<p>Yes, this is a perfect excuse to excuse anything bad that’s happened to anybody.</p>
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<p>Wow, one is standard, one is non-standard. What a big deal !</p>
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<p>I guess they are not chosen just because of their race, but in the end, many times it is the race that’s the deciding factor.</p>
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<p>Wow, you don’t care!</p>
<p>I’m not denying that they are, but Asians are still denied in larger amounts than any other racial group, and monstor’s link shows that they would have the largest gains without AA. </p>
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<p>I think that person should be at an advantage, but in our current system, they would not.</p>
<p>It goes a long way to dispel myths expressed here as truths. For example, Asian are not just strong in GPA and test scores, they outscore the other groups on just about every area (the exception is Personal Qualities, where whites outscore them ever so slightly, 3.57 to 3.52), according to the Admissions Office Evaluations. In terms of family income, as a group they are slightly ahead of the Latinos and far behind the whites. Any one with any degree of objectivity can tell that “race is only used as a tie-breaker” is blatantly false.</p>
<p>As an outsider (I am a Canuckguy, remember?), what I think is that the university uses some sort of a prescribed pie graph, and the best candidates of each group is admitted until that portion of the pie is filled. In short, a pretty strict quota system is in play.</p>
<p>I wish the other elites would allow similar studies to be done, but based on the information here, I probably have to walk on water first. How courageous Duke is! </p>
<p>I think an objective evaluation of the data is more beneficial than personal opinion, don’t you agree?</p>
<p>I think the most interesting thing about the above link is that it shows the Asian and Hispanic applicants have about the same income, but have very different test scores (something long attributed to be associated with income) and have different “achievement” scores as well. It shows that income isn’t the only thing that affects how someone does in school.</p>
<p>Comparisons of groups are, at bottom, comparisons of millions of individuals who happen to be fit into the Procrustean bed of one or another group label. Very often differences observed in averages between groups have little or nothing to do with the characteristics that approximately define the groups, especially when the groups change definition over time. Why some individuals score higher on tests than others could relate to a lot of different things, and the same reasons may not apply to all cases of individuals differing in scores.</p>
I don’t think this is the whole story. Intelligence has a huge genetic component. The Flynn effect aside, psychometric evidence seems to suggest that different ethnic groups have different averages because of genetic differences. This why IQ scores Across Africa tend to be in the same range even though the cultures of various African nations vary a great deal. Culture plays a part, don’t get me wrong, but it is not the only thing that influences intelligence. Another disturbing fact that drives this point home is that black students whose parents have graduate degrees do worse as a group then the children of whites who only have a hs diploma.</p>
<p>Interesting how one set of data from an elite college admissions office can kill the argumentative nature of this threat. Perhaps it can be referred to in the future when the threat flares up again? Additional data point from other elites would be beneficial but I doubt it would add much to what the Duke study already shows.</p>
<p>I do have a few other thoughts concerning the data. It is clear the elites are bending over backward to have diversity on campus. I am not sure, however, they can ensure that diversity exist across disciplines. In short, I expect a lot of diversity in majors such as sociology and history and very little in math and physics. Any Duke math/physics major here who can confirm or deny my extrapolation based on data?</p>
<p>Even when I was an undergrad, I knew the term “developing countries” is a misnomer. Many of these countries are worse off now than when they were under colonial rule. A few manages to buck the trend. In those days, I saw the early emergence of the 4 little tigers in Asia. I thought at the time that capitalism, Confucianism, and small geographical size were essential for development. Today, with the rise of China and India, I can see that size and Confucianism may not be necessary, but that capitalism certainly is. The part of culture that these countries seems to have in common is the respect for education. How that aspect of culture interacts with intelligence to drive their success is too complex for my little brain to deal with at the moment (No, I am not trying to be politically correct).</p>
<p>I still remember I was comparing the story of Singapore and Trinidad. Both received their independence from Britain at about the same time; both were under British rule for about the same length of time. In addition, Trinidad discovered oil and became wealthy overnight. As a betting man, who could be silly enough to pick Singapore? I know I would not have.</p>
<p>Then there is Argentina, which manages to “un-developed” herself. Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction…</p>
<p>Well for one, Trinidad doesn’t lie on the Malacca straits … and Trinidad does have a respectable per capita GDP and a good HDI score. </p>
<p>If you converted development index scores to SAT scores, I’d say Trinidad would lie around a 2090 SAT with Singapore a 2160. </p>
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<p>What, are you referring to identical twin heritability studies? It’s very difficult to rule out shared phenotypic environment (aka memetic factors aka culture). </p>
<p>Intragroup variance is far greater than intergroup variance. </p>
<p>and there’s nothing a bit of provigil couldn’t solve…</p>
<p>I have seen many people in this thread say that schools should use aa based on socioeconomic status. I’m sorry, but this does not solve the problem. There have been a few studies showing that the SAT scoring disparity between blacks and whites/asians is due to more than just household income. The poorest whites still scored on average a lot higher than even the richest blacks in this study. The study suggests that low SAT scores for blacks has more to do with cultural history and the opression of blacks’ ancestors. Any thoughts on the study? I think affirmative action for just poor people is not an ample solution. </p>
<p>Dude, I don’t know what kind of privileged world you live in, but maybe you should look outside whatever well-off high school you went to? </p>
<p>My high school was more self-segregated among income lines. Only 2 people below the median income for our town made the top 10; by definition half the kids would live below median income but their representation in AP classes was like 10%. </p>
<p>In fact, the variance for Asian kids at our school was pretty large compared to the variance of the white distribution.</p>
<p>Only 47% of my graduating class went on to four-year institutions. Now if you only took a look at the Asian demographic, the rate became 30%. Why? The majority of Asian students at my high school were poor.</p>
<p>you, my friend, seem to want to disregard the facts.</p>
<p>From the article:</p>
<p>But there is a major flaw in the thesis that income differences explain the racial gap. Consider these three observable facts from The College Board’s 2005 data on the SAT: </p>
<p> Whites from families with incomes of less than $10,000 had a mean SAT score of 993. This is 129 points higher than the national mean for all blacks. </p>
<p> Whites from families with incomes below $10,000 had a mean SAT test score that was 61 points higher than blacks whose families had incomes of between $80,000 and $100,000. </p>
<p> Blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a mean SAT score that was 85 points below the mean score for whites from all income levels, 139 points below the mean score of whites from families at the same income level, and 10 points below the average score of white students from families whose income was less than $10,000.</p>
<p>I agree that income doesn’t explain the achievement gap. We should probably consider, parental occupation, geography, school district and demographics, values, etc., A lot of people tend to forget that a very small portion of the African-American middle class is static. There’s a difference in cultural capital between blacks and whites at pretty much every level, even the highest. Being the son of a rich banker is different than being the son of a rich basketball player. I’d imagine that a African-American family that has been middle class for more than a generation does better than one that hasn’t.</p>
<p>You make the mistake of assuming the effect size for the nouveau riche will necessarily be the same compared to families who have good memes to transfer … </p>
<p>Do realise that income is self-reported. Some kids don’t have any idea what their parents make and put down what they think they make (can be underestimated or overestimated). Collegeboard doesn’t check the family income tax returns to make sure the figures add up.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not really concerned about scholarships for Native Americans.</p>
<p>I’m not enrolled because my tribe is not a tribe in the US…it’s a tribe in South America, and it’s not what I associate myself as (due to the fact that I associate myself as Hispanic, but there isn’t the option of Hispanic under “race”), but it is the one I associate myself with after Hispanic (were there an option).</p>
<p>I just don’t want colleges to think I’m lying :s</p>
<p>NearL’s hypothesis I think is in the right direction. Galoisien, that is extremely cynical to say the study is a load of bull because kids made up their parents incomes because it is self reported. Of course their will always be some information reported that is incorrect but to assume enough info is reported incorrectly to affect the study seems iffy.</p>