<p>
I agree with this. I personally happen to think the SAT has precious little meaning in this range, but this interpretation is fine with me also.</p>
<p>And that is the only piece of data I have because when I sit down in Ben Jones' office, we tend to talk about things other than admissions, and I do not grill him for isolated pieces of data, nor their exact conditions.</p>
<p>I'm glad there's some discussion of whether a 700 really is different than an 800 or not - I suspect that it is, but it would be nice to see some proof either way. </p>
<p>BUT I think there is a missing element in that discussion - it makes it sound like "we look at everyone who exceeds a certain threshold (700) because above that everyone is qualified" but this is not at all what's going on. It would be easier for a camel to pass thru the eye of a needle than for a Chinese male from Bronx Science to get into MIT with a 700 math SAT. For that kid, even 800 might not be good enough. Just discussing whether 700 is "good enough" glosses over the whole double standard thing that is going on in the name of social engineering.</p>
<p>Also, there is a little too much piety here. MIT admissions says 700=800 so Mollie and everyone else buys that as gospel truth? I think a little more scientific skepticism and caution about these issues would serve everyone well. That is, keep asking "How do we know?" and don't buy the first regression that's tossed at you -- about 10% of regressions really support the point they are cited to support. Feynman said that in science, the easiest person to trick is yourself, and I think many AA advocates do a very good job of that.</p>
<p>(The famous Feynman essay in which this point is best made, Cargo</a> Cult Science, is a sublime and inspiring thing -- regardless of all else, I know that Mollie and everyone else with a scientific bent will love it. GO!)</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>First MIT is un-meritocratic (not putting enough weight on differences in SAT scores) and now it is? And anyone who believes otherwise is just fooling themselves?</p>
<p>cool.</p>
<p>No, the main argument isn't that they actually are considering SAT scores more than they say they are (though this is possible). It's that the claim about the SAT not mattering in that range is unsupported by the evidence.</p>
<p>Studying the admitted MIT population to judge the effect of the SAT is wrong for so many different reasons that we should just drown that idea.</p>
<p>That was a really, really great article. I've saved it to my computer so I can keep myself honest in college (it never hurts to remind oneself of what science truly strives for).</p>
<p>I don't recall anyone making the 700=800 claim, though I do recall Ben (Jones) stating 750=800.</p>
<p><a href="pebbles%20wrote:">quote</a> First MIT is un-meritocratic (not putting enough weight on differences in SAT scores) and now it is?
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</p>
<p>You missed the word "relative". Relative weight. Of the SAT compared to other factors that are used in reckoning ability, admissibility, intelligence or whatever it is that SAT is a partial proxy for. If the admissions office figures that 100 extra points on the math SAT II and 0.2 math GPA points are needed to compensate for 30 points less on the math SAT I, but in reality all you need are 40 extra points of SAT II, this can lead to a negative correlation of matriculants' SAT I with math performance. </p>
<p>The issue is more complicated than that, but at least understand the basics before shooting from the hip.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>I don't recall anyone making the 700=800 claim, though I do recall Ben (Jones) stating 750=800.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>When I attend an admissions info session on the MIT campus in '04, Marilee stated that "anything above 700 will make a candidate competitive." Which isn't quite the same thing as saying that all scores above 700 are equal.</p>
<p>I've read on CC that in subsequent years she began saying that above 650 was competitive, but I never heard her say that myself.</p>
<p>What she really should have said (but didn't have the honesty t0) was "anything above 700 (or 650 depending on which version of the story you believe) will make a candidate competitive provided she is of a race/gender that we favor". 650 math will make an Asian boy from NJ competitive at MIT when hell freezes over. The issue (t0 me at least) is not that they are willing to relax their standards (which is bad enough) but that they relax them in a systematically racist and sexist way - for a person from the "correct" group it's "Welcome, step right this way, low scores are no obstacle." for the "wrong" kind , its "bring me the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West" and some 2400 SATs and we STILL may not take you. To me this smells a lot like the old days in the South where no matter how many birth certificates and title deeds a black person brought to the voting registrar, somehow it was never good enough to get your voter registration card, but any toothless white person who could scrawl an X could step right into the voting booth.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, there is a little too much piety here. MIT admissions says 700=800 so Mollie and everyone else buys that as gospel truth? I think a little more scientific skepticism and caution about these issues would serve everyone well.
[/quote]
Oh, come on. If I bought it as gospel truth, I would have spoken about it in much stronger terms. </p>
<p>At any rate, I think it's entirely relevant that the admitted population is the study population -- we're not, after all, talking about whether 700=800 in the population at large. We're talking about whether or not certain groups of students admitted to MIT are substantially less capable and meritorious than other groups, and that correlation, inadequate as it is, at least suggests in an oblique way that the admissions office is doing a good job, even if they are not picking people with identical SAT scores.</p>
<p>I am frankly not interested in an overly emotional "Boo hoo, admissions is racist" vs. "Boo hoo, the SAT is racist" flame war. Can we cut the drama and talk about resolvable issues?</p>
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[quote]
but any toothless white person who could scrawl an X could step right into the voting booth.
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<p>OH! I GET IT! The admissions department is to Jim Crow racists as the stupid toothless white hick is to the black and hispanic (and female?) students at MIT!</p>
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[quote]
What she really should have said (but didn't have the honesty t0) was "anything above 700 (or 650 depending on which version of the story you believe) will make a candidate competitive provided she is of a race/gender that we favor". 650 math will make an Asian boy from NJ competitive at MIT when hell freezes over.
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<p>Okay, this is going to sound ridiculous but I live like twenty feet away from an Asian boy from NJ who got in with a sub-700 math score. Of course, I could be mistaken and he could be a very convincing biracial transvestite. Forgive me for invoking Occam's razor. I was told that middle eastern people count as "Asian", demographically. I had a subpar GPA, and I got in.</p>
<p>Feel free to generalize.</p>
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[quote]
I don't recall anyone making the 700=800 claim, though I do recall Ben (Jones) stating 750=800.
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</p>
<p>At best, 750=800 for people with no higher credentials. For math SAT there is a big difference between those scores: the lower one is almost never seen among people with strong math background beyond AP calculus. That is, 750 toward the end of high school is a virtual guarantee that mathematical ability is not unusually high, whereas 800 has a correlation (especially in MIT's applicant pool) with credentials beyond the SAT 800 level, such as AIME, math/physics olympiads, Intel projects, publications, advanced undergrad classes, summer math camps. </p>
<p>So 750=800 is in effect saying that a score of 750 is equivalent to a score of 800 from the bottom of the pool of 800 scorers. Given that qualification, yes, it's easy to believe that a 50 point difference can arise from test prep or other irrelevant factors.</p>
<p>At population level, 800 is easily distinguishable from 750, without taking additional credentials into account. I think Ben Jones was referring to a hypothetical applicant with plain vanilla (in MIT's pool) math credentials: grades of A in math courses, good GPA, AP calculus score of 5, high score on SAT-II math, but no special additional mathematical achievements. Given two such applicants who are otherwise identical, 800 and 750 are not tremendously different scores on the math SAT.</p>
<p>Mollie -- two debates have gotten fused in a messy way. One is whether SAT matters for achievement when evaluating applicants. Then the appropriate study population is applicants.</p>
<p>If we're trying to determine whether women at MIT are less capable than the men, then we should be studying the enrolled population -- I agree with you there. What bothers me is that one hears occasional factoids like "this [average GPA] number is higher than this number" without a systematic analysis/controlling for major and course choice and the like. Scientific honesty would demand really beating up the data a lot worse than that.</p>
<p>Great link Ben! Thanks for sharing that.</p>
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Scientific honesty would demand really beating up the data a lot worse than that.
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<p>I love--and agree with--the imagery here, Ben.</p>
<p>Pebbles, no the admissions department is nothing like a Jim Crow racist because their racism is on behalf a good cause instead of an evil one, right? As long as you act on behalf of a good cause, you can justify anything - you can take people's property away, you can sabotage labs where animal research is done. Anything - the important thing is that your motives are for the collective good (as you see it) and then anything you do is permissible. Intentions matter much more than results.</p>
<p>I'm going to define racism, so we're not talking out of the wrong end of our bodies, here. Believe whatever you will about admissions in this country (and complain as much as you want), but don't abuse the language:</p>
<p>Racism</p>
<p>noun
1. the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races
2. discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.</p>
<p>You can bend over backwards and stretch the situation completely out of form to fit this description. But you'd just be embarrassing yourself. More.</p>
<p>One thing:
MIT's Affirmative Action policy is no more "racist" than is Caltech's merit aid policies (available to ONLY minorities, mind you). Discuss.</p>
<p>
[quote]
What bothers me is that one hears occasional factoids like "this [average GPA] number is higher than this number" without a systematic analysis/controlling for major and course choice and the like. Scientific honesty would demand really beating up the data a lot worse than that.
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I would love to have more data. Love love love. I mean, at this point, we're not just fighting over scraps, we're fighting over my half-remembered, came-up-once-in-a-discussion scraps. I hope you realize that this absolutely horrifies me.</p>
<p>You wanna arrange a midnight raid on any and all relevant offices the next time you're in Cambridge? I'll bring cloaks. ;)</p>