Mismatch caused by racial preferences

lookingforward · October 28, 2012, 11:36am

Need to quit quoting Espenshade, who studied abut 9000 kids applying to 10 selective schools- back in the late 90’s. A scholar who says his results should NOT be taken as gospel or universal, because they are limited and they did NOT have access to all the info used by adcoms.

Oh, c’mon, yes, racism exists. Every time one says “Black president,” one is distinguishing by race. Every time one suggests, In reality, for all competitive schools that promote AA, URMs are admitted with far lower credentials than whites or Asians, one is nearing an edge.

You don’t know this. You don’t. You heard it or read it or got easily inflamed- and somehow processed it as truth. You don’t believe there are kids in rotten poor hs where most kids won’t graduate or, if lucky , will head for the military or a year at cc- but nonetheless there can be a cream taking that AP calc class and, by gummy, getting a 4 or 5. You want it to be all about “displacement.”

Bel: on CC, with all the talk of lotteries and crapshoots, people get the sense adcoms just sit there, exercising lordly rights. In fact, they are highly educated, savvy folks who know more about kids, what they should have accomplished, what they can accomplish, how they can make mature choices versus follow the herd in their hs, what is an effective self-presentation versus ho-hum, etc- and exactly what their college needs, for the next freshman class.

Do you really think they are so dumb and snacked out that they don’t have their butts covered and are gonna get blindsided?

How many essays does HYP receive that say – I want to attend you because you are the pinnacle of academics? And how kindly do you think they look on such essays? TOO MANY. It’s a problem for those kids- it can get flagged for generic and for not knowing what that college offers that kid.

The real shame, I’ve said before, is that these are 17 year olds, not really wise to the process, assuming that what makes them BMOC in hs is what makes them a great candidate for a selective college.

sally305 · October 28, 2012, 11:48am

GMT, thank you for the clarification on boarding vs. day schools.

Now, on to your score range stats. Let’s take Duke.

According to the NCES, the SAT range for admitted students (1470 of them) in 2010 was 2020-2300 (25th-75th percentiles). That is almost a 300-point range. Only 17 percent of the total enrolled consisted of black and Hispanic kids. So EVEN IF all the admitted students at the low end were non-Asian minorities, based on the number you provided above they still fall well within the range Duke is striving for with its entering class of freshmen.

Looking at it another way, there are certainly kids with better scores or a higher IQ than either your or my (presumably) white, advantaged children. How would you feel if your child was judged because he only got a 2200 on the SAT when some of his friends were cracking close to 2400? Would you say your child was a “mismatch” in a college dominated by (according to test scores) “smarter” kids? I wouldn’t, and I am guessing you wouldn’t either. You would probably say your child is a well-rounded student with a wide range of interests and talents and intellectual curiosity who can hold his own in any academic environment. And the same should be true of any minority kid who gets into a top-tier university, even if his or her scores aren’t quite as high as someone else’s. As someone mentioned near the beginning of this thread, graduation rates are exceptionally high for ALL students at leading universities, regardless of their race. The minority students who are admitted are holding their own, at the very least.

GMTplus7 · October 28, 2012, 11:54am

@sally,
I think Pizzagirl makes a good point that it would be better if the adcoms were transparent about their selection process.

GMTplus7 · October 28, 2012, 11:59am

To all u argumentative GMT-5 east coast people, the best of luck weathering hurricane Sally. goodnite.

sally305 · October 28, 2012, 12:02pm

But SO much of it is subjective. What if the adcom just doesn’t like a kid he meets in an interview? Maybe she reminds him of the first girl who dumped him in high school. Or he doesn’t like the way she says “like” all the time. What if the adcom thinks golf shouldn’t be a varsity sport, and thus judges negatively the kid who led his golf team to state?

There was a piece on NPR last year about admissions at Amherst. Just one example, but you get the point. It would be IMPOSSIBLE to turn students into commodities that can be judged across the exact same metrics, and I am glad that at many schools there is a “holistic” approach to reviewing each student’s qualifications.

[Behind</a> The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR](<a href=“Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR”>Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR)

Pizzagirl · October 28, 2012, 12:35pm

But they ARE transparent about the admissions process. They want a mix of kids who excel on the soccer field AND kids who are pasty white from studying. They want a mix of kids who have links to the school going back five generations AND kids whose first exposure to the school will be when they step foot on campus. They want a mix of student body presidents AND change the world idealists. They want a mix of kids who are highly artistic AND highly scientific. They want well rounded kids AND they want angular kids. They want kids from Choate and Exeter who play water polo AND they want kids from the inner city schools. They want kids who spent their summers in research labs AND they want kids who worked at the 7-11 to support their families. They don’t want ALL the same kind - of any kind. What is so hard to understand? It’s fully transparent how they do it. It’s not predictable with respect to any one kid, but that doesn’t mean it’s not transparent.

Trying to predict any one kid’s chances is rather like trying to predict whether your kid’s future spouse will be tall, short, musical, artistic, scientific, whatever. Who the heck knows?

T26E4 · October 28, 2012, 12:53pm

Piggybacking Pizzagirl’s note, I’ll add my two cents:

Top schools will have unofficial target goals for various sub groups every year. For institutional purposes, they’ve already set aside X number for recruited athletes, Y number for less-than-stellar development admits, Z number for internationals, etc. Whatever that number for your sub-group of choice, one can only guess. And these are flexible goals too.

If an applicant happens to fall under one of the sub-group categories, he/she will be evaluated in that context. For example, let’s say there are 5 womens soccer recruits of similar skill and utility to the team next year. Coach has 3 actual slots available. 1 recruit has stellar stats. No brainer. She’s in. Of the remaining four, one is slightly ahead of the other three who are equal. She gets in. For the remaining three, their stats are about the 20th percentile of incoming freshmen. Coin flip. One gets an offer, the other two don’t stand out in comparison with the RD pool and are eventually rejected.

This same scenario plays out with every sub-group. Musicians, Internationals, celebrities, minority groups, legacies, etc.

The fact is, these slots were NEVER available to you to begin with. Who does the “mediocre” stat African American kid who is accepted push out? Another African American applicant who is less desirable. Just like the soccer player takes the place of less desirable soccer players.

For applicants who don’t fall under these sub-categories – the relative statistical strength within those groups doesn’t really affect you.

If one feels slighted at the avg statistics of any particular sub-group, consider how the 2380 SAT rejected kid from Singapore feels when she looks at the avg accepted American white kids’ avg stats. Shouldn’t she feel the limited slots available to the ridiculously competitive International applicant pool is terribly unfair?

Everyone can find fault in someone else.

The # of seats at any school is a finite number. It’s a zero sum game. Allot more seats to one group, you gotta take it away from another.

I don’t see people carrying the banner of “MORE International students at Ivy schools”. But if a legacy, URM or athlete gets to compete amongst other legacies, URMs or athletes – they are immediately targeted for “taking away” the seat of a “more qualified” White or Asian applicant. Inconsistent much?

If anyone wants to apply to a pure meritocracy evaluation system, they certainly are not without options. As a matter of fact, +80% of American colleges practice this. Send in your transcripts and scores – voila. Your answer is given.

But you can’t have your cake and eat it too. The so-called “top schools” get criticized for their murky holistic evaluation methods and “quotas” or set-asides or affirmative action – or as I state above,“pooling”. People decry the unfairness of it and are ready to charge the ramparts to get them to alter the very method they chose to get them the great student bodies they possess. They want them to turn into Seoul University or IIT. Top US schools’ trustees and alumni think otherwise.

And what is the consequence? Do we see the holistic-admissions schools plummeting in the USNWR rankings (which I agree, is trash)? No. They are firmly entrenched. As a matter of fact, the so-called 2nd tier schools are adopting the holistic model in order to rise in the rankings.

cbreeze · October 28, 2012, 12:53pm

PG, I didn’t know you work in college admissions.
Asian student numbers will rise when more ascend to top administration and academic roles.

Beliavsky · October 28, 2012, 1:29pm

Yes, and this describes the racial discrimination that I hope the Supreme Court will ban in deciding Fisher. There should not be slots that are reserved for various races.

lookingforward · October 28, 2012, 1:39pm

It’s really not about one adcom having a bad day or being reminded of a bad memory. That’s another image that circulates. There are multiple reveiwers for each kid who gets past the first weedout. Ie, multiple takes. What one sees as a so-so can be outweighed by another’s perspective. But, considering the sheer number of apps to get through, the kids who hit that proverbial “final 6000” are either positively reviewed by all or have some additional unique pull from one rep, usually the rep for that geog area, who particularly knows the district, hs, gc, college track records of other past admits, and may have met the kid. Sort of pulling a favor, depending, and, in balance.

But, don’t forget, institutional needs prevail- anything from getting more female STEM or male classics to taking a kid from an under-represented geog area, (instead of yet another from Stuy,) the needed bassoonist, etc. And that overall mix of backgrounds, identities, experiences and interests.

And, depending on the body of applicants, it can be that one kid loses because too many others are vying for that area of study. Sometimes, it’s the knowledge that a significant number of seniors will graduate from one dept- and the need to refill those seats. Other times, it could be that they mariculated too many in a dept last year and need to even out numbers. And, even with STEM,there’s only a max number who can be seated.

There can be a target % of, say, minorities, that desired “mix,” when final letters go out. But, each kid is reviewed as an individual, first, through several rounds, in the context of his hs, his choices and accomplishments, as an individual. To guage his fit and chances of thriving in that specific college environment, academically and in other ways.

What I don’t know how to say in the best way is that, since the CA, incl LoRs and any interview, are the only ways an adcom has to get to know a kid, how a kid completes the CA (and handles the interview) is vital. PG used the Why Us? example. I try to tell kids that every question on the app is part of what you convey about yourself.

IMO, PG is right, in her recent post. And, that cannot be quantified. BUT, to some extent, I believe a savvy family CAN identify what self-image a top college has, what sorts of kids it admires, what hopes it has for the kid’s experience at the school and after-- and reflect that match in the CA. It’s just that families get wrapped up in assumptions and the top layer of info available about a school.

poetgrl · October 28, 2012, 1:47pm

[What</a> you need to know to get into the college you want - Video on TODAY.com](<a href=“http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/49567288#49567288]What”>http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/49567288#49567288)

This is brief, but also interesting in the complete lack of emphasis placed on the SAT by the adcoms from JHU, UMich, and Vandy.

Ms. Kim the dean of admissions from JHU says the scores matter but probably not as much as the student thinks they do. Interesting perspective, since it is being so repeated on this thread.

carry on.

Shrinkrap · October 28, 2012, 1:53pm

Page 23.

I never can seem to catch up, so I am using this as a placeholder and parentheses, for things I want to hear more about, if no one has clarified by the time I get to the end. Then I will come to my senses, delete this post, and continue to lurk!

" And if I were a black parent or community leader, I would look for ways to invigorate the commitment to learning among black children and their families.

I live in a community where the achievement gap between white and black students is shocking. And very disheartening to me as a member of the community. School administrators are wrestling with the problem. And so are black parents. In my area I’ve seen more action and discussion at the high school level, though, which seems like the classic “too little, too late” scenario." ( I have lived in a variety of communities, and can’t recall one where those who have the resources, usually first gen families, aren’t working on improving academics. But they are not here on CC, where the aspiration is a top twenty college. The goals are usually much more modest; like having more kids graduate high school, and then, having more kids apply to college. I would be VERY skeptical about telling random elementary school kids to devote all resources toward scoring high on a standardized test. How often would that pay off?)

"That’s not the point that is made. In reality, for all competitive schools that promote AA, URMs are admitted with far lower credentials than whites or Asians. So URMs are given a leg up along the entire spectrum of competitive colleges.

Since spots in colleges are fixed, this means other groups are displaced out of the entire spectrum of competitive colleges. Some of the proponents of AA don’t seem to get this. "
(While it might be true that URM’s are given a leg up in the entire spectrum of competitive colleges, we are still talking about only a fraction of colleges, and overall, it is my impression that URMs are UR accross the ENTIRE spectrum of colleges. In addition, I am not convinced that its EVERY competative college, and that it is always an entire leg. According to the Journal of Blacks in Hiugher Education, there are many “top schools” where the admit rate is the same or lower for black students. I know even public schools where AA is outlawed are still charged with giving “legs up”, even when they can’t get the number of black students above 2 percent. And I’m sure philoverst will say that that says something about the applicant pool. I don’t know. I DO know most of the black kids on CC are aspiring to, and happy apbut going to “regualr” schools. Hard to know what subgroup they really represent.)

“One indicator of racist beliefs is the extent to which people commit crimes against people of other races. Black-on-white violent crime far exceeds the reverse kind.” (Why does that confuse me? Of course it could be that I am not too bright, or because I am biased, but in the black community, it seems most crime is black on black. Does that reflect racism or opportunity? It also seems that if blacks make up 10 percent of a community, the odds are that crime is going to be against another race, even if race is not part of the equation. Now if most crime committed against black was by another race, that would seem harder to explain. )

"Race is not an “achievement” any more than being a legacy is. " ( But an SAT score, for a student “gifted” since 5th grade is? I suppose it is if you don’t believe certain cognitive abilities have a genetic component.)

“Many observers have noted a tendency for students to self-segregate at colleges as well. This weakens the “mixing” argument for affirmative action” (I wonder if it mostly looks that way from the outside, and if it looks this way to the black kids that post on CC. It is certainly not true for my son and daughter.I have to admit, H and I sort of hoped that it WOULD be true, since our kids have never had an opportunity to meet “kids like them” before. But it is still good that they have SOME exposure to other black kids.)

Also, whenever someone mentions the dated Espenshade data, I like to draw folks attention to the fact the data shows most of the benefit is to kids scoring 1200 or so. Above and below that number, black students were actually penalized more than others.

3girls3cats · October 28, 2012, 2:00pm

GMT, I looked at your articles and neither one supports a conclusion that AA candidates are being admitted with “far lower” credentials. The first one seems to look only at SAT scores and seems to show bias from the start. The second discusses the convergence of gpa as African American and Caucasian students go through their years at Duke. The suggestion is that the African American students manage this by veering away from science and into–gasp–the humanities and social sciences.

Pizzagirl · October 28, 2012, 2:02pm

"This is brief, but also interesting in the complete lack of emphasis placed on the SAT by the adcoms from JHU, UMich, and Vandy.

Ms. Kim the dean of admissions from JHU says the scores matter but probably not as much as the student thinks they do. Interesting perspective, since it is being so repeated on this thread."

It’s been said over and over, but no matter – sulky people everywhere continue to believe that their 2350 kid’s spot was unfairly given to a 2200 kid. Such people won’t be happy til it’s all rack and stack the scores, just like in their home countries. A really narrow view of what “qualified” means.

cbreeze · October 28, 2012, 2:43pm

I have to say that I am just amazed that Asian-Americans are viewed as monolithic. This fact has been reiterated in multiple posts before and yet many posters here cannot look past Asian faces.Saying to accept more than a certain percentage will make it less diverse suggests ignorance and bigotry.Not every Asian-American gets 2350 and yes, many are also very well rounded. Unless you have looked into their applications, it is disturbing to make a blanket pronouncement that you can’t find an Asian-American applicant who fits the criteria that PG has authoritatively said in post #346.

The Jews has made similar charges 80 years ago and were over-represented in top US colleges and perhaps now that members of that subgroup are threatened, just as they threatened the WASP cultural domination.

[Harvard’s</a> Jewish Problem](<a href=“http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/harvard.html]Harvard’s”>Harvard's Jewish Problem)

[Who</a> Controls the Ivy League? Who Controls America?](<a href=“http://thezog.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/who-controls-the-ivy-league/]Who”>Who Controls the Ivy League? | Who Controls America?)

cbreeze · October 28, 2012, 2:46pm

Wow, just wow.
Entitled, superiority.

NewHope33 · October 28, 2012, 3:01pm

“Therefore Jews are over-represented among the senior administrators of the Ivy League colleges and universities by a factor of 41.5 times(4,150 percent).”

And tall people in the NBA are over-represented by a factor of 234.6 times. So what? Is that a simple function of NBA Executives doing a good job? Or is it a conspiracy to exclude Asians?

NotYourBusiness · October 28, 2012, 3:07pm

Two fallacies on this thread:

Fallacy 1: “Affirmative Action does not displace other groups from top schools. They can go to other schools.”
This is false because some groups of people are given preferences based purely on race and ethnicity. It does displace a number of those who do not have the favored racial/ethnic characteristics. The SCOTUS recognize this. Even Grutter recognizes that results will not be a color-blind meritocracy. That is why Grutter had a 25-years built-in revision clause. The SCOTUS knew then that not being color-blind is not desirable (it was a tradeoff). Furthermore, the fact that the court is hearing the Texas case further supports that there is damage.

Fallacy 2: “Students admitted under AA would get in anyway. They are as qualified as other applicants.” 
This is false as well. If that was the case, schools would not need AA. The fact that Texas wants to maintain their practices (and many top schools provide Amicus Briefs in support of Texas) is because they know that without racial/ethnic preferences, the number of color students in their institutions would be smaller (will lose the “critical mass”.) If the color students as a group were indeed as academic qualified as the other applicants, it would be impossible that the “critical mass” would be reduced on a pure meritocratic admissions process. Schools know that some groups are more academic qualified than the others; that’s the reason why they are fighting to support AA. Some of the color students would get in even with a pure meritocratic admissions process (and pure meritocratic does not means standard tests only), but not all the students that schools want so as to build their “critical mass”.

NewHope33 · October 28, 2012, 3:15pm

cbreeze - It’s not just Asians.

It’s been 22 years since the break up of the Soviet Union. Name the fifteen republics that resulted from the break up. Too hard? OK, name just the five republics whose names end with “stan.”

NewHope33 · October 28, 2012, 3:22pm

NYB - You missed Fallacy #3: Making AA illegal will result in a decline in URM admittances.

The real agenda here is to replace holistic admissions (you know, admitting on the basis of what’s good for society, what’s good for the school, and what’s good for the admitted student body) with a quantitative formula … the result of which would be a uniform student body of straight-A, 2400 SAT bookworms. 
B-O-R-I-N-G.

Mismatch caused by racial preferences

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