Your anecdote just goes to prove that an exceptional student with the right personality probably can make it to success regardless of where they start from. For students who aren’t quite as exceptional or without that level of drive and “fire in the belly”, attending a top school can help to confer advantage.
My husband is also an example of someone who was very bright and driven and managed to make it very far despite not attending an elite program and not coming from an advantaged background. Through grit, determination, ability, and personalty, he was able to gain access opportunities that helped propel him to success.
Our kids are equally bright (or maybe even more so) but they don’t have the same personality and drive. They’re naturally shy, introverts, and more laid back (sorry kids you inherited that from Mom), though equally intellectually curious. Dh is a weird combination of extroverted introvert and a Type A personality that’s hard to explain (probably comes from being highly intellectually gifted). There’re also significant differences in the way they were raised, the environments in which they were raised, their K-12 educations, their access to resources and extra curricular activities to nurture their talents and interests which all confer advantage to them. But in addition to that, there’s also a very significant difference in the levels of societal competition between when dh was a kid and what our kids are facing that does not. So many factors that mean that for them, attending a “better” program will probably be more impactful than it was for dh despite having grown up with much greater privilege and advantage.
Yes. It is true that a bright, motivated person can make their own way.
But it is also true that there is a reason HYPSM have 75-80% yield (and mostly lose admits to each other). All these kids aren’t just dumb suckers for rankings. Peer group makes a huge difference, and the results are easy to see if you glance at the LinkedIn profiles of the companies that can afford to be very, very picky.
Let me give an anecdote related to the value of SAT scores. I got my undergrad degree from Texas (UT Austin). I’m old. When I graduated high school, the top 10% rule existed for UT Austin and you could major in whatever you wanted. I likely wouldn’t have been accepted to the business school today.
I had a cousin who was a year behind me. I came from a high-performing high school. She was the Salutatorian at a low-performing high school nearby. I was nowhere near the top of my class but my SAT score was substantially higher than hers (especially my math score). The summer before her freshman year and my sophomore year, she told me we’d be seeing each other on campus. I asked her major and she told me Electrical Engineering. I told her she didn’t want to do this. I had seen people with high math scores struggle in this program at UT Austin. She insisted she would work hard and manage. She failed out in 2 semesters.
I don’t think there were remedial classes back then at UT Austin. I am as anti-Scalia as they come on most issues, but (during the UT admissions case before SCOTUS) when he talked about some kids being better off in less intense schools, all I could think about was my cousin.
Those schools being highly desirable and recognizing that there are multiple routes to success are not mutually exclusive. I’ll happily spend the $90k should S24 be accepted to any of his top choices. To me it would be worth it. However, despite being a truly gifted student (complete with the requisite SAT score) his chances aren’t great so the alternate route is his most likely future.
I really am lost on what we are arguing here. On one hand I feel the current admission mess is due to test no longer required. Then again for years I was the poster child on how little SAT scores meant. I went to HS in the 80s. I got into UCLA with a 940 score. At the time UC published table lists my chance as 7%. I outperformed kids who scored 1200 to 1400 which I found shocking. My friends tells me that for years I was a legend in my HS to achieving the miracle.
So when it came time for my kids, I told them don’t even need to bother. Then MIT published they need a score, so I just had my son show up to get a score. He reads and writes and have done calculus in cc. He didn’t need a test to show he has the basics. He submitted his app to MIT with a sub 1400 score and did not get rejected from EA.
This is not to say MIT will take him, but just SAT means different things to different people. Context matters.
I expect your cousin’s classes/rigor/transcript and school profile would have also telegraphed that EE wasn’t going to work out well…no test score needed to know that.
Good point. Some professors try to maintain the same level of difficulty in their exams across semesters and assign letter grades on an absolute scale (e.g., 90=A, 80=B, etc.). This makes it possible to see a drop if a class is less prepared. However, many of them don’t and instead go with X% A, Y% B, etc. because they assume that the preparedness of the student body doesn’t change despite covid, going test optional, and changes in their school’s desired class profile. They make this assumption because it’s the easiest and least controversial.
Another reason to go with X% A, Y% B, etc. is that professors don’t want drops in the average class GPA to be misconstrued as them not doing a good job teaching, which may affect their annual evaluation and pay raise. Some departments and schools also impose a limit on the percentage of students a professor is allowed to not pass.
The issue is complex and can make studies on how X (e.g., covid, going test optional) affects Y (e.g., freshman GPA, retention/graduation rate) misleading because there is also a Z (e.g., professors’ inclination, department/school constraint on failing rate) in play that tries to compensate for changes in Y, in a way that’s not negligible and doesn’t seem easy to account for.
No question that some industries and companies can be (and are) very picky and show strong preference for graduates of HYPSM+. I also agree that rankings aren’t the main draw for many or even most students who attend HYPSM. One of the reasons I think test scores should be a factor in admissions is because it gives prospective students a sense of what they’re stepping into, for better or worse. A strong peer group is as (if not more) important than the faculty. Many professors aren’t natural teachers (never mind TAs), but the peer group becomes a great source of learning and exchange of ideas. Finding a similarly-minded peer group (intellectually and otherwise) is a legitimate consideration in a college search.
A brand-name school gives a boost, but cream rises to the top. If a student went to HYPSM but isn’t a standout (in terms of brains, work ethic, whatever), their career path will reflect that. Conversely, if a student went to a “lesser” school but is at the top of their class, works hard and is talented, they’ll be noticed at school and at work and doors will open. It’s the old saw about how being a model doesn’t make someone beautiful, they became a model because they were already beautiful. Elite colleges are trying to find the students who are already beautiful, not those who need a lot of work to become so–and that’s okay. Not everyone can be a model.
This isn’t to negate the value of elite schools, but to say that multiple things can be true at once: HYPSM+ opens doors; and there are many ways to open those doors. To bring it back to the thread, I think SATs provide information about preparedness and possible fit within the student body, particularly given grade inflation and other subjective criteria.
This was a summary of all 3800+ courses at the college. Not all classes are curved to have a specific percentage A’s B’s and C’s, regardless of how many students have mastered or not mastered the material. I’d expect most classes are not graded this way.
The point was there seems to be a common belief that test optional/blind causes a large portion of students to get poor grades. I am not aware of any colleges where this has happened, but there have been examples of many colleges where it has not happened. I listed CSU because we were talking about grade distribution in Berkeley classes and there was discussion about UCs being too selective to show this effect. However, there are many other examples outside of the California public system as well. I can list others, if there is interest.
One can certainly speculate why grades aren’t decreasing. Maybe the admitted students had comparable SAT scores in both years in spite of being test blind. Maybe the colleges are forcing professors to give a specific a specific grade distribution in all classes. Maybe the effects of normal grade inflation are stronger than negative effects from test optional/blind. Or maybe grades really aren’t primarily dictated by SAT score in a way that is not duplicated by other components of application, and the colleges that have switched to test optional/blind are not having catastrophic failure in the performance and success of their students.
Got it. My point works for this assumption as well. I would not expect to see much of any portion to get poor grades in a summary of all 3.8k courses offered. Too many moving parts to attribute it to poorer preparation.
OTOH, we might see more poor grades in Intro STEM courses. But after a couple of C minuses or worse, most such students will self-select out of STEM and find a major that works better for them.
I’ll use San Jose State engineering for this case. It’s my understanding that San Jose State used to have an admission that was closely tied to an eligibility index calculation formula that includes SAT + GPA. Selective majors like engineering had a high eligibility index min score, and the formula for tech majors placed 3x more weighting on math SAT than EBRW. The high weighting on math and higher major selectivity led to tech majors typically having a high math SAT. Upon going test blind, this admission system obviously changed, no longer having a direct requirement for high math SAT scores. The grade distribution in lower division math/science and engineering courses changed as follows
Lower Division Math + Science Grade Distribution at San Jose State
2019 – 23% A, 25% B, 20% C, 6% D, 5% F
2023 – 29% A, 24% B, 16% C, 5% D, 6% F
Lower Division Engineering Grade Distribution at San Jose State
2019 – 43% A, 26% B, 14% C, 3% D, 3% F
2023-- 48% A, 25% B, 11% C, 3% D, 4% F
San Jose State lower division math/science courses follows the same pattern as the previously listed summary for all courses at a different Cal State – more A grades and fewer B/C grades, but also a 1 percentage point increase in number of F grades. Some other public colleges I checked outside of California also followed this pattern. Again why this pattern occurs is a matter of speculation.
These students will still contribute positively toward their school’s retention and graduation rates and count as successes by studies/rankings that consider these two metrics, obscuring their lack of preparation. This factor seems difficult to correct for as it can be difficult to tell the real reason behind switching major – change of interest, couldn’t hack it, or a weighted combination of both.
This is the key point. Raw data like that without an analysis of the institutional dynamics—including pre/post-pandemic, the CSU push for increased graduation rates = pressure for easier grading, profs using grading curves to yield similar grade distributions, etc.—is simply speculation. Using that data as a proxy measure for comparisons of relative student preparedness and achievement over time doesn’t seem to me to be a fruitful avenue.
It seems to me that failing was much more common and accepted in the past. Which method of instruction and grading is better?
“After serving in the US Army as a meteorologist in World War II, I went to the University of Chicago to do graduate study in Physics from 1946 to 1951.”
“In the spring of 1947, an examination covering the material of the first year was introduced for the purpose of reducing the class size by 50%”
“The Physics Department had decided to adopt the Oxford-Cambridge British system of self-study, but without tutors! Lectures covered aspects of a subject that interested the professor; the student was expected to develop on his own the context for the topics covered. Class tests were not necessarily on the lecture topics. Edward Teller, for example, only appeared for three lectures the entire semester I took his class. Moreover, texts on modern physics appropriate for students were scarce or not available… Fortunately, Enrico Fermi introduced us to quantum mechanics. His class on nuclear physics covered ideas developed during the war for which there was no text. His lectures seemed clear enough, but when I attempted to solve his assigned problem for the day, I often found that he assumed we already had the background needed to appreciate fully his expositions.”
“At the end of four years, we took a 32-hour written examination on four successive days. Students were only told that the examination would cover all aspects of physics and pertinent topics in mathematics and chemistry. The first eight-hour day consisted of about 32 shorter questions; the second, eight more difficult questions. On the third day there were only four questions, two experimental and two theoretical; the student was to answer three of them. On the fourth and final day there was only one question. The student was allowed to use the library to answer this one. For example, one such final problem was to write a proposal for funding an experiment that required design of a bathysphere for a deep ocean study, a defense of the scientific significance of the study, and a design of the instruments to be used to accomplish the desired measurements. The first time I took this examination, I did well enough to be granted an MS degree, but I would have to take it a second time to be allowed to go on for a Ph.D. On my second try six months later, I was so discouraged after the third day that I almost didn’t sit the fourth. I went out and played a game of softball that evening. More relaxed afterwards, I decided I had nothing to lose if I went for the fourth day. I have never really understood why they allowed me to go on for the Ph.D. degree. Only 10% of those with whom I entered the Department in 1946 had made it through this hurdle.”
While not perfect, I’d prefer considering what information is available, rather than assuming something with no evidence.
Many colleges have been test optional for decades and have published more detailed information about differences in performances between submitters and non-submitters, which has been linked and discussed earlier in the thread. This isn’t just an isolated issue with only CSU due to “push for increased graduation rates.”
This statement feels like a false dichotomy. It seems that there is a third alternative which is to think of the impact as not being well understood enough to have a conclusion either way.
Non-use of SAT scores in admissions would obviously mainly affect the following types of applicants:
Discrepant in favor of SAT relative to GPA. These applicants would have a lower admission rate.
Discrepant in favor of GPA relative to SAT. These applicants would have a higher admission rate.
Would the effective substitution of some of group 1 by some of group 2 have that much of an effect on the overall academic strength of entering students at a college (or division or major)?
In the 1950s-1980s, there was plenty of space in state universities, including most flagships, so they were not that selective. Many flagships that are now highly selective were more like broad access universities back then.
Broad access universities offer more students a chance at college, at the risk that not all will succeed. For the state, it may still make economic sense to subsidize broad access universities even if only 50% or so graduate, since that still means that many more college graduates with increased contributions to the state economy and tax revenue. Of course, it would be even better if more of the students at broad access universities graduated.
