<p>True, our state schools admit primarily by GPA and test scores, maybe rank. Some scholarships are based on a grid of GPA and scores too, though not all.</p>
<p>I think “holistic” admissions are popular mostly at LACs which won’t have enough musicians, athletes, URMs whatever to meet their goals if they admit on numbers alone (since the total # of students is small anyway -Amherst said as much in its Amicus brief to the SC on behalf of several LACs it wrote for), and highly selective mostly private universities, because they have the luxury of so many qualified applicants that they can look at other factors to build an interesting class.</p>
<p>No. It is not reasonable. It is pathetic and would be unlikely to produce the desired result–a GUARANTEE that the study partners were perfectly matched. But it would be a good way to make sure one never had friends or a date the rest of the year.</p>
<p>“Precisely. Advocating SAT scores as the primary criterion for college admission, and then acknowledging that those scores are completely unrelated to success in life does leave one pause … yes?”</p>
<p>I am not saying SAT scores are all that matter, and I don’t know if you will find anyone on here that does. </p>
<p>Let me rewind a bit. In my limited understanding of US employment law, large companies used to measure if they were hiring enough URMs by the “80% rule”. In other words, were the percentage of URMs hired at least equal to the 80% of the population as a whole. If a specific URM was 20% of the population, then the 80% rule specified that the target was to hire at least 16% of that URM.</p>
<p>The metric is a useful one. It provides information about there being a difference, and information is useful. I don’t care for how the metric was applied because a company could be completely non-discriminatory and be accused of discrimination because the ratios didn’t work out according to some government sanctioned social planner. But learning there is a difference, finding out the reason for the difference, and determining if there is a way to eliminate the difference without hurting the business are all useful things. </p>
<p>Likewise, a difference in SAT scores according to racial groups is a useful metric. That doesn’t mean it is the only thing that matters. But the reasons for the difference matters.</p>
<p>When I was a freshman in college, I did not ask anyone, nor did anyone ask me, for SAT scores in the context of finding study or lab partners. SAT scores rarely or never came up in other contexts either.</p>
<p>“No. It is not reasonable. It is pathetic and would be unlikely to produce the desired result–a GUARANTEE that the study partners were perfectly matched. But it would be a good way to make sure one never had friends or a date the rest of the year.”</p>
<p>As I said I haven’t asked SAT scores for study partners, but who are you to decide what the desired result is. After admission, the desired result is what the student wants, not what the college wants.</p>
<p>Beliavsky stated what his desired result was–to find people who were his “intellectual equal” to study with. And he is reducing the determination of “intellect” to a single factor–an SAT score. </p>
<p>Of course, this is ridiculous on many levels, not least of which being the fact that the data derived from the SAT would not reflect the highest level of proficiency that the student had achieved in his/her senior year of high school. Presumably it would be far more useful to know what the prospective study partner had taken that year and how he/she had performed in the class related to the subject under consideration now.</p>
<p>So, you ask your potential study partners for their SAT scores. I’ll ignore the extreme dorkiness of such a maneuver. At what level do you consider them markedly different?Ten points, twenty points, one hundred points? (This, of course, is the same affliction that afflicts CC-ers who argue about schools ranked #5 and #7 as if there was any meaningful difference.) At what point is there a “smart enough that it will do you just fine” point above which differences are essentially meaningless?</p>
<p>“Intellectual equal.” There’s a sad phrase if ever there was one (as in “I may not have contributed what Steve Jobs did, but I was certainly his intellectual equal.”) The further we go in this thread the better I feel about holistic admissions.</p>
<p>Many colleges just look for some minimum qualifications.</p>
<p>Bel, re Caltech: the article states the averages are high- but how do you suppose they choose among all those top performers? Caltech claims to be holistic. Something distiguishes one 2400 from another?</p>
<p>*Given our highly competitive applicant pool, the SAT/ACT median scores of our admits are incredibly high, but we still take a holistic approach to evaluating our candidates. We critically read letters from high school counselors, teachers, and research mentors. We evaluate each students high school curriculum and grade trends. We read their essays on science and why they are passionate about STEM. We look at extracurricular activities, both STEM-related and not. We look for evidence of innovation, creativity and drive, and the ability to get things done. We look for people who can live under our honor system. We constantly ask the faculty on the committee whom they would want in their labs and classrooms.</p>
<p>Merit is not measured by standardized scores and GPAs alone.*
[Response</a> to critique of undergrad admissions | The California Tech](<a href=“The California Tech”>The California Tech)</p>
<p>I never actually asked for anyone’s SAT scores in college but was defending the idea of another poster. In one of my freshman science classes there was some discussion among classmates of SAT scores and prior Advanced Placement course experience. The choice of study partners aside, it is good to know where you stand relative to your classmates before committing to a course. A student with a 600 math SAT may have a tough time in a class where most other students have math SATs in the 700s.</p>
<p>Who here has ever had trouble selecting a study partner? Who here has ever done it using a method other than one of the following: asking a person in your class who seemed nice enough, latching onto a cute guy/gal, seizing the opportunity to get to know someone who seemed worth knowing, etc.? Who here has ever done any kind of a calculation to choose a study partner, other than avoiding someone who demonstrated a lack of knowledge of the subject matter and/or was annoying, crazy or some other kind of undesirable? I’ve heard (I wish I could find something other than trite self-help sites to back me up) that a good way to learn something is to teach someone else. If that is true, having a study partner who is not at your level might be helpful in some cases. Regardless, as I suggested earlier, if you are a smart person you should not have trouble sussing out whether someone will make a good study partner. It’s hard to imagine anyone really considers this an issue.</p>
<p>According to the 2010-11 common data set, Caltech’s 25th percentile on the math section of the SAT I was 770. The 75th percentile is 800. (CR: 25th percentile: 700, 75th percentile: 780.) Only 1% of freshmen scored below 700 on the SAT I math section.</p>
<p>I venture to say they’d have to turn to other criteria to differentiate between students.</p>
<p>“I met this FABULOUS girl this week. She’s beautiful, got a wonderful personality, and we get along great. But then I found out her math SAT score was just 600. Wow, just wow … how bad is that. So I’m moving on.”</p>
<p>“I venture to say they’d have to turn to other criteria to differentiate between students.”</p>
<p>After they dumbed down the SAT about 20 years ago, it stopped being meaningful to discriminate among the top performers. And anyone could get a single problem wrong on any one SAT. But there are plenty of other methods: Math/Science Olympiads, Intel/Westinghouse science awards, etc. I guess you could consider them “holistic”</p>
<p>^ just look at what Caltech says, not what we think. 850.</p>
<p>Curious how “stopped being meaningful” will be represented here. So, maybe a 99th percentile score is not entirely reliable?</p>
<p>Isn’t that one of the points floating in this thread? That, just as the quality of that “more” matters to Caltech, so it matters to other elite holistics?</p>
<p>Remember, all the Common App schools are reputedly holistic.</p>
<p>I’m just trying to picture this “picking” study partners scenario. You’re in a math class and sitting next to you is somebody that you perceive to be smart (asian). You say to him/her “Hey, you want to get together at 7:00 tonight in the library to go over the material for the test? BTW, what was your SAT math score? What, 600? Oh…sorry, I only study with smart people, good luck to you.”</p>
<p>People are going to look at me and think that I am therefore relatively stupid. Because the average SAT score for blacks admitted to my school is lower than it is for whites and asians.</p>