vc08

"Recruiting minority/socioeconomically underprivileged students" is a completely different than lowering admissions standards for them. My argument was never against recruiting qualified students of certain minorities or backgrounds (diversity was one of the primary reasons I considered Michigan). The topic I, and many others, was responding to was whether admissions standards should be lowered to accommodate people just to promote diversity.

Take for example, UC Berkeley. As most people will remember, a few years ago a huge issue occurred after the UC system banned affirmative action in admissions processes. As a result, there was a significant decrease in the amount of African American students that were admitted. I believe the percentage drop was from somewhere around 13%-3% in the period of only a few years. Today, Berkeley (and a majority of the UCs for that matter), hold their percentage of black students at somewhere around 4%.

Last year, Cal did a study on whether or not admitting such a large amount of Asians was justified; after all, the study questioned, you could hardly call a university wherein 42% of the student population is Asian "diverse." They questioned whether it was right to admit such a huge percentage of one ethnic/economic, etc. group when other minority groups were struggling so much just to get a break. After interviewing the chancellor and hundreds of students, they found that a majority of the university approved of the current racial makeup. Asians, generally speaking, had higher scores, better grades, and had achieved a greater level of academic excellence. As such, the best students were being admitted. If that meant that the demographics would be lopsided toward one group, than fellow students would just have to live with it, the chancellor pointed out. Some students did claim that they wished there was greater ethnic diversity (though socioeconomic diversity is certainly prevalent on the campus), but also expressed great pride in knowing that the university sought to admit the best candidates, regardless of skin color or gender.

Now that's just one example. Personally, I think it is very noble of Michigan to make an effort to recruit minority groups (be it ethnic, socioeconomic, religious, etc), because, as someone who has witnessed firsthand severe ethnic polarization in my own hometown growing up, I realize how important it is to interact with other cultures and backgrounds. The point many of us were making was simply that other qualified candidates should not be punished because of it. In your example, should student A not be admitted, simply because they made use of the resources they were given? Likewise, should student B be punished because they don't have the same resources? The key is to find a balance between those two.

Hopefully, with the new efforts to identify low income/underrepresented areas, and recruit quality, high achieving students from them, Michigan can serve as an example to other peer institutions of a university committed to furthering diversity while also advancing academic excellence. For surely that truly is "The Michigan Difference."

dilksy

Potential and intellectual capability can only count for so much, though. Just because you get to take classes at Michigan doesn't magically make up for 12 years of poor teaching. These students are still going to be many academic years behind "equally capable" privileged students, and are not likely to have good study habits or be used to a very competitive academic environment. In terms of your analogy, it's as if student A used a calculator throughout high school and student B didn't. Then you put both students in a college level calculus class with a calculator, and expect them to both be equally proficient. Like with anything, there are some exceptions, but I'd guess by and large these students stay well behind their "equally capable" but more privileged peers.

Personally, I think we'd be better off just accepting the most qualified applicants, rather than creating a sub-class of people who start off behind and after a year or so at college might be at the level that your typical student is at coming out of high school. The University could put resources toward much more important things if they didn't have to maintain a mini-community college of remedial courses because they feel it's somehow their job to try and make up for the failings of public education.

mam1959

hoedown - i do have a bit of a quibble. As a former editor of a law review at a school of Stanford's ranking, mentioning that its law journal is not peer reviewed is tautological and meaningless, since virtually none of the major law reviews enjoy that status. You can bet that the incredibly intelligent best of breed law student editors (with their faculty adviser) greatly scrutinized his work before publishing it, especially given the uproar that it would create among the mostly liberal faculty at Stanford and law schools of its type. I know - I have been there. Whatever one thinks of Sander's conclusions, he presents many facts over which there is not much disagreement and also many persuasive arguments which unfortunately reflect the experiences of those that have attended institutions that put far more than a thumb on the scale when it comes to minority admissions. Sander's work is serious, has depth, is still debatable, but not easy to disprove - it is for this reason that the California Bar Association is denying him access to data - they will not like what he will uncover. Affirmative action, if it ever is going to work, should not continue to be done in secret (which has been Michigan's problem, too), and any work that reveals the data at issue should be applauded, even if some do not like the results.

As far as Michigan's use the of the Descriptor database in admission - the challenge is obvious - they cannot use it to provide preferences based on race. What really burdens admissions officers is that socio-economic profiles won't generally help reach African American and Hispanic levels of participation to anywhere near their proportion of the population - socio-economic profiling ends up helping poor white and Asian students the most - and they really know it, otherwise the competitive public institutions would have quickly turned to it long ago to avoid litigation. Michigan is in a tough spot - I don't agree with those that say if they use this program to do indirectly what they cannot do directly they will get away with it - the data will reflect a pattern of race preference if that is what is happening there are way too many plaintiffs around to call them on the carpet. Note that while BAMN will likely get ultimately drop kicked in its 6th Circuit challenge to MCRI it may not happen soon enough - plaintiffs denied admission to Michigan have intervened in the case and the NAACP and the ACLU desperately want them dismissed - because their presence will mean that Michigan will really have to explain once again in detail what they have done the last 10 years in admissions and that will not only be painful, it will make the school very risk adverse in its application of the Descriptor data (so you and I agree about the destructiveness of BAMN), hamstringing them further. (Michigan's posture in the case is curious, claiming they are not the the State and only a university therein, taking no position one way or another).

The best thing Michigan and all of us could do is make an enormous push to improve K-12 education in urban areas - not an easy thing to accomplish.

hoedown

Wow, this feels like reviving an argument from the grave.

On this we'll have to disagree.

My focus should not have been on whether it was peer-reviewed but on the kind of review.

Let's look at this another way. If someone published an article about legal precedence in one of the most rigorous, top journals in my field, it would be valid for a law scholar to say it hadn't been held up to the same scrutiny it would have had it been placed in a law journal or law review. It's not a slam on my field, on the journal, or the intelligence or dedication of the people who review or publish the journal. It's recognition that this is not their area of expertise.

Some of the critiques of Sanders work come from people in a position to question to econometric and/or statistical aspects of Sander's work. This is kind of thing that gets battled over in social science journals dedicated to this kind of study. I don't think this is the usual work of the gifted young legal scholars who publish law reviews.

FWIW, I completely agree with your last sentence. This is where the real work lies. A number of the school and colleges within the University Michigan do some very inspiring outreach, but I think there needs to be more of it, with more coordination, and it needs to be more aggressive.

mam1959

I did want to follow up on the vitality of Sander's work - as unpopular as it may be.

But his work had a significant impact in causing Judge Lawson to summarily dismiss the case brought by BAMN (with friends like BAMN, affirmative action supporters don't need enemies) with the NAACP and ACLU intervening (and desperately trying to get plaintiff Russell out of the suit).

So agree with Sander or not - or dismiss his work as less than credible - he had (and likely will continue to have) a powerful impact as the costs and benefits of preference programs continue to be weighed, both in the courts and outside of them. And if those supporting preferences can't win at the ballot box, and can't even get to trial because of plausible evidence that preference programs don't ultimately help the groups they are designed to help, then the probity of Sander's work begins to stand on its own.

Particularly disturbing was Sander's conclusion (and my guess is that it is fair to represent this as only preliminary), that students with a preference fail the bar (first time presumably) at 8 times the rate of those without preferences. The average Michigan law graduate (an incredibly bright and capable person) can pass any bar in the United States with a mere month of study - some even less - it is a low priority worry for the average grad. And if matriculants come to a school with a low probability of passing the bar, even the most ardent supporter of affirmative action must take a look at the prevailing practices.

I know it sounds like a big picture solution, but we must address the problems in K-12 education above all else. The racial identity play and preferences have historically been useful in forcing people to give opportunity, especially in the 60's and 70's, but their time likely - just in terms of its efficacy - has come and gone.

See the following link.

American Renaissance News: By No Means: Michigan Judge Turns Tables on Advocacy Groups Determined to Derail Civil Rights Initiative

ramennoodles08

"socio-economic profiling ends up helping poor white and Asian students the most - and they really know it, otherwise the competitive public institutions would have quickly turned to it long ago to avoid litigation."

Although that may be true the majority of the time, I am an Asian student, I had a 29 and a 3.8(5 aps) and ended up being extended waitlisted, but two kids at my school, one with a 23 and a 3.75(no aps) and the other with a 24 and 3.9(no aps) both were offered admission and they both had socio-economic advantage i'm assuming, all three of us applied at relatively the same time so asians getting an advantage through socio-economics is not always necessarily true.

A2Wolves6

I'm sorry to hear that ramennoodles08, I shared a similar experience you had (3.7 GPA, 29 ACT, 4 APs) and saw what I had perceived to be (judging by grades, difficulty of courses, extracurriculars, test scores) lesser qualified candidates gain admission who had different racial backgrounds. I know how much waiting it out stinks and hopefully you will find a school that is right for you.

ExarKun

are you guys instate

beprepn

to mam1959: Note that the link also says This seems to imply that the standard rating system is underestimating the abilities of the black students and that some level of racial preferences is justified based on their amazing success at UM.

fabrizio

I don't at all see how you draw your conclusion "...some level of racial preferences is justified..."

The very next sentence in that link says, "In stark contrast, UM undergraduate blacks who received a preference had a graduation rate of 47%."

These sentences certainly do not show that "some level...is justified." Rather, they show the opposite; the best level is NO level.

beprepn

One fact says that the standard metrics underestimate how good the black candidates are. The second fact says that AA has gone too far. The two facts together say (Rolles' theorem) that there is a level of adjusment to the metrics - a little bit of AA - that will increase the black enrollment to the point that their success rate equals that of the general population.

fabrizio

It’s a statistical question as to whether the “standard metrics actually underestimate how good the black candidates are,” and we don’t have the necessary data. (The article does not say what the graduation rate is for “comparable white students.”) However, my hunch is that this underestimation is not statistically significant even at a 1% significance level. If the two groups are indeed comparable in terms of qualifications, there’s no reason to presume that whites are inferior to blacks.

I don’t believe you have properly applied Rolle’s Theorem here. As Wikipedia explains, the plain English meaning of the theorem is “a differentiable function, which attains equal values at two points, must have a stationary point somewhere between them.” You have two points, yes, but their values aren’t equal; one is 93% and the other is 47%.

Perhaps you were thinking about the intermediate value theorem?

fabrizio

While that source states 93% as the figure, another source has different figures from what appears to be the same research from Dr. Sander:

Dr. Sander “determine[d] the level of preference given to applicants [by using] an index that included standardized test scores and grade point averages. A 50-point difference on the verbal SAT…would be considered a moderate preference…A 90-point difference would be considered a large preference.”

I haven’t read the entire paper, but it appears that graduation rates are partially explained by relative SAT scores (i.e. how close your score is to that of your peers.) Again, this is very much a statistical question, and given the experiences of Drs. Sander and Groseclose, I don’t think I’ll be getting access to any of the necessary data to answer this question.

Edit

If the 73/70 figures are true, then I believe that this corroborates my idea that the best level of preference is zero preference.