Why is a lossy testing filter better than just failing out those who can't make it? Maybe allow for larger freshmen classes and smaller latter classes or adopt community colleges and have all students start there and advance into the UC system sophomore year on. Instead they bring back what is basically an IQ test for admission.

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bigthymer 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

From the students' perspective, it is better to not be allowed in than fail out midway through. One test is cheaper than years in college.

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falcor84 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I personally strongly disagree. I think it's much better to be given the opportunity to do the actual work, rather than to be required to do the pre-assessment song and dance. And if there are actual prerequisites that a person hasn't previously passed, they should be allowed to be tested on these specifically.

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zugi 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It depends on a lot of things. If they've also applied to another college that's better suited to their ability, admitting then to a school where they'll likely fail is not really doing them a favor.

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annzabelle 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Agreed. I've seen some interesting data that kids who could've been successful premeds or engineers at their state flagship but instead eke their way into Harvard or Princeton (sports scholarship, legacy etc) will instead graduate with a flaky studies major because they couldn't cut it in their intended major and the switching costs of transferring were too high.

There are downsides if you end up a small fish in a big pond.

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SoftTalker 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Is the actual premed or engineering coursework at Harvard or Princeton really that much more rigorous than that at a flagship state school? I'm doubtful.

	▲	naishoya 39 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Quick answer: YES Longer answer - in the other reply to your doubtfulness. This is true across the entire US system, some state flagship universities curricula are so deficient that graduate level at better schools wont even consider the bachelor level diplomas from those schools as eligible unless the applicant is top n% of the graduating class, where n is a low single digit. The admissions committee may never publish or say it directly, but for MANY state flagship universities the B.S. level maths and science courses are simply insufficient fo higher level studies at leading schools. Thus, companies with hiring and leadership that is aware of these conditions will also simply pass over applicants with degrees from flagship state universities, much the same as they do with online diploma mill "Graduates." My take on this situation is that as primary education outcomes worsened in the US, state universities modulated the coursework to match the readiness of incoming students in order to keep enrollment 'available' to everyone and extract revenue from the student loans system. The "Princeton and Harvard(s)" were differently motivated, in that they never had a goal of admitting the majority of High School graduates, and thus were not required to lower levels of educational rigour to meet eroding conditions in primary education. It truly is a sad "state" of affairs.
	▲	annzabelle 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I'm no expert on that particular situation, but I compared my syllabi and projects from a state flagship (not Georgia Tech, Berkeley, or UIUC) with my brother's from Carnegie Mellon, and the expectations of first/second year CS majors were extremely different. Sometimes we used the same textbook but CMU covered more chapters and their projects were more involved. Some courses that typically waited until senior year at the state flagship were common to take spring sophomore year at CMU. There were a lot of courses that were numbered as undergraduate at CMU but covered content that was only covered in graduate courses at the state flagship.

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dgacmu 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Speaking as a professor: the filter is really helpful. Having students struggle for two years in a program they're going to fail out of is terrible. I've seen it happen - and I saw more of it happen for the years CMU also stopped requiring the SAT.

The SAT is a very imperfect measure but it turns out a lot of the others are even worse.

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BobbyJo 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you completely ignore costs, and the negative affects of having 50+% of a class be unprepared and taking time from the other students, sure, that would work great. Seems like a bad alternative to standardized tests considering students will then have to pass tests once in college...

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jimbokun an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because it’s a complete waste of time and money for both those students and the instructors.

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stephenbez 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

High graduation rates are an important metric to administrators. If a professor gave a failing grade to 1/3 of the class they would be in hot water.

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stockresearcher 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My wife has a civil engineering degree. There were a number of courses where partial credit was not permitted and the final exam was 2 questions. It was common for students to take those courses 3 or 4 times before passing. Giving a failing grade to only 1/3 of the class might get a professor investigated for making the class too easy.

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collabs 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> High graduation rates are an important metric to administrators. If a professor gave a failing grade to 1/3 of the class they would be in hot water.

I remember practically every single instructor/professor on the first day of class during my freshman year of my undergraduate study said something along the lines of "I have no curves. Your grades depend on you and nobody else. If the whole class does well, everyone can get an A. If nobody does well, everybody can fail."

So I guess this was more motivational to get us to study rather than stating facts?

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andrecarini 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Failing 1/3 of a class if that cohort is genuinely deemed not qualified enough to pass shouldn't be a problem by itself.

But then it raises questions like "are they really unqualified or is the testing methodology inadequate?" and "why was the system unable to provide the necessary growth to such a high slice of the class?". And then the easy way out is to just cherry-pick which students enter the system at all.

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falcor84 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I remember a first lecture when I started my CS studies, where the professor said something like "look at the people to your left and to your right, it's likely that at least one of you will drop out by the end of this year; it's ok, this is not for everyone; if you truly believe this is for you, put in the effort and you'll make it"

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subtextminer 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

1/3 isn't that bad in the late 80s/early 90s at the UT Austin CS department. Only ~30% graduated at the time. The orientation was literally "look to your left and looked to your right only one of you will graduate." They weren't joking!

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WalterBright 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Caltech did not grade on a curve. I recall one class were half the class failed.

	▲	chasd00 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I’ve had classes like that or ones that start with 75 students and end with 5 and I went to a very easy state school (late 90s)

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lo_zamoyski 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That depends. Some schools actually cap the number of students permitted to continue. They fail a certain fixed number or percentage of students below a threshold, even if the raw score is good.

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paytonjjones 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Apply the same question to jobs and it's easy to see: why is a lossy [interview] filter better than just [firing] those who can't make it?

This has enormous costs to the institution, the teachers/mentors, and of course to the person failing out.

And that's not even factoring in the social and psychological costs.

	▲	eikenberry 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Disagree. Hiring and firing is better than a bad interview process. The reason we don't have that is due to regulations and litigiousness (and the laws that facilitate it). IMO failing to get the opportunity is worse than getting the opportunity and failing at it.