Holistic Admissions at Berkeley

Parents Forum
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<p>^^^^Yeah, how silly, the opinion of a person in the trenches of the subject being discussed. How could that possibly matter or be of value. Good thing there are no other ‘opinions’ presented or discussed on this thread. Just the facts…:rolleyes:</p>

<p>That article also links to <a href=“Firestorm Erupts Over Virginia's Education Goals : NPR”>Firestorm Erupts Over Virginia's Education Goals : NPR;

<p>This is NPR (please genuflect) so it is of high value…seems that ‘holistic’ evaluation needs to be pushed down to the grade school level.</p>

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<p>Why be required to perform up to any measurable standard…let’s just ‘feel our way’.</p>

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<p>However, there are Math Level 1 and 2 achievement / SAT-S tests, and the SAT-R writing section used to be an achievement / SAT-S test before it became part of the SAT-R. In theory, a combination of a math SAT-S test and the SAT-R writing section would provide an achievement measure in those subjects for colleges that do not want to mix and match history, physics, etc. SAT-S tests but did want to check achievement in a standardized form (of course, defects in the tests, like the SAT-R writing sections “gamability” need to be addressed).</p>

<p>Of course, someone at the ETS would not want colleges to move away from its main product, the SAT-R.</p>

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<p>The push was done when the SAT-I / SAT-R was just CR+M, and there was a separate English language SAT-II / SAT-S / achievement test, which UC (and Harvard) considered to be more predictive than the SAT-I / SAT-R. The current SAT-R writing section is the successor of the English language SAT-II / SAT-S / achievement test.</p>

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<p>And then you might have to live with uncertainty. It seems that that really bothers you, to not have an exact formula / guarantee as to how things will turn out. It’s such a shame that college admissions can’t be that way, because certainly every other thing in life is guaranteed – that you’ll marry, have healthy kids, get the job you want, live in the place you want, make $X per year, not come down with a horrible disease or get into a car accident, etc. All of those other things are guaranteed in life, so it’s Just So Unfair (whine, pout) that college admissions isn’t predictable too. We wouldn’t want anyone to have to step out of their comfort zone and deal with serendipity.</p>

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<p>That push was a result of the fearless leader of the UC, en route to a conference, had an epiphany when talking to his grandaughter. Instead of relying on data, he put his foot in his mouth by announcing changes to the attendees. Upon his return, he ordered his usual minions to produce mercenary research to support the “findings” and contradict the various mega-studies that supported the benefits of the SAT PLUS GPA. </p>

<p>Considering the size of the income generated by California, Uncle Gaston ordered new data and was preparing himself for a shootout in the Wild West. To his great surprise, the mighty TCB Sachem learned that the price to pay would be a new SAT with extended writing. I do not think they could have opened enough bottles of bubbly on the Gulfstream as the then obscure SAT Writing (with about 35,000 tests per annum) would now be imposed on millions of testers, resulting in a massive new stream of income. Actually, they celebrated all the way to London, as Pearson shared in the windfalls. </p>

<p>Since then, as we know, the University of the Clueless had a change of heart, and reverted his position one more time, showing that not only Kerry can master the art of the flip-flop. One could only guess that they really love those Chinese and Korean language tests to get to their targeted “holistic” totals! </p>

<p>Bottom line? The UC is none the wiser, but millions of students have had to endure the lengthier test and millions of parents the pleasure of footing the added bill. All the while, most schools continue to ignore the results of the added writing test. </p>

<p>Yep, we can all thank the UC for that extra boondoggle. As if the AP boondoggle was not enough! ;)</p>

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<p>Going back to a good point raised by Pizzagirl in post #408 (and with a promise to catch up on the intervening discussion later): What about students whose high school background and approach puts them in a situation where introductory calc-based physics is hard, even with a lot of work? (Also, with apologies for the continued physics focus).</p>

<p>People in the STEM university community do wrestle with this issue, though probably not as much as we should. About 20 years ago, there was a book by Sheila Tobias, called “They’re Not Dumb, They’re Different: Stalking the Second Tier,” about ways to encourage students to continue in science if they weren’t near the top of their introductory classes.</p>

<p>We need lateral thinkers in science. We need people who can look at a problem scenario and not have the same set of thoughts about it that everyone else has. Therefore, we would really benefit from different thinkers. At the same time, we really need to build their capabilities, so that they can actually put their different approaches into use.</p>

<p>How to accomplish this? I have worked on a few possibilities over time. The first is to try to make the implicit assumptions explicit. There are a lot of cases where a problem in my field seems hard, because a student has not noticed some feature that other students quasi-automatically bring to bear on the problem. It might be a standard mathematical approximation, a physical principle, or something totally different. It might be a question of how the problem is worded. It is hard for a faculty member to predict this sort of thing–especially at first–but with some experience, one can pick up patterns and try to re-word questions for clarity.</p>

<p>Another approach that I use is based on the premise that lateral thinkers may need more time to solve problems on tests, because they think of multiple approaches, instead of quickly adopting one and powering through to a solution. When I am teaching undergrads, I try to get my classes scheduled for a room that is unoccupied during the next class period. Then I write exams that are intended as hour exams. The first students normally leave after about 45 minutes. Since the room is unoccupied during the change of classes and also the next class period, I can permit students to stay and work for a total of about 140 minutes–which some of them will take. (If the students have a class scheduled right after mine, we work out an alternative exam time arrangement.)</p>

<p>One of my colleagues mentioned talking with a student who had come to office hours for help with a quantum mechanics course. As they were talking, he showed how to fill in the gaps between successive equations in the text by doing a short derivation. The student remarked, “You are allowed to do that?!” So problems can come from a direction that looks like “out of the blue” to a lot of faculty.</p>

<p>On the thread about the new NY state common core exams, I mentioned that with tests of that type, it is often very illuminating to see what students were actually thinking if they picked the wrong answer. I never give multiple choice exams, but I do try to have students articulate their thinking or approach, even if it seems to be going nowhere.</p>

<p>At the root of it all, though, there is a lot of hard work that goes into understanding physics. I think that understanding has to be achieved by each person, personally. No teacher, no matter how good, can confer understanding from the outside. The teacher can set things up so that as many students as possible acquire understanding, but it is really non-transferable.</p>

<p>Having been in a discussion with PG about how “hard” various types of work are, I am not looking for a reprise of that. Other things are hard, too.</p>

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<p>Those “findings” have been vehemently disputed by … members of the faculty who teach STM classes at Harvard. Their take is that they see NO differences between students who took AP and IB classes in the subject taught and the rest of the common mortals. That should hardly be surprising when considering that neither the AP or IB offer bona fide COLLEGE courses taught by professors, especially not at the level of leading university.</p>

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<p>PizzaGirl: Why so threatened by the idea of a transparent admission process? </p>

<p>The examples in #424 are silly… You have total transparency in whom you marry, where you purchase or rent and how you would deal with an unhealthy child. </p>

<p>What would happen if the loan officer just said…we applied a holistic process to your loan application and sorry, you don’t qualify, if the landlord said…yes, your application came in first, and all the data is good but we applied a holistic approach and decided John would be a much better member of our housing community…we are striving for diversity and we already have to many of 'your type…</p>

<p>Or, what if the Dr. looks at your unhealthy child and says…I have to many of these in my practice and I’m trying to maintain diversity here…there is value in my patients sitting with those who have other issues and hardships - it is a matter of diversity…so sorry, can’t treat you…(hint…all of this would be illegal and lead to some fast and furious legal action)</p>

<p>Also, why so snarky in post #424? Yes, some folks really do function in a more analytical cause and effect ‘mathematical’ brain model. Accepting this and not being so condescending towards this opinion would be consider an acceptance of diversity.</p>

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<p>Because no one can name a popular, well-regarded selective US college that has one?</p>

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<p>I took what he said to mean that performance on the tests themselves were good indicators of high school achievement and performance in *future *college courses, better than SAT anyway. Obviously only a small subset of students take them at all…</p>

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<p>But don’t you make decisions on these matters holistically?</p>

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<p>“Matched pair” tests tend to indicate that there is still considerable racial discrimination in rental housing.</p>

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<p>^^^As used to be the case in the home loan, housing rental, auto insurance etc. areas. Red-lining used to be considered a fine practice…We don’t have to tell you why you can’t live here…</p>

<p>But…that was changed…arguably for the better.</p>

<p>My dad is fond of saying…don’t tell me how things used to be…if we stayed with that we’d all still have outhouses. :)</p>

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<p>Isn’t it obvious that if elite colleges felt they’d get students who better served their institutional needs by going straight-SAT-scores, they’d have done so already?</p>

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<p>^ exactly. There must be some US schools that do go by SAT and grades only but no one really seems to want to go to them. I wonder why?</p>

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<h1>431 YES, it is a holistic decision…by the applying PAYING/Applicant party in these transactions. The applicant has much more right to an explanation of denial or exclusion - backed by legal rights - than the provider does to keep their selection process a mystery. I can decline a loan but the loan provider needs to tell ME why I’ve been denied. I can choose to rent in a certain area but the landlord can not ‘holistically’ put my application to the bottom of the pile simply because they have enough of my type - or bump me up because they want a tuba player for the back yard band.</h1>

<p>A physician can close a practice to new patients…but certainly not to a specific class of patient (I have enough kids with near sightedness, so I now want to only take the far sighted).</p>

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<p>Hmm…look at all those empty seats at the CSU (not)</p>

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<p>I thought the “best predictors” remarks were idle chat or admissions-speak or somesuch. The usual retort is: best predictors of what? Not going back to look at the original again.</p>

<p>Loan officers aren’t building a community. Co-op housing committees, otoh, look at more than stats.</p>

<p>And, my Gawd, there is so little transparency when you pick a spouse. We all know how things change. And there’s a whole approach in medicine, a trend even in mainstream, to treat patients…holistically</p>

<p>This is lining up as those, on one side, who are confident about the process, what it means to present well in the application, versus those who- maybe?- are quaking in their boots.</p>

<p>It’s not all that hard to craft a good app-- it’s just hard to convince people whose focus is on the hs rules of the game, the hs range of opps, the hs mentality.</p>

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<p>BAM. Exactly. Unless you score your potential spouses on IQ, SAT’s, looks and fecundity measures?</p>

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<p>Eh, I went with “Potential suitors, please submit your SAT and GRE scores.”</p>

<p>I really think the situation is different when one is considering a spouse (presumably not plural) or hiring a person for a single job. In the case of many of the most selective schools, the entering classes are 1000+.</p>

<p>I understand why the schools don’t want to provide an explanation of why they did not admit any particular applicant. Beyond that, even if they wanted to, they could not do it in practical terms, beyond some kind of check box: “Did not fit our current needs.” And how informative would that be?</p>

<p>But I continue not to buy the “too many qualified applicants, too few seats argument.” It seems to me that LF is not saying that, specifically–rather that there are special qualities that one seeks in combination. I can respect that viewpoint, while wondering whether it might not make sense to offer non-holistically-based admission to a small subset of the applicants (maybe 2-3% of the admitted class, in fields where holistic assessment is less relevant to future prospects?) I would push this, but think that we have already discussed it summam ad nauseam on other threads.</p>

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<p>Young college graduates tend to marry other young college graduates and effectively do what you wrote, although they may be shy about articulating it. And the distinction is finer than college graduate or not. When I read about a wedding in Harvard class notes, the spouse’s school is almost always a selective one and not a directional. You will notice the same thing in New York Times wedding announcements. Despite my chronic griping about college, I will send my children to selective colleges if they get in partly for reasons of social standing.</p>