lawlz

10/8/2007 12:59:20 PM

Quote :

"in the end, though, employers look at the quality of the program and the quality of the student coming out of college. not the quality of the student going in to college. i guarantee that there isn't a single employer out there that is going to bat an eyelash at a drop in average sat score by 3 points."

exactly. most employers my friends got hired by seemed to indicate they were happy with the work of current state grads at their company and THAT was a reason they always like to recruit from State..I bet most of them couldnt tell you the average entering NCSU SAT score unless they looked it up.

And our SAT dropping *3* points will not affect that at all

10/8/2007 1:01:55 PM

sat only matters ONCE, and if you think that the sat score means something else down the line you are only fooling yourself. you sound like an education snob that is intelligent in bookwork, but you really can't out-think the average person no matter what they score on an exam.

10/8/2007 1:02:25 PM

Gunzz has a very good point as far as leadership is concerned.

There is a lot of research that is ramping up at business schools across the country into the effects of leadership on lifetime earnings. There appears to be a large income gap between those who were active in some type of leadership role, even leader of your Chess Club, and others who were not actively participating as leaders.

Many employers and universities are now lending more credence to this heretofore largely unrecognized variable.

Theoretically, this is the reason for the push to create an "entrepreneurship program" at NCSU, even though it is little more than a joke in its current phase.

[Edited on October 8, 2007 at 1:04 PM. Reason : oops]

10/8/2007 1:04:24 PM

I'm impressed by the Design School scores

10/8/2007 1:04:35 PM

Quote :

"Lower tiered schools with lower tiered students have to spend years achieving the salary that other students from other more selective universities enjoy, all else being equal. "

if it makes you feel good, my ncsu degree has me doing the same work and making the same money as people from carnegie mellon, bucknell, johns hopkins, cornell, and rpi....and im not in debt like they are.

10/8/2007 1:05:29 PM

Quote :

"id much rather trust the opinion of an employer who's is putting their money and name on the line to hire an employee from a specific school"

unicuique suum

Quote :

"thats not logically true. even if a school brings in the best high schoolers, if the program isnt good, they aren't going to produce the best graduates"

if the program is bad, the best students won't go there--can you name a substandard university with an average SAT more than 1300?

Quote :

"a 3 point drop in sat scores will have little impact on employer's opinions"

of course not

10/8/2007 1:07:01 PM

people skills are the most important asset. obviously you need people skills to be a leader, but its one thing to be a leader, and another thing to be a person that can walk into just about any company and get a job. people skills do that, not leadership skills, although leadership is important and will carry you a very long way.

10/8/2007 1:07:44 PM

Quote :

"if it makes you feel good, my ncsu degree has me doing the same work and making the same money as people from carnegie mellon, bucknell, johns hopkins, cornell, and rpi....and im not in debt like they are."

LAST WEEKEND ONE OF MY FRIENDS I PLAY RUGBY WITH WHO IS A POST DOCTORATE AT UNC ASKED ME IF I COULD GET HIM A JOB AT RED ROOM BECAUSE HE IS DEAD BROKE BECAUSE OF HIS LOANS....HE IS IN HIS MID 30'S AND IS JUST NOW STARTING TO GET BILLED FOR THESE LOANS...HE TOLD ME HE IS PRETTY MUCH FUCKED FOR THE NEXT 20 YEARS...GG

I AM SURE HIS SAT SCORE WAS IN THE 1300'S

MINE WAS 900 SOMETHING....I CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER BECAUSE IT DOESN'T MEAN SHIT

10/8/2007 1:17:24 PM

hopefully he doesn't post-doc for more than 2-3 years because they get paid shit, like in the 20s most of the time. once he breaks that barrier and get a real job those loans won't mean much. i know someone that post-doc for about 10 years - well in a sense, i guess, she had a phd and when i found out when she graduated, it was 10 years prior and she was a post-doc at that time when i met her.

10/8/2007 1:21:32 PM

Quote :

"NCSU is following the Gumby's Business Model-->take your number one source of revenue (students) and allow the product they purchase to be degraded (the degree) due to a lack of higher standards"

I am sure in highschool you spent friday and saturday night reading your SAT practice books. Were an outstanding member of the math team then blew your load when your SAT results came in saying your got a 1520.

Now you have a superiority complex and think only smart kids who can sit down 2-3 times during their junior/senior year to take the SAT and get high score are the people who deserve to be NCSU students.

10/8/2007 1:24:08 PM

This thread really brings out the inferiority complex that many NC State students have. No offense.

For starters, rankings and "preference studies" are often of use for those pretentious folks that come from the top 25 schools. I think its pretty hard to discern the quality of a top 50 school from a top 100 school.

In the recent rankings in USN&WR of the Top Tier 1 colleges, NC State ranks at 85 and Miami (my current grad school) is 52. I think the quality of the undergraduate education and the quality of the undergrad students at both schools are pretty much equal. These rankings are splitting hairs between schools once they go outside the few "elite" schools.

In my current graduate program- I have fellow students from Cornell, Duke, Harvard, Texas, Florida, UCLA, and all sorts of little elitist private schools. Some of the best performers in my grad program come from the likes of University of West Florida, Savannah State, Portland State, Idaho, Tennessee, and good ol NC State.

I am convinced that the undergraduate experience is what the student chooses to make of it. Sure you can try to guage the quality of immature high school seniors by a standardized test. But within those four to five years in college, students change in their work ethic and their ability to learn and think. With the rise in enrollment of students in graduate programs, the ranking of undergraduate education is becoming a bit less important because no longer are undergraduate degrees being considered terminal.

HOWEVER the trend in standardized test scores (SAT) within newly enrolled undergrads should be of major concern. Like it or not, that test score is what is used to rate the quality of incoming students. Ratings DO matter to potential out-of-state students who may be interested in NC State and those potential employers on a national level. The trend in SAT scores should be going upward, not down. NC State is a Tier 1 university and should be consistently raising the bar of incoming students and should be striving to be on the same playing field as the top public schools in the region.

[Edited on October 8, 2007 at 1:43 PM. Reason : :]

10/8/2007 1:38:27 PM

Everything I would say about three points not meaning anything has already been said so I'm just going to take a moment to point out that textiles has a lower average SAT score than FYC.

10/8/2007 1:49:00 PM

NCSU certainly does not have a bad rep in my field by any means. I work for a biotech company in Texas doing immunoassay development and it is surprising how much they like people from any of the schools in the Triangle. At my level (Research Associate) we have about 10 people (about 100 employees total in the company), and 5 of those 10 are from North Carolina, the others all being from Texas schools. 2 people from NCSU, 2 from UNC, 1 from Duke.

That said, I definitely agree with the person who said that companies will form opinions of schools based on how the employees from those schools perform.

10/8/2007 1:50:14 PM

a fucking 0.25% drop and an article gets written about it? i don't get it.

i'll ask someone at the NCSU College of Journalism about it...

...oh wait

seriously, this is a non-event. the article and this shitty thread with its shitty thread title, are more of an event than the actual score drop.

among the laws of large numbers is the reality that when revenues increase at a material rate, the process that led to the materail increase will take small setbacks in quality. a 0.25% is small enough to not make a difference in real overall quality.

if this is like watching your stock drop, then i'm buying on dips. in other words, i plan on hiring & recommending fellow Wolfpackers.

journalists need to write about something -- otherwise they don't have job security

just work hard and get good at what you do. we're in good shape -- don't believe the hype.

/thread

10/8/2007 2:00:59 PM

I do not see who is trying to compare NCSU a public state run university to one of the elite private school in america.

I would hope the avg MIT or Stanford incoming freshman is of higher caliber of an NCSU incoming freshman

10/8/2007 2:07:15 PM

what would make them higher caliber?

10/8/2007 2:11:12 PM

Quote :

"once he breaks that barrier and get a real job those loans won't mean much"

HOW DOES OVER $100,000 OF DEBT NOT MEAN THAT MUCH TO ANYONE....HE WILL BE PAYING MORE IN LOANS FOR THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS THAN WHAT I PAY ON MY MORTGAGE....EVEN IF YOU MAKE $80,000 PER YEAR BY THE TIME YOU ARE 40....

A STUPID STATEMENT LIKE THIS ONE IS PROOF THAT YOUR ELITEIST ATTIUDE TOWARDS SAT SCORES DOESN'T MEAN SHIT....YOU KNOW NOTHING

10/8/2007 2:17:17 PM

lolz are you kidding me

look man i know some with debt from law school and undergrad, over 100K and pays $3xx.00/month

this is NOTHING compared to what he makes

you're a fucking idiot lol

10/8/2007 2:19:24 PM

IF YOU OWE OVER $100K IN LOANS AND ARE ONLY PAYING $300 PER MONTH YOU WILL HAVE TO PAY UNTIL YOU DIE....IDIOT....NOT TO MENTION THE MONEY YOU WILL PAY IN INTEREST ALONE.....

10/8/2007 2:35:01 PM

we know it for a very long time dumbass, but the point is that is a EASY payment, and total amount he, as well as i, have to pay is the EXACT same if the plan is for 10 years or for 50 years...

some people just don't get it.

ever consolidated loans through the nccfi?

if you did then you would not be making an ass out of yourself.

[Edited on October 8, 2007 at 2:38 PM. Reason : rest]

10/8/2007 2:37:06 PM

Quote :

"seriously, this is a non-event"

it's not an event or hype; it's merely recognition of a trend whereby the enrollment statistics at NCSU have been stagnating since 1998, while those at UNC have been steadily improving--the evidence is pretty clear

SAT (middle 50%)

NCSU
1999 1080-1270
2000 1080-1290
2001 1070-1280
2002 1090-1300
2003 1100-1300
2004 1100-1290
2005 1090-1280
2006 1080-1280

UNC
1999 1130-1340
2000 1140-1360
2001 1140-1360
2002 1150-1370
2003 1180-1370
2004 1190-1390
2005 1190-1390
2006 1210-1390

[Edited on October 8, 2007 at 2:41 PM. Reason : &]

10/8/2007 2:39:02 PM

i graduated from state, i have a bangin job

i took the act and made a 26, and who gives a flying fuck?

10/8/2007 2:40:15 PM

Quote :

" Lettering in a varsity sport and participating also shows the potential for leadership I think its clear that agentlion fits in the "a geek with a 1400, that did nothing but play video games and study throughout highschool" category"

i think it's clear that you don't know anything about me. I made high-1300s on SAT (good, but not good enough for Parks Scholar material), top 5 class rank (2%), lettered 9 times in varsity sports, was a multiple team and individual NC 4A state champion and all-american athlete, Eagle Scout, and have never "gamed" in my life nor owned a game console or gaming computer, and ended up coming to NCSU as a varsity athlete on academic scholarships.

my point is, most people that I know who made similar SAT scores had similar credentials as me - i know very few who were the nerdy book-and-videogame stereotypes. Most people I know who made 13, 14, 1500's were very well rounded students and most often athletes as well. Sure there are some big geeks here and there, but hey, top-schools need nerds and geeks too.

I completely understand that college admittance offices can and should look at much more than SAT scores when granting admission. But the fact remains, SAT scores do remain a good indicator of overall achievement potential. The SAT should not alone be a deal breaker or a deal winner, except in certain situations (1500+ is a no brainier, as well as 1000- or 1050-).

you guys say you would rather "would rather a university enroll a kid with a 1050 SAT score but still graduated in the top 50 of their class, lettered in a varsity sport, was involved in community service"? Not me. I would rather enroll a kid who made a 1200 or 1300 SAT and all of the other stuff too.

10/8/2007 3:03:40 PM

ncsu and unc are both excellent schools. all of you stfu.

10/8/2007 3:48:58 PM

Quote :

"lettered 9 times in varsity sports"

LETTERING IN TUBA PLAYING DOESN'T COUNT

10/8/2007 3:58:33 PM

My least favorite thing about NC State is that we, as a community, have a ridiculous inferiority complex.

This is nothing more than minutiae.

10/8/2007 4:02:17 PM

^^ fine, count band and I lettered 13 times.

10/8/2007 4:05:28 PM

yeah i agree, and i don't know why people feel this way. what makes a unc or duke grad better? pretty much nothing, it the individual that is looked mainly during a job interview.

10/8/2007 4:07:08 PM

I don't understand how that can be the average score after they added the writing section. I scored 200 points higher than that without the writing section.

10/8/2007 4:12:58 PM

Quote :

"You are retarded their is a difference btw lowering incoming freshman standards and decreasing the difficulty and accreditation of our degree programs."

Well you must've gotten 800 on the Math section or something, then.

[Edited on October 8, 2007 at 4:17 PM. Reason : my dearest "all engineers are good at English" buddy, HUR]

10/8/2007 4:17:02 PM

^^^^

just a random statement here but ive never heard anyone count each year they lettered in something...unless something drastic happens its pretty rare that someone will letter one year in a HS sport and get cut the next.

nothing important i just found it odd the way you said that

^ and i dont care either way in the argument of engineers and english, but if you look at the English scores, Engin. was above average only behind design and pretty dead even with chass


[Edited on October 8, 2007 at 4:22 PM. Reason : ]

10/8/2007 4:19:25 PM

^ But my point is that HUR obviously doesn't live up to his own claim.

[Edited on October 8, 2007 at 4:27 PM. Reason : and CHASS =/= English Department, either, to be fair]

10/8/2007 4:23:30 PM

hmm i thought the argument was chass vs engineering in that thread. however no worries not gonna get into anything. i didnt mean to start anything since i dont care much either way just making an observation

[Edited on October 8, 2007 at 4:28 PM. Reason : ]

10/8/2007 4:27:30 PM

NC STATE is a state school. It was founded 'for the people' because the elitest assholes down I-40W were not serving that function. We should be taking a pool of well-rounded freshman every year and that pool should not be based on something as arbitrary as the SAT. It should be based on the body of work.

SAT's mean exactly dick, as does your undergraduate education (other than a few exceptions). The workforce does not care what the paper says on it, only that you have it. Your work ethic and ability to learn does the rest.

[Edited on October 8, 2007 at 4:31 PM. Reason : . ]

10/8/2007 4:30:20 PM

^^ Yeah. But an SAT verbal score doesn't measure writing ability (it might now, with that added section, but it didn't before), it measures word relationships, vocab and comprehension.

And yes, the old thread was about that. I hate the way so many engineering students get an elitist attitude about absolutely nothing except how "smart" their studies sound (because it's really not that bad, and you could do it if you wanted: I have). He was making the argument that engineers ALREADY have all the necessary communication skills they need and that humanities were a huge waste of time. That's complete bullshit, and shows: even his own communication needs work. He also made no allowances for people who didn't want to study what they'd consider a dull subject, claiming it was mostly that CHASS students were too stupid to get the math behind engineering concepts.

[Edited on October 8, 2007 at 4:34 PM. Reason : .]

10/8/2007 4:33:33 PM

If your kid made a 1040 on the SAT then he's borderline drooling on himself.

10/8/2007 4:44:35 PM

Quote :

"nerdy book-and-videogame stereotypes"

Jesus christ - welcome to the 21st century man. That shit's mainstream. I bet all those NFL'ers playing madden in the locker room are really nerdy.

oh and

Quote :

"MINE WAS 900 SOMETHING"

explains a whole fucking lot

[Edited on October 8, 2007 at 4:48 PM. Reason : .]

10/8/2007 4:46:48 PM

^ i agree 100%.

10/8/2007 4:48:21 PM

Quote :

" just a random statement here but ive never heard anyone count each year they lettered in something...unless something drastic happens its pretty rare that someone will letter one year in a HS sport and get cut the next. nothing important i just found it odd the way you said that "

hmm, well, i would consider it 'lettering' each season you are on the varsity team. Technically, i guess, you actually only get a 'letter' your first varsity season at the sport, then each subsequent season you get a bar or ribbon or whatever.

Quote :

"NC STATE is a state school. It was founded 'for the people' because the elitest assholes down I-40W were not serving that function."

really? are you sure about that? Is that what they wrote in the NC State Charter back when it was founded in 1887?
If a school is selective, does that automatically make them elitist? Doesn't it stand to reason that a school would accept the best students that apply, while maintaining a reasonable population and growth rate? Are you saying schools should reject top-tier candidates who apply in order to pull the whole population back towards the median applicant?

10/8/2007 4:50:09 PM

Quote :

"nerdy book-and-videogame stereotypes" Jesus christ - welcome to the 21st century man. That shit's mainstream. I bet all those NFL'ers playing madden in the locker room are really nerdy. "

NFL'ers and frat boy type sitting around playing XBox is not what I'm talking about. We all know that recreational gaming has gone mainstream in the past 15 years.
but there is still a distinct segment that would be considered hardcore gamers, or play what would be considered "nerdy games". Although the margins are shrinking all the time as more and mroe "normal people" get into playing those games recreationally or additively

10/8/2007 4:55:15 PM

Quote :

"Maybe the university looks at other qualities in the incoming freshman class besides a stupid relatively arbitrary test score."

Spoken like someone who didn't do well. It's only the people who don't perform well that have a problem with the system. Also, I find the fact that I got the exact same score on the GREs as I did on the SATs (despite taking them after being out of college 2 years) as a pretty good indicator that they estimate my abilities fairly well.

The point of standardized tests is to provide some kind of objective quantification of a person's abilities. Yes, this is a hard task. You can have the genius that is unchallenged, doesn't care, and gets a crap score. You can have a slacker dumbass that guesses and gets a 1350 or something respectable. But those are the outliers on that curve.

Yes you have to factor in effort, difficulty of courses taken, extra-curricular involvement, other family and financial commitments, learning disabilities, etc but it does give an indication that NC State is being less selective about the purely academic quality of their incoming students.

10/8/2007 5:28:32 PM

MAF tried to raise it, the current guy doesnt care.

10/8/2007 5:29:29 PM

Quote :

"you guys say you would rather "would rather a university enroll a kid with a 1050 SAT score but still graduated in the top 50 of their class, lettered in a varsity sport, was involved in community service"? Not me. I would rather enroll a kid who made a 1200 or 1300 SAT and all of the other stuff too."

oh so billy who worked hard in school getting good grades while volunteering and lettering in a varsity sport should not get into NCSU b.c he did not have mommy and daddy shelling out for him to take SAT prep or is not good at sitting in a room w/ his #2 pencil answering relatively arbitrary questions to test his math/English skills.

10/8/2007 5:33:48 PM

I still fail to see what is "relatively arbitrary" about asking someone to solve a math problem to test their math skills, or what exactly economic status, community service etc has to do with this academic measurement.

Sure math scores do not make a better student (or person), but those qualities are certainly harder to quantify. How do you test those things? How would you create a test that was not "relatively arbitrary" to test something like effort? You can't.

10/8/2007 5:46:03 PM

^^ jesus, man. what is your problem?
little-volunteer-billy-boy shouldn't be denied getting into NC State, not because he is such a good little citizen and struggles to make a passing score on the SAT. He shouldn't get into NC State because he's not smart enough. If he's struggling to get a 1050 and he wants to go to NC State or UNC or UVA or GT, maybe he shouldn't be spending his timing playing ball and should study some more.

He can go to college. Sure. There are plenty of college who would let him in, and maybe even get a scholarship.

But NC State should attempt to hold their students to higher standards. There are plenty of students who can volunteer and play sports and play in the band and do above average on the SAT and GPA without getting SAT prep and coached and whatnot.

My point is this: If NC State wants to (continue?) to be a respected Teir 1 Research University that can reasonably be compared to the schooled I listed above, then it has to have standards and if that means rejecting hardworking johnny who really wants to be a good student but is doing all he can to make a 1050, then fine. Sorry. Top college are not for everyone. Would you complain about him being rejected at Harvard or Yale? What about Stanford or MIT? What about Duke, UNC and UVA? No? Then where's the cut off? Should NC State be the catch-all school for the state of North Carolina for all the semi-bright kids who really want to go to a good college but are not quite good enough?

And if you think that high school students cannot be well rounded outside of the classroom and still get good GPAs and high SATs without being hand-groomed with coaches and tutors, then you either have very low expectations or you don't realize that there are a lot of naturally smart, well rounded people out there.

10/8/2007 5:54:50 PM

you do know i can score a 700 on the SAT, go to community college take 30 credit-hours, and if I get good grades there transfer to state....

10/8/2007 6:05:36 PM

Quote :

"HOW DOES OVER $100,000 OF DEBT NOT MEAN THAT MUCH TO ANYONE....HE WILL BE PAYING MORE IN LOANS FOR THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS THAN WHAT I PAY ON MY MORTGAGE....EVEN IF YOU MAKE $80,000 PER YEAR BY THE TIME YOU ARE 40.... A STUPID STATEMENT LIKE THIS ONE IS PROOF THAT YOUR ELITEIST ATTIUDE TOWARDS SAT SCORES DOESN'T MEAN SHIT....YOU KNOW NOTHING "

I know someone right now at NC State with $100,000 in student loan debt who doesn't even appear as though they are going to graduate. By the way, they had a 920 SAT score... They've only been in undergrad 1 year and they've wasted two complete loans on absolute nonsense like rent, car payments, and food and entertainment.... My point is that even low performing NCSU students can rack up a hell of a bill in school and have no means to pay for it at the end.

10/8/2007 6:13:16 PM

HUR, I went to community first, best thing I did....when I transfered the students I hung out with at first were freshman, that group of like 6, 5 flunked out and the last one I think eventually graduated. I think being a lil older helps!

10/8/2007 6:17:43 PM

ive never been asked what my sat score or gpa was in college while at work

i dont see why it pisses some of you off

oh...thats because you've never worked a job that doesnt pay hourly in your lives

Quote :

"umm, its NCstate. we will not be in the same class at UNC anytime soon. live with it."

Quote :

"I know someone right now at NC State with $100,000 in student loan debt who doesn't even appear as though they are going to graduate. By the way, they had a 920 SAT score... They've only been in undergrad 1 year and they've wasted two complete loans on absolute nonsense like rent, car payments, and food and entertainment.... My point is that even low performing NCSU students can rack up a hell of a bill in school and have no means to pay for it at the end."

I could go to school for 10 fucking years and not pile up 100,000 dollars in debt. Your one example of a dip shit friend doesnt really add anything to this topic. We may as well start naming CEOs who never even went to college.

[Edited on October 8, 2007 at 6:23 PM. Reason : .]

10/8/2007 6:20:14 PM