No, test optional isn’t the reason your kid didn’t get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Some people on DCUM want to believe that genetics beats effort.

Nothing beats effort.

You can't teach "tall". I think that photo is a poor example. The little guy isn't gonna get that basket.

Some people can outwork everyone in sports and have no success because the genetics aren't there. Period.

There are limitations to intelligence as well. Hard work at the Office can win over a smart person that has zero motivation and does not apply themselves. But, the naturally intelligent one will still score higher on IQ tests and be able to skate by doing less work. I see my kids don't have to study even 1/8th as much as some of their friends and they never take home less than an A. I got my best friend a job and her husband was like "how come you aren't stressed and don't have to do involuntary over-time just to keep up like my wife?". She has had some performance/numbers issues--though she is working much more. I don't know, but I get my work done in much, much less time and it's 'good' work on quality reviews so it's not like I'm churning out crap. I do read and process information very quickly. I am concise. My boss said I say in 2 pages what another co-worker takes 15 pages to say. I don't miss any of the points and everything is there and adequately explained.

So.... about that.

The taller guy (7'7) played in the NBA for about 12 years. Scored over 1,599 points.
That little guy (5'6) played in the NBA for about 12 years. Scored over 8,072 points.

As to your relationship with your best friend's husband - why even put that out there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. I'm first-generation college; my mother did not attend high school. I was only admitted to a top business school because I had the highest GMAT's in the class. Otherwise, I would not have gotten a top M.B.A., Ph.D., and career at Goldman Sachs.

Sports teams measure 40-yard dash and vertical leap. Standardized tests are a similar way to objectively identify talent, including talented minorities from bad schools.

Except they are not objective. They can be an indicator, but are not an absolute measure by any means. So TO allows a student to submit that to demonstrate some added proficiency.

What some fail to understand is that there are incredibly smart and accomplished students who don't test well. I have one for whom testing can be a crap shoot based on phrasing of questions. Can be a super high scorer or meh. The low score doesn't mean she knows the content less, and the question phrasing is irrelevant to real life scenarios. Fortunately, she did great and 1 and done, but, having taught test prep in grad school, I see how it is its own thing and not always an indicator of the acumen.

My kid struggles with essays. Why is it ok to just drop the test scores but not the essays?

Because ultimately, everyone needs to know how to write. It will help you advance in life. If you want to attend college, you need to know how to write, even as a STEM major.
If someone cannot write at a minimum level, they will struggle in college. Plenty of people do really well in life without doing well on the SAT. Studies demonstrate that.

Business writing and the kind of cringy confessional auto-fiction demanded on college applications are very different skills.

Your perception that this is what is demanded in college essays might be your issue. Being a good writer means adapting your language to various situations and audiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My issue with the URM thing is using race but not socio-economics. The Latinx kid down the street from me whose parents have 3 teslas and who goes to 50K a year private is not disadvantaged.

So how exactly do you KNOW they got into an elite school because they are Latinx? They likely got in because they have the same advantages as the typical white/asian UMC kids---so good gpa, good sat, and good EC and essays and attended a private school and have the drive to succeed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. I'm first-generation college; my mother did not attend high school. I was only admitted to a top business school because I had the highest GMAT's in the class. Otherwise, I would not have gotten a top M.B.A., Ph.D., and career at Goldman Sachs.

Sports teams measure 40-yard dash and vertical leap. Standardized tests are a similar way to objectively identify talent, including talented minorities from bad schools.

Except they are not objective. They can be an indicator, but are not an absolute measure by any means. So TO allows a student to submit that to demonstrate some added proficiency.

What some fail to understand is that there are incredibly smart and accomplished students who don't test well. I have one for whom testing can be a crap shoot based on phrasing of questions. Can be a super high scorer or meh. The low score doesn't mean she knows the content less, and the question phrasing is irrelevant to real life scenarios. Fortunately, she did great and 1 and done, but, having taught test prep in grad school, I see how it is its own thing and not always an indicator of the acumen.

My kid struggles with essays. Why is it ok to just drop the test scores but not the essays?

Because ultimately, everyone needs to know how to write. It will help you advance in life. If you want to attend college, you need to know how to write, even as a STEM major.
If someone cannot write at a minimum level, they will struggle in college. Plenty of people do really well in life without doing well on the SAT. Studies demonstrate that.

Business writing and the kind of cringy confessional auto-fiction demanded on college applications are very different skills.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My issue with the URM thing is using race but not socio-economics. The Latinx kid down the street from me whose parents have 3 teslas and who goes to 50K a year private is not disadvantaged.

So how exactly do you KNOW they got into an elite school because they are Latinx? They likely got in because they have the same advantages as the typical white/asian UMC kids---so good gpa, good sat, and good EC and essays and attended a private school and have the drive to succeed.

The kid in question does have a good GPA but took easier classes. Perhaps got essay help. And went ....wait for it.... test optional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My issue with the URM thing is using race but not socio-economics. The Latinx kid down the street from me whose parents have 3 teslas and who goes to 50K a year private is not disadvantaged.

So how exactly do you KNOW they got into an elite school because they are Latinx? They likely got in because they have the same advantages as the typical white/asian UMC kids---so good gpa, good sat, and good EC and essays and attended a private school and have the drive to succeed.

The kid in question does have a good GPA but took easier classes. Perhaps got essay help. And went ....wait for it.... test optional.

And where exactly did this kid get into? with what major?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good kids are getting rejected from top schools, because top schools no longer care about academic excellence as much as they care about "Diversity"
There are very few students who meet ALL of the following criteria
1) Top 1-3% of graduating class
2) 1550 in SATor 35 ACT or higher in test scores
3) National AP scholar.
4) 750 or higher in 2 Subject Tests

These are truly gifted students. All of them could easily be accommodated in the top 15 schools, many times over, but most don't get in, because top schools are obsessed with diversity.

This is a tragedy for this country in the long run, because as any economist will tell you, we are grossly misallocating some of the best resources of our academic institutions on some very questionable talent, instead of focusing them on talent that can benefit the most from them and consequently turbocharge the US economy into the next generation.

But eh. Becoming fat, dumb and careless is probably necessary for the baton to pass from the US to some other nation. That's the way history has worked

Not just that. They get $ to go. Even if your kid got in, cost is prohibitive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good kids are getting rejected from top schools, because top schools no longer care about academic excellence as much as they care about "Diversity"
There are very few students who meet ALL of the following criteria
1) Top 1-3% of graduating class
2) 1550 in SATor 35 ACT or higher in test scores
3) National AP scholar.
4) 750 or higher in 2 Subject Tests

These are truly gifted students. All of them could easily be accommodated in the top 15 schools, many times over, but most don't get in, because top schools are obsessed with diversity.

This is a tragedy for this country in the long run, because as any economist will tell you, we are grossly misallocating some of the best resources of our academic institutions on some very questionable talent, instead of focusing them on talent that can benefit the most from them and consequently turbocharge the US economy into the next generation.

But eh. Becoming fat, dumb and careless is probably necessary for the baton to pass from the US to some other nation. That's the way history has worked

Well said!

Shame on the top schools in this nation!

[Anonymous]

[quote/]


People have such short memories. Asians, like so many other minority groups, were once not let in colleges at all in any numbers. Affirmative action opened the door for everybody not a wealthy white male, including poor white males. Now you want to get rid of the thing that allowed people to get in in the first place. Make no mistake, when these major colleges start thinking there are too many Asians, they are certainly not responding with "then let's put in more Black and brown people instead". They are putting in more white people to keep the rich alumni happy and maintain "the culture and tradition". Complain about legacies and athletes and the shift to ED --not affirmative action.


+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So.... about that.

The taller guy (7'7) played in the NBA for about 12 years. Scored over 1,599 points.
That little guy (5'6) played in the NBA for about 12 years. Scored over 8,072 points.

So . . . about that.

The taller guy played in the NBA for about 12 years. Blocked 2086 shots, plus another 77 in the playoffs.
That little guy played in the NBA for about 12 years. Blocked 111 shots, plus just two more in the playoffs.

Scoring points is a nice metric, but it's not always the best gauge for evaluating talent. There's only one basketball in a game at any given moment. A team with five shooters isn't going to be a very good team. Someone has to be a good defender. The taller guy was a pretty good defender. Excellent, in fact. Considered by all credible basketball authorities to be one of the best shot blockers in the history of the game. Only player to block more shots than score points in an NBA career. If I'm an NBA general manager and have the choice between a generational shot blocker or a pretty good shooter, I'm drafting the former -- every single time.

Hey, that's kinda like college admissions! Wanna attend a school that's all STEM majors? Lovely, there's MIT over there. But the thing is, most schools don't want a student body of nothing but future biologists and computer programmers. Someone has to study in the philosophy department. Someone else has to major in history. So, yeah, if the choice is between a very good future dermatologist and a future Pulitzer prize winner in fiction writing, I'm leaning toward the English concentrator on this one -- SAT math scores be damned. And you know what? MIT would make the same choice. If not, how do you explain the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences?

[Anonymous]

The NBA analogies are always the dumbest in the college forum. Regardless of side. They have no relevance. Please stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The NBA analogies are always the dumbest in the college forum. Regardless of side. They have no relevance. Please stop.

I found this quite entertaining and maybe even a little relevant? For example, someone suggested having shot blocker like the super tall guy was always a better selection. That may have been more true in the past. These days there are SO many high percentage 3 point shooters out there that part of the game is diminished.

It is 2023 and the game has changed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:only admitted ... because I had the highest GMAT's in the class.

Anonymous wrote:Except they are not objective. ... So TO allows a student to submit that to demonstrate some added proficiency.
... there are incredibly smart and accomplished students who don't test well.

Standardized tests are more objective than grades. There are smart and accompished students who don't get good grades. If test-optional "allows you to submit scores", then applications should be grade-optional, and essay optional, and allow you to submit those.

I have seen executive-education programs where applicants are "too busy" to take the test. This is just an excuse by a dummy who knows he will perform poorly on the test. He will also perform poorly in the classroom and make more excuses.

It takes four years to build a high school transcipt. But it takes only one morning to take SAT's. These tests have incremental predictive power. Schools should use all the information.

I saw students at the "W" high schools in the second- or third-hardest calculus class, with inflated grades, inflated extracurriculars, and inflated expectations. They were in the nonsense "National Honor Society", but not in any hard classes. I taught dumb students at a HYP university. Absent a disability, if your daughter performs poorly on tests, then she is not especially smart. She might be above average. Maybe she is 80th or 90th percentile. She is probably nice and concientious, but is not near the 99th percentile that needs to be at a top school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My issue with the URM thing is using race but not socio-economics. The Latinx kid down the street from me whose parents have 3 teslas and who goes to 50K a year private is not disadvantaged.

So how exactly do you KNOW they got into an elite school because they are Latinx? They likely got in because they have the same advantages as the typical white/asian UMC kids---so good gpa, good sat, and good EC and essays and attended a private school and have the drive to succeed.

The kid in question does have a good GPA but took easier classes. Perhaps got essay help. And went ....wait for it.... test optional.

And, how would you know that kid's classes are easier unless your kid went to the same 50k/year private? (Even then, how would you really know)? Also, if they are down the street from you, perhaps you are similar income, yet you feel your kid should beat out their kid? So many questions.

[Anonymous]

The sports analogies used for this topic are dumb. Stop it.