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<p>I can think of a million reasons why a holistic admission system is better than a merit based one.</p>
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<p>I beg to differ:</p>
<p>[Studies:</a> SAT writing portion good predictor of grades - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-04-24-sat_N.htm]Studies:”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-04-24-sat_N.htm)</p>
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<p>This is why, every time I hear somebody complain about holistic admissions, I think “If only they could experience the alternative firsthand.”</p>
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<p>I can think of a million reasons why a merit based system is better than a holistic one. However, a merit based system is more efficient and can ensure academic competence with greater reliability. It’s also blind to corruption and admits who are drastically below the norm and don’t deserve to be in the college but yet are because of some other non-merit factor.</p>
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<p>I wish that study were accurate because the writing section of the SAT was by far my highest score out of the three. 
However, as far as I can tell that study says that SAT writing is the best predictor of grades when compared to the other sections of the current (post-1994) style of SAT tests, which isn’t saying much. Feel free to correct me, though, if you can find a sentence that states it was also compared to the older SATs from the 1980s and 1970s.</p>
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<p>An alternative that I am experiencing right now is the law school admissions process, which I am perfectly O.K. with. I’m not sure how it compares to the Korean system, but I drastically prefer the law school style of admission which considers mostly objective, merit-based, standardized test scores versus the fuzzy style of undergraduate admission.</p>
<p>so I got a 650 on writing which is clearly not a high score.
Based on the usatoday’s article,
my freshman year gpa would be bad. right?
huh. im pulling 3.85 right now</p>
<p>Here is a VERY VERY comprehensive article on education in Taiwan. I recommend everyone who’s remotely interested in what education is like in Asia to read it. </p>
<p>[CommonWealth</a> Magazine](<a href=“http://english.cw.com.tw/article.do?action=show&id=10046&offset=0]CommonWealth”>http://english.cw.com.tw/article.do?action=show&id=10046&offset=0)</p>
<p>The writing subscore is the best predictor of grades!? I find this a bit difficult to believe. I’m glad I didn’t apply to any UC schools because my 620 on the writing part would have denied me.</p>
<p>Maybe a study should be done on how the ACT and SAT results match up for students. My 620 SAT writing (7 essay) doesn’t compare to my ACT writing 33 (10 on essay). I think that study would be more interesting than the correlation between writing and grades.</p>
<p>Do they seriously want to correlate the writing test with a physics major’s grades? Silly!</p>
<p>ok. ppl are arguing than Koreans/Asians merely “Memorizes” the imformation to get high scores.
not true.
u can’t truly memorize and know unless u learn and understand</p>
<p>ppl are arguing than Koreans/Asiasn have no life but study 24/7
again not true.
average ppl do study but not 24/7
elite or hardworking students do like some ppl here in America
they have fun, to tell u the truth many but certainly not most have fun and usally cram for tests…</p>
<p>and the only reason that those two elite school students study hard is b/c they obviouly want to go to top americans school
and to do that they need to do what u guys do plus what they are expected to do in korea. and to speak/listen/write/read english well it’s a hard work.
Also SATs… it’s hard for Americans. how hard will it be to Korean whose lang. is totally diff? they have to study extra hard to be in same level w/ u guys.
honestly i’m annoyed w/ critism of korean/asian education and consider theirs “the best” like always. altho i don’t think anybody said that directly.</p>
<p>You can memorize without understanding. You can memorize proofs. In organic chemistry, many just memorize the reactions without a true understanding of what is occurring. The foreign language instruction in Japan is notoriously bad. It is all grammar based, and they don’t practice speaking the language.</p>
<p>It is very possible to memorize knowledge and use LOGIC to solve test problems, on paper, with a pen or pencil. In fact, our current APs, EVERY AP, is designed to be defeated through the use of two things- memorized knowledge, and logical application. You are NOT being asked to make discoveries on an AP test or do visionary theorizing. You are expected to know concepts and formulas and how to apply them in order to do well on the Chemistry, Physics, and Calculus exams. This especially goes for the SAT. I am under the impression however Asian standardized testing is MUCH more memory intensive.</p>
<p>There is so much to say on this topic. I am glad American scholars here understand so heavily that memorization is not the higher learning that one may dream to have someday- to be on a level so far out there, like Einstein and all other famous scientists and thinkers.</p>
<p>Reading everything spoken here, many people really hit the nail on the head, but simply need to realize the bigger picture. A couple people posted first hand interpretations that Asian society recognizes intellectual achievement and vigorous effort as the requirements for pure economic and social success. That is, the end result is economic success in its most bare form, and this is what they must pursue as students. </p>
<p>Americans no doubt feel the same way. But it is different here. Capitalism, and history, beginning with an event like the first Chicago World’s Fair in the 19th century, have created a culture of visionary thinkers. Research is ENORMOUS in this country. The money is there because of a corporate free market system that recognizes research as the preface to enormous profit. Ever wonder why America produces so many brilliant scientists, and incredible technology? Its capitalism. Money.As such, American culture has created students that employ cunning, creativity, and often cooperative effort to produce results while at the same time rising in the economic ladder.</p>
<p>What I’m really trying to get at is that it is my interpretation that Asian culture is producing brilliant mathematicians and scientists that finally find the end products in their education- money and social status. And it ends there. Knowledge stagnates. It is not the same for Americans, living in a research-based society.</p>
<p>It annoys me when only two professions come up to mind with my parents- doctor, and lawyer. It is like the average American unconsciously thinks that once a student’s vigorous work pays off, and he is a doctor, it is over- he is bestowed economic success and social status and it ends there. A life of simple, repetitive work begins, constantly rewarding enormous money. IT IS NOT ALWAYS SO! However, it appears that it IS always so in Asian culture.</p>
<p>Though, the teaching of mathematics, and indeed the sciences, have flaws everywhere. God bless my calculus teacher who derives almost everything- the volume of a sphere, for example. However, my math and chemistry classes are largely taught as classes of memorization, because that is how those tests ARE. My teachers in those classes cannot waste time deriving every formula, though I wish they did.</p>
<p>However, most colleges demand you present your own theories after 4 or 5 years of learning material. They demand you think on your own feet, and not simply regurgitate information. They demand creative thinking. It does not seem such demands are put on Asian students when they nearly finish their education.</p>
<p>Nova10,</p>
<p>Oh, they have speaking practice. They just all say the same lines… over and over and over…</p>
<p>ok I know that you guys are going to bash me but given that this is the last time that I will be posting on CC, I must say that this thread is pretty cliche.
Yeah, it’s just so American.
Writing articles about what you hear
<p>I must also aska question which I won’t know the answer to the Korean or whoever said that the American system is a joke:</p>
<p>So Education in America is a joke, why are you trying that hard to get into their elie schools? Why are there so many Koreans in the prestigious here? Why do you want to come to this joke?
Whatever bye people and for those of you who would say that I make grammatical mistake, well find something else to say to please your ego because I aknowledged in this forum a long time ago that It has been only three months since I started to learn English so my mistakes do not bother me because I know that I am better than you in Italian, French, Deutch, German, Romanian, Russian and Farsi. I am not at least afraid to come to a place with no whatsoever experience in the language but I am sure that you will freak out like a chiken if I dump you in Iran or the Dominican republic all by yourself idiot. I have been going o boarding school since the age of 8 to study in foreign countries ( which explain my fluency in so many languages) but you wouldn’t have the gut to do this right now old frog.</p>
<p>Grande, </p>
<p>It’s ironic how your anti-cliche post is so cliche.</p>
<p>^ Great post GA.</p>
<p>Yeah, there needs to be some reforms in the Korean educational system (just as well as for the system here) - but it’s not nearly as bad as the article makes it out to be (students do actually have outside activities - i.e. baseball, basketball, kendo, tae kwon do, music, etc.).</p>
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<p>Uhh, if I recall correctly, Taiwan, SKorea and Japan also have capitalism and copious spending on research.</p>
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<p>Uhh, sorry. If a scientist, researcher or executive doesn’t produce RESULTS (which end up generating profits or other rewards) - no money and social status for them no matter what degree they have (of course, a top degree does get them into the door).</p>
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<p>I seriously disagree; libertarian platitudes such as that are extremely unconvincing, especially because it assumes as a given that everyone is greedy and interested in progress and intelligence for monetary gain and not progress and intelligence in their own merits. If you accept that as truth then the logical extensions of that are political corruption and questionable foreign policy acts because, hey, it’s money and who wouldn’t invade/occupy countries for natural resources when you can get some profit from it?</p>
<p>I especially doubt that because when reading most statements from extremely brilliant people I have found that very few of them are interested in compensation for doing something of intellectual worth; they are interested in doing something of intellectual worth because they think the achievement is worth it on its own. Research and advancement should be the goal and money should be the tool to achieve it, not the other way around.</p>
<p>I wonder if those of you who make blanket statement about their curricumlum being all about rote memorization even read the article <em>critically</em> at the first place. The curriculum for the school cited is a US one and apparently taught by many “American and other foreign teachers”. Since when SAT is about memorization? APs are American exams and please don’t tell me when Koreans take them, it’s about rote memorization but when Americans take them, it’s about critical thinking (“creative” logic?). It’s very clear the students put a lot more time into academics but that doesn’t mean rote memorization.</p>
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I am not sure what your real point is but just so you know, tons of graduate students in the US are from Asia, i.e. America doesn’t “produce” them. A lot of the cutting edge research are currently conducted jointly by Americans and them.</p>
<p>Bowler Hat,
What do you know about their acheivement?</p>
<p>In Oscar Wilde’s words, these Koreans are a perfect example of people who “know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”</p>
<p>^clarify what <em>you</em> meant please unless of course you don’t even really understand what those words mean.</p>
<p>^^^ Don’t get offensive :o</p>
<p>IMHO their educational pursuits are in the wrong direction altogether. A right thing for the wrong cause, if you put it that way. No matter how much they gain, the essence of knowledge is perhaps absent. Hence the words.</p>
<p>^you made an offensive statement about the people of the entire country and you ask people not to get offensive? i am not even a korean by the way.</p>
<p>where are you from? how much do you know about their “educational” pursuits? this article is about an elite prep school for a tiny fraction of all the korean students. the top and ambitious students are not representative of all other korean students.</p>
<p>by the way, the Oscar Wilde’s words you used were not about “a right thing for the wrong cause”. sorry, find a better one out of your quotation book. :rolleyes:</p>