Posted on 07/10/2009 5:11:35 AM PDT by freed0misntfree
The Educational Testing Service wanted to help graduate school applicants prove they are more than a set of test scores. So it developed a tool to rate students across a broad sweep of traits -- creativity, teamwork, integrity -- that admission tests don't measure.
The Personal Potential Index, unveiled this week, looks suspiciously like another set of scores. An applicant's personality is distilled into six traits, and the applicant is rated on each of them by various professors and former supervisors on a scale of 1 to 5.
Officials with the nonprofit organization, based in Princeton, N.J., say the index marks the first large-scale attempt to codify the elusive, subjective attributes that make up a successful grad student. The goal is to raise the share of students who finish graduate school. Non-cognitive, or "soft," skills are considered crucial to success in higher education.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It’s a crock.
Einstein wrote his theories while working at a patent office. All his university professors thought he was considerably less than a stellar performer.
Well, this counts me out.
This is the attempt by the leftists to codify the elimination of people with certain traits, read conservative, and of certain background, read white male.
“Soft” skills?!”
Look at all that soft skills we have in government. Wow what a transformation that has yielded. “Soft skills” same as “mushy headed” thinking.
Traits like brown nosing and being yes men, taking bribes and covering up things and doing the dirty work like smearing and framing people. Yea, these are great traits to have.
I bet this new “test” is being introduced because traditional standardized tests of knowledge and aptitude do not produce equal results for all races.
Yeah, professors are going to do that for free, assuming that they even remember you from a crowd of 400 students in a lecture hall where the TAs do most of the grading and handling office hours and individual questions.
There are very few professors who would remember anyone other than the exceptionally bad or good students. Will the professor remember the good students, or those who knew enough to attend the professors "extended office hours" in the Rathskellar for a few beers?
Oh, yuck. I wouldn't have gotten in to grad school if they had graded me on social skills. I was a computer science major, for pete's sake.
Didn't get the job. Probably would not have taken it anyway.
One time, I went to Cal Tech to recruit for Comp. Sci. majors. This was with IBM.
Weirdest experience I ever had. We offered pizza at the table to draw them there.
Zombies with dark circles under their eyes would walk to the table with arms at their sides, and just stand there.
They would not touch the pizza until given permission.
Getting information was tough. Lots if “Yes” and “No” but nothing eles. Berkely and Stanford grads would talk your ear off.
Was there any difference of when in the class schedule you went? If you hit Berkley and Stanford at the middle of a quarter or semester when everything is going well but you hit Cal Tech in the last week when projects are due and exams are looming you could be seeing Cal Tech students at their worst. I know I was in no shape for human interaction when I had just seen my second dawn without any sleep because a project was going poorly.
How can you recognize an extroverted CS student? He stares at your shoes instead of his own.
I don't remember the time frame within the class schedule.
It was a long time ago.
But since then I have met many very nice and socially skilled Cal Tech Alumni. It was just a one time experience.
Stanford students always communicated extremely well but were often thought they were better than they were.
I also had a weird experience at Stanford. There was some Black Engineers and Scientists Association Job Faire that IBM wanted to have a presence at. They asked me to go and do it, even though I don't fit the mold. Anyway, after talking to student for about 3 hrs., I needed break. I went to get a soda. As I was walking across the room back the our table, the booming voice came out of nowhere saying, “Randy K, you ni***r!” The whole room went silent and no one breathed. I turned around to see a 6'5”, 280lb black guy standing there. Everyone was waiting to what was going to happen next. It was one of my good buddies from grad school. He was with Standard Oil. Everyone was glad to see us greet each other, and everyone went back about their business. Nonetheless, he really embarrassed me.
There was always some student at Cal that wanted to know why IBM sold tabulating machines to the Nazis. (Me, rolling eyes). Oh, I am a two time Cal grad.
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