5 ms·

Why is a lossy testing filter better than just failing out those who can't make it? Maybe allow for larger freshmen classes and smaller latter classes or adopt

Why is a lossy testing filter better than just failing out those who can't make it? Maybe allow for larger freshmen classes and smaller latter classes or adopt community colleges and have all students start there and advance into the UC system sophomore year on. Instead they bring back what is basically an IQ test for admission.

bigthymer 4mo ago
From the students' perspective, it is better to not be allowed in than fail out midway through. One test is cheaper than years in college.
- falcor84 4mo ago
  I personally strongly disagree. I think it's much better to be given the opportunity to do the actual work, rather than to be required to do the pre-assessment song and dance. And if there are actual prerequisites that a person hasn't previously passed, they should be allowed to be tested on these specifically.
  - zugi 4mo ago
    It depends on a lot of things. If they've also applied to another college that's better suited to their ability, admitting then to a school where they'll likely fail is not really doing them a favor.
    - annzabelle 4mo ago
      Agreed. I've seen some interesting data that kids who could've been successful premeds or engineers at their state flagship but instead eke their way into Harvard or Princeton (sports scholarship, legacy etc) will instead graduate with a flaky studies major because they couldn't cut it in their intended major and the switching costs of transferring were too high. There are downsides if you end up a small fish in a big pond.
      - SoftTalker 4mo ago
        Is the actual premed or engineering coursework at Harvard or Princeton really that much more rigorous than that at a flagship state school? I'm doubtful.
        annzabelle 4mo ago
        I'm no expert on that particular situation, but I compared my syllabi and projects from a state flagship (not Georgia Tech, Berkeley, or UIUC) with my brother's from Carnegie Mellon, and the expectations of first/second year CS majors were extremely different. Sometimes we used the same textbook but CMU covered more chapters and their projects were more involved. Some courses that typically waited until senior year at the state flagship were common to take spring sophomore year at CMU. There were a lot of courses that were numbered as undergraduate at CMU but covered content that was only covered in graduate courses at the state flagship.
        naishoya 4mo ago
        Quick answer: YES Longer answer - in the other reply to your doubtfulness. This is true across the entire US system, some state flagship universities curricula are so deficient that graduate level at better schools wont even consider the bachelor level diplomas from those schools as eligible unless the applicant is top n% of the graduating class, where n is a low single digit. The admissions committee may never publish or say it directly, but for MANY state flagship universities the B.S. level maths and science courses are simply insufficient fo higher level studies at leading schools. Thus, companies with hiring and leadership that is aware of these conditions will also simply pass over applicants with degrees from flagship state universities, much the same as they do with online diploma mill "Graduates." My take on this situation is that as primary education outcomes worsened in the US, state universities modulated the coursework to match the readiness of incoming students in order to keep enrollment 'available' to everyone and extract revenue from the student loans system. The "Princeton and Harvard(s)" were differently motivated, in that they never had a goal of admitting the majority of High School graduates, and thus were not required to lower levels of educational rigour to meet eroding conditions in primary education. It truly is a sad "state" of affairs.
  - dgacmu 4mo ago
    Speaking as a professor: the filter is really helpful. Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible. I've seen it happen - and I saw more of it happen for the years CMU also stopped requiring the SAT. The SAT is a very imperfect measure but it turns out a lot of the others are even worse.
    - falcor84 4mo ago
      Honest question: why is it terrible? I would assume that if someone is capable enough to struggle for 2 years, they stand a real chance to struggle for 4 years and graduate. And seeing how the job market rewards a mediocre diploma from a good college significantly more than a good diploma from a mediocre college, it seems like a very rational decision from the student's side. And if they do fail out, they should still be able to enroll in another program, and presumably get a decent grade there, no?
    - cucumber3732842 4mo ago
      >Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible. Putting a body every a seat for those profitable 500-person lectures taught by an adjunct and graded by TAs who are all paid peanuts and then having them wash out before those expensive 50-person high level classes and esoteric electives taught by tenured profs and accompanied by lots of expensive lab time is great for the university's bottom line though.
      - falcor84 4mo ago
        Good point, and that was for me the promise of the original MOOCs 15 years ago - for students to be able to take on these MIT/Stanford courses, with the exact same workload and see if they could handle them, without any additional cost to the school and without the student having to upend their life yet. And if they proved to themselves that they could and are willing to, then enroll, and use that as proof. There are still some online courses that try to do this sort of thing, with a particular example being the University of Helsinky's Full Stack Open [0] which offers post-hoc university credits for those who complete the course, but it seems that the dream didn't quite materialize. [0] https://fullstackopen.com/en/about https://fullstackopen.com/en/about
stephenbez 4mo ago
High graduation rates are an important metric to administrators. If a professor gave a failing grade to 1/3 of the class they would be in hot water.
- collabs 4mo ago
  > High graduation rates are an important metric to administrators. If a professor gave a failing grade to 1/3 of the class they would be in hot water. I remember practically every single instructor/professor on the first day of class during my freshman year of my undergraduate study said something along the lines of "I have no curves. Your grades depend on you and nobody else. If the whole class does well, everyone can get an A. If nobody does well, everybody can fail." So I guess this was more motivational to get us to study rather than stating facts?
  - labcomputer 4mo ago
    It really depends on what kind of class it is, but at most schools: * If 1/3 of calculus physics for engineers fail, they take it next semester. * If 1/3 of gen-ed physics for poets fail, the professor better have a good explanation for the provost. * If 1/3 of physics for pre-meds fail, the professor better have a pretty good home security system and might want to think about having the family stay in a hotel for a few weeks.
- stockresearcher 4mo ago
  My wife has a civil engineering degree. There were a number of courses where partial credit was not permitted and the final exam was 2 questions. It was common for students to take those courses 3 or 4 times before passing. Giving a failing grade to only 1/3 of the class might get a professor investigated for making the class too easy.
  - fn-mote 4mo ago
    What decade and country? In the US, this would be a huge outlier. Unless, somehow this is part of an advanced certification process? I really can’t imagine professionals not knowing how to study for an exam like this. Medical school shows what motivated people can do.
paytonjjones 4mo ago
Apply the same question to jobs and it's easy to see: why is a lossy [interview] filter better than just [firing] those who can't make it? This has enormous costs to the institution, the teachers/mentors, and of course to the person failing out. And that's not even factoring in the social and psychological costs.
- eikenberry 4mo ago
  Disagree. Hiring and firing is better than a bad interview process. The reason we don't have that is due to regulations and litigiousness (and the laws that facilitate it). IMO failing to get the opportunity is worse than getting the opportunity and failing at it.
BobbyJo 4mo ago
If you completely ignore costs, and the negative affects of having 50+% of a class be unprepared and taking time from the other students, sure, that would work great. Seems like a bad alternative to standardized tests considering students will then have to pass tests once in college...
jimbokun 4mo ago
Because it’s a complete waste of time and money for both those students and the instructors.

bigthymer 4mo ago

From the students' perspective, it is better to not be allowed in than fail out midway through. One test is cheaper than years in college.

falcor84 4mo ago
I personally strongly disagree. I think it's much better to be given the opportunity to do the actual work, rather than to be required to do the pre-assessment song and dance. And if there are actual prerequisites that a person hasn't previously passed, they should be allowed to be tested on these specifically.
- zugi 4mo ago
  It depends on a lot of things. If they've also applied to another college that's better suited to their ability, admitting then to a school where they'll likely fail is not really doing them a favor.
  - annzabelle 4mo ago
    Agreed. I've seen some interesting data that kids who could've been successful premeds or engineers at their state flagship but instead eke their way into Harvard or Princeton (sports scholarship, legacy etc) will instead graduate with a flaky studies major because they couldn't cut it in their intended major and the switching costs of transferring were too high. There are downsides if you end up a small fish in a big pond.
    - SoftTalker 4mo ago
      Is the actual premed or engineering coursework at Harvard or Princeton really that much more rigorous than that at a flagship state school? I'm doubtful.
      - annzabelle 4mo ago
        I'm no expert on that particular situation, but I compared my syllabi and projects from a state flagship (not Georgia Tech, Berkeley, or UIUC) with my brother's from Carnegie Mellon, and the expectations of first/second year CS majors were extremely different. Sometimes we used the same textbook but CMU covered more chapters and their projects were more involved. Some courses that typically waited until senior year at the state flagship were common to take spring sophomore year at CMU. There were a lot of courses that were numbered as undergraduate at CMU but covered content that was only covered in graduate courses at the state flagship.
      - naishoya 4mo ago
        Quick answer: YES Longer answer - in the other reply to your doubtfulness. This is true across the entire US system, some state flagship universities curricula are so deficient that graduate level at better schools wont even consider the bachelor level diplomas from those schools as eligible unless the applicant is top n% of the graduating class, where n is a low single digit. The admissions committee may never publish or say it directly, but for MANY state flagship universities the B.S. level maths and science courses are simply insufficient fo higher level studies at leading schools. Thus, companies with hiring and leadership that is aware of these conditions will also simply pass over applicants with degrees from flagship state universities, much the same as they do with online diploma mill "Graduates." My take on this situation is that as primary education outcomes worsened in the US, state universities modulated the coursework to match the readiness of incoming students in order to keep enrollment 'available' to everyone and extract revenue from the student loans system. The "Princeton and Harvard(s)" were differently motivated, in that they never had a goal of admitting the majority of High School graduates, and thus were not required to lower levels of educational rigour to meet eroding conditions in primary education. It truly is a sad "state" of affairs.
- dgacmu 4mo ago
  Speaking as a professor: the filter is really helpful. Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible. I've seen it happen - and I saw more of it happen for the years CMU also stopped requiring the SAT. The SAT is a very imperfect measure but it turns out a lot of the others are even worse.
  - falcor84 4mo ago
    Honest question: why is it terrible? I would assume that if someone is capable enough to struggle for 2 years, they stand a real chance to struggle for 4 years and graduate. And seeing how the job market rewards a mediocre diploma from a good college significantly more than a good diploma from a mediocre college, it seems like a very rational decision from the student's side. And if they do fail out, they should still be able to enroll in another program, and presumably get a decent grade there, no?
  - cucumber3732842 4mo ago
    >Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible. Putting a body every a seat for those profitable 500-person lectures taught by an adjunct and graded by TAs who are all paid peanuts and then having them wash out before those expensive 50-person high level classes and esoteric electives taught by tenured profs and accompanied by lots of expensive lab time is great for the university's bottom line though.
    - falcor84 4mo ago
      Good point, and that was for me the promise of the original MOOCs 15 years ago - for students to be able to take on these MIT/Stanford courses, with the exact same workload and see if they could handle them, without any additional cost to the school and without the student having to upend their life yet. And if they proved to themselves that they could and are willing to, then enroll, and use that as proof. There are still some online courses that try to do this sort of thing, with a particular example being the University of Helsinky's Full Stack Open [0] which offers post-hoc university credits for those who complete the course, but it seems that the dream didn't quite materialize. [0] https://fullstackopen.com/en/about https://fullstackopen.com/en/about

stephenbez 4mo ago

High graduation rates are an important metric to administrators. If a professor gave a failing grade to 1/3 of the class they would be in hot water.

collabs 4mo ago
> High graduation rates are an important metric to administrators. If a professor gave a failing grade to 1/3 of the class they would be in hot water. I remember practically every single instructor/professor on the first day of class during my freshman year of my undergraduate study said something along the lines of "I have no curves. Your grades depend on you and nobody else. If the whole class does well, everyone can get an A. If nobody does well, everybody can fail." So I guess this was more motivational to get us to study rather than stating facts?
- labcomputer 4mo ago
  It really depends on what kind of class it is, but at most schools: * If 1/3 of calculus physics for engineers fail, they take it next semester. * If 1/3 of gen-ed physics for poets fail, the professor better have a good explanation for the provost. * If 1/3 of physics for pre-meds fail, the professor better have a pretty good home security system and might want to think about having the family stay in a hotel for a few weeks.
stockresearcher 4mo ago
My wife has a civil engineering degree. There were a number of courses where partial credit was not permitted and the final exam was 2 questions. It was common for students to take those courses 3 or 4 times before passing. Giving a failing grade to only 1/3 of the class might get a professor investigated for making the class too easy.
- fn-mote 4mo ago
  What decade and country? In the US, this would be a huge outlier. Unless, somehow this is part of an advanced certification process? I really can’t imagine professionals not knowing how to study for an exam like this. Medical school shows what motivated people can do.

paytonjjones 4mo ago

Apply the same question to jobs and it's easy to see: why is a lossy [interview] filter better than just [firing] those who can't make it? This has enormous costs to the institution, the teachers/mentors, and of course to the person failing out. And that's not even factoring in the social and psychological costs.

eikenberry 4mo ago
Disagree. Hiring and firing is better than a bad interview process. The reason we don't have that is due to regulations and litigiousness (and the laws that facilitate it). IMO failing to get the opportunity is worse than getting the opportunity and failing at it.

BobbyJo 4mo ago

If you completely ignore costs, and the negative affects of having 50+% of a class be unprepared and taking time from the other students, sure, that would work great. Seems like a bad alternative to standardized tests considering students will then have to pass tests once in college...

jimbokun 4mo ago

Because it’s a complete waste of time and money for both those students and the instructors.