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<p>No, it does not. Just the SAT-R or ACT (but all scores must be sent, no score choice or superscoring).</p>
<p>The College of Engineering does recommend, but not require, SAT-S scores in math level 2 and a science: [Prospective</a> Freshman FAQ ? UC Berkeley College of Engineering](<a href=“http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/prospective-students/faq/prospective-freshman-faq.html]Prospective”>http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/prospective-students/faq/prospective-freshman-faq.html)</p>
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<p>Be careful of using weighted HS GPA, since different high schools weight differently. For UC-weighted HS GPA, 4.5 is nearly impossible to get (you’d need a 4.0 with only 16 semesters total of a-g courses in 10th-11th grades, due to the 8 semester cap on honors +1 points – most high school students probably take 20-24 semesters total of a-g courses in 10th-11th grades, limiting their maximum UC-weighted HS GPA to 4.33-4.40).</p>
<p>Also, selectivity in frosh admissions varies by division or major, like at many public universities where some divisions or majors are capacity-limited.</p>
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<p>I wonder how applicants without these scores are compared with those who do. You could assign them expected SAT-S scores based on their SAT or ACT scores, perhaps with a small penalty to encourage taking the SAT-S exams.</p>
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<p>In the book “Uneducated Guesses: Using Evidence to Uncover Misguided Education Policies”, Howard Wainer, statistician and Principal Research Scientist at the Educational Testing Service for many years, argues against replacing the SAT-R with SAT-S in chapter 2, “On Substituting Achievement Tests for Aptitude Tests in College Admissions” (available as an Amazon book preview).</p>
<p>The main argument is that it is difficult to scores on achievement tests in different fields, such as physics, U.S. History, and Spanish.</p>
<p>As I understand it, there was a push in the UC system to put more emphasis on the SAT subject tests, rather than the CR+M+W scores. I think this fizzled out. I would guess that there is a more significant obstacle to their replacement than the point that Beliavsky mentioned (comparability of scores on different tests). I believe that the SAT subject scores are more dependent than SAT I scores on the quality of the high school attended. This is just based on personal experience and random discussions, so it could be wrong.</p>
<p>However, part of the reason for instituting the SAT (aside from the profit motive) was to try to identify bright students outside the New England corridor and New York state stretching down into Virginia. (There were negative components of this motivation.)</p>
<p>It’s not that Harvard had no admissions tests prior to that. I believe they had them, and they were subject-based. Students who attended the best prep schools had the type of high school education that permitted them to ace the test. Students who didn’t, had some problems. (Genitive plural of portus, anyone? Without looking it up?*)</p>
<p>(*It’s a trick: it’s not normal first declension.)</p>
<p>I think it would be interesting to “retrodict” the qualifications of physics grad students in the top physics departments: Go back and take a look at their SAT M scores and SAT II M scores (and AP scores, if they had them), and see what they look like. I don’t know how this would come out. </p>
<p>However, it would be interesting to see whether students who did not pass the holistic ugrad screen, but had excellent academic qualifications at that point, show up in significant numbers in top physics grad schools, or not. This would give one indication of how holistic admissions work for physics majors.</p>
<p>I acknowledge the possibility that it might be better to keep holistic admissions for physics majors, even if the study of grad programs suggests that selecting purely by numbers would give you the grad classes unchanged. There may be compensating benefits of holistic admissions, even within this narrow group.</p>
<p>There is also the issue that I think that students of all demographics may opt out of science more commonly at the HYPS schools (not M or C), because other options look more enticing. For example, in the short term, the GPA might be higher for most outside of science; in the long term, expected income might be higher for most outside of science. I suspect that this may happen less at other universities.</p>
<p>So if the top schools stopped using holistic admissions for physics majors, and shifted to a stats-based approach for that group only, the net effect might be a reduction in American citizens entering physics Ph.D. programs at the top universities.</p>
<p>And that’s where it can get blurry- because even the tippy tops have a mission beyond academics, for a variety of reasons, mostly self-serving. They need campus vitality as much as academic productivity. This applies most to UG, of course.</p>
<p>Yes, because once you’ve gone outside HYPSMC, there really aren’t any such things as top universities, or at least ones that matter. </p>
<p>And maybe uber-high SAT scores are the equivalent of fraternity hazing in physics. Gotta have them to join our little club. (Why does it have to be that way? Wouldn’t truly smart people be able to teach in ways that “merely bright” students should be able to understand and connect with, versus only the uber-brights? Or does that require a different type of emotional intelligence that your community doesn’t value, so the hell with the 700’s, they’re too stupid for words?) </p>
<p>I’m plenty bright, but I’d sure have “opted out” of science if I thought it was populated with people who held the view that no one was promising unless they were 730-or-above. It would strike me as so pedantic and tiresome and out of touch with reality, I wouldn’t want to be associated with those kind of people.</p>
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<p>I agree completely, lookingforward, but you’re talking about the importance of campus vitality to people who really want to do nothing other than sit in a lab all day and prize little else.</p>
<p>I think this is so specifically about physics and engineering. Maybe about the upper reaches of theoretical math. The fastest pace requires the most solid platform. No question we look for the combo of ability and experience (as a test that they have at least begin to familiarize themselves with challenges-mindset-teamwork, not simply classroom experience.)</p>
<p>Campus vitality is important to the machine. Unlike, say, the physics dept, we’re not looking at grad school potential. There is no “perfect.” Sometimes, I joke about putting the best and brightest, who want a mattress near the lab, into cinderblock specialization schools. And, maybe we should. But, at this point, it isn’t the culture of colleges or the sole nature of their mission.</p>
<p>Actually, my point about needing a high SAT M score (or later acquiring the equivalent +) for a physics major is not limited in any way to the HYPSM+C category. It’s in the nature of the subject, at any of the top 200 institutions in physics, and probably much beyond that.</p>
<p>It’s not a question of “hazing,” it’s what physics undergrad work takes, day to day. The student not only has to be able to fill in the gaps between equations in the textbooks and get the bigger picture, but also has to be able to apply general principles to problems that have never been posed to the student before.</p>
<p>There may be some physics courses that are susceptible to an algorithmic approach, e.g., “this is how you do this type of problem.” In fact, most physics courses have a subset of problems that will yield to that approach. But essentially all decent physics courses have large swaths of coverage where that just won’t work.</p>
<p>The student needs to acquire a high level of mathematical facility and insight at some point. It might happen a little later on. My niece, an engineer, did not find the calculus courses easy up through mutli-variable calculus and diff eq. But after that, something “clicked,” and the rest of her math courses went very smoothly.</p>
<p>My calculus prof remarked to us that each level of math became easy when you got to the next level. I think this is true. However, a student would have to have a very high level of frustration tolerance to stick with the program while performing at the C/D level in all of the classes.</p>
<p>As an aside: I think it is fairly commonplace among scientists to have received an A in a physics or math course while realizing that they did not really grasp the subject. That has certainly happened to me.</p>
<p>Also, I understand that there are many career options outside of physics, for a physics major, let alone for the full range of undergrad majors. I am happy to concede that many of the other options are more important, more rewarding, and more remunerative than physics. The other options might even permit those who pursue them to be better people! Seriously. At the moment, I am just talking about physics, for someone who is thinking of doing physics research.</p>
<p>Of course there is not an SAT cut-off to be “promising”! When I used that term upthread, I meant “promising” as a future physicist. Also, the empirical evidence from the University of Oregon suggests that the SAT M cut-off for “promising as a future physicist” might be around 600 there.</p>
<p>From the NYT article posted earlier:</p>
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<p>A classmate of my son’s was conditionally accepted to Edinburgh until his senior year AP scores came in, they had to be at least 4s, as I recall. I don’t know if all the colleges in the British system are like that.</p>
<p>Interesting that Harvard puts the SAT-R and ACT dead last in the list of importance, yet requires them. Of course they require THREE subject tests too, which is more than I’ve seen anywhere else.</p>
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Harvard used to require 3 subject tests, but now it’s 2 – see [Harvard</a> College Admissions § Applying: Requirements](<a href=“http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/application_process/requirements.html]Harvard”>http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/application_process/requirements.html) .</p>
<p>Ah, that NYT article was from 2009.</p>
<p>If a school has too many academic requirements, it reduces the ability of the adcoms to be inconsistent and opaque in their decisions.</p>
<p>Oh dear. If only the top schools could just be like UT, eh? Just let the high schools decide which kids they like. Rigor, choices, potential ? Nope, just hs standing. Any hs.</p>
<p>Curious, for those who dislike “opaque and inconsistent” college admissions. What colleges did you and/or your kids apply to that are great schools that you like that have stats-only admissions?</p>
<p>Or if you have no horse in the race, at what schools is stats-only admissions producing a superior student body and educational experience?</p>
<p>The American Physical Society has published an opinion piece advocating that physics programs drop the GRE general for graduate admissions, because the “Asian > White > Hispanic > Black pattern” (their words!) interferes with the pursuit of diversity:
[Admissions Criteria and Diversity in Graduate School
By Casey W. Miller
APS News
February 2013](<a href=“The Back Page”>http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201302/backpage.cfm</a>)
GRE math is not much more difficult than SAT math, which is essentially junior high school math. If after 4 years of physics and math classes one cannot get a high score on the GRE math section, one should consider careers other than physicist. A problem with the worship of “diversity” is that left unchecked, efforts to promote it get ever loonier.</p>
<p>An opinion piece? The Back Page?</p>