Re:MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions...
by knzhou on Friday March 20, 2020 @04:10PM
(#22641163)
> By the way, isn't depending on SAT for years and everyone bitching about SAT is a gross failure of our education system? Take any serious test, be it STEM competitions, JEE, or NCEE, multiple-choice questions are the easiest part. The differentiating questions are all kinds of word problems. Yet the US can't afford such test, but countries like India and China can.
We do have this kind of system in place, I'm closely involved in it. The Olympiads in the US basically fill the vacuum of objective assessment at a high level. The entry round for each Olympiad is pretty similar in level to, e.g. what you would get in JEE-Advanced. But they're also far less popular...
Re:MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions...
by hintymad on Friday March 20, 2020 @05:14PM
(#22641726)
Yeah, the Olympiad in the US is well organized. Probably the best in the world. I'm more concerned with the middle tier, to which the majority of the students belong. The best students in the US have access to vast resources, the academically challenged students do not feel the same harsh pressure as kids in other countries do. It is the middle majority that suffer from insufficient training.
Re:MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions...
by underpand on Friday March 20, 2020 @07:19PM
(#22642734)
It's hard enough such that schools have to lower their SAT standards to accept underrepresented minorities.
Otherwise, for non-URMs, the top schools do agree with you. SAT (and school GPA) are usually used in threshold-y way with other factors mattering more.
By the way, isn't depending on SAT for years and everyone bitching about SAT is a gross failure of our education system? Take any serious test, be it STEM competitions, JEE, or NCEE, multiple-choice questions are the easiest part. The differentiating questions are all kinds of word problems. Yet the US can't afford such test, but countries like India and China can.
And why do people in the US, the most developed and the richest country in the world, complain that people can prep the SAT. It's truly a shame. In countries like China, it is public schools that produce the best students. It is the public schools that set high standards for the country. It is the public schools that come up with amazing text books and problem sets. Tutoring in China is joke. Classes offered by public schools are legendary. Something is wrong in the US.