@twoin18 . . . noted, thank you.
In most cases yes, butâŠ
âŠthey donât when it comes to the demographics of the two biggies, Cal and Southern Branch. There is no way that they can not have a healthy representation of URMs at either school.
And that is why they could not leave the test decisions to the individual campuses. If Cal/UCLA/UCSD chose to keep testing even for a few majors (say Engineering), it would discourage/exclude URMs from that major that campus. JustâŠcanâtâŠhappen.
Re statement 1, it sounds like you changed your stance on this.
Re statement 2:
Letâs address Engineering⊠What percentage of those who apply to UCB/UCLA/UCSD for this department will take neither the ACT or SAT in 2021 moving forward? 5%? I donât think itâd be that high; Iâm thinking effectively zero. Prospective Engineering students are self-selecting which means theyâre going to have high stats; in addition, theyâll be applying to E schools all over the country. So unless UC removes the SAT/ACT reporting section in the UC app. â it wouldnât very bright if they did â then expect effectively all to report scores.
Hi @OneMoreToGo2021: The Standardized Testing Task Forceâs report (available at https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/sttf/sttf-report.pdf) cited data from 2019 that found that ââŠonly 37% of the California resident students in the admitted freshman class, and 26% of all admitted students, were URMs, defined as Latino, African American, and Native American students. Approximately 59% of California high school graduates were URMs.â (Standardized Testing Task Force Report, p. 6).
Based on this statistic, two questions to unpack your assertion that there will be âeven less room for qualified Asians and whites in the UC system going forwardâ:
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How do you know who in the SAT-required admissions system was truly âqualifiedâ if one of the key measures of âmeritâ (here, the SAT) produces a significant, unwarranted advantage for some socio-economic groups and significant disadvantage for others?
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If some groups like Asians, whites, non-disabled, and wealthy students have a clear unwarranted advantage in SAT-required admissions (clearly âfavoredâ groups to use your term), shouldnât a more enlightened policy seek to remove that unwarranted advantage, even if it results in there being âeven less roomâ for those groups previously favored once the unwarranted advantage is removed?
The correlation with SES is largely misunderstood. People see the correlation between parental income and higher scores and assume there is a causal relationship there (i.e. higher parental income causes higher child scores), often attributing it to extensive test prep.
Instead, there are two separate causal relationships that will create the observed correlation:
A. Intelligence has a significant genetic component. Just like tall parents tend to have children taller than average, intelligent parents tend to have children more intelligent than average.
B. Intelligent parents tend to make a higher income. Many higher income jobs, such as medicine, law, engineering, and computer science require intelligence, and lack of it excludes people from those fields.
C. Given A and B above, you will end up with a correlation between a parentâs income and a childâs test scores. It is very hard to avoid this.
There is no clear unwarranted advantage related to any racial group you mentioned. There is nothing on the test related to race. And wealth was discussed above.
You have a valid point that people who come from good school systems have an advantage, but that would place the blame directly upon the K-12 school systems. A rigorous college is really not the place to try to catch up if you are far behind.
Hi @UCBUSCalum. I am also a Cal alum, so bear with me as I address your comment with three points in the spirit of making CollegeConfidential a space where all feel free to contribute:
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Iâm not aware of studies of standardized test bias against Asians as a group. I am very aware of how UC admissions POLICY (UC Berkeley in particular) in the 1980âs was biased and discriminatory against Asian students, insofar as there was a covert decision to impose a minimum verbal SAT score, but not a minimum math SAT score.
After numerous denials of such a policy, then-Chancellor Ira Michael Heyman finally âadmitted that such a policy had indeed been adopted in 1984, but was withdrawn after a brief time. The dispute fueled suspicion that Berkeley had covertly adopted guidelines which, though neutral on their face, caused an inevitable or foreseeable drop in Asian American admissions.â (See 98 Yale Law Journal 659 at p. 674, available at https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7197&context=ylj). Did you mean to say that Asians had to overcome bias in ADMISSIONS POLICIES, not standardized testing? -
Are you aware how the âAsians as model minorityâ is a very tired trope that is widely rejected and harmful not only to Asians, but was designed at the outset to disparage African Americans by drawing upon gross antiblack stereotypes? Consider the language from a 1966 US News and World Report early adopter of the model minority myth:
âStill being taught in Chinatown is the old idea that people should depend on their own efforts â not a welfare check â in order to reach Americaâs âpromised land,ââ the 1966 U.S. News and World Report article said⊠(cited by Jeff Guo, "The Real Secret to Asian American Success Was Not Education, Washington Post, November 19, 2016 available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/19/the-real-secret-to-asian-american-success-was-not-education/)
See also,
https://psmag.com/social-justice/asian-americans-are-not-your-model-minority
- Do you really think that those âappointed leadersâ and âgroups who want to eliminate the SATâ are all âcry-babiesâ? In context of your earlier comments that Asians are the âmodelled minority,â it seems you are suggesting that underrepresented minorities are these âcry-babies.â But note, that group now includes ALL the UC Board of Regents! Are the many white and Asian UC Regents also âcry-babiesâ? If an allegedly neutral criterion for university admission or employment was used that had a significant negative impact on a group to which you belong that could not be justified in light of available alternatives, would you be a âcry-babyâ for opposing that criterion?
I raise these questions because we are a crowd-sourced community of information givers. Our success as a community thrives on our expertise and diversity. I welcome spirited debate, but provocative comments that can be read or taken as racially-coded insults could likely result in a more homogenous and narrow set of active postersâa result that would be truly unfortunate for those coming here for assistance.
Looking up some numbers from IPEDS, in the most recent available year, 23% of bachelorâs degree recipients were single-race URMs. Among social sciences majors, 29% were URMs. 29% is significantly more than the overall rate of 23%, implying that URMs who attend UCLA are more likely to enter social sciences than the average student, but Iâd expect that the discrepancy is not large enough to be a major concern for administrators or the population as a whole.
Instead such groups are far more likely to be concerned about the lack of URM representation in STEM. I say STEM because that is the common grouping among news stories and outreach programs, but the URM underrepresentation is limited to specific fields within STEM. For example, engineering shows a completely different pattern from biology. Only 10% of UCLA engineering bachelorâs degree recipients were URMs in the most recent IPEDs year. The full percentages are below.
UCLA Engineering Degree Recipients
Overall â 73% Male / 27% Female
38% Asian (76% Male / 24% Female)
23% White (72% Male / 28% Female)
21% International (76% Male / 24% Female)
10% Hispanic (64% Male / 36% Female)
<1% Black (2 males and 1 female)
Both women and URMs are severely underrepresented in engineering. Non-international White students are also underrepresented, but to a lesser extent than women and URMs.
The reasons for this underrepresentation are complex and multifaceted. I do not think the issue is primarily that URMs who are admitted to engineering are failing out or switching out at high rates as a whole. Looking at the first time freshman 4 years earlier, 9% were reported as entering engineering. This 9% increased to 10% by graduation. Part of the increase relates to transfers, but when considering transfers, URMs still do not appear to dropping out of engineering notably more than the overall population between freshman year and graduation at UCLA. I also havenât seen anything to suggest that the URMs who are admitted to engineering are not doing well as a whole at UCLA.
I think the greater contributing factors are URMs tend to be underrepresented among students applying to engineering at UCLA, and URMs are less likely to academically qualified for engineering than the general population. Both of these factors primarily depend on secondary school and family/community, rather than college, which limits how much UCLA can do to improve them. For example, the numbers might improve if secondary school education improved in math/science, including more access to advanced calculus+ level math; HS districts with a large URM population had more engineering role models and mentors; outreach to various engineering relate ECs, etc.
UCLA could theoretically reduce international enrollment, which is the group that appears to be most overrperesnted in engineering. They might replace international students with higher tuition out of state, if necessary to meet budget However, I would personally favor programs that support struggling students rather than penalize excelling students, even if these routes are not as directly effective. This includes supporting students who are limited by weaker HS backgrounds.
Many of these issues are not specific to UCLA or the UC system. For example, I was an engineering major at Stanford. My EE class had a much greater degree of underrpresentation among women and URMs than the numbers I listed above., and the discrepancy still persists today, with ~20% of Stanford EEs being women and very few being URMs. Even larger discrepancy occur at all private companies I am familiar with in my subfield. This can lead to cultural dependencies, with students of certain races being less likely to have parents who work in engineering or personally know anyone who has worked in engineering, less likely to have friends who talk about wanting to pursue engineering, etc. Changing how SAT score is used in admission is not going to resolve this type of issue. I do not see a simple solution.
Hi @hebegebe. Thank you for your reply. But you are missing the point, or my point, which is that the SAT has been demonstrated to have a significant, disparate impact on African Americans and Latinx as groups. Unless you are making some argument to return to biological determinism to explain these disparities (which I hope you are not), the recent advances on the heritability of intelligence do not address these racial disparities, insofar as even these researchers acknowledge that intelligence is complex interplay between the heritability factor and the environmental factor.
Similarly, your assertion that âIntelligent parents tend to make a higher incomeâ and âlack of [intelligence] excludes people from [higher income jobs that] require intelligenceâ and the certainty with which you state it as unassailable fact suggests a gap of understanding for those whose human capital investments have not borne fruit. The link to the Washington Post article I shared in my post #105 above speaks to this point to show that it was not Asian American investments in education that brought about a shift in their economic fortunes. âAsians used to be paid like blacks,â Hilger said. âBut between 1940 and 1970, they started to get paid like whites.â Why? According to scholars, it is because of âthe slow dismantling of discriminatory institutions after World War II, and the softening of racist prejudices.â This same dismantling of institutional racism and softening of prejudice did not occur for African Americans. Why? In part because of the âmodel minority mythâ that blames Black people for the legacy of antiblack racism by pointing to the Asian as model minority to vindicate ongoing institutional racism.
Jeff Guo, "The Real Secret to Asian American Success Was Not Education, Washington Post, November 19, 2016 available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/19/the-real-secret-to-asian-american-success-was-not-education/
I think I will be over the limit for this post, so I will address your second half of your comment in a subsequent post.
Apologies if I was unclear as I donât think Iâve changed my stance. At least I didnât mean to.
I have no doubt that UC will no longer accept scores. Just like the Common App blocks them out for Test Optional schools, or schools that no longer use them, I predict UC will do the same. UC could not have been more clear:
yeah, I get that it may not be very bright, but there is no way to allow voluntary reporting on the application and still comply with the dictate to âeliminate standardized testing.â If students can self-report, an app reader will see them, and perhaps psychologically influence their ratings; that goes against new policy.
But Iâve been wrong before. 
@data10 . . . very nice writeup, much appreciated. Your reprising some of the facts below will help inform others who might want to partake in our conversation, but I am aware of the numbers if not necessarily in regard to specifics.
- I'll have to divide my response into two posts.
Let me divide your response into the eight paragraphs and include my responses because I donât want to quote your entire post:
P-1 - Your reference to IPEDS wrt UCLA. URM representation of conferred degrees: 29% Social Sciences, 23% overall among baccalaureate grantees, not materially enough of a concern between the two.
Somewhat agreed.
P-2 â URM representation in STEM: Bio-fields are healthier than Engineering where itâs only 10%.
Thatâs pretty evident, because a good percentage of URMs â I think we can reduce things to URM primarily equaling Latinas/os in California, not to ignore African-Americans or the others at the moment â see the fastest way of obtaining upward mobility would be to become MDs. Thatâs the dream of most immigrant families across all cultural backgrounds. However, this translates to an entirely different story because according to the aamc website, there is a severe dearth of Latinas/os who do enter med school from among all colleges, and certainly wrt UCLA.
Perhaps they have to settle for something else like dentistry or DO school or physical therapy or becoming PAs, or they take their Bio degree and become consultants or attorneys or whatever. I donât think UCLA does enough presently to break down the outcomes by race, and part of this could be intentional. Thereâs a UCLA-SAIRO website that shows the breakdown by year of all UCLA baccalaureates who enter medical school and breaks down the percentage of each ethnic group who are accepted to M, but it doesnât state specific percentages by these groups, which probably means that Latinas/os stop short of applying, perhaps initially because the MCAT acts as the greatest barrier.
P-3 - Your stats from IPEDS for Engineering according to race/ethnicity and gender.
Combined withâŠ
P-4 - The underrepresentation of women in Engineering along with non-International whites.
Agreed that if youâre going to bring up URM representation, you have to bring up gender disparity in the E sciences. But thereâs also an overrepresentation of women at UCLA as a whole â I think itâs currently a 57:43 or 56:44, F:M, and specifically in Communications and Life Sciences, including Psychology.
P-5
Re bold, I completely agree. But UCLA has specific elevated standards for its E school unlike Stanford which, presumably, has a uniform standard of entry for all freshmen. This obviously leads to the high percentage of CS majors at Farm, whereas the numbers of CS majors in E at UCLA are capped. (However, there are computationally related majors in L&S and even a minor in humanities and overall a specialization in computing because switching into CS in E from L&S is almost impossible.)
However, anyone can switch in and out of various degree programs in Letters and Sciences, provided they do it quickly enough because the prereqs will determine whether there are enough units to enable switching combined with the similarity or dissimilarity of the from and to major, with say a unit cap of a bit over 200. (There is no cap in E.) Therefore, I think the guided hand or oneâs self-realization of switching into Sociology would be the student falling out of the bio-sciences, primarily.
P-6 -
I believe this is where the three-tier college system in California could be better utilized. If a student attends an underfunded high school with little AP, he or she can dual-enroll at the local community college to take the higher-level courses her or his school lacks. This could be beneficial to the underserved because a student can work on a two-year degree along with qualifying for UC, which is heavily AP weighted, and have significantly reduced units to achieve for graduation at UCLA or the others.
Additionally, the President and Regents of UC have to realize that itâs a combined effort between all levels of the colleges to educate the âunderclass.â The actions of UC manifest their trying to turn the UC into the CSU and further blur the lines between the two, when the latter is a system that is more nurturing and less competitive.
Part II of the above postâŠ
P-7
Regarding the bold 1, UCLAâs and UCâs full tuition combined with housing is already ~ $65,000.
Regarding bold II, I agree, but the SAT threshold standard had already been reduced for those from poor background. At UCLA a 1,300 SAT as twoin18 stated was considered good at a Central Valley HS, whereas a 1,500 at a Silicon HS was considered the same.
Concerning Internationals, the UC capped undergraduate enrollment for non-residents for specific campuses in 2018, and for the years 2019 and forward, [edit: it] was set at 18% for all campuses, except for UCLA, UCB, UCSD, and I think UCI, which reflected their freshmen enrollment of for this cohort in the 2018 year. For UCLA the number turned out to be â I believe â 27%. For freshmen in 2019, the numbers were right at 25%, and without looking at the numbers, it was ~ 2:1 ratio of Out-of-States:Internationals, or ~ 17% to 8% or ~ 16% to 9%, respectively.
Additionally, about 14% of the transfers to UCLA have been International, and effectively 0% are OOS students. But this doesnât reflect those who come to California from other states, become at least semi-independent â i.e., by putting themselves on the CA tax rolls, gaining residency, and transferring in to UCLA (or other UCs).
The result of these two cohorts is that UCLA current has an undergraduate enrollment of about 12.5% for each, with slightly more OOS students.
The state of course funds a portion of the education of California students who attend UCLA. The provisions of this funding only account for about 4,500 students of the freshmen entering class. In 2010, UCLA stepped up its non-resident enrollment â I donât know when the others did, perhaps at approximately the same year â by enrolling mostly Internationals. This is when the freshman class grew from about ~ 4,500 to 6,000 almost overnight. Since state funding only allots a class of 4,500, UCLA as a campus independently of the state seeks out ~1,500 non-resident students.
As far as the transfers are concerned, there are numerous students from around the world who enroll at the California Community Colleges (âCCCâ) to specifically target the UCs. There are some who enroll there to experience California life, but a lot of them want to attend college at UC.
The point of this is that about a quarter of UCLA freshmen donât fall into state mandates because UCLA needs the extra revenue to overcome state shortfalls, and for transfers, itâd be hard to separate Internationals from domestics in addition to it being a black mark on UC to deny one group, Internationals, and accept only in-state students from this cohort.
P-8
I appreciate the admission.
and the (supposed) experts weigh inâŠmy takeaway from them is that a new, âfairâ test is nigh impossible. And a more holistic process would be expensive to hire & train the readers for 100k applicants.
@CollegeOdyssey2001 Thanks for pointing out that my comments can be taken out of context and construed as not politically correct. Fyi, the UC Board of Regents consist of 1 of Asian decent out of 19 members or around 5%, which far below the percentage of Asians in California.
I was referring to policies. Policies can limit the number of a certain people from gaining admission to a University. In the 1900âs, policies administered by some of the Ivies, kept Jewish people from being admitted to Ivy League schools. Subsequently, the Chinese, but both the Jews and Chinese endured and overcame these barriers.
I agree with diversity and there has to be a balance and at what cost. Hopefully, diversity is not to amend for past sins of discrimination but to put everyone at a âlevel playing fieldâ. It is difficult because wealthy families still have the means to send their kids to tutoring, special camps, vacation, other life enrichment experiences, etc. that a lower income family cannot afford.
I might not have articulated it, but the point is how would the UC, especially the top tier ones like UCB or UCLA, determine who is qualified to get admitted? With SAT/ACT eliminated, I suspect grades, essays and extra curricular activities with grades weighted more.
A young friend of mine was a former school teacher who grew up, graduated, taught at a high performing public school and graduated from a UC (bachelors and masters degrees). He subsequently taught at a low performing public high school. At the low performing school, he was âpersuadedâ/coerced to âwater downâ the advance math like geometry or higher math in order for the student to attain an A or B grade. He felt that he was doing a disservice to the students if the students were admitted to a UC and flunked out, which happens. After over 10 years teaching, he was frustrated with the bureaucracy and became a computer programmer. Myself, I experience the same situation many years ago when I chose to attend a public college prep high school. Many of my peers chose to attend an underacheiving public high school. The ones who got staight Aâs (personally I did not think they were academically astute) were able to get into UCB. Generally, they flunked out.
I did not realize that the term âAsian modelled minorityâ can be taken out of context to be insensitive. The term was recently referred to in a PBS documentary on Asian struggles and facing discriminations in the US. I always thought the term was used to illustrate how Asians overcome many obsticles, adversity and discriminations in the US to achieve the American Dream.
Myself, back in the old days, UCB had the Equal Opportunity Programs. We followed the rules and did not complain that someone seemingly may not be as deserving got admitted in place of someone else who may be percieved as more deserving.
I do believe in striving for diversity, but at what cost. As mentioned, as we amending for past sins? The point is how do you balance to achieve diversity and devise a system that is fair a acceptable to all parties?
The UC administration is looking at devising their own test. Then again, how do you devise the test so that there is no cultural bias with the goal that everyone is in the same playing field and keep the integrity of the admssion process?
Interesting reading all these novels with trigger words & virtue-signaling.
Especially, watching the âPolitical Correctnessâ community turn on each other for violating Political Correctness rules.
Arenât grades and rigor also correlated with SES and race? Perhaps the next step should be to ignore all HS grades other than As and discount rigor?
Again, quotas would be a more honest, and less damaging, route to take, both for UC as well as other highly selective colleges.
Hereâs the link to the message from the presidentâs office of UC supplied by @Mwfan1921 earlier in the thread:
Hereâs the specific quote from the president herself:
For fall 2021 & 2022, the UC will keep the SAT/ACT reporting sections in the UC common app. This means, students can report all they want, and I think they should even if their scores are lower. But if they have the chance, they should retake them and try to score higher all across the board. And this would be especially true for those who attend a good public or private high school. I think the scores would be useful with the adjustments the campuses make for how well the high school is funded.
For fall 2023 & 2024, there are two sets of students which might have a different test-taking algorithm. For OOS students & Internationals, they should continue to take the ACT and or SAT, the latter especially because of the differences in their grade system. The UC should allow each campus to direct the test reporting for the non-domestics. For CA students, they need to take the tests, obviously, if theyâre applying outside of UC and possibly CSU. If the UC common app has the ACT/SAT section, they should include them. The Engineering schools at each of the UCs may recommend them but off the record.
For 2025, weâll just have to see if UC has developed this test or not. I donât think things are concrete, because the UC could be hit by numerous lawsuits from numerous families because their students had been denied despite having top grades and top scores. She really should have no business in trying to invoke changes that far ahead, but instead provide some alternates. I guess it might be good for non-residents to take the UC test if there is one because it could demonstrate interest in attending one of the campuses, because otherwise, they wonât bother.
Regarding the last paragraph in her message I quoted, itâs obvious that this grinds at her. She undoubtedly wanted UC to go back to each campus having 90%+ in-state students, but she knew the University had no financial footing to require this. She tried nonetheless.
As a note: I happened to notice that SDSU has kind of thumbed its nose at the leadership of CSU because of the shortfall of funds from the state which forced their hand in taking more non-resident students. If the shortfall continues for all UCs, then Iâd be curious to see how the individual UCs proceed.
^^good summary, firm, butâŠ
Uhh, absolutely no chance. The SJW whistleblowers would be on the front page of The LA Times.
Facts not in evidence; not obvious at all. Janet is a politician, and looking for her next job (perhaps a Cabinet position in a Biden Administration?). She can step down now with a progressive resume of accomplishments.
The last par in the link you posted is more about increasing diversity, for example how/if a-g course requirements might restrict diversity.
@bluebayou . . .
Can you tell me that the SATII Math is not definitively required or recommended? I know thereâs optionality in the test --as opposed to âDO NOT SEND IN THESE SCORES,â but it probably should be sent in for UCLA E/CS.
Can you tell me with definition that UCB does not require or recommend Math II in its E department?
And it doesnât matter what SJWs desire. If UCLA and UCB both require non-domestics to take the ACT/SAT and possibly the Math 2 tests but nothing from the in-state students, this will continue to give Internationals and OOS students a distinct advantage of taking a good portion of the E/CS slots.
And as far as going back to 90%+ California residents at the UCs, what would be the reasons why the proponents would have wanted this? This was fought over vigorously, and the only reason why they would have would be to open up the better majors for CA students because we know that Internationals from especially South and East Asia have a very special gift for the E sciences as well as those from CA who are of like background. And this is not typing them or other CA students. They just have the gift.
I can only read what at the Regents passed, which was no tests for state residents. And their intent is clear.
But a better question is, what evidence do you have that UC will accept any tests for instate CA residents post 2025?
Perhaps, but it would be really easy to cap those slots to ensure instate folks get xx%.
Not sure I understand your last par.
btw: your comments abut e-science are inconsistent with your previous posts about gestalt.
Explanations for the policy change involve different degrees of correlation. For example, table 1 of the old Geiser study at https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED502858.pdf lists the following correlations with familiy income among UC students. SAT was far more correlated with income than HS GPA â different orders of magnitude. The task force report and a later Geiser study degree of correlation with demographic variables including income has been increasing over time. This effect also can result in different conclusions about degree of predictive ability , depending on whether you control for SES, which also relates to why some of the task for numbers seem different from Geiser numbers in similar years.
Correlation with Family Income (Old)
SAT I Verbal â 0.32
SAT I Math â 0.24
HS GPA â 0.04
The reasons for this correlation with SES and what to do about it are more complex. One key reason for the lack of correlation with GPA is GPA has a strong dependence on which particular HS is attended. The task force report found that if you control for HS, such that you are only comparing students within a particular HS where secondary school preparation is more similar, then the disparity between SAT and GPA score dropped significantly . Within a particular HS, demographic variables within students at a particular could explain 17% of variance in SAT score compare to 8% of variance in GPA.
UCâs current admission system directly prefers lower income kids, so lower income kids with particular SAT score are more likely to be admitted than higher income kids with the same stats. In 2018, low income kids with a SAT score near the national average had a ~50% chance of being admitted, while not low income kids with a ~80th percentile in national sample SAT score had a similar ~50% chance. In 2019, low income UC admits averaged 171 points lower SAT score than did not low income admits. This can also result in very different SAT averages among racial groups that have high lower income percentage. For example, in 2019 Latino admits average 196 points lower SAT than White admits.