Ivy league school administrator applauds MIT bringing back the SAT test | Dan Abrams Live

Michael Muska has worked in university admissions for nearly 30 years, from Brown to Cornell. Monday night he joins Dan Abrams Live to discuss MIT's decision to bring back SAT testing and whether or not other schools will join.

#SATs #MIT #HigherEducation #ACTs #IvyLeagueSchools #Georgetown

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[NolanBrowne]

By the way... I know from first hand experience that you don't need the fancy expensive classes to crush the SAT... you just need to buy a whole bunch of Kaplan and Princeton Review study guides and then work your a** off 3 hrs a day for a month. I got an assortment of 10 of them used for $30 at a garage sale. If you have the basic heuristics to succeed at your chosen school (including essential prereqs) you will get an appropriate score for your school. As nice as it would be, eliminating standards to promote diversity and mobility at the college level just hurts everyone including the student. Promotion of diversity and needs cases MUST happen EARLY on in the education process before students already have been neglected for 12 years. Free gifted and talented programs, federal government should fund ALL pre, primary and high schools to delink school quality from property taxes. Finally, the curriculum of these federally funded schools should be generated locally but require federal oversight to ensure that student learn useful skills and are not simply being brainwashed.

[johnnychinstrap]

SAT's are good for matching school to school. Not sure how much accuracy you can get in the narrow bands you are looking if you compare head to head. But the biggest issue with SAT's is that if you put too much weight on them, then the students study for them harder than for the calculus examine I need him to do well on so I can teach him what he needs to be a successful engineer.

[NolanBrowne]

Thank you, MIT. Its wonderful to see a little fact based analysis modulating idealistic notions of reform.

[peoplebstupid]

any school that does not require test scores are going to get sub par students

[johnnychinstrap]

The SAT should only be used to normalise the school bias so an A+ at one school will be an A+ at another school after the school is weighted. I am not sure if the margin of error on them is small enough to rely on them at a personal level, when you have highschool marks which are a pretty good indicator of future success in a field. But then it should be used as a minimum standard per field. Student success should be dealt with before we get the student in the system. It broke my heart when after 2 or 3 classes with a first year I could see that he had no chance of graduating as an engineer and we still threw money at them to help them along to no avail. Sometimes they are happier and excelling the next year in another program, but we lose a lot of good minds that way too.
The SAT can be a good tool to standardise schools but not to standardise students. A class of one or two hundred kids can reduce a few statistical errors.
A lot of kids waste a year of life when somebody should have noticed this student is in the wrong field. The only thing worse then having a young adult waste a year of life is having a potential heart surgeon precluded from practising because he wrote one bad test.

[richardbroderick]

It intrigues me that MIT has brought back the SAT/ACT testing requirement for the very reason that MIT is almost certainly the ultimate numbers university. I understand the problem with SAT/ACT's between wealth, coaching, courses, multiple shots at the test and the resources of the poor or simply middle class. The problem that can't be overcome for now is how do we compare Joe with Nguyen with Darius except for, at base, a nationally normed test(yes there are other nationally normed tests such as the AHSME, etc.). So the wealthy have an incredible head start between instruction and who you know to the point of illegal activity such as the recent problem of a couple of years back with rich people pushing phony info on their children. That's unfair no doubt and there's harm done to society not recognizing that. Affirmative Action or some form of it was a proper driving force back decades ago and it remains an important consideration that can but should be pared back as time goes by. The idea that there is a real difference or unfairness choosing a black student over another student who has a higher score by 100 or 200 points is simply unfair or worse. Bottom line is that a score in isolation is an illusion/deception as to what any student brings to the University. Still and all those scores are the bottom line from which all decisions on acceptance should be the starting point.

[peoplebstupid]

the BETTER schools will use the SAT/ACT tests because they DO show the true capabilities of students. the lesser schools who just want as many sheep kids to attend to fill their coffers will take ANYONE

[heyjohna]

Amazing how Dan Abrams wasn’t biased at all in this. Yes sir, just like their slogan.

[Winterfellen]

great now expel the people who were accepted during the time it was gone and go people who are actually smart

[GregoryRoyal]

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