Re:Harvard University is fighting to keep its admissions pro...
by sonnyblarney on Thursday July 05, 2018 @01:54PM
(#17465308)
"Elite universities should admit the best students. Science / truth is and should be epistocratic, rather than democratic, fair or equal"
First, it doesn't have to be, and was never necessarily meant to be, second, it depends on how you define your 'epistemological' criteria.
To my point: 'just using SAT scores' would be basically a very bad way to select students.
For example, some US States high schools may focus intensely on 'SAT prep'. Others may have a policy of not prepping at all. Some candidates speak English as their second language and are at a big disadvantage.
"We should celebrate the Asian focus of intellectual excellence rather than punish them."
This is 'intellectual excellence' on some level, but I view the 'race to perfect SAT' as competitive, not intellectual.
We can all work 12 hours a day from the age of four, but is that what we want? In South Korea, they literally had to ban doing homework after 10 pm, because it was a social malaise. This is a cultural attribute, on the whole, it's certainly better than kids 'not doing homework', but my experience with South Korean students at Grad School has informed me that I don't think that this is really what we want, nor is it actually very productive. (Too clarify about my South Korean compatriots - it's they who were complaining that during their summer internships at home, they would be paid meagre wages, literally a couple thousand dollars a month - after a lifetime of intensely competitive academic endeavour)
There are a number of factors at play and I think 'representation' is one of them, on some level.
Also, I'm the last person to be pushing intersectional arguments, I'm generally wary of it all, and totally opposed to 'proportional representation' and that kind of stuff. I'm saying - it's a factor, that's all.
First, it doesn't have to be, and was never necessarily meant to be, second, it depends on how you define your 'epistemological' criteria.
To my point: 'just using SAT scores' would be basically a very bad way to select students.
For example, some US States high schools may focus intensely on 'SAT prep'. Others may have a policy of not prepping at all. Some candidates speak English as their second language and are at a big disadvantage.
"We should celebrate the Asian focus of intellectual excellence rather than punish them."
This is 'intellectual excellence' on some level, but I view the 'race to perfect SAT' as competitive, not intellectual.
We can all work 12 hours a day from the age of four, but is that what we want? In South Korea, they literally had to ban doing homework after 10 pm, because it was a social malaise. This is a cultural attribute, on the whole, it's certainly better than kids 'not doing homework', but my experience with South Korean students at Grad School has informed me that I don't think that this is really what we want, nor is it actually very productive. (Too clarify about my South Korean compatriots - it's they who were complaining that during their summer internships at home, they would be paid meagre wages, literally a couple thousand dollars a month - after a lifetime of intensely competitive academic endeavour)
There are a number of factors at play and I think 'representation' is one of them, on some level.
Also, I'm the last person to be pushing intersectional arguments, I'm generally wary of it all, and totally opposed to 'proportional representation' and that kind of stuff. I'm saying - it's a factor, that's all.