Making College Admissions more Meritocratic

[Archbob]

What you have posted, is not true. It contradicts a large body of evidence. Please provide reasonable evidence and sources of your own if you mean to argue otherwise.

Where is your "large body of evidence" that it actually does work? The evidence for this is very marginal at best.

Yeah, it may help inter-class acceptance but as for actual results at least at the school I went to, those kids still mostly end up at the bottom of the class.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

Case closed. Motivation. You don't need shiny things to be motivated.

...but you got your motivation from seeing people in your community being poor and living, in your opinion, bad lives. So you got your motivation from shiny things, aka money?

No, like you say, the motivation comes from home and maybe from the teachers (although I think their influence is very limited). Rich kids generally come from better homes, and it yields better results. The teachers have more attentive students, and can focus more on teaching and less on being a social worker. Poor families unfortunately have a larger tendency to create a negative force when it comes to their children learning. They do not place the importance on it. They believe their children have no chance. There's whole swirling undercurrent that forms the psychology of poor folks that is a discussion for another day. It is a swirling undercurrent that won't go away by tossing money around, or taking money away.

1. Teachers have a huge effect on motivation. I hated some certain subjects when I had a bad teacher in them, now in high school I like those same subject and I'm motivated to study them. Same goes for the whole education system. Good teachers produce motivated students, motivated students produce good results.
2. Rich family doesn't necessarily mean a better home. Period.
3. Poor parents don't always believe that their children have no chance or that school is of no importance. I've seen many examples against it: poor parents encourage their children to study in order to not end up like them.

 

[Cutlass]

No, its actually not the lack of resources. Kids who get bussed to better schools as part of the exchange program are still very likely to fail.

And no matter how you spin it, a lot of the blame does fall on the kids themselves. Even when bussed, they still tend to hang with the wrong crowd, are more likely to do drugs/get in trouble, etc.

You can't try to blame everything except the kid themselves, they, along with everything else are part of the issue.

Intelligence and behaviour can partly be taught but there is a large part that is genetic as well. Even if you equalized everything right now, within a few decades, society would quickly stratify itself again because of the differences in individual humans -- differences that in large part are genetic. Its been proven with other mammals and I expect humans to be no different. Once again, this does not apply to any race as a while, but only to individual humans and genetic lines.

If your parents were smart and good at math then your chances of being smart and good at math are going to be higher than average. I know people will come up with some anecdotal evidence, but those do not thwart scientific probability. All humans are simply not created equal in terms of talent and those talents tend to be passed down genetic lines. With humans, the decent probability of marrying up or down the social ladder dilutes this as a whole so the effect may not be profound as in other species where the weak or un-adapted simply die out.

I would guess that large research has not been done in humans regarding this because even if the results support what I think in this post, they wouldn't be able to report in a science journal without creating a firestorm, thats just how stupidly politically correct we are nowdays.

I actually don't think the gap in performance has that much to do with the genetics of intelligence, but has a lot more to do with personality and attitude in class/more likely to be disruptive or not listen. Traits like these in other mammals have also been strongly linked to genetics.

The point is that simply moving them to a different school, without addressing all the other problems, is not sufficient. More is needed. But that is still not saying that it is the kids who are avoiding getting the education offered. No matter how you cut it, their needs are not being met.

 

[BuckeyeJim]

...but you got your motivation from seeing people in your community being poor and living, in your opinion, bad lives. So you got your motivation from shiny things, aka money?


1. Teachers have a huge effect on motivation. I hated some certain subjects when I had a bad teacher in them, now in high school I like those same subject and I'm motivated to study them. Same goes for the whole education system. Good teachers produce motivated students, motivated students produce good results.
2. Rich family doesn't necessarily mean a better home. Period.
3. Poor parents don't always believe that their children have no chance or that school is of no importance. I've seen many examples against it: poor parents encourage their children to study in order to not end up like them.

You're misunderstanding what I mean by motivation. I don't think teachers can overcome the influence that comes from home. Their influence is marginal. And you may end up with one or two teachers that you feel influenced your life when you graduate. These individuals compose an hour of your day, 180 days per year. Parents and friends will always outweigh them.

2. I agree. This is why some rich kids don't do well at rich kid schools.
3. I agree. I'm speaking in general, not in absolutes. I am an example of a poor (and later middle class) family who had good parents that acted as a positive influence on my life.

 

[Archbob]

The point is that simply moving them to a different school, without addressing all the other problems, is not sufficient. More is needed. But that is still not saying that it is the kids who are avoiding getting the education offered. No matter how you cut it, their needs are not being met.

What if those kids are just more prone to being more disruptive and less prone to pay attention in class?

That could easily be the case.

 

[Cutlass]

What if those kids are just more prone to being more disruptive and less prone to pay attention in class?

That could easily be the case.

So we're just back to blaming the kids and pretending that there's no point in even trying to give them a chance?

 

[Theige]

Texas is a highly selective college?

(Just looked it up, it's not )

 

[Hygro]

Texas is a highly selective college?

(Just looked it up, it's not )

UT-Austin maybe?

 

[Theige]

UT-Austin maybe?

Nope, the stats were for UT-Austin.

No school with 38k undergrads can really ever be "selective."

For others who go through the traditional application process, selectivity is deemed "more selective" according to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.[67] For Fall 2009, 31,362 applied and 45.6% were accepted, and of those accepted, 51.0% enrolled.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_at_Austin#cite_note-2009-2010_Common_Data_Set-2

 

[Hygro]

Nope, the stats were for UT-Austin.

No school with 38k undergrads can really ever be "selective."

UC Berkeley, sucka

 

[Theige]

UC Berkeley, sucka

True!

I didn't realize how big UC Berkeley was.

Though, it is significantly smaller than 38k

 

[downtown]

I am amazed at all the non-educators speak so authoritatively on what drives instruction.

 

[BuckeyeJim]

I am amazed at all the non-educators speak so authoritatively on what drives instruction.

What drives instruction?

 

[downtown]

What drives instruction?

Its just not a matter of "sit down and shut up" to get the results you want. Thats actually the attitude that parents have for their kids in the ghetto, which is why nobody really engages the teachers or the administration. This isn't a viable strategy if your teachers are bad, or if your school doesn't have the actual resources it needs.

Posters are correct to point out that the SINGLE BIGGEST VARIABLE in determining student achievement is the family situation (education level of parents, their income, # of parents, etc). However, that is not the only variable that has a significant impact...otherwise, what would be the point in paying for school at all? If everything is on the kid and the family, we could spend all that public school money on roads, cops, or lower taxes. Schools need GOOD TEACHERS, they need the MATERIALS AND RESOURCES to provide the engaging and meaningful lessons, and they need relevant community connections.

To go back to your previous point (ive been traveling this week), New Albany pays their teachers around 6,000 more than Coshocton...when you couple that with the fact that NA has a special ed population of practically zero, it is reasonable to assume that they have the upper hand in staff recruitment. In addition to more access to meaningful and enriching extracurriculars, NA is going to have more support staff than Coshocoton. It is simply stupid to insinuate they are equal.

 

[BuckeyeJim]

I think you're kinda throwing out a red herring there. Even if everything was on the kid and the family we'd still want public schools. It's a matter of specialization and efficiency. Even though I had good folks, and even though I paid attention (for the most part), my parents didn't have the time to teach me everything I needed to know because they had their own specialized professional careers. So they still desire the public school.

How do you define a good teacher? I mean, sure there's some bad teachers out there. But how much better would the situation be if students sat their butts down in the chair, shut up, and paid attention. If children kept their eye on the prize more apt people would be lured into teaching, a lot of good teachers wouldn't turn into bad teachers, and mediocre and bad teachers would look a lot better on paper. We need to be careful on how we define resources and materials. And we need to examine what's really necessary and what amounts to waste. We really don't need all shiny books every year. For English class the vast majority of the books published in the 1960s would still be satisfactory for their intended purpose. We don't need new books every year. We don't need new desks every year. It's not necessary for schools to have top of the line computers.

New Albany may pay their teachers $6,000 more a year than Coshocton, but what's the cost of living in Coshocton compared to New Albany? An average house costs what... $100,000 in Coshocton? Check Zillow and see if you can find a house in New Albany selling for less than $350,000.

What do you mean by more meaningful and enriching extracirriculars? Do you mean, they just waste more money on their athletic facilities and uniforms? That they have that beautiful auditorium that's really not needed any more than the aud they have in Coshocton?

NA probably is going to have more support than Coshocton as well.

And again, I'm not saying the schools are equal. I'm saying that if you send the NAers to Coshocton, or even better, an old trailer park, that the NAers will still outperform the Coshoctoners if you transposed them into NAs campus. I am saying you may see marginal differences, but they will be minimal and likely not outside the margin of error.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Colleges shouldn't be meritocratic, if that means admitting the brightest or most accomplished.

A college should admit the student body that best fulfills its mission. That mission includes giving their students the best possible education, which means exposing them to a wider variety of socioeconomic strata than might otherwise happen. It means giving them a well-rounded education - which might imply admitting fewer math and science geeks, and more poets and dancers, than they'd get by just using grades and SAT scores. A college might want to educate thinkers who are concerned with certain major challenges facing society - perhaps passing over some smarter pre-meds and business majors.

If you landed a seat in a highly selective college, congrats. If you think you earned it by your hard study, high grades and SAT scores, you need to snap out of the delusion.