4 ms·

It's an endemic problem - I heard that even at Ivy league schools nearly a quarter of the students are now below the 25th percentile.

thaumasiotes 12y ago
We like to think the Ivies have a narrower range, though. This girl was admitted under UT's explicit policy of admitting unqualified students as long as they come from awful schools. That sort of thing can cause quite a large gap between, say, the 25th percentile student and the modal student. update: for reference: UT Austin 25th-75th percentile SAT math scores: 590 - 710 Cal Tech 25th-75th percentile SAT math scores: 770 - 800 How significant do you think it is that a quarter of Cal Tech students are below the 25th percentile? How far below do you think they range?
- logicallee 12y ago
  this follow-up is better. But you're asking me to guess! >How significant do you think it is that a quarter of Cal Tech students are below the 25th percentile? How far below do you think they range? I don't know. It would help if your figures didn't cut out at the bottom-quarter mark, i.e. if you gave some figures on the lowest SAT math score (and what about verbal?) admitted to these institutions, or some other indication rather than asking what we 'like to think' about the range or having me guess :) I'm not saying you're wrong, but the way you expressed it, "despite being below the 25th percentile for students at that school" and "It specifically calls them out as being in the bottom quartile" in your original comment is probably not a great way to show your case. Your range comment is much better, but stops short of indicating what the full range is or where this student falls. Basically, I am directly saying that being in the bottom quartile is not itself an indication of sub-standard performance - at any school. Because nearly a quarter of students will be below the bottom quartile - at every school.
  - thaumasiotes 12y ago
    I'm talking in terms of 25th and 75th percentiles because those figures are public. You're more than welcome to provide other numbers if you have a way of getting them. And I provide exact numbers for the girl under discussion. Someone else was nice enough to point out that the ACT average for students at UT Austin is 28 (91st percentile nationwide), and the 25th percentile is 25 (80th). This girl got 22 (62nd). Compared to the average student at her school, that's abysmally low. From memory, the range for verbal scores at caltech was 720-800, and the range at UT Austin was 120 points. The "true top end" at caltech probably isn't that far above 800, since the writing range was 720-790, so UT Austin is displaying much much more variation (120 points compared to 80). In contrast, there's going to be a lot more variation in math ability at caltech than the 30-point math range implies, due to the very low ceiling on the SAT-math. That makes it impossible to say how much variation there really is by looking at SAT scores. On the other other hand, caltech being a technical school, you might suspect that they're targeting math ability, and the range should be narrower than it is for verbal. ;p > Because nearly a quarter of students will be below the bottom quartile - at every school. You could change this to exactly a quarter and you wouldn't be wrong (except in cases like, as we've seen, caltech and other high-end schools, where well over a quarter of the students are in the top 25th percentile by math SAT score). But the sentence preceding it is obviously false. Yes, a quarter of the group will always be in the bottom 25%. Does that mean they're not performing as well as the rest of the group? Of course it does. That's how we measured them. If your top students and your worst students are very close in ability because of restriction in range, you can sensibly put them in the same classes. If, as at UT Austin, they're very far apart, you can't. I went to a large public university myself, and the course catalog was full of classes covering the same material but differentiated by "difficulty". What's wrong with describing the students who can't succeed outside of the bottom tier as "substandard"?
  - 205guy 12y ago
    I gotta chase thaumasiotes all over this thread and stand up to his elitism. He wrote: "What's wrong with describing the students who can't succeed outside of the bottom tier as "substandard"?" The article tells you what's wrong with that: it keeps people who COULD succeed from doing so by undermining their confidence and their motivation. Why are you really intent on knocking down the disadvantaged at every turn? Why don't you want to help them learn how to succeed?
    - thaumasiotes 12y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7856439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7856439 Because trying to lift these people up is one of the least cost-effective things we could be doing. It has knock-on negative effects all over, directly wastes tons of money, and produces very little to show for it. You appear to be saying that while these students are in fact substandard, we shouldn't say so because it will hurt their feelings. How is admitting two (or more) tiers of students, banding them into classes by ability, and then telling them they're all in the top tier better than letting different schools admit students from narrower ability bands, so that when you tell them they're more or less as good as the other students it has the virtue of being true? There was a scandal recently (I believe at UNC chapel hill) where the classes for football scholarship students were found to be fictional, just a bureaucratic vehicle for giving them grades so they'd qualify to keep playing for the school. Would you be willing to call those students substandard? What if it undermined their self-confidence?
      - 205guy 12y ago
        Of course your own hand-wavy numbers will support your argument, it doesn't mean they are correct, nor that your socioeconomic assumptions are correct. And the topic of this article has nothing to do with athletics or the shady academic policies thereof. I never said these students were substandard. I do believe their performance is substandard and they are at greater risk of dropping out because of all the disadvantages they had and continue to have in life. I believe good schools should admit them because their potential is equal to the non-disadvantaged students, and the results in the article prove this. The article even points out that disadvantaged students with potential do better when admitted to the better school. Your view does not separate performance from potential, and you keep insisting on using low performance to limit admissions to good schools, and thus in a way, limit how much potential these students can develop. You are essentially arguing that the poor and uneducated (who are likely to be minorities) should stay poor and uneducated. I believe that it is a net gain for society when all students are given a chance to meet their highest potential. This article shows that he cost of doing so is minimal, and thus the gain for society is even greater.

thaumasiotes 12y ago

We like to think the Ivies have a narrower range, though. This girl was admitted under UT's explicit policy of admitting unqualified students as long as they come from awful schools. That sort of thing can cause quite a large gap between, say, the 25th percentile student and the modal student. update: for reference: UT Austin 25th-75th percentile SAT math scores: 590 - 710 Cal Tech 25th-75th percentile SAT math scores: 770 - 800 How significant do you think it is that a quarter of Cal Tech students are below the 25th percentile? How far below do you think they range?

logicallee 12y ago
this follow-up is better. But you're asking me to guess! >How significant do you think it is that a quarter of Cal Tech students are below the 25th percentile? How far below do you think they range? I don't know. It would help if your figures didn't cut out at the bottom-quarter mark, i.e. if you gave some figures on the lowest SAT math score (and what about verbal?) admitted to these institutions, or some other indication rather than asking what we 'like to think' about the range or having me guess :) I'm not saying you're wrong, but the way you expressed it, "despite being below the 25th percentile for students at that school" and "It specifically calls them out as being in the bottom quartile" in your original comment is probably not a great way to show your case. Your range comment is much better, but stops short of indicating what the full range is or where this student falls. Basically, I am directly saying that being in the bottom quartile is not itself an indication of sub-standard performance - at any school. Because nearly a quarter of students will be below the bottom quartile - at every school.
- thaumasiotes 12y ago
  I'm talking in terms of 25th and 75th percentiles because those figures are public. You're more than welcome to provide other numbers if you have a way of getting them. And I provide exact numbers for the girl under discussion. Someone else was nice enough to point out that the ACT average for students at UT Austin is 28 (91st percentile nationwide), and the 25th percentile is 25 (80th). This girl got 22 (62nd). Compared to the average student at her school, that's abysmally low. From memory, the range for verbal scores at caltech was 720-800, and the range at UT Austin was 120 points. The "true top end" at caltech probably isn't that far above 800, since the writing range was 720-790, so UT Austin is displaying much much more variation (120 points compared to 80). In contrast, there's going to be a lot more variation in math ability at caltech than the 30-point math range implies, due to the very low ceiling on the SAT-math. That makes it impossible to say how much variation there really is by looking at SAT scores. On the other other hand, caltech being a technical school, you might suspect that they're targeting math ability, and the range should be narrower than it is for verbal. ;p > Because nearly a quarter of students will be below the bottom quartile - at every school. You could change this to exactly a quarter and you wouldn't be wrong (except in cases like, as we've seen, caltech and other high-end schools, where well over a quarter of the students are in the top 25th percentile by math SAT score). But the sentence preceding it is obviously false. Yes, a quarter of the group will always be in the bottom 25%. Does that mean they're not performing as well as the rest of the group? Of course it does. That's how we measured them. If your top students and your worst students are very close in ability because of restriction in range, you can sensibly put them in the same classes. If, as at UT Austin, they're very far apart, you can't. I went to a large public university myself, and the course catalog was full of classes covering the same material but differentiated by "difficulty". What's wrong with describing the students who can't succeed outside of the bottom tier as "substandard"?
- 205guy 12y ago
  I gotta chase thaumasiotes all over this thread and stand up to his elitism. He wrote: "What's wrong with describing the students who can't succeed outside of the bottom tier as "substandard"?" The article tells you what's wrong with that: it keeps people who COULD succeed from doing so by undermining their confidence and their motivation. Why are you really intent on knocking down the disadvantaged at every turn? Why don't you want to help them learn how to succeed?
  - thaumasiotes 12y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7856439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7856439 Because trying to lift these people up is one of the least cost-effective things we could be doing. It has knock-on negative effects all over, directly wastes tons of money, and produces very little to show for it. You appear to be saying that while these students are in fact substandard, we shouldn't say so because it will hurt their feelings. How is admitting two (or more) tiers of students, banding them into classes by ability, and then telling them they're all in the top tier better than letting different schools admit students from narrower ability bands, so that when you tell them they're more or less as good as the other students it has the virtue of being true? There was a scandal recently (I believe at UNC chapel hill) where the classes for football scholarship students were found to be fictional, just a bureaucratic vehicle for giving them grades so they'd qualify to keep playing for the school. Would you be willing to call those students substandard? What if it undermined their self-confidence?
    - 205guy 12y ago
      Of course your own hand-wavy numbers will support your argument, it doesn't mean they are correct, nor that your socioeconomic assumptions are correct. And the topic of this article has nothing to do with athletics or the shady academic policies thereof. I never said these students were substandard. I do believe their performance is substandard and they are at greater risk of dropping out because of all the disadvantages they had and continue to have in life. I believe good schools should admit them because their potential is equal to the non-disadvantaged students, and the results in the article prove this. The article even points out that disadvantaged students with potential do better when admitted to the better school. Your view does not separate performance from potential, and you keep insisting on using low performance to limit admissions to good schools, and thus in a way, limit how much potential these students can develop. You are essentially arguing that the poor and uneducated (who are likely to be minorities) should stay poor and uneducated. I believe that it is a net gain for society when all students are given a chance to meet their highest potential. This article shows that he cost of doing so is minimal, and thus the gain for society is even greater.