If someone is good at qualitative thinking but sucks as quantitative, then they’re unlikely to do well on the math sections. I took the GRE more than once in order to boost both sections. I felt that passing the GRE was less a matter of improving my intelligence than it was learning the kinds of questions the test asks and how to answer.
That’s what a three year pilot period would test.
Yeah math isn't my strong suit, but really the only thing that hurt on the GRE quant was never taking geometry. I could get a middling score without learning the subject so I didn't bother. Take a business stats class (which I did by "accident" basically), and you will be well prepared for much of the quant section otherwise.
I didn't know it was a 3 year pilot until you mentioned it before, and then had to go dig down into the press release to verify. BUSPH twitter acct certainly just pronounced it like it was some massive woke permanent move.
This is a good point, but it doesn’t counter the claim that references provide better information about an applicant’s strengths. Relying only on test scores might open it up to more economically disadvantaged applicants, but I’d argue that it would also result in greater variability of applicants. Relying on references might narrow the playing field, but also better ensure what kind of applicants you’re getting.
I'm sure there's some variance by field and degree level as to what degree having someone report someone's "strengths" matters. I know my mentoring professor is mainly interested in a potential applicants' ability to operate independently successfully (not need their hand held) and have good interpersonal skills. The latter is kind of important for clinical psychology anyway. Neither of these things can be ascertained well via references. This is also at the doctoral level too, so as he says, above a certain cutoff, everyone *could* succeed somewhere. Then it's a matter of fit.
But MA programs are getting a lower tier applicant, generally speaking, to begin with. Past performance is the most dependable measure of future performance, and you don't need references for that. Furthermore, if I were to be reviewing applicants for X, and I see one has a 4.0 and scored in the 80+ %tile on the GRE and has some verified research exp, while another applicant has a 3.3 is 50%, little other exp, but has glowing references, why should I pay attention to the references? Now, were the reference from someone I knew personally, I'd probably follow up with them for more information, but then that's precisely the kind of benefit provided by "networking", which is far more exclusionary than standardized test scores.
Now maybe, I bring in metric-stud applicant in for an interview day/open house, and they bomb it. Try the next person. We've certainly had applicants to my lab bomb their interviews, but we didn't just invite one so no big deal.
In terms of how much higher education costs, it is a racket. It’s going to be the next major bubble as more students incur loan debts and don’t get jobs. That’s not entirely higher education’s fault though.
Well, incur loan debts not commensurate with the career field earnings. 100k to get a MSW is a poor tradeoff, for example. A lot of that is on the students. Universities via the USGov are complicit though in nakedly responding to profit incentives, and secondary education/society for pushing the "everyone should go to college" line.
