It’s a mischaracterization, but I won’t repeat earlier posts. Agree to disagree.
I count ~!5 red/blue dots in the first class, suggesting 15 EE students in the class. The 2nd graph has 17 EE students in bar graph. Is the class with 15 EE students supposed to be the larger class that should focus on? I expect there were ~17 EE sophomores in 2023 at Caltech, and those same ~17 students took both EE classes. Consistent with this IPEDS shows 16 EE majors at Caltech, in most recent available year. In any case, that wasn’t the point. The point was listed after your quote, which I have repeated multiple times.
I was referring to “it can alleviate the problem,” as listed in the quoted text.
If a minimum 700 threshold has been in place since the 1990s study, then why did the 2018-19 class prior to going test blind and most (all?) of preceding 2010s classes have a small number of students with <700 math SAT score? See the CDS at https://finance.caltech.edu/documents/15173/cds2019.pdf for an example. Caltech students do have an extraordinarily high score range, but Caltech admissions does not appear to use a hard 700 minimum math SAT score threshold in the manner you suggest – both before and after COVID.
My mistake as I thought the 44 class was larger than the 55 but it’s irrelevant to the point since you focused solely on one class which makes the claims more easy to dismiss as it appears only one class with one professor is showing a decline when there were two that provided data while others offered anecdotal evidence.
Yes it can alleviate the problem as in it could or might help address the issue mentioned in the petition. In what version of the English language would that phrase be equivalent to “fix everything”?
My previous posts suggested that there are likely to be exceptions to a hard set threshold ie. I mentioned slow processing in the first post and in a follow up post I pointed out exceptions to the threshold for students with slow processing speed though they would have other means to identify they are well-equipped such as letters of recommendations. Since Caltech is holistic, there is this type of flexibility and I would never suggest a hard cutoff would be desirable due to those students with exceptional promise but who would not shine on a standardized test. However, while there are such exceptions, the vast majority who score below 700 in math are probably not likely to thrive at Caltech due to its rigorous STEM emphasis from the very start of their education. Most as you suggest will be unlikely to apply or even if they do, very few would be accepted but if they are accepted, given the STEM curriculum at Caltech, it may be a bad fit for such a student.
Well possibly you are reading my posts through a biased lens.
The quoted text stated, “Or you may find the 17 electrical engineering students mentioned in the report were not a good representation of the overall student body…” It’s the same ~17 electrical engineering students in both of the 2 classes, and one possible finding is those 17 students are not a good representation of the full student body… Again that was not the point, which relates to why many other many possible findings of analysis were also listed. The point was listed in the immediately after your quote, which has been repeated many times.
Your earlier post said a 700 score threshold was in place prior to COVID. Caltech admitted students with less than 700 math SAT scores in most years prior to COVID. That’s not how I’d define a threshold. Even if there was a 700 SAT threshold following the 1990s review, I certainly wouldn’t assume that Caltech’s admission system hasn’t had any changes in the past 30 years, such that this 1990s 700 minimum score threshold still exists. More importantly, there is not enough information to assume that adding a 700 math sat score threshold will have a significant impact on anything, which relates to the need for an analysis. Some example possible outcomes outcomes of that analysis were mentioned in the earlier quote (more than just it being possible that the 17 EE students were not a good representation of full student body).
Many times? Raally? But let’s go with this scenario that these 17 students are the ones who are outliers. Why would over 150 professors who can not all be in the electrical engineering dept sign this faculty petition if they themselves have seen no issue in their own classes or those of their colleagues? Seems rather far-fetched.
You are taking the word threshold way too literally and not at all how I intended as I made clear from my very first post to you by mentioning exceptions so the word threshold was never intended as a hard cutoff. Nor would I think Caltech used it as such or would use it in the future as such. However, given the low number of admits below a 700 prior to test-blind, one could argue that 700 could act as a threshold for those who were admitted prior to test-blind. Yes, it’s possible those scoring below 700 were filtered out other ways prior to 2019 with some exceptions and it’s possible now that those scoring below 700 would still be filtered out as well but if that’s the case then I don’t see the issue of reintroducing standardized tests again.
As for the need for an analysis before the implementation of this type of threshold, why? Before test-blind, a score lower than 700 was the exception. Professors are suggesting that there is a difference in the preparation of some students between that time and now. Why not reintroduce the scores when there was not this decline and look more closely at those scoring below 700 just to be sure they are well-equipped? If there are no students below that threshold with a few exceptions, then it doesn’t make much of a difference except that students will have to take a test much like their previous cohorts did. If the reintroduction of scores changes nothing then that too is telling as you may be able to rule out the test-blind policy for the causative nature of any decline of the student body. If there is suddenly an increase, well that may tell you something too though it may not and more investigation could be useful. Taking a wait and see approach while gathering information instead of implementing a tool that might have been used in the past and could be used today to possibly identify students ill-equipped for a Caltech education seems like a disservice to Caltech applicants.
The quote said “many other possible findings of the analysis were also listed”, not “many times.” Regarding why faculty might sign the petition, I’d expect faculty who agree with the recommendations would be likely to sign, regardless of whether they believe that the 17 EE students were a good representation of students in their classes. I am far from the only person who thinks this is possible. For example, the author of the article who sent the faculty letter to the Caltech newspaper (likely a faculty member since he/she says “hurt my career and threaten my current employment”), writes the following above the letter:
First, the data from two electrical engineering courses (EE 44 and EE 55) are not representative of the entire student body, and certainly faculty members who pride themselves on their ability to carefully analyze data in their professional capacity should know better than to take a non-representative sample as proof of anything.
That said, the 17 EE students not being a good representation of the full student body was listed as one of many possible conclusions that an analysis might show. I also listed many other possible examples, and none of those many examples are meant to be a certainty. They are instead meant to be examples of what an analysis could find.
Being filtered out in other ways, it’s also possible there was no 700 score threshold in the recent years prior to going test optional/blind. And rather than using score thresholds, Caltech uses a holistic admission system, and holistically considers how particular scores fit with the rest of the application, like most Ivy+ colleges claim.
Stanford reinstating testing requirement for incoming class of 2030 (HS Class of 2026 grads). We shall see if this spurs additional testing access on the West Coast.
Stanford will continue to review applicants in context, and to consider each piece of an application as part of an integrated and comprehensive whole. More specifically, the university evaluates academic achievement and potential in the context of each student’s background, educational pathway, work and family responsibilities, and other factors
…as it should be done.
We will soon reach a tipping point where it will be impossible for a respected university to ignore the proven value of standardized tests.
There are some well-respected colleges that have been test optional a very long time.
But I do agree once Dartmouth and Yale explained in more detail why they were doing it, namely to be able to admit more FGLIs and other disadvantaged students, it became likely a lot of other colleges that are effectively competing for those same students would follow.
And I will continue to state that, if they use test score in any way that is related to FGLIs, it isn’t to admit more FGLIs, but to admit the “Right” FGLIs, namely the so-called “Privileged Poor”.
After all, there is no evidence that the numbers of FGLIs at these colleges dropped when these colleges decided to go Test Optional. So test optional policies didn’t seem to have a negative effect on admission of FGLIs applying to “elite” colleges, so why should anybody believe that reinstating the test requirement would have a positive effect on admission of FGLIs applying to “elite” colleges?
Moreover, these colleges didn’t use test scores to increase the number of FGLIs at any point in the previous nearly 100 years that they have used tests scores for admissions. So why should anybody believe them when they claim that they will do so now?
These colleges are reinstating the test requirements for their own purposes, to benefit themselves (most likely to reduce the cost and effort of admissions). The stories that they are telling about how “testing will help FGLIs” are simply their response to the studies that demonstrated that more FGLIs applied to these colleges when these colleges went test-optional. It is no more than spin.
Poor kids get scholarships to attend great high schools. Then, while still poor, get admitted to elite universities. And this is a bad thing? because they were prepped to succeed? I guess that the only “poor kids” that count are the ones who can’t?
It is not a bad thing per se, but it is a very limited thing in that most students from poor families do not have a chance to attend a top-end private high school on scholarship, even if they have the academic ability to do so.
