7 ms·

From the students' perspective, it is better to not be allowed in than fail out midway through. One test is cheaper than years in college.

falcor84 3mo ago
I personally strongly disagree. I think it's much better to be given the opportunity to do the actual work, rather than to be required to do the pre-assessment song and dance. And if there are actual prerequisites that a person hasn't previously passed, they should be allowed to be tested on these specifically.
- zugi 3mo ago
  It depends on a lot of things. If they've also applied to another college that's better suited to their ability, admitting then to a school where they'll likely fail is not really doing them a favor.
  - annzabelle 3mo ago
    Agreed. I've seen some interesting data that kids who could've been successful premeds or engineers at their state flagship but instead eke their way into Harvard or Princeton (sports scholarship, legacy etc) will instead graduate with a flaky studies major because they couldn't cut it in their intended major and the switching costs of transferring were too high. There are downsides if you end up a small fish in a big pond.
    - SoftTalker 3mo ago
      Is the actual premed or engineering coursework at Harvard or Princeton really that much more rigorous than that at a flagship state school? I'm doubtful.
      - annzabelle 3mo ago
        I'm no expert on that particular situation, but I compared my syllabi and projects from a state flagship (not Georgia Tech, Berkeley, or UIUC) with my brother's from Carnegie Mellon, and the expectations of first/second year CS majors were extremely different. Sometimes we used the same textbook but CMU covered more chapters and their projects were more involved. Some courses that typically waited until senior year at the state flagship were common to take spring sophomore year at CMU. There were a lot of courses that were numbered as undergraduate at CMU but covered content that was only covered in graduate courses at the state flagship.
      - naishoya 3mo ago
        Quick answer: YES Longer answer - in the other reply to your doubtfulness. This is true across the entire US system, some state flagship universities curricula are so deficient that graduate level at better schools wont even consider the bachelor level diplomas from those schools as eligible unless the applicant is top n% of the graduating class, where n is a low single digit. The admissions committee may never publish or say it directly, but for MANY state flagship universities the B.S. level maths and science courses are simply insufficient fo higher level studies at leading schools. Thus, companies with hiring and leadership that is aware of these conditions will also simply pass over applicants with degrees from flagship state universities, much the same as they do with online diploma mill "Graduates." My take on this situation is that as primary education outcomes worsened in the US, state universities modulated the coursework to match the readiness of incoming students in order to keep enrollment 'available' to everyone and extract revenue from the student loans system. The "Princeton and Harvard(s)" were differently motivated, in that they never had a goal of admitting the majority of High School graduates, and thus were not required to lower levels of educational rigour to meet eroding conditions in primary education. It truly is a sad "state" of affairs.
        SoftTalker 3mo ago
        > The "Princeton and Harvard(s)" were differently motivated, in that they never had a goal of admitting the majority of High School graduates, and thus were not required to lower levels of educational rigour to meet eroding conditions in primary education. It's easy to find recent reporting on claimed grade inflation, reductions in rigor, and students who seem unprepared or unwilling to do the work at Harvard and Princeton too.
- dgacmu 3mo ago
  Speaking as a professor: the filter is really helpful. Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible. I've seen it happen - and I saw more of it happen for the years CMU also stopped requiring the SAT. The SAT is a very imperfect measure but it turns out a lot of the others are even worse.
  - falcor84 3mo ago
    Honest question: why is it terrible? I would assume that if someone is capable enough to struggle for 2 years, they stand a real chance to struggle for 4 years and graduate. And seeing how the job market rewards a mediocre diploma from a good college significantly more than a good diploma from a mediocre college, it seems like a very rational decision from the student's side. And if they do fail out, they should still be able to enroll in another program, and presumably get a decent grade there, no?
  - cucumber3732842 3mo ago
    >Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible. Putting a body every a seat for those profitable 500-person lectures taught by an adjunct and graded by TAs who are all paid peanuts and then having them wash out before those expensive 50-person high level classes and esoteric electives taught by tenured profs and accompanied by lots of expensive lab time is great for the university's bottom line though.
    - falcor84 3mo ago
      Good point, and that was for me the promise of the original MOOCs 15 years ago - for students to be able to take on these MIT/Stanford courses, with the exact same workload and see if they could handle them, without any additional cost to the school and without the student having to upend their life yet. And if they proved to themselves that they could and are willing to, then enroll, and use that as proof. There are still some online courses that try to do this sort of thing, with a particular example being the University of Helsinky's Full Stack Open [0] which offers post-hoc university credits for those who complete the course, but it seems that the dream didn't quite materialize. [0] https://fullstackopen.com/en/about https://fullstackopen.com/en/about

falcor84 3mo ago

I personally strongly disagree. I think it's much better to be given the opportunity to do the actual work, rather than to be required to do the pre-assessment song and dance. And if there are actual prerequisites that a person hasn't previously passed, they should be allowed to be tested on these specifically.

zugi 3mo ago
It depends on a lot of things. If they've also applied to another college that's better suited to their ability, admitting then to a school where they'll likely fail is not really doing them a favor.
- annzabelle 3mo ago
  Agreed. I've seen some interesting data that kids who could've been successful premeds or engineers at their state flagship but instead eke their way into Harvard or Princeton (sports scholarship, legacy etc) will instead graduate with a flaky studies major because they couldn't cut it in their intended major and the switching costs of transferring were too high. There are downsides if you end up a small fish in a big pond.
  - SoftTalker 3mo ago
    Is the actual premed or engineering coursework at Harvard or Princeton really that much more rigorous than that at a flagship state school? I'm doubtful.
    - annzabelle 3mo ago
      I'm no expert on that particular situation, but I compared my syllabi and projects from a state flagship (not Georgia Tech, Berkeley, or UIUC) with my brother's from Carnegie Mellon, and the expectations of first/second year CS majors were extremely different. Sometimes we used the same textbook but CMU covered more chapters and their projects were more involved. Some courses that typically waited until senior year at the state flagship were common to take spring sophomore year at CMU. There were a lot of courses that were numbered as undergraduate at CMU but covered content that was only covered in graduate courses at the state flagship.
    - naishoya 3mo ago
      Quick answer: YES Longer answer - in the other reply to your doubtfulness. This is true across the entire US system, some state flagship universities curricula are so deficient that graduate level at better schools wont even consider the bachelor level diplomas from those schools as eligible unless the applicant is top n% of the graduating class, where n is a low single digit. The admissions committee may never publish or say it directly, but for MANY state flagship universities the B.S. level maths and science courses are simply insufficient fo higher level studies at leading schools. Thus, companies with hiring and leadership that is aware of these conditions will also simply pass over applicants with degrees from flagship state universities, much the same as they do with online diploma mill "Graduates." My take on this situation is that as primary education outcomes worsened in the US, state universities modulated the coursework to match the readiness of incoming students in order to keep enrollment 'available' to everyone and extract revenue from the student loans system. The "Princeton and Harvard(s)" were differently motivated, in that they never had a goal of admitting the majority of High School graduates, and thus were not required to lower levels of educational rigour to meet eroding conditions in primary education. It truly is a sad "state" of affairs.
      - SoftTalker 3mo ago
        > The "Princeton and Harvard(s)" were differently motivated, in that they never had a goal of admitting the majority of High School graduates, and thus were not required to lower levels of educational rigour to meet eroding conditions in primary education. It's easy to find recent reporting on claimed grade inflation, reductions in rigor, and students who seem unprepared or unwilling to do the work at Harvard and Princeton too.
dgacmu 3mo ago
Speaking as a professor: the filter is really helpful. Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible. I've seen it happen - and I saw more of it happen for the years CMU also stopped requiring the SAT. The SAT is a very imperfect measure but it turns out a lot of the others are even worse.
- falcor84 3mo ago
  Honest question: why is it terrible? I would assume that if someone is capable enough to struggle for 2 years, they stand a real chance to struggle for 4 years and graduate. And seeing how the job market rewards a mediocre diploma from a good college significantly more than a good diploma from a mediocre college, it seems like a very rational decision from the student's side. And if they do fail out, they should still be able to enroll in another program, and presumably get a decent grade there, no?
- cucumber3732842 3mo ago
  >Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible. Putting a body every a seat for those profitable 500-person lectures taught by an adjunct and graded by TAs who are all paid peanuts and then having them wash out before those expensive 50-person high level classes and esoteric electives taught by tenured profs and accompanied by lots of expensive lab time is great for the university's bottom line though.
  - falcor84 3mo ago
    Good point, and that was for me the promise of the original MOOCs 15 years ago - for students to be able to take on these MIT/Stanford courses, with the exact same workload and see if they could handle them, without any additional cost to the school and without the student having to upend their life yet. And if they proved to themselves that they could and are willing to, then enroll, and use that as proof. There are still some online courses that try to do this sort of thing, with a particular example being the University of Helsinky's Full Stack Open [0] which offers post-hoc university credits for those who complete the course, but it seems that the dream didn't quite materialize. [0] https://fullstackopen.com/en/about https://fullstackopen.com/en/about