But the gauntlet of contemporary testing has received backlash in recent years from groups whose criticism cite how standardized tests are inadequate at comprehensively assessing a student’s potential performance. Interestingly, both undergraduate and graduate universities have been revising their admissions criteria, to the point of even dropping certain SAT, GRE, and GMAT requirements.

Consider, for instance, that just last week, January 22nd, 2020, the California Institute of Technology’s Undergraduate Admissions office announced on its website that it shall be eliminating the SAT Subject Test requirement for admissions. Previously, Caltech was one of the few universities requiring SAT subject tests from all applicants.

“In reviewing our admissions requirements, we have come to the conclusion that the requirement for submission of SAT subject test scores creates an unnecessary barrier to applying for a Caltech education,” said Nikki Chun, Director of Undergraduate Admissions, noting that only a small percentage of high schoolers globally take the SAT subject tests. “We are guiding our focus back to long-term academic STEM preparedness based on coursework and grade performance.”

The move has been fully supported by Jarrid Whitney, the Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs, Enrollment and Career Services, who elaborated that “The material covered on the subject tests is not necessarily in line with the expectations of the Caltech math and science curriculum, and so does not demonstrate whether a student is prepared to take on the Institute’s rigorous first-year coursework. This move will definitely widen the door for talented candidates we may not have been able to reach in the past who deserve our consideration.”

Meanwhile, three other universities – Indiana University at Bloomington, Lourdes University, and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College – have likewise recently publicized their moves to drop their SAT and ACT requirements for incoming undergraduates. They thereby join the bandwagon of American colleges and universities eliminating the standardized test as part of their admissions process, as covered in this Newsweek article from last October, 2019.

The statement from Indiana University at Bloomington explained that “…for some students, a standardized test score may not show all that they are capable of and tell the full story of their potential.”

Lourdes University’s statement expressed a parallel sentiment, “Standardized test scores may not always reflect an accurate indication of the abilities needed to succeed in college for a number of student populations.”

And, again, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College echoed these same inclinations, declaring that the school’s “…holistic approach will allow SMWC to consider student strengths that are exhibited in other areas than just ACT or SAT test scores.”

One in four undergraduate universities has dropped the SAT and/or ACT standardized tests as an admissions benchmark, reported PBS News Hour last autumn, “Combined with tutoring that wealthy families can afford, extra time their kids are more likely to get than lower-income classmates and downright cheating,” these tests are no longer relied upon “as a common yardstick.”

For what reasons? They are criticized for merely reflecting income or socioeconomic rung rather than ability. The criticism has been reinforced by last year’s scandal of celebrity parents gaming the system “…through an intermediary [to] bribe test administrators to change test scores or let students cheat.” It’s all bolstered additionally by the fact that “…families with more money usually live in wealthier school districts, with more resources, and can afford tutors to help with test preparation and other educational assistance.”

Going the test-option route among undergraduate universities is now increasingly commonplace. Doing so increases a university’s diversity, so that those less affluent have a chance for admission.

And the trend is also taking place in US graduate schools, particularly among universities offering online Master’s and Doctoral programs. Why? Mounting research evidence correspondingly suggests that objective test scores, whether from GRE or GMAT examinations, are inadequate at predicting on paper how a student will fare in the academic sphere, as seen in this research study entitled, “The Limitations of the GRE in Predicting Success in Biomedical Graduate School.”

But traditional brick-and-mortar graduate university programs are likewise opting out of the GRE requirement. Inside Higher Education, for example, has listed the Ivy League graduate universities with individual departments who have elected to eliminate the GRE test scores as an admissions criterion. To date, these Ivy League schools include Brown, Cornell, Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania, with specific graduate departments that have dropped the GRE altogether.

It remains to be seen whether law schools will eliminate the LSAT and whether medical schools will similarly drop the MCAT admissions practice.

Who knows? Maybe all these test requirement eliminations might just be a way for all these universities – undergraduates, graduates, law schools, medical schools – to stem the tide of decreasing applicants as the burgeoning student loan crisis exacerbates. In other words, they are all attempting to make their admissions process palatable by dropping standardized test score requirements just to attract more applicants to keep the university treasuries and bursaries full.

What You Need to Know About AI

To begin with, Artificial Intelligence, or AI is arguably the biggest catalyst in putting together anything remotely close to the kind of future imagined in most of these blockbuster films. But what essentially is AI? Simply put, it is a branch of computer science that is focused on building machines that are able to perform tasks that require some level of human intelligence.

Within AI, we then have two broad categories of classification. We have Narrow AI, and Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI.

Narrow AI, or Weak AI, is something that a lot of us are likely familiar with. These are the technologies behind things like image recognition software, Google searches, and personal assistants such as Siri and Alexa. AGI, or Strong AI is what most scientists imagine will be able to power those all-round super computers that you see interacting with humans in movies. The goal here is to come up with a computer that possesses human-level intelligence, which can be used to perform all manner of tasks.

Back to our initial train of thought. AI is thought of by some people as something that will eventually lead to a catastrophic end to our world. Interestingly, the strides that have been made so far thanks to AI seem to suggest that this is highly unlikely. Scientists from all around the world have come up with amazing inventions that can only whet our appetite for more that is to come. Let’s review a few of these new innovations:

AI-based Healthcare: IBM Watson Health

In the field of Medical Science, IBM’s Watson Health is helping more and more doctors go through huge amounts of data and therefore make more informed decisions regarding patient care and possible treatments. With this specialized tool, the focus is on its ability to process large amounts of information that would take doctors and nurses so much longer to do. Aside from that, there has also been the growing adoption of other artificial intelligent systems in the realm of robotic surgery (for simple procedures like laser eye surgery) and image analysis (for examining x-rays and retina scans).

AI-based Autonomous Vehicles: Starship Delivery Robots

Autonomous delivery might be a future whose possibilities we have only just started experimenting with. Companies such as Amazon and FedEx are slowly hopping onto the bandwagon, but Starship seems to be gaining a lot more ground. Currently, the company is focusing on enhancing food deliveries within select universities in the US, following a successful round of funding.

AI-based Market Analysis: Robo-Advisors

For those interested and active within the stock markets, being able to predict certain market conditions and betting for or against them is how to win. Robo advisors provide an autonomous approach to all of this. All you have to do is provide information about your asset allocation approach, and the robo advisor puts together a list of diversified investment options that it then allocates a predetermined percentage of your funds into. This essentially allows you to have your portfolio run and managed on autopilot.

AI-based Agricultural Applications: See & Spray

The application of AI in agriculture falls under three different categories; there’s agricultural robots, crop and soil monitoring, and predictive analysis. An example of agricultural robotics would be the solution provided by Blue River Technologies that helps farmers control weeds. This is done through computer vision, where weeds are identified and dealt with through precision spraying. This helps farmers effectively reduce their spending on herbicides, as well as the volume of chemicals erroneously sprayed on normal crop.

Conclusion

Those are just a few of the ways in which AI is being used to better human living, and improve the efficiency with which human tasks are performed. Looking to the future, there seems to be a lot of new applications of AI that are bound to crop, most of which we might not even have realized the potential of.

Hopefully by now, you’re just a little bit more convinced that a future with AI might not necessarily lead to world destruction as is depicted in most future-set movies.