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<p>‘Better’ depends on what grade you can get in the course. Getting a C+ in AP hurts. </p>
<p>And notice that Honors course will not get additional weight. If you are a kid who is at 13% how likely are you to fill your schedule with Honors courses?</p>
<p>Here is what I predict for Argle Bargle U:</p>
<p>Initial acceptances will go solely to people with decent SATs who go to high schools with tremendous grade inflation or extremely easy courses. No one will apply without good SATs and a high GPA.</p>
<p>Yield will be terrible because no one with any kind of choice will want to go to a college with no athletes, no artists, no extracurricular activities (because no leaders to maintain them), and no people who went to schools that actually challenged them. </p>
<p>So by the time all the iterations happen, practically everyone who applies will be accepted, and hardly anyone will come. No prestige will attach to the college; it will be derided as the ultimate safety school for drudges who can’t write to save their lives.</p>
<p>Maybe if, like Caltech, it assembled one of the great faculties in the world, and was a tiny college, it could get some traction. Caltech has to admit three students to get one to show up. If Caltech had to fill a class the size of MIT’s, its admission rate would be well over 50%. And maybe it would just be like the University of Chicago in the 50s and 60s – one of the great faculties in the world, and a college that could barely maintain itself, with an extraordinarily low quality of student life and actual hostility among its alumni.</p>
<p>In other words, in order to avoid being mushy and holistic, you are going to throw out the baby with the bathwater.</p>
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<p>Yep, that’s how I see it going down.</p>
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<p>At some schools honors do get additional weight. I’ve read all kinds of different weighting formulas on CC. 4 for regular, 4.5 for honors, 5 for AP or dual…and so on.</p>
<p>An “A” in a regular class gets you 4*4 for a “value” of 16. But an A in an AP gets you 20. But a B, like a 3.5 - that’s still better in an AP because it gives you a 17.5.</p>
<p>A C+ is going to hurt you anywhere but at least if you get it in an AP you still get a 12.5…if you get it in a “regular” it’s only worth 10…</p>
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<p>What? …</p>
<p>Never heard this.</p>
<p>JHS is correct. U of Chicago has essentially had to reinvent itself in the last decade or so.</p>
<p>
I think this is the crux of what arg is saying, and it deserves a thoughtful response: a: No, not really. What you can do with the statistics is raise the question: why does it appear that more Asians “ought” to be getting admitted, based on their stats? Discrimination is one possible answer, but not the only one. This is where you run in to problems–and why the Jian Li case hasn’t gone anywhere in six years. There is really no other evidence of discrimination other than these statistics, and you really need more evidence to show discrimination. b. Here, again, you have to understand that the motive for decisionmaking is important. Just to give a simple example, if the fact that Harvard wants people from all 50 states disadvantages Asians, that’s not enough to show a motive to discriminate against Asians. Similarly, a motive to assist URMs doesn’t constitute a motive to discriminate against ORMs. This is hard to accept, I know, especially where the preference for URMs is based on race–but motive matters. It’s possible that the Fisher case will change this, but I doubt if they’ll do so completely–I’ll bet after the dust settles, Harvard will still be able to consider all aspects of an applicant’s background, including race, in order to seek “diversity.”</p>
<p>And to show that Arg and I have something in common in the way we think, check out this old thread of mine: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/509446-modest-proposal-super-stat.html?highlight=stats+only[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/509446-modest-proposal-super-stat.html?highlight=stats+only</a></p>
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Spoilsport
:D</p>
<p>Hunt there’s a reason you have a bajillion points of green light :)</p>
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<p>It only makes sense if stats (scores + gpa) are the only criteria for admission. And they are not.</p>
<p>So I do not think there is an “ought” here.</p>
<p>I naively thought that this thread would die off after the current ivy asian stats were put on here yesterday, but it appears [Led</a> Zeppelin - The Song Remains the Same (NY 1973) - YouTube](<a href=“Led Zeppelin - The Song Remains the Same (Madison Square Garden 1973) - YouTube”>Led Zeppelin - The Song Remains the Same (Madison Square Garden 1973) - YouTube)</p>
<p>Getting a C+ in AP is not merit. Getting an A in math for dummies isn’t merit either. But it may get you into ArgyU. i can see the threads now, all excited.</p>
<p>Isn’t there already some sentment against UTA because of the percentage factor? Some bright, high achieving in-state kids who see it as a default?</p>
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While this is true, I don’t think you can reject out of hand the possibility that selective schools might not want more than some more-or-less defined percentage of Asians, for fear of being “too Asian,” just as some people think Brandeis is “too Jewish,” or BYU is “too Mormon.” Indeed, I would wager that many people who aren’t black would be hesitant to attend a HBC. Ivies might think–indeed, they might even know–that if they had, say, more than 50% Asians that it would hurt their yield among other students they want. As I say, all this is possible, which is why it’s worth taking a sharp look at those statistics. But there has to be something more, and despite years of angst about this, there really isn’t anything more.</p>
<p>cltdad, people keep raising additional points that are fun to discuss…I haven’t taken this thread off my subscription list for that reason :D</p>
<p>For example:
</p>
<p>I started two threads last month about so-and-so-TECH colleges with a concern for my daughter about them being…too MALE.</p>
<p>Most of these colleges have some kind of outreach, special programs, scholarships, whatever to try to get more women (women who meet a certain baseline of stats that means they can do the work). Clearly men are being discriminated against at these schools because the average gpa/sat for them is higher than for admitted women. Same but opposite story at some LACs that don’t want “too many women” (see oft-cited Kenyon article about the lower bar for men there).</p>
<p>High stats applicants are “discriminated against” in both cases, to meet an ideal M-F ratio.</p>
<p>Is that different?</p>
<p>This is actually one of the better threads on this topic that I’ve participated in. Rather, on a range of topics, including the most recent one.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure that everyone on this board agrees that motive matters. I do, but that and $4 will get you a latte.</p>
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<p>Harumph. If you want to talk travesties, let us discuss the fact that Jeff Beck (ranked #14 greatest guitarist by Rolling Stone magazine) and Jimmy Page (ranked #9) are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while Stevie Ray Vaughn (#7) and Ry Cooder (#8) are not!</p>
<p>Motive matters in terms of the law. I also think that many, if not most, people would see an ethical difference between discriminating in favor of somebody you thought needed help, and discriminating against somebody you didn’t like.</p>
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<p>Brown takes only 24% of the vals that apply and only 29% of its ACT 36 scorers. SATs 800’s admit 17-21%. Clearly stats alone are not nearly enough.</p>
<p>Here’s the updated link (an older one no longer works):
[Admission</a> Facts | Undergraduate Admission](<a href=“Undergraduate Admission | Brown University”>Undergraduate Admission | Brown University)</p>
<p>“While this is true, I don’t think you can reject out of hand the possibility that selective schools might not want more than some more-or-less defined percentage of Asians, for fear of being “too Asian,” just as some people think Brandeis is “too Jewish,” or BYU is “too Mormon.” Indeed, I would wager that many people who aren’t black would be hesitant to attend a HBC. Ivies might think–indeed, they might even know–that if they had, say, more than 50% Asians that it would hurt their yield among other students they want. As I say, all this is possible, which is why it’s worth taking a sharp look at those statistics. But there has to be something more, and despite years of angst about this, there really isn’t anything more.”</p>
<p>Hunt, your thoughtfulness and objectivity astounds me. Sorry my rep points aren’t worth much.</p>
<p>No doubt it needs to be watched and looked into, and I am interested in the subject, even if Argybargy is annoyingly aggressive on the subject, to the point where I just want to refute every point he makes.</p>
<p>The reality is I think the situation is a balancing act for the schools, who really do go to a lot of trouble to make sure they have diversity, and by this I am absolutely not talking about race, but about aptitudes, interests, skills, talents, points of view, whatnot. So that a flat out stat based admission policy just won’t net them the class they want, or the class the students want to be a part of, either.</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t see this as an “asian” issue, but some people clearly see it as such.</p>