<p>Bookmark 1143</p>
<p>“There has been a lot of female cattiness on this thread, while the men more often try to make actual arguments for or against affirmative action. Some women do too.”</p>
<p>How can you tell the gender of the author?</p>
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<p>What reason would he have to lie about it?</p>
<p>The typical MIT enrolled freshman is pretty lopsided, much stronger in math than in CR. According to MIT’s 2011-12 common data set, nearly 40% of entering MIT freshmen in 2011 had SAT CR scores below 700, while only 7.7% had sub-700 Math scores. The 25th percentile CR score was 670, fully 70 points below the 25th percentile M score of 740. So while the 700 M/700 CR admit is probably pretty rare at MIT, the 770 M/670 CR admit (1440 CR+M) is probably not. </p>
<p>And no, you can’t infer from the fact that an admissions officer is not impressed by double-800s that it must be the case that such scores are commonplace at that school. Again, MIT’s own common data set indicates that 800 SAT M scores are far more common there than are 800 SAT CR scores; MIT’s 75th percentile M score is 800 (meaning at least 25% of the class scored 800 in SAT M), while its 75th percentile CR score is 770, which suggests that probably 10% or less of the entering class had 800 CR scores–and they aren’t necessarily the same people who scored 800 on M. This isn’t unique to MIT, by the way. Nationally, 11,494 college-bound seniors scored 800 in SAT M in the 2012 application cycle, while only 8,205 scored 800 in CR. </p>
<p>No, I’d take this admissions officer at his word: they aren’t impressed by 1600 CR+M because they don’t see it as hugely different from 1500 CR+M or even 1400 CR+M, and you can be admitted with a CR+M score closer to 1400 than to 1600. And a 1600 doesn’t guarantee admission. Does it help? Sure, probably some, but that advantage could easily be erased by other factors. Brown is probably the most transparent about this. For the Brown class entering in the Fall of 2012, they admitted 16.4% of applicants with 800 SAT M, 14.0% of those with 750-790, and 10.5% of those with 700-740. Similarly, they admitted 21.8% of those with 800 CR (remember, these are rarer), 14.4% with 750-790, and 11.6% with 700-740. So clearly it’s an advantage to have higher test scores. But just as clearly, test scores are not the only or overriding factor, because even those with perfect scores get rejected far more often than they’re accepted at schools this selective, while many applicants with lower scores get in.</p>
<p>^And last I looked a lot more kids want to get into Harvard and MIT than Caltech. And guess which school has the highest yield of the three?</p>
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<p>This is not a joke NewHope33.</p>
<p>Do you think, NewHope, that Grutter was only about a Law School? Do you think that Fisher v. Texas is only about one girl? Do you think that Brown v. Board of education was only about the plaintiffs in that case? Do you think that at the time of Brown there was no **unnamed individual[b/] who suffered damage because of separation?</p>
<p>Similarly, the Grutter decision (the current standing law) says that race-aware admissions are allowed because they help institutions recruit a diverse student body, and this ultimately benefits other students at those institutions. Now, do you think Grutter should be thrown out because no one knows who are the unnamed individuals who benefit from diversity??? </p>
<p>We are dealing with very serious constitutional issues here, and I can see that you do not have a firm understanding of these legal matters.</p>
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<p>As I said above, I can clearly see by your language that you do not understand Grutter. You also do not understand Fisher. These cases are not about SAT scores. These cases are about whether the benefit of diversity is sufficient enough (weights more) than the cost of not observing the constitutional principle of Equal Protection.
In terms that you may understand, Fisher is not arguing for using standardized testing as the sole determinant of merit. Fisher is arguing that whatever method you use to evaluate applicants (essays, ECs, tests, GPA, accomplishments, languages spoken, play an instrument, etc.) it is fine, but they have to follow the Equal Protection clause.</p>
<p>Whether an MIT admissions officer is “impressed” with any given SAT score is a vague question. The fact is that MIT admission rates increase monotonically with SAT score bins, as shown at [Admissions</a> Statistics | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats]Admissions”>Admissions statistics | MIT Admissions) . I’d still like to see a logistic regression incorporating their other criteria but am not asserting that they have an obligation to provide this.</p>
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<p>At the risk of splitting hairs, that’s not an accurate statement. If the University of Texas prevails, it won’t be because the court determines that “the benefit of diversity is sufficient enough” that the University is excused from “observing the constitutional principle of Equal Protection.” The Court would instead hold that the constitutional principle of Equal Protection does not prohibit the University’s practices, i.e., that the University *is *observing the constitutional principle of Equal Protection with its present course of action. There are no exceptions to the principle that state actors (in this case a public university) must observe Equal Protection at all times. But it is up to the courts to determine, in disputed cases, whether the state actor’s practices are consistent with Equal Protection, or not.</p>
<p>In re: post #1200–</p>
<p>No, no, Pizzagirl. You need to understand what people (Beliavsky in particular) mean when they talk about “transparency.” See Beliavsky’s post #1089 to see the full extent of what he thinks is appropriate with regard to data transparency. I am not going to hazard a guess what such a project would cost (but, heck, these schools are rich, right?). I guess the online calculator Beliavsky proposes would be neato and all, but it’s hard to see what real need it would address.</p>
<p>"OK, so they are basically equally in C and W, but men do somewhat better on the math. </p>
<p>Still, this would argue against a need for AA favoring men at ivies."</p>
<p>I have always been in favor of holistic admission, where test scores are only part of the package. By itself, SAT should not the determining factor in college admission.</p>
<p>About the SAT bias:</p>
<p>Since I have been talking legalese, let me say one thing that may be helpful to all AA proponents here.</p>
<p>If you believe that you can prove that SAT is clearly biased against minorities, than you have a winnable case to banish SAT scores from admissions decisions. The reason is that if this is indeed the case, then using SATs as the sole determinant of merit violate the Equal Protection clause. This even have a technical name: “Disparate Impact”.</p>
<p>Digressing a little bit, and I am just using reason here: Until this very moment, no civil rights group successfully brought the issue of SATs causing Disparate Impact to the court. In my view this mean that either (a) they are sleeping on the issue; (b) they do not care; or (c) no one have definitive proof that SATs are biased.</p>
<p>Or do you think it may be something else?</p>
<p>Bclintok:</p>
<p>You are right. If after Strict Scrutiny the public benefit prevails then there is no violation. But some times is hard to combine coloquial language and legal language in a way that every one here can understand the argument.</p>
<p>^^ Thanks for the link to the MIT admissions statistics, Beliavsky (post #1205). I wasn’t aware that these figures were available on the web.</p>
<p>What these figures confirm is that MIT is far more concerned about SAT M scores than SAT CR or W. Only 25% of MIT admits had SAT M scores below 750, and of those, 80% were in the 700-740 range. Less than 5% of admits had sub-700 M scores. </p>
<p>In contrast, nearly 56% of MIT admits had CR scores below 750; 28% of all admits were sub-700 in CR.</p>
<p>Yet at the same time, MIT was rejecting 86% of applicants with 750+ M scores and 83% of applicants with 750+ CR scores in favor of applicants with lower scores. MIT could have easily offered admission only to those with 750+ M scores if it had wanted to, but it elected not to, confirming that SAT scores are not the only or overriding factor in admissions, and strong test scores are easily overridden by other considerations.</p>
<p>“Until this very moment, no civil rights group successfully brought the issue of SATs causing Disparate Impact to the court. In my view this mean that either (a) they are sleeping on the issue; (b) they do not care; or (c) no one have definitive proof that SATs are biased.”</p>
<p>I was under the impression it HAD been to the court, and some time ago, the test was changed, as a result. I believe there have been recent musing about it <a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/21/sat[/url]”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/21/sat</a> but I guess it is not currently a good case.</p>
<p>I am so surprised this thread is still alive & well, but why should I be? I live on the east coast and have had issues with power/internet service. So I haven’t read this thread since post #400 or so. I might be wrong, and PLEASE forgive me if I am… </p>
<p>The bottom line is that there are some here on CC(who shall remain nameless) that feel that the only place for a URM is serving meals in the dining hall and waxing the floors of their privileged/uber prepared & pampered offspring. No matter how much crap that URM has had to deal with/rise above in life. There! I said it… have been dying to say it since the weekend… wow, I feel better now. :)</p>
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<p>If MIT were to provide a logistic regression whereby they regressed against all the independent variables of your liking (SAT, GPA, math/science awards won, other EC’s, athletics, volunteer work, paid work, variables for race, gender, SES, region of the country, parental education and so forth), then what would happen? </p>
<p>Now they would have published a “formula.” They would have now given exactly the people who are already the most formulaic in their thinking the precise formula, so now they’d push their kids to flock to increasing this and decreasing that in order to “win.” They don’t WANT that. </p>
<p>Remember a few years back when volunteer work in third-world countries was the rage? One might have argued that it was coming out high in the formula when such things were relatively new. Well, once it became known that volunteer work in third-world countries “got you into Harvard,” what happened? It became less valued PRECISELY because these schools aren’t looking for people who are formulaically contorting themselves into what they think Harvard wants. </p>
<p>And indeed, though it’s politically incorrect to say so, I suspect that some of the problems here stem from some groups of people who mistakenly think, or want to believe, that elite college admission is a reward for gaining the highest SAT scores and racking up the most awards in certain very narrowly defined areas and demonstrating achievement in certain very specific extracurricular activities. And so they go after them en masse. And then they get perplexed when Harvard doesn’t want a class of people who have all done the exact same thing. “But the formula said so!” No. I’m really sorry that there are people out there who believe that the magic admissions formula to Harvard is 2400 SAT’s and a 4.0 GPA and winning a math award and being proficient in tennis and violin or piano, but Harvard doesn’t have to either create nor show you a formula. </p>
<p>And if you need a formula spelled out for you to turn you into the type of person that you think Harvard wants, then I daresay you’re not the kind of person Harvard wants in the first place.</p>
<p>Your calls for “transparency” are really calls for – I want to know what the formula is, so I can match myself (or my kid) to it.</p>
<p>-We are dealing with very serious constitutional issues here
-I can clearly see by your language that you do not understand Grutter.
-some times is hard to combine coloquial language and legal language in a way that every one here can understand the argument.</p>
<p>Thank you for trying to educate us, we still disagree with you.</p>
<p>1206 rules.</p>
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<p>Seems pretty transparent to me. Is that pretty transparent to anyone else?</p>
<p>Let’s pause for a little wry humor:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/835055-calculate-your-chances-admission-harvard.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/835055-calculate-your-chances-admission-harvard.html</a>
Northstarmom’s lead post on Harvard.</p>
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<p>Which makes me all the more skeptical that Beliavsky actually attended Harvard, as he claims. Or maybe he was an athlete or development admit? :)</p>
<p>NewHeaven:</p>
<p>By the same token there are other people who think that some individuals are dull, nerdy, all alike, all they do is study, they stay with the hard subjects because they parents made then do it, that they cry because were not admitted to Harvard, are ugly and cannot get dates, are anti-social,…</p>
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<p>It’s not very good/accurate a post, though. A very significant number of its assertions are completely false.</p>