Harvard Psychologist argues for admissions reform

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Before DEI, all the competitive programs RSI, SSP, several MIT programs, all very standard asking for SAT score. Now there may be only one or two still allowing you to even submit SAT score.

RSI has returned to requiring scores. MIT requires scores for admission to the university and recommends scores for its summer programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Standardized tests reward a certain kind of learning and prep. It's helpful but not a full or super nuanced picture. It is mostly a multiple choice test. I'd hate to be reduced to a number like on the South Korean CSAT although that is only once per year and no retest and covers 5 different subjects not just two.

I think grades, interviews, references and essays are more important than prepping for a standardized test resourced students can prep for and take unlimited times.

Don't even know where to start with grades. Grade inflation, heavy tutoring, teacher's preference, subjectivity, just to name a few.

Interviews, references and essays are so nepo, DCUM moms' favorites! All the money in play. Setting up internship through connections. Essay coaches, consultants.

Rigor is very important, but appears to be missing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a kid who had a lower SAT score because of HHI. My own kid had Khan and other sophisticated online programs that were free or nearly free.

I think the era of SAT = wealth is over.

But talk to me about athletes and legacy before any of the rest of this.

According to the College Board’s own data, scores are still highly correlated with income. (And if you don’t trust their data, why would you trust their exam?)

There’s much more variation in income bands than there is across income bands. Smart people generally make more money than stupid people, and since intelligence is highly heritable the children of more well off parents are on average smarter than the children of poorer parents.

People don’t like this, but it’s reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a kid who had a lower SAT score because of HHI. My own kid had Khan and other sophisticated online programs that were free or nearly free.

I think the era of SAT = wealth is over.

But talk to me about athletes and legacy before any of the rest of this.

According to the College Board’s own data, scores are still highly correlated with income. (And if you don’t trust their data, why would you trust their exam?)

There’s much more variation in income bands than there is across income bands. Smart people generally make more money than stupid people, and since intelligence is highly heritable the children of more well off parents are on average smarter than the children of poorer parents.

People don’t like this, but it’s reality.

Ehhh you’re kinda right. You can be dumb and rich, and it’s not like there’s a cap in the US in terms of being a complete idiot but starting a business and knowing the right tricks in your industry to make money.

While intelligence is definitely inheritable, your early environment plays a massive role and can make or break a child. And often times, raw intelligence isn’t really the best guy for the job (looking at you sales people, no offense). Having money means better nutrition and better schooling and more money for early childhood exposure to the arts, science, and humanities. I think poor immigrants show that you can work things around very quickly, but your parents have to force you into it. Most people aren’t that intelligent and getting a 1500+ on the SAT definitely isn’t the make or break on intelligence. If intelligence were directly and solely inherited, we’d have a lot less to argue about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is probably tilting at windmills but I expected more from Pinker. His whole thesis seems to be that optimizing for "objective measures" like test scores in admissions would optimize across many dimensions (such as achievements in the arts, music, humanities and sciences). Hence, Harvard should strive to become more "meritocratic", whatever that means.

But the study he cites is the famous longitudinal study of precocious 13 year olds, who were already identified as gifted! Given the social makeup of the US, it is highly likely (the study cites that 75% of the kids were white, 20% were Asian) that the participants were middle class kids, with ample opportunities to develop their talents. This is a very skewed sample, but even then, there is no mention of high achievements in music, theater, dance etc by age 38. Yes, these kids probably enriched their college environments but clearly they aren't outliers.

It is by design. Pinker isn’t dumb.

[Anonymous]

Ever since the tech bros got on the scene, people have been obsessed with IQ.

Yes, if you think your child is the next Pierre Bourdieu or Harold Bloom, IQ dictates much of their life and, frankly, will ostracize them a bit. I don’t mean to offend, but highly intelligent people tend to be neurodivergent or social outsiders. These types are great fits for a PhD and eventually rise quickly in their fields, but I don’t think it makes sense to center the entirety of undergrad around capturing the highest talent for a PhD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ever since the tech bros got on the scene, people have been obsessed with IQ.

Yes, if you think your child is the next Pierre Bourdieu or Harold Bloom, IQ dictates much of their life and, frankly, will ostracize them a bit. I don’t mean to offend, but highly intelligent people tend to be neurodivergent or social outsiders. These types are great fits for a PhD and eventually rise quickly in their fields, but I don’t think it makes sense to center the entirety of undergrad around capturing the highest talent for a PhD.

False. It’s just a smear campaign against the highly intelligent people, and it only happens in the U.S.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ever since the tech bros got on the scene, people have been obsessed with IQ.

Yes, if you think your child is the next Pierre Bourdieu or Harold Bloom, IQ dictates much of their life and, frankly, will ostracize them a bit. I don’t mean to offend, but highly intelligent people tend to be neurodivergent or social outsiders. These types are great fits for a PhD and eventually rise quickly in their fields, but I don’t think it makes sense to center the entirety of undergrad around capturing the highest talent for a PhD.

False. It’s just a smear campaign against the highly intelligent people, and it only happens in the U.S.

I’m from Germany, but nice try.

Being socially adapt is a pretty important trait in the US. Your whole society is built on it. Live with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, it would end up producing a demographic mix that the alumni and donors would have a heart attack over.

I will get criticized for this, but almost no one wants to attend a school that's 65% suburban striver Asian kids, 30% white kids, and black/latinos making up maybe 5% at most. The campus environment would be incredibly dreary, and everyone knows this.

Why? Because of their skin color?
Nobody complained about white strivers. They will applaud URM strivers.

My DS wouldn’t like either, and picked a diverse school, but if forced to choose would probably prefer the one with the 65% Asian kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a kid who had a lower SAT score because of HHI. My own kid had Khan and other sophisticated online programs that were free or nearly free.

I think the era of SAT = wealth is over.

But talk to me about athletes and legacy before any of the rest of this.

According to the College Board’s own data, scores are still highly correlated with income. (And if you don’t trust their data, why would you trust their exam?)

There’s much more variation in income bands than there is across income bands. Smart people generally make more money than stupid people, and since intelligence is highly heritable the children of more well off parents are on average smarter than the children of poorer parents.

People don’t like this, but it’s reality.

Academic eugenics

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's more and more pressure to increase the transparency of admissions at these schools. Any thoughts?

Many studies have shown that the tests, contrary to myth, are not racially biased; they are not just an indicator of socioeconomic status; they are predictive all the way up the scale; they predict not just school performance but also life success; and they are not significantly goosed upward by test prep courses.

Moreover, the alternatives are worse. High school grades measure motivation as well as aptitude, but their value has been sinking as grades have been inflating. Personal statements and teacher recommendations are burnished by admissions-savvy experts at expensive private and suburban schools. Extracurriculars like fencing, rowing, traveling to Italy, or having your mom drive you to a church to sort clothes for the homeless, are luxuries of the rich.

Worst of all, “holistic admissions” can be a fig leaf that conceals racial discrimination: In the past against Jewish and Black applicants, and more recently against Asian applicants, who just happened to get lower ratings in squishy judgments of personality.

Sounds about right!

[Anonymous]

While Pinker had somewhat flawed reasoning, perhaps he was on to something?

This new study by Raj Chetty and colleagues:

https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Paper.pdf

"We use anonymized admissions data from several colleges linked to income tax records and SAT and ACT test scores to study the determinants and causal effects of attending Ivy-Plus colleges (Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, Duke, and Chicago). Children from families in the top 1% are more than twice as likely to attend an Ivy-Plus college as those from middle-class families with comparable SAT/ACT scores. Two-thirds of this gap is due to higher admissions rates for students with comparable test scores from high-income families; the remaining third is due to differences in rates of application and matriculation. In contrast, children from high-income families have no admissions advantage at flagship public colleges. The high-income admissions advantage at Ivy-Plus colleges is driven by three factors: (1) preferences for children of alumni, (2) weight placed on non-academic credentials, and (3) athletic recruitment. Using a new research design that isolates idiosyncratic variation in admissions decisions for waitlisted applicants, we show that attending an Ivy-Plus college instead of the average flagship public college increases students’ chances of reaching the top 1% of the earnings distribution by 50%, nearly doubles their chances of attending an elite graduate school, and almost triples their chances of working at a prestigious firm. The three factors that give children from high-income families an admissions advantage are uncorrelated or negatively correlated with post-college outcomes, whereas academic credentials such as SAT/ACT scores are highly predictive of post-college success."

really gets into the data and uses an innovative design to drive neurotic parents further round the bend.

s/Ivy plus is all it is cracked to be! So anything you can do to game the system is worth it /s

Snark aside, it is good to see the gestalt on the board quantified with data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a kid who had a lower SAT score because of HHI. My own kid had Khan and other sophisticated online programs that were free or nearly free.

I think the era of SAT = wealth is over.

But talk to me about athletes and legacy before any of the rest of this.

According to the College Board’s own data, scores are still highly correlated with income. (And if you don’t trust their data, why would you trust their exam?)

There’s much more variation in income bands than there is across income bands. Smart people generally make more money than stupid people, and since intelligence is highly heritable the children of more well off parents are on average smarter than the children of poorer parents.

People don’t like this, but it’s reality.

Academic eugenics

Cry me a river

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a kid who had a lower SAT score because of HHI. My own kid had Khan and other sophisticated online programs that were free or nearly free.

I think the era of SAT = wealth is over.

But talk to me about athletes and legacy before any of the rest of this.

According to the College Board’s own data, scores are still highly correlated with income. (And if you don’t trust their data, why would you trust their exam?)

There is no meaningful differentiator that isn’t highly correlated with income. The question is what’s harder to buy - tests, essays, GPA, ECs, sports, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a kid who had a lower SAT score because of HHI. My own kid had Khan and other sophisticated online programs that were free or nearly free.

I think the era of SAT = wealth is over.

But talk to me about athletes and legacy before any of the rest of this.

According to the College Board’s own data, scores are still highly correlated with income. (And if you don’t trust their data, why would you trust their exam?)

There’s much more variation in income bands than there is across income bands. Smart people generally make more money than stupid people, and since intelligence is highly heritable the children of more well off parents are on average smarter than the children of poorer parents.

People don’t like this, but it’s reality.

DP. I really don’t care if the tests measure some sort of innate capacity or if they measure environmental nurturing. It’s probably a bit of both. But whatever the case, the test scores do show if you are well prepared for college. Reading comprehension is important for college success. Math competency is also important for the STEM majors. It is a sad fact that SAT scores and college preparedness are correlated with parental income, but I believe that if we are gong to fix this societal problem, it is not going to be at the college admissions level. I come from a city where some high school graduates are illiterate. We’ve gotta target the interventions way earlier.