6 ms·

See: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-12/covid-college-admissions-season-brings-rejection-heartbreak https://www.latimes.com/california/story/20

See: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-12/covid-college-admissions-season-brings-rejection-heartbreak https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-12/covid-co... Excerpts: UC admissions directors stressed that they evaluated students in the context of their own schools and communities to assess how much they challenged themselves and took advantage of available opportunities. A student who took all six AP classes offered at her school might be more impressive than the one who took six at a school that offered twice as many. A campus might admit a student with a 4.0 GPA who ranked at the top of an underserved school over one with a higher GPA but lower class rank at a more high-achieving school.

nine_k 9mo ago
That is, they are biased towards top performers, not just high performers, even if one student's "merely high" is formally higher than the ceiling the other student hit. (The "winning" strategy then is to move to an underserved high school after an elite middle school, and hit the ceiling.)
- xnyan 9mo ago
  You may be joking, but I have several high achieving peers whose families did this with good results. The choice was: did they want to be in the best high school with the highest level of competition, or did they want to go to an OK school that had good magnet programs and less competition. my sample size is only about three, but it worked out well for them.
  - fn-mote 9mo ago
    I don’t think the GP is joking, but they may not have realized that this strategy is already well known. A lot of families won’t uproot themselves for it, though.
    - osnium123 9mo ago
      They have local magnet/specialized programs in CA public schools that they use to attract good students to poorly performing schools for help goose up test schools.
    - strbean 9mo ago
      This may be sampling bias as well. Having parents with the means, willingness, and involvement to do this is probably a strong predictor of success already.
- SR2Z 9mo ago
  Once upon a time, the SAT an IQ test, and it was a real achievement to score a 1600. That achievement has been hollowed out in tandem with the value of most college degrees. We know how to test for merit. The greatest tragedy in this college admissions racket isn't the shadowy affirmative action policies, the mountains of student loan debt, or the entire college admission-industrial complex that's sprung up. It's that even the tools we've used to use to measure if someone was _ready_ for college have been annihilated.
  - hackyhacky 9mo ago
    The SAT was never an IQ test, and it certainly doesn't measure "merit", whatever that is. It's a Scholastic Aptitude Test, and it isn't particularly good at that either. If we had a good "test for merit" then we could directly assign people to their roles and ignore their actual performance.
    - JumpCrisscross 9mo ago
      > It's a Scholastic Aptitude Test, and it isn't particularly good at that either It’s a pretty good measure for how a student will do in their first year in college.
      - fn-mote 9mo ago
        So is high school GPA.
        kelipso 9mo ago
        Not if you went to an easy school vs a difficult school vs a school that gives mostly As. Never heard of grade inflation or what?
    - everybodyknows 9mo ago
      "Aptitude" was dropped from the name back in 1990. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#Name_changes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#Name_changes It may have become something of a dirty word ...
- apparent 9mo ago
  One of the charts in TFA shows a discontinuity in admissions rate around 75% UPP. This means that if you send your kid to a HS that is underserved when you enroll, but drops below the critical 75% threshold because too many other families are doing the same, then the school could fall out of the strong-benefit category. The kid would still have a better chance than if he applied from a high-performing school, but it wouldn't be as much of an advantage. Socially, I'm guessing the kid could face some challenges because (1) other high performing students might not like him because he's a curve-breaker, (2) teachers would know what the family was up to and could view it as distasteful, and (3) if the student went to UCSD or another school where this is a well-known hack, there could be stigma for having gamed the system/being less-smart.
  - kelipso 9mo ago
    No one cares what high school you went to in college, unless maybe you went to the same high school yourself.
    - apparent 9mo ago
      Most of the time, no one knows. But if you're from a nice part of LA or SD but you went to a HS in a bad part of town, people might wonder why you went there, or figure it out for themselves. I think in most cases fellow undergrads would see it as just playing the game, but some might see it as "cheating" or like you didn't earn your spot as much as they did (if they were from a HS that was from a good part of town).
  - aprilthird2021 9mo ago
    > other high performing students might not like him because he's a curve-breaker Not that common in high school to have classes and exams curved. Also kids don't care. > teachers would know what the family was up to and could view it as distasteful They also don't care > if the student went to UCSD or another school where this is a well-known hack, there could be stigma for having gamed the system/being less-smart. College kids also don't care and there are lots of other ways to game the system. Ocne you're at school, no one cares who gamed the system to get there and how they did it
- lubujackson 9mo ago
  This is the new meta, in SF at least. Despite the "what are secondary effects?" school admins trying to "fix inequality" by creating school lotteries, ending gifted programs and focusing on "equality of outcomes not equality of opportunity", the only thing that has actually improved troubled schools is that smart kids with involved parents now actively seek out lower rated schools like Mission High so they can more easily rise to the top of the class and get a free ride to Berkeley or another UC. There was an article about this exact phenomenon in SFGate a year or two ago so it is definitely a real trend.
  - nine_k 9mo ago
    While I'm usually not a fan of ending gifted programs and such, I do believe that the kids in the lower-rated schools must feel a positive effect, mingling with highly-motivated, better-educated kids. It may do away with the whole "study is uncool, real kids hate school" vibe that holds many "bad neighborhood" schools back.
    - wahern 9mo ago
      > I do believe that the kids in the lower-rated schools must feel a positive effect, mingling with highly-motivated, better-educated kids. It may do away with the whole "study is uncool, real kids hate school" vibe that holds many "bad neighborhood" schools back. That's the logic, but it doesn't pan out. IMO it's because 1) by high school it's too late--kids already segregate themselves and the ones with strong study habits will tend to hide them. In America generally the culture is for upper classes to pretend they're anything but, coopting the styles and mannerisms of the lower classes, especially Black culture (which in American culture is almost by definition low status yet valorized). I grew up poor, with zero structure at home. It wasn't until I was mid-way through college when I realized the people around me actually studied and did their homework. I just didn't see it because they all pretended otherwise, then snuck off with their higher class peers, almost like secret rituals. Contrast that with, e.g. East Asian culture. I remember the first time I visited Singapore and saw a group of elementary school kids, without supervision, congregating at a McDonalds do to their homework together. My daughter goes to a Chinese immersion public school in SF. It's mostly Asian, but there's actually a sizable minority of black students there. Like their slightly more numerous white peers, they tend have a parent (or relative--grandmother, aunt, etc) who made a very deliberate decision and who provides the necessary structure and support at home. Home support is key because, talking with those parents, not even by 8th grade does the feeling of being different disappear; it's very taxing, and without constant encouragement kids will slip back into their comfort zone. It's entirely unreasonable to drop a poor white, black, or 4th generation Asian kid off at that school and expect them to adopt and internalize the culture without significant support at home. By contrast, the recently immigrated Asians fit right in regardless of class or wealth. Now imagine dropping a few smart students with strong study habits and support networks off at a school where most kids don't have those benefits. It's never going to move the needle. I just got back from Malaysia, where the majority Muslim Malay population benefits from government programs in ways that would be unfathomable to all but the most leftist Americans. 50 years from independence, excepting for the most wealthy, cosmopolitan strata, the country is as racially and economically stratified and segregated as it ever was. AFAIU, the situation is similar in South Africa. I'm onboard with the idea that diversity and breaking the structures of inequality are laudable goals, but so far nobody has figured out to socially engineer that outcome. Culture is like a newtonian fluid; you apply pressure and things tend to become even more rigid and less fluid. It's not just the privileged who push back, it's the social underclasses that also push back; they're no less invested in their identity. Change, when it comes about, tends to only happen organically in ways we haven't figured out how to induce. I no longer advocate for affirmative action programs, though I don't like dropping what programs we have. Constantly changing the rules creates its own burdens and unfairness that probably exceed the costs of keeping them. Better to just let them quietly recede into the background where they can continue helping a small minority of people capable of leveraging them.
SilverElfin 9mo ago
This is a terrible system because it forces students and parents to start playing all kinds of games to navigate a non transparent process for admissions. What now? Are parents going to send their kids to good schools until it is time to apply to colleges? And then they are going to switch to the best school for applications?
- lateforwork 9mo ago
  Right, up until middle school send kids to the best school, then for high school move to an area with poor schools.
  - crab_galaxy 9mo ago
    Maybe they can bring their resources with them too, and the poor schools can have things like lead paint remediation, honors classes, and extra curricular activities. I like this idea!
    - Mountain_Skies 9mo ago
      Resources are mainly property taxes. Unless they're building a new house whose value is significantly greater than the median for the area, families gaming the system aren't likely to have much of a lasting impact on the district.
      - crab_galaxy 9mo ago
        Yeah you’re right. However, resource gaps can be filled by things like volunteer librarians, teacher wishlists/donations, field trips, strong PTAs, etc.. This is common in my city. It’s a big underfunded school district with a handful of coveted, well supported schools. I’m assuming it happens elsewhere in America with the success of platforms like donors choose.
        fn-mote 9mo ago
        Yes. Well off schools raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from parent donations.
derektank 9mo ago
They should just make this explicit, like the UT system does. The top X% of students are admitted automatically from each school.
- john-h-k 9mo ago
  This seems terrible incentives. You are now in a purely adversarial relationship with your peers and hurting them helps you
  - Mountain_Skies 9mo ago
    It's not unusual for families to change their school district so their kid can play for a better sports program and of course it's extremely common for families to want to live in the best district for education quality, but maybe some are now incentivized to move into a district with lesser competition for the top spots.
  - bradchris 9mo ago
    Texan here. There’s still ways to get in if you don’t make the top X% of your class (the percentage is shrinking every year as the school climbs up the rankings and more people want to go… I think it’s near top-4% now? It used to be top 15% I recall), and many of those high achievers go onto other out of state schools, so it’s in the interest of UT system to offer automatic admission to the top achievers from across the state. Just because the top X% is guaranteed admission, that does not mean all (or even most) of the school is from the top X%.
    - dustincoates 9mo ago
      I believe it's only UT Austin that's shrunk the percentage. All of the other public universities are still at the original top 10%.
  - terribleidea 9mo ago
    How much control can your classmates have over your own GPA? What percentage of 'control' over your GPA is up to you vs. your teachers, parents, classmates, and everyone else? I put those in order intentionally, as I think your classmates are below teachers and parents on the hierarchy.
torginus 9mo ago
Honestly, I don't know how do you even compare students with different backgrounds against each other. That's why standardized testing is good - it gives everyone the same chance to excel.
- dmoy 9mo ago
  > it gives everyone the same chance to excel. How does the existence of standardized testing give everyone the same chance? As an extremely over-exaggerated example example, someone whose home study time is disrupted frequently by gunfire outside is probably not getting the same chance as someone who lives on a 20 acre estate with private tutors for every subject.
  - blindriver 9mo ago
    The schools that went test-optional already have switched back because this actually gives lower income students the best chance to distinguish themselves. The narrative that lower income students with less opportunities would benefit from not submitting SATs turned out to be false.
  - lostmsu 9mo ago
    Ear plugs are under $5. If you could not think of that over years, you're not gonna be able to score well in SAT for different reasons.
    - sokoloff 9mo ago
      How fortunate that the only downside of frequent gunfire on the streets outside your house is the noise.
      - lostmsu 9mo ago
        What else has significant impact on ability to study? General downsides are irrelevant, so I don't see a point in your comment.
  - 9mo ago
galkk 9mo ago
> A student who took all six AP classes offered at her school might be more impressive than the one who took six at a school that offered twice as many. Damn, this is as stupid as it gets.
- gopher_space 9mo ago
  The students operating at this level are identical. There’s no practical difference between a 4.0 and a 4.5 GPA when comparing students from different schools.
- parpfish 9mo ago
  There nothing stupid about controlling for circumstances. As an analogy, let’s say you want to build a fun race car that you can take to the track. You go out and look at a bunch of used cars and you want to be qualitative so you measure out their 0-60 times. You could just say “the car with the best time wins” and take the fastest one you tested. Or you could consider context like “this one had bald tires tha could easily be upgraded” or “we tested this one going uphill”. The goal is to find the car that can be turned into the fastest and not which has the best numbers right now.
  - daedrdev 9mo ago
    Better circumstance do create better students though. And all this will do is cause the best students to hide in shit schools to game the system
    - fn-mote 9mo ago
      > And all this will do is cause the best students to hide in shit schools to game the system No it won’t, because they would get a horrible base for their education and be 1-2 years behind their “super strong school” peers. (I did not make up these numbers; it’s easy to have more than 1 year of college credit from Advanced Placement classes in the US system.) Acting like college is the beginning of education is foolish. Imagine struggling with learning how to learn challenging material while taking classes with students who already did that three years ago.

nine_k 9mo ago

That is, they are biased towards top performers, not just high performers, even if one student's "merely high" is formally higher than the ceiling the other student hit. (The "winning" strategy then is to move to an underserved high school after an elite middle school, and hit the ceiling.)

xnyan 9mo ago
You may be joking, but I have several high achieving peers whose families did this with good results. The choice was: did they want to be in the best high school with the highest level of competition, or did they want to go to an OK school that had good magnet programs and less competition. my sample size is only about three, but it worked out well for them.
- fn-mote 9mo ago
  I don’t think the GP is joking, but they may not have realized that this strategy is already well known. A lot of families won’t uproot themselves for it, though.
  - osnium123 9mo ago
    They have local magnet/specialized programs in CA public schools that they use to attract good students to poorly performing schools for help goose up test schools.
  - strbean 9mo ago
    This may be sampling bias as well. Having parents with the means, willingness, and involvement to do this is probably a strong predictor of success already.
SR2Z 9mo ago
Once upon a time, the SAT an IQ test, and it was a real achievement to score a 1600. That achievement has been hollowed out in tandem with the value of most college degrees. We know how to test for merit. The greatest tragedy in this college admissions racket isn't the shadowy affirmative action policies, the mountains of student loan debt, or the entire college admission-industrial complex that's sprung up. It's that even the tools we've used to use to measure if someone was _ready_ for college have been annihilated.
- hackyhacky 9mo ago
  The SAT was never an IQ test, and it certainly doesn't measure "merit", whatever that is. It's a Scholastic Aptitude Test, and it isn't particularly good at that either. If we had a good "test for merit" then we could directly assign people to their roles and ignore their actual performance.
  - JumpCrisscross 9mo ago
    > It's a Scholastic Aptitude Test, and it isn't particularly good at that either It’s a pretty good measure for how a student will do in their first year in college.
    - fn-mote 9mo ago
      So is high school GPA.
      - kelipso 9mo ago
        Not if you went to an easy school vs a difficult school vs a school that gives mostly As. Never heard of grade inflation or what?
  - everybodyknows 9mo ago
    "Aptitude" was dropped from the name back in 1990. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#Name_changes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#Name_changes It may have become something of a dirty word ...
apparent 9mo ago
One of the charts in TFA shows a discontinuity in admissions rate around 75% UPP. This means that if you send your kid to a HS that is underserved when you enroll, but drops below the critical 75% threshold because too many other families are doing the same, then the school could fall out of the strong-benefit category. The kid would still have a better chance than if he applied from a high-performing school, but it wouldn't be as much of an advantage. Socially, I'm guessing the kid could face some challenges because (1) other high performing students might not like him because he's a curve-breaker, (2) teachers would know what the family was up to and could view it as distasteful, and (3) if the student went to UCSD or another school where this is a well-known hack, there could be stigma for having gamed the system/being less-smart.
- kelipso 9mo ago
  No one cares what high school you went to in college, unless maybe you went to the same high school yourself.
  - apparent 9mo ago
    Most of the time, no one knows. But if you're from a nice part of LA or SD but you went to a HS in a bad part of town, people might wonder why you went there, or figure it out for themselves. I think in most cases fellow undergrads would see it as just playing the game, but some might see it as "cheating" or like you didn't earn your spot as much as they did (if they were from a HS that was from a good part of town).
- aprilthird2021 9mo ago
  > other high performing students might not like him because he's a curve-breaker Not that common in high school to have classes and exams curved. Also kids don't care. > teachers would know what the family was up to and could view it as distasteful They also don't care > if the student went to UCSD or another school where this is a well-known hack, there could be stigma for having gamed the system/being less-smart. College kids also don't care and there are lots of other ways to game the system. Ocne you're at school, no one cares who gamed the system to get there and how they did it
lubujackson 9mo ago
This is the new meta, in SF at least. Despite the "what are secondary effects?" school admins trying to "fix inequality" by creating school lotteries, ending gifted programs and focusing on "equality of outcomes not equality of opportunity", the only thing that has actually improved troubled schools is that smart kids with involved parents now actively seek out lower rated schools like Mission High so they can more easily rise to the top of the class and get a free ride to Berkeley or another UC. There was an article about this exact phenomenon in SFGate a year or two ago so it is definitely a real trend.
- nine_k 9mo ago
  While I'm usually not a fan of ending gifted programs and such, I do believe that the kids in the lower-rated schools must feel a positive effect, mingling with highly-motivated, better-educated kids. It may do away with the whole "study is uncool, real kids hate school" vibe that holds many "bad neighborhood" schools back.
  - wahern 9mo ago
    > I do believe that the kids in the lower-rated schools must feel a positive effect, mingling with highly-motivated, better-educated kids. It may do away with the whole "study is uncool, real kids hate school" vibe that holds many "bad neighborhood" schools back. That's the logic, but it doesn't pan out. IMO it's because 1) by high school it's too late--kids already segregate themselves and the ones with strong study habits will tend to hide them. In America generally the culture is for upper classes to pretend they're anything but, coopting the styles and mannerisms of the lower classes, especially Black culture (which in American culture is almost by definition low status yet valorized). I grew up poor, with zero structure at home. It wasn't until I was mid-way through college when I realized the people around me actually studied and did their homework. I just didn't see it because they all pretended otherwise, then snuck off with their higher class peers, almost like secret rituals. Contrast that with, e.g. East Asian culture. I remember the first time I visited Singapore and saw a group of elementary school kids, without supervision, congregating at a McDonalds do to their homework together. My daughter goes to a Chinese immersion public school in SF. It's mostly Asian, but there's actually a sizable minority of black students there. Like their slightly more numerous white peers, they tend have a parent (or relative--grandmother, aunt, etc) who made a very deliberate decision and who provides the necessary structure and support at home. Home support is key because, talking with those parents, not even by 8th grade does the feeling of being different disappear; it's very taxing, and without constant encouragement kids will slip back into their comfort zone. It's entirely unreasonable to drop a poor white, black, or 4th generation Asian kid off at that school and expect them to adopt and internalize the culture without significant support at home. By contrast, the recently immigrated Asians fit right in regardless of class or wealth. Now imagine dropping a few smart students with strong study habits and support networks off at a school where most kids don't have those benefits. It's never going to move the needle. I just got back from Malaysia, where the majority Muslim Malay population benefits from government programs in ways that would be unfathomable to all but the most leftist Americans. 50 years from independence, excepting for the most wealthy, cosmopolitan strata, the country is as racially and economically stratified and segregated as it ever was. AFAIU, the situation is similar in South Africa. I'm onboard with the idea that diversity and breaking the structures of inequality are laudable goals, but so far nobody has figured out to socially engineer that outcome. Culture is like a newtonian fluid; you apply pressure and things tend to become even more rigid and less fluid. It's not just the privileged who push back, it's the social underclasses that also push back; they're no less invested in their identity. Change, when it comes about, tends to only happen organically in ways we haven't figured out how to induce. I no longer advocate for affirmative action programs, though I don't like dropping what programs we have. Constantly changing the rules creates its own burdens and unfairness that probably exceed the costs of keeping them. Better to just let them quietly recede into the background where they can continue helping a small minority of people capable of leveraging them.

SilverElfin 9mo ago

This is a terrible system because it forces students and parents to start playing all kinds of games to navigate a non transparent process for admissions. What now? Are parents going to send their kids to good schools until it is time to apply to colleges? And then they are going to switch to the best school for applications?

lateforwork 9mo ago
Right, up until middle school send kids to the best school, then for high school move to an area with poor schools.
- crab_galaxy 9mo ago
  Maybe they can bring their resources with them too, and the poor schools can have things like lead paint remediation, honors classes, and extra curricular activities. I like this idea!
  - Mountain_Skies 9mo ago
    Resources are mainly property taxes. Unless they're building a new house whose value is significantly greater than the median for the area, families gaming the system aren't likely to have much of a lasting impact on the district.
    - crab_galaxy 9mo ago
      Yeah you’re right. However, resource gaps can be filled by things like volunteer librarians, teacher wishlists/donations, field trips, strong PTAs, etc.. This is common in my city. It’s a big underfunded school district with a handful of coveted, well supported schools. I’m assuming it happens elsewhere in America with the success of platforms like donors choose.
      - fn-mote 9mo ago
        Yes. Well off schools raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from parent donations.

derektank 9mo ago

They should just make this explicit, like the UT system does. The top X% of students are admitted automatically from each school.

john-h-k 9mo ago
This seems terrible incentives. You are now in a purely adversarial relationship with your peers and hurting them helps you
- Mountain_Skies 9mo ago
  It's not unusual for families to change their school district so their kid can play for a better sports program and of course it's extremely common for families to want to live in the best district for education quality, but maybe some are now incentivized to move into a district with lesser competition for the top spots.
- bradchris 9mo ago
  Texan here. There’s still ways to get in if you don’t make the top X% of your class (the percentage is shrinking every year as the school climbs up the rankings and more people want to go… I think it’s near top-4% now? It used to be top 15% I recall), and many of those high achievers go onto other out of state schools, so it’s in the interest of UT system to offer automatic admission to the top achievers from across the state. Just because the top X% is guaranteed admission, that does not mean all (or even most) of the school is from the top X%.
  - dustincoates 9mo ago
    I believe it's only UT Austin that's shrunk the percentage. All of the other public universities are still at the original top 10%.
- terribleidea 9mo ago
  How much control can your classmates have over your own GPA? What percentage of 'control' over your GPA is up to you vs. your teachers, parents, classmates, and everyone else? I put those in order intentionally, as I think your classmates are below teachers and parents on the hierarchy.

torginus 9mo ago

Honestly, I don't know how do you even compare students with different backgrounds against each other. That's why standardized testing is good - it gives everyone the same chance to excel.

dmoy 9mo ago
> it gives everyone the same chance to excel. How does the existence of standardized testing give everyone the same chance? As an extremely over-exaggerated example example, someone whose home study time is disrupted frequently by gunfire outside is probably not getting the same chance as someone who lives on a 20 acre estate with private tutors for every subject.
- blindriver 9mo ago
  The schools that went test-optional already have switched back because this actually gives lower income students the best chance to distinguish themselves. The narrative that lower income students with less opportunities would benefit from not submitting SATs turned out to be false.
- lostmsu 9mo ago
  Ear plugs are under $5. If you could not think of that over years, you're not gonna be able to score well in SAT for different reasons.
  - sokoloff 9mo ago
    How fortunate that the only downside of frequent gunfire on the streets outside your house is the noise.
    - lostmsu 9mo ago
      What else has significant impact on ability to study? General downsides are irrelevant, so I don't see a point in your comment.
- 9mo ago

galkk 9mo ago

> A student who took all six AP classes offered at her school might be more impressive than the one who took six at a school that offered twice as many. Damn, this is as stupid as it gets.

gopher_space 9mo ago
The students operating at this level are identical. There’s no practical difference between a 4.0 and a 4.5 GPA when comparing students from different schools.
parpfish 9mo ago
There nothing stupid about controlling for circumstances. As an analogy, let’s say you want to build a fun race car that you can take to the track. You go out and look at a bunch of used cars and you want to be qualitative so you measure out their 0-60 times. You could just say “the car with the best time wins” and take the fastest one you tested. Or you could consider context like “this one had bald tires tha could easily be upgraded” or “we tested this one going uphill”. The goal is to find the car that can be turned into the fastest and not which has the best numbers right now.
- daedrdev 9mo ago
  Better circumstance do create better students though. And all this will do is cause the best students to hide in shit schools to game the system
  - fn-mote 9mo ago
    > And all this will do is cause the best students to hide in shit schools to game the system No it won’t, because they would get a horrible base for their education and be 1-2 years behind their “super strong school” peers. (I did not make up these numbers; it’s easy to have more than 1 year of college credit from Advanced Placement classes in the US system.) Acting like college is the beginning of education is foolish. Imagine struggling with learning how to learn challenging material while taking classes with students who already did that three years ago.