very good and the outstanding. What tests are these?
- mantap 6y ago
  Yes does outstanding mean a high depth of knowledge in one area, does it mean a high breadth of knowledge in many different areas? Does it mean a high potential to learn (memory/metacognition skills)? Does it mean comfort with high levels of abstraction? All of these would require different tests.
  - godelski 6y ago
    Or what even is "success?" Isn't that what garners prestige for the school? Do these tests determine your soft skills? Your ability to network? Handle different stressed environments? How you can manage people?
jboog 6y ago
I think admitting legacies is morally and ethically wrong but the idea that what we need is another test even harder than the SATs to distinguish the "outstanding" is misguided. The difference between kid who gets a 1550 and a 1600 on the SAT is so marginal that calling one "outstanding" and one "merely very good" is just silly. Is that difference the extra $20,000 parents spent on tutoring? Or is that difference actually correlated with outcomes in and after college? Doubtful.
- darkwizard42 6y ago
  I think what the parent comment is saying is that neither the 1550 or 1600 is "outstanding" and the SAT is a flawed exam that doesn't really get you the "genius" level kids
  - jboog 6y ago
    And my point is that no test exists which will determine who are the "genius" kids. There are tens of thousands of adults all over the world who went to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford etc. that then went on to live completely mediocre middle class lives. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that but my point is that how you do on a test at 16-17 years old does not make you a "genius", nor does scoring in the 99.999% ensure that a person will achieve academic or career outcomes superior than the person who scored 99.9%

MiroF 6y ago

Elite schools don't use them at least partially so they can take the same tests as every other school.

lumost 6y ago

A test that splits the top .1% of test takers vs. the top 1% likely isn't the best indicator of future career performance ( the source of university prestige ), or necessarily academic performance.

rdtwo 6y ago
That’s because future career is mostly influenced by how much money your parents have.
saagarjha 6y ago
Ok, a test that splits between the top 0.01% and the top 1%. One student goes to national competitions, the other is merely a decent student at your local high school. The SAT lacks the granularity to distinguish between them.
- klyrs 6y ago
  Throughout my academic career, I've met quite a few brilliant mathematicians with no interest in such competitions. And quite a few "goes to competitions" folks with little interest in higher pursuits. Placing too much faith in any measure is fraught
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I’m not saying it’s the only measure we should have. But in the context of the chain this was in I was feeling a sort of “does it really matter if we can separate these people” and I just wanted to illustrate that in actual competitions that discriminate to this level you get a meaningful difference out of it. Now, whether that is an effective indicator of success…I’m not completely sure. A lot of the math competition winners I know are doing startups and HFT, so there’s that.
    - klyrs 6y ago
      > A lot of the math competition winners I know are doing startups and HFT, so there’s that. That's in line with my experience, too. Selecting olympiads is a preference for highly competitive people. In math, at least, collaboration is much more important.
      - MagnumOpus 6y ago
        Most of 21st century Fields medal winners are IMO medalists, so that seems to contradict your hypothesis. Terence Tao, Venkatesh, Miryam were all famously young and/or good contestants.
- lumost 6y ago
  My point was that there is likely diminishing likelihood that the a test with such granularity would return a meaningful score. One would need to include a both a wider and deeper set of subject matter that still conforms to the context of the test. Eventually such a test would pick out the best studiers of generalized aptitude tests. While studying for a test is useful in academia - it's not "The" skill. It's much simpler to have a candidate include notable achievements on their CV including competitions and after-school programs. However, even here you'll find factors that don't correlate to future performance e.g. those with the means and desire to min-max a CV for college admittance ( A very important life skill ) may not be the best leaders, academics, or students. While both of the above skills will be correlated to future performance there are almost certainly diminishing returns from selecting the top .1% according to a single dimension. Curiously the list of fields medalists does not appear to contain a mathlete at present. Providing at least one datapoint that performance in math competitions may not be correlated to future (Academic) mathematics achievement.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I just included that to point out that there is a tangible difference at the high end, it’s not just “everyone getting 800 on the math SAT is similar in their mathematical ability”. Whether competition performance correlates to mathematical achievement in college later in life is unclear, although I do want to point out that many do end up becoming professors and such. Many of the rest don’t show up on the “math radar” because they major in computer science instead and get jobs in the industry.
solveit 6y ago
It doesn't have to be the best, merely better than what is used now. And what is used now is some obfuscated proxies of socioeconomic status.

strombofulous 6y ago

If you're talking about the SAT and ACT, I would challenge the idea that they can accurately distinguish between the good and outstanding. At most they provide a rough indication. I know this because I got a much higher score than I deserved to on the ACT because you can read the test pretty easily if you put yourself in the shoes of the people making it (I got a 31 overall and a near-perfect 35 on the science portion without studing)

clankyclanker 6y ago
Further, the only thing that the SAT claims to be able to predict is a student’s first semester performance, and wasn’t found to be a better predictor than other factors on other measures. Of course I can’t find a reference for that right now, but it certainly doesn’t predict college graduation rates best. https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2018/06/11/what-predicts-college-completion-high-school-gpa-beats-sat-score https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2018/06/11/what-...
- travisoneill1 6y ago
  Useless. They topped out the SAT buckets at 1100.
jerf 6y ago
No, there are other ways to separate the pack. A perfect score on those tests isn't rare enough, plus you're still going to see a lot of exceptional candidates who got a few wrong. They aren't being used, so they aren't the existing standardized tests, which are being used. But it's not that hard to simply extend the difficulty gradient higher. Stick some math olympiad-type problems on there, for instance.
MiroF 6y ago
> I got a much higher score than I deserved to on the ACT because you can read the test pretty easily if you put yourself in the shoes of the people making it I don't understand why that is some secretly accessible knowledge that is only available to some. FWIW, the ACT always seemed more game-y to me what with its hard time crunches and stuff.

analog31 6y ago

I suspect the schools are trying to curate their student body so it doesn't turn into a freak show, which would itself reduce prestige. It would be like a zoo that contains exactly one species of animal. This is the dilemma. Taking the top 1000 scorers on some particularly difficult exam, and putting them all together in one place, would be a freak show. Not because they are freaks per se, but because any monoculture of an extreme trait will turn itself into a freak show.

saagarjha 6y ago
Perfect students are not “freaks”.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  On the other hand, a Mensa gathering (not a member, myself) is one of the few situations I've been in that was hard to characterize as anything other than freakshow on earth. Shows that you can maximize a single dimension so much that you are left with people incapable of communication. Similarly, an organization of students maximizing academic performance has a certain vibe that definitely doesn't feel "perfect". It doesn't even seem like that useful of a skill, but I'd have to know the purpose of a uni to comment further.
  - Alekhine 6y ago
    Mensa is for those who are insecure about their intelligence and like the idea that they can easily rank themselves above others with a number designed to check if you're mentally handicapped. I'm not surprised they can't communicate.
    - analog31 6y ago
      I always thought to myself, what if I take the test and pass it? Then what? If I fail, that's easy. I lick my wounds and go home. But if I pass? The shape of the distribution -- basically slicing off one end of a bell curve -- means that in all likelihood, I would be at the lower end of the IQ scale within the group, even if at the upper end within the overall population. So I'd be taking a test and paying money for the privilege of being the dumbest person in the room. It hardly seemed attractive to me.

godelski 6y ago

> There exist tests that can distinguish between the merely very good and the outstanding. What tests are these?

mantap 6y ago
Yes does outstanding mean a high depth of knowledge in one area, does it mean a high breadth of knowledge in many different areas? Does it mean a high potential to learn (memory/metacognition skills)? Does it mean comfort with high levels of abstraction? All of these would require different tests.
- godelski 6y ago
  Or what even is "success?" Isn't that what garners prestige for the school? Do these tests determine your soft skills? Your ability to network? Handle different stressed environments? How you can manage people?

jboog 6y ago

I think admitting legacies is morally and ethically wrong but the idea that what we need is another test even harder than the SATs to distinguish the "outstanding" is misguided. The difference between kid who gets a 1550 and a 1600 on the SAT is so marginal that calling one "outstanding" and one "merely very good" is just silly. Is that difference the extra $20,000 parents spent on tutoring? Or is that difference actually correlated with outcomes in and after college? Doubtful.

darkwizard42 6y ago
I think what the parent comment is saying is that neither the 1550 or 1600 is "outstanding" and the SAT is a flawed exam that doesn't really get you the "genius" level kids
- jboog 6y ago
  And my point is that no test exists which will determine who are the "genius" kids. There are tens of thousands of adults all over the world who went to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford etc. that then went on to live completely mediocre middle class lives. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that but my point is that how you do on a test at 16-17 years old does not make you a "genius", nor does scoring in the 99.999% ensure that a person will achieve academic or career outcomes superior than the person who scored 99.9%