<p>This comment won’t provide much, but I do have a teenage memory of being told that the reading score is more important than the math score in college admissions.</p>
<p>A professional tutor whom I know once told me that achievement in reading/English is more indicative of academic capability than achievement in math, but this again, is just an anecdote.</p>
<p>Adding, there is also a quote from an H Adcom, stating that anyone scoring 600 CR is qualified to do the work at H. I noticed that he didn’t say anything about the math score.</p>
<p>IP - you had one hypothetical kid. where did 1000 come from. There are only 80 kids going to RSI each year and only 45 from US. I highly doubt there are a 1000 kids in the entire world that meet your criteria each year but 100 tops in US.</p>
I’ll answer. I still wouldn’t take all of them, because in the other pile I have a brilliant writer, an outstanding Latin scholar, a kid who started a charity that helped thousands of people, and people who are likely to be outstanding in many other fields, all of which I think are important. No matter what the crystal ball says, if I’m Harvard, I believe that humanity needs a lot of different kinds of leaders.</p>
<p>fabrizio, it’s a nice fantasy, but I live in the real world. In the real world, URMs would drop significantly at the top schools if AA were eliminated. But perhaps you’re saying that it would be OK with you if the elites say they’re dropping AA, but just use holistic criteria other than race that magically result in the same number of URMs? That would be fine with me, since it’s the results I care about. If all you really care about is giving lip service to the principle, perhaps we can come out at the same place. That’s pretty much what the Supreme Court did in Grutter anyway.</p>
<p>In fact, here’s the blueprint: “At Harvard we do not consider race in admissions. We do look for cultural diversity in making admissions decisions.”</p>
<p>By the way, if the elites de-emphasized SATs, who would be the loudest complainers about that? Hint: who complained when the UCs proposed eliminating SAT 2s?</p>
<p>Hunt, how is it possible that the number of white kids who scored 800, 750 and above, and 700 and above on CR is <em>exactly</em> the same as the number of white kids in each of those categories in math? Unless I’m reading what you wrote incorrectly, that’s way too much of a coincidence for it to be even possibly true.</p>
<p>Then again, I’m no arithmetic expert either. When I got a 740 in the math SAT back in antediluvian times, I did so entirely by counting on my fingers. All these years later, I’m still shocked that I did that well, given that I came close to flunking math in the 11th grade. (Not paying attention or doing any of the work didn’t help, of course.) Fortunately, it was the last math course I ever took in my life!</p>
<p>I do not know if we would “magically” (<em>cough</em> quota *cough) result in the same number of "URM"s. I am simply disputing that "URM"s would be “shut out” in the absence of racial preferences. The SAT isn’t everything, and if it’s holding back “URM” figures, then why don’t the elites take a LEADERSHIP role and de-emphasize it?</p>
<p>Granted, you’re not as bad as Pizzagirl and epiphany are when it comes to telling Asians that they overemphasize the SAT. I still find it funny, though, that your argument that "URM"s will be “shut out” is based entirely on the SAT.</p>
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<p>One of the few things we agree on in this issue is that Grutter employed a sham argument.</p>
<p>Well, the way I calculated this was to look at what College Board said the percentile was, and multiplying that by the number of test takers. It just happened that for whites, according to College Board, the percentiles were the same at those levels for both math and CR. That is, for whites, 800 was the 99th percentile for both math and CR–which, to my simple mind, means that 1% of testtakers got that score.</p>
<p>It could be that because whites are the overwhelming majority of those who take the test that scaling is what creates that outcome, I guess. xiggi, help!</p>
What’s funny about it? I used a pretty low threshold–700–to make my point. It was available data. Where’s the data that supports your proposition that the decline in URMs wouldn’t be so great? Oh yeah. Nowhere. But are you really proposing that the elites should demphasize scores to the point of taking kids with, say, CR SAT of 600 as long as they have other sterling qualities? That’s pretty interesting.</p>
<p>fabrizio, are you now pretending that there aren’t some baseline scores and grades that even schools using holistic admissions want to see? I find your arguments very peculiar at times.</p>
<p>DonnaL,
I liked your story. You are obviously a very bright person. Your experience shows that achieving a high SAT math score doesn’t necessarily mean that a person is, ever was, or ever will be a stellar math student.</p>
<p>This is the person who accuses others of racism:</p>
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<p>(Because of course: (1) only Asian STEM students are “geniuses,” or (2) All Asian STEM students are “geniuses.” ) Students from other races/origins are mere applicants.</p>
<p>Thank you. (Just confirms the obvious, for those who have been reading.)</p>
<p>Here, you reveal your own bias–that those URMs, White, and non-STEM applicants who are admitted wouldn’t nuture humanity at all, or would nuture humanity less than your hypothetical 1000 Asian STEM geniuses.</p>
<p>Well, it’s a coherent argument to say, sure, Asian kids choose STEM fields at higher rates, and furthermore, STEM fields are more important than others and should take up a larger percentage of classes at Ivies than they do. It can be made without any need to think that there’s racial discrimination going on–the complaint is really that Harvard should be taking more STEM kids, not necessarily more Asian kids per se. That’s a philosphical argument that people can have different views about.</p>
<p>It’s also consistent with my belief that if Harvard took a larger percentage of STEM kids, then its proportion of Asian kids would go up as a result.</p>
<p>Oh, no you don’t. You wrote, But are you really proposing that the elites should demphasize scores to the point of taking kids with, say, CR SAT of 600 as long as they have other sterling qualities? That’s pretty interesting.</p>
<p>That is holistic admissions. Period. And if we trust Bay (post #4181), a CR score of 600 on the SAT is all you need to do the work at Harvard, so there’s your “baseline.”</p>