<p>pizzagirl: could you please respond to 290?</p>
<p>the faculty quality part? and how that might influence a student’s interest in a college?</p>
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<p>IMHO, Fisher’s case is not what I’d consider a good case to show an example of someone being wronged by UT’s top 10% *********/AA influenced holistic admissions for the rest policy. Her high school GPA was a 3.5 and SATs were 1180. Not exactly impressive stats for someone hoping to attend their state flagship even as an in-stater…especially one as renowned as UT-Austin. It’s very plausible that she was denied because her stats just wasn’t that competitive in relation to the rest of the applicant pool. </p>
<p>Those stats would have likely caused her to be an auto-reject to SUNY-Binghamton as an in-stater in the early-mid '90s…especially if her SATs were adjusted for pre-1995 levels.</p>
<p>Legal documents are hard to read, so I appreciate CCers like TXArtemis’ explanation. My thinking is that with a holistic approach and without AA, a URM would still be accepted by an Ivy and not viewed as benefited by AA. If race is only one of the factors considered, why do we need AA for race only? AA won’t affect my kids much.</p>
<p>^ cobrat, it is true, she wasn’t a particularly competitive candidate. But she was a vehicle for a cause. The forces who wanted to mount the challenge found a willing plaintiff.</p>
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The question I would have is “Quality of the faculty in what regard?” Some students might be looking at quality of teaching, while others are looking for research, publications, mentoring ability, etc. And these qualities don’t always go hand in hand as we all are aware. </p>
<p>Certainly, at the grad level, students should be looking at who they might be able to study under, to the extent that the student has choices about where to attend.</p>
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I hope you are not insinuating that research professors are on average worse instructors than professors at teaching colleges. That seems to be a common misconception on CC. (In fact, the opposite has been true for the classes I have taken.)</p>
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<p>None of that follows from #257. If all of the students are outstanding in that class, then they can all get A grades. But if none are, then none can get A grades.</p>
<p>The idea that “C = really can’t perform at the required level [i.e. failure]” is a product of grade inflation. It used to be that a C grade was a respectable passing grade, while A and B grades indicated performance above and beyond respectable passing.</p>
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<p>URMs are underrepresented because various factors early in the life of many (e.g. poor quality K-12 education) means that the supply of college-ready URMs is smaller (relative to population) than for non-URMs. All of the affirmative action at the college admissions level won’t really solve that problem.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus-
There was an article posted earlier in this thread that was from a study done at Duke. It showed that the students who were lesser prepared did poorly compared to their classmates in the first year or 2 of college, but did a nice job of catching up in the latter part of their education. There were, however, some associated factors like changes in major and variances in grading that affected the GPAs, but it was really nice to see that many of the students were able to overcome their poor secondary school preparation.</p>
<p>*** here is is <a href=“http://seaphe.org/pdf/whathappensafter.pdf[/url]”>http://seaphe.org/pdf/whathappensafter.pdf</a> From canukguy</p>
<p>Alh, not sure what you want me to say. Are there students interested in a college because of the faculty? Sure. (in other news, the sun rises in the east) Does that entitle them to admission? No. Im not sure what the point is. Lots of kids are going to be disappointed in the elite college admissions game, so you can approach it like a lottery and be delighted if you hit the jackpot, or you can be one of the CC whiners who feels entitled to a spot, acts as though there are only a handful of schools worth going to, and attributes a loss directly to some URM/legacy/athlete/whatever. (not you specifically - using you in the sense of one)</p>
<p>“My thinking is that with a holistic approach and without AA, a URM would still be accepted by an Ivy and not viewed as benefited by AA. If race is only one of the factors considered, why do we need AA for race only? AA won’t affect my kids much.”</p>
<p>Your mistake is in thinking that a reasonably competitive URM is guaranteed an acceptance. There are, you know, URMs who are qualified who get turned down just like there are white and Asian kids who get turned down. Such is life.</p>
<p>“”…but it was really nice to see that many of the students were able to overcome their poor secondary school preparation.“”</p>
<p>Not what the article suggested. On page 29, <a href=“http://seaphe.org/pdf/whathappensafter.pdf[/url]”>http://seaphe.org/pdf/whathappensafter.pdf</a> </p>
<p>“While at first blush there appears to be evidence this as the differences in grades between blacks and whites diminishes over their college careers, we show that this is not due to differential learning… While conditional on sex black students have stronger initial preferences than whites for majoring in the natural sciences, engi-neering, or economics, they are significantly less likely to choose one of these majors for their final major. We show that these differences in persistence rates are (<em>)fully explained(</em>) by differences in academic background. Courses in the natural sciences, engineering, and economics are rated more difficult, are associated with higher study times, and have harsher grade distributions than those in the humanities and social sciences. The differences in difficulty levels across course types then works to dissuade individuals with relatively worse academic backgrounds to choose majors in the humanities and social sciences.”</p>
<p>This discussion is covering a lot of ground. I suppose it all ties back to the OP’s claim that H is a “diploma mill”. </p>
<p>A former president of Reed College has an interesting perspective.
Rigor and integrity are features of a healthy academic ecosystem. Although Harvard may not be a diploma mill, a cheating incident involving over 100 students does suggest something is rather out-of-whack.</p>
<p>[Students</a> will show academic integrity if colleges support it - Boston.com](<a href=“http://articles.boston.com/2012-09-05/opinion/33581799_1_grade-inflation-college-students-academic-integrity]Students”>http://articles.boston.com/2012-09-05/opinion/33581799_1_grade-inflation-college-students-academic-integrity)</p>
<p>stillgreen-
Thats not how I interpreted the article. Yes the differences in majors and grading accounted for discrepancies in the final GPAs between the groups, but it doesnt fully explain the improvement in GPA scores across the 4 years within the groups starting at the bottom.</p>
<p>jym626, then you are disagreeing with the article.</p>
<p>Also in the Abstract,</p>
<p>“First, the variance of grades given falls across time… Second, grading standards differ across courses in different majors. We show that controlling for these two features (<em>)virtually eliminates(</em>) any convergence of black/white grades. In fact, black/white gpa convergence is symptomatic of dramatic shifts by blacks from initial interest in the natural sciences, engineering, and economics to majors in the humanities and social sciences.”</p>
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<p>I am not accusing you of anything, PG. My promise to my lady to still my acid tongue still holds. With all due respect, my prototype of a math major is one who tends to be male, fastidious in analysis, and cautious in diction. You are none of the above. You do, however, fit my prototype of a social science grad with an agenda, hidden or otherwise. That is not really so bad though, is it?</p>
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<p>See what I mean? Strawman much?</p>
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<p>No, you are an apologist for the status quo. Jerome Karabel, an insider to the admissions game, is a realist. He openly admitted that admissions policy tends to reflect power relations between major social groups and conceded that the Big Three ramped up the admission of black students almost overnight owing not to some midnight conversion but to terror at the rising tide of black anger and violence. Daniel Golden, another realist, went even further, naming names:</p>
<p>[Lexington:</a> Poison Ivy | The Economist](<a href=“Poison Ivy”>Poison Ivy)</p>
<p>Can you not see that these measures you mentioned are designed to conceal the elitess role as handmaiden to power? Or have you benefited from the system so much that it is in your own best interest not to see?</p>
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<p>I am sure this world is large enough, frazzled1, for more than just my humble opinion. What is it that you dont agree with? My assessment of PG, or my assessment of John Leonard?</p>
<p>I am not talking about convergence between the black/white grades, stillgreen. I am talking about the improvement in the second two years from the first two years within the black population. Look at the graph on p 3</p>
<p>"“I am not talking about convergence between the black/white grades, stillgreen… Look at the graph on p 3"”</p>
<p>It is the convergence of the GPA, between ethnic groups that matters here, in order to show whether one group could have catched up the other. Grades over different courses and years are apples and oranges.</p>
<p>Dont agree, stillgreen. There are many ways to look at the data. I am looking at within group data. You are free to look at between group data. These are different issues.</p>
<p>I find it very amusing that the legacies started out lower than the non legacy counterparts as well.
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