5 ms·

It's top 7% now and it has a holistic system to handle students outside that cohort. The reason this exists is that it's effectively an affirmative action prog

It's top 7% now and it has a holistic system to handle students outside that cohort. The reason this exists is that it's effectively an affirmative action program for both urban segregated schools and rural schools, which combined have enough political power to pull this off. I believe political dynamics in CA wouldn't allow for this to be constructed - note that suburbs in general fight against such policies. UT itself generally doesn't like the state mandated policy because it results in a less academically strong cohort than other flagship universities, reducing its rank. Whether one school's admission program is "better" or not depends on what you view as the purpose of universities (something often lost in these conversations). Are you weighing more academically similar cohort (in which case purely predictive measures of performance are most appropriate) or some sort of equity metric where putting students from less socioeconomically advantaged backgrounds with stronger ones can result in higher upward mobility? One can certainly make the case that the Texan system could be failing on both accounts compared to say UCs, but you'd need to try to build a causal model to understand which school is producing better results for students that arrive.

ethbr0 5y ago
> reducing its rank Do universities exist for students? Or do students exist for universities? I'm sure university administration believe the latter, but given that they're supported by the state (in UT's case, ~25% of their budget?) there's a pretty strong argument that they owe the people of the state education.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  University Presidents and Trustees have this bizarre fixation on rankings. I have no clue why, especially considering the fact that that composition of the top 100 is fairly stable. Rarely does a university experience a big swing, up or down. Most universities are never going to dethrone the top 20, no matter how hard they try. And it's not like they are in desperate need for enrollment either.
  - nemo44x 5y ago
    Because we put MBA’s in leadership positions of universities so they do what they’ve been trained to do - run a business. And part of that is finding metrics to measure their success by.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - Y_Y 5y ago
      Someone should give those guys an old-school CRPG to provide an outlet for this make-the-number-go-up fixation. The metric that can be measured is not the eternal metric. The result that can be result-driven is not the eternal result.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        What do you think fantasy football is?
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    I expect it's a case of metrics-measured, metrics-optimized-for. Rankings are an easy "objective" measurement administrators can take to financial supporters (either government or private) and say "Here's what we're spending your dollars on." Consequently, rankings become very important to administrators.
  - cafard 5y ago
    There was a stretch in my life where I knew a lot of people who knew where George Washington University ranked versus Carleton College versus who knows what. The upper middle classes take this stuff seriously.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    When people hear about a university they don't know about, they often get their initial impressions from the rankings. I imagine universities that fail that test can end up being filtered out very early on in the process. For some people anything top 20 is great, but I think even the top universities don't want to be written off by the best candidates because they were #11 instead of #10.
- usaar333 5y ago
  Agreed, but that argument is more relevant to argue along the lines of how many in-state vs. out-of-state/international students you can educate. (Even then it's murky -- I can argue the international students both bring additional funding and add diversity which improves the learning experiences of in-state students). Regardless, the argument here is simply which people they select. Assuming they hold 90% of spots for Texans (required by law), it's just a question of how they select people. The university wants to select the strongest students holistically (which some additional diversification criteria) - the state wants it to select the top 7% of students from every high school. Even if you argue the people are owed a state education, either criterion is a valid way to select the students that attend.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- frankfrankfrank 5y ago
  now you are starting to ask extremely uncomfortable questions for the higher education cabal. Unfortunately, what I suspect is going on with all this high minded "get rid of the SATs" is really going to at least help the universities combat what was an increasing pressure to do pre and post testing to validate or establish the value of a university's program. You cannot as easily gain useful information if you have no pre-test. The very irony of this is of course that it is a kind of deliberate and manipulative breaking of the scientific process by universities who will simply claim even more profusely that their graduates improve over 4 years of study, without any control of variables. The only possibility I see to circumvent what may be a devious scheme is for citizens to press state Legislatures to require a pre-test on entry and a post-test on graduation. Expect extreme pushback though because the data that is available strongly indicates that universities are largely not actually conferring the value one may expect. In other words, the quality of the students on entry is the primary determination of the quality of the student on graduation, which seems to hold across the board.
  - diognesofsinope 5y ago
    Exactly! It's about reducing evidence and accountability, along with increasing enrollment ($).
- Aunche 5y ago
  High calibre students not only help the university's rankings, but also other students. A few of my courses had absolutely terrible lecturers, but we managed to more or less learn the material from each other.
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
    I had a girlfriend at U C Davis, and I found the opposite. The best students were called 4clickers. They sat in the front row, with four color pens in hand. They never helped, and one on occasion turned her in for cheating. She used to talk about how competitive thstudrnts were. They all wanted a spot in a graduate program. It was the most depressing school I ever visited. Couldn't wait to leave on Sunday. (I was suprised she cheated, but it taught me something about "the high caliber" student.)
    - scottLobster 5y ago
      Yeah it really depends on the students' objectives/options. For Electrical/Computer Engineering majors at my University we all knew we were all going to at least get decent jobs at graduation, those going to Grad school were the minority. So it was a very collegial atmosphere for the most part. But if you're in one of those programs where the Undergrad is fairly worthless by itself and are competing for a limited number of slots at a prestigious grad program, that's when then cutthroats start to emerge.
      - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
        Sometimes the _professors_ would get sick of the shit the competitive students spread over the class. Nothing quite as satisfactory as watching the lights go out when a pre-med’s career prospects get ranked over a B in organic chemistry. Leave the professor’s attention for those of us who are here to learn, not for those who merely want to collect As.
- austincheney 5y ago
  If you consume media or follow university rankings they exist only for prestige, whatever that is.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dnautics 5y ago
> I believe political dynamics in CA wouldn't allow for this to be constructed I believe california has a similar program (or did at some time since Bakke), specifically for UC (the "higher tier" university system, versus cal state system)
- usaar333 5y ago
  ELC (https://www.ucop.edu/enrollment-services/programs-and-initiatives/eligibility-local-context.html https://www.ucop.edu/enrollment-services/programs-and-initia...). It doesn't get you into the top UC though (which Texas' program does), just any. There is wide variance in UC schools.
  - dnautics 5y ago
    Yes and there are definitely CS schools which IMO are better than many UC (cal poly SLO e.g.) And what is the "top" UC anyways. This is going to be an unpopular opinion but I personally think more favorably of UCSD over cal, and, for some disciplines Davis or SC over cal. UCLA is highly regarded across the board and probably exceeds cal, for, say pre-nursing program.

ethbr0 5y ago

> reducing its rank Do universities exist for students? Or do students exist for universities? I'm sure university administration believe the latter, but given that they're supported by the state (in UT's case, ~25% of their budget?) there's a pretty strong argument that they owe the people of the state education.

BitwiseFool 5y ago
University Presidents and Trustees have this bizarre fixation on rankings. I have no clue why, especially considering the fact that that composition of the top 100 is fairly stable. Rarely does a university experience a big swing, up or down. Most universities are never going to dethrone the top 20, no matter how hard they try. And it's not like they are in desperate need for enrollment either.
- nemo44x 5y ago
  Because we put MBA’s in leadership positions of universities so they do what they’ve been trained to do - run a business. And part of that is finding metrics to measure their success by.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    Someone should give those guys an old-school CRPG to provide an outlet for this make-the-number-go-up fixation. The metric that can be measured is not the eternal metric. The result that can be result-driven is not the eternal result.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      What do you think fantasy football is?
- ethbr0 5y ago
  I expect it's a case of metrics-measured, metrics-optimized-for. Rankings are an easy "objective" measurement administrators can take to financial supporters (either government or private) and say "Here's what we're spending your dollars on." Consequently, rankings become very important to administrators.
- cafard 5y ago
  There was a stretch in my life where I knew a lot of people who knew where George Washington University ranked versus Carleton College versus who knows what. The upper middle classes take this stuff seriously.
- dataflow 5y ago
  When people hear about a university they don't know about, they often get their initial impressions from the rankings. I imagine universities that fail that test can end up being filtered out very early on in the process. For some people anything top 20 is great, but I think even the top universities don't want to be written off by the best candidates because they were #11 instead of #10.
usaar333 5y ago
Agreed, but that argument is more relevant to argue along the lines of how many in-state vs. out-of-state/international students you can educate. (Even then it's murky -- I can argue the international students both bring additional funding and add diversity which improves the learning experiences of in-state students). Regardless, the argument here is simply which people they select. Assuming they hold 90% of spots for Texans (required by law), it's just a question of how they select people. The university wants to select the strongest students holistically (which some additional diversification criteria) - the state wants it to select the top 7% of students from every high school. Even if you argue the people are owed a state education, either criterion is a valid way to select the students that attend.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
frankfrankfrank 5y ago
now you are starting to ask extremely uncomfortable questions for the higher education cabal. Unfortunately, what I suspect is going on with all this high minded "get rid of the SATs" is really going to at least help the universities combat what was an increasing pressure to do pre and post testing to validate or establish the value of a university's program. You cannot as easily gain useful information if you have no pre-test. The very irony of this is of course that it is a kind of deliberate and manipulative breaking of the scientific process by universities who will simply claim even more profusely that their graduates improve over 4 years of study, without any control of variables. The only possibility I see to circumvent what may be a devious scheme is for citizens to press state Legislatures to require a pre-test on entry and a post-test on graduation. Expect extreme pushback though because the data that is available strongly indicates that universities are largely not actually conferring the value one may expect. In other words, the quality of the students on entry is the primary determination of the quality of the student on graduation, which seems to hold across the board.
- diognesofsinope 5y ago
  Exactly! It's about reducing evidence and accountability, along with increasing enrollment ($).
Aunche 5y ago
High calibre students not only help the university's rankings, but also other students. A few of my courses had absolutely terrible lecturers, but we managed to more or less learn the material from each other.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  I had a girlfriend at U C Davis, and I found the opposite. The best students were called 4clickers. They sat in the front row, with four color pens in hand. They never helped, and one on occasion turned her in for cheating. She used to talk about how competitive thstudrnts were. They all wanted a spot in a graduate program. It was the most depressing school I ever visited. Couldn't wait to leave on Sunday. (I was suprised she cheated, but it taught me something about "the high caliber" student.)
  - scottLobster 5y ago
    Yeah it really depends on the students' objectives/options. For Electrical/Computer Engineering majors at my University we all knew we were all going to at least get decent jobs at graduation, those going to Grad school were the minority. So it was a very collegial atmosphere for the most part. But if you're in one of those programs where the Undergrad is fairly worthless by itself and are competing for a limited number of slots at a prestigious grad program, that's when then cutthroats start to emerge.
    - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
      Sometimes the _professors_ would get sick of the shit the competitive students spread over the class. Nothing quite as satisfactory as watching the lights go out when a pre-med’s career prospects get ranked over a B in organic chemistry. Leave the professor’s attention for those of us who are here to learn, not for those who merely want to collect As.
austincheney 5y ago
If you consume media or follow university rankings they exist only for prestige, whatever that is.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

dnautics 5y ago

> I believe political dynamics in CA wouldn't allow for this to be constructed I believe california has a similar program (or did at some time since Bakke), specifically for UC (the "higher tier" university system, versus cal state system)

usaar333 5y ago
ELC (https://www.ucop.edu/enrollment-services/programs-and-initiatives/eligibility-local-context.html https://www.ucop.edu/enrollment-services/programs-and-initia...). It doesn't get you into the top UC though (which Texas' program does), just any. There is wide variance in UC schools.
- dnautics 5y ago
  Yes and there are definitely CS schools which IMO are better than many UC (cal poly SLO e.g.) And what is the "top" UC anyways. This is going to be an unpopular opinion but I personally think more favorably of UCSD over cal, and, for some disciplines Davis or SC over cal. UCLA is highly regarded across the board and probably exceeds cal, for, say pre-nursing program.