Harvard Professor Steve Pinker on the Ideal Elite University Admissions System

Parents Forum
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<p>There's a lot of interesting insights in this article. He does argue for making decisions by standardized testing (though not necessarily the present ones like the SAT), but his points would be just as valid for a holistic system which valued academic ability solely. It's also a response to the Deresiewicz article.
<a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119321/harvard-ivy-league-should-judge-students-standardized-test"&gt;http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119321/harvard-ivy-league-should-judge-students-standardized-test&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>A few excerpts are below:</p>

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At the admissions end, it’s common knowledge that Harvard selects at most 10 percent (some say 5 percent) of its students on the basis of academic merit. At an orientation session for new faculty, we were told that Harvard “wants to train the future leaders of the world, not the future academics of the world,” and that “We want to read about our student in Newsweek 20 years hence” ....The rest are selected “holistically,” based also on participation in athletics, the arts, charity, activism, travel, and, we inferred (Not in front of the children!), race, donations, and legacy status (since anything can be hidden behind the holistic fig leaf).

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The benefits of matching this intellectual empyrean with the world’s smartest students are obvious. So why should an ability to play the bassoon or chuck a lacrosse ball be given any weight in the selection process?<br>
The answer, ironically enough, makes the admissocrats and Deresiewicz strange bedfellows: the fear of selecting a class of zombies, sheep, and grinds. But as with much in the Ivies’ admission policies, little thought has given to the consequences of acting on this assumption.

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Just as troublingly, why are elite universities, of all institutions, perpetuating the destructive stereotype that smart people are one-dimensional dweebs? In any case, the stereotype is provably false. Camilla Benbow and David Lubinski have tracked a large sample of precocious teenagers identified solely by high performance on the SAT, and found that when they grew up, they not only excelled in academia, technology, medicine, and business, but won outsize recognition for their novels, plays, poems, paintings, sculptures, and productions in dance, music, and theater.

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What about the rationalization that charitable extracurricular activities teach kids important lessons of moral engagement? There are reasons to be skeptical.

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<p>I made a longer post about this article on my Tumblr… but basically, I saw the title “The Trouble with Harvard”, clicked on the link, read the subtitle “The Ivy League is broken and only standardized tests can fix it”, got angry, read three quarters of the article until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I’m not a Deresiewicz fangirl, but the majority of this article was ridiculous, in my opinion.</p>

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<p>I found the “argument” about standardized testing to be not simply facile, but naive as well. More than once it’s occurred to me that in too many cases, what these tests measure is the ability of students to hone their test-taking skills through test-prep books and test-prep classes. </p>

<p>There were parts of the article that I agreed with, however – in particular Pinker’s comments about community service activities.</p>

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<p>I agree. The emphasis is in the wrong place. Pinker made a few good points about the lack of transparency in the admissions process, although his response is laden with stereotypes about “well-rounded” students (specifically, his view that they’re not a high form of intellectual)- and he could’ve just focused on those offensive points instead of defending something he didn’t need to (which is also very, very tough to defend).</p>

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<p>One note before people focus in on it - I believe the 5-10% refers to academic superstars who are accepted purely on the basis of academic merit, without regard to other qualities. It does not mean that the other 90-95% are chosen without regard to academic merit.</p>

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<p>How exactly are they perpetuating this stereotype? If anything I’ve gotten the opposite impressions, that smart people are more likely to participate in extracurricular activities unrelated to academics. I have no idea if this is actually true though.</p>

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<p>Standardized tests need to be far more difficult to be used as the only standard for admission as it is in other countries (India, Japan etc) where standardized tests are the only standard used for admission. There are pros and cons to this system; on the pro side it’s far less ambiguous (and as a senior now the uncertainty is killing me in our system) and meritocratic and less prone to biases (racial, gender, personality, etc). I personally think that for 90% of cases, holistic admissions (not using strictly quantitative admissions) combined with the massive variance between schools or within schools (EC’s available, grading based on teachers too etc) is that holistic admissions (ie for everyone except the 5-10% not admitted solely on academics) is largely random or based on how well one sucked up in high school. But for the student perspective, holistic admissions is far less effort, students in India and Japan aiming for the best colleges spend 4+ years of their life in test prep institutions working straight from
5AM-11AM, not to mention the ses bias these institutions introduce.
Holistic admissions has it’s many flaws and I think it could be improved, but as a student I’d much prefer it to the standardized test as a sole criteria method.</p>

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<p>Standardized tests need to be far more difficult to be used as the only standard for admission as it is in other countries (India, Japan etc) where standardized tests are the only standard used for admission. There are pros and cons to this system; on the pro side it’s far less ambiguous (and as a senior now the uncertainty is killing me in our system) and meritocratic and less prone to biases (racial, gender, personality, etc). I personally think that for 90% of cases, holistic admissions (not using strictly quantitative admissions) combined with the massive variance between schools or within schools (EC’s available, grading based on teachers too etc) is that holistic admissions (ie for everyone except the 5-10% not admitted solely on academics) is largely random or based on how well one sucked up in high school. But for the student perspective, holistic admissions is far less effort, students in India and Japan aiming for the best colleges spend 4+ years of their life in test prep institutions working straight from
5AM-11AM, not to mention the ses bias these institutions introduce.
Holistic admissions has it’s many flaws and I think it could be improved, but as a student I’d much prefer it to the standardized test as a sole criteria method.</p>

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<p>“Just as troublingly, why are elite universities, of all institutions, perpetuating the destructive stereotype that smart people are one-dimensional dweebs?”</p>

<p>How are they doing so? Every year, the top schools all brag about how much HIGHER their scores have gotten AND how their classes are more diverse and do all kinds of interesting activities. That’s your own insecurity talking, I think. </p>

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<p>Pinker is exactly correct and who better to understand what is going on than this professor. I mean the guy was flat out told by Harvard what they were looking for. We can guess all we want about what is going on but this guy is living it in his classroom every day.</p>

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<p>@Pizzagirl I’m not sure if you were addressing me, but the quote you commented on is an excerpt from the article. </p>

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<p>It’s pretty simple how to make it fair to enter elite universities.</p>

<p>Let EVERYONE who wants to enroll take a test class. Then pick the top 1500 in terms of grades in that class to be admitted, everyone else is rejected. </p>

<p>Make it even better by having to apply to only one school at a time - if you don’t get into Harvard, you can never reapply but you can’t apply to other Ivies until next year. We could set up a time frame to sign up for the test class. Let’s also ensure economic diversity of those who apply and maybe even those who get admitted.</p>

<p>The only real way to determine who should be admitted and enrolled in a particular college is how well they do in college. Everything else is trying to model that.</p>

<p>And I respectfully disagree, involvement in sports in particular, where one is good enough to be a recruited athlete, takes drive, and drive is a huge determinant in how well you do in life.</p>

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<p>Harvard uses this method for enrollment in their extension school:</p>

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<p>And I used that method of enrollment when I was unemployed after college, and living in a college town. I got a low-paying university job with tuition benefits, took a few classes and got As, and boom - they admitted me. Note my undergrad GPA was sub-3.0 and the college is quite well-known and relatively prestigious.</p>

<p>So we can get into Harvard easy as that? Does the extension degree say “Harvard Extension” (or whatever that would be in Latin).</p>

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<p>The Extension degree won’t have “Harvard College” on it. That’s one immediate way for someone to tell if it’s “real Harvard” or the “Extension school”. Yes, those are the terms I’ve heard Harvard College students and alums use to describe their institution versus the Extension school. </p>

<p>At Columbia U, the difference from what I’ve seen is the ones issue to Columbia College graduates are in Latin whereas the General Studies ones are in English. Also, unlike Harvard Extension, Columbia GS students can and are expected to take the vast majority of their courses from the same pool as students from other more selective divisions such as Barnard and the College. </p>

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<p>Thanks, collegealum314. I was wondering whether someone would post Pinker’s comments. I think there would be a lot to be said about matching the students’ academic qualities to the faculty from whom they are going to be learning.</p>

<p>However, I am still tending to my scars from the last discussion on this topic (5 Little Known Something or Others), so for at least the time being, I am passing.</p>

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<p>Is this an Ivy problem, or is it a Harvard problem? As I look at Pinker’s bio, he’s taught at Harvard, MIT and Stanford. I was struck a few years ago by this lengthy description of Harvard students: <a href=“http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/03/nonstop[/url]”>http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/03/nonstop&lt;/a&gt;. </p>

<p>I know Harvard admits some supremely academically inclined students. However, it would not surprise me to find the 10% rule to be true. </p>

<p>I couldn’t find a link to a recent Common Data Set for Harvard. The last one I found showed very high average test scores. So, I would venture to say that if half the student body cuts the most popular lecture, somehow, the admissions department is selecting a significant number of students (by no means all!) who possess high test scores, but don’t possess a thirst for knowledge.</p>

<p>Increasing the reliance on test scores is not the answer. Perhaps, cutting down on the importance of extracurriculars in admission could lead the way. Limit the number of slots on the application for extracurriculars. Don’t give extra points for activities which can only be achieved with parental transportation and financial support. Look for students who do not have spotless records–those who try courses which are above their heads, but don’t drop it when the grade’s not an A.</p>

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<p>Do you know any actual Harvard students? The admissions office already does plenty of discounting activities that can only be achieved with parental support . . . at least for people who fail to qualify for the Olympics or to reach the finals of the Tchaikovsky Competition, or unless they shine at sports Harvard plays. If students don’t show up for this or that lecture, it’s because they are doing something else that seems really important to them, not because the lack a thirst for knowledge. (Also maybe because they know their professor is mailing it in, and they have already read the lecture verbatim in his book.) </p>

<p>There are plenty of people there who have tried courses above their heads . . . and got As in them.</p>

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<p>@theanaconda‌ The India part isn’t true. People usually spend a year or two in places like Kota. The hours look right, though. But you can’t say they’re churning out bad engineers or bad doctors as a result. Also, India’s version of affirmative action is way more hardcore- they have quotas- and SES biases aren’t that bad because people are only competing with members of their own caste (although a lot of people would disagree with basing the system on castes).</p>

<p>My main issue with holistic admissions is the lack of transparency. After all, it started out as a way of keeping Jews out of Yale without being very explicit about it. And honestly a lot of the defenses of it when Asian acceptance rates are brought up seem pretty racist- “Asians are just cookie-cutter robots who never show passion,” etc., and pretty contrary to reality. I mean, the “Asians aren’t unique” part is basically the Ivory Tower version of “all Asians look the same.”</p>

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<p>My friend was national in equestrian events and was rejected early decision from Yale. Oh, and she was valedictorian with great test scores too. We all thought “should’ve done school sports” (she went to Smith).</p>

<p>Anyway, what about this rebuttal:
<a href=“Opinion | Becoming a Real Person - The New York Times”>Opinion | Becoming a Real Person - The New York Times;