<p>In the end iggy is right. Do you want to sum up someone as a number. Isn’t there more to it than that. It is precisely what managers want, to get paid for managing (making discretionary decisions – more money) but want an index so they don’t have to explain it. Insurance companies do this with whether or not to pay for treatment. Tons of examples running around.</p>
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<p>JustAGuy, yes, of course it’s possible. There are kids who take the SAT in middle school who do extremely well, well above many high schoolers, on the SAT without benefit of any high school classes at all.</p>
<p>Hunt, #94, you asked about the IIT students, where the system is completely objective, and does NOT include standardized tests but a comprehensive exam instead. No, they were not drones - far from it. They were a mix of the sort I see in my daughters’ peer groups at Harvard and Stanford. Many of them became highly successful entrepreneurs (not the province of drones!), many moved out of engineering into finance, business, marketing, some to medicine. </p>
<p>But I see the merits and flaws of both systems. Having been through the process, I don’t think that purely objective criteria end up being any more ‘fair’ than a mix of objective and subjective criteria. In the case of IIT, everything depended on those 12 hours of Physics, Chem and Math exams, administered once a year (it could only be once a year, because they wanted everyone to take the exact same exam, to make sure the comparison was apples to apples). If you were sick or had a bad day, you were out of luck. That’s not necessarily better than our pot pourri here of SATs, APs, wildly variable grading systems, ECs, teacher recs, counseler recs and phase-of-the-moon based decisions.</p>
<p>“My concern would be that student A would not have the number of AP classes to raise her super-score, and could be locked out of the admission process simply by virtue of her zip code (one of the “other circumstances” mentioned in an earlier post). I guess I’m also not certain that student A is “ill-prepared” to handle the challenging courses at SSU, and would need “remedial” education. In fact, she may have personal characteristics or skills that would enable her to actually do <em>better</em> than student B. Of course, since those aren’t measurable and can’t be plugged into a formula, they do her absolutely no good.”</p>
<p>At SSU, we value proven ability above “fairness.” We understand that this ranking of values is not shared by everyone.</p>
<p>“well then why call it a modest proposal Hunt? s’s and giggles? or where you trying to emulate some of the amazing prose that Swift did write. And perhaps while Swift did use satire, satire is in its very nature facetious.”</p>
<p>I make no particular claims for my own prose, but I do find some of Swift’s to be bit turgid. But I think you misunderstand satire if you think it is facetious. Something is facetious when it it not meant to be taken seriously; satire, while often humorous, generally has a serious point. Swift certainly did, in his Modest Proposal–the poverty of the Irish and their exploitation by the nobility and the English. The issue addressed here is less important, but people are concerned about it nonetheless.</p>
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<p>Would it be accurate to say that an affluent school would have more ways for a student to prove their ability than a less-affluent school? If so, would you imagine that students at SSU would be predominately smart kids from affluent schools, and that smart kids from less-affluent schools would still have the Harvard’s, MIT’s, and Stanford’s of the world to attend? By the way, I have no problem with that. It’s an interesting question of whether you can create a more equitable, scientific, and transparent admission process. I suspect not, but that’s just my opinion. At least SSU wouldn’t have to spend much money on admissions staff; go to Wal-Mart, buy a computer, create a simple spread sheet, key in the data, sort, and you’ve got your entering class.</p>
<p>To those who worry about schools don’t offer enough APs, remember there are hundreds of kids out there who self-study for APs. If you have the goods to attend SSU badly enough, I’m sure you can do the same.</p>
<p>mathmom</p>
<p>Maybe, maybe not. There are probably also hundreds of kids out there who have the goods, but have to watch younger siblings after school while their single mom works two jobs to make ends meet, who have after school jobs to afford some of the things other kids take for granted, etc. I know you didnt say or mean this, and you make a valid point, but its not always an indication of lack of motivation. My point was that admission to SSU is based solely on proven ability, and there are only two ways of demonstrating that, one of which seems to statistically favor kids who, by the grace of God, live in a wealthier school district or have parents who can afford private schools. Again, I have no problem with that. The smart girl from North Dakota who applies to HYP, all other things being equal, probably has an advantage over the 10,000 (or whatever) kids from the NE who are also applying. Life is seldom fair either at HYP or SSU. Anyway, its all theoretical.</p>
<p>I was posting in the spirit of the OP. Of course I know that it’s not always that easy to self study.</p>
<p>Like many previous posters said, such a statistic strongly favors those who obsess with standardized tests over those with true academic skill.</p>
<p>Have any of you taken a look at admissions outside of the US? Many colleges issue their own entrance exams. This is because standardized tests, AP scores, and GPA just don’t go far enough to distinguish the best students apart from each other, but rather only distinguish the best from the worst.</p>
<p>For example, if you take people who are generally very strong at math, many would get 5’s on the AP Calculus BC exam. However, if you make them take the Putnam exam (proof-based, aimed at the brightest college students), only a few will score anything decent. If Richard Feynman and I were to both take the Calculus BC exam, we’d get the same score of 5. But, on the Putnam, he’d get a triple-digit score while I’d be lucky to score above a single digit. When it comes to top colleges, it should be similar.</p>
<p>I’m thinking something among the lines of a completely free-form exam that differs each year written up by the professors. It should last probably around five hours, consist of many topics, and consist of many free-response parts. Then, at the end of it, there should probably be a panel of five to ten professors that start asking students questions, just like the qualification for a PhD. They each assign a score, and at the end, the parts are weighted and a final score is calculated.</p>
<p>Why use standardized tests? They are too generic for the needs of each individual college.</p>
<p>“Many colleges issue their own entrance exams. This is because standardized tests, AP scores, and GPA just don’t go far enough to distinguish the best students apart from each other, but rather only distinguish the best from the worst.”</p>
<p>It seems to me that you are simply advocating a multiplicity of standardized tests (as it were). I am not aware that top schools have complained that persons with 5s on the Calculus BC AP and high scores on the math portion of the SAT and SAT Math II subject test are unprepared. Is there any school, even MIT, where this has been a problem? I don’t think there are as many people with these kinds of scores as you seem to imagine.</p>
<p>You could just go to the old Chinese system - one standardized test for all high school students who are then assigned to their university and their major based on their scores. (The universities and majors having been ranked based on another set of standardized tests administered to university sophomores.) After all, isn’t all this choice, freedom and consideration of the individual’s unique talents just confusing? (eye roll)</p>
<p>“After all, isn’t all this choice, freedom and consideration of the individual’s unique talents just confusing?”</p>
<p>We believe that the creation of SSU will increase the individual student’s choices.</p>
<p>MODERATOR’S NOTE TO “Modest Proposal: The Super-Stat” THREAD: </p>
<p>By agreement with the original poster of this thread, this thread will be moved from the Parents Forum to the College Admissions Forum. There will be further threads developed in the next few days, based on a suggestion from the OP, about modest proposals for colleges with very specific admission processes. I’m enjoying the discussion, and I welcome lots of participation from many other CC participants.</p>
<p>True, but I think it improper to call this discussion “A Modest Proposal” when it mimics Swift in no way but in its address of an important issue. While satire does have a serious meaning, the very act of satire requires a great deal of hyperbole and sarcasm which are in their very natures facetious.</p>
<p>Ahahaha well this is an interesting idea.</p>
<p>Do you think a 6040 would get me in? =P</p>
<p>“Do you think a 6040 would get me in?”</p>
<p>That would depend entirely on how many people with higher Super-Stats appplied and then decided to enroll. After the analysis of all applications, you would receive a communication telling you either that you were accepted, or specifying your rank on the waiting list. Since persons on the waiting list would be added in purely numerical order, you could have a good idea at that time of your chances of ultimately gaining admission, especially after a few years of experience with yield.</p>
<p>why are points subtracted for taking the SAT a third time? it’s bad to take it a third time?</p>
<p>This idea is stupid for several reasons.</p>
<p>First, a little historical background: Colleges and universities in the U.S. originally began considering admissions criteria outside of grades and test scores in the name of ethnic discrimination 
Several educational historians have written books on this issue. Selective universities like Harvard and Yale admitted mainly white male students, because they were the only students who had the rigorous prerequisites (including Greek and Latin) into the universities. However, as immigration increased into the U.S., more Jewish students began gaining admissions into these highly selective colleges on purely grades/test scores. These schools added the extra admissions criteria (sports, ‘character,’ letters of recommendation) in order to strain out the Jewish kids who were performing better academically but weren’t part of the ol’ boys club that would give them access to high quality ECs and alumni recs.</p>
<p>However, the schools began using them for a positive advantage later in the 20th century as they started to try to become more diverse, and now the outside admissions criteria does the opposite: in a country where education and test scores are widely divided by class and race, it tries to equalize admissions.</p>
<p>Anyway</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The number one flaw with this plan is that the stats-only university assumes that SAT score and AP test scores are predictive of being ready to excel on the college level. There are several problems with that. First, as scansmom pointed out, these scores are only moderately or weakly correlated with <em>freshman</em> year grades, and they are not intended to predict grades beyond the freshman year. Secondly, correlations are not predictive evaluations; they don’t determine causation. There could likely be a third confounding variable that makes the correlation as high as it is; the best thing to do with the SAT scores is to do a partial correlation, which correlates freshman year grades with SAT scores/AP scores <em>without</em> the influence of high school grades and other factors. I guarantee you that a partial correlation between the two would be much lower. Thirdly, as the table pointed out, this correlation accounts for little of the variance in freshman year grades (22%) which means that nearly 80% of your college freshman GPA is dependent on other things. A risky proposition for a theoretical university to take.</p></li>
<li><p>I know that SSU is not interested in fairness, only mastery of content, and I accept that – this is, after all, theoretical. However, something that Hunt keeps saying perturbs me – it’s to the effect that SSU is interested in how well the students could perform on the college level, barring “fairness” measures. The problem is, the other criteria aren’t just about being “fair.” It’s realizing that many students have the potential to master things at the college level at a much higher level than other students outside of APs.</p></li>
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<p>I had the highest SAT score in my incoming freshman class. Period. I found the school’s fact book and realized that there were only 2 students who achieved over a 1400 (old SAT). I’ve met the other girl and her scores were lower than mine. And yet, I just barely graduated cum laude. Why? I had content mastery, but I just didn’t feel like working my ass off like I did in high school.</p>
<p>My average SAT score was about 300 points higher than the college’s average. I’ve taken 7 AP classes. And yet, I consistently felt challenged in my classes at my college. It’s because I’ve had awesome professors who challenged me intellectually.</p>
<ol>
<li>Maybe I’m making too big a deal of a theoretical university, but I’d be interested to see what kind of faculty SSU would be able to attract and maintain. Obviously the job market in the humanities is abysmal, but faculty tend to disdain the overemphasis placed on quantitative measures of "achievement’ because they recognize that they do not a well-prepared college student make.</li>
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<p>So i’m guessing there would be no affirmative action at SSU? lol</p>
<p>Super Stat University could practice “affirmative action” in the historical meaning of that term by aggressively recruiting high-stat students of all backgrounds, including first-generation college students.</p>