[ericmay]

One question on my mind (as someone who has a master's degree and engineering degree and has never taken the ACT/SAT) is how kids will go about showing pure intellectual merit?

Like let's say you grow up ok but you can't really afford to join the ski club or for a tutor and maybe you work in the evenings but you crush the SAT/ACT because you're incredibly intelligent. How will universities like MIT take that into account? If we're talking about merit - boy that sure speaks of merit to me compared to a laundry list of clubs, activities, and organizations that the kids with hyper-dedicated parents or lots of money have on their applications.

I'll also say, I didn't take either of these tests and came from a family where to this day I'm still the only one to attend college, but if I had taken the SAT or ACT and scored remarkably well - I think that would have opened doors I didn't even know exist. High school counselor ideally would have noticed a high score and helped with applications.

I don't like these tests but I have to imagine a subset of the population uses them to great effect. Like many things, it seems, I bet that removal of these tests will result in bifurcation in the education system, or will wind up hurting poorer students (while making the middle extremely competitive).

Anyway. There are so many problems with the university system, starting with using universities to train workers, that it's difficult to feel emotion anymore around the issue because it's so overwhelming.

-edit-

For what it's worth I don't know if the SAT/ACT are a good show of intellect. And these tests can be effectively gamed - not just illegally as we saw with the recent scandal but with tutors and test prep.

-edit 2-

Many students who are intelligent but grow up poor have a difficult time in universities, especially when they don't get to take the same classes as their peers did in high school. I know I'm probably an average student, but when I went to my calculus classes after being out of high school for around 5 years I could grasp how to do derivatives and their meaning, but couldn't understand the log functions or trigonometry. So I'd do most of the homework and take the quizzes, then bomb the exams when these concepts came into play. I felt miserable and I didn't know how to study or how to even really get help - I didn't even have a concept of what I didn't know. I just thought I was dumb. It took 3 tries but I eventually got enough help and practice (thanks Khan Academy and others) to make it through, graduate, and go on to do other things.

Fortunately I had training in resilience from the military. What about that kid who grows up crushes a standardized test and fails a class and then thinks that they're stupid and they don't know how to ask for help or can't afford tutoring? Those kids maybe they fail out, or maybe they have mediocre grades so when they go to try and get a job they're competing against 3.8s with tons of on-campus activities. Yet again perpetuating the cycle of getting dumped on. Needs lots of luck or persistence to break the cycle.

[dcolkitt]

Standardized testing is widely vilified, but it's probably been the greatest single force for meritocracy in American history. Prior to widespread adoption, elite universities awarded slots on a "holistic" basis. Which mostly meant the well-connected scions of high society families.

When the SAT went mainstream in the 1960s it opened up a world of opportunity to the previously overlooked gifted kids from middle-class families and excluded ethnic groups. It was now possible for a bright kid whose parents were garment workers in the Lower East Side to objectively compete with the Kennedys or the Astors in Exeter or Dalton. And the raw numbers meant that college admissions officers could no longer pretend this wasn't true.

It's almost certain that the 21st century's version of "holistic admissions" winds up operating much the same way as the early 20th century. There will certainly be more diversity window dressing. But at the end of the day it will still primarily benefit the powerful, rich, and well-connected. They'll be a few less Rockefellers and Bushes and a few more descendants of Eric Holder and Carlos Slim. But at the end of the day, the result will be the same. Keeping out kids from the wrong side of town.

[ericmay]

Preach it brother/sister. I couldn’t agree more. You’ve written this much more succinct than I could have.

> But at the end of the day the result will be the same. Keeping out kids from the wrong side of town.

[floren]

I did well on the SAT and ACT, but one problem is that it's just not enough. Parents who shove their kids into piano and tennis lessons since age 4, push them to run for student government and take petitions to the city council, whatever, those parents are also going to make their kids spend every evening studying for the SAT. They've also had tutors when they need it. How does Harvard tell the difference between "this kid did well because she's brilliant" vs "this kid got $10k worth of SAT prep classes"?

[scarmig]

One interesting idea: the College Board could add in a class of problems requiring a particular novel, non-obvious approach that are effectively poison pills. Students who take the SAT prep courses are drilled on how to answer them, while students who take the test naively are bound to answer them incorrectly. It doesn't affect the actual score reported to the student. But when the score is reported to universities, a shadow score that represents likelihood that the student received extensive prep is also reported, which gives that kind of context.

[chris11]

Harvard could easily do that. They have financial info on the parents family.

[solatic]

Unfortunately it's not really possible to measure intellectual merit in a standardized way without inadvertently also selecting for children of wealthier backgrounds. Standardized testing ultimately needs to be formulaic in nature in order to produce comparable scores. As long as the test is formulaic, it will be possible to purchase test preparation services that essentially teach you the formula. Test preparation services are purchased by people of means; their children confound the test score's signal of intellectual merit with a signal of test preparatory ability. The more elite the institution, the narrower the range of acceptable test scores, the more that the score signals test preparation rather than intellectual merit.

For any sufficiently in-demand institution, a healthier approach would be to define a minimum bar ahead of time, accept applications only from students who meet the bar, then select applicants by lottery from the pool according to available openings. Ultimately, selecting for perfect and near-perfect scores is actually counterproductive - Goodhart's Law is as applicable as ever.

[bigbillheck]

> ike let's say you grow up ok but you can't really afford to join the ski club or for a tutor and maybe you work in the evenings but you crush the SAT/ACT because you're incredibly intelligent. How will universities like MIT take that into account?

If the kid's that smart then presumably they'll have a top GPA as well. Absolute GPA of course is gameable, but class ranking really isn't. Texas at least has a "top 10%" law (https://news.utexas.edu/key-issues/top-10-percent-law/) which would get them in to a state school, and if that kid was really hankering for MIT then maybe they can transfer.

If they're lucky enough not to be in Texas, well, there's nothing wrong with state schools in any of the other several states, and furthermore there's no shame in going to a community college first if you have to.

[ericmay]

> If the kid's that smart then presumably they'll have a top GPA as well.

I definitely wouldn’t make that assumption.

> If they're lucky enough not to be in Texas, well, there's nothing wrong with state schools in any of the other several states, and furthermore there's no shame in going to a community college first if you have to.

Oh no doubt. I went to two public state universities and I believe my education was just as good as I’d find anywhere. Though there are differences (opportunities), the education is pretty good overall. But! That doesn’t tell the whole story. Many of the kids I went to school with in undergrad had taken classes like AP Physics, or AP Chemistry, or math beyond geometry. I didn’t. So I had to work much harder in some classes. I failed Calculus I twice before getting an A (maybe a B+? Don’t remember) and moving on with my life. For other students this could send them out of engineering, or maybe out of school altogether, and I’d argue it’s not really an intellect thing more so than it is not being on a level playing field to start with. This is an issue even at state schools. Maybe more so if they lack enough resources to cover tuition and room and board. People growing up in poverty (not that I did myself but much of my family did) think debt == bad or maybe they’re afraid to ask for help.

I guess that’s to say, I think it’s a problem in the entire system, all the way down to elementary school (Lebron James Family Foundation is doing a good job in my view of trying to address this).

My main issue with Ivy League schools is the perception and recruiting exclusivity. Wanna work at Goldman? Yale. Google? Harvard. Netflix? CMU. Etc.

Not a whole lot of tech recruiting going on at, say, Ohio University where I did my undergrad. Fuck those kids. Not in our recruiting footprint. Not one of our “target schools”. As if you need to go recruit at Duke to hire a BA?

In my personal life I do a lot of work to try and get more employers and recruiters down there and find ways to help. It’s tough sledding. Sometimes I wonder why I bother when it seems like so few others care.

I fantasize like damn if I had a ton of money or a huge grant there are so many things I’d love to try and do. It’s just too hard to quit my full time work. I’ll have to wait until I’m older and financially secure.

[helen___keller]

I would challenge if ACT/SAT is much about pure intellectual merit, considering how much one can boost their score with dedicated tutors and so on, but I digress. How to show intellectual merit other than standardized tests without relying on rich parents:

(a) Straight As

(b) (if applicable) Take all AP courses available at your high school

(c) (if applicable) Take additional college courses through community college dual enrollment or online school

(d) (if applicable) Join the math club, honors society, run for some kind of student council position, or other academics-oriented or leadership-oriented club role that doesn't require a hefty buy-in

b-d may or may not apply, depending on your school, school district, and state.

[underpand]

> I would challenge if ACT/SAT is much about pure intellectual merit, considering how much one can boost their score with dedicated tutors and so on, but I digress. How to show intellectual merit other than standardized tests without relying on rich parents:

I don't think the difference between dedicated tutors and individual studying with Khan Academy is a large difference. The majority of low scorers score low because they're either lower on the intelligence scale or didn't spend time individually studying.

[rychco]

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

If your suggested measures were considered, they would quickly become targets & add to the already insane workload that high school students must put up with in order to be considered competitive applicants. It's unfortunately not a scenario where you can say 'Pick one of (a) through (d)', because it will quickly become all of (a) through (d).

[alistairSH]

Applicants to top universities are already doing (a) through (d), so removing the SAT should help - it's one less thing to worry about. If the AP/IB exams are just as good a proxy for "college aptitude", we should just us those, right?

[rychco]

While I agree in theory that AP/IB exams could be used instead of SAT/ACT, they are unfortunately not available at all schools. Students nowadays are already occasionally forced to travel to different schools in their area in order to take as many AP/IB classes as possible.

Additionally, removing any of the objective requirements forces students to add even more activities to their existing laundry list of extracurriculars in order to stand out. I don't have any evidence, but I fear that students will have to work even harder & spend even more hours outside the classroom just to stand out without SAT/ACT scores. Students are massively overworked as it is.

[alistairSH]

It seems the students (parents?) who are inclined to spend every waking moment doing "college prep" of some sort are already doing so.

Personally, I hate the whole test industry - it incentivizes poor behavior (ie the existence of the entire test prep industry). But, I don't have a better answer. I wish colleges could rely on GPA, course selection, and extracurriculars, but apparently that doesn't work either.

At a macro level, I'm not even sure it matters much. The students who are marginal for acceptance to MIT or other top-tier universities are already going to be successful wherever they land. The real stand-outs are going to get in regardless - they're just that good. And everybody else will do just fine at the best state u. (or whatever other selective but not "ivy tier" college) in their region.

Anecdotally, my friends kids are getting into top universities without the insanity. A bunch to UVA, W&M, and VT (we live in VA), a few Ivies, a few to Stanford and Berkeley. The few kids I know doing test prep and other stuff like that are mostly getting into 2nd tier privates, which they likely would have gone to without the insanity.

[helen___keller]

> I don't have any evidence, but I fear that students will have to work even harder & spend even more hours outside the classroom just to stand out without SAT/ACT scores. Students are massively overworked as it is.

This is basically a tautology ;) it doesn't matter how the targets change, as selectivity increases students (and their parents, for the well-to-do) will work harder and harder to pass whatever filters exist.

[helen___keller]

> they would quickly become targets

This is already the case. My list is meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive nor aspirational

[rychco]

> This is already the case. My list is meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive nor aspirational

I misunderstood the intent of the list, I agree with you.

[option]

yeah, try finding good “free” math club when kid is 6-7 y.o.

And by the time there are actually viable free options the kids are already far behind.

Preparing for tests are much cheaper than joining good clubs and/or preparing to write a food essays

[helen___keller]

I'm not sure I understand your point. GP was looking for how an applicant who is smart but not privileged can show how they are smart, so that's what I was listing. Literally, what I did in high school. I joined the math team and went to competitions. When my school didn't have the funding or interest to go to regional competitions, I managed to get myself signed up as a team of 1 representing my school and hitch a ride with a neighboring school.

[option]

that’s literally what I did too and (not to brag but) I got on my country’s international math team and got free admission to university because of that. But how many were there? 10 at most.

Edit: my point is that finding the right math club at the right time is even more luck and effort than getting good on standard tests.

[helen___keller]

Oh sorry, to be clear "math club" here was supposed to mean like, local math club, not successful competitive math club.

I mostly convinced classmates to go to local competitions because it was a day out of class and we could stop by the mall afterwards. We didn't win jack shit, my crowning "achievement" was beating half the schools at a regional competition, which is typically teams of 4, but as a team of 1 (and there's no award for 50th percentile).

Nonetheless, I had "President - Mu Alpha Theta" on my college application and I did end up making it to an elite university.

[avipars]

I think it's the opposite,

ACT/SAT scores are more representative of your socioeconomic level rather than just straight up smarts.

[currymj]

it's hard to show intellectual merit using the SAT, because the test isn't hard enough so people just max out the score. the 25th percentile student at MIT got 790/800 for the math section.

it definitely does make a difference for bright students who do unexpectedly well -- but it gets them into "merely" good schools not ultra-selective institutions like MIT.

[option]

sounds like the test is a good “necessary” (not sufficient) condition for admission

[currymj]

It's a common defense of the SAT that it gives a fair shot to smart students whose cultural background means they don't know how to play the admissions game.

But I think this is not true at hyper-selective institutions, because as you say a perfect SAT score is necessary but not sufficient.

A student who has been on the normal, non-advanced educational track, not playing the resume game, and suddenly gets a 1600 SAT, still typically won't have a shot at MIT.

What they will get is a bunch of great full scholarships to good, but not hyper-selective elite, universities.

[ghaff]

Absolutely. MIT wants to admit a varied population of students who are probably smart enough to do well if they apply themselves. They don't really need a harder standardized test. (There are also whatever the Achievement Tests are called these days.)

[Spivak]

Preface: I scored extremely well on the SAT/ACT so I would have every incentive to keep the status quo. I think these tests should stick around as an option for students to prove their aptitude but that the requirement for them should be dropped.

Being smart does help you on these tests but not as much as you would hope. The things that meaningfully affect your score are studying for them and learning the specific material on the test. So there are two ways to do well: you study your ass off with test-prep materials or you go to one of the "good" high schools that tailor their entire curriculum to the ACT/SAT, AP and IB tests.

tl;dr these exasm only test how good you are at school and leave very little room to prove your aptitude in areas that aren't the primary subjects in school. CS being one area that until very recently was completely absent from all but the very best schools.

[dragonwriter]

> I scored extremely well on the SAT/ACT so I would have every incentive to keep the status quo.

I did too (well, the SAT; given that and that evrywhere I wanted to apply took the SAT, the ACT would have been superfluous), but...

> Being smart does help you on these tests but not as much as you would hope.

Its pretty much all being smart. Focussed study has some effect (and because small score differences at the high end make big competitive differences, can be worthwhile), bit don’t really do much.

Scores are quite tightly correlatee with IQ, which is why, e.g., MENSA accepts them in place of IQ tests.

> The things that meaningfully affect your score are studying for them and learning the specific material on the test.

Sure, those are the things in your control near the time of taking the test that affect your score, aside from “not getting wasted the morning of the test”. There’s not much you (or anyone else) can do after early childhood to significantly improve your probable IQ at the time you take the test, but that’s still the main outcome driver.

[Spivak]

> Focussed study has some effect

This statement requires some elaboration. Cramming for the SAT/ACT in the short time before the test has a small effect on your overall score. But if you go to a preparatory middle and high school where you will essentially spend 6-12th grade studying for the tests because the school designed the curriculum specifically to prepare you for them you will see a big difference.

Over the four years I spent in high school I was assigned as homework every. single. AP Calc I & II problem that had ever been published. Is it really that surprising that our class did well?

Another way of saying this.

* If you read voraciously as a child you will score extremely well on the reading section without really trying. You aren't smarter. You just spent a decade inadvertently studying.

* I was a math nerd as a child. I read math textbooks for fun. I was doing college-level math in 9th grade. And surprise to no one I scored almost perfect on the math section. But crucially, this didn't make me smarter than my peers. Literally anyone who had decided to spend their time at recess reading number theory textbooks would have done just as well.

[dragonwriter]

> Over the four years I spent in high school I was assigned as homework every. single. AP Calc I & II problem that had ever been published. Is it really that surprising that our class did well?

AP tests are different than the SAT/ACT. AP tests measure knowledge of something (the degree to which one can study the test independently of the notional subject matter may be debatable, sure), but SAT/ACT are very much proxy IQ tests. They may frequently be used together (but MIT is dropping SAT/ACT, not AP), but are not equivalent to each other.

> If you read voraciously as a child you will score extremely well on the reading section without really trying. You aren't smarter.

There is considerable, though as in most things intelligence-related, not conclusive, evidence that reading, especially early reading, does improve general intelligence.

> I read math textbooks for fun. I was doing college-level math in 9th grade. And surprise to no one I scored almost perfect on the math section. But crucially, this didn't make me smarter than my peers.

How do you know that you didn’t both do this in part because you were already smarter than your peers, and that doing it didn’t make you even smarter than you would otherwise have been?

> Literally anyone who had decided to spend their time at recess reading number theory textbooks would have done just as well.

Even if that was provably true, that doesn’t mean doing it didn’t make you smarter, since if it did it would presumably also have that effect on others who did it.

[floren]

Well, I scored 760 on the verbal because I read constantly and voraciously. I didn't "study" for it except in the sense that I'd spent the last decade with my face in a book on the bus, during lunch, as I walked from class to class, after I finished work in class, and so on.

Of course my aptitude at picking out synonyms didn't really indicate a damn thing about how well I could write an exam essay about the Reconstruction Era, so the fact that I got a good score without studying doesn't say that much for the test.

[Spivak]

I mean you can play this game with any subject. I scored a 5 on the CS AP tests without studying because I had been coding nonstop since I was 10.

You are proving my point pretty much exactly. You didn't score well because you were smart in some vague objective sense -- you scored well because you had essentially spent 10 years inadvertently studying.

[alexgartrell]

The fundamental issue is that crushing the SAT/ACT is more of a reflection of “mom and dad got me good tutoring or prep” than it is intellectual merit.

I “weaseled” my way into CMU via athletic admissions (I was an actual athlete, not a Lori Laughlin style one), but did very well at CMU once I got there. People who aced the SATs did not do as well. Fwiw I still did okay, 32 ACT score, but there were 35/36’s around.

IOW, prediction of academic success is hard; career success harder. These standardized tests don’t add much.

[hntrader]

  "These standardized tests don’t add much."

Do you have any evidence for this aside from your immediate experience?

[mactrey]

A 32 is still 96th percentile, or a little better than "okay" for most Americans. In the future if you want to argue that ACT doesn't predict academic success it might be more effective to leave your own score and academic success out of it.