<p>ugh. Looks to me like another money-making ploy by ETS, as I’m sure this test isn’t free. Especially with the ACT growing popularity, and the SAT losing steam. They have to come up with a new way to increase their revenue…this may be their first try.</p>
<p>isn’t that what teacher recommendations and myers brigg personality tests are for? what a joke.</p>
<p>Thanks for your informations.</p>
<p>“The Educational Testing Service wanted to help graduate school applicants prove they are more than a set of test scores.”</p>
<p>Yes, applicants are a set of test scores and personality scores! ETS should be banned from even mentioning creativity. They’re at least partially to blame for shaping an education system that butchers creativity with remarkable effectiveness.</p>
<p>I think one of the biggest issues with this is going to be quantitative–how do you account for differences between the scores of a kid who went to a tiny liberal arts school, as opposed to a kid who went to a large state school?</p>
<p>Some schools are set up to give that one-on-one time that will result in a good evaluation. Other schools have kids in large lectures for years. This is going to create a huge gap, but it certainly doesn’t mean that the public school kid’s personality is worse than the liberal arts school kid.</p>
<p>In some ways this could be a good tool, for example in med school apps, VaTechCar is using the PPI and they invite other input besides profs- community work, church, scout master, coach, etc. So it gives one an opportunity to provide input from a variety of resources. That’s good.</p>
<p>What is bad is that ETS charges $20 per report to send to schools. ( a report is a batch of up to 5 reviews)</p>
<p>What is worst is that ETS is so incredibly incompetent that they have not trained their people regarding the PPI. If you call in for assistance, the answer to ANY PPI question is that it is a new system and they don’t know that answer yet, but you can email to tech support.</p>
<p>I know my DD had to call 3-5 times for assistance, she actually found the answers by googling the questions and finding help on SDN forums. The quality of the intellect of the people answering the phone at ETS is comparable to calling your local DMV, no actually it was worse, they were not only uncaring, they were uninformed and unreasonable.</p>
<p>If one is participating in a rolling admissions situation, one does not want to wait a week to get a tech support answer back from a service for which we are paying and one does not really care that it is a new system, hey, ETS you are not making it free as a Beta so you ought to be ready. Oh, and rumour has it they are taking forever to SNAIL MAIL the reports to the schools! What? Brand new system and you are snail mailing??? Get in the new century and upload them! Sheesh.</p>
<p>But that’s only my opinion, YMMV ;)</p>
<p>UGH. At least when your chemistry teacher decides that you are or you are not among the top 1% or 10% of all students she has ever taught, you know that teacher ratings are random and unreliable, and likely meant to help you get into college rather than meant to be accurate.</p>
<p>Not really. Teachers’ reputations are partly based upon their recommendations. I spoke with a professor a couple of days ago who told me she writes her recommendations very carefully because her name is attached to them, and if her recommended students routinely tank or show up as less brilliant than she describes them, her reputation is then shot and her letters taken less seriously. So it is across the board - teachers generally write pretty honest recommendations, and will not write recommendations for students they don’t feel they can recommend.</p>
<p>In all honesty, few of my sons’ teachers were excellent judges of character when faced with high schoolers in my opinion, and many were impressed/easily snowed with the most confidant social kids who were easy to chat with. It is known that introverts who will be high achievers are often not “teacher’s pets” or able to bond as easily with teachers who are often extroverts by nature.</p>
<p>Recommendation letters are not meant to be judges of character so much as they are judges of your success at a given educational level. Confidence and being easy to talk to are part of the college application process as well; teachers are no more extroverts by nature than anyone else (or at least there’s no research to support that) and besides, success in graduate school (even college) is about more than just being a “high achiever” in the sense of getting good grades. During graduate school you have to work on a collaborative team, interact with your department and university, and network with others in the field who will provide you with opportunities in the future. You can be a smart person but if no one wants to work with you, your intelligence is useless.</p>
<p>Your anecdote about the Senator’s assistant, rather than supporting your argument, actually refutes it. Sometimes the way you present yourself and the way you network is much more powerful than whether you can pass a test. Individually, an employer could care less whether you got a 33 or whatever on a single test in college - if you have a solid GPA (~3.0) but prove yourself with the kinds of experiences that that young man had, you’re in. If this fellow skates by with a 3.2 but continues to do Congressional and federal government internships over the summers he’s far more likely to get a federal job than the girl sitting next to him with a 3.6 but not that kind of experience because she doesn’t know how to talk to people and has no experience (not referring to you specifically).</p>