<p>I’m writing a paper about Affirmative Action and I want to know if there is any data or evidence that minorities perform worse than their white and asian counterparts. Don’t want a flame war or anything but if any one has what I requested it would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Er, I don’t have any stats or anything, but…</p>
<p>do***</p>
<p>This paper examines first year performance only but it might be a good start:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sociology.ohio-state.edu/cub/spenner_buchmann_landermann1.pdf[/url]”>http://www.sociology.ohio-state.edu/cub/spenner_buchmann_landermann1.pdf</a></p>
<p>You could try and google for Pre-1996 / Prop. 209 data on graduation rates in the UC system.</p>
<p>
What does this mean??</p>
<p>Tony Jack is graduating with honors from Amherst</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/education/27grad.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/education/27grad.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1</a></p>
<p>Actually there is plenty of research that states the contrary. From JBHE:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<ol>
<li><p>What are the most popular majors chosen by Black students at these universities and colleges? Are many choosing engineering, math, and science majors? Or, are many choosing subjects that are less demanding, such as “interdisciplinary” or “ethnic / gender” studies? </p></li>
<li><p>In response to the highlighted sentence:</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Why did the graduation rates of Black students increase so significantly after Proposition 209 was passed? Why did the number of Black honor graduates double at UCSD following 1996?</p>
<p>The numbers by themselves are incomplete. To tell the complete picture, the breakdown of majors by race should be given.</p>
<p>but if they’re graduating with a 2.0 …</p>
<p>i don’t think that makes a difference. And the number of black honor graduates doubled at UCSD because their were less competitive blacks at UCB and UCLA. Obviously this research shows that african americans perform just as well in universities that practice AA.</p>
<p>And all students have the right to choose w/e major interests them, though i think most african americans choose economics, biology, or something that has to do with social issues. Just accept it Fabrizio that that assertion is invalid and illogical.</p>
<p>And if they graduate with a diploma at a high rate:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Do you really think they all just graduate with a 2.0</p></li>
<li><p>If you aren’t going directly to grad school, your college gpa isn’t really important</p></li>
<li><p>It shows that AA isn’t admitting students that aren’t prepared to handle the work load anymore than non minority students.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Tyler,</p>
<p>Although you might not realize it, you’ve confirmed the “assertion made by many conservatives” that these students made the right decision by “[seeking] admissions at less academically rigorous schools.” They graduated with honors at a top research university, which isn’t easy since as far as I know, no UC campus has a loose grading policy.</p>
<p>Also, why did the graduation rates of Black students increase at so many UC campuses?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Accept what? What point have you made other than students have the freedom to choose whatever interests them, which I already knew?</p>
<p>Also, what did I assert? I posed questions. There’s a difference.</p>
<p>Dr. Sowell has shown that the so-called “under-represented” groups tend to choose the fields of economics that are the least quantitative in nature (read: easier.) So, if “over-represented” groups pick the harder subfields and “under-represented” groups pick the easier ones, are you making the latter group better off?</p>
<p>Your last point, It shows that AA isn’t admitting students that aren’t prepared to handle the work load anymore than non minority students, goes back to the questions I posed earlier.</p>
<p>What is this “work load” you speak of? Unless all students take the same classes, everyone will have a different work load. Some will have harder ones.</p>
<p>pagEL60, as you can see, one statistic has two viewpoints.</p>
<p>Black honor graduates at UCSD doubled after 1996.</p>
<p>I see this as evidence supporting the mismatch hypothesis.</p>
<p>Tyler sees this as evidence that race-blind admissions “keeps students out” of “better schools” that they “would have been accepted to,” ignoring that the students graduated with honors.</p>
<p>if a student graduates with honors at a lower school, it just goes to show that they were overqualified for that school.</p>
<p>and since it is the STUDENTS that choose their majors, you can’t use that as evidence that they are any less qualified becuz u have no evidence that they could not have succeeded at other majors.</p>
<p>The graduation rates rose because there were less african americans in the more rigorous parts of the school system, not because race blind admissions helped anyone.</p>
<p>It was illogical to say that race-blind admissions helped black people in less than a generation. Especially when it did just the opposite. African Americans lost a lot of the prestige and networking that comes with a UCB and UCLA education and the students at those campus lost the opportunity to be exposed to African Americans that break the media stereotype. Everyone lost, and that’s why the UC system and students want to go back to the pre-prop 209 era.</p>
<p>
</p>
<ol>
<li>What are the most popular majors chosen by Non-Black students at these universities and colleges? Are many choosing engineering, math, and science majors? Or, are many choosing subjects that are less demanding, such as “interdisciplinary” or “ethnic / gender” studies? </li>
</ol>
<p>If you look at the section J of the common data set at any school that puts out one, you will see the percentage of degrees conferrred by major. </p>
<p>for example at Cornell which is suppose to be the easiest to get in and the hardest to get out and where the white grad rate is 93% and the black graduation rate is 83%:-</p>
<p>of 3188 freshmen, there were 195 blacks (6.1%) in the freshman class. It is safe to say that not all of them are in the 3 land grant colleges, which are overwhelming filled with NYers.</p>
<p>18% of the degrees were awarded in engineering, 12% in biological sciences and 1% in math. What does this say? that 70% of the students are majaoring in what one poster stated as “less rigerous” majors. Could it be that maybe these people have no interest in engineering, math or science? Nah, that would be too easy because it would actually make some kind of sense. It is also safe to say out of the 31% of the students who got degrees in math, biological science and engineering, that someone was black. </p>
<p>Since most schools overwhelming have more non-black students and very few degrees overall are conferred in math, science and engineering it is very safe to say that there are plenty of non-minorities who are also getting degrees in “less demanding” disciplines.</p>
<p>the popular majors after engineering and biological sciences are : agriculture 12% (yeah this is it, all of the black inner city kids are becoming farmers! NOT), 10% social sciences, 13% buisness and marketing.
<a href=“http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000375.pdf[/url]”>http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000375.pdf</a></p>
<p>If the retention rate is 100% for blacks and there are only 6% in who start out as freshmen and continue, it seems that they are not alone by a long shot if they are picking easier majors.</p>
<p>even on the off chance that the entire 6% of blacks in the class are graduating in the bottom 50% keep in mind that they have plenty of company with the other 44% who are not black. So what’s their reason?</p>
<p>This topic and the hypothesis that blacks at elite universities somehow don’t perform as well, and once that was disproven, take easier majors, is idiotic and offensive as a black student at an Ivy League school.</p>
<p>
At MIT, which is the only school for which I have data, African-American, Hispanic, and Native American students are more likely than the average MIT student to major in engineering. (That is to say, about 65-70% of URM students are engineering majors, while only 50% of MIT students are engineering majors overall.) So yes, URM students at MIT are, in fact, eschewing “less demanding” subjects in favor of engineering, and this trend holds up from year to year; the most popular majors for URM students at MIT are mechanical engineering and electrical engineering and computer science.</p>
<p>All of MIT’s enrollment stats are [url=<a href=“Statistics & Reports | MIT Registrar”>Statistics & Reports | MIT Registrar]here[/url</a>].</p>
<p>Tyler,</p>
<p>You’ve probably never taken a university-level class, so you can be forgiven for thinking that it’s easy to graduate with honors at a top research university.</p>
<p>If graduating with honors at a “lower” school makes them overqualified for that school, wouldn’t that mean that these students would “just” be graduating at schools you assume they’d be “qualified” at? </p>
<p>Nope, I surely don’t have any evidence that said students could not have succeeded at other majors. The data just says that there aren’t many of them in those areas, which are known to be harder.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Tyler, your statement just corroborated the mismatch hypothesis. The graduation rates rose because the students were matched properly at institutions that fit them. They struggled at institutions where their peers were superior to them, but they truly thrived where they found classmates with similar talents and achievements.</p>
<p>It is not illogical to say that race-blind admissions has helped Americans in just over a decade. You have frequently disrespected the Black honor graduates of UCSD by claiming that they graduated from a “lower” school. You do a great disservice to the ever-increasing Black graduates of UC schools by asserting that they were hurt by a system that has led to higher graduation rates.</p>
<p>Your statement, “African Americans lost a lot of the prestige and networking that comes with a UCB and UCLA education and the students at those campus lost the opportunity to be exposed to African Americans that break the media stereotype,” ignores the thousands of Black students enrolled at both campuses today. For someone who has accused me of having a sense of entitlement, you are all too eager to claim that Black students are entitled to spots at Berkeley and UCLA.</p>
<p>Everyone did not lose. Again, you write off the honor graduates of UCSD. You dismiss the larger numbers of Black graduates across the UC system. Needless to say, you’re not being very nice to the Asian students who are currently advancing their educations.</p>
<p>A little researching can lead to you to graduation rates by race at different universities. The disparity in graduation rate is higher at “tougher” universities (Cornell, Michigan, Berkeley, and the sort) and lower at grade inflated universities as you would expect. I haven’t seen any college publish college GPA’s by race although that would be interesting to see.</p>
<p>molliebatmit,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I type corrected in the sense that by my calculations involving undergraduate numbers, about 50% of all minority students, “under-represented” or not, major in engineering. I request your calculation because I was unable to obtain the 65-70% figure.</p>
<p>In 2005-2006, there were 373 “under-represented” engineering students. By contrast, there were 447 “over-represented” engineering students and 925 non-minority engineering students.</p>
<p>There was a total of 758 “under-represented” students, a total of 1,078 “over-represented” students, and a total of 2,230 non-minority students.</p>
<p>So, 373/758 is 49.21%, which is a good number, but it’s noticeably smaller than even the lowest number you provided, 65%. 42.92% of all MIT undergraduates major in engineering, therefore your statement that “under-represented” students major in engineering at a greater percentage than the general student body is true, although our numbers are different.</p>
<p>I checked the data for 1999-2000, and surprisingly, there were fewer minority students in 2005-2006 than 1999-2000.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, while I would like to know how you got 65-70%, I am thankful that you have corrected me. More importantly, for this thread, you’ve offered pagEL60 great data.</p>
<p>sybbie,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s a great and fair question! Let’s take a look at MIT’s data.</p>
<p>In decreasing percentage of minority students enrolled in engineering, the groups go Native American, Hispanic, Black, and Asian.</p>
<p>In decreasing percentage of minority students enrolled in liberal arts, the groups go Native American, Hispanic, Asian, and Black. </p>
<p>In decreasing percentage of minority students enrolled in business, the groups go Asian, Native American, Hispanic, and Black.</p>
<p>In decreasing percentage of minority students enrolled in sciences, the groups go Asian, Black, Hispanic, and Native American.</p>
<p>As evidenced by Tyler’s belief that Californians are worse off after Proposition 209 despite higher graduation rates, everybody draws his own conclusion from statistics. So, make your own, knowing that I emphasized percentage because in terms of numbers, the number of “over-represented” students is greater than the sum of all three “under-represented” groups.</p>
<p><a href=“Statistics & Reports | MIT Registrar”>Statistics & Reports | MIT Registrar;
<p>Fabrizio, at MIT first-year students are undeclared, so to get the proper percentage of students in a school or department, you have to divide by the total number of sophomores, juniors, and seniors, not the total number of students.</p>
<p>So although there are 758 total minority students at MIT, only 583 of them have declared a major, so I only included those 583. So 373 engineering students/583 soph-jr-sr students = 64%. Overall, 56% of MIT is in engineering; 64% of African-American students, 68% of Native American students, 64% of Hispanic students, and 53% of Asian students are in engineering.</p>
<p>If you (or anyone else) is interested, I made an Excel spreadsheet of the data, which I’d be happy to share. Just PM me with your email address.</p>
<p>EDIT: And I should add that I’m sorry I didn’t give the exact numbers in my earlier post; the spreadsheet is on my laptop, and I was on my other computer earlier.</p>
<p>ok fabrizio, by the percentages you just showed, the african american students ARE taking more rigorous classes then other students. So there goes that theory. </p>
<p>And what evidence do you have that african american students admitted at UCB and UCLA (which only have about 200 of them now combined, not thousands) were struggling when they were there? As you said graduating with honors is very difficult, so just because their weren’t black students graduating with honors from those campuses doesn’t mean they were struggling. </p>
<p>And it is impossible to say that their was any positive effects on african americans at UCLA and UCB as a result of prop 209.</p>