MIT's findings on standardized tests is worth noting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Their research is specific to MIT. They have no idea how TO is working out at other schools. The colleges aren’t striving for racial equity, that’s the big myth fed to Asians so they get upset at the few Black and Latinos at the school.

You can live in this dream world if you like but even the findings by the UC report contradict this

https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/sttf/sttf-report.pdf

Test optional is a disingenuous policy by elite schools to pursue racial diversity away from legal scrutiny based on the fallout from the Harvard case

What fallout from the Harvard case? Have they seen a drop in applications? A drop in prestige? Don’t think so.

Fallout meaning Harvard will likely need to change its policies once the Supreme Ct rules on this.

They already changed their policies. Standardized test scores are now optional.

+1

Exactly. The Supreme Court can't touch Test Optional, even if they end considering race in college admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Their research is specific to MIT. They have no idea how TO is working out at other schools. The colleges aren’t striving for racial equity, that’s the big myth fed to Asians so they get upset at the few Black and Latinos at the school.

They did the same analysis for the entire UC system and found the exact same thing. Colleges are eliminating SAT/ACT requirements for “equity” reasons, not because tests aren’t effective in identifying kids who will do well in college.

If equity is one of their stated missions and they cannot pursue that mission with standardized test scores per SCOTUS, then they have to stop relying on the information from the test scores.

[Anonymous]

Wow, did you really need a slide ruler to figure this one out?

Grade inflation is everywhere. Half the kids these days are academic frauds/jokes yet somehow still get straight As. How is that possible? When I was in highschool, As were reserved for the top 5-10% of the class. Cs are for average work. Your typical kid is a B- to C student, yet teachers and schools are too afraid to hand out real grades.

If vast majority of kids have fake grades, how else do you suggest we weed through the garbage without testing? Testing forces students to demonstrate that they have a mastery of the knowledge their grades purportedly show that they have. If a straight A student has mediocre SAT scores, then you can bet they're really just a B-C student propped up on grade inflation fraud.


Stop trying to water down American education. It will be catastrophic for the country's ability to innovate and compete if we keep handing out unearned spots to medicocre individuals. MIT is just saying in a nice, PC way what we all want to really say. MIT is sick of kids slipping in who need remedial work and who are dragging down the quality of classes. MIT has a reputation to uphold.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, did you really need a slide ruler to figure this one out?

Grade inflation is everywhere. Half the kids these days are academic frauds/jokes yet somehow still get straight As. How is that possible? When I was in highschool, As were reserved for the top 5-10% of the class. Cs are for average work. Your typical kid is a B- to C student, yet teachers and schools are too afraid to hand out real grades.

If vast majority of kids have fake grades, how else do you suggest we weed through the garbage without testing? Testing forces students to demonstrate that they have a mastery of the knowledge their grades purportedly show that they have. If a straight A student has mediocre SAT scores, then you can bet they're really just a B-C student propped up on grade inflation fraud.


Stop trying to water down American education. It will be catastrophic for the country's ability to innovate and compete if we keep handing out unearned spots to medicocre individuals. MIT is just saying in a nice, PC way what we all want to really say. MIT is sick of kids slipping in who need remedial work and who are dragging down the quality of classes. MIT has a reputation to uphold.

MIT doesn’t have remedial classes and has maintained an excellent graduation rate. As for the bolded, it’s up to teachers & administrators to hold a hard like on academic standards in the face of students and their families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many of you seem to suppose that the mission of MIT and other elite universities is to take the most elite HS students and make them more elite. I’m not sure that is, or should be the case. Kids coming from elite high schools with top grades can get their best education at dozens and dozens of American universities. For those kids, education is much more a function of input, than the system itself. The best use of SAT/ACT is to screen out. Probably 80-90% of kids with 4.0s can do the work at MIT. The test can screen out for the anomaly who is really not prepared. It should not be a race to get 1570 to qualify.

Ok, then why do so many elite universities, except MIT and caltech, give legacies a bump? Because that is what they are doing when they give legacies a bump -- take elite HS students and make them more elite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, did you really need a slide ruler to figure this one out?

Grade inflation is everywhere. Half the kids these days are academic frauds/jokes yet somehow still get straight As. How is that possible? When I was in highschool, As were reserved for the top 5-10% of the class. Cs are for average work. Your typical kid is a B- to C student, yet teachers and schools are too afraid to hand out real grades.

If vast majority of kids have fake grades, how else do you suggest we weed through the garbage without testing? Testing forces students to demonstrate that they have a mastery of the knowledge their grades purportedly show that they have. If a straight A student has mediocre SAT scores, then you can bet they're really just a B-C student propped up on grade inflation fraud.


Stop trying to water down American education. It will be catastrophic for the country's ability to innovate and compete if we keep handing out unearned spots to medicocre individuals. MIT is just saying in a nice, PC way what we all want to really say. MIT is sick of kids slipping in who need remedial work and who are dragging down the quality of classes. MIT has a reputation to uphold.

MIT doesn’t have remedial classes and has maintained an excellent graduation rate. As for the bolded, it’s up to teachers & administrators to hold a hard like on academic standards in the face of students and their families.

Teachers and administrators don't care what happens after the kids leave their system. That's why they allow kids who can't even read or do math at a MS level to graduate HS. Shame on them.

MCPS has a 50% rule that serves no one but the administrators who can then tout how the URM kids at their schools are doing "better". If they really cared about these kids they wouldn't give them a passing grade and send them off into the world even as they can't pass Algebra or read past a 4th grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, did you really need a slide ruler to figure this one out?

Grade inflation is everywhere. Half the kids these days are academic frauds/jokes yet somehow still get straight As. How is that possible? When I was in highschool, As were reserved for the top 5-10% of the class. Cs are for average work. Your typical kid is a B- to C student, yet teachers and schools are too afraid to hand out real grades.

If vast majority of kids have fake grades, how else do you suggest we weed through the garbage without testing? Testing forces students to demonstrate that they have a mastery of the knowledge their grades purportedly show that they have. If a straight A student has mediocre SAT scores, then you can bet they're really just a B-C student propped up on grade inflation fraud.


Stop trying to water down American education. It will be catastrophic for the country's ability to innovate and compete if we keep handing out unearned spots to medicocre individuals. MIT is just saying in a nice, PC way what we all want to really say. MIT is sick of kids slipping in who need remedial work and who are dragging down the quality of classes. MIT has a reputation to uphold.

MIT has not accepted mediocre students even when it was TO. Read carefully at what they are saying, adding the Test back isn’t going to get a higher % of Asians. They could probably fill the entire class with just Asian applicants and they clearly choose not to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many of you seem to suppose that the mission of MIT and other elite universities is to take the most elite HS students and make them more elite. I’m not sure that is, or should be the case. Kids coming from elite high schools with top grades can get their best education at dozens and dozens of American universities. For those kids, education is much more a function of input, than the system itself. The best use of SAT/ACT is to screen out. Probably 80-90% of kids with 4.0s can do the work at MIT. The test can screen out for the anomaly who is really not prepared. It should not be a race to get 1570 to qualify.

You clearly have not taken economics in college. These universities have the best resources and they are not unlimited resources. The best way to help a country is to efficiently allocate scarce resources to those who will exploit and benefit from these resources the most. This means matching the most academically gifted kids with the most academically gifted institutions, specially when these institutions take massive subsidies from the state.

But who am I kidding.... This has never been about what is good for the long term prosperity of the country. It has been about virtue signaling about how good some privileged white folks are by misallocating resources so that they are not called racist

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many of you seem to suppose that the mission of MIT and other elite universities is to take the most elite HS students and make them more elite. I’m not sure that is, or should be the case. Kids coming from elite high schools with top grades can get their best education at dozens and dozens of American universities. For those kids, education is much more a function of input, than the system itself. The best use of SAT/ACT is to screen out. Probably 80-90% of kids with 4.0s can do the work at MIT. The test can screen out for the anomaly who is really not prepared. It should not be a race to get 1570 to qualify.

You clearly have not taken economics in college. These universities have the best resources and they are not unlimited resources. The best way to help a country is to efficiently allocate scarce resources to those who will exploit and benefit from these resources the most. This means matching the most academically gifted kids with the most academically gifted institutions, specially when these institutions take massive subsidies from the state.

But who am I kidding.... This has never been about what is good for the long term prosperity of the country. It has been about virtue signaling about how good some privileged white folks are by misallocating resources so that they are not called racist

Colleges taking subsidies should be public goods. That should mean expanding their student populations if they have billions of dollars endowed, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many of you seem to suppose that the mission of MIT and other elite universities is to take the most elite HS students and make them more elite. I’m not sure that is, or should be the case. Kids coming from elite high schools with top grades can get their best education at dozens and dozens of American universities. For those kids, education is much more a function of input, than the system itself. The best use of SAT/ACT is to screen out. Probably 80-90% of kids with 4.0s can do the work at MIT. The test can screen out for the anomaly who is really not prepared. It should not be a race to get 1570 to qualify.

You clearly have not taken economics in college. These universities have the best resources and they are not unlimited resources. The best way to help a country is to efficiently allocate scarce resources to those who will exploit and benefit from these resources the most. This means matching the most privilege white kids with the most academically gifted institutions, specially when these institutions take massive subsidies from the state.

But who am I kidding.... This has never been about what is good for the long term prosperity of the country. It has been about virtue signaling about how good some privileged white folks are by misallocating resources so that they are not called racist

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, did you really need a slide ruler to figure this one out?

Grade inflation is everywhere. Half the kids these days are academic frauds/jokes yet somehow still get straight As. How is that possible? When I was in highschool, As were reserved for the top 5-10% of the class. Cs are for average work. Your typical kid is a B- to C student, yet teachers and schools are too afraid to hand out real grades.

If vast majority of kids have fake grades, how else do you suggest we weed through the garbage without testing? Testing forces students to demonstrate that they have a mastery of the knowledge their grades purportedly show that they have. If a straight A student has mediocre SAT scores, then you can bet they're really just a B-C student propped up on grade inflation fraud.


Stop trying to water down American education. It will be catastrophic for the country's ability to innovate and compete if we keep handing out unearned spots to medicocre individuals. MIT is just saying in a nice, PC way what we all want to really say. MIT is sick of kids slipping in who need remedial work and who are dragging down the quality of classes. MIT has a reputation to uphold.

Old man/woman yells at clouds alert.

Thirty years ago kids were maxing out at BC calc. Now they take it in 10th or 11th grade. Science consisted of three subjects and minimal lab time. Computer science barely existed.

All that to say, placing any significant weight on the SAT is a choice but hardly the only correct one.

But sure tell me how much smarter kids were back in the day. You’re delusional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, did you really need a slide ruler to figure this one out?

Grade inflation is everywhere. Half the kids these days are academic frauds/jokes yet somehow still get straight As. How is that possible? When I was in highschool, As were reserved for the top 5-10% of the class. Cs are for average work. Your typical kid is a B- to C student, yet teachers and schools are too afraid to hand out real grades.

If vast majority of kids have fake grades, how else do you suggest we weed through the garbage without testing? Testing forces students to demonstrate that they have a mastery of the knowledge their grades purportedly show that they have. If a straight A student has mediocre SAT scores, then you can bet they're really just a B-C student propped up on grade inflation fraud.


Stop trying to water down American education. It will be catastrophic for the country's ability to innovate and compete if we keep handing out unearned spots to medicocre individuals. MIT is just saying in a nice, PC way what we all want to really say. MIT is sick of kids slipping in who need remedial work and who are dragging down the quality of classes. MIT has a reputation to uphold.

Old man/woman yells at clouds alert.

Thirty years ago kids were maxing out at BC calc. Now they take it in 10th or 11th grade. Science consisted of three subjects and minimal lab time. Computer science barely existed.

All that to say, placing any significant weight on the SAT is a choice but hardly the only correct one.

But sure tell me how much smarter kids were back in the day. You’re delusional.

Not that I disagree with what you said, but you should know that very, very few kids have access to in-person Calc BC in 10th or 11th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many of you seem to suppose that the mission of MIT and other elite universities is to take the most elite HS students and make them more elite. I’m not sure that is, or should be the case. Kids coming from elite high schools with top grades can get their best education at dozens and dozens of American universities. For those kids, education is much more a function of input, than the system itself. The best use of SAT/ACT is to screen out. Probably 80-90% of kids with 4.0s can do the work at MIT. The test can screen out for the anomaly who is really not prepared. It should not be a race to get 1570 to qualify.

You clearly have not taken economics in college. These universities have the best resources and they are not unlimited resources. The best way to help a country is to efficiently allocate scarce resources to those who will exploit and benefit from these resources the most. This means matching the most academically gifted kids with the most academically gifted institutions, specially when these institutions take massive subsidies from the state.

But who am I kidding.... This has never been about what is good for the long term prosperity of the country. It has been about virtue signaling about how good some privileged white folks are by misallocating resources so that they are not called racist

If this is what you truly believe then why aren’t you railing against athletic recruiting (which MIT does), legacy or donor admits? Could that be because they overwhelmingly benefit the only class of people you think “deserves” admission? Rich whites?

The pool of smart, talented kids far exceeds the number of open spots. There is no rational way to order applicants from 1-50,000. You seem to do it by automatically assuming anyone who isn’t white (and maybe Asian) belongs at the bottom of the list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, did you really need a slide ruler to figure this one out?

Grade inflation is everywhere. Half the kids these days are academic frauds/jokes yet somehow still get straight As. How is that possible? When I was in highschool, As were reserved for the top 5-10% of the class. Cs are for average work. Your typical kid is a B- to C student, yet teachers and schools are too afraid to hand out real grades.

If vast majority of kids have fake grades, how else do you suggest we weed through the garbage without testing? Testing forces students to demonstrate that they have a mastery of the knowledge their grades purportedly show that they have. If a straight A student has mediocre SAT scores, then you can bet they're really just a B-C student propped up on grade inflation fraud.


Stop trying to water down American education. It will be catastrophic for the country's ability to innovate and compete if we keep handing out unearned spots to medicocre individuals. MIT is just saying in a nice, PC way what we all want to really say. MIT is sick of kids slipping in who need remedial work and who are dragging down the quality of classes. MIT has a reputation to uphold.

Old man/woman yells at clouds alert.

Thirty years ago kids were maxing out at BC calc. Now they take it in 10th or 11th grade. Science consisted of three subjects and minimal lab time. Computer science barely existed.

All that to say, placing any significant weight on the SAT is a choice but hardly the only correct one.

But sure tell me how much smarter kids were back in the day. You’re delusional.

Not that I disagree with what you said, but you should know that very, very few kids have access to in-person Calc BC in 10th or 11th grade.

MCPS and FCPS kids too not to mention private schools and magnets. And that pool alone is more the enough for elite college admissions, however you define it.

Believing that kids were smarter back in the day because grades were lower or tests were harder is akin to believing that baseball players in the 1930s were better because their stats are better. It’s a fallacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, did you really need a slide ruler to figure this one out?

Grade inflation is everywhere. Half the kids these days are academic frauds/jokes yet somehow still get straight As. How is that possible? When I was in highschool, As were reserved for the top 5-10% of the class. Cs are for average work. Your typical kid is a B- to C student, yet teachers and schools are too afraid to hand out real grades.

If vast majority of kids have fake grades, how else do you suggest we weed through the garbage without testing? Testing forces students to demonstrate that they have a mastery of the knowledge their grades purportedly show that they have. If a straight A student has mediocre SAT scores, then you can bet they're really just a B-C student propped up on grade inflation fraud.


Stop trying to water down American education. It will be catastrophic for the country's ability to innovate and compete if we keep handing out unearned spots to medicocre individuals. MIT is just saying in a nice, PC way what we all want to really say. MIT is sick of kids slipping in who need remedial work and who are dragging down the quality of classes. MIT has a reputation to uphold.

Old man/woman yells at clouds alert.

Thirty years ago kids were maxing out at BC calc. Now they take it in 10th or 11th grade. Science consisted of three subjects and minimal lab time. Computer science barely existed.

All that to say, placing any significant weight on the SAT is a choice but hardly the only correct one.

But sure tell me how much smarter kids were back in the day. You’re delusional.

Not that I disagree with what you said, but you should know that very, very few kids have access to in-person Calc BC in 10th or 11th grade.

MCPS and FCPS kids too not to mention private schools and magnets. And that pool alone is more the enough for elite college admissions, however you define it.

Believing that kids were smarter back in the day because grades were lower or tests were harder is akin to believing that baseball players in the 1930s were better because their stats are better. It’s a fallacy.

I meant from a national perspective. Less than half of high schools offer calculus at all.

I don’t disagree with your second paragraph.