Anonymous wrote:1) more kids applying to colleges in general
2) more international kids applying to US schools
3) grade inflation, which has been going on for years but was exacerbated by CovID
4) test opitonal - removes some sort of baseline understanding of how competititve kids are from "lesser" schools or school districts
5) for white kids, more emphasis on applicants of color and "first gen"
All of these combine to make it harder. It is what it is, and it will take some time for the schools to figure it out, so the key is to find a wide band of schools your kid likes and not focus on the same "T10" 'T25" or whatever. There shouldn't be people who want to apply to both Dartmouth and Columbia, wildly different schools and settings, same with Columbia and Brown, for example. Decide what you like about a school and then identify 10 others that have similar qualities but different variables to gain entry.
Very smart comment, and don't miss the bolded. A lot of people (especially on these boards) are stuck in this perspective on college admissions where all good students should want to go to the same 25 schools (and that the best students will all want to attend the same 5 schools). The truth is that there are a huge number of great schools out there and that the best first for your students will depend on their academic goals, social preferences, environmental preferences, etc.
Though part of this hangup is driven by parents who work in fields where that "T25" preference remains -- BigLaw, the top banks and consulting firms, politics. They work in fields where having certain academic credentials are, if not required, a huge advantage. And they don't understand that these same schools are not preferred for all fields. Your really have to understand your child's goals and think more expansively about what a "good school" is in that context.
Given that so many top students are going outside of these schools, I think these trends may change. They have already changed my colleagues' views on recruiting.
WAs with a recruiter from a major investment bank recently and they said that they are moving theirlist down from just Top 25 to more emphasis on Top 26-75. The same kids who a decade ago were always T25 are now 26 to 75.
All of this will have consequences in recruiting as you say. The whole shift will seem like it's happening in slomo but it's ver much happening.
Need to find the genuinely high brain power kids who used to exist mainly at top 25 but have been crammed down by DEI, FGIL, TO
Your view is so narrow. Kids with good test scores do not necessarily have “higher brain power” than kids with slightly lower that went TO. The TO kid may have chosen to spend their time doing other intellectual and interesting things rather than prepping and retesting for a 1600 super score. Also, people manifest intelligence in several ways, of which test taking is only one. Don’t be fooled by high test scores, especially with super scoring. IME, super intelligent kids are curious and studying for the SAT is very boring for them and they may not drill down to prep (which they probably need because many intelligent kids will overthink the questions and get them wrong).
A top Goldman Sachs guy once told a very prominent business school professor I know that the single best predictor of success there was Math SAT. Kinda makes sense huh? Ability to quickly solve relatively complicated math problems... A super bright kid who can't bring himself to prepare for the most important exam in his or her life that will position him for all kinds of great intellectual growth opportunities--that is not a kid who is especially likely to succeed in the real world.
Your limited and narrow view is funny to see!
My husband works at Goldman and there are plenty of Kenyon, Michigan, Emory, and even schools you haven’t heard of if you’re not from there. Your friend may be speaking about a tiny subset at Goldman, say the IBD freshman class, but certainly not everyone.
Are you saying Michigan, Emory, and Kenyon don't have high math scores? Because I'm not understanding the reference.
Most recent CDS data for 75th percentile math SAT
Michigan: 780
Emory: 790
Kenyon: 760
I thought it was obvious. I’m saying they are not top schools in the same way HYP, Stanford, MIT, Williams, and Amherst are. Do you understand now? (I’m sure going TO has helped these scores significantly too).
But were you saying IBD department still only had kids from those historically top schools?
Only, no. Are you more likely to be in the IBD freshman class coming from a school like that (+ Penn and a few others) than a school like Kenyon? A decade ago the answer was yes and I assume it probably still holds.
My point was that there are plenty of people at Goldman who didn’t do well on their Math SAT (if you go by undergrad alma mater 50 percentile) who ended up at Goldman. I know that the last few years with TO and super scoring every college has amazing stats, but if you got into college in the last 2-3 years you aren’t working at Goldman Sachs. You are still in college.
Students today know that Goldman is no longer the place to be precisely because the skills required to succeed at Goldman have never been top math scores. My son and his friends who are very good in math want quant or HFT jobs where strong math skills (way beyond SAT math) are required. Recently a friend who works at Golman told me that when they went for an info session at Penn, they had few students show up because another Fintech company had their session at the same time. Quant shops will take top math kids from Georgia Tech versus the kid at Harvard if the GT kid is great at math. This has happened to out friend's son. He was hired by Citadel from Georgia Tech, while another friend's son from Penn did not get into Citadel.
True math geniuses today have a range of options in finance that are unavailable to the average “top student.” Corporate finance jobs like at GS are for smart kids but not for kids who have the ability to get a math or physics PHD for example. The point is not that you have to be a math genius to excel at Goldman or on Wall Street generally, you just have to have a strong (and fast) mathematical mind and a quantitative orientation
+1. This is the point I was trump to make. And no one is conflating Goldman with Jane street. What PP said is on the $, if you can get a a PhD in Physics from Caltech you are way more marketable than a Columbia or Duke MBA - and no way are you waisting your time at Goldman.
Right. But perhaps the banker who got 780 tends to do better than the banker who got 700.
You have some faith in the all knowing power of the SAT.
I just have faith math tests. Take two kids. Have them take the same test. The one who does better is probably better with numbers.
And you think that would always be true year after year? Your faith in the SAT is in one test taken when someone is 16 and you think this carries weight until when? 21? 25? 30? Like I said, that’s some level of faith.
Do you think your innate facility with math really changes after you are 16? I don't. Were the kids in your fifth grade class who were the best math students different from the kids in your 12th grade class? As I recall, not at all.
So we might as well test kids when they’re ten and be done with it? My kid scored poorly on the WPPSI when they were three. I guess I should have just given up on them.
Your level of faith grows even more. Clearly the SAT is a gift from above.
It’s not even the SAT per se. It’s just that it’s a challenging but straightforward math test that everyone has to take. The ones who do better at math tests are generally better at math.
Oh wow. So just any test now can sort kids by math ability for the rest of their lives. We should just assess them when they’re 4 and be done with it.
I’m not even sure what we are arguing about. My view is that SAT scores have value as an indicator of intellectual qualities, however you want to describe them, that a college or university should be interested in, that the better one does on these tests, the more likely it is he or she will be a strong student. This is a position shared by almost every school in the US at the moment, given that with some exceptions they almost all put some weight on test scores. I think removing test scores from the equation altogether would be bad-because it would be removing a valuable (not perfect but valuable) piece of information. I don’t totally object to TO so long as schools are fair and reasonable about implementing it. To an extent when a candidate applies TO, they are in fact submitting a score- the AO knows it’s lower than the bottom end of the range. I am concerned however that the move against standardized testing is driven by race politics and the need to circumvent forthcoming SCOTUS decisions. TO is a method to admit URMs preferentially in a way that helps schools avoid legal challenges but it could have unintended consequences that are negative, including favoring highly privileged students who are able to package themselves and their “narratives” better than an average middle class kid.
Well now we know what you’re about: race politics. So what you’re saying is that kids who score well on the SAT (non URMs) are innately smarter and more intelligent than those who you think score lower (in your mind, obviously URMs). So those URM kids should be excluded because they can never catch up in your mind. because god forbid the college actually, you know, educate someone.
I get it now. You place all faith in the test not because it measures anything but because you find it a convenient tool to achieve what you want.
What I want is an admissions process that is fair and reasonable. Standardized testing is only now a problem because of the Harvard lawsuit. I am not trying to keep anyone out of college. I have no animus against any particular race or group. And I believe colleges should strive to identify underprivileged kids who have great potential and provide them with an opportunity. Tests are one way to do that, as MIT has indicated.
Fair and reasonable would acknowledge that the test does not indicate intellect. SAT has been a problem for many years going back to when they had to change the name from aptitude to assessment. It's not a new issue. I think it's fine to include, but it shouldn't be the principle element. It is just one potential piece of a student portfolio.
It indicates a range of intellectual abilities. If you look at the rankings of top universities and colleges, average test scores are extremely high and decline as you go down. There is almost no exception to this pattern. If testing were to disappear, I think it really threatens the whole ecosystem we have in the US where we tend to sort our young people into different tiers. It will be more like Germany, I suppose, where all universities are seen as more or less equal. But Germans don’t pay for college and I’m not sure Americans will be excited to pay for their kids to attend schools that are populated by students of unverifiable ability.
"It indicates a range of intellectual abilities. " Not really. It does not correlate with intellectual ability.
It is beyond dispute that the tests are measuring intellectual ability like reading comprehension, verbal reasoning and mathematical problem solving. The main issue is how much expensive test prep distorts the outcome.
" If you look at the rankings of top universities and colleges, average test scores are extremely high and decline as you go down. There is almost no exception to this pattern" This is based on what people submit, not what is earned. It's self selected data.
I am talking about the CDS data at top schools where vast majority of students still report. The higher ranked schools have higher scores just as they did before TO.
"If testing were to disappear" -- no one has advocated this. Stop with the histrionics. People are saying it is a gameable component but not that it should be entirely excluded.
It is excluded now at UC schools and Cal Tech. Logical to think TO is but a first step. The question is emphasis and weight. If it’s almost entirely ignored, it might as well be excluded.
I am German. Move there if you want to study there.
This is silly mostly because of your repeated posts full of hyperbole and nonsense.
It makes sense that you are German- high comfort level sorting populations by race.
Anonymous wrote:Harvard has been evaluating the potential of young people for a few hundred years now. They did that very well without the SAT and can, if they want, do so again.
Nobody on planet Earth has any reason to doubt their ability to pick kids with high potential.
Harvard isn’t evaluating anything, 40-50% it’s sticking with legacy, z list families who also happen to be their main benefactors. For the remaining slots, they are sacrificing highly qualified MC/UMC candidates in favor of URMs, athletes and what not. Basically, it’s just a place for rich people to pay themselves on the back and tell themselves that they are ridiculously intelligent.
Harvard is nothing but an old boys country club.
Why do you assume that there are no highly qualified URMs? Do you believe they are genetically inferior? That being URM means you lack the ability to do well academically? Based on recent SAT data, there are THOUSANDS of URMs scoring very highly on the SAT and they are more than capable of doing well in top schools. To suggest otherwise is just plain racist. Period.
1 pct of black students broke 1400 versus 27 pct of Asians. The SAT data doesn’t really support your claim. Yes, over hundred of thousands of test takers, 1 pct means “thousands” but this is a big country. The massive underperformance of blacks on the SAT is the source of the energy behind getting rid of it - we all know this. And it’s most of the basis of the Harvard lawsuit.
Anonymous wrote:Harvard has been evaluating the potential of young people for a few hundred years now. They did that very well without the SAT and can, if they want, do so again.
Nobody on planet Earth has any reason to doubt their ability to pick kids with high potential.
Harvard isn’t evaluating anything, 40-50% it’s sticking with legacy, z list families who also happen to be their main benefactors. For the remaining slots, they are sacrificing highly qualified MC/UMC candidates in favor of URMs, athletes and what not. Basically, it’s just a place for rich people to pay themselves on the back and tell themselves that they are ridiculously intelligent.
Harvard is nothing but an old boys country club.
Why do you assume that there are no highly qualified URMs? Do you believe they are genetically inferior? That being URM means you lack the ability to do well academically? Based on recent SAT data, there are THOUSANDS of URMs scoring very highly on the SAT and they are more than capable of doing well in top schools. To suggest otherwise is just plain racist. Period.
Good, then affirmative action is unnecessary and can go.
Yes, we’ll do like California…where despite the abolishment of affirmative action, Latinos are now the majority of students in the University of California system.
Anonymous wrote:Harvard has been evaluating the potential of young people for a few hundred years now. They did that very well without the SAT and can, if they want, do so again.
Nobody on planet Earth has any reason to doubt their ability to pick kids with high potential.
Harvard isn’t evaluating anything, 40-50% it’s sticking with legacy, z list families who also happen to be their main benefactors. For the remaining slots, they are sacrificing highly qualified MC/UMC candidates in favor of URMs, athletes and what not. Basically, it’s just a place for rich people to pay themselves on the back and tell themselves that they are ridiculously intelligent.
Harvard is nothing but an old boys country club.
Why do you assume that there are no highly qualified URMs? Do you believe they are genetically inferior? That being URM means you lack the ability to do well academically? Based on recent SAT data, there are THOUSANDS of URMs scoring very highly on the SAT and they are more than capable of doing well in top schools. To suggest otherwise is just plain racist. Period.
1 pct of black students broke 1400 versus 27 pct of Asians. The SAT data doesn’t really support your claim. Yes, over hundred of thousands of test takers, 1 pct means “thousands” but this is a big country. The massive underperformance of blacks on the SAT is the source of the energy behind getting rid of it - we all know this. And it’s most of the basis of the Harvard lawsuit.
The point is that thousands of URMs score well on the SAT (just Google the data). So URMs are more than capable of doing well at Harvard or any other top school. Stop bringing Asians into the discussion. I am talking about URMs.
Anonymous wrote:Harvard has been evaluating the potential of young people for a few hundred years now. They did that very well without the SAT and can, if they want, do so again.
Nobody on planet Earth has any reason to doubt their ability to pick kids with high potential.
Harvard isn’t evaluating anything, 40-50% it’s sticking with legacy, z list families who also happen to be their main benefactors. For the remaining slots, they are sacrificing highly qualified MC/UMC candidates in favor of URMs, athletes and what not. Basically, it’s just a place for rich people to pay themselves on the back and tell themselves that they are ridiculously intelligent.
Harvard is nothing but an old boys country club.
Why do you assume that there are no highly qualified URMs? Do you believe they are genetically inferior? That being URM means you lack the ability to do well academically? Based on recent SAT data, there are THOUSANDS of URMs scoring very highly on the SAT and they are more than capable of doing well in top schools. To suggest otherwise is just plain racist. Period.
1 pct of black students broke 1400 versus 27 pct of Asians. The SAT data doesn’t really support your claim. Yes, over hundred of thousands of test takers, 1 pct means “thousands” but this is a big country. The massive underperformance of blacks on the SAT is the source of the energy behind getting rid of it - we all know this. And it’s most of the basis of the Harvard lawsuit.
The point is that thousands of URMs score well on the SAT (just Google the data). So URMs are more than capable of doing well at Harvard or any other top school. Stop bringing Asians into the discussion. I am talking about URMs.
Anonymous wrote:Harvard has been evaluating the potential of young people for a few hundred years now. They did that very well without the SAT and can, if they want, do so again.
Nobody on planet Earth has any reason to doubt their ability to pick kids with high potential.
Harvard isn’t evaluating anything, 40-50% it’s sticking with legacy, z list families who also happen to be their main benefactors. For the remaining slots, they are sacrificing highly qualified MC/UMC candidates in favor of URMs, athletes and what not. Basically, it’s just a place for rich people to pay themselves on the back and tell themselves that they are ridiculously intelligent.
Harvard is nothing but an old boys country club.
Why do you assume that there are no highly qualified URMs? Do you believe they are genetically inferior? That being URM means you lack the ability to do well academically? Based on recent SAT data, there are THOUSANDS of URMs scoring very highly on the SAT and they are more than capable of doing well in top schools. To suggest otherwise is just plain racist. Period.
1 pct of black students broke 1400 versus 27 pct of Asians. The SAT data doesn’t really support your claim. Yes, over hundred of thousands of test takers, 1 pct means “thousands” but this is a big country. The massive underperformance of blacks on the SAT is the source of the energy behind getting rid of it - we all know this. And it’s most of the basis of the Harvard lawsuit.
This isn't my fight... but data exactly supports the other poster's claim. Thousands of black test takers cross the "smart enough for Harvard" threshold every year. With that data in hand it is impossible to argue that the admitted students can't do the work.
Anonymous wrote:Harvard has been evaluating the potential of young people for a few hundred years now. They did that very well without the SAT and can, if they want, do so again.
Nobody on planet Earth has any reason to doubt their ability to pick kids with high potential.
Harvard isn’t evaluating anything, 40-50% it’s sticking with legacy, z list families who also happen to be their main benefactors. For the remaining slots, they are sacrificing highly qualified MC/UMC candidates in favor of URMs, athletes and what not. Basically, it’s just a place for rich people to pay themselves on the back and tell themselves that they are ridiculously intelligent.
Harvard is nothing but an old boys country club.
Why do you assume that there are no highly qualified URMs? Do you believe they are genetically inferior? That being URM means you lack the ability to do well academically? Based on recent SAT data, there are THOUSANDS of URMs scoring very highly on the SAT and they are more than capable of doing well in top schools. To suggest otherwise is just plain racist. Period.
1 pct of black students broke 1400 versus 27 pct of Asians. The SAT data doesn’t really support your claim. Yes, over hundred of thousands of test takers, 1 pct means “thousands” but this is a big country. The massive underperformance of blacks on the SAT is the source of the energy behind getting rid of it - we all know this. And it’s most of the basis of the Harvard lawsuit.
This isn't my fight... but data exactly supports the other poster's claim. Thousands of black test takers cross the "smart enough for Harvard" threshold every year. With that data in hand it is impossible to argue that the admitted students can't do the work.
+1 It's the same argument those who resent affirmative action used to try to keep us from having a black woman on the Supreme Court. If you've got hundreds of qualified judges of all different races/backgrounds, why wouldn't you want to choose a diverse group? Having a variety of perspectives on important matters leads to better decision-making, just as having a variety of perspectives on campus leads to a stronger education.
Anonymous wrote:Harvard has been evaluating the potential of young people for a few hundred years now. They did that very well without the SAT and can, if they want, do so again.
Nobody on planet Earth has any reason to doubt their ability to pick kids with high potential.
Harvard isn’t evaluating anything, 40-50% it’s sticking with legacy, z list families who also happen to be their main benefactors. For the remaining slots, they are sacrificing highly qualified MC/UMC candidates in favor of URMs, athletes and what not. Basically, it’s just a place for rich people to pay themselves on the back and tell themselves that they are ridiculously intelligent.
Harvard is nothing but an old boys country club.
Why do you assume that there are no highly qualified URMs? Do you believe they are genetically inferior? That being URM means you lack the ability to do well academically? Based on recent SAT data, there are THOUSANDS of URMs scoring very highly on the SAT and they are more than capable of doing well in top schools. To suggest otherwise is just plain racist. Period.
1 pct of black students broke 1400 versus 27 pct of Asians. The SAT data doesn’t really support your claim. Yes, over hundred of thousands of test takers, 1 pct means “thousands” but this is a big country. The massive underperformance of blacks on the SAT is the source of the energy behind getting rid of it - we all know this. And it’s most of the basis of the Harvard lawsuit.
This isn't my fight... but data exactly supports the other poster's claim. Thousands of black test takers cross the "smart enough for Harvard" threshold every year. With that data in hand it is impossible to argue that the admitted students can't do the work.
+1 It's the same argument those who resent affirmative action used to try to keep us from having a black woman on the Supreme Court. If you've got hundreds of qualified judges of all different races/backgrounds, why wouldn't you want to choose a diverse group? Having a variety of perspectives on important matters leads to better decision-making, just as having a variety of perspectives on campus leads to a stronger education.
Anonymous wrote:Harvard has been evaluating the potential of young people for a few hundred years now. They did that very well without the SAT and can, if they want, do so again.
Nobody on planet Earth has any reason to doubt their ability to pick kids with high potential.
Harvard isn’t evaluating anything, 40-50% it’s sticking with legacy, z list families who also happen to be their main benefactors. For the remaining slots, they are sacrificing highly qualified MC/UMC candidates in favor of URMs, athletes and what not. Basically, it’s just a place for rich people to pay themselves on the back and tell themselves that they are ridiculously intelligent.
Harvard is nothing but an old boys country club.
Why do you assume that there are no highly qualified URMs? Do you believe they are genetically inferior? That being URM means you lack the ability to do well academically? Based on recent SAT data, there are THOUSANDS of URMs scoring very highly on the SAT and they are more than capable of doing well in top schools. To suggest otherwise is just plain racist. Period.
1 pct of black students broke 1400 versus 27 pct of Asians. The SAT data doesn’t really support your claim. Yes, over hundred of thousands of test takers, 1 pct means “thousands” but this is a big country. The massive underperformance of blacks on the SAT is the source of the energy behind getting rid of it - we all know this. And it’s most of the basis of the Harvard lawsuit.
This isn't my fight... but data exactly supports the other poster's claim. Thousands of black test takers cross the "smart enough for Harvard" threshold every year. With that data in hand it is impossible to argue that the admitted students can't do the work.
I don’t understand this argument. No one is saying qualified black students should not be at top schools. But it’s odd to twist the SAT data into a conclusion that there is an abundance of URMs to send to top schools. 200,000 blacks took the SAT in 2022 and 1 pct broke 1400. That is 2000 kids. U Michigan alone has 32,000 kids.
Sure more kids were getting into Harvard or Duke 10 or even 5 years ago but largely the quality of students has stayed similar. There are very few people who got into Harvard 5 years ago that wouldn't be qualified to get in now
Anonymous wrote:Harvard has been evaluating the potential of young people for a few hundred years now. They did that very well without the SAT and can, if they want, do so again.
Nobody on planet Earth has any reason to doubt their ability to pick kids with high potential.
Harvard isn’t evaluating anything, 40-50% it’s sticking with legacy, z list families who also happen to be their main benefactors. For the remaining slots, they are sacrificing highly qualified MC/UMC candidates in favor of URMs, athletes and what not. Basically, it’s just a place for rich people to pay themselves on the back and tell themselves that they are ridiculously intelligent.
Harvard is nothing but an old boys country club.
Why do you assume that there are no highly qualified URMs? Do you believe they are genetically inferior? That being URM means you lack the ability to do well academically? Based on recent SAT data, there are THOUSANDS of URMs scoring very highly on the SAT and they are more than capable of doing well in top schools. To suggest otherwise is just plain racist. Period.
1 pct of black students broke 1400 versus 27 pct of Asians. The SAT data doesn’t really support your claim. Yes, over hundred of thousands of test takers, 1 pct means “thousands” but this is a big country. The massive underperformance of blacks on the SAT is the source of the energy behind getting rid of it - we all know this. And it’s most of the basis of the Harvard lawsuit.
This isn't my fight... but data exactly supports the other poster's claim. Thousands of black test takers cross the "smart enough for Harvard" threshold every year. With that data in hand it is impossible to argue that the admitted students can't do the work.
I don’t understand this argument. No one is saying qualified black students should not be at top schools. But it’s odd to twist the SAT data into a conclusion that there is an abundance of URMs to send to top schools. 200,000 blacks took the SAT in 2022 and 1 pct broke 1400. That is 2000 kids. U Michigan alone has 32,000 kids.
Sadly there are many people stating plainly that when they come across a black student or graduate of a top school they presume they didn't deserve to be there in the first place.
Sadly there are many people stating plainly that when they come across a black student or graduate of a top school they presume they didn't deserve to be there in the first place.
But, that's not the students' problem. They've done the work and made the achievements. Someone with racial bais will always find a way to denigrate those students. Ironically, those same people would never question the legitimacy of a white kid on campus, even if they were accepted because of legacy or potential donor status.
Anonymous wrote:Harvard has been evaluating the potential of young people for a few hundred years now. They did that very well without the SAT and can, if they want, do so again.
Nobody on planet Earth has any reason to doubt their ability to pick kids with high potential.
Harvard isn’t evaluating anything, 40-50% it’s sticking with legacy, z list families who also happen to be their main benefactors. For the remaining slots, they are sacrificing highly qualified MC/UMC candidates in favor of URMs, athletes and what not. Basically, it’s just a place for rich people to pay themselves on the back and tell themselves that they are ridiculously intelligent.
Harvard is nothing but an old boys country club.
Why do you assume that there are no highly qualified URMs? Do you believe they are genetically inferior? That being URM means you lack the ability to do well academically? Based on recent SAT data, there are THOUSANDS of URMs scoring very highly on the SAT and they are more than capable of doing well in top schools. To suggest otherwise is just plain racist. Period.
1 pct of black students broke 1400 versus 27 pct of Asians. The SAT data doesn’t really support your claim. Yes, over hundred of thousands of test takers, 1 pct means “thousands” but this is a big country. The massive underperformance of blacks on the SAT is the source of the energy behind getting rid of it - we all know this. And it’s most of the basis of the Harvard lawsuit.
This isn't my fight... but data exactly supports the other poster's claim. Thousands of black test takers cross the "smart enough for Harvard" threshold every year. With that data in hand it is impossible to argue that the admitted students can't do the work.
I don’t understand this argument. No one is saying qualified black students should not be at top schools. But it’s odd to twist the SAT data into a conclusion that there is an abundance of URMs to send to top schools. 200,000 blacks took the SAT in 2022 and 1 pct broke 1400. That is 2000 kids. U Michigan alone has 32,000 kids.
Privates have around 200 Black students per class. So that's enough for 10 schools.
Anonymous wrote:Harvard has been evaluating the potential of young people for a few hundred years now. They did that very well without the SAT and can, if they want, do so again.
Nobody on planet Earth has any reason to doubt their ability to pick kids with high potential.
Harvard isn’t evaluating anything, 40-50% it’s sticking with legacy, z list families who also happen to be their main benefactors. For the remaining slots, they are sacrificing highly qualified MC/UMC candidates in favor of URMs, athletes and what not. Basically, it’s just a place for rich people to pay themselves on the back and tell themselves that they are ridiculously intelligent.
Harvard is nothing but an old boys country club.
Why do you assume that there are no highly qualified URMs? Do you believe they are genetically inferior? That being URM means you lack the ability to do well academically? Based on recent SAT data, there are THOUSANDS of URMs scoring very highly on the SAT and they are more than capable of doing well in top schools. To suggest otherwise is just plain racist. Period.
1 pct of black students broke 1400 versus 27 pct of Asians. The SAT data doesn’t really support your claim. Yes, over hundred of thousands of test takers, 1 pct means “thousands” but this is a big country. The massive underperformance of blacks on the SAT is the source of the energy behind getting rid of it - we all know this. And it’s most of the basis of the Harvard lawsuit.
This isn't my fight... but data exactly supports the other poster's claim. Thousands of black test takers cross the "smart enough for Harvard" threshold every year. With that data in hand it is impossible to argue that the admitted students can't do the work.
I don’t understand this argument. No one is saying qualified black students should not be at top schools. But it’s odd to twist the SAT data into a conclusion that there is an abundance of URMs to send to top schools. 200,000 blacks took the SAT in 2022 and 1 pct broke 1400. That is 2000 kids. U Michigan alone has 32,000 kids.
Well, if you got over your obession with black students, you'd see the data shows over 10,000 URMs scored in the highest bracket. URM includes more than just black kids.
Anonymous wrote:1) more kids applying to colleges in general
2) more international kids applying to US schools
3) grade inflation, which has been going on for years but was exacerbated by CovID
4) test opitonal - removes some sort of baseline understanding of how competititve kids are from "lesser" schools or school districts
5) for white kids, more emphasis on applicants of color and "first gen"
All of these combine to make it harder. It is what it is, and it will take some time for the schools to figure it out, so the key is to find a wide band of schools your kid likes and not focus on the same "T10" 'T25" or whatever. There shouldn't be people who want to apply to both Dartmouth and Columbia, wildly different schools and settings, same with Columbia and Brown, for example. Decide what you like about a school and then identify 10 others that have similar qualities but different variables to gain entry.
Very smart comment, and don't miss the bolded. A lot of people (especially on these boards) are stuck in this perspective on college admissions where all good students should want to go to the same 25 schools (and that the best students will all want to attend the same 5 schools). The truth is that there are a huge number of great schools out there and that the best first for your students will depend on their academic goals, social preferences, environmental preferences, etc.
Though part of this hangup is driven by parents who work in fields where that "T25" preference remains -- BigLaw, the top banks and consulting firms, politics. They work in fields where having certain academic credentials are, if not required, a huge advantage. And they don't understand that these same schools are not preferred for all fields. Your really have to understand your child's goals and think more expansively about what a "good school" is in that context.
Given that so many top students are going outside of these schools, I think these trends may change. They have already changed my colleagues' views on recruiting.
WAs with a recruiter from a major investment bank recently and they said that they are moving theirlist down from just Top 25 to more emphasis on Top 26-75. The same kids who a decade ago were always T25 are now 26 to 75.
All of this will have consequences in recruiting as you say. The whole shift will seem like it's happening in slomo but it's ver much happening.
Need to find the genuinely high brain power kids who used to exist mainly at top 25 but have been crammed down by DEI, FGIL, TO
Your view is so narrow. Kids with good test scores do not necessarily have “higher brain power” than kids with slightly lower that went TO. The TO kid may have chosen to spend their time doing other intellectual and interesting things rather than prepping and retesting for a 1600 super score. Also, people manifest intelligence in several ways, of which test taking is only one. Don’t be fooled by high test scores, especially with super scoring. IME, super intelligent kids are curious and studying for the SAT is very boring for them and they may not drill down to prep (which they probably need because many intelligent kids will overthink the questions and get them wrong).
A top Goldman Sachs guy once told a very prominent business school professor I know that the single best predictor of success there was Math SAT. Kinda makes sense huh? Ability to quickly solve relatively complicated math problems... A super bright kid who can't bring himself to prepare for the most important exam in his or her life that will position him for all kinds of great intellectual growth opportunities--that is not a kid who is especially likely to succeed in the real world.
Your limited and narrow view is funny to see!
My husband works at Goldman and there are plenty of Kenyon, Michigan, Emory, and even schools you haven’t heard of if you’re not from there. Your friend may be speaking about a tiny subset at Goldman, say the IBD freshman class, but certainly not everyone.
Are you saying Michigan, Emory, and Kenyon don't have high math scores? Because I'm not understanding the reference.
Most recent CDS data for 75th percentile math SAT
Michigan: 780
Emory: 790
Kenyon: 760
I thought it was obvious. I’m saying they are not top schools in the same way HYP, Stanford, MIT, Williams, and Amherst are. Do you understand now? (I’m sure going TO has helped these scores significantly too).
But were you saying IBD department still only had kids from those historically top schools?
Only, no. Are you more likely to be in the IBD freshman class coming from a school like that (+ Penn and a few others) than a school like Kenyon? A decade ago the answer was yes and I assume it probably still holds.
My point was that there are plenty of people at Goldman who didn’t do well on their Math SAT (if you go by undergrad alma mater 50 percentile) who ended up at Goldman. I know that the last few years with TO and super scoring every college has amazing stats, but if you got into college in the last 2-3 years you aren’t working at Goldman Sachs. You are still in college.
Students today know that Goldman is no longer the place to be precisely because the skills required to succeed at Goldman have never been top math scores. My son and his friends who are very good in math want quant or HFT jobs where strong math skills (way beyond SAT math) are required. Recently a friend who works at Golman told me that when they went for an info session at Penn, they had few students show up because another Fintech company had their session at the same time. Quant shops will take top math kids from Georgia Tech versus the kid at Harvard if the GT kid is great at math. This has happened to out friend's son. He was hired by Citadel from Georgia Tech, while another friend's son from Penn did not get into Citadel.
True math geniuses today have a range of options in finance that are unavailable to the average “top student.” Corporate finance jobs like at GS are for smart kids but not for kids who have the ability to get a math or physics PHD for example. The point is not that you have to be a math genius to excel at Goldman or on Wall Street generally, you just have to have a strong (and fast) mathematical mind and a quantitative orientation
+1. This is the point I was trump to make. And no one is conflating Goldman with Jane street. What PP said is on the $, if you can get a a PhD in Physics from Caltech you are way more marketable than a Columbia or Duke MBA - and no way are you waisting your time at Goldman.
Right. But perhaps the banker who got 780 tends to do better than the banker who got 700.
You have some faith in the all knowing power of the SAT.
I just have faith math tests. Take two kids. Have them take the same test. The one who does better is probably better with numbers.
And you think that would always be true year after year? Your faith in the SAT is in one test taken when someone is 16 and you think this carries weight until when? 21? 25? 30? Like I said, that’s some level of faith.
Do you think your innate facility with math really changes after you are 16? I don't. Were the kids in your fifth grade class who were the best math students different from the kids in your 12th grade class? As I recall, not at all.
So we might as well test kids when they’re ten and be done with it? My kid scored poorly on the WPPSI when they were three. I guess I should have just given up on them.
Your level of faith grows even more. Clearly the SAT is a gift from above.
It’s not even the SAT per se. It’s just that it’s a challenging but straightforward math test that everyone has to take. The ones who do better at math tests are generally better at math.
Oh wow. So just any test now can sort kids by math ability for the rest of their lives. We should just assess them when they’re 4 and be done with it.
I’m not even sure what we are arguing about. My view is that SAT scores have value as an indicator of intellectual qualities, however you want to describe them, that a college or university should be interested in, that the better one does on these tests, the more likely it is he or she will be a strong student. This is a position shared by almost every school in the US at the moment, given that with some exceptions they almost all put some weight on test scores. I think removing test scores from the equation altogether would be bad-because it would be removing a valuable (not perfect but valuable) piece of information. I don’t totally object to TO so long as schools are fair and reasonable about implementing it. To an extent when a candidate applies TO, they are in fact submitting a score- the AO knows it’s lower than the bottom end of the range. I am concerned however that the move against standardized testing is driven by race politics and the need to circumvent forthcoming SCOTUS decisions. TO is a method to admit URMs preferentially in a way that helps schools avoid legal challenges but it could have unintended consequences that are negative, including favoring highly privileged students who are able to package themselves and their “narratives” better than an average middle class kid.
Well now we know what you’re about: race politics. So what you’re saying is that kids who score well on the SAT (non URMs) are innately smarter and more intelligent than those who you think score lower (in your mind, obviously URMs). So those URM kids should be excluded because they can never catch up in your mind. because god forbid the college actually, you know, educate someone.
I get it now. You place all faith in the test not because it measures anything but because you find it a convenient tool to achieve what you want.
What I want is an admissions process that is fair and reasonable. Standardized testing is only now a problem because of the Harvard lawsuit. I am not trying to keep anyone out of college. I have no animus against any particular race or group. And I believe colleges should strive to identify underprivileged kids who have great potential and provide them with an opportunity. Tests are one way to do that, as MIT has indicated.
Fair and reasonable would acknowledge that the test does not indicate intellect. SAT has been a problem for many years going back to when they had to change the name from aptitude to assessment. It's not a new issue. I think it's fine to include, but it shouldn't be the principle element. It is just one potential piece of a student portfolio.
It indicates a range of intellectual abilities. If you look at the rankings of top universities and colleges, average test scores are extremely high and decline as you go down. There is almost no exception to this pattern. If testing were to disappear, I think it really threatens the whole ecosystem we have in the US where we tend to sort our young people into different tiers. It will be more like Germany, I suppose, where all universities are seen as more or less equal. But Germans don’t pay for college and I’m not sure Americans will be excited to pay for their kids to attend schools that are populated by students of unverifiable ability.
"It indicates a range of intellectual abilities. " Not really. It does not correlate with intellectual ability.
It is beyond dispute that the tests are measuring intellectual ability like reading comprehension, verbal reasoning and mathematical problem solving. The main issue is how much expensive test prep distorts the outcome.
" If you look at the rankings of top universities and colleges, average test scores are extremely high and decline as you go down. There is almost no exception to this pattern" This is based on what people submit, not what is earned. It's self selected data.
I am talking about the CDS data at top schools where vast majority of students still report. The higher ranked schools have higher scores just as they did before TO.
"If testing were to disappear" -- no one has advocated this. Stop with the histrionics. People are saying it is a gameable component but not that it should be entirely excluded.
It is excluded now at UC schools and Cal Tech. Logical to think TO is but a first step. The question is emphasis and weight. If it’s almost entirely ignored, it might as well be excluded.
I am German. Move there if you want to study there.
This is silly mostly because of your repeated posts full of hyperbole and nonsense.
It makes sense that you are German- high comfort level sorting populations by race.
That is not what the poster said at all. Also, the US is pretty comfy at it itself. Just look at the ton of comments in this thread.
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