Starting in 2021, the SAT will assign students an ‘Adversity Score’ to Capture Social and Economic Background.
Adversity scores capture things like race, crime rate, housing values, education level of parents and free lunch offerings at schools.
Every high school in the county currently has an adversity score.
50 institutions used them in 2019. This fall, 150 institutions will use them. Adversity scores will be in widespread use by 2021.
Hotly Contested
How colleges consider a student’s race and class in making admissions decisions is hotly contested. Many colleges, including Harvard University, say a diverse student body is part of the educational mission of a school. A lawsuit accusing Harvard of discriminating against Asian-American applicants by holding them to a higher standard is awaiting a judge’s ruling. Lawsuits charging unfair admission practices have also been filed against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of California system.
Discrimination
James Conroy, director of college counseling at New Trier High School, which serves several affluent and mostly white communities north of Chicago, said the focus on diversity by elite colleges is already high and the adversity score would magnify that.
“My emails are inundated with admissions officers who want to talk to our diversity kids,” Mr. Conroy said. “Do I feel minority students have been discriminated against? Yes, I do. But I see the reversal of it happening right now.”
Somehow it constitutes discrimination to refuse admission to a kid who can barely read or write because of adversity, but it is not discrimination to hold Asian-American applicants to a higher standard.
Interactive Graphic
In a November 26 adversity score update, the Wall Street Journal asks What Happens if SAT Scores Consider Adversity?
The article has a nice “Find Your School” interactive graph.
I went to Danville, Schlarman, a private Catholic school. It was not in the interactive list. The above graphic shows the public school. I am positive Schlarman would score higher.
Otherwise, please note that an SAT score of 880 in Danville is is really 997. Yet, that is still well below the median 1055.
Danville seems hopeless.
Obvious Solution
The obvious solution to reverse discrimination must be ‘Free College for All’ .
But why stop there?
Undoubtedly, there will still be grade differences. People who cannot read or write or do basic math are not likely to get good grades.
But we can fix that too. And it’s already underway.
Inclusive Grading
Please note Columbia University Promotes Letting Students Grade Themselves.
Honor System
Nothing can possibly go wrong with this because it is on the honor system.
What About Teachers?
I am glad you asked.
Students can evaluate themselves accurately, but teachers believe students cannot evaluate teachers properly.
Over the next few weeks, students will get the chance to evaluate their professors and TAs. They’re going to get it wrong. They’ll be harder on women and people of color than on white men. Tenured white male faculty, in particular, should help their students understand this. 1/8
— Brian DeLay (@BrianDeLay) November 25, 2018
Please note Students Say They Prefer White Male Professors: We Cannot Allow That, Can We?
Ironically, we are supposed to believe students will display bias when grading teachers but the students will have absolutely no bias when grading themselves.
Adversity Scores for Teachers
We need “adversity scores” for teachers too as they are clearly discriminated against.
Wait a second. forget about all this stuff.
The solution is much simpler. Show up and get an “A”.
Exams Superfluous
Exams? Who needs em?
Everyone gets an A as long as they show up. Allow self grading and no need to even show up.
Besides, I am counting on Elizabeth Warren to provide “free” college education for everyone.
Exams clearly superfluous. https://t.co/oekSv8rB8J
— Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) December 9, 2019
Guaranteed Good Grades
Guaranteed good grades for students and teachers alike coupled with “free” education for all will fix everything.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
I am a teacher. In all honesty we are likely screwed.
(1) We are being pushed to never have due dates, no late penalties, a 50% grade for an assignment even if you didn’t turn it in, because 0% is too harsh on the kid’s overall grade, etc…
(2) A very nice white well-meaning teacher was literally telling students that ALL (100%) white students have an advantage over ALL (100%) black students in life and society. I tried to intervene and told him that Sasha and Malia Obama have highly educated parents, come from a high income family, have political/business/societal connections built in from their parents, etc…and therefore do have an advantage over a white male born into poverty to a single mother in the Upper Peninsula…the teacher still insisted that that impoverished white male has an advantage over the Obama girls and wouldn’t have to work as hard.
Minority students were soaking this is. Mind you…why would you even try your hardest if you believed society was stacked against you. “I am not going to try hard because society stacks the deck against black kids, look I just failed, because I am black.” It is a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.
(3) A different well-meaning white liberal teacher teaches kids that it is impossible to be racist to whites, because whites are in positions of power. I actually pulled up the dictionary definition to my students and explained why this is nonsense and how whites aren’t always in positions of power.
Yeah, I’ve heard about this before. You know, I suppose that the current generation don’t need to study different facts, theorems and others because of the internet. They just can to google it. Some of them prefer to use essay writers UK. In our time we hadn’t such services!
To be honest this is the hard decicion for education system. I know a few people who checked this page link to aresearchguide.com at paper writing service while exams. On the other hand, I think that it’s OK to use this kind of service for your coursework or diploma for example.
I recall many years ago Jesse Jackson badmouthed the concept of “equality of opportunity”, and demanded “equality of results”.
I think it also worth a mention that Malaysia’s 1960s era Communist insurgency was not fueled by the “discriminated against and deprived” population of the country. That identity group, ethnic Malays, majority of the population, had taken control of the nation’s systems, and had imposed quotas to bring up the status of the Malays. Instead the communist insurgency was fueled by the newly discriminated identity group, ethnic Chinese, who had done well by merit before Malaysia became independent.
I think your article is outdated Mish. The college board is abandoning the adversity score.
The College Board, the company that administers the SAT exam, said on Tuesday that it would withdraw its much-debated plan to include a so-called adversity score on student test results, saying it had erred in distilling the challenges faced by college applicants to a single number.
The adversity score was made up of the average of two ratings between 1 and 100 — one for the student’s school environment and the other for the student’s neighborhood environment — that indicate the obstacles a student might have overcome, like crime and poverty. The school and neighborhood scores will still be provided to admissions officers, along with other socioeconomic information.
The change was made after a storm of criticism from parents and educators followed the announcement of the plan last spring. Many of them said it falsely suggested that a student’s achievements and challenges could be quantified as the math and verbal scores on the SAT are.
The tool was officially introduced this year and is being used by about 100 to 150 colleges and universities this fall, the College Board said. The company had plans to roll it out more widely next year.
Thanks for this alert…I was breathing a sigh of relief until I read that the adversity score is now being replaced by the “Environmental Context Dashboard”, which seems to be an attempt at a more nuanced approach to Adversity Scores by giving colleges a dashboard of metrics relating to the community and educational system from which the applicant springs. See
I am not necessarily against higher educational institutions playing a remedial role for disadvantaged students, but the challenge is finding the right balance between that and not disserving students who have worked hard for their educational accomplishments. Specifically, giving a haircut to students’ scores or grades based on their race (e.g. Asian Americans or whites) seems wrong.
They will institutional what already happens to make it more ‘fair’. Instead of making it based on score they should just say they are giving opportunities to less qualified individuals who show potential based on some achievement in a lower socioeconomic zip code.
Being honest and transparent about what they are doing is a good first step me thinks.
Don’t punish the kids – it is the parents and grandparents’ fault – they can’t accept that little Johnny is dumb as a post so insist that the scores be adjusted or that everybody gets a participation prize – the fact that this behavior permeated beyond the self-entitled communities is to be expected.
Anybody who blames the kids for the system their parents and grandparents created for them probably also wants a participation prize (“I’m an American so I deserve free stuff when I’m old, and I also have the right to complain about anybody else getting free stuff!”). This comes in the form of free money (Social Security) and medical coverage (Medicare).
And don’t give me any nonsense about “I paid into SS” etc. – the amounts paid in by the average person barely covers 1/4 of what they get out – it is people like me who pay just about all the taxes that cover the whiny slackers.
I am an engineer with a BsC and MsC in Engineering and I cringe every time I see stories about universities using diversity to push na square peg in a round hole. I know in engineering the problem in the African-Amercian community is a cultural one. Math and Science have to be pushed in black households starting at a young age. The said fact is when I was in college almost ALL the black students in engineering were immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean or 1st generation kids of people from Africa or the Caribbean. I am from the Caribbean by the way. Native Black kids from the USA just did not participate in math and science. They were either afraid or just thought it hard so didn’t apply themselves. My Alma mat ta tried to shoe horn black kids from the surrounding area into engineering a couple years after I graduated. Guess what happened high dropout rates and the students just struggled. They had to go back to the middle and high schools to strength the kids there in math and science. Math, Science and engineering does NOT care if you are black, white, green or purple. You are not going to solve complex engineering problem with diversity. Bend the tree while it is young as my grandmother says. We need to stop focusing black kids on sports and entertainment and get them interested in science. My wife and I are doing that with our kids.
The good news is that it is well documented that IQ scores are increasing over time (the Flynn effect, which may be leveling off) – on average 3 points per decade.
Simply, this means that old people are stupider than the younger ones (e.g. look at understanding of simple things like climate science and you can see the impact of age based intelligence).
I doubt if anyone could accurately define “Hispanic.” And so what does any analysis mean with such floppy inputs? Is Ted Cruz any more a minority than original Latina Nancy Pelosi? Is white guy Marco Rubio, descendant of slave owners, a minority? Elizabeth Warren was slammed for not providing proof of being on a tribal register. Why aren’t Indians from south of the border held to such a standard? Why does white Spaniard US senator Bob Menendez pretend to be a minority?
“Somehow it constitutes discrimination to refuse admission to a kid who can barely read or write because of adversity, but it is not discrimination to hold Asian-American applicants to a higher standard.”
Would someone here know who is responsible (started) for this sort of thinking…
I am an educator and to be honest many teachers are damaging our youth.
I know of a well meaning white liberal teacher that tells students that “ALL” white students have an advantaged privilege over “ALL” black students. What do you think the black kids who struggle as is when they hear This? They don’t try harder they just resent the “oppressive system.”
I tried to reason with this teacher claiming that the Obama daughter’s have political, business, and socioeconomic advantages over my white father who grew up in literal poverty to a single mother in rural Michigan with no political or business connections. He told me I was being ignorant.
The sad fact is that yes there is a history of racial bias in this country BUT when it comes to education it is knowledge and application of the learned material that matters. I have seen many cases where black engineering students were “helped” because it is not fair and they COULD not do complex designs or problem solving once in the work force. They get regulated to menial tasks and eventually switch careers. Liberals think that Math, Science and Engineering can be racist. I hate to tell them that PCB design does care what color you are.
… Could be that buffteethrblog could use a little remedial English. “They get regulated ….” I think you meant “They get relegated…”; and “PCB design does care…” I think you meant “PCB design doesn’t care…”
In NYC admission to the top public high schools has long been based upon a test. The applicants with the best grades on the test were admitted in a fully blind process. Our learned mayor and his SJW friends are conspiring to destroy the blind admissions test and replace it with something “progressive”. The rationale is that the classes in these top schools does not reflect the racial makeup of the City. Another train wreck in the making.
The quality of new engineers in my company is abysmal. The upside is older engineers now have more job security.
Yeah but once the older engineers die out the buildings will start falling down 🙁
This is a worldwide problem, but there are a few out there. Gotta sift through a lot of them though.
It isn’t the engineers, it is the type of engineers. Try holding your own against an MFE graduate and you’ll reconsider how good an engineer you are – the top candidates want to get into financial engineering because that is where the money is.
I have to concur. We have a hard time finding people at my office. I feel good that us older engineers who constantly upgrade our skills have become invaluable.
My best buddy at work is from BVI. Best mathematician in the place.
It is job security, but it is soon time to move on to something more fun without the time pressure.
Whatever is going on its pathethic. All young entrants into my company are disasters that need to be reeducated.
I could shift to being a prof, but I would get kicked out for demanding effort towards excellence.
Grades are inflated, egos are inflated, and these inflated people just get their bubble popped in the real world.
If the kids coming in below me have an IQ that is 6 points higer they’ve spent it all on gaining relativist information from social media, render them quite knowledgable about things that have no relevance.
Thank God I’ll be dead soon enough! I really dont want to see where this is going. SAT scores now? Fine, they literally cant make it worse, college grads know nothing already!
This “dumbing down” is actually democracy in action: with rising black and hispanic populations, a true democracy would imply this automatic dumbing down. Let the asians cry: with low asian population (Chinese, Koreans, Japanese etc), no elected officials would care about them
Cheating is rampant in china. Their tests mean nothing.
I highly doubt that, at least on average. You better score exceptionally well (or be politically connected) to get into a university. There is not that much space and not that many %wise are politically connected.
The problem in the US is that we push college or you will be a bum instead of Education. This could mean college, trade school, boot camps, YouTube or self -education at the local library.
Daily Caller: “As Colleges Move To Do Away With The SAT In The Name Of Diversity, Detroit High School Valedictorian Struggles With Low-Level Math”
From the story: Seattle public schools in October unveiled a “framework” to inject “math ethnic studies” into all K-12 math classes, teaching “how math has been and continues to be used to oppress and marginalize people and communities of color.”
Can any educator here explain how teaching ethnic hate is a part of math?
It’s just racist…. just take their word for it I guess.
see my comment about Detroit above. I fail to see how this can be solved other than at the family level by instilling a work and education ethic. Generations of welfare have not solved this.
I read the other day that Chinese students are FOUR grades ahead of American students in math.
Was it an American doing the maths?
Of course this is the most ridiculous attempt at affirmative action thus far. The problem is that universities can “print” “free” summa cum laude degrees for everyone. They can’t “print” high paying jobs for these folks so ultimately it won’t accomplish what they are hoping for. All they will have succeeded in doing is destroying the value of college for determining who is driven and smart, deserving of a good job!! I guess everyone will have to go to grad school and get a Masters or Doctorate to get an entry level job now! LOL!
I don’t know where all this will end but doubt it’s anywhere good. The final move could be outright confiscation of property like has occurred in some countries in Africa.
I am grateful that AI is finally here to take things over,
It’s just in the nick of time.
The dumbing down in grade school levels is ridiculous. What makes it worse, is that the bad eggs who consistently cause trouble, are now not allowed to be expelled. So they create chaos in the classroom, and interrupt any sort of lessons that the capable kids should have learned. I remember a time when these brats were expelled and told try to behave better next year. I also remember when you got the deserved F grade, and to improve it, you relearned quickly or got some sort of tutoring. Now, they push you on to the next grade, despite the kid knowing nothing, and feeling that’s ok cause they weren’t taught about repercussions. The shock is evident when they gotta get out in the real world and get fired for stupid actions/decisions. “No one ever taught me that” is the mantra. No s**t, if anyone tried, they were reprimanded for hurting your feelings. Gah! I fear the future of the US.
This is what is known as I N F L A T I O N.
It doesn’t just affect money. People now need credentials and get prizes for doing what people used to think of as just being competent and responsible, quietly taking care of things at hand. And here we are, thinking everybody is highly intelligent and educated when it means jack, college is the new 6 years of elementary school 100 years ago when spending a few years at school was a privilege which just might earn you a chance of staying a few years extra.
As for racism, this is the height. Judging how much adversity any individual has to deal with is impossible, but now we’re going to do it on the basis of skin pigmentation. The tiger moms will really have to crack the whip if those kids are to have any chance, but of course having a tiger mom does not add to your adversity score. And we’ve also seen the last black people with an academic qualification who will not be suspect of being grossly incompetent in everything but fast sun-tanning, instead of someone who has surmounted the odds and persevered.
According to a newspaper article that I think showed up on Denninger’s website, the Senior-class Valedictorian of an inner-city Baltimore high school was having so much trouble with algebra in her first year of college that she needed a tutor. This is the class Valedictorian.
Heck, I didn’t even take algebra in college. They assumed you already knew it. I had to take multi-variable calculus as a freshman.
Hmmmmm… for all of those who think China does nothing right… the Gaokao is a Chinese nationwide test for college admissions. The National College Entrance Examination (NCEE), commonly known as Gaokao (高考; gāokǎo; ‘High[er Education] Exam’), is an academic examination held annually in the People’s Republic of China. This standardized test is a prerequisite for entrance into almost all higher education institutions at the undergraduate level.
So I have a question. Who will have a better chance of succeeding – a culture that is overwhelmed with “fairness in education” concerns or a culture that seeks to educate its best and brightest. I wouldn’t like to live in China for many reasons, but in this case they seem to have a superior system.
They do the entrance exam thing in Europe, too. Kids have mental breakdowns over it. These sorts of things weed out a lot of capable kids that may be too immature at 18. They are not the solution, either.
Racism is racism. It has no forward or reverse. I would not want to send my children to such bigoted, hateful institutions. This is overtly racist.
Fortunately, in the US, there are many ways and entry points available to get a start on a degree. After you get your first job, nobody cares too much which college you graduated from, or your GPA. Achievement at your job counts for much more.
All those that think that equality under the law should be raising boiled down hell. Somehow it is wrong for me judge someone’s heart and mind by the amount of pigment in his skin. And I try not to. But it is OK for public and private colleges to do so. This dumbass norming does nothing but push a bunch of incapable students through college to be weeded out later in the workforce.
It guarantees full enrollment to upper crust schools and gets Federal grant money to pay for much of it. It is another way for colleges to grab the public teat.
ALL CHINESE, KOREANS and JAPANESE to the BACK of the BUS!!!
Cheating is rampant in PRC (Peoples Republic of China) matched with easy admissions for students with good connections to members of CCP(Chinese Communist Party).
In Detroit the high school graduation rate was 20% or less, but miraculously it went up to 80-90%. Nothing to see there everything has to be on the up and up. Then the local university in Detroit, a well regarded college academically, allowed anyone in the city who could graduate free tuition. Unfortunately they discontinued that program because of dismal matriculation rates. Now they reintroduced the program so we’ll see what happens.
It is easier to do that than deal with unrealistic parents who think teachers are the only factor needed to beam knowledge into the kids brains. These parents dont realize that it takes the Student, Parents AND teachers to make them successful. Don’t worry these will be the parents and kids 20-30 years from now complaining that the rich people are out to get them and think that doing some menial job because of their low skill demand that they get paid enough to buy a mansion.
True story:
Our 3 children had the same 5th grade teacher. He would ‘punish’ the kids who didn’t do homework by keeping them from recess.
School intervened at told them that they could no longer do that.
The result:
A LOT of missing homework since.
There is a lesson someplace there, I just know it…
There is an obvious solution to this, and it comes from the past. My father went to the University of Nebraska, many years ago. Back then, the State of Nebraska guaranteed automatic admission to the University to anyone who wanted to go (I doubt if this is still the case), so long as they met one of three requirements:
On the first day of class, they had a mass assembly, and my father was advised “Take a good look at the person to your left, and the person to your right. By the end of the year, one of those people will be gone. Fully 50% of this class can expect to not make it to your Sophomore year. You have been guaranteed admission, but that is no guarantee that you will survive the academic requirements, of which there will be many.”
Yep, that’s the answer. Let everyone in, then kill grade inflation, and flunk half of them out. Everyone gets their one chance. No one can say they were discriminated against. Everyone has the opportunity to prove that they can do the work, and that they can earn a diploma.
Adopt this plan, and lo and behold, the party attitude will vanish, the students will learn more, and the end quality of graduates will be higher, and yes, absolutely, the final group who do graduate will include some who would never have been admitted based on current admission methods.
I teach college. If it was up to me the only grades would be High Pass (about 10% of the students stand out), Pass, and Better Luck Next Time. That would discourage inflation. As it is, I have to grade, A, AB, B, BC, C, CD, D, and F. I can’t make an exam that can split hairs like that and I’ll admit it, because of that I round up to ABCDF.
The actual grading system doesn’t matter, so long as the requirements for passing are rigorous and inflexible. Here are two stories to illustrate the point.
When I was engineering student at Northwestern, I had a friend who was an ME. They had one old-time professor who was the gatekeeper. He taught a required course. He was the only one who ever taught it. To graduate, you had to take it from him, and pass, and he did not grade on a curve. Everyone who ever graduated with an ME from Northwestern during his time there had taken that course from him, and passed it. When my friend took it, 25 students enrolled. 13 dropped after the first midterm. Of the remaining 12, my friend finished 5th, and failed, but barely. By doing extra credit work, he got it upgraded to a D, and was able to graduate.
At the other extreme, I had an advanced statistics course, and after the final, I went to see the Professor. Of the 5 questions on the test, I had been unable to even attempt to answer 2. I apologized profusely, and said that I felt terrible for having done so poorly. He laughed, and said that I had the highest grade on the test of anyone, and was going to get an A. Well, I’ve never felt that I deserved that A. If the best I could do was a 60%, I should have failed, and guess what, I’d have studied harder the next time.
I favor everyone having a chance, but cutting them no slack. Expect top performance, and those that survive will be outstandingly well educated, regardless of what their credentials were when they matriculated.
Many higher level, advanced, courses; have so few students take them, that a professor don’t really have much guidance to go by, wrt what is a proper level of difficulty for exam questions. Hence, he can easily slip up and ask test questions which really are a bit much to ask.
Chances are, if no student did well enough to even attempt answering 40% of the exam, that was one such case. In which case, failing everyone, hence making them retake the class and possibly be held back a semester, is a bit much. (Of course, being allowed to “grade on a curve” makes it easier for professors to get away with being lazy when writing tests as well. It’s not all “for the kids……”)
For large, entry level courses where it would make sense to use test scores to weed out those who shouldn’t be there in the first place, you’re much less likely to end up with those kinds of anomalies, though.
As a general rule, you’re almost always better off leaving the “entrance testing” (Performed over the 1st year……..) to individual Universities, rather than some “national body,” or “standard.” For a school like Harvard, it may well make sense to emphasize a diverse student body, since so many of its grads are from backgrounds making them more likely to end up in “global leadership” positions, where relationships and “soft skills” take on greater importance. But that doesn’t mean it makes sense for less exalted, or even just more purely academically focused (say, MIT), institutions to follow that lead.
Stuki, and I’m suggesting a radically different approach. The “modern” approach is to assume that if someone is good enough to get in, they are probably good enough to graduate, so you teach what you can, then grade on a curve to make everything look “normal”. (pun intended).
I’m suggesting that you decide in advance what you expect that a student should know in order to deserve a degree, give everyone a chance, but graduate only those who accumulate the knowledge that you deem necessary for a graduate to have. Now you don’t get graduates who partied through school, and who passed, but really don’t have the skill set to succeed. Now you have no chance of being accused of racism in admissions because everyone has an equal shot.
“Many higher level, advanced, courses; have so few students take them, that a professor don’t really have much guidance to go by, wrt what is a proper level of difficulty for exam questions.”
If they have been teaching them for years they know.
There can also be other reasons for making the test extremely difficult.
I took an assembly language programming course at a state university in Florida with a prof who deliberately designed tests that were virtually impossible to complete correctly.
He had a very high drop-out rate (85%+) because people would freak out over the scores as they would come back with numbers such as 22 or 19. When asked what grade it represented he would shrug his shoulders and would do the same when asked what the highest possible score was.
At one point he explained that he could design tests on which a “100” was possible and achievable for most and make people feel good but that it would tell him nothing. He designed his tests to see how far we could get. It was a philosophy that made sense to me then and still does. College is for learning, not “getting grades.”
I’m pretty sure anyone who stuck his course out received at least a B. I got an A and I know there were tests that I did not complete more accurately than 50%.
When I was less experienced I wrote alot of exams that no one could have done well on (and no one did). Believe me, it’s easy to do. I suspect that was the case with your stats professor.
I would also say that any department where 25 of 32 students wash out is not doing its job. They probably figured it was a status symbol. Anyone can be a hardass, it’s alot more difficult to actually teach.
My son applied to NW. 1600 SAT, 3.95 GPA at an elite East coast boarding school, 14 AP classes with an exam score 5/5, a national prize in Latin, and extraordinarily good letters of recommendation. NW wouldn’t take him. Considering that, I’d say that flunking out of NW reflects well on a student.
After graduating college I took a few additional classes in the evening from the U of CO Denver. One evening a fellow student told me about the grading standard in Europe. If a student did all the assigned homework, the best that student could get was a ‘C’. If the student did all the problems at the end of the chapter, the best was a ‘B’. To get an ‘A’ the student had to “go above and beyond,” and I have no idea what that meant.
I actually did take a few courses at the University of Nebraska, back in the olden days. In one course, Principles and Properties of Semiconductors, the professor always put the grade distribuion on the board after tests. The distribution was unlike anything I have ever seen. It was a uniform distribution. 2 grades between 0-10, 2 between 10-20, etc, up to 2 between 90-100. Since he did NOT grade on a curve, that meant that about 60% of the class failed in the end. I have no problem with that. Those people could drop out, or move to another major, but at least they had the chance to try.
I’d never presume that I could make exams that could cut things that finely. Nor does the notion that one is such a great teacher and the students are so lazy and stupid that automatically 60% of the students are going to fail reflect well on the professor or the school.
I don’t think the exams at UNL intended to slice things that finely; it was just how it turned out. As a student in the class, I thought the teaching was excellent, and I thought the tests were fine, and not unreasonable. I consistently scored in the 95-100% range. The fact that some people were scoring <10% was simply a reflection on the total absence of admission standards, and the fact that these students were either not studying at all, or not qualified, or more likely, both.
In any case, they got a chance to try, but it didn’t work, and they either changed majors or left. Their presence in the class was never disruptive, so giving them the opportunity to do their best was never a hindrance for anyone else. To me, allowing everyone to try is a fairer system than choosing who will ultimately graduate by deciding who you admit in the first place, and then passing everyone. I would guess that there were a few students who might not have been admitted under a selective admission system who did well, and a few who would have been admitted under a selective admission system who washed out. I have no problem with either.
I live in Argentina, and they offer free university and it’s on the same structure that your father is referring to. It is constantly regarded as the best in Latin America in medicine and architecture. If they could only produce a few logical economists.
When I went to university there was a course in P vs NP, the professor was, and still is, a world leader in the field, but is not interested in lecturing. 400 started the course, 12 met up for the exam, and we were 7 who passed.
“Guaranteed good grades coupled with “free” education for all will fix everything.”
…
When will the Insanity end?
Anyone recall The Broder Plan?
A few years ago David Broder floated the idea of going to war with Iran as means of a jobs (and dying) plan for young Americans.
I read that column in the Washington Post. A military buildup would stimulate the economy, scare Iran, and if war came, would stimulate it even more. Win. Win. Win! To be fair, I think Broder was senile at that point, rather than crazy, although the two are not mutually exclusive.