Some admission questions, misconseptions

Descartesz
Mon, 27 Aug 2012 11:27:58 +0000

Regarding CT applicants–

A fairly recent analysis done for attending students based on state of origin of applicants:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/6973073-post6.html

As you can see, CT students lead the nation in per-capita representation at Yale, and at more than six times the national average.

Does this mean they are favored in selection? We have no way of knowing since we don’t know how many CT applicants there are nor the quality of the pool of these applicants. If CT students apply to Yale at six times the national rate–and the CT applicant pool is on-average like the national pool–then a six-fold increase in the concentration of attending CT students would be the result we would expect if no additional favoritism is in play. And if CT students actually apply at (say) ten times the national rate (and otherwise match average credentials), then we could conclude that an anti-CT bias exists. But we really can’t tell.

My point here is to cast some doubt on the alleged anti-CT bias. We really can’t conclude whether or not CT students are or are not favored by Yale admissions, but the available data at least requires some additional explanation before the presence of anti-CT bias can be concluded.