JBHE Gives Reson for Affirmative Action in 2005

Applying to College
1

<p>This is a repost of my comments regarding JBHE's recent report on the increasingly low number of high-achieving black students:</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]
There are enough high-achieving blacks, hispanics, and so forth, that it is really unnecessary to give a huge 'boost' to underqualified applicants.

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>In response to the above quote, there is an extremely small group of "qualified" black applicants for elite institutions to pick from if you are judging by SATs, APs, & Workload.</p>

<p>Lets roll back to the SAT stats. The SAT range for verbal at HYPSM are:</p>

<p>Harvard: 700-790
Yale: 700-780
Princeton: 680-770
Stanford: 680-770</p>

<h2>MIT: 680-770</h2>

<p>Under the SAT scoring system, most non-minority students hoping to qualify for admission to any of the nation's 25 highest-ranked universities and 25 highest-ranked liberal arts colleges need to score at least 700 on each portion of the SAT. </p>

<p>For 2005, 78,025 students scored 700 or above on the verbal SAT. However, only 1,205 black students scored 700 or above on the SAT verbal. </p>

<p>Also in 2005, over 100,00 students scored 700 or above on the math SAT. Only 1,132 African Americans scored 700 above on the math SAT.</p>

<p>Along with these stats, the JBHE estimates that there are only 1,000 collegebound African Americans with scores of 1400 or above. </p>

<hr>

<p>Now when you speak of their being plentiful qualified blacks students according to non-minority standards...there are 25 elite universities and 25 LACs that reported that SAT 700's are standard for admitted students.</p>

<p>You're speaking of 1,000 black candidates with 1400+ streched across all of those schools. Going back to the original list. The number of blacks in 2005's freshmen class:</p>

<p>Harvard: 153 black freshmen (9.3% of class)
Yale: 122 black freshmen (9.2% of class)
Princeton: 116 black freshmen (9.4% of class)
Stanford: 156 black freshmen (9.5% of class)
MIT: 55 black fresmen (5.5% of class)</p>

<p>602 blacks enrolled at HYPSM Class of 2009, even if you want to assume that the majority of 1400 scoring students enrolled at HYPSYM, you're still discounting 193 black freshmen at UPenn, 175 at Cornell, 114 at Columbia, 97 at Brown, and the 83 black freshmen at Dartmouth. Your'e speaking of over 1,200 black freshmen at the Ivies + Stanford alone. </p>

<p>We haven't even touched on the rest of the top 25 schools, like Georgetown, Duke, UofChicago, Rice... nor have we touched on the elite LACs like Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Vassar, Pomona & Wesleyan, which have generally 50-75 black freshmen apiece.</p>

<h2>At 50 institutions where the average candidate has atleast one score above 700, there are over 5,000 black students enrolled. Approx. 4,000 of them at the nation's top 25 universities. </h2>

<p>Now, going back, didn't only 1,000 score 1400s, only about 1,100 black applicants have one 700+ score on the SATs. And that to assume that none of these 1,000 attended a school outside of the top 25 national universities.</p>

<p>If you get anything above, it is to note that in order to ensure a sufficient amount of African American students at the elite universities, meaning over 1%, there is a need to increase the acceptance of African Americans.</p>

<p>At MIT, to be able maintain a 5% black populations, they had to accept African Americans at a rate of 31% (versus the regular 18%). Why...there are so few black applicant within the 25%-75% SAT range, and the number is even worse for SAT.</p>

<p>Ifyou think of it this way, when Amherst, Swarthmore, Cornell, MIT, WUSTL, & Williams host their diversity weekends, they are courting about 2/5 of that qualified group of 1,100 black applicants. These universities really have to fight for the enrollment of high achieving African American candidates, courting them and accepting them at higher rates.</p>

<p>Statistically, for any of these elite institutions to have above 1% of an enrolling black freshmen class,they have to accept black students below the 75% tile. If these admissions were racially blind, as CalTech declared to the JBHE, then most universities would be like CalTech, <1% black. In 2005, only one African American enrolled (0.4%) in CalTech's freshmen class. </p>

<p>To be able to create astudent body that is abeve 1% black, I believe it is both acceptable and reasonable for elite universities to increasing the accepttance rate of African Americans. - Cre8tive1</p>

2

<p>And also, before there are backlash comment about the putting too much emphasis on SAT, they are still a key part of the application where blacks are severely disadvantage by an average of 158 points.</p>

<p>In a racially-blind college process blacks would suffer drastically since African Americans make up only 0.7% of high-scoring test takers.</p>

3

<p>If the SAT was discrimatory, then how do asians perform better on the test?</p>

<p>Affirmative action for most higher schools is used much more specifically as an IN CONTEXT means of granting admissions.</p>

<p>EX A minority living a middle class life really wont find a benefit whereas one living in the innercity would.</p>

<p>Thats why Caltech is a little backwards, not that it is not accepting more minorities but that it doesnt give applicants the ability to apply on a contextual basis. Everyone is treated as if they all had the same opportunities, and as such fewer disadvantaged students make it in.</p>

4

<p>~_~. so many statistics...</p>

5

<p>Did I said that it discriminated, or did I state in length that it places African Americans at a distadvantage that results from various reasons. Asians average higher than both whites and blacks, but that has little to do with blacks. You can give historic, genetic, and/or socioeconomic reasoning for that, but that's irrelevant.</p>

6

<p>I would rule out genetic reasons. Race has been pretty much been eliminated as a concept in genetics. This discovery was made as a result of tissue matches being done for organ donors. Initially if doctors were looking for organ donors for a hispanic patient, they would check possible hispanic donors. After a while, they figured out and then proved statistically that the race of an organ donor is irrelevant in finding tissue matches with patients of different races. A Swede is as statistically likely to be a tissue match for a Hispanic as another Hispanic. This means that race doesn't exist on a genetic level.</p>

<p>I think there are socioeconomic and cultural reasons. I have sometimes suggested that black parents are not as statistically likely to be involved in helping their children with schoolwork as white/asian parents. This has not always made me really popular; but hey, Bill Cosby started saying it after I did. I add that the reason why black parents may not be as able to help could be socioeconomic.</p>

<p>As cre8tive1 says, the reason is irrelevant if you are only deciding if AA is needed.</p>

<p>Incidently, I am really personally fed up with people saying that the math SAT is discriminatory. Hey, it IS math. Maybe I'll give people a little more understanding on the CR portion even though it IS ENGLISH, but not the math portion.</p>

7

<p>Well with math, people don't understand the incredibly low ratio of black-to-white students that have taken geometry, algebra 2, or trignometry.</p>

8

<p>Blacks do worse on the SATs than most ethnicities becuase they are generally the most socioeconomically disadvantaged. Yet those students dont get nearly as much out of AA as black students with more money.</p>

<p>Socioeconomic AA is much better than racial becuase it keeps a student within context (oddly enough helping poorer blacks vs richer blacks) while also judging students within a race based on their environment.</p>

<p>PS Low ratio of Blacks to White? What if we substituted White with Asian? You know why asians tend to do better? Becuase their parents are EXTREMELY active in their children's life. You'd be amazed to see how much that correlates with good students, especially if you've sat in on many classrooms and seen many parents. Heck you could even replace that with Indian (the country) and still come up with a similiar result. ITs all about the $$$$</p>

9

<p>
[quote]
If the SAT was discrimatory, then how do asians perform better on the test?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Is this a serious question? The word "discriminatory" does not mean "is unfair to everyone who isn't white"</p>

10

<p>I think it is fair to ask why one minority does well on the SAT and another one doesn't. It isn't the individual's fault, but it must be something based in the socioeconomics or culture. I think the point of the original quote is that low SAT's can probably not be blamed on a cultural "white" bias in the test when people from a culture on the other side of the world are doing fine with it. Statistically speaking, asians must be somewhat disadvantaged by the CR portion when a higher number of their parents may not speak native English, and any suggestion that there can be a "white" bias in a math test is just stupid. On the whole, I can't see how you can blame it on the test itself.</p>

11

<p>Admissions to engineering schools and engineering departments within universities has always been different from what is normally written about in the college guides about admissions. College guides are written by liberal arts majors, not engineers. The only reference I have ever seen to engineering admission is in "Admissions Confidential" by Toors where she said that the adcoms at Duke had nothing to do with engineering admissions except to basically shuffle papers and that the engineering faculty made all of the decisions. It is much more numbers driven and the numbers they care about are the SAT I Math and SAT Math IIc scores. </p>

<p>Caltech has apparently just gotten sick of the whole diversity thing as it relates to freshman performance, and having to deal with freshman having IQ's below 150 (joke). It may not be politically correct, but its a gutsy move, and the Republic is not going to stand or fall depending on how Caltech does admissions. Maybe you have to be an engineer to really appreciate it, but the idea of all that brilliance in one place without exceptions is freakin wild.</p>

12

<p>That's the thing, a student may be intellegent as or far superior to the a CalTech student, but that may be that can't be measured by the SATs. There are enough top black students for CalTech to end up with more than 1 black freshmen. </p>

<p>MIT & Olin, with the same admissions standards as CalTech, were able to enroll a 5% black freshmen class respectively. All MIT & Olin's black freshmen were in top 10% of their class.</p>

<p>I'd say all three school provide that community of insane brilliance, Olin even moreso than CalTech, the difference is that at:</p>

<p>MIT's entry class was:
42% Women
58% Men </p>

<p>2% American Indian/Alaskan Native
26% Asian/Pacific Islander
6% Black/Non-Hispanic
12% Hispanic
35% White/Non-Hispanic
6% Non-Resident Alien
13% Race/ethnicity unreported </p>

<p>97% in top 10th of graduating class
99% in top quarter of graduating class </p>

<h2>100% in top half of graduating class </h2>

<p>Olin's freshmen class was:
46% Women
54% Men </p>

<p>11% Asian/Pacific Islander
5% Black/Non-Hispanic
5% Hispanic
68% White/Non-Hispanic
2% Non-Resident Alien
9% Race/ethnicity unreported </p>

<p>98% in top 10th of graduating class
100% in top quarter of graduating class
100% in top half of graduating class </p>

<h2>100% had h.s. GPA of 3.0 and higher</h2>

<p>Cal Tech's freshmen class was:</p>

<p>29% Women
71% Men </p>

<p><1% American Indian/Alaskan Native
31% Asian/Pacific Islander
<1% Black/Non-Hispanic
6% Hispanic
55% White/Non-Hispanic
5% Non-Resident Alien
2% Race/ethnicity unreported </p>

<p>93% in top 10th of graduating class
100% in top quarter of graduating class </p>

<h2>100% in top half of graduating class </h2>

<p>By being blind of diversity, Cal Tech is class GPA and SAT-wise is still on the same plane as Olin & MIT. All you really ended with was over 1/3 less women, only 1 black student (0.4%) and a sea of Asian and White men. </p>

<p>If that's the community you want for the next 4 years, then find, but I'd say hell-to-the-no even if I was an aspiring engineer that was accepted. Because, if I can get into Cal Tech, I can get into a handful of top engineering schools where I know my life and experience will be much better.</p>

<p>This is one of the reason's I see Olin & MIT as being superior and better undergraduate experiences than Cal Tech.</p>

13

<p>Im not saying there should not be ways for underprivledged to get in, Im saying that in a racial context it does not work as well.</p>

<p>If you applied it strictly to socioeconomic reasons youd open up more doors to the kids who really do need it.</p>

14

<p>But what are the 50% SAT ranges between MIT, Olin and Caltech? Both the higher ratio between men and women and the lower % of people in the top 10% of their classes are little tips to me that Caltech has gone almost completely with SAT I Math and SAT Math IIC scores. The degree to which they have done this may be hard to determine. Old information says the 50% SAT range at Caltech was 760-800 with an average of 774 while MIT was 740-800 with an average of 757. With a tight range and high average like that, Caltech could have just eliminated a very few people who had significantly lower scores, but the summary statistics would not change that much.</p>

<p>I agree that this might not be the best way for a school to do it, but on the other hand, it might. They certainly have the right to do so, and it just represents that colleges have diverse ways to pick freshman classes.</p>

15

<p>What happens?</p>

<p>A greater, perhaps unjust, lack of any respect for blacks who got into HYPSM and other Ivies. Many do deserve to go there. But now the academic community knows "he's black, that's why he go in." Way to go AA, reinforcing that glass ceiling.</p>

<p>So if you're going to resort to childish "nya nya nya nya nya nya" posts, looks like the last laughs on the URMs with the AA system in place. :) :) :)</p>

16

<p>patriotboy: Your points are basically valid, but your use of exageration, pseudo-profanity, rudeness, overuse of sarcasm, lack of full explanations, anger, arrogance, seeming unwillingness to compromise, and lack of sensitivity are going to keep people from listening to you. By exageration, I mean saying 1000 instead of 1350 or 1400. By "lack of full explanations", I mean your example about Arnold Schwarzenegger and potential, and your reference to the URM's scoring high on the test coming from high income families.</p>

<p>However, your basic argument is just that the SAT is not culturally biased and that the admissions people do not care about socioeconomic factors, but only about political correctness and keeping the URM special interest groups happy. I don't totally agree with the last part of your argument, but I agree that there is a lot of truth in it.</p>

17

<p>"Oh, I see, the SAT was written so that the millions of different white people, from all areas of the country and fifty states, who have also never interacted with the creators of the test, will understand the test while barely any black person will be able to decipher the "biased" forms."</p>

<p>...</p>

<p>You realize that wealthier students of any color have access to SAT prep programs and stronger support from their family and school. For a low-income student to score ~1300 (2000) shows that they've exceeded what's expected of them.</p>

18

<p>Okay, that's a valid reason why socioeconomic factors affect SAT scores. I think there are other reasons as well, but can it be used to explain why asian, another minority, do well on the SAT, and not blacks and hispanics? </p>

<p>It is also true that the expensive prep programs are not the only way to improve your score. Self study with prep books is probably even more useful in my opinion, and those are accessible to everyone.</p>

19

<ol>
<li><p>You are only agreeing with my point that socioeconomic factors, rather than race, may affect test scores. Pay more attention.</p></li>
<li><p>Btw, I already got into my top choice SCEA, but I'm sure rich whites and especially rich blacks usurped the spots of many better-qualified applicants.</p></li>
<li><p>Enough with the childish name-calling.</p></li>
</ol>

20

<p>lol can u explain my sister being back with a 1550 SAT 800 Math IIC and 770 CHem?</p>