<p>“I can’t see why anyone would be willing to make a claim for SAT scores that the CollegeBoard doesn’t make for itself. (after all, they make money off it.)”</p>
<p>Lawsuites?</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking about the whole push-up thing. For decades women were told they had to do push-ups on their knees because they couldn’t do the “regular” kind. So most didn’t even try to do the “regular” kind. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Somewhere along the line someone decided that was a bunch of hogwash, and these days lots of women (like Mathmom) can do “men’s” pushups. I was at an event this past weekend where my 2 daughters did a lot more push-ups than some guys in their classes did. Part of it is that I’m constantly telling them to do push-ups (during every commercial break while they are watching TV, for example).</p>
<p>I can’t help thinking of the SAT parallel. I live in a predominantly Indian neighborhood, and those kids are usually required to do a bunch of math before they can play. Just as nobody tells my daughters they can’t do “men’s” push-ups, nobody tells these Indian kids that they can’t be great at math–some even take the SAT in middle school. But the black kids–they’re continually told they can’t succeed on their own, and that there are programs in place to magnify their test scores.</p>
<p>What, I wonder, are the “programs in place” to magnify the test scores of the white admittees (roughly 25%) who score below the 50th percentile?</p>
<p>ID, in your post #134, the raw numbers would seem to be a lot less revealing than the number of each race accepted with under 1270 divided by the number of each race that applied under 1270(to give you the acceptance RATE for each race below the 1270 combined SAT). Also, how the spread of SAT figures 1270 looked would be important.</p>
<p>Poetsheart, the “magnification” comes in when you look at the % of an ethnic group that is accepted at a certain level. For example, at the Ivy League colleges, the likelihood of an applicant with a 1500 (out of 1600) SAT being accepted would probably close to 100% if he/she was black, 25% if white, and 10% if Asian. It’s probably much easier for a black applicant to get into these schools with a 1500 than for an Asian with 1600…thus a 1500 is magnified to be more impressive than a 1600.</p>
<p>Similarly, for merit scholarships, a black GPA and SAT can be much lower to get the same scholarship. See Stewie’s rant on the U of Michigan board about this.</p>
<p>I still haven’t seen an argument made as to why the SAT scores are relevant, as they don’t predict first-year performance at UMich for African-American or Hispanic students, and they aren’t merit.</p>
<p>I think it’s because people truly think the numeric character of an SAT score (or an IQ score) makes it “real” in some way – that the SAT is measuring something in the brain the same way a measuring cup measures water.</p>
<p>For anyone who harbors notions like that, I’d recommend [The</a> Mismeasure of Man](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Mismeasure-Man-Stephen-Jay-Gould/dp/0393314251/sr=8-1/qid=1163631493/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8956882-8043836?ie=UTF8&s=books]The”>http://www.amazon.com/Mismeasure-Man-Stephen-Jay-Gould/dp/0393314251/sr=8-1/qid=1163631493/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8956882-8043836?ie=UTF8&s=books) by the late great Stephen Jay Gould.</p>
<p>I’ve read The Mismeasure of Man (and everything else Gould has ever written – and that was before I became his student).</p>
<p>His point was never that measures like IQ tests are meaningless, or that they never reflect genuine differences in ability among people. His point was (1) that it is wrong to accept them as gospel, that because 120 is a higher number than 115, 120-scoring person ranks above 115-scoring person, and (2) that there are many different intelligences and skill sets, and no one number can reflect all the important ones. He had a developmentally disabled son, and I think he would agree that the cognitive differences between a 70-scorer and a 130-scorer, both brought up in the language and culture of the test, are likely to be real.</p>
<p>But here we have a known researchable (and well-researched) measure, and we KNOW that the measure doesn’t succeed in doing what it intends (measuring first-year college performance), let alone “something else” labelled “merit”.</p>
<p>So in this case, they are worth than meaningless, as they reinforce a race-based notion that, as it turns out, isn’t true.</p>
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<p>Even taking your assertions here as true, we KNOW that only for black & Hispanic students at U of California. It’s not the global Holy Writ you present it as.</p>
<p>Furthermore, even within that population, do we know that it is not a predictor when comparing one black student to another (as opposed to comparing across races)?</p>
<p>I think that most psychometricians would look at things like IQ data as it pertains to populations or to a change over time. Very few would make a lot of assumptions based on one data point. Gould’s point was probably that there isn’t a great deal of difference in how someone with a 115 IQ score would behave vs someone with a score of 120. But if you were to take an entire population with a mean score of 115 you might see differences between them and a population with a mean score of 120.</p>
<p>With regard to the SAT, I think it has problems as a predictor of performance, especially since some kids receive preparation and some don’t. It may have had more predictive value when it was more of an aptitude test, and when the majority of students took it without preparation. But I don’t know what else colleges would use. GPA’s have too many variations, and class content varies too much from school to school. The SAT may not be perfect – in fact, it may not even be very good at all – but it is at least an objective measure. It beats the old system of hereditary admissions.</p>
<p>“Poetsheart, the “magnification” comes in when you look at the % of an ethnic group that is accepted at a certain level. For example, at the Ivy League colleges, the likelihood of an applicant with a 1500 (out of 1600) SAT being accepted would probably close to 100% if he/she was black, 25% if white, and 10% if Asian. It’s probably much easier for a black applicant to get into these schools with a 1500 than for an Asian with 1600…thus a 1500 is magnified to be more impressive than a 1600.”</p>
<p>Of course they are far more likely to accept the black applicant with the 1500. Elite schools consider diversity, of every sort, including racial and cultural diversity (like it or not), of great value to the overall enrichment of a college’s campus environment. Relative to gross numbers, they receive few applications from URMs, so the the applications from well qualified ones are highly coveted. Think of it this way: If you already own a number of high quality and flawless white diamonds, and were presented with the opportunity to buy one of two more, a flawless white diamond (of which as I’ve already indicated, you already have several), or a flawless yellow one, which would you be more inclined to choose?</p>
<p>But it seems to me that, when it comes to the admission of black students to elite schools, they are damned if they are excellent scholars, and damned if they are only as good as the school’s middle 50-75%, and damned if they are admitted from the 25% percentile (though there’s no problem with the white kids admitted from this end of the spectrum). They are just damned, their worth denigrated. Same sh%t, different century.</p>
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<p>Not universally. I had the pleasure, last year, to take my daughter and her roommate to dinner. Somehow, they got talking about a course they had just taken together and entertained me with their impersonations of students in the class, the professor, etc. They stopped in their tracks when talking about one girl, saying that she was the most brilliant girl in the school and they were in awe every time she spoke during classroom discussion. Mind you, this is at a school with a lot of seriously smart kids who like to discuss things. I asked who she was and they said, “oh…an African American girl from [wherever, it doesn’t matter]”.</p>
<p>Does this brilliant girl have the highest SAT scores at Swarthmore? Probably not, unless she scored 1600. Who cares? Nobody sits around the classroom discussing SAT grammar questions OR comparing SAT scores.</p>
<p>The thing people keep overlooking is that these schools need all types of students. They need geeky physics nerds who debate the professor about special relativity. They need well-spoken students with an intuitive grasp of social science issues. They need pre-meds who are born for organic chemistry. They need students who enjoy Philosophy and Interpretation Theory. They need some lacrosse players. They need some members of the Jewish acappella group and the gospel choir group and the Balinese orchestra and the lacrosse team. They need a bluegrass fiddler for the line dancing club. They need some political zealots.</p>
<p>“The thing people keep overlooking is that these schools need all types of students. They need geeky physics nerds who debate the professor about special relativity. They need well-spoken students with an intuitive grasp of social science issues. They need pre-meds who are born for organic chemistry. They need students who enjoy Philosophy and Interpretation Theory. They need some lacrosse players. They need some members of the Jewish acappella group and the gospel choir group and the Balinese orchestra and the lacrosse team. They need a bluegrass fiddler for the line dancing club. They need some political zealots.”</p>
<p>Don’t you think “need” is a little strong for these types of things? I think the sun would rise over Swarthmore even is they didn’t have a bluegrass fiddler. (Also, they don’t need a Redcoat or a Minuteman to study the Revolutionary war.) The bluegrass fiddler and lacrosse player have SKILLS. Private colleges can obviously do whatever they want, but as a society we seem to be nearing a point where we will be deciding state by state whether ethnicity and gender should be treated like skills (e.g., “we need a bassoon player, a shortstop, and a Cambodian”), or if ethnicity and gender are EXACTLY the types of things that placing value on have brought us Nazis and slavery and women not voting.</p>
<p>“Even taking your assertions here as true, we KNOW that only for black & Hispanic students at U of California. It’s not the global Holy Writ you present it as.”</p>
<p>It’s only the largest sample, over the longest period of time, studied anywhere in the country. Ever. It’s not Holy Writ - but it threatened to cost the CollegeBoard hundreds of millions (and that’s about as close to Holy Writ as you can get.)</p>
<p>You don’t get it, do you, Tourguide. Either that, or you don’t want to. The elite schools do indeed NEED all those things, ID listed—if they want a vibrant, multifaceted, competitive, and intellectually stimulating environment. What they don’t need is a campus full of grade grubers, all desiring a career in medicine or engineering, who spend all their waking hours in class or the library, who value their Ivy education only in terms of the bragging rights it offers them or their parents, or as the starting point to a lucrative lifestyle. Now before you accuse me of suggesting that this is all Asian applicants are looking to accomplish, let make it perfectly clear right now that THAT IS NOT WHAT I’M SAYING! What I am saying is that the elite schools have said time and time again that they could fill each class 3 times over with applicants who boast perfect, or near perfect stats. But stats are not the only thing they’re looking for in an applicant. After an applicant has met a certain academic and testing threshold, indicating that they are well within the ability to handle coursework at the elite level, they begin to look to fullfil their wishlist. Which brings us back to the hypothetical one posted by ID. just from a practical standpoint, it would be institutional suicide for schools to ignore the academic discipline prospective students say they are likely to pursue. They do indeed NEED some for the humanities, some for the social sciences, some for the hard sciences, and they need to make these decisions with the view toward keeping each department in their institution vital and competitive.</p>
<p>“The bluegrass fiddler and lacrosse player have SKILLS.”</p>
<p>And here, is where the rubber meets the road in this argument. The assumption you seem to so comfortable is resting on is that URM applicants bring nothing to the table other than their race or ethnicity, as if there is nothing to be valued in that. Well, the applicant from Wyoming who is chosen over yet another one from Westchester Country, New York may bring nothing to the table above the uniqueness of his geographic origins. But that may serve as the tipping point in the decision for that particular applicant during that particular application cycle. The educated assumption is that the kid from Big Sky Country most likely brings a social and political perspective to campus which differs from that of his Westchester County peers (of which they have probably already admitted several) . The juxtaposition of these perspectives in a classroom (or even a casual setting) might serve to enlighten both parties. I don’t know about you, but I’ve yet to read any objection to geographic diversity being used as a tipping factor in admission decisions on these boards. Last I checked, being born in Wyoming is an accident of birth, and requires no skills whatsoever. But that does not mean it has no value in an elite academic environment. Do you disagree with this assertion?</p>
<p>What I find offensive this the assumption that URMs bring nothing to the table other than their race or ethnicity. The white race is not intrinsicly “better” than the black race, I’m sure you’d rush to claim (at least publicly). But it has been assumed to be inherently superior, and treated as such in this country since the 1600’s. Ergo, the assumption that black applicants have nothing significant to contribute to a campus environment, that they are academically insufficient, that their viewpoints are insignificant. They are BLACK in big, bold, ugly monlithic letters (along with all that that has historically meant—and to an unacceptable degree, still means, in America), not complete individuals to be valued for ALL they they might contribute. That is why people so often claim that they have no value in college admissions, other than that woeful outer covering in the hands of dastardly "PC’ social engineers.</p>
<p>Poet, I think you are the one that isn’t getting the picture. You want oboe players, fine. You want fullbacks, fine. You want psych and philosophy majors, fine. That all makes sense.</p>
<p>Where we differ is when you throw in ethnicity into the picture. A few points:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Do you think that if you toss out ethnicity as a major factor, blacks and Hispanics will disappear from the campuses? If you think they can’t compete, fix THAT problem…don’t treat them like commodities to be counted, weighed, and traded. Don’t insult them by telling them they only need a 1400 while Asians and whites need 1550s. If you tell them they only need a 1400, why should they strive for a 1550?</p></li>
<li><p>If you work for a system in which ethnicity can help you, then you also leave the door open for it to be used against you. Better to close the door completely.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m sure URMs bring something to the table besides their ethnicity; so does everybody else. I’m saying if a state’s voters say get rid of ethnicity and base decisions on the stuff that they bring to the table BESIDES their ethnicity, it is a step in the right direction. I can’t believe that it doesn’t turn your stomach that here in 2006, in an admissions office, someone who claims to be enlightened might be saying “we need a bassoon player, a shortstop, and a Cambodian.”</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Tour guide, is there anything you said about minorities which doesn’t apply to Poetsheart’s hypothetical Wyomingan? If so, what? If not, what does that mean about your argument?</p>
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<p>To a large degree, at many campuses, they will indeed disappear, at least until under-the-table replacement affirmative action comes back (as it has at state schools in Texas).</p>
<p>We’ve been trying to fix the problem of minority underachievement for about 140 years now, and while tremendous progress has been made, there’s absolutely nothing America can do at this point that will fix the problem for the class of 2012. Either it is acceptable or unacceptable to have a class of 2012 at (for example) Duke that’s 1% black. If it is unacceptable, then you have to find a way to create access to Duke for black students right now and during the next 25(or 50, or 100) years it takes to close the racial achievement gap altogether.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you think it’s no big deal if Duke (and Penn, and Dartmouth, etc. etc.) are 1% black, then that’s where the fundamental disagreement lies.</p>
<p>Hanna,</p>
<p>Then what’s the ‘acceptable’ percentage of Black (and Asian, Native American, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, White, etc,) at Duke in your opinion? What formula would you apply to determine the ethnic breakdown of that particular college despite any other factor? Would it match the ethnicity demographics of the general population of the USA or the state? Would it be related instead to the demographics of races that meet some particular academic level and if so, what would it be?</p>
<p>Would you simply reach further and further down the stack to make sure you met the pre-determined ‘number’ of the particular race? When qualified students of a particular race choose to go to another institution instead do you throw more money at them to buy them into this particular one?</p>
<p>Since there are already people of these ethnicities attending that institution then ‘access’ isn’t the issue. When you say to ‘create access’ do you really mean to manipulate the admits based on race to achieve a pre-determined target?</p>
<p>Kluge, I think basing a decision based on somebody being from Wyoming is just as absurd as basing it on race. Here are a few factors I use in coming to that conclusion:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If you do a little research, you’ll find that the concepts of valuing the “whole well-rounded person” and “geographic diversity” were created by Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in the early 20th Century as a means of keeping the % of Jewish students low. When they admitted applicants based on academics, the newly emigrated Jews were garnering an uncomfortably high % in those elite schools, and they all of a sudden decided that academic merit wasn’t the whole story. All of a sudden it was important to have people who were from Minnesota and Virginia, guys who had been captain of the croquet team, etc. So let’s quit acting like geographic diversity, leadership, and other such categories were brought down from Heaven by a bolt of rational lightning–they were back-room strategies cooked up by anti-Semitic WASPs.</p></li>
<li><p>If you still want to use these factors, fine. Look at Major League Baseball. No affirmitive action, no quotas, no nothin’. It doesn’t matter if they are from Beverly Hills and grew up with the best facilities and coaching, or if they are from the worst slum in the Dominican Republic. It doesn’t matter if they are from the South side of Chicago or the South side of Tokyo.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>They get the best pitchers, based on talent, not race. They get the best outfielders based on talent, not race. They get the best infielders based on talent, not race. And as it turns out, some of the pitchers are black, some Hispanic, some Asian, and some white. Some of the infielders are black, some Hispanic, some Asian, some white. Some of the outfielders are black, some Hispanic, some Asian, some white. Are they in exact proportion to the % of each group in the general population? No. Is that because there is an evil plot? No. Even if a kid is from an underrepresented group, can he be certain he will be judged on his talent? Yes. Equal opportunity? Yes. Guarantee of equal results? No.</p>
<h2>And I think the same thing can apply to college. If you completely eliminate race, and just go for the shortstop, the bassoon player, the philosophy major, the bookworm, and the whatever, I think you’ll end up with a mix of ethnic groups (and geographic diversity)…but it won’t be BASED on their ethnicity (or their state of origin). That’s what was so weird about Poet claiming I was saying the URMs brought nothing to the table other than their ethnicity. I was saying the exact opposite–that if you base the decision on non-ethnic factors, you’ll still end up with a diverse group exactly BECAUSE URMs have other things going for them. It’s Poet who seems to think they don’t have anything going for them except their ethnicity…so taking their ethnicity into account is the only way they will get accepted.</h2>
<p>P.S., to flesh out point #3 of my previous post, I offer up the example of the Hispanic actors complaining a couple decades ago that too many Hispanic characters in movies were being played by non-Hispanic actors. Italian-American Al Pacino as a Cuban in “Scarface,” for example. So they complained about it, and saw it as a great victory when a lot of Hispanic roles started going to Hispanic actors.</p>
<p>But they didn’t seem to see how dangerous their position was. If it’s good for Hispanic characters to be played by Hispanics, then it must also be good for white characters to be played by white actors. Which means Cuban-American Andy Garcia shouldn’t be playing an Italian-American in “Godfather III,” and Hispanic Anthony Quinn shouldn’t have played a Greek in “Zorba,” etc. In other words, if you live by ethnicity, you might also die by ethnicity. Better to work towards getting it off the table as much as possible.</p>