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<p>… Which means that those who are admitted may have a low yield … which means that the colleges will “overaccept” to compensate for the low yield. Look, if I want to increase my representation of oboe players and my school has a reputation for being less than oboe-friendly, I’ve got to “overaccept” oboe players to get a few to come, no?</p>
<p>“I can only speak for Harvard, but black student yield IS appreciably lower at Harvard than overall yield…if I recall correctly, close to ten points lower. Black admitted students are heavily recruited not only by YPSMC, but by Howard/Spelman/Morehouse as well.”</p>
<p>Black admitted students to Harvard are recruiting heavily by schools of all kinds around the country. Consequently, yes, it’s true that to achieve a diverse student body in which African Americans are reasonably represented, Harvard (and other colleges) have to overaccept black students . The same is true of other URMs and students who are underrepresented.</p>
<p>In addition, many of the URM students with the stats to get into schools like Harvard don’t want to go to those kind of schools and don’t even apply to such schools. I knew, for instance, a black high school student with stellar stats who also had been a National History Fair winner a couple of times. </p>
<p>I tried to get him to apply to Harvard. He courteously declined. He wanted to go to a tier 2 HBCU because he felt that due to his specific history interests, that school would be the best place for him to study. He happily went there on a full ride scholarship and continued his history studies.</p>
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<p>So what that says is … If a school wants to come within spitting distance of having their black population approach the black population of the country as a whole, they may need to overaccept because:
<p>I might also add the geographic distribution of black students in this country factors in as well. It’s not enough to call it a trend, but it struck me that in the “black acceptance rate equal to or lower than total” included UNC, Rice, Vanderbilt, Emory and Wake Forest, all in the south … whereas the “black acceptance rate higher than total” were all either in the northeast or upper midwest (U Chicago / ND), with the only exception being UVA. Most students in this country still apply to schools that are within a short distance of home.</p>
<p>NSM - that’s a very interesting point re the HBCU’s. Are the acceptance rates higher (for those schools in which that is the case) explicitly because they are competing with the HBCU’s for the smartest black kids?</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, the acceptance rates are higher because even schools like HPYS – which most top nonURM students happily would attend if given the chance – are competing with all kinds of schools for top URMs.</p>
<p>Top URMs may choose to go to in-state public because that’s where their significant other is going or they want to be near their family or love their state.</p>
<p>Top URMs may choose a religion-affiliated school or a small LAC or an HBCU because that’s the atmosphere they want. Or they may choose a no name school because that school personally recruited them in a way that touched the student’s heart.</p>
<p>And due to their shortage, top URMs are more likely than are nonURMs to be choosing from among a variety of very top schools.</p>
<p>While nonURM students may have quirky reasons for turning down places like HPYS, top colleges don’t have trouble in general recruiting outstanding nonURM students, so the quirky nonURM students who go elsewhere don’t affect the overall student body.</p>
<p>That’s not the case with URMs. Consequently, colleges have to accept a higher proportion of URM students in order to achieve a racially diverse student body.</p>
<p>The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education usually publishes a yearly article about the numbers of black students who have SAT scores within the range of the very top colleges. Typically those numbers are about a total of 1,000 compared to about 50,000 or more white students with such scores. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that those 1,000 or so black kids include some like my sons who had sky high SATs, but gpas too low to make the cut for places like Ivies, and you’ll realize how small the numbers are of URMs whom the top colleges can choose from.</p>
<p>Like NSM: I recruit for my HYP alma mater in a large urban school district (which I attended although I’m not AA). We work extra hard because we know the tippy top applicants are heavily wooed by many colleges that offer them things that even my HYP college can’t match (crazy scholarships and research ops, big name recognition, etc. – the whole works)</p>
<p>But trust me: these kids would blow your socks off. It’s really a joy to volunteer to try to steer them towards my college. These are great kids just to meet – much less try to get them to apply/matriculate.</p>
<p>All I’ll say is that at my school, there are many cases when less qualified minorities recieve merit aid over more qualified white applicants. Black applicants with my stats were offered full scholarships. My school markets it’s intitiave for inclusion more than it’s desire to have well educated students. My schools really wants racial diversity at the expense of intellectual diversity. Anyone who questions their admissions policy is criticized heavily by the office of inclusion and admissions. I wrote an article criticizing how schools use race in the admissions process, and the office of diversity ran around and formed a special forum of people who all defended race conscious admissions and invited me to be the only opposition speaker. It is sad how my school treats the race issue- you basically are intolerant if you don’t agree with how admissions uses race in admissions and financial aid. The way my school acts is exactly why people make comments like “o would have gotten into x school of I were (fill in minority race).” </p>
<p>In case it’s not obvious, I disagree with race conscious admissions/hiring. I support race blind, merit based processes. I don’t think being x race makes you any differnt than y race, and crafting diversity based on race is the school saying being x race makes your different. </p>
<p>I would like to see the numbers of average test scores/gpas of admitted students based on race. In my opinion, letting any student in who is not academically qualified only Hurts them because they will struggle more to pass than more qualified students, and will lose their merit aid.</p>
<p>“All I’ll say is that at my school, there are many cases when less qualified minorities recieve merit aid over more qualified white applicants.”</p>
<p>It’s a myth that merit aid is given to students who are the most academically qualified. The truth is that colleges use merit aid to get students whom the college most wishes to attract. </p>
<p>Consequently, at LACs --most of which have a difficult time attracting males of all races – males have better chances of getting merit aid than do females.</p>
<p>At most engineering schools, females have a better chance of getting merit aid because they are in short supply.</p>
<p>Merit aid for nursing and education disproportionately goes to males because they are hard to recruit.</p>
<p>At private schools trying to increase their numbers of out of state students, merit aid my disproportionately go to OOS students.</p>
<p>And, yes, URMs have better chances for getting merit aid at most schools. Those colleges know that URMs who qualify for their admission are highly sought after by many schools.</p>
<p>There are, however, some schools that automatically give merit aid to applicants with certain stats. URMs don’t have an advantage at such colleges.</p>
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<p>Here is some interesting evidence for college admissions believing this claim.</p>
<p>[Mere</a> 30-point bump on SAT can pay off big in admissions - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-05-20-SAT-prep_N.htm]Mere”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-05-20-SAT-prep_N.htm)</p>
<p>“Yet in the new study, 20% to 40% of officials at 130 colleges that consider the SAT in admissions said a 20-point math increase or a 10-point reading increase would “significantly improve a student’s chances of admissions” if all other factors in a student’s application were the same.”</p>
<p>Yes, 20%- 40%. Which means 60%-80% don’t. And which colleges are these, anyway? There’s a huge difference between what the top colleges and others are looking for.</p>
<p>tiff, you’re at Case Western per your sig. We visited it earlier this year for my D. CW is a very Ohio-based school. Is there merit in the powers-that-be at CW wanting to expand its reach past Ohio and bring in students from elsewhere? Is it OK if they turn down an Ohio student in order to do so? They aren’t a public school, so it’s not a function of having a duty to Ohioans first the way that, say, Ohio State does.</p>
<p>"And which colleges are these, anyway? There’s a huge difference between what the top colleges and others are looking for. "</p>
<p>I agree. More than likely the colleges that get excited about an extra 30 points on the SAT are the ones trying to improve their US News ratings. The top colleges are secure in their positions, and don’t need to concentrate on boosting their average SAT scores. That’s why they can focus on other things like ECs, geographical and racial diversity, etc.</p>
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<p>Really! Do you have a factual basis to support such an assertion? In this thread, not only did you have you most basic gender statistics backwards, but also made additional statements regarding the “qualifications” of male students versus female students at LACs, which have yet to be substantiated by verifiable facts. </p>
<p>Here, aren’t we have having another case of a rather loose personal interpretation of the definition of having “a difficult time” of attracting males applicants at LACs? Does the fact that the gender distribution of males versus females might not be an exact 50-50 percent allows you to decree that schools have difficulties attracting qualified males, let alone males in general? Could you share some light about the exact list of the schools that exhibit the symptoms of such deficiencies? And, perhaps, let us know what percentage of admissions a school needs to reach to be considering having “difficulties” … it it 20%, 30%, 40%, or above that? </p>
<p>Speaking about the difficulties of landing qualified applicants, should you not take a cursory look at the admissions statistics of all-female LACs and compare them to the identical statistics of similarly ranked LACs? And speaking about available scholarships, how does the issues of HAVING to offer merit dollars and have a high ratio of discounted tuition impact LACs such as Smith or Mt Holyoke to merely maintain a flat pool of applicants? </p>
<p>While you’re not the only CC member who believes that repeating the same non-sense ad nauseam might make it true, one might expect a modicum of reliance on factual data before speaking with such pretense about admissions and scholarship at LACs, or at top LACs as you described. </p>
<p>And, fwiw, it should not be extremely hard to offer a few names instead of using terms such as “most of xxx.” That way one might understand if you are indeed talking about top LACs or mediocre or regional schools that are most definitely not considered in that category.</p>
<p>I think it’s sad thAt solely because a person is a urm they are more heavily recruited than equally hard working white students. I would have gone to my school free if I were a urm. A persons skin color shouldn’t be a comodity. If white students were given more money than more qualified urms, there’d be a lawsuit. I’m still getting over the fact that cases such as heart of atlanta banned discrimination by private business, yet colleges are allowed to use race as a positive attribute for admissions. Giving people bonus points in the admissions process because if their race is discriminatory. If schools want to say aid is merit based, then it should be givento the most qualified applicants, period. As long as race is a bonus point in admissions, people are going to question whether a urm would have gotten in if they were white. So, I don’t think that womans comment was really that absurd. If here son was a urm, he probably would have gotten in.</p>
<p>“As long as race is a bonus point in admissions, people are going to question whether a urm would have gotten in if they were white. So, I don’t think that womans comment was really that absurd. If here son was a urm, he probably would have gotten in.”</p>
<p>Sheesh!</p>
<p>How can you say her son would have gotten in to Harvard if he were a URM. You don’t know anything about her son except that his mom indicated to me that he has high stats and he’s white.</p>
<p>I don’t know what his stats were. I don’t know her son. I don’t know what his mom’s idea of high stats are.</p>
<p>I do know that even if Harvard only accepted high stat ORMs, there would not be room for all of the high stat ORMs who apply.</p>
<p>And people get bonus points in admission to top colleges for: planning to major in the humanities and other majors that are difficult to fill; being legacies; having rich donor parents or celebrity parents, coming from regions, states, and countries that are underserved. Do you question whether people with any of these attributes should have gotten in?</p>
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<p>I’ll bite, since my D is looking at the all-female LAC’s and in fact one is her first choice right now. What are you concluding? I conclude that the admissions rates are higher since it’s a self-selected pool of girls who will consider all-female schools, but is there another point I’m missing? I haven’t explicitly compared SAT ranges, etc. to similarly ranked LACs.</p>
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<p>Did you look at the link provided upthread? Being black did not skyrocket acceptance rates dramatically with the exception of MIT and U of Chicago. If you were seeing black acceptance rates in the 80s or so, then I think you could fairly conclude that being black was a shoo-in. But increases from, say, 20% to 25% don’t make me think shoo-in at all.</p>
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<p>No, that is not what is sad! What is sad that in the year 2010, we STILL have to make extraordinary efforts to recruit minorities. It is sad that a number of minorities remain hopelessly underrepresented. It is sad that we have to rely on admission crutches to level a field that remains hugely uneven. It is sad that the few positive contributions by PRIVATE interests (read schools) only seem to generate scorn and dismay. </p>
<p>That is what is sad!</p>
<p>^And it’s sad that our inner city schools are so bad, that SAT scores are abysmally low even for bright kids.</p>
<p>“Really! Do you have a factual basis to support such an assertion?”</p>
<p>I cannot speak to the issue of male’s financial aid at LAC’s. In a reverse case, a female at RPI, I know an ad con at a school that was competing with RPI for my DD said to our face that he the aid RPI was offering was based on getting a female with her SAT’s. He COULD have been lying flat out, but I give him the benefit of believing that, and of knowing somewhat of what he spoke, since he competes with RPI for students on a regular basis.</p>
<p>I would be VERY surprised if schools do NOT use merit aid to support their larger strategies.</p>