patrick.net

that is purely financial, need more applicants

rd6B says

that is purely financial, need more applicants

As for in-state students, UC schools also aren't supposed to discriminate by financial need, so I don't see how this could help. Are full-pay foreign students really not scoring well on the SAT/ACT? Seems to me like some groups of in-state students who do badly on SAT/ACT would now get in; those same groups are also more likely to be non-paying.

SunnyvaleCA says

Seems to me like some groups of in-state students who do badly on SAT/ACT would now get in; those same groups are also more likely to be non-paying.

Yes, its to increase the enrollment of hispanics/latinos. I suspect they'll just enroll less white applicants so as to not upset the asian american (chinese and korean) population.
Or they may not as they do not need the asian american vote to maintain democrat supremacy in California elected seats.

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I suspect they'll just enroll less white applicants so as to not upset the asian american (chinese and korean) population.

Of course. They don't have white privilege, so why would they punish asians?

It’s all about money. They want to accept money, not good grades.

SunnyvaleCA says

As for a in-state students, they also aren't supposed to discriminate by financial need, so I don't see how this could help. Are full-pay foreign students really not scoring well on the SAT/ACT? Seems to me like some groups of in-state students who do badly on SAT/ACT would now get in; those same groups are also more likely to be non-paying.

A lot of schools these days remove SAT requirements or lower scores required for admission. Being in "the know" so to speak, schools decrease standards because enrollments drop because of corona, demographics (lower birth rate), and sky-high tuition. New suckers with degrees in underwater basket weaving will pay for ethnic studies departments and associate vice provosts for sensitivity. Even in-state students pay tuition, and states pay schools some money additionally for in-state students.

This is purely an economic decision, as in lets get in more suckers who have no chance of graduating and/or getting a job, after paying tuition for 4 years. Result of this may be more Hispanic students, but that is not the intent, and these less-qualified students will be the ones taking on debt for nothing.

Not saying you're wrong over all. But in the case of the UC system, it gets pretty overwhelmed with applicants, and has no need to lower standards. UCLA and Berkley are both well under 20% acceptance rates. I have to believe that this decision is mostly about the next couple years (aftermath of CV). But they want a few years after that to have things normalize. Meanwhile by then they will have their own test very much in place, and they can reevaluate.

I doubt that over all UC is lowering standards. And even if they were, they and other schools can easily lower standards, while still using ACT and SAT.

This decision is probably mostly about the fact that there can be no continuity based on previous years, for acceptance relative to ACT/SAT scores, in the aftermath of Covid-19.

marcus says

Not saying you're wrong over all. But in the case of the UC system, it gets pretty overwhelmed with applicants, and has no need to lower standards. UCLA and Berkley are both well under 20% acceptance rates. I have to believe that this decision is mostly about the next couple years (aftermath of CV). But they want a few years after that to have things normalize. Meanwhile by then they will have their own test very much in place, and they can reevaluate.

I doubt that over all UC is lowering standards. And even if they were, they and other schools can easily lower standards, while still using ACT and SAT.

This decision is probably mostly about the fact that there can be no continuity based on previous years, for acceptance relative to ACT/SAT scores, in the aftermath of Covid-19.

I don't know CA situation as well, but in our State, few top schools have seen no drop in enrollments, while lower-ranked ones are seeing less students applying. Especially this applies to high tuition paying international students which are quite important for finances.

It's affirmative action by another name. But only poor brownies are stupid enough to rack up that debt anyhow.

Dholliday126 says

It's affirmative action by another name. But only poor brownies are stupid enough to rack up that debt anyhow.

more whites attend universities than blacks or Hispanics, and at least where I am familiar with, Hispanics do not stand out with respect to their choices of majors.
If you want statistically significant difference about choices of useless degrees, look at womyn vs men: womyn tend to major in English, psychology, and other assorted "studies", while men get degrees in engineering, which is still useful. Step 1: rack up 100K debt in psychology. Step 2: marry an engineer and he pays off your debt, while you protest that womyn are discriminated against...

The left has been trying to invalidate the use of SAT for years, and make no mistake this will be a permanent change. The view has been that "test prep" available to rich families can increase your score. That is not true. What is true is that taking the SAT practice exam does tend to correlate with higher scores (test over test). The best thing high schools can do if they want to see slightly improved scores is to force kids to actually take practice exams which are free. I believe UC has also discussed creating their own test to remove "biases" which in fact don't exist (unless you actually believe their is a conspiracy afoot to make sure asians are at the top in math testing, etc...).

The SAT has also moved away from being a test for intelligence to one of achievement - so much so that mensa does not accept scores after 1994.

UC also moved, after court decisions and ballot process that restricted racial preferences, to accepting top 9% of students from every school will be offered a spot "somewhere" in UC system (riverside/merced typically). This is regardless of strength of school or comparative classwork. That said, there are very competitive state schools now (Cal Poly, SLO - which I would rank as a mid-tier UC school, just below UCSB/UCD) so there are opportunities. But with state schools (Cal State) saying they will go "online" only next year, I don't see that being an attractive option.

rd6B says

look at womyn vs men: womyn tend to major in English, psychology, and other assorted "studies", while men get degrees in engineering, which is still useful

This was one of James Damore's valid points - points that got him kicked out of Google.

When women are completely free to choose their careers, as in Sweden, they avoid engineering.

It is mostly the women with limited options who choose engineering, such as Indian women who must choose something like engineering to get that H1B visa to come here to take QA jobs and undercut US wages (but still do far better than in India). We don't grant H1B visa to psychology majors and they know it.

Patrick says

When women are completely free to choose their careers, as in Sweden, they avoid engineering.

It is mostly the women with limited options who choose engineering, such as Indian women who must choose something like engineering to get that H1B visa to come here to take QA jobs and undercut US wages (but still do far better than in India). We don't grant H1B visa to psychology majors and they know it.

---

Exactly. Womyn go to engineering and other hard sciences if they have no other choice, or if they have been brainwashed by feminism. At least most of them...and being completely politically incorrect, womyn were never among top students both in my BS and PhD studies. Top 20% always were men as they are more interested in numbers...

Patrick says

rd6B says

look at womyn vs men: womyn tend to major in English, psychology, and other assorted "studies", while men get degrees in engineering, which is still useful

This was one of James Damore's valid points - points that got him kicked out of Google.

When women are completely free to choose their careers, as in Sweden, they avoid engineering.

It is mostly the women with limited options who choose engineering, such as Indian women who must choose something like engineering to get that H1B visa to come here to take QA jobs and undercut US wages (but still do far better than in India). We don't grant H1B visa to psychology majors and they know it.

Another interesting data point... Looking at https://datausa.io/profile/university/stanford-university/#graduates , it appears Stanford's 2017 undergraduate class of computer science majors had 399 men and 150 women. (Times have changed ... mine was something around 40 men and 2 women in 1991.) So women are definitely gaining here, especially as computer science becomes a mainstream major with topics that are less geeky than in the past.

In my division at work, we have quite a few female programmer interns. Maybe as many as male interns. However, for regular employees the equation changes substantially. It seems that after a few years of heads-down computer programming, women all tend to switch out of the programming jobs. In my division, for example there are 5 project managers ("nerd herders" as I like to call them); all women; several of them were previously programming. The QA ("testing") group also has a bunch of women who were previously programming, whereas the men in that group didn't have programming experience when they joined.

marcus says

This decision is probably mostly about the fact that there can be no continuity based on previous years, for acceptance relative to ACT/SAT scores, in the aftermath of Covid-19.

I could understand that point for grades, APs, projects, etc., but if there is a single thing that does give continuity between years, it would be the ACT/SAT. It's not like kids were taking a course in SAT that got cancelled in March. Further, kids have many opportunities to take the test. Checking the schedule for the SAT, Jun 6 is cancelled, but we still have August 29, September 26, October 3, November 7, and December 5. Maybe College Board could have a sliding payment where you pay to take one test and can postpone if needed to a later date.

Who needs fucking test scores where simple skin tone palette would suffice.

krc says

The left has been trying to invalidate the use of SAT for years, and make no mistake this will be a permanent change. The view has been that "test prep" available to rich families can increase your score. That is not true. What is true is that taking the SAT practice exam does tend to correlate with higher scores (test over test). The best thing high schools can do if they want to see slightly improved scores is to force kids to actually take practice exams which are free. I believe UC has also discussed creating their own test to remove "biases" which in fact don't exist (unless you actually believe their is a conspiracy afoot to make sure asians are at the top in math testing, etc...).

The SAT has also moved away from being a test for intelligence to one of achievement - so much so that mensa does not accept scores after 1994.

I've noticed that the SAT no longer has "esoteric vocabulary." Originally, people who had read a lot might have scored well on those analogies, but over time people just gamed the system by memorizing 5000 vocabulary words. The problem is that they were just memorizing answers, but never learn the nuances of the words or how to use them properly.

I totally agree with taking practice tests. Back in the stone age I had a book actually published by The College Board called "The 10 SATs." It was printed on newsprint-quality paper and was dirt cheap. Better yet, it had the answers and (at least for the math) some explanation of how to derive the answer. The first 30-minute math section I tired I scored something around 720 and just barely finished in time. After seeing/understanding the explanation and after 3 more tries I was at 800 in 1/2 the allotted time. So, I'd say taking a few practice tests helps massively if you're willing to learn the missing material. Verbal "reading" section saw nearly the same improvements, although I was still too slow at the passages. The esoteric vocabulary ... I decided to not bother and instead concentrated on reading more quickly.

SunnyvaleCA says

In my division at work, we have quite a few female programmer interns. Maybe as many as male interns. However, for regular employees the equation changes substantially. It seems that after a few years of heads-down computer programming, women all tend to switch out of the programming jobs. In my division, for example there are 5 project managers ("nerd herders" as I like to call them); all women; several of them were previously programming. The QA ("testing") group also has a bunch of women who were previously programming, whereas the men in that group didn't have programming experience when they joined.

I see the same in my line of work. Most womyn switch out of research after some time, and go to HR, sales, etc, while most males stay in research. So, goes back to Jordan Peterson's idea that men like to work with numbers, women with other humans. Nothing wrong with that, but for some reason this is unPC to even mention.

SunnyvaleCA says

I totally agree with taking practice tests. Back in the stone age I had a book actually published by The College Board called "The 10 SATs." It was printed on newsprint-quality paper and was dirt cheap. Better yet, it had the answers and (at least for the math) some explanation of how to derive the answer. The first 30-minute math section I tired I scored something around 720 and just barely finished in time. After seeing/understanding the explanation and after 3 more tries I was at 800 in 1/2 the allotted time. So, I'd say taking a few practice tests helps massively if you're willing to learn the missing material. Verbal "reading" section saw nearly the same improvements, although I was still too slow at the passages. The esoteric vocabulary ... I decided to not bother and instead concentrated on reading more quickly.

I had very similar experience for GRE. Got everything nearly perfect, except the vocabulary/English part, heavily populated with Latin. Also, I see correlation with student performance in research with their scores in subject GRE, not general one.

rd6B says

SunnyvaleCA says

In my division at work, we have quite a few female programmer interns. Maybe as many as male interns. However, for regular employees the equation changes substantially. It seems that after a few years of heads-down computer programming, women all tend to switch out of the programming jobs. In my division, for example there are 5 project managers ("nerd herders" as I like to call them); all women; several of them were previously programming. The QA ("testing") group also has a bunch of women who were previously programming, whereas the men in that group didn't have programming experience when they joined.

I see the same in my line of work. Most womyn switch out of research after some time, and go to HR, sales, etc, while most males stay in research. So, goes back to Jordan Peterson's idea that men like to work with numbers, women with other humans. Nothing wrong with that, but fo...

A corollary to this is that the men starting their first job have done all sorts of extra side projects that gives them a broad background... torn down an old game machine and installed linux, wrote their own software tools, hacked a multi-player networked game give themselves superpowers, etc. I know I had a bunch of "fun projects" under my belt before my first job. By contrast, the women programmers that I know at work have a resume with a single relevant item: got BA degree in computer science.

SunnyvaleCA says

By contrast, the women programmers that I know at work have a resume with a single relevant item: got BA degree in computer science.

yeah, "coding for fun" is not very popular with females