are colleges racist?

[epiphany]

<p>

epiphany,
I think fab would have been held in contempt of court by now, for repeatedly not answering the question.

</p>

<p>Yeah, I thought of that right after I posted. You beat me to it. :D</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>johnwesley, have you made up your mind yet? Am I a practitioner of ugly wedge politics and therefore a racist? Or am I an advocate of treatment without regard to racial classification and therefore an anti-racist?</p>

<p>

Someone call the Fire dept, I’ve found another straw man. That isn’t what Pizzagirl said, and it isn’t even remotely what she meant.

</p>

<p>Here is what Pizzagirl said: I also have to say, you’re in a southern state and I’ve got to believe the experience of an Asian-American in a rural southern area is not like the experience in the north or in larger cities (regardless of whether such cities have high Asian pop or not).</p>

<p>Why don’t you tell me why my remark “isn’t even remotely what she meant”? What do you think she meant?</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>

Yeah, I thought of that right after I posted. You beat me to it.

</p>

<p>Hey there epiphany! Last night you wrote “I will tell you one thing that the private elites are looking for : non-narrow people.”</p>

<p>Could you please explain, then, why there are no books in the reading list of the Harvard Summer Institute on College Admissions that that oppose racial preferences? How is that possibly “non-narrow” with respect to diversity of thought on racial preferences?</p>

[xiggi]

<p>

I think actually the opposite is true-that un-hooked whites are clearly the most discriminated against.

</p>

<p>Now, we are getting somewhere.</p>

[limabeans01]

<p>

It’s funny how the historical aspects of ‘holistic’ admission gets brought up in the context of racism and college admissions, implying that a ‘stats only’ type of admission would avoid that kind of bias. And yet we forget about the early history of IQ testing.

</p>

<p>I’m with you skrlvr. Are we confident that the SAT/ACT is a completely unbiased measure of intelligence, or might they themselves be racist or at least culturally biased? </p>

<p>Those of you who are pushing for admission strictly by the numbers, do you have data that shows that SAT/ACT scores are highly correlated with college performance when student scores are so close to each other? Do you have data that shows students who score 2300/34 ultimately do better in college and have higher gpa’s than students who score 2100/32? That Asian’s/White’s with a 2350 do better than a URM with a 2100?</p>

<p>

A study of 10,000 students at 11 selective public and private institutions of higher education found that a 100-point increase in SAT combined scores, holding race, gender, and field of study constant, led to a one-tenth of a grade point gain for college GPA (Vars, F. & Bowen, W. in The Black-White Test Score Gap, 1998).

</p>

<p>This study seems to show, at least at the elite colleges it does not</p>

<p>

The poor predictive ability of the SAT I becomes particularly apparent when considering the college performance of females. Longstanding gaps in scores between males and females of all races show that females on average score 35-40 points lower than males on the SAT I, but receive better high school and college grades. In other words, the test consistently under-predicts the performance of females in college while over-predicting that of males

</p>

<p>May be why some feel it is a disadvantage to be a male. They mistakenly think that males are held to a higher standard when in fact the test does not fairly represent the abilities of females.</p>

<p>

One study at the University of Miami compared Hispanic and non-Hispanic White students. Though both groups earned equivalent college grades, the Hispanic students received on average combined SAT I scores that were 91 points lower than their non-Hispanic White peers. This gap existed despite the fact that 89% of the Hispanic students reported English as their best language.

</p>

<p>How can this be?</p>

<p>

Extensive research compiled by Derek Bok and William Bowen in The Shape of the River highlights the SAT I’s questionable predictive power for African-American students. The ability of SAT I scores to predict freshman grades, undergraduate class rank, college graduation rates, and attainment of a graduate degree is weaker for African-American students than for Whites. Such discrepancies call into question the usefulness of using the SAT I to assess African-American students’ potential.

</p>

<p>But how will we level the playing field? One test is not a fair way to test the abilities of students from such diverse backgrounds. Those who feel it is, IMO have little knowledge and experience with cultures beyond their own. In order to admit the best students across the board, adcoms must look beyond standardized test scores.</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>

Those of you who are pushing for admission strictly by the numbers, do you have data that shows that SAT/ACT scores are highly correlated with college performance when student scores are so close to each other?

</p>

<p>Who are these people in this thread? Can you name even one?</p>

<p>

In order to admit the best students across the board, adcoms must look beyond standardized test scores.

</p>

<p>Find me a single post on this thread by anyone advocating the international system of admissions.</p>

[johnwesley]

<p>

johnwesley, have you made up your mind yet? Am I a practitioner of ugly wedge politics and therefore a racist? Or am I an advocate of treatment without regard to racial classification and therefore an anti-racist?

</p>

<p>Okay, by now your <em>modus operandi</em> is pretty familiar: create a lot of smoke and side issues around things no one has said, that weren’t directed at you, all calculated either to bait posters into making an <em>ad hominem</em> attack on you or keeping this thread alive well after it’s been beat. Sorry, but, I’m not rising to the occasion.</p>

<p>

Quote:
“Someone call the Fire dept, I’ve found another straw man. That isn’t what Pizzagirl said, and it isn’t even remotely what she meant.” </p>

<p>Here is what Pizzagirl said: “I also have to say, you’re in a southern state and I’ve got to believe the experience of an Asian-American in a rural southern area is not like the experience in the north or in larger cities (regardless of whether such cities have high Asian pop or not).”</p>

<p>Why don’t you tell me why my remark “isn’t even remotely what she meant”? What do you think she meant?

</p>

<p>I think she was actually trying to sympathize with you. The part you snipped out was any entire multi-post colloquy having to do with why you changed your name to make it sound less Asian. I guess no good deed goes unpunished on any thread involving affirmative action. :/</p>

[texaspg]

<p>Xiggi - Are you asking why the results are different between UT and TAMU?</p>

<p>UT is considered higher ranked in most areas compared to A&M. TAMU is also a college campus with a very loyal alumni but it is considered very conservative. UT is located in Austin, a very liberal city, lots of entertainment, lots to do outside of school and has a lot of special programs that are elitist.</p>

<p>As you know, us Asians are trophy hunters and naturally we want our kids in Plan II or honors or whatever is considered to be superior to everything else!</p>

<p>There is also a CAP program that allows people to attend UT San Antonio with the intention of moving to UT Austin. There should be a lot of Asians there too.</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>

Okay, by now your <em>modus operandi</em> is pretty familiar: create a lot of smoke and side issues around things no one has said, that weren’t directed at you, all calculated either to bait posters into making an <em>ad hominem</em> attack on you or keeping this thread alive well after it’s been beat. Sorry, but, I’m not rising to the occasion.

</p>

<p>I don’t “bait” to get ad hominem attacks directed to me. It’s not my intention to deliberately make anyone “look bad,” thank you very much.</p>

<p>And you’re not off the hook so easily. You obliquely accused me of playing ugly identity wedge politics. Either back it up or take it back.</p>

<p>

I think she was actually trying to sympathize with you.

</p>

<p>I didn’t read it that way, but it’s possible. Thanks for answering my question.</p>

[epiphany]

<p>

I know this is OT. But I guess it would be interesting to see what % of populations of Va/Md/DC and TX are “Asian.”

</p>

<p>Don’t know about that. Perhaps someone has posted that already. However, for CA, the last Dept of Ed stats were listed by high school enrollment as a composite, and separately for ethnic school enrollment (K-12) throughout the state as a composite, IIRC, and those numbers were for 09-10.</p>

<p>~487,000 high school students (all subgroups) total
~8.5% Asian student enrollment, K-12, total</p>

<p>

TX and FL and CA would sem to have very large Hispanic populations, as well.
How do Hispanics show up at the top publics of all these states? At Stanford and UC’s?

</p>

<p>Hispanics are doing better than blacks for UC admission. (Last year at Berkeley it was 12% vs. 4%. UCSD was 10% Mexican-American, 3% other Latino, 2% African-A. UCLA was 15% vs. 1%.) </p>

<p>

Are URM’s going into STEM fields in CA?

</p>

<p>Not often. Some privates, like Harvey Mudd, make an effort to notice high-performing URM’s headed toward engineering, and admit them – obviously when qualified, especially when the teacher rec supports the intellectual curiosity & motivation of such a student.</p>

[epiphany]

<p>

Those of you who are pushing for admission strictly by the numbers, do you have data that shows that SAT/ACT scores are highly correlated with college performance when student scores are so close to each other? Do you have data that shows students who score 2300/34 ultimately do better in college and have higher gpa’s than students who score 2100/32? That Asian’s/White’s with a 2350 do better than a URM with a 2100?

</p>

<p>Data long ago was posted on CC. Too busy and too lazy at the moment to search for it. :p</p>

<p>The data is that high scores correlate to high performance the first year of college, less the 2nd year, and level off completely for upper-division, IIRC.</p>

[xiggi]

<p>

Xiggi - Are you asking why the results are different between UT and TAMU?</p>

<p>UT is considered higher ranked in most areas compared to A&M. TAMU is also a college campus with a very loyal alumni but it is considered very conservative. UT is located in Austin, a very liberal city, lots of entertainment, lots to do outside of school and has a lot of special programs that are elitist.</p>

<p>As you know, us Asians are trophy hunters and naturally we want our kids in Plan II or honors or whatever is considered to be superior to everything else!</p>

<p>There is also a CAP program that allows people to attend UT San Antonio with the intention of moving to UT Austin. There should be a lot of Asians there too.

</p>

<p>Texaspg, I did not ask why the results were different for UT and TAMU. As someone who did spend all his K-12 years in Texas, and applied to both UT and TAMU, I believe to know the answer to my rhetorical question. Living in California for the past few years did not make me forget the Texas environment! :)</p>

[texaspg]

<p>Xiggi - I did nt realize you are from Texas. Are you at Stanford?</p>

[Lemaitre1]

<p>The following link posted several pages back by Shrinkrap contains some very interesting data in its appendix on a breakdown by state of the Black-White Achievement gap. However, it indicates how different achievement levels can be just on the basis of the state one grows up in.</p>

<p>NAEP - Achievement Gaps</p>

<p>For White students,the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had by far the highest average score in Mathematics in the nation and was tied for first with New Jersey for Reading. For those not familiar with the Bay State, the White population of Massachusetts is overwhelmingly made up of individuals of Irish, Italian and Portugese descent. While not necessarily considered particularly poor academic achievers, these are not the ethnic groups most people associate with the most exceptional academic achievers among Whites. One possible explanation is that Massachusetts is one of the most Catholic states in the country and a large percentage of Massachusetts’ White population may attend Catholic schools which are often said to be more rigorous, set higher standards and have higher expectations for achievement than the public schools.</p>

<p>Another interesting statistic was that the while the average Math score for Whites was higher than the average score for Blacks in all states individually, Oregon Black students had higher average Math scores than the average scores for White students in West Virginia.</p>

[sewhappy]

<p>I really don’t think it’s that useful to try to gauge the effectiveness of the SAT in predicting “success” by looking at college gpa. The problem with doing that is that difficulty of courses varies considerably by concentration – and oftentimes the more academically gifted kid will choose the more rigorous concentration where gpa is lower in general. There is also, obviously, variability between colleges in difficult of achieving a high gpa. Very bright kids who score extremely well on the SAT may very well go to more rigorous colleges and choose more difficult majors. I’m not saying this happens all the time. But I just don’t really think gpa is the way to gauge effectiveness of whether or not the SAT predicts success.</p>

<p>A 2.8 in engineering at Harvey Mudd would trump a 4.0 in elementary education at most public U’s, for example.</p>

[woeishe]

<p>^ Not when one applies to Law School and Med School.</p>

[sewhappy]

<p>

If I remember correctly, sewhappy’s S was from an underrepresented state. I don’t recall which one.

</p>

<p>Nope. Large metropolitan area. Not the Northeast but not the Hinterlands, either.</p>

[sewhappy]

<p>

^ Not when one applies to Law School and Med School, especially not Law School.

</p>

<p>lol - I don’t think the 2.8 from Harvey Mudd would tend to care about Law or Medical school.</p>

[limabeans01]

<p>

and oftentimes the more academically gifted kid will choose the more rigorous concentration where gpa is lower in general.

</p>

<p>the study said that field of study was held constant.</p>

<p>

But I just don’t really think gpa is the way to gauge effectiveness of whether or not the SAT predicts success.

</p>

<p>I think the elite colleges agree with you and that is why they use a holistic admissions policy. The SAT really just shows achievement on that particular test. If the scores are very diverse among a student body, then it can be used to predict gpa (albeit not very well). If the scores are close (say between 2100-2400) it doesn’t reveal much. I think we all agree that the SAT scores at the elite colleges tend to be quite clustered.</p>

<p>

Find me a single post on this thread by anyone advocating the international system of admissions.

</p>

<p>So what kind of system are you advocating if the current one is (IYO) racist against Asian’s?</p>

[limabeans01]

<p>

lol - I don’t think the 2.8 from Harvey Mudd would tend to care about Law or Medical school.

</p>

<p>I personally will be majoring in chemical engineering and I am very interested in attending medical school. Is it the 2.8 that makes you think the student would not be interested or the fact that they went to Harvey Mudd?</p>