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I find it unlikely the COVID generation has "banana brains". A low-quality 1 to 2 years of high school shouldn't knock the reasonably intelligent back THAT far. You'd expect some drop but not as bad as they're describing. They also note that "Beginning with the cohort entering in 2021, standardized test scores were no longer used in the admissions process." This is probably the major part of the problem -- note that MIT, which one would expect to be more sensitive to this stuff, was among the quickest to return to standardized testing.
Since I am indeed an HBD believer, I find it unlikely we're creating too many more stupid people; that would take serious miseducation at a much younger age, or more dropping of people on their head. Instead, the UC system is probably sorting more poorly, with too many stupid kids ending up in the better schools and some of the smarter kids probably being displaced elsewhere (e.g. lower down in the UC or Cal State system, or to other schools which did not drop standardized testing).
Assuming we don't get a DEI revival when President AOC takes over in 2028, I think what we'll see is less-efficient hiring for a few years, with more of the stupid having to be sorted out in the employment market rather than by college admissions. Or, if the colleges maintain their own standards (which I find less likely) a greater fail-out rate in college.
Its rival Caltech is the US elite university run closest to a test based meritocracy.
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Yeah, I doubt covid has anything to do with it frankly. It's almost certainly just the dropping of standardized testing as an admit requirement.
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