<p>An affirmative action study by Princeton researchers in 2005 attempted to break down and compare the effects of the practice among racial and special groups. The data from the study represent admissions disadvantage and advantage in terms of SAT points (on 1600-point scale):</p>
<pre><code>* Blacks: +230
* Hispanics: +185
* Asians: −50
* Recruited athletes: +200
* Legacies (children of alumni): +160
</code></pre>
<p>Study (PDF)</p>
<p>( <a href="http://opr.princeton.edu/faculty/tje/espenshadessqptii.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://opr.princeton.edu/faculty/tje/espenshadessqptii.pdf</a> )</p>
<p>The estimates for blacks, and to a lesser extent Hispanics, probably understate the disparity. Standardized tests tend to overpredict for individual, high-scoring members of populations with weaker test scores . (One's SAT score predicts a certain level of performance. If one performs above this level, the test underpredicted; if the reverse, it overpredicted.) Thus, according to these analyses, accounting for group differences, a white with a score of 1,200 would actually be more, not equally, able on average than a black or Hispanic with the same score. Critics say that this failure to adjust scores to improve the test's predictive validity distorts the true scores of minorities, and indirectly everyone, as admissions is a zero sum game. Adjusting for this tendency would likely result in more controversy, however, as it is easily misconstrued.</p>
<p>Additionally, class rank, a statistic widely used in admissions, likely confers advantage on underperforming minorities. In California, Florida, and Texas public universities, affirmative action has been replaced with class rank and other programs. Class rank tends to discriminate against those at relatively competitive high schools, simply because high schools are not uniform in student ability. Thus a student with grades in the top ten percent at a mediocre school is unlikely to be equivalent or superior to a student at an elite school. Class rank, as a result, is more a measure of one's peers than of oneself. As such, some high schools refuse to rank their students.</p>
<h2>Source: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action#Implementation_in_universities%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action#Implementation_in_universities</a></h2>
<p>This is pretty interesting article about AA in Wikipedia, which uses Princeton University as an example. I do not know if this is right thing to do, but it's quite interesting to think Princeton having 1/3 of its students as Asians, if AA did not exist. Does anyone know other universities that uses AA?</p>