5 ms·

How interesting is it that the institutions that lead the world flip-flop so easily on public perception and not on values and principals.

ketchupdebugger 2y ago
just like how a public company have share holders, an institution like Harvard have donors. They have to listen or else their source would dry up.
- fullshark 2y ago
  I'm pretty sure Harvard's endowment will thrive even if the donors go to zero. Harvard is more interested in prestige and public perception. That is their currency.
  - vondur 2y ago
    I see that Harvard's endowment is currently around 50 billion dollars. I suppose with good investments that could last for a long time, provided that Harvard doesn't need to dip into it to fund daily operations. Harvard's annual budget currently is around 5 billion per year.
- dgacmu 2y ago
  I can't speak for Harvard, but I can address my own university: The pressure to resume using test scores came from the faculty, because we observed that there were an unusually high number of students admitted who were failing the math (and math-y) courses. We want people to succeed in our classes, not enter and fail out. No donors involved. It doesn't seem like a bad experiment to have tried, but the results were negative and bad for the students, so time to back it out.
  - mathgradthrow 2y ago
    Public institutions get paid the full amount by everyone who receives a degree. Failing out is a discount that the school administrators don't want to offer. For instance we're instructed by admin to never encourage students to pursue mathematics. They "must" be funneled through an academic advisor, who can establish whether or not this is worth the financial risk of them potentially failing. This is regularly presented as "improving equity".
    - dgacmu 2y ago
      We are a little closer to Harvard in that regard: we are private, but one thing we do is that our admissions are direct into the department, though handled centrally. But regardless of the incentive, it does nobody any favors to put them in a situation where they're going to fail. The students we admitted who are not doing well in the math classes are exceptionally strong overall, but our CS program is, um, rigorous.
      - mathgradthrow 2y ago
        >regardless of the incentive, it does nobody any favors to put them in a situation where they're going to fail. There are a number of incorrect assumptions hidden in this statement. Foremost is the idea that academic failure is always regular failure. I know people who started in math amd pivoted after they didn't think they could handle being full fledged mathematicians, but who benefitted from the math they did learn enough that it was worth it to them. Secondly, you can't know in advance who is going to fail, and people are not obviously better served by a strategy that plays it safe.
        antasvara 2y ago
        Colleges have limited capacity, and individual departments have even less. Given this information, what criteria would you suggest be used when determining admission into a department if not "likelihood of academic success?"
        dgacmu 2y ago
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Beyond some basic literacy, you really need some filter on math. I tutored in an MBA program which, I assure you, was not at all math-intensive. There was some subset of students who were just clueless about basic high school math. (Read any of the first year MBA memoirs and this is sort of a theme.) Even many of those who were not clueless definitely leaned on those of us who had worked as engineers to take the lead on the math stuff in group projects.
  - b112 2y ago
    You're lucky. Some schools continue the "social justice" movement further, ensuring that those you cited don't fail.
- brodouevencode 2y ago
  Yes, and I would lump public (and even some private) companies into the pile. When all this went down it was certainly groundbreaking (at least to me) because in my previous 40 years on this earth I had never seen anything like it. There's a whole new dynamic now of seemingly wanting to "be on the right side of history" which has somehow translated to doing whatever is socially popular.
Kranar 2y ago
That's not what happened though. The catalyst for getting rid of it was logistic issues related to COVID.
- red_admiral 2y ago
  The catalyst, yes, but the reagent it acted on included an anti-standardized-test sentiment that is very strong among some factions in the academy.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Lots of people have lots of reasons why they think universities overweight on one test relative to other measures that are more representative of the whole person or whatever. This clashes with the reality though that the SAT/ACT are actually pretty effective at predicting academic outcomes, probably especially with respect to math.
    - red_admiral 2y ago
      I agree with you about the reality! It's just that when Covid disrupted SAT/ACT testing, the folks who wanted to abolish them for admissions anyway for other reasons, saw a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
- brodouevencode 2y ago
  Partially but not wholly.
CodeWriter23 2y ago
Just glad they “flop”’d back to values and principles.
- londons_explore 2y ago
  And I'd guess it took a couple of years for them to realise that the candidates they took in in 2020 and onwards were underperforming compared to previous years, and that this was the cause, as opposed to any of the other things that have changed since 2020.

ketchupdebugger 2y ago

just like how a public company have share holders, an institution like Harvard have donors. They have to listen or else their source would dry up.

fullshark 2y ago
I'm pretty sure Harvard's endowment will thrive even if the donors go to zero. Harvard is more interested in prestige and public perception. That is their currency.
- vondur 2y ago
  I see that Harvard's endowment is currently around 50 billion dollars. I suppose with good investments that could last for a long time, provided that Harvard doesn't need to dip into it to fund daily operations. Harvard's annual budget currently is around 5 billion per year.
dgacmu 2y ago
I can't speak for Harvard, but I can address my own university: The pressure to resume using test scores came from the faculty, because we observed that there were an unusually high number of students admitted who were failing the math (and math-y) courses. We want people to succeed in our classes, not enter and fail out. No donors involved. It doesn't seem like a bad experiment to have tried, but the results were negative and bad for the students, so time to back it out.
- mathgradthrow 2y ago
  Public institutions get paid the full amount by everyone who receives a degree. Failing out is a discount that the school administrators don't want to offer. For instance we're instructed by admin to never encourage students to pursue mathematics. They "must" be funneled through an academic advisor, who can establish whether or not this is worth the financial risk of them potentially failing. This is regularly presented as "improving equity".
  - dgacmu 2y ago
    We are a little closer to Harvard in that regard: we are private, but one thing we do is that our admissions are direct into the department, though handled centrally. But regardless of the incentive, it does nobody any favors to put them in a situation where they're going to fail. The students we admitted who are not doing well in the math classes are exceptionally strong overall, but our CS program is, um, rigorous.
    - mathgradthrow 2y ago
      >regardless of the incentive, it does nobody any favors to put them in a situation where they're going to fail. There are a number of incorrect assumptions hidden in this statement. Foremost is the idea that academic failure is always regular failure. I know people who started in math amd pivoted after they didn't think they could handle being full fledged mathematicians, but who benefitted from the math they did learn enough that it was worth it to them. Secondly, you can't know in advance who is going to fail, and people are not obviously better served by a strategy that plays it safe.
      - antasvara 2y ago
        Colleges have limited capacity, and individual departments have even less. Given this information, what criteria would you suggest be used when determining admission into a department if not "likelihood of academic success?"
        dgacmu 2y ago
- ghaff 2y ago
  Beyond some basic literacy, you really need some filter on math. I tutored in an MBA program which, I assure you, was not at all math-intensive. There was some subset of students who were just clueless about basic high school math. (Read any of the first year MBA memoirs and this is sort of a theme.) Even many of those who were not clueless definitely leaned on those of us who had worked as engineers to take the lead on the math stuff in group projects.
- b112 2y ago
  You're lucky. Some schools continue the "social justice" movement further, ensuring that those you cited don't fail.
brodouevencode 2y ago
Yes, and I would lump public (and even some private) companies into the pile. When all this went down it was certainly groundbreaking (at least to me) because in my previous 40 years on this earth I had never seen anything like it. There's a whole new dynamic now of seemingly wanting to "be on the right side of history" which has somehow translated to doing whatever is socially popular.

Kranar 2y ago

That's not what happened though. The catalyst for getting rid of it was logistic issues related to COVID.

red_admiral 2y ago
The catalyst, yes, but the reagent it acted on included an anti-standardized-test sentiment that is very strong among some factions in the academy.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Lots of people have lots of reasons why they think universities overweight on one test relative to other measures that are more representative of the whole person or whatever. This clashes with the reality though that the SAT/ACT are actually pretty effective at predicting academic outcomes, probably especially with respect to math.
  - red_admiral 2y ago
    I agree with you about the reality! It's just that when Covid disrupted SAT/ACT testing, the folks who wanted to abolish them for admissions anyway for other reasons, saw a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
brodouevencode 2y ago
Partially but not wholly.

CodeWriter23 2y ago

Just glad they “flop”’d back to values and principles.

londons_explore 2y ago
And I'd guess it took a couple of years for them to realise that the candidates they took in in 2020 and onwards were underperforming compared to previous years, and that this was the cause, as opposed to any of the other things that have changed since 2020.