<p>The real cost, they say, is that years of "happy talk" about the educational value of diversity have obscured a terrible fact: If you place students who are less academically prepared in classes where most of the students are more academically prepared, the gap will be punishing and possibly humiliating to the less prepared students. </p>
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<p>The book being reviewed is </p>
<p>"MISMATCH: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's Intended To Help, and Why Universities Won't Admit It"
By Richard H. Sander and Stuart Taylor Jr.</p>
<p>Fascinating that virtually every comment immediately starts ranting about “top down government programs,” even though the REVIEW deals strictly with Ivy League PRIVATE universities. Guess the WSJ knows how to play to their “base.”</p>
<p>Although it may be that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to attend inferior schools that leave them less academically prepared, there are students of all races who are in this boat. Socioeconomic diversity is the issue … if colleges are to draw from low socioeconomic bases to increase diversity, they need to provide adequate resources to assist those students with the academic rigor expected of them. I mentored a young man through Wesleyan and Columbia (dual undergrad degrees) - he was from a high school that did not prepare him for the rigors of these schools. However, he had tremendous drive, and he worked like crazy to overcome the obstacles presented by his less-than-stellar high school education. Were it not for the resources available to him - and the fact that he DID choose to use those resources - he would have failed. If the student shows promise, and if the school provides support that will allow the promise to be fulfilled, I don’t see the problem here.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I worked at a college that was committed to providing access to education for students who, quite frankly, were not ready for a university. The school eventually tightened up admission standards, because many students needed a CC first - remedial classes to get up to speed. The school also worked to expand academic support services to assist current students with the rigors of a university education.</p>
<p>You have to read these sorts of articles carefully. Note, for example, that it emphasizes that black students at Ivies were less likely to graduate with a STEM degree than white students. But were they less likely to graduate at all? If they were able to graduate in another major, that suggests that the mismatch may not be as great as suggested, or that it may relate to specific areas of preparation (i.e., math) as opposed to academic ability.</p>
<p>I’d wager that relatively few students from the low income and working class Black communities or poor high schools benefit from diversity initiatives in higher education. Diversity goals, like Affirmative Action before it, in the main benefit the Black Middle Class.</p>
<p>As I’ve mentioned in other threads, the percentage of URM (especially black) students at Ivies is signficantly lower than their represention in the general population. That tells me that these schools will compromise on stats, but only so much–which is why URM students are generally graduating, even if they may not get STEM degrees.</p>
<p>Nowadays, everyone enrolling in a college has easy access to the SAT scores of admitted and matriculating students, and therefore can easily decide for themselves whether they will feel comfortable with that crowd before going in. No one is being taken advantage of.</p>
<p>In my mind, the real question should be how well did those students fare in their careers after college? It seems to me I learned here on CC that the only students who benefit in a significant way from an Ivy League (over other college) education are the ones who came from disadvantaged backgrounds. Isn’t that right?</p>
<p>The mismatch problem does exist. (One of my kids went to a highly selective college and saw it often.)</p>
<p>It’s why I think affirmative action in admissions is wrong.</p>
<p>On the other hand, affirmative action in financial aid could be a great idea. </p>
<p>Instead of admitting students from disadvantaged backgrounds to colleges for which they are not qualified, wouldn’t it make more sense to admit them to colleges for which they are qualified and make it easier for them to afford to attend by meeting their full need through scholarships and work-study, without loans?</p>
<p>Ime, tippy top schools rarely have to compromise on stats, in general. It’s not like, to get enough URMs at this Ivy, they “settle for” 1500/2400. There is already a “range” or set of expectations in place and many majority kids also benefit from that, as they go through admissions review rounds.</p>
<p>From my perspective, what happens is that “holistic” has a huge impact on all. To find kids who can thrive amidst the high level of academic challenge (whether it’s the teaching level or the prep most peers will have) in classes, they look at how kids challenged themselves and succeeded, how applicants even define challenges and performance. And, how they present the sum total. They know a kid who, say, only had football, a B- gpa, little rigor and low SATs- of ANY origion or socio-economics- is going to struggle and risk defeating the purpose of an admit. They also know a kid who basically did only what his hs expected, had a few titles in clubs and achieved the high gpa and scores, may not be able to similarly thrive in the higher level a top school demands.</p>
<p>We each tend to view all this in the context of where we live, who we know, tales we’ve heard. In fact, there are many economically challenged kids out there who, nonetheless, are knocking themselves out. If you don’t know what some states or districts are doing to better prepare disadvantaged (just to use that word) kids, to offer or allow DE, to focus on writing, analytical and lab skills- or, how many mentoring programs work for ms and hs kids- sure, you’d think too many URM admits were a gimme. And that those kids are statistically bound to somehow fail.</p>
<p>But these kids don’t fail, at the top schools. the grad rates are amazing at these schools. You can’t compare if a few of them leave to the other students. Financially disadvantaged students leave ALL colleges in higher numbers, and in MUCH higher numbers at other institutions. The truth is that these institutions have far more resources at their disposal to assist the disadvantaged student.</p>
<p>Also, study after study shows that those who actually benefit most from attendance at these institutions are the disadvantaged group. Kids like mine would derive no added benefit, just because of who we know and how they’ve grown up. Kids like these, it makes a huge difference.</p>
<p>If there were some massively low level grad rate, then this would be a question. But, honestly, the grad rates at these schools are so high, I don’t even know why this is considered to be a valuable question for research, unless it assists these institutions in putting together a kind of summer bootcamp, or first semester bootcamp, to get them up to speed with those who have benefitted their entire lives from a superior education and resources.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the promotion of this mismatch idea is primarily an effort to suggest that affirmative action should be discontinued for it’s beneficiaries’ own good. While I do think a mismatch is possible, in my opinion it typically has more to do with poor preparation than it does with low stats–a kid could have a pretty good math SAT, but have no calculus, or poor calculus. He might have a hard time in a STEM major at a selective school. But he might do fine in another major.</p>
<p>In my (very dated) experience at an Ivy, students who failed didn’t do so because the work was too hard for them, but because, for various reasons, they didn’t do the work.</p>
<p>At Northwestern, a group of students with the lowest test scores are typically football and basketball players. Many are not even close to being admissible with the general pool (and yes, I have seen some of the scores for these athletes). Yet they graduate at a 95% rate. I don’t see a mismatch. The admissions people know what they are doing.</p>
<p>I have argued for years that NU should lower their admissions standard for athletes even further, more along the lines of ND for football and Duke for basketball.</p>
<p>This is not a knock on the humanities, but it’s a lot harder for students to fail in these subjects. Evaluation is more subjective, and professors are not likely to fail a student in these areas. And the ivy league tends to have grade inflation. I mean, really, is it tough to get a “C” average in literature or government at an ivy league?</p>
<p>I don’t think a high graduation rate disproves mismatch.</p>
<p>You don’t think a high graduation rate disproves mismatch?</p>
<p>Mismatch for what? </p>
<p>If a student can graduate from an institution, given the hardship and the absolute fact they recieved an inferior preparation at the k-12 level, then they are more than qualified to attend the institution. I find this whole line of thinking rather distasteful, frankly. It’s an agenda that does nothing to forward the goals of these institutions, which may or may not jibe with your particular agenda or goals, but which include, at this point, offering a high caliber education to the widest variety of students possible. </p>
<p>This does, and it has to be acknowledged and explained to some pretty disappointed kids in the spring, disadvantage some otherwise more advantaged kids, but the truth is that I’m not sure the mission is to find the highest scores or best educated wealthy or middle class kids. The mission is to educate and develop potential, across the board.</p>
<p>Note that legacies and athletic admits were identified in the article as having the exact same issue, for the exact same reasons. Funny how no one seems to be up in arms about how those kids are being failed by admissions preferences.</p>
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<p>For the school as a whole, yes. But not on an intended major by intended major basis. I’m not a URM, but a million years ago, I went to a tippy-top school from a low-end high school, intending to be a STEM major. I had access to similar mid-50th score breakdowns as kids today do, so knew where I fell in the class as a whole, and it was not in the bottom 25th. What I lacked - and what I can’t for the life of me find even today - was a similar breakdown for kids intending to be STEM majors (which I suspect, based on looking at the stats for similarly competitive tech schools, would have put me way, way down at the bottom in terms of math / science scores). I ended up as a social sciences major with a high GPA, and am now a successful grownup, but I think it’s somewhat disingenuous to say that applicants have the information they need to determine whether they have the foundation to be successful in the field of their choice at any given school.</p>
<p>My own D has a stated desire to be a STEM major, and my hope is that she’ll be able to find a school that’s a good fit for her, where I’d define a significant aspect of fit as “her scores fall in the top half of the distribution for enrolled students intending to be STEM majors.” But outside of the schools where virtually everyone is a STEM major (which I don’t anticipate will be a good fit for her for entirely other reasons, but you never know), those numbers are not easily available, and may not be calculated by the school at all.</p>
<p>There are specific programs, such as the Posse Program, to help students who have been less well prepared by their high schools to succeed at more challenging colleges, not just academically, but also socially. One of my son’s roommates was in this program and said it was really helpful.</p>
<p>I’m sorry you find it distasteful, but whether a student is “qualified” or who deserves admission has nothing to do with my argument. My impression is that, unless you don’t have a pulse, you’re going to get a passing grade. And in some schools, even a “D” is passing. So it doesn’t prove that such a person experienced any growth.</p>
<p>And the key measure is whether they experienced more growth in the more rigorous institution than one which is less rigorous. It is not obvious to me that this will always be the case. If they are unprepared or the curriculum or work is over their head, then they may not get much out of it, and while they still may graduate, it’s possible they could get less out of it than out of a somewhat less rigorous curriculum.</p>
<p>We’ll just have to agree to disagree. Given the research which shows that nobody benefits more, socioeconomically, than those from disadvantaged backgrounds, when they attend what we term elite schools around here, I can’t really agree with this.</p>
<p>We spend so much of our life out of school. It’s very concentrated at the beginning, but after the age of 22 or if you go to grad school, 25, you spend no time in school. What you are left with is opportunity to work and build a good life for yourself and for your family. The advantages these educations provide for the next 60 years of life far outweigh, imho, the notion of “getting more out of it.” Romantic but misguided, for the most part.</p>