Reply to Yale breaks own record with # of applications for 2016

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Yale breaks own record with # of applications for 2016"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] I agree wth 12:58.  My DC is at one of these extraordinary schools and I've met some of DC's STEM friends.  They are incredibly bright, busy on original research teams as underclassman (and some started in high school), and have an enthusiasm for their studies that is infectiously delightful.  I am sure some may be less articulate, but my DC's STEM friends make for great guests over the dinner table, and can discuss current events, literature, etc. as well as STEM.  If his friends had an edge in admission because they are interesting and articulate, I don't consider that to be fluff.  Recommendations play a role here too.  When you are one of 10 typically strong kids in a great high school, that's great and certainly can make you competitive.  When the teachers say a kid is one of the best the teacher has seen in 10 -15 years of teaching, that is something different.  The equally bright kid who is also interesting and likable will have an edge here too.  [/quote]

The point is not that being articulate, being likable, and having wide interests are somehow bad for a STEM kid.  The point is that process by which those characteristics are being assessed in essays etc using totally ad-hoc criteria by the admissions folks. People can run tests on the association between SAT scores and outcomes, and psychologists can validate personality questionnaires and measure personality traits. Instead, we have an arbitrary system operated by amateurs.  And this system can be gamed fairly easily  -- as suggested by a previous poster's examples A and B. Just curious why it works this way. My guess is that if it were important to design a a valid system and schools really cared about the outcomes they would put better measures in place. There is a reason why they don't.  Probably most faculty don't care who gets admitted as long as the GPAs and SATs are high, and most university administrations like an seemingly unpredictable hard to quantify system because it allows them lots of freedom at the margin to pick whoever they want in order to satisfy unrelated institutional constraints.[/quote]

I agree with this poster.  It's such a sad statement that we are not doing our utmost to tease out the best in class STEM students because given the state of affairs we really need them.  If you look at the rate of transfers out of the hard majors such as engineering, too many seats are being wasted.  I would guess though that faculty does care.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics