Mon 26 Sep 2005
One way that the College is helping out in the aftermath of Katrina is to accept students from effected schools. As long as those students are of similar academic talent to current Ephs, this is a win-win all around. The obvious match would be with students from Tulane, at least one of whom is attending Williams for the fall.
But the College is going further. Several students from Xavier University are already on campus and more may be on the way.
We are happy to report that special new members of our community began arriving today — five pre-medical students from Xavier University of Louisiana. Another arrives Thursday; still another has expressed interest. Through them, and through the University, Williams is reaching out to other Xavier pre-meds who may be able to join us for the fall. A similar group arrives soon at Amherst, which also is seeking more such students.
We’re still in the process of determining these students’ academic needs, but it looks at this point like those in Williamstown will largely take regular Williams courses. They’ll live in previously empty dorm rooms and be available to take full part in campus life.
A good idea?
The bottom 25th percentile of SAT scores at Williams is around 665. The 75th percentile at Xavier is 555. But given that only 50% of students at Xavier report their test scores, this 555 number is probably closer to the 90th percentile if not higher. In other words, even if the students that Williams accepted from Xavier are in the top 10% of the class there — there’s no word on how Williams selected which students would be invited to attend — we would still have a problem. The SATs of students at Williams do not go down very far below the 25th percentile.
In other words, there is almost certainly a dramatic mismatch between Williams students and the Xavier students who have joined them for the fall. Almost all the Xavier students probably fall in the bottom 5%, if not lower, of the Williams population.
I think that this has trouble written all over it. There is a reason that Williams rarely accepts students with below 1200 SATs. Such students have a lot of trouble at a place like Williams.
Are Morty and the rest of the folks that run Williams really helping out those Xavier students by putting them in a Chemistry class with a bunch of Ephs who are almost all much smarter than they are? Or are they mostly making themselves feel better by doing something, anything, in the face of such a calamity? Time will tell.
Addedum: Note that I could be wrong about these numbers. Perhaps Williams only offered positions to the half dozen Xavier students with 1400 combined SATs. I doubt it. I also suspect that Williams administrators have a sense about the mismatch; see the phrase “academic needs” in the quotation above. On the bright side, putting the Xavier students in a Williams science class will help out the curve for everyone else . . .
September 26th, 2005 at 5:06 pm
We have no idea where these particular Xavier students fall on the academic spectrum. Don’t judge a student by their institution!
P.S.
SAT scores do not appear to be strongly associated with academic performance at Williams anyway. Post the link to that thesis by Jen ??
September 26th, 2005 at 6:01 pm
It would be interesting to see a simple graph of average final GPA by combined SAT range. What is the GPA for students who score 1550-1600, 1500-1550 and so on. Skimming through, I don’t see precisely that data in Doleac’s thesis, but I will e-mail her to see.
In general, it does not tell us much if there is only a weak relationship between SAT and GPA at a place like Williams because the range of actual SATs at Williams is so limmitted. So, yes, knowing someone scored 1450 versus 1550 may not tell you much, but I’d wager that vurtually no one who scored less than, say, 1,200 has made, say, Phi Beta Kappa at Williams in the last decade. Very low scorers do not do well at Williams.
But it would be nice to test these claims against some actual data.
September 26th, 2005 at 7:17 pm
I am auditing an about 25 student discussion class at Williams on Ellington (Duke, that is), and a Xavier student has arrived in the class. The type of question raised here superficially passed my mind, but I quickly rejected any concern about it (the question, that is). He ought to do okay if he has at least some substantial background in music and works reasonably hard (by Williams standards). He might do okay if he has no music background and merely works hard. But if he doesn’t perform, who is hurt? He will rationalize his non-performance; the students will be either unaware of it or academically indifferent to it. So far (2 class meetings) his presence has neither “diluted” the discussion nor contributed to it.
September 26th, 2005 at 7:51 pm
And with any luck he will be functionally illiterate and/or unable to work one of these new-fangled computer gizomobobs.
That way none of you will feel like total jerks when he reads what you wrote.
-DeWitt
September 26th, 2005 at 9:20 pm
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that David is right and these students are thrown into class with “a bunch of Ephs who are almost all much smarter than they are.” Now, imagine yourself in a somewhat analagous position — for instance, you are attending graduate-level classes in a topic in which you are not familiar, like medical school or law school.
If you were interested enough, which the Xavier students probably are, you would do the reading and be prepared for class. When you got there, you wouldn’t ask clarifying questions that everyone else already knew the answer to, slowing the class down, because then you would feel stupid. If the professor asked the class a question, you probably wouldn’t answer, because you would be intimidated. But on the other hand, if the professor asked a question that no one in the class was answering, that you knew the answer to because you had done the reading, then you would answer it, and what would be the harm of that to the other students? Nothing.
When you took tests, you would not do as well as your classmates, but it wouldn’t matter as much to you, because it wouldn’t count. On the other hand, the other students would be motivated by grades (extrinsic motivation), whereas you would be motivated only by interest (intrinsic motivation), so you might actually work harder, and do better. After all, no one is telling the Xavier kids that they have to go to Williams; they are going because they want to learn. And that is just the sort of students we want, no?
September 26th, 2005 at 9:24 pm
DeWitt,
A little less smugness and a little more reasoning would be helpful. What precisely is the problem with what I wrote? Do you think that students with 1100 SATs do as well as at Williams as those with 1500? Are we not permitted to discuss such things? Is it fine to talk about these issues in the context of “tips”, but wrong to do so in the context of transfer students? Why?
I realize that, for many people, the central value of discussion at Williams is politeness. We must never say anything that might conceivably offend or discomfort anyone. I had assumed that you were made of sterner stuff.
Frank can [obviously! -- ed.] defend himself. I might agree that if he had said something like “I met transfer student Jones, and Jones is clearly an idiot,” then that would be out of line. But that’s not what he said. If anything, he provided a counter-example to my concern, evidence that an Xavier student was fitting in just fine. Should he not have reported this observation?
I’ll admit that there is a tension here. Anytime we say that group X — football players, wealthy legacies, Xavier students — will, on average, have trouble at Williams because their academic achievemnts/potential do not, on average, match up with their classmates, we are being unfair to at least some members of group X. After all, some football players, wealthy legacies and Xavier students are smarter than almost everyone else at Williams and will demonstrate this fact in the classroom.
But the averages do not lie. A refusal to discuss the facts of the matter is a sign of condescension not politeness.
September 26th, 2005 at 9:51 pm
Actually I just didn’t like that you were talking about this guy like he wasn’t in the room. This is the Internet — everyone is in the room.
So, to the Xavier transfer students — welcome to Williams. Everyone is sorry to hear what you’ve gone through over the past month, and we all hope that you enjoy the Berkshires. Sorry in advance about the upcoming New England blizzards this winter, though.
(And don’t worry about the other stuff either. Just be smart, work hard, make friends, and have fun.)
Cheers,
-DeWitt
September 26th, 2005 at 10:06 pm
Actually, I find the following to be much more smug than anything DeWitt wrote:
“On the bright side, putting the Xavier students in a Williams science class will help out the curve for everyone else . . .”
It isn’t the ideas you have David that are so terrible, it’s the way you present them. You absolutely insist on snide comments. You seem to actively try to demean people in your posts.
Do you ever proof-read what you write? There is a fine line between controversial and mean, and you have an insatiable desire to cross over to the former.
It appears you only want to “discuss facts” after someone has called you out on your obnoxious rheotrical style.
September 26th, 2005 at 10:11 pm
I don’t think that we can make any assumptions about averages when we are talking about 8 students. That these 8 students are taking the initiative to uproot themselves and haul-ass to the Berkshires says quite a a bit about their eagerness to learn and willingness to adapt. It’s quite likely that these students are not average at all.
Although SAT scores give us some insight about the academic qualifications of students entering college, I would challenge someone to look at performance of Williams students after college. Do the students who enter Williams with lower SAT scores get lower paying jobs? Do they have less successful careers?
What about GRE scores??? I had a good African American female friend who came to Williams with SAT scores that were quite low by Williams standards. She worked very hard at Williams, recognizing that she had to initially (it was a struggle initially), majored in a physical science, took the GREs and scored a perfect 800 on the quantitative section and an equally impressive 720 on the verbal section. Perhaps students with the lowest SAT scores are getting the most out of the Williams experience?
September 26th, 2005 at 10:11 pm
Mr Ubile,
I was just purchasing a new copy of the Blanton-Webster Band set tonight as I misplaced mine a year or two ago. I have Music 140 to thank for it.
Taking a Duke Ellington class with Andy Jaffe is a true joy. Rarely do teachers glow every day about the material that they’re presenting.
September 26th, 2005 at 10:53 pm
In my view nothing has been said here that Xavier students (or serious current college students from anywhere for that matter) shouldn’t, in all reality, know by this time in their lives. Neal: Despite my complete lack of musical background I find Andy Jaffe and MUS 140 terrific and believe that I am coping with my deficiencies effectively.
September 26th, 2005 at 11:02 pm
1) Allow me to second DeWitt’s advice to “Just be smart, work hard, make friends, and have fun.” This applies as much to our new first years as to our visitors from Xavier. Although we all come to Williams from different places, we are all Ephs from here on out. Further advice on how to make the most of your time at Williams can be found here. I have also added DeWitt’s great line about the Internet to our Quote Wall.
2) I agree that it would be fascinating to “to look at performance of Williams students after college.” Seniors still looking for a thesis topic should consider this one, although the data would be hard to get. The College might consider letting you look at alumni donations, but that would be a poor proxy. Another idea might be to look at home value. There are a lot of great theses waiting to be written along these lines.
3) It is an interesting question how predictive SAT scores (or high school grades or recommendation letters or . . .) are for one’s success at Williams and thereafter. At some point, we should dive much deeper into Jen Doleac’s thesis. But, I am fairly certain that the conventional wisdom in the admissions office and elsewhere at Williams is that SAT scores (and high school grades) tell us quite a bit. Students who come to Williams with scores toward the bottom end up at the bottom of the class. Morty insisted on a big decrease in the number of “low band” tips for a reason, and it wasn’t that he was prejudiced against big triceps. (As always, it would be good to see some data on this.)
4) Richard is correct to point out my tendency toward snide asides. Mea culpa. But, upon reflection, I wouldn’t take back anything in the above. Talking about Williams means talking about admissions and talking about admissions means talking about who should be rejected and why they should be rejected. There is little doubt that, were it not for Katrina, very few students at Xavier would have been accepted to Williams if they had tried to transfer. Should a catastrophe change that calculation?
No. I applaud Williams’s decision to allow students with Williams-caliber academic records to enroll. I would even be happy to see the College provide such students with financial aid. Morty is to be congratulated for this. But I question the decision to admit students who are academically ill-suited for a Williams classroom. (Again, if the Xavier students are like the Tulane students, then all my concerns are groundless.) I think that this is a mistake. I also question the motivation behind the decision, but hesitate to even raise that issue in polite company.
But, with any luck, the do-gooders will be right and I will be proved wrong.
September 26th, 2005 at 11:47 pm
Motivated by some of the comments above, I have tried to learn more about these Xavier students, and how Williams selected them. The pre-med program at Xavier is highly regarded. As best I can tell, the pre-meds students are much stronger than the non-pre-meds at Xavier so there is probably a good reason for the College’s selection criteria. I wonder who they called to make the list? President Marx at Amherst notes that:
So, it seems like only junior and senior pre-meds at Xavier were offered spots. I believe that there are only about 150 such students. I do not know how Amherst/Williams selected those students to whom it offered spots. (These numbers would suggest that my previous analysis focussing on the entire student population at Xavier might be quite wrong. If, as seems reasonable, the pre-meds at Xavier are elite students, the overall distribution of SAT scores might tell us nothing about the students now at Williams.)
My guess would be that Marx more than Schapiro is the driving force behind the project. At the very least, his press releases are much more flowery and enthusiastic. I would also guess that Williams/Amherst somehow got a list of all junior/senior pre-meds and sent out preliminary feeler e-mails to all of them. That is, I doubt that Williams/Amherst got access to their test scores or Xavier grades. But, for now, this is all speculation.
September 27th, 2005 at 1:28 am
I suspect that the Xavier students will do just fine. Xavier produces and extraordinary percentage of M.D.s and health professionals.
By the way, 9% of the entering freshman class at Williams in fall 2004 had SAT Verbal scores below 600. 7% had SAT math scores below 600.
For the entering class in fall 2000, 10% had SAT verbals below 600, including 1% below 500. 10% also had SAT math below 600, including 2% below 500.
The breakdown of SAT’s by 100 point band is available in the Common Data Set filings at the Williams institutional research department website.
September 27th, 2005 at 5:20 am
Echoing hwc’s comments, I also expect the Xavier students to do well. From a selectivity point-of-view, Williams now accepts students whom without doubt can do the work. Put another way, while Dick Nesbitt notes that 1400 SATs are now pretty average for getting into Williams, it doesn’t mean someone who gets 1300s can’t do the work.
In addition, the SATs and class rank are not the only things that Williams looks at academically. It also takes into account peer reviews and teacher reviews, and also corrects for school grading practices (an A at Phillips Andover is presumably stronger than an A at an inner city school with less academic competition).
Frankly, I would worry a lot more about the Williams climate and culture as being a struggle for the Xavier students. They chose to attend a school in a large city and with a warm climate, of which Williams has neither. The Katrina coverage is rife with FEMA transporting New Orleans residents to a northern state, only to find that they quickly leave to go back to Louisiana, Texas, or some other state with a culture, climate, and food that they find hospitable and familiar.
Hopefully, with the Williams support structure and by sharing notes/hints, the Xavier students will thrive. While perhaps in some ways not a perfect solution, I still think the cobbled together Williams/Amherst solution is better than letting Xavier just vanish, which given its small endowment is not unthinkable.
These are extraordinary times; they require extraordinary solutions.
September 27th, 2005 at 4:29 pm
I pretty much disgusts me that anyone would use average SAT scores at Xavier to imply that the Xavier students shouldn’t have the opportunity to be here. They are here because they cannot attend their own school and deserve to have the same high-quality education they expected to get at Xavier this semester. Considering that the SAT test is not an objective measure of intelligence, hard work, or competence (especially for minority studentd), it seems absolutely stupid to use it as grounds for the argument that these students should not be here. They will someday be good enough to operate on your heart but they’re not good enough to go to your college for a semester? How arrogant.
You know the Xavier students may have some adjusting to do here at Williams. They may indeed have a very hard time. Many of our own students have to adjust to the environment here as well and it is difficult for a whole bunch of them. But I bet that at least half the battle will be having to deal with ignorant people like Dave Kane.
(Hey Dave, thanks for defending me in “Whiny Williams Students”…but I hate to say–you’re the one ‘Pizza Jen’ was talking about. Not me. Get a clue.)
September 27th, 2005 at 4:44 pm
Extraordinary times indeed…my take on the situation is that given the circumstances, it is the duty of Williams to respond by possibly “lowering standards” and that would be ok by me. Secondly however, with Xavier students, that’s not at all what we’re doing!
Being an institution that gets tax breaks, i.e. an instituation that is subsidized by society at large, Williams needs to justify its goals by aiming for things that will benefit society. It is clear that there is a positive externality related to a college education and that is the main justification of receiving public funding. However, given the resources available at this school and given the magnitude of the tragedy in the south, it is clear to me that Williams has to respond specifically to this issue to further justify this funding…and if that means changing admissions requirements a little bit, then so be it. It is really hard to explain living in an ivory tower vacuum when a city in your country is wiped away.
Of course, that is only part of the story. The majority of funding actually comes from alumni and other donative resources, another set of eyes the institution will have watching over it. I am proud to say that it was actually through alum contacts that the institution was able to get information on how it could actually help students in Xavier. Not that it matters so much but since it was suggested otherwise, the idea of bringing Xavier students to the Berkshires originated at Williams and it was our administration that contacted Amherst, who with a similar endowment level can also afford to host a program like this.
The point is that there are some strong reasons why the college has decided to accept Xavier students regardless of their “academic qualifications”. I don’t mean drop all standards and start letting middle-school New Orleans kids into Williams. But again, it is an extraordinary situation that would justify the accessability of a Williams education for a semester for those who may not have been accepted otherwise.
However, these are some smart kids! I’m glad to see that it was noted (albeit later) that the pre-med program at Xavier is incredibly successful (in fact the best) at pipelining African-American students into med school. These are some smart, focused, and goal oriented students. This comes into even better focus when you recognize that the students that did come here did so because they are determined to continue their education and proceed with their plans to go to med school on schedule.
The main issue will be adjusting socially to a new school, to new england weather, and to a majority white culture. I take serious issue with the author’s addendum; if the administration says that they’re in the process of reviewing their “academic needs”, that doesn’t mean that these students can’t survive at Williams. It means that we need to consider what courses they’ll be taking, how credit will transfer, and if they’ll still be en-route to finishing the pre-med requirements. “On the bright side, putting the Xavier students in a Williams science class will help out the curve for everyone else”…that’s just obnoxious. There’s no other way to put it.
September 27th, 2005 at 4:49 pm
There are several thousand Xavier students who also “deserve” a high quality education. Where are they now? There are thousands of students at other New Orleans schools, including Tulane, in the same situation. Now, obviously, the fact that there are thousands of school-less students does not mean that Williams can’t — within its means — help out half a dozen of them. But it does force us all to take seriously the question of which students to help out.
My contention is that I am not certain that Williams has chosen the right students to help. I think that Williams should have 1) decided how many students it could help; 2) looked for students with Williams-caliber credentials and 3) filled the spots accordingly.
Shallow observers may decry my lack of sensitivity toward the new Ephs amonst us, but they are blind to the students who Williams did not accept, who Williams did not even invite. Does Marita deny that there are probably dozens of Tulane students who wish that Williams had invited them? Why were they not worth an invitation? Why pick the Xavier students instead of them?
By the way, if the SAT is not a test of intelligence, then why does Williams use it in admissions? Why is it predictive of academic performance?
September 27th, 2005 at 6:01 pm
The SAT is predictive of academic performance because it is a test of preparedness for the test. People who have been taught their whole lives the sorts of things the SAT measures are mostly well-off and white. Being well-off and white seems to be a predicter of success at all sorts of things don’t you think? Is it any wonder that people who are well-off and white are more like to: go to better schools in elementary school and highschool, not have to work while going to school, have college graduates in the family, be guided and led along the path to college themselves, and then do better in college when they get there. Frankly it doesn’t surprise me at all.
What amazes me is that someone born in a poor neighborhood who had to work against all odds (if you want studies on this I’ve got plenty) to get into a good college, who had to learn to learn on their own, and who had no help from family in attempting to get into college (because none of the family had ever gone) could find the time or the test-prep courses to get that oh-so-important SAT score.
I think that the later person shows much more ingenuity, courage, determination, and intelligence than the former–and those are the qualities one needs to succeed in life. Williams college uses the SAt as a measure to see how well life circumstances have allowed a student to prepare for it. It’s a measure alright–but of intelligence, maybe not.
As for this: “Does Marita deny that there are probably dozens of Tulane students who wish that Williams had invited them? Why were they not worth an invitation? Why pick the Xavier students instead of them?”
The answer is obvious: The majority of Tulane students are not local (I got this from a friend of mine who had to leave Tulane this semester–in any case there are many non-local students). Most Tulane students have simply gone home and are attending colleges all over the country which have opened their doors to them (As has Williams College to students from the Berkshires who were at school in New Orleans.) The situation of the Xavier students is very different–these are students many of whom were local to New Orleans or the surrounding area. These are students whose school and possibly hometown have been flooded or destroyed. And these are some of the most determined students in the area. Now I don’t have any data to back that up. It’s my opinion. But I do know what kind of courage it takes to become a talented pre-med student at a good college dispite whatever odds (maybe not being taught to the test one’s whole life). And that counts as enough qualification for me.
I am sure my friend from Tulane would love to be invited to Williams. But frankly, he’s doing fine at UNM, and I’m not too worried about him.
September 27th, 2005 at 6:41 pm
I can’t believe that folks still don’t understand that the SAT is a fabulous predictor of countless lifetime outcomes.
I don’t have time to trawl JSTOR, but as a first go, try:
“Comparative and Predicative Analyses of Black and White Students’ College Achievement and Experiences.” Nettles et al. Journal of Higher Education. V57, N3 1986.
The best predictors of a student’s college GPA are:
HS GPA
Risk Factors
SAT score
The coefficient on Black is positive, but insignificant. The result is the same as in countless other studies, being Black doesn’t affect your outcome, growing up with bad schools affects your outcome.
Preparation is almost certainly a large part of what the SAT measures, but it is amazing how well correlated preparation for the SAT and preparation for college or preperation for the job market are. Schools get information, and conditional on this information they make the best choices available. The SAT is one of the most informative descriptors admissions people have, both conditionally and unconditionally. We all need to accept this as true and move on.
I agree with David’s general point. There is little benefit, to Williams or to the invited students, if the gap in SAT scores is over 400 points unless the school has done a lot of extra fact gathering to assure themselves that the students can handle the courseload.
Instead of making wild claims, David eventually did some research and I think has sufficiently shown that we are lucky to have a group of guest who will not only benefit from the classes at Williams, but will also benefit our own students. This is a good move by Williams and Amhearst. But randomly picking students from colleges in Louisiana, ignoring our admissions standards would probably be a failed attempt to soothe our own desires to “fix the situation.”
September 27th, 2005 at 11:31 pm
I’m a bit offended at this post. In fact, I’m really offended at this post.
The one thing I learned all my life was this: Enjoy the thirst for knowledge.
The Xavier students are here because *we* invited them here, and *they* want to learn. Isn’t that how this college works? We invite you and then you come and learn, not because you have to, but because you want to?
I went to an inner city high school where kids dreamed of SAT scores that broke 1000. When I got an 1170 plus some near perfect scores on my SAT II’s I was elated and proud. I was in the top ten percent of my class which numbered 1,047. I worked hard everyday to get that far. One of the reasons why I became a Williams student is because people really don’t compare grades here. Classes are hard for EVERYONE.
The Xavier students I had a chance to talk with are bright, well mannered, and considerate. This is more than I can say of some of my fellow Ephs recently.
An SAT score does not always measure capability or promise. I know plenty of kids at Williams who had amazing SAT scores, but don’t have enough common sense to know how to work a washing machine.
September 28th, 2005 at 12:29 am
Well said Jonaya!
Luckily the Xavier students are already enrolled(welcome folks), and none of the nastiness here can change that.
It saddens me that when Williams does something wonderfully good, someone needs to remind me that we never figured out how to search for character and class on the Williams application.
Oh and if the SAT is sooo wonderful…then why did all the California State schools(without doubt the best system) want to axe it?
Why did it need to be totally revamped? Why are the precious analogies gone? Why did they axe most of the words with more basic latin roots?
I’m sure California doesn’t know what it is talking about, but some study does.
We could also go check the SAT scores of the new Forbes 400…might be interesting.
September 28th, 2005 at 12:31 am
Guy wrote:
“…an A at Phillips Andover is presumably stronger than an A at an inner city school with less academic competition.”
This is true in the absolute sense. But, I tend to think that getting A’s in an inner city public high school often represents a much more impressive achievement, overcoming greater challenges, than A’s at Andover.
September 28th, 2005 at 12:51 am
It’s not hard to excel when everything in your environment is geared toward helping you do just that. Matthew 25:14, the parable of the talents, tells us that the one who makes the most of what he is given is greater than the one who only stores his talents away despite the fact that the one who excells began with less. Turning 18years of training into perfect SAT scores will never manage to impress me, I’m sorry. If I can make one coin into two I am far more talented than the man who starts with five and ends with the same.
September 28th, 2005 at 1:04 am
When I took the SATs for the first time, I did not really practice for them. I got M660 and V600.
Then, I did 10 practice tests and retook the test four months later. My score was M800 and V640.
My point: SATs test how well you prepare for SATs.
That, itself, does not have much meaning.
September 28th, 2005 at 6:39 am
hwc,
While excelling at an poor/inner city/otherwise disadvantaged high school may signify greater drive and character, there is a point where such schools can’t offer as good an education as prep schools or rich high schools. It’s a combination of materials (one-year-old books are better than 8-year-old books that must be shared), teachers (an enthusiastic English teacher with an MA from Yale who aggressively edits students’ essays weekly rather than a boring teacher with a BA in Education who is partial to multiple choice tests), and attitude (where a smart student has a certain cachet, compared to most schools where the football captain is the BMOC). While there can be some superb teachers in any school, it’s the steady drip, drip, drip of daily school life (good or bad) that has a major impact.
Excelling in high school is always good, no matter where you went. However, time has taught Williams Admissions that an A at school XYZ is not the same as an A at PA. An A+ at XYZ may map to an A or A- at PA, for example. Given that reality, Admissions does do some work to figure out ways to make the two GPAs equivalent in some way.
September 28th, 2005 at 8:01 am
1) I know that Richard Dunn is doing his best to not get sucked into this discussion. I know that he has better things to do then educate Ephs (who Williams ought to be educating better) about just what the SAT does and does not predict. But I sure do hope he can’t resist! Please, Richard, there is a lot of ignorance here and we need your help! Can you allow your fellow Ephs to continue to think that “SATs test how well you prepare for SATs” or that “SAT test is not an objective measure of intelligence”?
2) Marita claims that:
I could imagine a rule by which the College, in selecting among the thousands of students from New Orleans schools who would like to come here, gave preference to students whose houses had been flooded out, who had, literally, no place to live. That might be reason enough to tell Marita’s Tulane friend, “Tough luck. Enjoy the University of New Mexico.”
But that isn’t what happened. The College offered spots, I believe, to virtually any Xavier junior/senior pre-med who wanted to attend, regardless of where they were from. A program like Xavier draws students from around the country, so I would wager that at least a few of those at Williams now are not from New Orleans and would have had no more trouble going to their hometown university than Marita’s friend did in going to UNM.
By the way, I wonder what he thinks about the fact that some students with less accomplished academic credentials were offered a spot at Williams while he was not? I hope that Marita points him to this thread.
September 28th, 2005 at 9:22 am
Shamus: My life’s experience tells me that certainly the government of the State of California is very inefficient, relatively ineffective and very, very politically expedient.
September 28th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
An A at Phillips Andover? Easy. An A at Phillips Exeter? Now, that’s something to be proud of.
September 28th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
Q: Why did California axe the SAT’s?
A: The voters of California passed a proposition that made affirmative action in university admissions illegal. The immediate impact was a fall in the number of black and hispanic students enrolling at the flagships, Berkeley and UCLA. If you use the SAT, HS GPA, and race in your rubric, and then suddenly drop race from consideration, you will, given the SAT distribution by race, necessarily decrease the number of minorities at your school.
To maintain affirmative action, California HAD to drop the SAT and depend upon more qualitative measures. They didn’t want to do it, they were forced to do it given their attachment to affirmative action.
And the statement that California has the best system might have been true in 1960 or 1970, but since then, the system has fallen into disrepair. I would argue that Minnesota, Wisconsin, and even New York (because the city universities are a separate entity) do a far better job in educating their students at the post-secondary level.
As for the SAT, those of you who are arguing against it are attacking from the entirely wrong perspective. You are saying, ex post, it is meaningless. But the college makes admissions decisions ex ante. It is, along with HS GPA and other risk factors, the BEST method of determining who will do well in college and thereafter. I cannot name names, but in datasets collected from the elite colleges and universities in the United States, students with low SAT scores do substantially worse than students with high SAT scores. This carries on to life-time earnings and occupational choices.
Looking at the Fortune 500 is meaningless. You are looking at the tail of a distribution and thus have very little information. Those people are self-selecting and thus using them to condemn or support the SAT is not valid. Sure, you might have a bi-modal distribution of income for low SAT individuals: one group with very high incomes and one with very low incomes. The point is, the latter group is much larger.
We are all raised in a society that hates the SAT. It creates pressure when in high school, it unabashedly exposes educational disparities across race and income group, it is fairly impartial (studies that show a racial or sex bias are often rudimentary. By and large, well done regression analysis shows most multiple choice exams are unbiased by race and sex–AFQT, SAT, GRE, etc). When you see the SAT distribution, don’t respond by denegrating the test. It is a powerful signal of where societies resources should be directed.
September 28th, 2005 at 1:45 pm
Richard,
Bravo! I love your emphasis on the ex post/ex ante distinction something that we at George Mason University School of Law spend an inordinate amount of time on. Given its massive importance in determining all sorts of questions, I wish other law schools followed suit. Actually, I really wish that Williams would have some way of educating its students on the difference.
Additionally, I want to expand on your point about predictive validity. Folks, nothing says that “with a bad SAT, you’re going to be poor and/or miserable and with a high SAT, you’re going to be rich”. What it says is that “based on the life paths of the X hundred-thousand people with the same score, your are likely to fall within 1 SD of the average of people who got that score.”
No test of ANY sort can tell you what you or anybody else can or will achieve. People who make that argument by asserting individualized counterexamples or counterexamples from a small subset of a distribution are not defeating the predicitive validity of psychometric testing. Conclusions based on the SAT are generalizations based on probabilistic results, not true/false black-and-white bright-line rules. Generalizations are not susceptible to defeat by counterexamples, because they are generalizations, not hard and fast rules. There’s an old maxim — “The plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data’” — and it definitely holds true in this case.
The ultimate factor in what you achieve is not your score but the amount of work you put in. It is so obvious that it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway — no test can measure that. The only thing it provides is the EXPECTATION VALUE of your achievement based on that of those who have taken it previously.
For those of you who decry its predictive validity, if you want the ultimate revenge, prove it wrong. Go way out on the far right end of the tail of those who got your score. Earn lots of money, accomplish a lot. If ENOUGH of you do that, then the predictive validity will decrease somewhat, or at least not be fully predictive without other variables.
And let’s stop tearing down the straw men — excuse me, “Straw Persons” — shall we? It’s the height of intellectual lazyness to argue against the never-asserted claim that the SAT is a limit or a hard and fast, always true, predictor of achievement rather than a probabilistic guideline.
Like Richard said, we can only go with the information we have. What we have is SAT scores, and in the case of those Xavier students, their grades as well.
September 28th, 2005 at 2:49 pm
I don’t honestly have the time to argue statistics–that infamous Williams work load you understand–but I do want to say one thing.
The SAT may be a necessarry evil when a school has admissions rates as low as Williams does. “After all”, so the argument goes, “you have to decide somehow”. True. I never said the SAt should be banned like it was in California. I wish there was a better way to predict ability, but we’ll work with what we have for now.
But Williams isn’t admitting these students as part of the incoming class–the Class of ‘09 if sull and accounted for. These students aren’t even getting a degree from Williams–we’re just helping them out for the semester.
Assuming that any one of them will not be prepared to face this oh-so-advanced-and-difficult Williams courseload is foolish. I could care less what their SAT scores are–(for reasons I mentioned before and which I have no intention of retracting). But in addition, how can we be so arrogant as to think that Xavier students who would apply to come here would not be the best of the best. I mean they know what Williams is right? They have the internet and probably looked it up before they came right? And frankly I think anyone who wants to come here in order to continue their interrupted education probably has more than what it takes to be a Williams student.
I know a couple people who were flooded out of school by Katrina–and who are just taking the semester off. The fact that these students applied to come to Williams, to continue a rigorous education, tells me that they believe that they qualify and will be enthusiastic members of our community for the time they are here.
I think its okay to help people to whom our resources are most suited. And I think that this project with Xavier is doing just that. i haven’t approved of everything Williams Administration has done in my time here. But I think I’m standing by this one.
September 28th, 2005 at 3:14 pm
Oh man, and I thought I was getting enough of Bayesian statistics in my STAT seminar.
September 28th, 2005 at 6:13 pm
Interesting points.
First off I do agree with Rich that the SAT shows what is wrong with education. Moreover, since what is wrong is still wrong, I don’t think it is fair to measure everyone by the SAT until education is RIGHT…whatever that means.
I still think I can attack the test. Plenty of people who know what they are talking about are very critical of it. It uses a certan vocabulary that is largely white and middle to upper class. Ask poor urban and rural children similar questions with a different vocabulary and they will do much better. If you didn’t speak a lot of Japanese and I gave you the SAT in Japanese how would you do? This may seem extreme but that is what this test does to these kids! I’ve seen it first hand.
Why is it such a predictor…because it predicts kids right out of the best colleges and then big surprise…they do less well in life. So how do you prove what the correlation is, well you’d have to let a large sample of 800’s and 900’s go to Harvard and see how they do in life…oh wait it has been done, just find some of the athletes from the 50’s right up until more recent than Harvard or Williams would like to admit.
Almost anyone that gets admitted to a great school achieves in life, that is the correlation in my opinion, not the SAT score.
My main problem with the SAT is not the questions it asks…but the vocabulary it uses. The majority of the words on the SAT in my memory were arcane and useless in most reading or writing. I saw and still see them as a way to create an elite that can talk over every else’s head and feel good about themselves.
Vocabulary is what makes the SAT unfair. If the children can’t understand the test…does it really test what they know?
September 28th, 2005 at 6:25 pm
The University of California system still uses the SATs–the new SATs. So they are still using a quantitative measure rather than “getting rid of the SATs so they can embrace more qualitative measures”. From what I know, the new SATs abandon tricky math questions, includes a writing section, and gets rid of the vocabulary analogies.
September 28th, 2005 at 7:32 pm
Why not replace SATs with a generic IQ test? That way, you lower signifficantly the chances of somebody improving just because that person took a 3000$ Kaplan preparation course, and, at the same time, you prevent the “verbal bias” issues.
September 28th, 2005 at 7:44 pm
Jason, you are correct, I misrepresented what California did in responding to Shamus. They continue to use the SAT, but put less weight on it than they otherwise did.
Shamus, what you just said is statistically meaningless. The SAT verbal is strongly correlated with the SAT math. Both have strong correlations with outcomes. Do poor people use a different math than rich, white people too?
Here is a paper that directly addresses David’s grander point, the abstract follows. Below that, find a link to the American Statistical Society’s review of Nairn’s book (funded by Ralph Nader) that is the typical source for anti-SAT demogoguery. The conclusion is wonderful:
“He is a capable expositor of his own form of romantic egalitarianism, but his argument will not convince many…who know what a correlation means. This volumn is nevertheless likely to be more influential than it deserves to be.”
College Selectivity and Earnings
Linda Datcher Loury; David Garman
Journal of Labor Economics, Vol. 13, No. 2. (Apr., 1995), pp. 289-308.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0734-306X%28199504%2913%3A2%3C289%3ACSAE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B
Abstract
This article shows that college performance and selectivity have significant effects on earnings. It suggests that work that does not include college performance overstates the effect of college selectivity for Whites and understates it for Blacks. While the size of the effect of college selectivity for Blacks is larger than for Whites, the large Black earnings gain is offset for students whose own Scholastic Aptitude Test scores are significantly below the median of the college they attend. This results from the lower probability of graduation for “mismatched” Blacks and the subsequently lower earnings for those who fail to complete college.
The Reign of ETS: The Corporation That Makes up Minds.
Ralph Nader
Review author[s]: Malcolm J. Sherman
Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 76, No. 375. (Sep., 1981), pp. 745-746.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0162-1459%28198109%2976%3A375%3C745%3ATROETC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3
September 28th, 2005 at 7:44 pm
Are you morons proud of yourselves? What was originally news of a generous and worthy program has been turned into a political football discussion by your self-absorbed and parochial attitudes.
September 28th, 2005 at 7:54 pm
This may be even more salient as it shows the SAT is valid predictor across races.
Are Standardized Tests Fair to African Americans?: Predictive Validity of the SAT in Black and White Institutions
Jacqueline Fleming; Nancy Garcia
The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 69, No. 5. (Sep. - Oct., 1998), pp. 471-495.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-1546%28199809%2F10%2969%3A5%3C471%3AASTFTA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E
September 28th, 2005 at 11:40 pm
Hmmm,
I can cite a lot of articles too. Doesn’t make you right and it doesn’t make me right.
The Case Against the SAT
by James Crouse
http://print.google.com/print?id=fQ41a09epNMC&lpg=PA1&pg=PA2&sig=LSX5vcqfYCZA1gSfO6rh2_W790M
This seems to discredit the strength of the SAT as a measure of college grades…something you pointed out earlier when you named all the other factors!
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:RLW0pEhEhLsJ:www.nber.org/~confer/2002/hieds02/rothstein.pdf+biased+SAT
Basically just search google scholar for anything and you can find articles for and against almost any contention.
I am though jealous of your jstor Rich, I feel outgunned!
I myself cannot judge which articles are more valid since they all seem to be done by reputable people.
Anyway it has been very interesting to see both sides of this…but unfortunately for me as a teacher, most colleges admission officers would agree with Rich. Thankfully schools are dropping the SAT
as a requirement, which I see as some vindication for those from my perspective.
Even if I’m wrong it is helping my students, so it doesn’t matter anyway.
I’ve talked to many PHD’s who have been in education for 20 years, they’ve worked in the city for 20 years, and they think the SAT is unfair. I have to go from what they’ve told me. You have to go by some statistical article by a person you’ve never met. Am I any more valid because I met the person who argued my way…sadly for me, no. Are you? That is for you to decide.
I need to do the dishes.
Oh and I find morons are proud of themselves 90% of the time, then again, there are just as many articles disputing this as supporting it…what to do?
September 28th, 2005 at 11:53 pm
Shamus claims:
Wrong on both counts. First, as I was discussing with an admissions person at a rival school just last night, the main motivation for dropping the SAT is not that it is a poor predictor. The main reasons are 1) It tends to increase applications and 2) It tends to improve a school’s reported SAT range since the weaker SAT scores are much less likely to be reported. In other words, the main purpose is to make a school look stronger and more competitive than it really is.
Second, this change doesn’t help out your students that much since the schools that don’t use SAT still use proxies — high school grades, high school quality, other achievement tests — to get at the same information, more or less.
September 29th, 2005 at 8:32 am
True David, most, are not dropping it for my reasons…but they are dropping it, which is all I want.
My students earn great grades and prove themselves in many other ways, taking AP and college classes while in high school, etc. If they are measured by that, and not one particular test, then I’ll be very pleased.
September 29th, 2005 at 10:59 am
I’m not sure what I would even say to someone who found the SAT verbal difficult. “Did you ever read?” I’d ask, somewhat increduously, “Do you know what a book is?”
People that find the rudimentary vocabulary on the SAT difficult shouldn’t be going to good colleges.
September 30th, 2005 at 1:05 pm
“I’m not sure what I would even say to someone who found the SAT verbal difficult. “Did you ever read?” I’d ask, somewhat increduously, “Do you know what a book is?”
People that find the rudimentary vocabulary on the SAT difficult shouldn’t be going to good colleges.”
People whose parents use SAT vocabluary every day produce kids who are comfortable with it. Yeah you can get it from books–I know I got as far as I have by reading since I could hold a book and not stoppping. But some people (maybe like you, Aidan, I don’t know) probably could have gotten into williams without ever reading a book. They were brought up to be able to ace the SAT. I wonder why someone with less work ethic should be rewarded just because they were born to a family better equipped to get them in here. I mean sure the school needs the money and I can accept that. But don’t be so conde3scending. If you think that way then you probably had your Williams admission handed to you as a graduation present.
September 30th, 2005 at 1:19 pm
I’m a Xavier student. I applied and was accepted to Temple, Rutgers and Drew. I chose Xavier. I think that alot of what is being said is just related to stigma regarding historically black colleges and universities.
September 30th, 2005 at 5:59 pm
Memilie,
Having some familiarity with Drew and Rutgers, I’d say you definitely made the right choice, at least insofar as undergrad education goes.
I’d MUCH rather have students from Xavier than Drew or Rutgers at Williams.
But that’s just this native New Jerseyan speaking.
September 30th, 2005 at 6:26 pm
Marita,
Aidan’s parents, very lovely people from our brief meeting and what I know of them, are very bright. You supsect quite right. In his defense the parents of almost all Williams students are bright. I like to think almost all of us had that advantage.
********
HOWEVER, I myself have finally sort of seen the data side of all this. I hate to admit it, but in conversation last night with my prof I realized it wasn’t really the test I was mad at, but rather that we use it to measure students who weren’t properly prepared for it with it’s vocabulary. So I still dislike the test, but I must relent that for better or for worse it is a reliable prediction tool. Thanks to Rich for continuing to reason with me without being nasty about it.
I’m getting a fellow 04 who teaches SAT prep to come teach it for free at my school VS the 50/hr it costs the kids in Fairfax. It won’t fix the problems, but it is a start.
September 30th, 2005 at 11:05 pm
Aidan: A lot of people find the former SAT Verbal difficult (I don’t know too much about the new SAT to comment on it). But some people get the advantage of going to SAT prep schools. Case in point: My gigantic (almost double Williams student population) public high school proudly declares itself as the #1 feeder school to the University of California system, yet over 60% of the students are either children of Asian immigrants or are foreign-born themselves. I could count maybe 7-8 SAT prep places in the vicinity of my school, and there were a ton just in the town itself. My high school even offered an SAT class you could take outside of normal school hours (for a fee). I had friends that were going to SAT classes since middle school. Average home costs in my town are approaching $1 million, which probably gives a reason for so many SAT prep schools, which probably gives a reason for so many people from my school entering the UCs.
October 1st, 2005 at 4:12 pm
yes, I was being an asshole.
but, optimally, the SAT would measure how much someone’s been reading. I’d like that, if you had an exam that would measure something useful like that, and not just whether you’re a rich asshole (or have rich asshole parents).
I like to think that I could get anyone, given 6 months, a higher grade on the SAT verbal. I’d just give them books to read. Swift, I think, and some classics in translation, and old-school oratory, and before you know it, you’re seeing the analogies and reading comprehension in a new light. To put it another way: if you never read anything more difficult than Sports Illustrated, how would you ever learn how to read?
In any case, I mean no disrespect to those (like Shamus) that are doing the hard work of helping people who need a leg up.
October 1st, 2005 at 10:09 pm
Aidan: It is my experience that proportionally there are as many poor assholes as rich assholes. No category has a monopoly on being assholes except of course the category of asshole.