Advantage to be a URM?

MITChris
Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:51:41 +0000

@snipersas -



Quantification of the URM bonus allows for an apples-to-apples comparison between previous decisions and between ethnic groups, which is helpful.



What I am trying to say is that there is not a URM bonus to be quantified. You are probably thinking of some schools with a more formalized admissions process, where admissions have say a 100 point scale and “being URM” adds X points. That is now how our admissions works.



The question comes when choosing among qualified candidates, who will you pick, and what is the relative probability of any given decision?



And this isn’t predictably quantifiable, because that’s not how our process works. It would be reversing the flow of time, misidentifying effect for cause.

Suppose, for example, that our normal admit rate is 10%, but if you’re (to deracinate the question) an IMO medalist the admit rate is 50% (a number I just made up now). That doesn’t mean that any given individual who has won an IMO medal has an admit rate of 50%. It means that at the end of the process we will have admitted 50% of those with IMO medals.

Trying to give a relative probability for any given decision ahead of time is rather like saying “well, it rains 1/3rd of the total days in 2010, so if I pick a random individual day in 2013 there is a 1/3rd chance of it raining.” That isn’t true though. Whether or not it rains on that day depends much more on the weather conditions, historical patterns for that month, glacial melting patterns, climate change.

Does that make sense? What I am trying to get across is the idea that these sorts of statistics reflect, but do not determine, our process.