Mismatch caused by racial preferences

lookingforward · October 31, 2012, 8:32pm

Pablo, this is all confused because people use terms like quota or “racial preference.” Eg, you have been using it. Do you know of quotas or just use the word? I do not find any adcom “prefers” a certain race- above all others and without consideration for necessary qualities to thrive at that college. The term refers to identifying candidates, not exclusivity.

NotYourBusiness · October 31, 2012, 8:33pm

@PabloN

This is so right.

lookingforward · October 31, 2012, 8:44pm

Oh, criminy, NYB. Here’s a link to Grutter, for any interested. It’s an easy read. Again, that refers to a public law school. And it has some generous things to say.
Please be cautious in blaming others for distorting your own words. This is an extremely broad topic, at points we have all skirted from one peak to another, not all of us have understood another’s exact point, along the way, as the sub-topics shifted.

GMTplus7 · October 31, 2012, 8:44pm

@absweetmarie

Transparency is necessary for a fair process. Lack of it leads to corruption of the process, as can be observed in how third world countries award govt contracts to those individuals that they favor.

Advocates of AA argue that URMs deserve a leg up on the basis of low SES (I am in favor of this), but this is not what UT was doing. Lack of transparency is one of the points being argued in Fisher v. UT. The 10 Percent Plan is transparent. The AI/PAI that UT used to select the rest of the applicants is not.

It came out in the oral arguments, that while the 10 Percent Plan increased the number of URMs, the school wasnt getting enough of the right type of URMS:

from the Fisher v UT oral arguments:

JUSTICE ALITO: 
Well, I thought that the whole purpose of affirmative action was to help students who come from underprivileged backgrounds, but you make a very different argument that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

The top 10 percent plan admits lots of African Americans – lots of Hispanics and a fair number of African Americans. But you say, well, it’s – it’s faulty because it doesn’t admit enough African Americans and Hispanics who come from privileged backgrounds. And you specifically have the example of the child of
Now, that’s – that’s your argument? If you have – you have an applicant whose parents are – let’s say they’re – one of them is a partner in your law firm in Texas, another one is a part – is another corporate lawyer. They have income that puts them in the top 1 percent of earners in the country, and they have parents both have graduate degrees.

They deserve a leg-up against, let’s say, an Asian or a white applicant whose parents are absolutely average in terms of education and income?

lookingforward · October 31, 2012, 8:51pm

Pablo, re 1082- nope, not my experience. Read the Grutter summary to see how quota is defined,especially in light of Bakke.

GMTplus7 · October 31, 2012, 8:56pm

Pablo,
If you scroll back several hundred posts in this horrible thread, you will see that u & I are arguing on the same side.

I have frequently posted that the objective should not be to just get URMs in college, but to have more URMs graduate. And they should graduate in ANY field they chose and not have that choice made for them (i.e. switch to an “easier” major as the Duke data shows) because they did not receive the preparation in K-12 that they deserved.

muckdogs07 · October 31, 2012, 8:58pm

Sally305,

Elite colleges generally have a pretty good idea of class rank even where the school does not rank (via history of past applicants, as well as current applicants from the same school in the same year). Also, even the schools that do not rank generally report deciles.

GMTplus7 · October 31, 2012, 9:01pm

@absweetmarie

Grading English essays is subjective, but when my kid’s teacher hands out the writing assignment, the teacher is transparent about what attributes are required in the essay for a good grade. So if a kid complains about his C grade, the teacher can point our specific things that the kid did not fulfill vs. the original instructions.

sally305 · October 31, 2012, 9:06pm

It is my recollection from a post many pages back that graduation rates are comparable for URMs at “elite” schools, which is what we have been talking about.

And it is ridiculous and patronizing to suggest that URMs in STEM majors are having the choice to switch to an “easier” major “made for them.” As numerous posters have stated, MANY students switch majors once they get to college, not just minorities (and not just because another path suddenly seems “easier.” You cannot prove that inadequate preparation is the reason for URMs to switch, but not for others.

chashaobao · October 31, 2012, 9:06pm

Re:muckdogs07

To me, the first 2 sections of article are the most interesting. Sander gives the most succinct description of the legal history from Bakke to Grutter/Gratz: the underlining contradictions, how the Justices cut the Gordian knot, and how the law schools responded to the supreme court decisions in their admissions. And he has persuasively showed how much or little difference there is between these holistic admissions practices and a quota.

There are quite a few assumptions in Sander’s model. I haven’t read his book to know how well those assumptions work out. And Ayres and Brooks have more assumptions and parameters in their model. But in spite of the heated rhetoric, their disagreements are surprisingly quite small. Ayres and Brooks even wrote “there is mixed support for a mismatch effect.” Sander has a rebuttal in the same issue of the Ayres and Brooks article.

Generally speaking, models with fewer parameters are the better models. As a famous physicist was reported to have said:" Give me 8 parameters, I will fit you (i.e. model the shape of) an elephant."

absweetmarie · October 31, 2012, 9:11pm

Are any private institutions attempting to hide that race is a consideration? It is stated on a school’s common data set whether race/ethnicity is a consideration. No “gotcha” moment here, sorry.

What do you think it is your “right under a democracy” to know, specifically, about admission to private schools, PabloN? Just because an organization accepts the benefits of federal programs (Pell, etc.) doesn’t mean a public citizen has a right to access to any information they want. Organizations that accept federal monies are accountable to the federal government with regard to how they use those monies. That doesn’t mean that every aspect of their operations need to be an open book to the public.

Regardless, I honestly don’t know what people are asking for when they talk about “transparency” with regard to private school admissions. Most private institutions are pretty clear about the criteria that go into the decisions. Do people who are looking for transparency think privates should publish a definitive, predictive formula? What would “complete transparency” look like to people who think it’s optimal (or even “your right under a democracy”)?

As far as public university admissions go, I still think there’s room for a holistic portion provided schools do not violate federal law. Are there any cases pending in which a lack of so-called transparency is at issue? Is this at all on the table with Fisher? Or is the case simply addressing the appropriateness of using race as a consideration?

lookingforward · October 31, 2012, 9:14pm

The missing Grutter link: [GRUTTER</a> V. BOLLINGER](<a href=“http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-241.ZS.html]GRUTTER”>GRUTTER V. BOLLINGER)

muckdogs07 · October 31, 2012, 9:18pm

Lookingforward,

Are you an Ivy admissions officer? If so, thanks for sharing your insights with us although I suspect at least some Ivies use the Ivy academic index beyond athletes.

lookingforward · October 31, 2012, 9:20pm

Pablo, are you an educator, perhaps in NYC?

Sally, it’s equally patronizing each time someone blames minority parents. Yeech.

Time for the naysayers to suggest how they think the colleges should value the components of a kid’s CA and supp. What matters to you, what doesn’t? Naysayers first, please, since the rest have suggested a long list of other factors.

poetgrl · October 31, 2012, 9:26pm

PabloN, actually, you are far overstating what the government can or will demand of entities which accept federal funds which are first given to make sure citizens have equal ability to pay for their education, or to pay for anything, for that matter.

For example, nobody believes that just because a grocery store accepts WIC, the government gets to determine what they do or do not stock on their shelves. In fact, there is a balance. The government and those receiving WIC need the stores to accept the WIC.

Pell is WIC. It is arguably in many colleges best interest to continue to receive PELL and work study money, but it is mostly in the best interest of the students. It can be seen as money belonging to the student and not the university. The Pell follows the student, not the university. Therefore it is the student who recieves Pell.

For research grants, I’m not sure the answer there. Or how this is seen as government funding. It depends, I suppose, on the nature of the research itself, and whether or not the grant can be seen as having been given to the university itself or to the individual professor or group of profs.

However, to categorically state that the government can dictate to anyone recieving federal funds is to say that every retiree in the country recieving social security has less freedom than is guaranteed by the bill of rights.

I think you may not be completely correct.

absweetmarie · October 31, 2012, 9:28pm

PabloN, I do not know where you are getting your facts. There are limits to governmental power, even when the government provides funds to an organization. The federal government cannot “demand anything and everything from the private entities that take money from it.” We do not live in a totalitarian regime. The federal government can pass laws that demand that institutions that benefit from federal programs adhere to certain policies (think FERPA). If you have a source for your broad “anything and everything” assertion, please share it.

muckdogs07 · October 31, 2012, 9:34pm

A few cites re the Ivy academic index, which is calculated for every applicant because Ivy athletes overall academic records must be within one standard deviation of the greater student body. See # 3 below.

1) From SAT Scores Website

About Academic Index

The Academic Index (AI) is a score that Ivy League schools and other top colleges use to evaluate the academic strength of an applicant. The AI is a score out of 240 based on the averages of the SAT Reasoning Test and Subject Test scores, and class rank.

The AI is used by admission officers to give a rough academic ranking for an applicant. Although it is used in the admissions process, it does not take into account other parts of the application, including essays, recommendations and extracurricular activities. Also, the AI is not used by all elite colleges and even if it is considered by the school, it may not play a large role in the admission decision.

According Michele Hernandez, a former admissions officer at Dartmouth, the approximate average of Ivy applicants is around 200 while the average AI of accepted students is closer to the 211 range. Calculate your AI score. Choose a method for a class rank: If you have an exact class rank, then please provide that first. If not, use the next ranking method that applies to you.

2) From College Confidential (info not blogs)

Ivy League colleges use a tool called the Academic Index to summarize the academic performance of applicants. Originally developed as a means of establishing common standards for student-athlete applicants, the Academic Index (AI) has become a sort of shorthand for ranking students. Other colleges, elite and otherwise, may also use variants of the Academic in their admission process.

The Academic Index may seem like a gross oversimplification - reducing a student’s K - 12 academic record to a single number seems almost ludicrous. However, the AI does provide a quick snapshot to harried college admissions staff members. Any Ivy League admissions officer would certainly explain that applicants get a far more in-depth look than the AI might suggest.

Ivy League schools may not base their entire admission decision on the Academic Index, but the AI and its components are a good thing for Ivy applicants to understand. Michelle Hernandez, a former Dartmouth admissions official, openly discussed how important the AI was in her book, A is for Admission.

Without going into the detailed mathematics, the Academic Index combines numeric values based on a student’s SAT I and SAT II scores plus his/her class rank or GPA. Since schools report class rankings in different manners (or sometimes not at all), the last measure can be a bit tricky. Nevertheless, standardized computation procedures have been established to allow Ivy League schools to calculate a consistent Academic Index for all applicants.

According to Hernandez, the AI is converted into a numeric ranking at most Ivies. Some use a 1 to 9 scale, others a 1 to 6, etc. Princeton, she says, uses a 1 to 5 scale, with 1 being the best. Dartmouth and University of Pennsylvania use a 1 to 9 scale, where 9 is the best. While acknowledging that many other factors play a role in admissions, Hernandez notes that students with an converted AI ranking of 8 and 9 (i.e., those applicants with the two highest categories of Academic Index) are admitted at much higher rates than lower indices.

Perhaps the only major surprise in the Academic Index is the key role of the SAT II scores. A student with strong SAT I scores and high class rank must also do very well on the SAT II tests to achieve a high AI and increase chances of admission.

Is it fair to compress years of hard work into a single digit number? Maybe not, but the Academic Index is a fact of life in Ivy League admissions, so applicants should understand it and, if possible, maximize their own AI.

3) From Ivy League Bound

Academic Index (AI) - Explained

The original purpose of the Academic Index was to provide Ivy League schools with a standardized method for admitting athletes (Ivy League schools, however, now use the Academic Index for non-athletes, too). Every Ivy League school calculates an AI for every student. Why? Because the average AI of the athletic teams cannot be more than one standard deviation away from the average AI of the entire class, but the only way to know that is to calculate an AI for every student. Please understand that the AI is just a statistical tool it does not take into account a students essays, teacher recommendations, outside achievements or awards. It merely chronicles the objective side of the equation, namely high school rank in class and standardized test scores. In short, the AI is a formula that combines the averages of student test scores (both SAT Is and SAT IIs) and high school rank in class. The AI is represented on a scale of 1-240, with 240 being the highest. The approximate average of Ivy applicants is around 200 while the average AI of accepted students is closer to the 211 range.

See also Ivy Coach Blog December October 9 and December 24, 2011 and Michelle Hernandez’s Book A is for Admission.

poetgrl · October 31, 2012, 9:38pm

Well, I suspect that Public schools have to balance several things. For one thing, at some point, places like Stuy may simply be shut down if people continue on this track. You have to really examine the unintended long term consequences against the intended consequences of what it is your are asking for. How does one justify giving special, exclusive, public school educations and still argue for equal protection under the law?

There is so much assumption underlying your argument, and whether you believe test scores are more “objective” or not, you are also assuming that the majority will continue to agree that this is a “fair” use of taxpayer funds, and that they will continue to support this use of taxpayer funds. There is no court which will force NYC to continue to have magnets.

One should be careful how far you push out the already marginalized. They do have a way of proving they have been marginalized by the very institutions you may most support.

lookingforward · October 31, 2012, 9:44pm

Hernandez hasn’t worked for D in years. There’s an Ivy document, will try to find it.

GMTplus7 · October 31, 2012, 9:47pm

@PabloN

Yes, it is mind-blowing from that NYT Stuy article that poor ORM kids in bad schools, w parents that can’t even speak English can do fine.

The poor parenting in many poor URM households is what it is. Since the gov’t isn’t going to yank kids out of homes and put them into boarding schools. We can either be resigned to the fact there exists poor parenting and do nothing to help the kids. Or we can try to try to help these kid in K-12 to overcome the poor parenting

The sense that I get from reading these posts is that the higher SES URMs don’t really care about improving K-12 education for low SES URMs. They just want equality of results, not equality of opportunity.

Mismatch caused by racial preferences

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