Yale Reinstates Standardized Test Requirement For Admission (nytimes.com) 74
Stephanie Saul reports via the New York Times: Yale University will require standardized test scores for admission for students applying to enter for the class entering in the fall of 2025, becoming the second Ivy League university to abandon test-optional policies that had been widely embraced during the Covid pandemic. Yale officials said in an announcement on Thursday that the shift to test-optional policies might have unwittingly harmed students from lower-income families whose test scores could have helped their chances. While it will require standardized tests, Yale said its policy would be "test flexible," permitting students to submit scores from subject-based Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests in lieu of SAT or ACT scores. The decision follows a similar decision in February from Dartmouth College. MIT also announced that it had reinstated its testing requirement in 2022.
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The same number as now? Zero?
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If you're that wealthy, you're sending your kid to Yale to meet future employees (the smart, hard-working, non-legacy students) and future partners (the rich, legacy students of arbitrary skill).
Meaningless (Score:3)
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Much easier to filter applicants with scores. No time read essays from people under-qualified.
Re:Meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)
Essays are a stupid and pretty much useless way to gauge an application these days. Not only is there ChatGPT .. there's so many ways to game essays. People with resources get to have their essays critiqued and even straight up written for them. Colleges should be relying on standardized and college specific testing. GPA should only be used to as a confirmatory to the standardized testing (as in if the kid had 2.0 all through high school and got a perfect SAT they might have cheated). Competitive sports, music, and exam-based STEM tests (like bio or math olympiad) should be the only extra-curricular things that have some merit. That's why I'm saying standardized tests, GPA, competitive awards, and college-specific interview/test. Every other thing --references, pure GPA, extra-curricular (aside from music or sports which can't be done by a third party) is more game-able. Obviously nothing is foolproof, but you can reduce the number of fools winning when you rely on things that had to be done in-person by the student.
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Ivy schools don't want just the best test takers, which can also be cheated, btw.
They claim to want well rounded high achieving people from diverse and interesting backgrounds to create a polyculture for the purpose of shared experiences leading to better graduates.
That's the idea anyway.
Well rounded? Where's the fun in that? (Score:2)
Seriously: if all the class are 'well rounded', where's the paradigm disrupting thinking going to come from. Of course to the degree that colleges these days are finishing schools for the next generation of the elite to put on their resumes, then go for the 'well rounded'. But if we are to see challenges to the group think that will lead to breakthroughs in science and technology, the 'well rounded' are unlikely to achieve that.
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If anything, it's a breeding program - put some of the richest people, filtered just a tad by IQ tests, and make them spend time with each other over the course of 4 years. Despite the current overweight ratio of women, it's still the 4 years of their life when they are surrounded by the highest percentage of eligible men that may fit their demanding standards.
Of course, this gets contraindicated by the woke trans thing, but it might be better named "bachelor/bachlorette" degrees.
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People with resources get to have their essays critiqued and even straight up written for them.
Indeed, and the threshold for those resources is not very high.
When my kid was applying, I paid $29 to have his essay critiqued. For that money, we got a lot of feedback, editing suggestions, and partial rewrites.
It was certainly a better essay but said nothing about his writing ability.
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Critiqued? That's amateur level. Imagine what service someone whose parents dish out $10K gets.
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Critiqued? That's amateur level. Imagine what service someone whose parents dish out $10K gets.
They don't need to pay anywhere near $10k. Not even 1% of that.
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GPA should only be used to as a confirmatory to the standardized testing (as in if the kid had 2.0 all through high school and got a perfect SAT they might have cheated).
Or the kid might have pissed off the teacher(s) for pointing out their mistakes in classes. Or the kid just didn't bother with the boring school work and spent the time preparing for SAT. Or the teacher had a bad day/was a racist/whatever and took it out on some unfortunate students.
No, GPA should not be used for anything when SAT results are provided. Cheating is a serious charge which should not be taken lightly.
Re:Meaningless (Score:4, Insightful)
"If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole."
If you're an A/B+ student pissing off enough teachers, or for whatever reason having teachers "take it out on you", to such a degree that it drops your GPA to a C average, you might need to reflect on the common theme there.
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The funny part is that the test is more indicative of skill and talent than actually getting the degree.
For decades, bachelor's degrees have effectively been IQ test proxies, not because of their curriculum or pedagogy, but because of their minimum required SAT or other standardized test scores. Most people who score well on the SAT are more valuable to hire before they go to college, than after they go to college - for the tech industry in particular, the ability to learn from work experience is many time
Re:Meaningless (Score:5, Interesting)
>If you don't have a "5" to report on an AP test, you're way behind the Yale applicant pool in the first place
You forgot the huge asterisk with "if you are white or Asian". If you have some in as a non-white, non-Asian minority, such as black, Jew, or Indian (either), then your score does not have to be that high. Obviously, there are also people who get in on some legacy thing, but that's not really significant compared to the absolute open racial discrimination that they talk about, implement, and actively and publicly work around supreme court rulings to implement.
If admissions were purely merit, absolutely no ability to discriminate against whites and Asians, then I'd believe that a bunch of top scores are required. Until then, it's all a show and their decision to go back to standardized testing is probably a result of having such an abhorrent time without it that even their political operatives couldn't make it work.
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Legacy admits make up something like 15% of total admissions. That's an enormous quantity. There are, in total, only 7% blacks, and less than 0.5% native Americans. Asians, including South Asians, are actually held to higher standards than whites, generally, as are Jews.
If they did a dumb 'sort by score descending' to pick their admissions, white men would be screwed.
That's one of the funniest things about the uninformed whiners like you... you think you're being discriminated against, because you're a m
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If you have some in as a non-white, non-Asian minority, such as black, Jew, or Indian
Jews are non-white? Admittedly there are subgroups like the Beta Israel, but as for the majority... do you think they're blue [jewishcurrents.org]?
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Just ask any white supremacist and they'll confirm that Jews are somehow not white.
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What makes you think that admissions aren't on merit?
You are assuming that the AP test is a flawless measure of a person's ability to complete the course successfully. The argument against relying solely on test scores is that the test itself is biased, and doesn't account for the university's additional assistance that it can provide where necessary.
In any case, the system can never be a pure meritocracy, unless it is also free. Otherwise, ability to afford it is a factor, and depends largely on the candid
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The tests are less biased, more fair, less game-able and more transparent than the alternatives.
Looks like a win to me.
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Not sure how Yale works. And of course, growing up with vs without money is not the same.
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Is that just the tuition fees though? Accommodation, books, transport on top?
We used to have a system where students got a grant in the UK, but it's just a loan now.
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You are barking up the wrong tree. Attendance is free for the poor and cheap for the middle class.
They have traditionally made it hard for middle class children to get in, but when they get in it is not expensive.
The return of tests helps poor and middle class kids because (some) kids of all classes are smart and that smartness most transparently comes through on tests.
Colleges a step down have much smaller endowments and can be quite expensive.
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What makes you think that admissions aren't on merit?
You are assuming that the AP test is a flawless measure of a person's ability to complete the course successfully. The argument against relying solely on test scores is that the test itself is biased, and doesn't account for the university's additional assistance that it can provide where necessary.
In any case, the system can never be a pure meritocracy, unless it is also free. Otherwise, ability to afford it is a factor, and depends largely on the candidate's parents.
A whole lot of assumptions are made. One of the biggest is that not getting into the elite schools are career negative.
Yes, that prestigious University might make some difference on one's first job. But from there on, it's up to the person, not where they got their degree. In my day, I've worked for/with many very successful people in top positions that didn't go to Yale or Harvard. MIT might have some influence on technical ends.
But there's been a lot of very successful people I've worked with/for th
Good god yes (Score:3)
The wealthy were super gaming the system when it didn't have standardized test scores. They hire college consultants from middle-school to guide the kids in "extra-curricular activities" .. their kids get to start non-profits that raise $100k for starving kids in Africa. Oh oops all the donors were Daddy's friends. They have people write their essays for them eloquently and describe various hardships they endured while teaching kids during summer in Africa (summer where you got to hang out on the beach for a month and then go take pictures with local kids for 1 hour). Oh and what ,, you need a reference? Daddy plays golf with the Mayor.
A standardized test, whose syllabus is known for a decade plus is the only way to fight against .. no games .. you don't need money just study time. And before you say "well, poor kids can't have study time" .. uh then how do they have time to start a non-profit and do all kinds of extra-curricular BS?
Re:Good god yes (Score:4, Interesting)
Tests can be gamed too, it's just not as bad as the other things you mention. I took the GRE, which I never ended up using because I decided grad school wasn't what I wanted after all... but anyway, unlike the SAT I decided to take GRE prep because I had the money. Boy howdy did my scores pop. I was a much "smarter" grad school applicant than I was a college applicant. That little fiasco was about $600 in the early 90s. When you started the course, you took a practice test which was a real test because they're published later. The questions changed, but the general *type* of question was fairly constant so those practice tests remained relevant. You took one when you started the course, learned how to game the system, took another one at the end of the course to gauge your improvement, then took the real test. My real test score was very close to my last practice test score. That experience, if nothing else, made me understand how those tests can work against a level playing field.
To reiterate though, they're not as bad a the type of privilege you describe. It's just that it's not a perfect equalizer. You can't ban test prep.
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The. GREs are one of the more aggressively daft standardized tests.
And the funny thing is the universities don't even expect it to work. The American model is to take in heaps of graduate students and them winnow them down during the course through quals and bullshit induced quitting until eventually some pass their PhD viva. The knowledge that the test is useless and you need another selection mechanism is built into the guts of the system.
The pass rate for PhDs is America is something like 50% after 10 ye
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The pass rate for PhDs is America is something like 50% after 10 years. Compare that to 80% after 4 years in the UK which doesn't have the GRE or any equivalent.
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Sounds like the typical meme that US citizens are stupid. Sounds like you have teh real elite in the UK - or maybe it's a bit harder here. Nah - the rest of the world is just smarter than we are.
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Well if your reading comprehension is anything to go by...
What part of what I wrote made you think that, apart from the massive pile of butthurt and the huge chip on your shoulder.
There's no differences in difficulty I can discern though of course they vary massively from institution to institution. UK universities do a much better job on initial selection because they have an incentive to do so. American universities use a crappy initial selection based on standardized tests then rely on later processes to
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Well if your reading comprehension is anything to go by...
Well if you thinjk thjat insults makes you win an argument, perhaps you aren't all that of a winderkind
What part of what I wrote made you think that, apart from the massive pile of butthurt and the huge chip on your shoulder.
U mad bro? A couple sentences in , and there ya go. Seems that unless you are really really stupid, and can't withstand anyone not agreeing with you without the playground insults, perhaps you might look into a strong possibility that your accusation is a confession.
There's no differences in difficulty I can discern though of course they vary massively from institution to institution.
Show your work. Yo
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hehe the butthurt intensifies. I love it when people dive in with both feet and wild accusations then get all offended when they get back insults for their insults. Trying to take the moral high ground when you decided to take the low ground first doesn't make me somehow forget that you've gone silent on your main accusation, yet not apologised for it.
Are you truing to bluster your way out of being wrong?
hmmmmm ;)
Show your work.[...]Consider publishing a paper.
Lol wut. There's no original research, just pre
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That experience, if nothing else, made me understand how those tests can work against a level playing field.
There is no level playing field, and there never will be a level playing field. Because it is not a possible thing. We might make it more accessable, we might make it more "fair" whatever fair is defined as.
But people simply gonna bitch about something.
Re:Good god yes (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Good god yes (Score:2, Insightful)
I've heard this stuff my whole life. Then I took the SAT. And the GRE. And it just doesn't hold water, unless by "biased toward the rich" is a euphemism for "poor kids go to shitty schools that don't teach basic mathematics or literature."
My freshmen chem lab partner went to one of those shit schools. She informed me that when her high school math teacher taught logarithms, the fact that they were the inverse of the exponential was not brought up. She had to figure it out for herself.
Re: Good god yes (Score:2)
I donâ(TM)t know how you can teach logarithms without bringing this up. Sure she wasnâ(TM)t off school sick that day and thus wasnâ(TM)t aware that sheâ(TM)d missed this? Or perhaps she wasnâ(TM)t paying attention that day?
Re: Good god yes (Score:1)
Yeah, I didn't believe it either. And I asked her again to make sure. She confirmed it.
As for how? Philadelphia public schools in the ghetto is how. There's a couple of good ones (out of many more that aren't), but she was poor so she didn't get to pick.
I wasn't particularly rich, but I lived just over the city line where the median income wasn't that much higher than the metro area median, but every penny of the school taxes paid for the schools instead of bullshit that gets tacked onto the school system i
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I've heard this stuff my whole life. Then I took the SAT. And the GRE. And it just doesn't hold water, unless by "biased toward the rich" is a euphemism for "poor kids go to shitty schools that don't teach basic mathematics or literature."
You are correct. The idea that minority students can't understand rich folk talk, or whatever excuse some rich white libarts people claim is the reason, well a lot of minority people think that is condescending AF. Or even racist. Claiming that dark skinned people can't understand anything but street talk is pretty racist on the part of the so called caring people
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Re: Good god yes (Score:2, Insightful)
So you are saying black people are stupid and cannot deal with âoeadvanced languageâ more than any other 17yo kid? And then you claim other people are racist. Lol.
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that standardized tests are biased toward the rich, because they tend to use content and language that you mostly see in advantaged communities.
There is some truth to this. I aced the 'verbal' portion of the SAT by putting myself in the mindset of a WASP. I fully enveloped myself in the belief that I was a WASP and all of the answers came naturally.
In other words, I didn't have to know reality, I only had to know what reality was believed to be real. And POOF, a perfect score. Stupid.
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The general comment I've heard, from people who honestly care about admissions for under-served students and communities, is that standardized tests are biased toward the rich, because they tend to use content and language that you mostly see in advantaged communities. But all of the other admissions criteria are even MORE biased toward the rich, for all the reasons you mention, because you do need a lot of money to target those admissions.
I work with a fair number of minority or underrepresented groups. Many from poor backgrounds just like me. They appear to use the same words and concepts as I do as a "white" male. And I speak at a very high level. Just like they do.
If you get to be friends, some will tell you that the idea that they can't understand rich people language is at the very best, condescending.
The reason why standardized tests suck (Score:2)
Rich kids don't spend an extra hour a day on public transportation their
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So they should instead rely on GPA? LOL Are you crazy? Maybe you should have taken a bigger interest in your kid's education and also applied pressure to the school to improve instead of advocating it get a free pass? There are plenty of online resources, you don't need a specialized tutor. Do you realize how dumb that is, the wealthy can enroll their kids in schools where they can pressure the teachers to inflate their grades. It's called grade inflation. Furthermore college consultants recommend public s
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This may be true but the second they go on GPA people will game that shit so hard. Every subject mandatory of admission, with extra credit projects for kids not getting an A or B. Then 4.0 fingerpainting and PE.
I actually remember a teacher at our freshman pep talk giving this exact advice and anyone who followed his plan of all easy classes. Well they probably didn’t have a good time in hard college classes
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Uh first year grades just mean they took remedial or easy classes. (In the following reference, scroll to the image "Test scores and college grades are strongly related, regardless of students’ high school type"): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/0... [nytimes.com]
Also, you just ignored the "Key takeaway" in your own reference: "students with higher SAT scores are more likely to have higher grades in college."
Re: The reason why standardized tests suck (Score:2)
Nonsense. The SAT math section requires high school algebra and geometry and nothing else. The SAT verbal section requires the ability to read and write at a 10th grade level or so. That was true 20+ years ago when I took it. Probably been dumbed down even more to the bare minimum of sorting out the illiterate and the terminally innumerates.
Come to think of it, the GRE didn't really test that much more than the SAT did.
I'll grant you that if you're a rich kid, mommy and daddy can shell out a few thousand fo
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It’s rare that I agree with you but yes this is really all that it takes. I will point out that a lot of people don’t understand this and it wasn’t normal in the place and time I grew up.
I saw the books at the bookstore so someone was buying them. It wasn’t something I saw pushed in schools, my school counselor talked about college a lot but never mentioned it. There was even talks about ACT and SAT testing. But the suggestion you head down to the library and check out a book ne
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Despite growing up poor, I beat out my hyper-rich peers on standardized tests - parents can give their children a small edge, but that does not overwhelm the contribution of natural talent. There is no "a lot of extra edge".
So even if they aren't a perfect measure, standardized tests are currently the *best* objective measure.
Of course, we're talking past the sale - college is a scam to create debt slaves, and higher education is over priced by at least an order of magnitude. The best thing for most peopl
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Wut? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Wut? (Score:3, Funny)
I'm so white that the mere sight of my own skin oppresses me! I'm the most oppressed person in the world! What perks do I get?
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Recruitment division of the oligarchy (Score:1)
Fix schools, don't complicate admissions process (Score:4, Insightful)
We have to fix the schools instead of bureaucratizing the admissions process. If your kid needs brain surgery .. do you want to get a guy who is smart but didn't have any training in surgery because he was too poor to attend class or do you want someone who is smart AND got trained by the best surgeons in the world? Hmmm. Shouldn't you be "fair" and hire the person with no training?
If you are interested in fairness, fix the schools.
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If there are a certain number of slots, it's about how the very best can utilize those slots. If there are 30,000 applicants and only 200 slots .. the 200 must be the top 200 smartest people out of the 30,000 .. because those are the ones who will most likely maximum utilize the resources. Otherwise you won't be getting the best 200 doctors. If you skipped number 200 and got 201 .. then you'll have the 201st best possible surgeon instead of the 200th best surgeon.
Re:Fix schools, don't complicate admissions proces (Score:4, Insightful)
We have to fix the schools instead of bureaucratizing the admissions process.
I used to think schools were the problem (and some of them are). But they're not the biggest problem: the kids are.
You can pour all the money you want into schools, but as long as certain cultures think that academic achievement and STEM courses are "acting white", they're going to raise shitty kids that will never do well in school or life.
LoL (Score:2)
There were less bastards back then... (Score:2)
Parents married and stayed together. There's clearly a correlation with the breakdown of society, of which the failure of high schools is a visible symptom. Is it causative? Let's do the research and offend someone...
Oh test the child not the wallet? (Score:2)
high school (Score:2)
Anyone who's been to high school knows that high school grades are anything but an objective measure. One can only conclude that previous Yale decision makers had never attended high school.
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