# Racial standards in SAT and college admissions - ideal threshold? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 8, 2016, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303 "2016-03-08T18:25:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/81 "2016-03-17T16:52:32Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > I didn’t say they were. You said “forced immigration” I thought you were referring to slavery. So can you please tell me how Hispanic immigrants are forced immigrants? > [@](#): > > The circumstances are typically very, very different. How are they different? And why do those differences justify preferential treatment based on race? > [@](#): > > So? Do you think Nigerian immigrants are immune to anti-Black prejudice? No. Are you saying that societal prejudice should be the basis for affirmative action? Should we have affirmative action for Muslims too? > [@](#): > > Broadly speaking yes. SE Asians are often treated better because they are not Black, but skin color also matters a lot. So a dark skinned southeast asian has it worse than lighter skinned Mexicans, right? > [@](#): > > See, your framing the issue this way is begging the question. Hurting Asians isn’t the goal, and it’s barely a byproduct. Holistic evaluation is good on it’s own merits, and is argued for without any regard for how it specifically affects Asian people. I get that that is your thing, but it’s largely not the point. Valuing diversity, and recognizing the poor predictive value of tests is not some anti-Asian plot regardless of how you want to spin in. IOW, its not important how it affects Asians, we’re just collateral damage. What’s important is how it affects other groups. I am not arguing against any use of holistic criteria, I am arguing against race being one of those holistic criteria. I point out that Asian admissions at Berkeley rose and white admissions dropped after the admissions process became race blind. Berkeley STILL uses holistic criteria but those holistic criteria cannot include race. If you want to admit blacks based on race then just come out and say it. Don’t be coy. Just say that we should reserve X% of the entering class at all the best schools for black students and depending on what the number is I may or may not support the idea. But the notion that we should use holistic criteria that results in whites being admitting at the expense of Asians seems like a bunch of white people looking for ways to keep sending their kids to good schools even though their kids are not the best qualified. > [@](#): > > Once again, you are just arguing Whites have a specific advantage because they get in with lower test scores. The problem is that test scores are not the only valuable metric. And I have asked you SEVERAL times, WTF is this mysterious metric that Asians underperform in by enough to justify whites with similar tests, grades and extracurriculars getting in several times more more frequently than Asians? Serisouly, that is what your argument breaks down to, “there is something else that is keeping the Asian students out (and its not race)” So what is it? > [@](#): > > Where you are confused is thinking Asians _must_ have higher test scores to get into a given university because of a specific bar set up prevent over-representation, when the reality is that Asians who are accepted typically have higher score due to the fact that the Asian population that applies has higher scores. For example, if every Asian with a SAT over 2150 decided to boycott Harvard, Harvard would still accept plenty of Asian people below that cutoff. They don’t have some rule that Asians must be x% better than Whites or Blacks. Such a thing sometimes happens with students, at least as far as test scores are concerned, because of group averages. Bullshit. When comparing Asians and whites with the same test scores, Whites are several times more likely to be admitted than Asians. Why is that? > [@](#): > > Yes, it’s probably demonstrably true that Harvard, et al, don’t want 100% Asian people. But they also don’t want 100% White people, or 100% New Yorkers, or 100% whatever. Its probably demonstrably true that Harvard doesn’t seem to want more Asians than whites. > [@](#): > > Do you not see a contradiction here? Once again, you are radically overstating your case, and talking about things you don’t seem to know about. What contradiction? It sounds like you are trying to pick nits. > [@](#): > > Even if I agreed with the above, it doesn’t really prove your point at all about the motivations of most people who approve of affirmative action type programs and a de-emphasis on testing. I am one of those people that approve of affirmative action a de-emphasis on testing early childhood testing. But what I have been reading on this thread is people saying ridiculous bullshit like a 450 point difference in SAT scores doesn’t really mean anything and they back that up basically with some cherrypicked evidence that IQ scores don’t really mean anything. WTF?!?! > [@](#): > > Hell, teacher’s unions and other educational professionals are some of the largest groups who want to de-emphasisze and minimize testing in every facet of the educational process. I also want to reduce the amount of standardized testing going on in schools. The level of standardized testing has dramatically increased in the last generation without much more to show for all that increase. That is VERY different than saying that test results should be de-emphasized. I think teachers are pretty split on whether a test actually measures anything worth measuring. Or have teachers stopped giving tests? > [@](#): > > You think pointing to some allegedly bigoted White people in NYC is indicative of a larger issue? You are talking about 8 or so high schools in one city. That is not enough evidence to back up your claims. I don’t think they are bigoted. They are perfectly happy to have their kids have lots and lots of Asian classmates but they don’t want their kid excluded because their kid gets crowded out by Asian kids. First of all its really about 3 high schools and secondly, I don’t there is such a thing as enough evidence to satisfy you. It is one example among many. There is a magnet school here in Northern Virginia called Thomas Jefferson. They de-emphasized testing and it wasn’t until the school ranking started to drop that they went back to the system they had been using before Asians started taking over the school. > [@](#): > > I am pretty sure they knew such a thing might happen. They are professionals and the data was fairly clear. They were pretty sure that under-represented minorities would become more under-represented. They were not pretty sure that there would be fewer white admissions in a race blind admissions process. > [@](#): > > You can HEAR whatever you want. If you reflexively assume every White person who CORRECTLY identifies an issue is a racist, then the issue is with you. Maybe that is YOUR blind spot. What issue is the white person CORRECTLY identifying? > [@](#): > > I am sure that happens, but the issue at hand has almost nothing to do with such things. Then we have been talking past each other. Did you happen to read the Op and the article linked in the OP? > [@](#): > > Why are “objective” criteria better? Because they are objective rather than the subject of someone’s discretion. Its like saying why is a ruler better at measuring things than using the width of your palm. > [@](#): > > Again, given that schools essentially want to create a microcosm of society with a specific focus on education, why are scores the best way to achieve that goal? A microcosm? Then why not just admit people via lottery. Why use academics at all. Colleges don’t want some representative microcosm of society. They want the most qualified entering class they can attract consistent with other goals like diversity. I don’t really mind the goal of diversity. What I am taking issue with is the fact that subjective criteria has effectively become an avenue (intentional or not) of accepting less qualified (along almost any metric) white students over more qualified Asian students. > [@](#): > > They don’t have to be better predictors of college success. You are conflating two issues here: whether test scores tell us what they think they tell us, and how a college can best create a class that reflects the values they have. De-emphasizing test scores is a good idea in light of the former; tests don’t tell us or measure what they claim they do. Really? So what if anything do tests measure? I think de-emphasizing tests is a really good way to achieve the dumbing down of America. I’m not sayin that tests measure EVERYTHING you need to know but they are very useful measuring tools. > [@](#): > > That’s WHY they are not objective measurements in actuality. The consideration of more subjective criteria is helpful because those things help a university create a class they want to create (eg. one with geographic diversity, diversity of interests and experiences, diversity of majors, etc.). When people talk about diversity in interests and experience, I can’t help be reminded of how people think of Asians as fungible walking high test scores. So I ask once again what is the criteria that colleges are using that admits similarly credentialed whites at several times the rate of their Asian peers? What was the reason why Berkeley saw a reduction in white admissions and an increase in Asian admissions after they went race blind on the admissions process? Was it just coincidence? > [@](#): > > If universities were only interested in predicting success, they wouldn’t need to even bother with admissions at all. Let anyone take lower courses online or on campus, then just take the top x number of students. Obviously the admissions process is not solely an exercise in predicting future success, and that is a good thing. You keep failing to mention what you think is the subjective critieria in which Asians so under-perform their white counterparts that it justifies the 300% higher likelihood of a white student being admitted over an Asian student with the exact similar grades, test cores and extracurricular activities? > [@](#): > > How about the fact that they don’t want near identical copies of the same person regardless of their race. For example, do you think Harvard would admit a high percentage of people who intended to major in computer science? Of course not. So Asians students are undifferentiated fungible items while every white student is a snowflake. Here is a chart of college majors by race: > **[et 20150331 racial and ethnic differences in college major choice](https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-trends/2015/et-20150331-racial-and-ethnic-differences-in-college-major-choice)** > > There are large differences in the average earnings of people who choose different college majors. Could differences in major choice explain some of the income gap between blacks and Hispanics relative to whites and Asians? So how does that distribution of majors justify the advantage that whites hold over Asians in the admissions process. The top engineering programs is where we see the LEAST disparity in test scores so are you saying thaty once they have accepted a bunch of Asians into the engineering school, there isn’t any more room for Asians in the college of letter arts and sciences? > [@](#): > > You seem to be. Even amongst the schizophrenic arguments you keep putting forth, you still see to be be harping on the fact that subjective criteria are essentially worthless. If that is the case, then there is no other logical system to put in place. Where do I say that subjective criteria are worthless. I am not advocating for getting rid of college essays, socioeconomic factors, or other factors into account. I just don’t want race to be one of them (at least as between whites and Asians). > [@](#): > > For the most part, yes. Obviously human biases creep into any process, but the blanket, explicit biases that existed in decades past are largely gone in many parts of higher education. Those “human biases” can be eliminated more than they are now. They did it in California by making applications race blind. > [@](#): > > Asians have higher scores? Is this really that complicated for you to understand? All they did was remove racial identifiers. They didn’t tell schools that they could ONLY look at test scores. but when they eliminated racial identifiers, there were fewer whites and more Asians. Should I spell it out for you? The admissions committee were discriminating against Asians and in favor of whites in the "holistic admissions process that included discussions of race and when race was largely eliminated as a factor fewer whites were able to get in based on their race. > [@](#): > > Why? Should the Knicks have to justify the criteria they use to cut or draft players? Who should these schools have to justify this to? You? A panel of scientists or politicians? Why should they have to prove why they think it’s better to have people from all over the world rather than just right outside their door? Because they hold a pretty important place in society as the gatekeepers to American opportunity. They are also tax exempt and enjoy the benefits of deductible charitable donations being made to them. And I am not talking about diversity preferences for under-represented minorities. I can see the benefits to ALL of society when we do that. What I don’t see is the benefit to society when we favor white students over similarly situated Asian students. > [@](#): > > Once again, you miss the point. Asians aren’t innately gifted test takers; they work hard at it like many other non-Asian test takers. They issue is that broadly speaking, Asians have specialized in a specific facet of academia that people are recognizing has diminishing returns quantitatively speaking, then some Asains have gotten angry they are not getting returns on that work quantitatively commensurate with those efforts. OK, then ONCE AGAIN, I ask: What are these other criteria where Asians are falling behind that justifies the large discrepancies between white and Asian students? This has to be like the tenth time I have asked in this thread without a response. I have probably asked a hundred times in other threads and there is never really a good answer. > [@](#): > > Yes, I can see why this seems like society is just trying to undermine Asians, but by and large, it isn’t. It’s not like someone promised entrance into elite schools based on specific test scores or qualities. This frustration you seem to have is misplaced largely because you seem to have internalized college admissions as some sort of transactional relationship where one is owed a spot because they met certain criteria. That’s not how it works. Perhaps it should work that way, but it doesn’t. You can’t act as if someone reneged on a promise made to you when there was never a deal being made, or a promise offered. No one needs to break a promise for there to be injustice. > [@](#): > > It’s especially weird given that almost every elite school, even those with holistic admissions, has an over-representation of Asians. This idea that there is some grand conspiracy against Asian is just laughable in that respect. As if all these racists can abide by Asian being 45% of the school, but not 60%. That’s just going too far! What schools outside of those that do not use race as a factor have that many Asians? And if the right percentage is 60%, why should we tamp it down to 45%? To avoid hurting the feelings of white America? > [@](#): > > Stuff like this also highlights the magnitude of how differently Hispanics and Blacks are treated relative to Asians. There is almost no arena where Whites, in general, would be comfortable with almost half the population being Black or Hispanic unless they have NO other options. > **[Race and ethnicity in the NBA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_NBA)** > > The composition of race and ethnicity in the National Basketball Association (NBA) has changed throughout the league's history. The first non-white player to play in the league was an Asian American, Wat Misaka, in 1947. African Americans entered the league beginning in 1950. According to racial equality activist Richard Lapchick, the NBA in 2021 was composed of 73.2 percent black players, 16.8 percent white players, 3.1 percent Latino players of any race, and 0.4 percent Asian players. Addit... [http://www.besttickets.com/blog/nfl-player-census-2014/](http://www.besttickets.com/blog/nfl-player-census-2014/) > [@](#): > > If a school or neighborhood has those demographics, White people move, real estate agents stop showing homes, and people start whispering about how that is not the place you want to go. The area becomes tainted. If 50% of the population at Harvard was Black, even if they were still held to the same rigorous “objective” standards, White people would stop applying in short order. There would just be some default assumption that something was wrong with the school. > > That’s not to say that Asians aren’t discriminated against, or that White people love Asians, but that chip on your shoulder would be a lot larger if you experienced life as someone who isn’t considered a model minority and didn’t see having your kind slightly less overwhelmingly over-represented as a source of aggrievement. Yeah. OK. Blacks have it worse. No doubt. So I guess Asians should just shut up because they don’t have it ass bad as the blacks? The fact that whites treat blacks worse than Asians doesn’t mean they are being fair to Asians. > [@](#): > > What needs explanation? Whites enrollment went down for the same reason male enrollment went down. When you create a climate where scrutiny is going to be more focused on quantitative measures, you are going to get more of the people in the groups who are doing well in those criteria. All they eliminated was race. They didn’t get rid of all subjective measures. Just one OBJECTIVE meaure, race. > [@](#): > > The major companies in any industry with educated white collar professionals. Certainly working at Apple or Google will help more a professional in tech more than having gone to a specific university. Many industries have kingmakers companies like that (eg. Skadden, Goldman, Deloitte, McKinsey, etc.). And how do you get into THOSE places? You think educational pedigree might have something to do with it? :smack: > [@](#): > > How do you know they are outliers? Regardless, the point obtains. An IQ test tells us very little after a certain point. Einstein’s IQ was supposedly around 160, a full 4 deviations below Tao and a few other less notable people. Do you think a university looking at those scores would be justified in assuming the former was less capable than the latter? As a general rule, YES!!! There is no accounting for genius. And if someone with shitty test scores developed a unified theory in physics, they deserve to go wherever the fuck they want. But all other things being equal, people with higher IQs have greater potential than people with lower IQs. Is that a controversial thing to say? > [@](#): > > What are you basing that on? Based on the definition of IQ.:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/82 "2016-03-17T17:11:08Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I just wanted to extend a thank you to **Damuri Ajashi**. It’s nice to see someone speaking out so vociferously on behalf of Asians. Usually on this board and elsewhere I get the feeling we are often completely disregarded, told to sit down and shut up, the adults are talking, or passed over completely to talk about black or Hispanic issues. I don’t deny the black and Hispanic communities are profoundly discriminated against but being held up as the ‘model minority’ has its own challenges too. Yeah, there are always at least a few posts that basically tell me to shut up because Asians don’t have it as bad as the blacks. Yes, Asians realize that there is greater prejudice against blacks than Asians. We are there when blacks leave the room and whites start making comments. We generally don’t have to worry about our kids getting shot by cops. But as you say, there are challenges to being a model minority. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/83 "2016-03-17T17:14:02Z")
You are moving the goalposts. A page ago, you were arguing that “subjective” criteria were designed to favor white kids, so that a “typical” Asian kid’s resume was less attractive than a “typical” white kid’s resume because the typical white kid had the kind of stuff the admissions committee wanted to see and the “typical” Asian kid did not (or not as much)–that it put a system in place that was easier for white families to game. But now you are arguing that the hypothetical white and Asian kids have identical resumes except the Asian kids have different test scores. That’s a very different thing. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/84 "2016-03-17T19:01:45Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Damuri Ajashi, I can’t go back and line-item every single point. However, I think the central error in your perspective is the idea that such a thing as “most qualified” students exist, and that that self-evidently ought to be the ones who get into selective colleges. That’s just not how colleges think about it. I am comparing apples to apples. A similarly situated white student is several times more likely to be admitted to highly selective colleges than a similarly credentialed Asian student. I’m not saying “HEY the Asian kid got high test scores so he should get in” Im saying “hey those two students are practically indistinguishable but the white student has a much higher chance of getting admitted than the Asian student” > [@](#): > > Take something like being an Olympic athlete. Generally speaking, that’s a highly desirable thing on a selective college applications. They like Olympic athletes, because anyone who competes in the Olympics has a perspective and a set of experiences than few others have–it suggests dedication, and single-mindedness, and talent married to hard work for years. So if an Olympic athlete has a test score/grade combination that suggests they will be able to handle the academics, they generally have a very good chance of getting in. > > Unless one year they get too many. Then, suddenly being an Olympic athlete is an actual liability, because you don’t want too many Olympic Athletes. That’d be boring. The fifth one isn’t going to add anything the first 4 haven’t already. So it’s possible that a kid who otherwise would have gotten in will not get in not in spite of being an Olympic athlete, but because he’s an Olympic athlete and they are full up. It’s a bizarre reality, but there it is. So yeah, if a whole lot of kids who have a very similar resume are applying for a small set of spots, they get shafted. Try to get a nice white girl who dances and edited her school year book into a journalism program sometime. \*\* And frankly, a lot of Asian resumes look the same even if you take race entirely out of it\*\*: STEM focus, good test scores, stringed instrument, NHS, scattered community service, no sports. That’s a great kid, but 3/4 your applications look like that kid (of whatever race) and you don’t want 3/4 of your student body to be that kid. So in many ways after that it’s a lottery. > > This is why it’s easier to get an under-represented minority into MIT (and trust me, it is). They may literally only get a handful of qualified black females who even apply. One or two is getting in. Everyone meets the qualifications, but once you do, you’re in a lottery with the other kids who bring what you bring. And the pool is a lot smaller for some sets of experiences. > > You also seem to really see the things that “tiger moms” encourage as real and meaningful, but the things white parents do as simply “gaming the system”. I cannot buy the argument that obsessive SAT prep driving your score up 250 points really makes you more prepared to ace Organic Chemistry but that say, engaging in a sustained and meaningful community service activity for 6 years does not teach you anything relevant to college success. The things you worry about–paid mission trips and titular club presidencies–don’t carry any weight anymore. In fact, they are generally negatives. It’s all about sustained exploration/development/contribution. Developing interesting perspectives so you have something to teach other people. > > You are looking at college admissions as a reward, a goal for students to aim at by being the best. But that’s not how admissions offices look at it–they aren’t trying to reward the individuals who are the most academically worthy. They are trying to create an experience and a culture and a community. The goal is not to be the smartest school, and once they are sure a student can handle the work, they don’t inherently pursue the “best” students. It’s not their goal or their mission, any more than a reality TV show casting agent is always looking for the “prettiest” or “more charismatic” people to put of their show. I’m sorry–genuinely sorry–that we lie to high school kids and make them think that that’s how admissions work. But it’s not. > > Now, the real criminal problem is that we just need more slots. There are so many people ready, willing, and able to handle the sort of educational experience a selective college can provide–the same is that we are preparing more and more kids each year that can handle it but the number of slots has been the same since the 1960s. Bolding mine. I keep hearing this. I keep hearing that Asians are fungible cookie cutter clones. Do you have a cite? As far as i can tell, the only thing cookie cutter about them is that a lot of them do well on tests. If you eliminated test scores. The cross section of Asian applicants looks a lot like the cross section of white applicants with fewer rural applicants. And yet non-rural white applicants seem to do a lot better in the admissions process. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/85 "2016-03-17T19:30:10Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I am comparing apples to apples. A similarly situated white student is several times more likely to be admitted to highly selective colleges than a similarly credentialed Asian student. I’m not saying “HEY the Asian kid got high test scores so he should get in” Im saying “hey those two students are practically indistinguishable but the white student has a much higher chance of getting admitted than the Asian student” What you originally said was: > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The problem I have with this holistic approach that uses all sort s of other criteria is that it has by and large been used primarily for the benefit of rich white kids. Blacks and American Indians get into schools under pretty explicit affirmative action programs. White males get in under all these other holistic criteria and crowd out better qualified candidates. You spent quite a bit of time later talking about how “subjective” criteria should not play too big of a role. The implication is that the resumes are NOT identical–the “subjective” stuff is quite different. > [@](#): > > Bolding mine. > > I keep hearing this. I keep hearing that Asians are fungible cookie cutter clones. Do you have a cite? > > As far as i can tell, the only thing cookie cutter about them is that a lot of them do well on tests. If you eliminated test scores. The cross section of Asian applicants looks a lot like the cross section of white applicants with fewer rural applicants. And yet non-rural white applicants seem to do a lot better in the admissions process. I don’t think all Asians are fungible. But I think there is a profile that a lot of Asian and white kids fit, and that there is a glut of white and Asian kids _with that profile_ competing for a very small pool. I don’t know that it’s at all harder for an Asian kid to get into a top journalism program, or a literature program, or a fine arts program–assuming it’s a genuine interest, that kid will have a really different resume and be competing for a really different spot in a really different pool. But yeah, the kid I described applying to an engineering or pre-med program at a selective school? They get tons and tons of those. You would not believe the kids–white and Asian-- I’ve seen rejected from top schools with that profile even when the test scores were up to the moon. I am not disagreeing that there shouldn’t be quotas to max out the number of Asian kids for the sake of being Asian. But I think true diversity is a worthy goal, and that means a range of test scores and a range of academic and extracurricular experiences and accomplishments. I am sympathetic to the problem. I specialize in getting poor kids into top schools, and I’ve put day trying to help kids craft an application to explain why a kid who spent the first 8 years of his life on a farm in Gujarat and the next 8 cleaning up needles and semen in the hotel his dad managed really, really shouldn’t be compared to the kid whose parents are both doctors just because they have the same mother tongue. The fact that that kid’s race might be seen as a negative is appalling. But when a top school takes that kid (and offers him funding) even though his SAT is a mere 1850, I don’t think that’s an injustice against the doctor’s kid with the better scores: there will be plenty of doctor’s kids (of all races) at the school, and my kid has something to teach them. And the 1850 means my kid can handle the academics. He can take advantage of what is offered. Why would a kid with a 2100 be better? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/86 "2016-03-17T19:33:43Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I don’t know if this is true, by someone once told me that universities do not want a class full of valedictorians because professors do not like dealing with students who have never gotten less than an A. Because they will either grade grub you to death or take a leap off a ledge when the inevitable happens. You just described virtually the entire entering class at Princeton. They’re not all valedictorians but they are not used to academic failure. The way they handle it is by giving everyone a A. > [@](#): > > And if everyone is uber high-achieving and go-gettin’, then you have to find instructors who are equally high-achieving and go-gettin’ and who are willing to maintain that momentum past tenure. Or else the students will be disappointed with the quality of their instruction. It can’t be good if the student body has a higher intellectual capacity than the faculty serving them. Are you under the impressions that Columbia gets its faculty from Apex Tech? > [@](#): > > I gotta imagine a class full of class presidents is also problematic. Leaders need followers. And sometimes people’s leadership skills don’t take off until college. Harvard is absolutely looking for a class full of leaders. Let the second tier schools provide the followers. Plenty of schools operate on having nothing but leaders (see, any of the national military academies) > [@](#): > > On paper, I didn’t seem qualified for an engineering school. I had good grades in high school and I had a couple of AP courses (English and history) on my transcript, but I had only gone up to trigonometry. My SAT scores were mediocre. I was viola section leader and I tutored little kids, but that was the limit of my extracurriculars. I applied just knowing I wasn’t going to get in, but I was wrong. My race and gender probably helped. But I had a couple of white male classmates who were accepted as well, and while their scores were probably a lot higher than mine, their grades were about as unimpressive as my SAT score was. In retrospect, there’s no reason I should have assumed I was less qualified than they were–especially since they ended up dropping out while I matriculated with honors. I don’t think an average test score marks someone as “less deserving” of premier higher education. Its not just a premier educations we are talking about. The education at Harvard is no worse than the education at Boston College. Honestly, don’t they teach the same things from the same textbooks at every undergrad? The deserving part has to do with the doors that the diploma from that particular school opens for you. If we are just looking for people that can complete the coursework, then noone needs to ever be more selective than some place like Perdue. I can take pretty much any Perdue student in a particular major and stick them in the same classes at Harvard or Stanford and depending on their diligence, they will do just fine. The difference between a Harvard engineer and a Perdue engineer is probably mostly attributable to a difference in raw material rather than anything that happens at the schools themselves. Do you really think they rejected better credentialed black female engineering applicants than you? I am willing to bet that your scores were among the highest for black female engineering applicants. And as an Asian male, it doesn’t bother me in the least that they made a little extra room to let you in. What bothers me is when they tilt the playing field in favor of white applicants over Asian applicants with the same credentials. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/87 "2016-03-17T19:37:22Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > You are moving the goalposts. A page ago, you were arguing that “subjective” criteria were designed to favor white kids, so that a “typical” Asian kid’s resume was less attractive than a “typical” white kid’s resume because the typical white kid had the kind of stuff the admissions committee wanted to see and the “typical” Asian kid did not (or not as much)–that it put a system in place that was easier for white families to game. > > But now you are arguing that the hypothetical white and Asian kids have identical resumes except the Asian kids have different test scores. That’s a very different thing. Then maybe I wasn’t being clear or you misunderstood. There is no identifiable difference in the applications of white and Asian applicants and yet the white applicants get accepted more frequently based on subjective criteria. Being a varsity wrestler is not a subjective criteria. Being on your state philharmonic youth orchestra is not a subjective criteria. These are objective things that the studies comparing admission rates take into account. So I ask again. What is the subjective thing that white students excel at so much more than their equally credentialed Asian counterparts that the white students are accepted many times more frequently than their Asian peers? ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/88 "2016-03-17T20:01:45Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > You said “forced immigration” I thought you were referring to slavery. So can you please tell me how Hispanic immigrants are forced immigrants? You know, when you quote someone, you should actually be sure you are accurate. At no time did I say “forced immigration”. Did you forget the record is there for anyone to read? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > How are they different? And why do those differences justify preferential treatment based on race? Look at the education levels, income levels, and circumstances of immigrants who come to this country as a start. They are not at all the same. When Asian immigrants are sending their kids across a dangerous border using the help of a coyote, let me know. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > No. Are you saying that societal prejudice should be the basis for affirmative action? Should we have affirmative action for Muslims too? Of course societal prejudice is part of the basis for AA. Why would you think otherwise? And yes, if societal pressure against Muslims produced demonstrable effects that could be remedied by AA, I would be for that too. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So a dark skinned southeast asian has it worse than lighter skinned Mexicans, right? Obviously on an individual level, it depends on the circumstances. Are you really denying the demonstrable effects skin color has on how one is perceived? Do you know anything about how this has played out in numerous countries, most notably, India, where dark skin is still a real handicap. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I am not arguing against any use of holistic criteria, I am arguing against race being one of those holistic criteria. And yet you haven’t at all put forth a logical argument as to why that is bad beyond your theory it hurts Asians. That point is likely false because Asians are being “hurt” by virtue of the fact that their scores above a certain level don’t confer any benefit. That is not really race based in the first place. We can glean that from the fact that Asian enrollment has still gone up at most schools even with holistic admissions. By and large, there isn’t a cap in the number of Asians at a school. There is a prejudice against superlative quantitative metrics being given more weight than other criteria. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I point out that Asian admissions at Berkeley rose and white admissions dropped after the admissions process became race blind. Berkeley STILL uses holistic criteria but those holistic criteria cannot include race. First, you are not correctly parsing the data. [Here](http://www.ucop.edu/news/factsheets/2013/flow-frosh-ca-13.pdf) is a chart for UC enrollment numbers. Look at the numbers for Berkeley then come back. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If you want to admit blacks based on race then just come out and say it. Don’t be coy. HELLO! I agree with AA and you said you do too. I don’t think race should be the only factor, but I think it should matter just as it does in almost every other aspect of life. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > But the notion that we should use holistic criteria that results in whites being admitting at the expense of Asians seems like a bunch of white people looking for ways to keep sending their kids to good schools even though their kids are not the best qualified. Once again, you misunderstand the issue. Please explain why, for example, someone who scores a 2350 on the SAT should get more consideration regarding admission than someone who gets a 2100? Don’t just tell me because one number is higher than the other. Use data, and logic to explain why an admission officer and society should care. Again, admissions isn’t about rewarding test scores, or even rewarding academic achievement. Yes, we get that you are Asian and it bothers you that you think that Asian people are being hurt. Get over your sense of entitlement for a second. The reality is there is no logical basis to draw the distinction you are drawing. Either test scores matter on that granular a level, or they don’t. Either diversity is a worthwhile goal or it isn’t. You can make an argument for both sides, but it needs to be a COHERENT, HONEST one. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And I have asked you SEVERAL times, WTF is this mysterious metric that Asians underperform in by enough to justify whites with similar tests, grades and extracurriculars getting in several times more more frequently than Asians? That metric in your individual case is a particularly astounding miscomprehension of the data. Do you understand what you are saying? When people say it’s harder for Asians to get into X school, they are saying that comparable admission rates for Asians and Whites occur only when Asians have higher test scores. That tends to be true. What is not said, but is very important to note, is that such a stat accepts as a predicate that higher scores should always confer a measurable benefit. That is not actually the case. Doubly so because such score disparities don’t actually seem to mean much in the grand scheme of things. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Bullshit. When comparing Asians and whites with the same test scores, Whites are several times more likely to be admitted than Asians. Why is that? Because you are equalizing one metric and not any others. Whites are far more likely to be legacies, play sports, etc. There is also the fact that schools generally want a diverse class. Asians are typically over-represented by several orders of magnitude. If you disagree with that broad goal, which includes White people, or argue that an individual is entitled to a spot at a given college due to their resume, please do so. Further, you missed the basic point. Diversity is a moving target. Nowadays, even men might get preferential treatment. Some Asians, like Pacific Islanders, do now. The point being that the idea the goal of diversity protects Asian enrollment just as much as it does any other group. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Its probably demonstrably true that Harvard doesn’t seem to want more Asians than whites. Probably. Asians are like 5% of the country. Why would Harvard benefit from 50%+ of their class coming from a small sliver of society? Let me use this example to highlight your hypocrisy. India and China have something like 40% of the world’s people, and the US has about 4% of the world’s population. Talent is, IMO, roughly equally distributed. Would you be okay with 95%+ of the incoming classes of every elite college in this country being 95% foreign born students largely from 2 countries? If, as you suggest, the mandate of a school is to cater to those who “earn” spots with grades and scores, would you be okay with your children basically having no shot at getting into an elite school? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What contradiction? It sounds like you are trying to pick nits. I explained to you that the goal of de-emphasizing test scores was a well established trend that has nothing to do with Asian people generally speaking. You claimed it was bullshit, then agreed in the very next sentence that, “the move to de-emphasize testing might have always been there”. And FYI, that is an actually quote unlike when you “quoted” me. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I am one of those people that approve of affirmative action a de-emphasis on testing early childhood testing. But what I have been reading on this thread is people saying ridiculous bullshit like a 450 point difference in SAT scores doesn’t really mean anything and they back that up basically with some cherrypicked evidence that IQ scores don’t really mean anything. WTF?!?! I suppose you are incredulous because you basically don’t understand the data, and are conflating multiple issues. Read The Mismeasure of a Man. To quote the Wiki on the book: > [@](#): > > The principal theme of biological determinism—that “worth can be assigned to individuals and groups by measuring intelligence as a single quantity”—is analyzed in discussions of craniometry and psychological testing, the two methods used to measure and establish intelligence as a single quantity. According to Gould, the methods harbor “two deep fallacies.” The first is the fallacy of “reification”, which is “our tendency to convert abstract concepts into entities”[3] such as the intelligence quotient (IQ) and the general intelligence factor (g factor), which have been the cornerstones of much research into human intelligence. The second fallacy is “ranking”, which is the “propensity for ordering complex variation as a gradual ascending scale.”[3] You are making both mistakes. Yes, we can all acknowledge there a point at which measurable differences in even a flawed test like an IQ test reveal a greater truth, but those stark differences are usually not the case in college admissions. Doubly so when we are talking about people who are almost all outliers in one form or another. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I don’t think they are bigoted. They are perfectly happy to have their kids have lots and lots of Asian classmates but they don’t want their kid excluded because their kid gets crowded out by Asian kids. I think the issue then would be their kid getting crowded out and less about the person being Asian. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > First of all its really about 3 high schools and secondly, I don’t there is such a thing as enough evidence to satisfy you. It is one example among many. There is a magnet school here in Northern Virginia called Thomas Jefferson. They de-emphasized testing and it wasn’t until the school ranking started to drop that they went back to the system they had been using before Asians started taking over the school. Do you have a cite for the above? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > They were pretty sure that under-represented minorities would become more under-represented. They were not pretty sure that there would be fewer white admissions in a race blind admissions process. But there aren’t really fewer Whites as a result of Prop 209. See data above. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What issue is the white person CORRECTLY identifying? That tests are not particularly meaningful when evaluating relatively similar complex things. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Because they are objective rather than the subject of someone’s discretion. Its like saying why is a ruler better at measuring things than using the width of your palm. But tests aren’t really objective measurements of merit. Just because a test quantifies something doesn’t mean it’s rigorous or objective. To analogize, it would be like trusting someone to measure a mountain with a ruler. Yes, you can probably get some level of accuracy, but your confidence in those numbers should be really low. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > A microcosm? Then why not just admit people via lottery. Fine by me. The reality is spots at elite schools are an artificial scarcity. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Colleges don’t want some representative microcosm of society. They pretty much do. Obviously, as I initially stated, they are focused on education, so minimum standards in many realms apply. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Really? So what if anything do tests measure? Innate skill, acquired knowledge and the ability to do well on a test. The percentages of each depend on the test and the person taking it. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think de-emphasizing tests is a really good way to achieve the dumbing down of America. Why? It’s not as if taking test makes you smarter, or if that is the only means of evaluation. How many professions utilize testing on a regular basis? If testing is so great, why isn’t everyone taking competency tests on a regular basis? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I’m not sayin that tests measure EVERYTHING you need to know but they are very useful measuring tools. Yes, and they are being treated as such and given due deference. This is why people with SAT scores in the 1300s typically cannot get into an elite school. Nobody is saying tests don’t matter at all. We are saying the stark difference in quantitative metrics which actually reveal genuine differences in ability are typically not at issue in admissions decisions. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > When people talk about diversity in interests and experience, I can’t help be reminded of how people think of Asians as fungible walking high test scores. It’s because Asians actually do work harder and spend more time studying; time not spent doing other things. To quote this [article](http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-why-do-asian-american-students-perform-better-than-whites-20140505-story.html): > [@](#): > > “Asian and Asian American youth are harder working because of cultural beliefs that emphasize the strong connection between effort and achievement,” the authors wrote. “Studies show that Asian and Asian American students tend to view cognitive abilities as qualities that can be developed through effort, whereas white Americans tend to view cognitive abilities as qualities that are inborn.” > > However, the study authors say the high performance of Asian American students comes at a cost. > > “Studies show that Asian American youth are less psychologically adjusted and socially engaged in school than their white peers. They may experience more conflict in relationships with parents because of the high educational expectations their parents place on them,” authors wrote. So yes, there is a cost that comes with the benefit of greater scholastic achievement. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So how does that distribution of majors justify the advantage that whites hold over Asians in the admissions process. I clearly was not bringing up majors in relation to Asian or White enrollment. This is what makes having this discussion with you so difficult. You are looking for reasons to be offended and upset. You seem like a fairly bright person. How do you read: [QUOTE=ME] How about the fact that they don’t want near identical copies of the same person regardless of their race. For example, do you think Harvard would admit a high percentage of people who intended to major in computer science? Of course not. [/QUOTE] And think I was arguing that the choice of major is why Asians or Whites get in more often? Please explain your thinking here because because I am getting tired of responding to hysteria? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Where do I say that subjective criteria are worthless. I am not advocating for getting rid of college essays, socioeconomic factors, or other factors into account. I just don’t want race to be one of them (at least as between whites and Asians). It’s a necessary condition of your argument as you have presented it. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Those “human biases” can be eliminated more than they are now. They did it in California by making applications race blind. And doing so was foolish given many of those biases were corrective. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > All they did was remove racial identifiers. They didn’t tell schools that they could ONLY look at test scores. That is the practical effect. Regardless, you keep saying White enrollment went down and that is not really justifiable based on the data. See for yourself. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What I don’t see is the benefit to society when we favor white students over similarly situated Asian students. If you truly value diversity, why don’t you think Whites aid in that goal? It would be one thing if we were talking about a paucity of Asian students. We aren’t. Even before prop 209, Asians at the UCs were greatly over-represented. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > this has to be like the tenth time I have asked in this thread without a response. I have probably asked a hundred times in other threads and there is never really a good answer. Because you ARE NOT LISTENING. You completely misunderstand the stats then make some incoherent argument based on your misunderstanding. You are talking about a number of different issues: 1. Asian students do, broadly speaking, tend to suffer in other areas as a result of the time spent pursuing academic success. There are numerous studies on this. 2. The stats pointing out admissions discrepancies are largely due to the diminishing return values put on scores and grades at the extremes 3. Schools tend to want diversity along a number of metrics which tends to benefit Whites, broadly speaking, just because of their numbers. Now if you keep wanting to distill the above, among other things I am sure I forgot to list, as inherent anti-Asian bias, so be it. Just stop pretending like people aren’t answering your question. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > No one needs to break a promise for there to be injustice. There is no injustice. Even if I bought your premise, saying some Asian kid who goes to UC-Irvine instead of UCLA is an injustice is really watering down the term. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What schools outside of those that do not use race as a factor have that many Asians? Hello! Before prop 209, Berkeley was a little under 36% Asian. In 2013, it was a little over 36% Asian. It peaked in the intervening years around 40%. Where is the systemic bias you are seeing. Don’t quote me articles. I linked the raw stats above. Where is bias? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Yeah. OK. Blacks have it worse. No doubt. So I guess Asians should just shut up because they don’t have it ass bad as the blacks? The fact that whites treat blacks worse than Asians doesn’t mean they are being fair to Asians. Of course not. You should complain loudly and forcefully about issues. But you should present an honest and coherent argument for the issue. Your source of unfairness stems from the fact that you think Asians “earned” those spots when such a thing doesn’t exist. And even if it did, the basis for the complaint is largely this unsupportable idea grounded in dubious quantitative metrics. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And how do you get into THOSE places? You think educational pedigree might have something to do with it? :smack: Again, follow along. You asked me: “What organization or company plays a similar role in our society?” I gave you answers. I didn’t say education was or wasn’t a typical prerequisite. You asked me a specific question. You got and answer, then complained because that you what you seemingly like to do. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > As a general rule, YES!!! If that is your contention, then you would be out of step with most experts. You are just wrong on this issue. The practical reality is that there is no reason so assume an IQ of 200+ reliably confers any real world benefit over an IQ of 160. None beyond the ability to take an IQ test. . To assume so is just stupid on it’s face, and the fact that you don’t see that just point to your ignorance. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > But all other things being equal, people with higher IQs have greater potential than people with lower IQs. Is that a controversial thing to say? It’s not controversial, it’s just wrong as a general rule in the scenarios we are talking about. We are not talking about stark differences by and large. Yes, someone with an IQ of 80 is probably less capable than a person with a 110. That doesn’t mean it makes any sense to differentiate between extreme outliers, or even quibble over a handful of points. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Based on the definition of IQ.:smack: That is not the accepted definition of IQ. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/89 "2016-03-17T20:06:32Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > What you originally said was: > > You spent quite a bit of time later talking about how “subjective” criteria should not play too big of a role. The implication is that the resumes are NOT identical–the “subjective” stuff is quite different. I think I said several times that the subjective criteria was some INARTICULABLE thing that people claim gives whites an advantage over Asians. The applications are otherwise identical. Is that clearer? Apples to apples and whites get in much more frequently. > [@](#): > > I don’t think all Asians are fungible. But I think there is a profile that a lot of Asian and white kids fit, and that there is a glut of white and Asian kids _with that profile_ competing for a very small pool. I don’t know that it’s at all harder for an Asian kid to get into a top journalism program, or a literature program, or a fine arts program–assuming it’s a genuine interest, that kid will have a really different resume and be competing for a really different spot in a really different pool. But yeah, the kid I described applying to an engineering or pre-med program at a selective school? They get tons and tons of those. You would not believe the kids–white and Asian-- I’ve seen rejected from top schools with that profile even when the test scores were up to the moon. And yet Asian kids with the exact same test scores, GPAs and comparable extracurriculars have a much harder time getting into the top schools. > [@](#): > > I am not disagreeing that there shouldn’t be quotas to max out the number of Asian kids for the sake of being Asian. But I think true diversity is a worthy goal, and that means a range of test scores and a range of academic and extracurricular experiences and accomplishments. In what way do LOWER test scores make someone a more desirable applicant? So are you saying that Asians generally have a much tighter range of extracurricular activities and achievements than white students? Because I think that needs some sort of cite. Otherwise you are in fact saying that Asian kids are pretty fungible. > [@](#): > > I am sympathetic to the problem. I specialize in getting poor kids into top schools, and I’ve put day trying to help kids craft an application to explain why a kid who spent the first 8 years of his life on a farm in Gujarat and the next 8 cleaning up needles and semen in the hotel his dad managed really, really shouldn’t be compared to the kid whose parents are both doctors just because they have the same mother tongue. The fact that that kid’s race might be seen as a negative is appalling. But when a top school takes that kid (and offers him funding) even though his SAT is a mere 1850, I don’t think that’s an injustice against the doctor’s kid with the better scores: there will be plenty of doctor’s kids (of all races) at the school, and my kid has something to teach them. And the 1850 means my kid can handle the academics. He can take advantage of what is offered. Why would a kid with a 2100 be better? I have no problems with a socioeconomic preference. I have a problem with a white preference at the expense of Asians. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/90 "2016-03-18T04:59:06Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > You know, when you quote someone, you should actually be sure you are accurate. At no time did I say “forced immigration”. Did you forget the record is there for anyone to read? You’re right. I misread what you said. > [@](#): > > Look at the education levels, income levels, and circumstances of immigrants who come to this country as a start. They are not at all the same. When Asian immigrants are sending their kids across a dangerous border using the help of a coyote, let me know. > **[Vietnamese boat people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_boat_people)** > > Vietnamese boat people (Vietnamese: Thuyền nhân Việt Nam) were refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. This migration and humanitarian crisis was at its highest in the late 70s and early 80s, but continued well into the early 1990s. The term is also often used generically to refer to the Vietnamese people who left their country in a mass exodus between 1975 and 1995 (see Indochina refugee crisis). This article uses the term "boat people" to apply o... > **[People smuggling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_smuggling#Snakeheads)** > > People smuggling (also called human smuggling), under U.S. law, is "the facilitation, transportation, attempted transportation or illegal entry of a person or persons across an international border, in violation of one or more countries' laws, either clandestinely or through deception, such as the use of fraudulent documents". > Internationally, the term is understood as and often used interchangeably with migrant smuggling, which is defined in the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by L... Not exactly the same but we don’t exactly roll out the red carpet for asian immigrants either. In fact we even had a law about it for a while. > [@](#): > > And yet you haven’t at all put forth a logical argument as to why that is bad beyond your theory it hurts Asians. That point is likely false because Asians are being “hurt” by virtue of the fact that their scores above a certain level don’t confer any benefit. That is not really race based in the first place. We can glean that from the fact that Asian enrollment has still gone up at most schools even with holistic admissions. By and large, there isn’t a cap in the number of Asians at a school. There is a prejudice against superlative quantitative metrics being given more weight than other criteria. I keep trying to ask you wtf are these non quantitative critieria in which Asians are falling behind and you seem to keep shrugging your shoulders and saying “you know, holistic stuff.” > [@](#): > > HELLO! I agree with AA and you said you do too. I don’t think race should be the only factor, but I think it should matter just as it does in almost every other aspect of life. I think it matters WHY you are putting race into the equation. I can live with mild affirmative action to create some critical mass of black professional in society who can provide an example for others to follow. Society owes them that. I don’t think we owe nearly as much to Hispanics. If we are trying to remediate then i think we should target the descendants of slaves and I am willing to see much more distortive affirmative action to accomplish THAT goal. But as we have seem when affirmative action was eliminated in California, removing a strong affirmative action preference may have helped graduation rates significantly while the total enrollment rate within the UC system did not suffer enough to counter that increase in graduation rates, IOW we ended up with more black college grads because we got rid of affirmative action. Sure there were fewer from UCLA and Berkeley but more black college grads overall. I am sure that some milder form of affirmative action would not create the same sort of dropout rates but the devil is in the details. > [@](#): > > Once again, you misunderstand the issue. Please explain why, for example, someone who scores a 2350 on the SAT should get more consideration regarding admission than someone who gets a 2100? Don’t just tell me because one number is higher than the other. Use data, and logic to explain why an admission officer and society should care. Because one number is higher than the other. I don’t understand why that isn’t a valid reason to prefer one candidate over another. If there really isn’t a difference then why do these school admit more readily from students in the 2350 range than from the 2100 range? Do the 2350 students have more of that subjective criteria we keep talking about? If you are saying that there is no real difference between 2350 and 2100 then why not cap the test at 2100? I mean we already did that once when we moved from the 1600 system to the 2400 system. I remember a time when fewer than 10 people got a perfect score per administration of the test. I think the number is in the hundreds if not thousands by now. > [@](#): > > Again, admissions isn’t about rewarding test scores, or even rewarding academic achievement. Yes, we get that you are Asian and it bothers you that you think that Asian people are being hurt. Get over your sense of entitlement for a second. My sense of entitlement? Says the dude trying to defend a form of white privilege. Really:mad:? So I should just shut up and sit down because we already have it so good? > [@](#): > > That metric in your individual case is a particularly astounding miscomprehension of the data. Do you understand what you are saying? When people say it’s harder for Asians to get into X school, they are saying that comparable admission rates for Asians and Whites occur only when Asians have higher test scores. That tends to be true. What is not said, but is very important to note, is that such a stat accepts as a predicate that higher scores should always confer a measurable benefit. That is not actually the case. Doubly so because such score disparities don’t actually seem to mean much in the grand scheme of things. What data am I miscomprehending? And astoundingly at that? Espenshade’s book: No longer separate, not yet equal, not only points to a 140 gap between white and asians, it points to a higher acceptance rate among white with the same scores, etc. (which only makes sense I suppose). The rate of acceptance at these schools (with very low acceptance rates to begin with) was higher for whites at a particular score/gpa combination than an asian with that same score/gpa combination (sure the difference was 5% acceptance for whites versus 2% acceptance for Asians but the gap was persistent) > [@](#): > > Because you are equalizing one metric and not any others. Whites are far more likely to be legacies, play sports, etc. I am pretty sure that espenshade corrected for legacies and athletic admissions. BTW, why do you think that Asians participate less in sports? That is certainly not the case for boys. > [@](#): > > There is also the fact that schools generally want a diverse class. Asians are typically over-represented by several orders of magnitude. If you disagree with that broad goal, which includes White people, or argue that an individual is entitled to a spot at a given college due to their resume, please do so. Yes I am arguing that we don’t need to make room for white people at the expense of Asians. Tell me why we ought to do so. > [@](#): > > Probably. Asians are like 5% of the country. Why would Harvard benefit from 50%+ of their class coming from a small sliver of society? Why would they be hurt? Its getting late I’ll try to get back to the rest of this later. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/91 "2016-03-18T11:25:43Z")
I am going to hit the high points here. The point about the mysterious “subjective quantity” is that it isn’t any one thing, it’s about diversity of experience. Asians play sports, sure, but how often are they 3-sport athletes? Or play club sports at a high level? Or play the “sexy” sports like football, basketball, baseball? The ones who do are not generally the ones with high scores because you can’t play 3 sports and study for your SATs all the damn time. Not enough hours in the day. It’s getting better, but Asians were also underrepresented in Scouts for a long time, in music programs other than orchestra, and social organizations/cheer/pep. Primarily Asian churches don’t seem to provide the systemic leadership path for youth that a lot of established primarily white churches do. I don’t know if that’s enough to explain the difference in admissions between Asians and Whites, but it’s plausible, and absent a smoking gun that says otherwise, I’m not ready to say they have an actual hard quota. As far as the meaning of scores, it’s not that they don’t mean anything, it’s that they aren’t that precise, and they can be gamed. Yes, a kid with a 2310 is a different sort of thinker than a kid with an 1850, but it’s hard to say much more than that. Malcolm Gladwell famously used height in basketball as an analogy: obviously, height matters and all things being equal, taller is better, but after a certain point, you hit diminishing returns on the value of height and other factors start to matter more–at the professional level, once you are over 6’7", there doesn’t seem to be any relationship between height and success. This is why you don’t want all top scores. All top scores mean all kids who think a certain way–whose educational strengths are the same as the ones the test measures. You want some of those kids, a lot of those kids, for sure. But you want to find other paths to find other extraordinary students so that you have more variety. Did you know MIT doesn’t give grades for the first semester? They are pass/no record. This is because they’ve discovered that first semester grades are more an expression of someone’s educational prep than anything else, and they don’t have much relationship to grades after the first semester–it’s after the adjustment and the chance to catch up that you see the students’ real quality. Even with a fantastic applicant pool and decades of selecting students, they know that it takes at least a semester to overcome the effects of different preparation. If they only took kids lucky enough to have the right prep, they’d have a much more homogenous group but not a “higher quality” one. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/92 "2016-03-18T17:01:27Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Not exactly the same but we don’t exactly roll out the red carpet for asian immigrants either. In fact we even had a law about it for a while. And. Look at the H1B [visas](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/H-1B/h1b-fy-12-characteristics.pdf) by country. India and China are by far the top countries. Canada (the lone exception), The Philippines, and South Korea round out the top 5. Additionally, when we compare the Hispanic and Asian immigrant populations, we see things like the [following](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/06/19/chapter-1-portrait-of-asian-americans/): > [@](#): > > About 36% of new immigrants in 2010 were Asian, compared with 31% who were Hispanic. About 430,000 Asian immigrants arrived in the U.S. in 2010, compared with about 370,000 Hispanics. As recently as 2007, the numbers were about 390,000 (Asians) and 540,000 (Hispanics). These totals include arrivals with both legal and unauthorized status, as well as those arriving with work, student or other temporary visas.18 > > Unauthorized Asian-American immigrants account for about 10-11% of the U.S. unauthorized population and about 13-15% of the Asian immigrant population during the 2000-2010 decade, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data.19 _In contrast, Hispanic unauthorized immigrants account for about three-quarters of the U.S. unauthorized population and about 45% of Hispanic immigrants._ > > Most Asian immigrants who obtain green cards—that is, permanent resident status—do so via sponsorship by family members, as is true of all immigrants. _But Asian immigrants are notably more likely than immigrants from other nations to be admitted with employment visas._ > > Educational attainment is especially notable among recent immigrants from Asia, those who arrived in the three years prior to the 2010 American Community Survey. In 2010, 61% of those ages 25 to 64 held a college degree (compared with 30% of other recent immigrants ages 25 to 64).25 > > Recent Indian immigrants ages 25 to 64 are most likely to hold a college degree (81%), but more than half of comparably aged new immigrants from China, the Philippines, Korea and Japan also are college-educated. > > Compared with the educational attainment of the population of their country of origin, recent Asian immigrants are a select group. For example, about 27% of adults ages 25 to 64 in South Korea and 25% in Japan have a bachelor’s degree or more.26 In contrast, nearly 70% of comparably aged recent immigrants from these two countries have at least a bachelor’s degree. > > Using a broader measure—the share enrolled in college or holding a college degree—the educational characteristics of recent Asian immigrants also compare favorably with those of other races. > > Among Asian immigrant adults ages 18 and older who arrived in 2007-2010, nearly two-thirds (65%) were enrolled in college or graduate school, or held a college degree. This share was higher than for comparable white recent immigrants (58%) and markedly higher than for black (38%) or Hispanic (16%) recent immigrants. So once again, the facts don’t agree with you at ALL. Hispanic migration to the US is markedly different than Asian migration. Not only are Asian-Americans more educated when they arrive in the US, they are relatively more educated than their compatriots who stay behind. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I keep trying to ask you wtf are these non quantitative critieria in which Asians are falling behind and you seem to keep shrugging your shoulders and saying “you know, holistic stuff.” Once again, you don’t understand the data, which is why you think this question makes any sense. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > IOW we ended up with more black college grads because we got rid of affirmative action. Cite? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Because one number is higher than the other. I don’t understand why that isn’t a valid reason to prefer one candidate over another. Because the difference has no practical meaning. Why is this so hard for you to understand? Let me give you a concrete example of this. One of my students just got his SAT results back. On the math section, he omitted two answers (which incur no direct penalty). He got every other question (52 of 54) correct. His score dropped from 800 (perfect) to 740. Similar mistakes over the entire test would have dropped his score from 2400 to 2220, something you allege has meaning. The problem is that the college board, most educators, and almost everyone who studied this issue agrees it doesn’t. You see a 180 point difference and incorrectly think it MUST have some meaning, whereas others who know what they are talking about recognize it could be something as simple as 5-10 mistakes or omissions on a 4-hour test. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If there really isn’t a difference then why do these school admit more readily from students in the 2350 range than from the 2100 range? Do the 2350 students have more of that subjective criteria we keep talking about? Typically, yes. They often have better grades, better extracurriculars, and are seemingly better prepared for college. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If you are saying that there is no real difference between 2350 and 2100 then why not cap the test at 2100? I mean we already did that once when we moved from the 1600 system to the 2400 system. What they hell are you talking about? The SAT scoring (which has gone back to 1600) change didn’t change the method of evaluation or the scoring system. The test itself changed, but the score difference is a reflection on how the raw scores are converted and scaled. There was never any cap of the sort you are alluding to. That said, I would be more than happy to see the college board switch to, or include a broad scale that just highlights a level or qualification for college work. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > My sense of entitlement? Says the dude trying to defend a form of white privilege. Really:mad:? So I should just shut up and sit down because we already have it so good? There isn’t white privilege here. At least not along the lines you think there is. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What data am I miscomprehending? And astoundingly at that? > > Espenshade’s book: No longer separate, not yet equal, not only points to a 140 gap between white and asians, it points to a higher acceptance rate among white with the same scores, etc. (which only makes sense I suppose). Oh, you mean the Espenshade who himself explicitly [stated](http://reappropriate.co/2015/05/espenshade-data-are-not-proof-of-anti-asian-discrimination-edu4all/) that: [QUOTE=Espenshade] Espenshade said in an interview that he does not think his data establish this [anti-Asian] bias. He noted that while his formulas are notably more complete than typical test score comparisons by race and ethnicity, he doesn’t have the “softer variables,” such as teacher and high school counselor recommendations, essays and lists of extracurricular activities. It is possible, he said, that such factors explain some of the apparent SAT and ACT disadvantage facing Asian applicants. [/QUOTE] Funny how the guy whose argument you are hanging your hat on explicitly states he doesn’t think his data establish an anti-Asian bias. And before you complain about how no one will detail all these soft variables that Asians lack, look at the link I included in my last post. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I am pretty sure that espenshade corrected for legacies and athletic admissions. You’d be wrong AFAICT. Feel free to cite that if you’d like. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > BTW, why do you think that Asians participate less in sports? That is certainly not the case for boys. Because it’s [true](http://dc.uwm.edu/etd/192/). > [@](#): > > Asian Americans, one of the fastest growing communities in recent decades (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008) continue to be underrepresented in sports in the United States. Recent trends in sport participation suggest that while other ethnic/racial minority groups are increasing their presence in sports, Asian Americans may not be increasing at a similar rate (Lapchick, 2008). For example, in collegiate athletics, only .005% of Asian Americans enrolled in college were also engaged in a sport, and in professional sports, only 1-2% of all players in major professional organizations identify as Asian American (Lapchick, 2008). Although statistics continuously reveal this trend, research is severely limited in examining the factors that contribute to Asian American sport participation to understand why such underrepresentation exists. Here’s more anecdotes [personalizing](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/sports/olympics/21play.html?_r=0) the above. Why you were so confident to doubt this is beyond me. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Yes I am arguing that we don’t need to make room for white people at the expense of Asians. Tell me why we ought to do so. Where is the evidence that this is happening along racial lines? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Why would they be hurt? Because diversity tends to improve outcomes for all people involved, and limiting diversity to the extent that 5% of the people make up 50%+ of a class is going to be problematic. It doesn’t matter whether that 5% are Australians, trumpet players, or cowboys. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/93 "2016-03-18T19:43:04Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > I am going to hit the high points here. > > The point about the mysterious “subjective quantity” is that it isn’t any one thing, it’s about diversity of experience. Asians play sports, sure, but how often are they 3-sport athletes? And how often are those white students with the similar score/gpa 3 sport athletes? At least among males, Asians participate as much as their white counterparts. > [@](#): > > Or play club sports at a high level? Or play the “sexy” sports like football, basketball, baseball? sexy sports? I have no idea but how much does THAT matter? > [@](#): > > The ones who do are not generally the ones with high scores because you can’t play 3 sports and study for your SATs all the damn time. The SATs takes maybe a couple of months of focused attention. A high GPA is what takes time. You can’t cram your way to an “A” in Latin. > [@](#): > > Not enough hours in the day. It depends on the kid’s native ability. If it takes them a month to understand the difference between molality and molarity then there aren’t enough hours in the day. If they can grok process of elimination (deductive reasoning) then there should be enough hours in the day. > [@](#): > > It’s getting better, but Asians were also underrepresented in Scouts for a long time, I was a life scout and most of the kids in my former troop now is Asian and have been for at least a decade. Perhaps you don’t see a lot of Asian scouts in your area because there just aren’t that many Asians. I can’t find info on boy scout participation by race. Where are you getting your information? > [@](#): > > in music programs other than orchestra, and social organizations/cheer/pep. Do you have cites for any of this? > [@](#): > > Primarily Asian churches don’t seem to provide the systemic leadership path for youth that a lot of established primarily white churches do. I don’t know if that’s enough to explain the difference in admissions between Asians and Whites, but it’s plausible, and absent a smoking gun that says otherwise, I’m not ready to say they have an actual hard quota. I’m not ready to say they have a hard quota either. I think that they have the same attitudes we have seen expressed on these boards. Here are some of the things I see: When Asian students take over the top high schools, local white parents agitate to change criteria to take into account all the things that are special about THEIR kids that had never been taken into account before. And I see the same sort of dynamic at work here. When Asians get good test scores, good grades and excellent extra-curriculars, people wonder whether the kid did it on his own or if Tiger moms pushed their kid through. They never wonder this about white kids (and judging from the white parents of high achieving students around here, the white parents push their kids just as much as the Asian parents do). IOW, white applicant achievements are more genuine than Asian applicant achievements Asians are seen as more fungible almost by virtue of the fact that they do so well academically, but the kids that don’t do as well are all special snowflakes that we need to look at closely to find that diamond in the rough. And yes, there is a sense that there are too many Asians when they represent 5% of the population and about 16.66% of the Ivy league population (a figure that has remained more or less steady for 20 years across almost all the Ivy League despite a huge fluctuations in well qualified Asian applicants during that period, kind of a strange coincidence if you ask me). > [@](#): > > As far as the meaning of scores, it’s not that they don’t mean anything, it’s that they aren’t that precise, and they can be gamed. Yes, a kid with a 2310 is a different sort of thinker than a kid with an 1850, but it’s hard to say much more than that. Malcolm Gladwell famously used height in basketball as an analogy: obviously, height matters and all things being equal, taller is better, but after a certain point, you hit diminishing returns on the value of height and other factors start to matter more–at the professional level, once you are over 6’7", there doesn’t seem to be any relationship between height and success. And yet these schools admit students with ultra high SAT scores much more frequently than students with less stellar SAT scores. The problem isn’t that these schools aren’t admitting Asians with 2400 SATs while admitting whites with 2100 SATS. The problem is that the white student with a 2100 SAT is several times more likely to be admitted than the Asian student with similar scores. The difference gets smaller at the ultra high levels of scoring but it is still there. So despite the fact that an ultra high SAT score doesn’t mean anything, within racial groups it seems to mean quite a bit, it isn’t until you cross racial groups that you have to start making the argument that scores don’t matter for much. > [@](#): > > This is why you don’t want all top scores. All top scores mean all kids who think a certain way–whose educational strengths are the same as the ones the test measures. You want some of those kids, a lot of those kids, for sure. But you want to find other paths to find other extraordinary students so that you have more variety. Wait, something about that doesn’t make sense. You can find different types of intelligence among the really smart kids, you don’t need to actively look for one with lower scores. If you find a kid with lower scores who is particularly good at lateral thinking then sure, but those kids are rare, even very rare. > [@](#): > > Did you know MIT doesn’t give grades for the first semester? They are pass/no record. This is because they’ve discovered that first semester grades are more an expression of someone’s educational prep than anything else, and they don’t have much relationship to grades after the first semester–it’s after the adjustment and the chance to catch up that you see the students’ real quality. Even with a fantastic applicant pool and decades of selecting students, they know that it takes at least a semester to overcome the effects of different preparation. If they only took kids lucky enough to have the right prep, they’d have a much more homogenous group but not a “higher quality” one. And yet MIT has a much less race based system (and consequently a much higher Asian population. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/94 "2016-03-18T20:46:44Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And how often are those white students with the similar score/gpa 3 sport athletes? > > At least among males, Asians participate as much as their white counterparts. Please cite that Asian males participate as much as Whites? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > sexy sports? Yes, sports where schools massage the criteria to get athletes scholarships. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > When Asian students take over the top high schools, local white parents agitate to change criteria to take into account all the things that are special about THEIR kids that had never been taken into account before. And I see the same sort of dynamic at work here. But you are the one ascribing racial animus to this. Talk to anyone who works in education. Every entitled parent want to change the rules for their kid. Where is the evidence for this being anti-Asian bias? You initially spoke about DiBlasio’s attempted criteria change at specialized NYC high schools. However, any investigation into this matter makes it fairly clear his goal was to increase enrollment of Blacks and Hispanics, not to deliberately decrease Asian enrollment or to increase White enrollment. Later you also made an entirely unsubstantiated claim about what has happened at TJ in VA. Where is the evidence for your contentions? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Asians are seen as more fungible almost by virtue of the fact that they do so well academically, but the kids that don’t do as well are all special snowflakes that we need to look at closely to find that diamond in the rough. This, again, is your bias and not actual facts. First, elite schools generally don’t accept ANY kids that “don’t do well”. Second, once again, Asian are over-represented at nearly every elite school. If society looked at Asian students the way you think they do, that almost certainly wouldn’t be the case. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And yes, there is a sense that there are too many Asians when they represent 5% of the population and about 16.66% of the Ivy league population (a figure that has remained more or less steady for 20 years across almost all the Ivy League despite a huge fluctuations in well qualified Asian applicants during that period, kind of a strange coincidence if you ask me). Cite? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And yet these schools admit students with ultra high SAT scores much more frequently than students with less stellar SAT scores. The problem isn’t that these schools aren’t admitting Asians with 2400 SATs while admitting whites with 2100 SATS. The problem is that the white student with a 2100 SAT is several times more likely to be admitted than the Asian student with similar scores. Why do you think the admission rate based solely on SAT score should be equal across race when race tends to correlate to a number of other metrics by which students are judged? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And yet MIT has a much less race based system (and consequently a much higher Asian population. Really? MIT is 24.4% Asian. Harvard is 21.1% Asian. Berkeley was over 30% both before and after pop 209. So no, your supposition is completely false. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/95 "2016-03-18T21:07:42Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > And. Look at the H1B [visas](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/H-1B/h1b-fy-12-characteristics.pdf) by country. India and China are by far the top countries. Canada (the lone exception), The Philippines, and South Korea round out the top 5. Additionally, when we compare the Hispanic and Asian immigrant populations, we see things like the [following](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/06/19/chapter-1-portrait-of-asian-americans/): Do you think we have more Asian immigrants or more Latino immigrants in this country? If you are going to measure how welcoming this country is to different races based on immigration statistics, you would conclude that we love Latinos in this country, loved them to death for at least a few decades. > [@](#): > > So once again, the facts don’t agree with you at ALL. Hispanic migration to the US is markedly different than Asian migration. Not only are Asian-Americans more educated when they arrive in the US, they are relatively more educated than their compatriots who stay behind. Well, there are a few sources of Asian immigration but considering that the H1B visa program is one of the primary methods that the first member of an Asian family gets here (and family reunion is probably the most common method for all Asian immigrants), sure, the Asian immigrants are part of America’s long tradition of brain draining other countries. So? Why does that entitle Hispanic immigrants and their descendants to affirmative action? Why are they any worse off than an Appalachian white? Why isn’t socioeconomic preference enough? > [@](#): > > Once again, you don’t understand the data, which is why you think this question makes any sense. Please explain this to me. Asians are accepted at significantly lower rates than whites with the same scores and grades… but I just don’t understand the data. You act like I see smoke and am yelling arson. > [@](#): > > Cite? [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.230.3690](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.230.3690) You have to make a logical inference from this paper that the small reduction within the UC system was smaller than the effect of the higher graduation rate. my math might be wrong but I don’t think so. > [@](#): > > Because the difference has no practical meaning. Why is this so hard for you to understand? Let me give you a concrete example of this. One of my students just got his SAT results back. On the math section, he omitted two answers (which incur no direct penalty). He got every other question (52 of 54) correct. His score dropped from 800 (perfect) to 740. Similar mistakes over the entire test would have dropped his score from 2400 to 2220, something you allege has meaning. The problem is that the college board, most educators, and almost everyone who studied this issue agrees it doesn’t. You see a 180 point difference and incorrectly think it MUST have some meaning, whereas others who know what they are talking about recognize it could be something as simple as 5-10 mistakes or omissions on a 4-hour test. And yet within racial groups we see significantly higher acceptance rates at selective colleges as a result of that 180 point difference. > [@](#): > > Typically, yes. They often have better grades, better extracurriculars, and are seemingly better prepared for college. Unless they are Asian right? You have a cite for that proposition? > [@](#): > > What they hell are you talking about? The SAT scoring (which has gone back to 1600) change didn’t change the method of evaluation or the scoring system. The test itself changed, but the score difference is a reflection on how the raw scores are converted and scaled. There was never any cap of the sort you are alluding to. > > That said, I would be more than happy to see the college board switch to, or include a broad scale that just highlights a level or qualification for college work. Like I said, there used to be a small handful (less than 10) perfect scores back when we were on the 1600 point system. I think the number approached 1000 perfect scores under the 2400 system. > [@](#): > > There isn’t white privilege here. At least not along the lines you think there is. Right, you can’t see it so its probably not there. > [@](#): > > Funny how the guy whose argument you are hanging your hat on explicitly states he doesn’t think his data establish an anti-Asian bias. Yeah he basically said its not incontrovertible evidence so there is still room for folks to weasel their way out of admitting that bias exists. These are getting long. I will get back to this after dinner. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/96 "2016-03-18T22:43:41Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Do you think we have more Asian immigrants or more Latino immigrants in this country? If you are going to measure how welcoming this country is to different races based on immigration statistics, you would conclude that we love Latinos in this country, loved them to death for at least a few decades. Geez. Do you ever stop trying to move the goalposts? This whole line of argument started because you stated Asian and Hispanic immigration were similar. They are not. That was the point of the most recent cite. To remind you, you asked how the typical paths of these immigrant groups were different. I gave you a detailed cite as to how. Now you want to talk about immigration numbers relating to America’s love of a group? Even putting aside the fact that a large portion of Hispanic immigrants are not here legally, your argument makes zero sense. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So? Why does that entitle Hispanic immigrants and their descendants to affirmative action? Why are they any worse off than an Appalachian white? Why isn’t socioeconomic preference enough? Because the circumstances of their plight are due in large part to societal discrimination based on their race. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Please explain this to me. Asians are accepted at significantly lower rates than whites with the same scores and grades… but I just don’t understand the data. You act like I see smoke and am yelling arson. Because there are other factors you are not including, namely the dozens of other things you need to be admitted. Now, let’s look at the [data](http://priceonomics.com/post/48794283011/do-elite-colleges-discriminate-against-asians). When you track admission rates by test score, you see how Whites are consistently tracking above Asians regardless of score. What should we make of the fact the a White guy or girl is almost always x% more likely to get in regardless of the where we look on the score table (the exception is on the very low end where Asians tend to get in and Whites don’t). Well, it there were a soft quota, you would see the admission rates for Asians skew towards the high end because a school would be incentivized to accept high scoring Asians at the expense of lower scoring ones due to this cap. We don’t see that. If you just had a blanket rule that an Asian person must have a higher score than a White person, you would see a drop off at the lower end because low scoring Asians would not meet the given threshold for an elite school. You don’t see that. So you are almost left with soft criteria by necessity because they are one of the few things that would explain the consistency. The next question would be, do we see any disparities in those criteria considered by colleges that would tend to favor Whites over Asians? Yes. Whether is sports participation, legacy status, geographic diversity, etc. All of those things, according to studies and data, would tend to favor Whites. Does race come into play at all? Almost certainly to some extent because there are real issues Asians face in this country a a minority. The issue is though that that doesn’t tend to be demonstrably true in higher education at elite schools where Asians are almost uniformally over-represented. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > You have to make a logical inference from this paper that the small reduction within the UC system was smaller than the effect of the higher graduation rate. my math might be wrong but I don’t think so. Can you cite any evidence that such changes were due to prop 209? Or even that they exist? This shouldn’t be that hard to find if true. Color me a bit dubious that your cite is back the mismatch theory, something that has largely been discredited. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Unless they are Asian right? You have a cite for that proposition? Which position? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Like I said, there used to be a small handful (less than 10) perfect scores back when we were on the 1600 point system. I think the number approached 1000 perfect scores under the 2400 system. A lot of that is because more people take the test and an increasing reliance on it for entrance into higher education. Test prep isn’t a multi-billion dollar business for no reason. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Yeah he basically said its not incontrovertible evidence so there is still room for folks to weasel their way out of admitting that bias exists. Why would he do that if he believed it? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/97 "2016-03-19T12:08:30Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Because there are a ton of people out there who won’t respect a black doctor who graduates from Podunk State U. A white person who graduates from the same school is fine, because white doctors are a known quantity. But the black doctor is going to be perceived as inferior unless they have something that separates them from the pack. > > Research bears this out. [While the selectivity of their alma mater doesn’t appear to give most white grads an added boost in terms of salary](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-value-of-elite-colleges/?_r=1), the same can’t be said for black, Latino, and low-income students. One explanation is that having a prestigious institution on one’s resume removes some of the stigma associated with that person’s identity. Having Harvard on your resume counteracts the negative stereotypes that you’re up against. > > A black doctor from Podunk U. can be a great doctor–better than a black doctor from Harvard U. But who is more likely to be appointed medical director? Under-served communities don’t just benefit from having practitioners who look like them. They also benefit when those in charge are from the community. The quantitative scores of blacks admitted to medical school are substantially lower than whites and asians. Because so few blacks have excellent MCAT scores, the acceptance rate for lower scores is much higher for blacks in order to get enough black students into medical school to fill the defacto quotas. See[here](https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/factstablea24.html), for example. This pattern persists into licensing exams and specialty exams, and is a recognized problem. The general underperformance on quantified exams for blacks in higher education does not change simply because they had access to the same preparatory educational experience. Highly selective universities basically poach all the high-performing blacks, and there are [very few of them to begin with.](http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/51_graduate_admissions_test.html) _“In 2005 the mean combined score for black students who took the Medical College Admission Test was 21.2. (Each of the three sections of the MCAT test is scored on a scale of 1 to 15.) For whites, the mean score on the combined three portions of the MCAT test was 28.5…Under these circumstances no blacks would be admitted to the nation’s most selective schools of medicine. The test results highlight the importance of continuing affirmative action admissions at U.S. medical schools.”_ More than just an ability to master baseline information goes into being a good Doctor. But I think it’s understandable that, if your route to professional success is because of AA and not an equivalent baseline ability to perform academically, the perception of the extent to which you are “as qualified” is necessarily going to be altered. There is no evidence at all that exposure to higher education somehow changes the same basic rank order of entering groups. Asians are going to be at the top performance tier, period, even if their black and white peers have had exactly the same antecedent learning environment. It’s not like we take folks of disparate abilities, give them the same opportunity, and suddenly group differences are erased. This is why a Sotomayor will never have the same panache as a Roberts. Not because she is incompetent, but because AA does not confer an ability change. It just creates an opportunity that would otherwise not exist for that person. Having said all that, I agree that a black physician might be better able to interact socially with black patients in a black neighborhood. I am not sure that any skepticism toward black physicians’ ability is the exclusive domain of non-black colleagues. It has been pretty common in my career for a black patient from an underserved community to say out loud, “Don’t assign me no nigger doctor.” That’s the kind of attitude we need to work very hard to fix, regardless of who expresses it. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/98 "2016-03-19T12:43:49Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > The quantitative scores of blacks admitted to medical school are substantially lower than whites and asians. Because so few blacks have excellent MCAT scores, the acceptance rate for lower scores is much higher for blacks in order to get enough black students into medical school to fill the defacto quotas. > > See[here](https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/factstablea24.html), for example. > > This pattern persists into licensing exams and specialty exams, and is a recognized problem. The general underperformance on quantified exams for blacks in higher education does not change simply because they had access to the same preparatory educational experience. > > Highly selective universities basically poach all the high-performing blacks, and there are [very few of them to begin with.](http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/51_graduate_admissions_test.html) > _“In 2005 the mean combined score for black students who took the Medical College Admission Test was 21.2. (Each of the three sections of the MCAT test is scored on a scale of 1 to 15.) For whites, the mean score on the combined three portions of the MCAT test was 28.5…Under these circumstances no blacks would be admitted to the nation’s most selective schools of medicine. The test results highlight the importance of continuing affirmative action admissions at U.S. medical schools.”_ Public schools were formally segregated in lots of places throughout most of the 60s, and continue to be defacto segregated decades after. I don’t doubt your statistics because they don’t come as a big shocker to me. I’d expect lower test scores in a group that was only granted first-class citizenship when most Baby Boomers were teenagers. I have hope that we will continue to see [test gaps narrow](https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/j/jencks-gap.html). > [@](#): > > This is why a Sotomayor will never have the same panache as a Roberts. Not because she is incompetent, but because AA does not confer an ability change. It just creates an opportunity that would otherwise not exist for that person. Roberts has panache? OK, that’s a new one to me. Our own president may have been a beneficiary of AA in college and/or law school. Say what you what about him, but you gotta admit he’s got a hellava lot more panache than Dubya. > [@](#): > > More than just an ability to master baseline information goes into being a good Doctor. But I think it’s understandable that, if your route to professional success is because of AA and not an equivalent baseline ability to perform academically, the perception of the extent to which you are “as qualified” is necessarily going to be altered. There is no evidence at all that exposure to higher education somehow changes the same basic rank order of entering groups. Asians are going to be at the top performance tier, period, even if their black and white peers have had exactly the same antecedent learning environment. It’s not like we take folks of disparate abilities, give them the same opportunity, and suddenly group differences are erased. For a really long time, white people have had their own AA. It is called the “good ole boys” network, aka “social network”. I know quite a few white folks who have the barest of qualifications, but because they have a friend of a friend that knows the boss, their resume was fast-tracked. We know this happens all the time, because we all talk about how it isn’t about what you know, but who you know. Every college student knows this; that’s why they are all scrambling to get into an Ivy. They want the exclusive social network hook-up–the one that benefits white people disproportionately because they are still the ones with access to most of the power and wealth in this country. > [@](#): > > Having said all that, I agree that a black physician might be better able to interact socially with black patients in a black neighborhood. > > I am not sure that any skepticism toward black physicians’ ability is the exclusive domain of non-black colleagues. It has been pretty common in my career for a black patient from an underserved community to say out loud, “Don’t assign me no nigger doctor.” That’s the kind of attitude we need to work very hard to fix, regardless of who expresses it. I agree that black people can harbor anti-black racism–which is all the more reason why it is tough being a black physician (or a black professional, period). ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/99 "2016-03-19T13:02:23Z")
[Social networks drive black unemployment](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/how-social-networks-drive-black-unemployment/) I found this part interesting. Bolding mine: > [@](#): > > Favoritism is almost universal in today’s job market. In interviews with hundreds of people on this topic, **I found that all but a handful used the help of family and friends to find 70 percent of the jobs they held over their lifetimes; they all used personal networks and insider information if it was available to them** … > > When I asked my interviewees what most contributed to their level of career success, they usually discussed how hard they had worked and how uncertain were the outcomes — not the help they had received throughout their lives to gain most of their jobs. In fact, only 14 percent mentioned that they had received help of any kind from others. Seeing contemporary labor-market politics through the lens of favoritism, rather than discrimination alone, is revealing. It explains, for example, why even though the majority of all Americans, including whites, [support civil rights in principle, there is widespread opposition on the part of many whites to affirmative action policies — despite complaints about “reverse discrimination,” my research demonstrated that the real complaint is that affirmative action undermines long-established patterns of favoritism. > > **The interviewees in my study who were most angry about affirmative action were those who had relatively fewer marketable skills — and were therefore most dependent on getting an inside edge for the best jobs. Whites who felt entitled to these positions believed that affirmative action was unfair because it blocked their own privileged access.** > > But interviewees’ feelings about such policies betrayed the reality of their experience of them. **I found these attitudes evident among my interviewees — even though, among the 1,463 jobs they discussed with me, there were only two cases in which someone might have been passed over for a job because of affirmative action policies benefiting African-Americans.** These data are consistent with other research on affirmative action. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2016, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303/100 "2016-03-19T19:21:22Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > Please cite that Asian males participate as much as Whites? Ugh. I can’t find the cite now but sports participation was relatively equal among all males of all races. Asian females had significantly lower sports participation rates. Can you find anything that shows Asian males with significantly lower rates of participation? > [@](#): > > Yes, sports where schools massage the criteria to get athletes scholarships. So the Ivy league massages the criteria for football and baseball but not for lacrosse or fencing? > [@](#): > > But you are the one ascribing racial animus to this. Talk to anyone who works in education. Every entitled parent want to change the rules for their kid. Where is the evidence for this being anti-Asian bias? You initially spoke about DiBlasio’s attempted criteria change at specialized NYC high schools. However, any investigation into this matter makes it fairly clear his goal was to increase enrollment of Blacks and Hispanics, not to deliberately decrease Asian enrollment or to increase White enrollment. Later you also made an entirely unsubstantiated claim about what has happened at TJ in VA. Where is the evidence for your contentions? Yes and white parents get listened to. DeBlasio was trying to improve black and hispanic admissions. He didn’t give a shit about the effect it had on the Asian population. And THAT is the point I’m trying to make. [http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2011/02/americas\_best\_high\_school\_soft.html](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2011/02/americas_best_high_school_soft.html) The focus was SUPPOSED to be on getting more His[panic and black students into the school but what ended up happening was we had a bumper crop of white students who were mediocre at math and science but had great recommendations and essays. > [@](#): > > This, again, is your bias and not actual facts. First, elite schools generally don’t accept ANY kids that “don’t do well”. Second, once again, Asian are over-represented at nearly every elite school. If society looked at Asian students the way you think they do, that almost certainly wouldn’t be the case. Are you saying that discrimination doesn’t exist because there are so many Asians in good schools? Bullshit. > [@](#): > > Cite? For what? The fact that Asians have been about 16% of the entering class at ivy leagues for the last 20 years despite a huge increase in the number of qualified asian applicants in that time? Once again I don’t have the cite to the peer reviewed article but at least this time I have a newspaper article that kinda refers to it. > **[Statistics Indicate an Ivy League Asian Quota](https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/19/fears-of-an-asian-quota-in-the-ivy-league/statistics-indicate-an-ivy-league-asian-quota)** > > As the Asian population has grown, and become academically stronger, the percentage of Asians at top schools has been static. > [@](#): > > Why do you think the admission rate based solely on SAT score should be equal across race when race tends to correlate to a number of other metrics by which students are judged? Which metrics? You have yet to provide evidence that there is a difference. > [@](#): > > Really? MIT is 24.4% Asian. Harvard is 21.1% Asian. Berkeley was over 30% both before and after pop 209. So no, your supposition is completely false. I think you are including graduate schools and foreign admissions. > **[Harvard University Diversity: Racial Demographics & Other Stats](https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/harvard-university/student-life/diversity/)** > > Explore Harvard University diversity statistics including racial demographics, ethnicity, gender ratio, undergrad enrollment, average ages of students and other Harvard student population stats. 17.2% Asian. > **[Massachusetts Institute of Technology Diversity: Racial Demographics &...](https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/massachusetts-institute-of-technology/student-life/diversity/)** > > Explore Massachusetts Institute of Technology diversity statistics including racial demographics, ethnicity, gender ratio, undergrad enrollment, average ages of students and other MIT student population stats. 24.4% at MIT. Race blind schools have higher Asian populations. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-standards-in-sat-and-college-admissions-ideal-threshold/748303.md?page=6)