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<p>Possibly overcoming obstacles such as socioeconomic status and race to get a certain GPA/score is seen as a factor in determining that merit.</p>
<p>Is race an obstacle? The fact that blacks in the exact same socioeconomic situations as whites still, on average, score lower on standardized tests suggests that it indeed is, and certainly should be considered in admissions as such.</p>
<p>However, I wonder if the size of the obstacle matches the weighting in college admissions. Statistically speaking, coming from a poor family is a much bigger obstacle than being black, so it seems more equitable for overcoming socioeconomic adversity to have more weight than being black.</p>
<p>But it isn’t that way, because admissions people don’t really think in those terms, at least not honestly. It’s diversity gains, not merit that they’re paying attention to when they give a 150 SAT point boost to African Americans. </p>
<p>And if affirmative action is to stay as it is, that is the line of thinking that must be argued, and argued persuasively: that diversity is a compelling reason to admit these kids, despite the negative consequences that must follow from it.</p>
<p>I believe that it is, but I am doubtful. Show me evidence of affirmative action actually improving the lot of Black Americans in general — either through this “trickle down effect” or through the guidance of what Du Bois called the top Talented Tenth of African Americans.</p>
<p>…we have GOT to stop assuming these URMs are inherently less qualified. Or that adcoms take anyone who meets diversity, just to get their numbers up. Or that high stats is how any kid or family can judge themselves deserving. Got to stop assuming whites and whites from high earning familes are superior. And that their kids’ apps are so strong only AA or diversity would deny them an admit. </p>
<p>By the way, low SES is not a hook. It came upon the thead in discussing privilege. “Merit,” in the holistic context, is more than scores. So, maybe someone’s white or rich white kid with high scores still wasn’t a “gotta have him.”</p>
<p>They aren’t inherently less qualified, but it is true that they are given a huge edge because they are black. I do believe that admissions counselors do indeed filter African Americans who they believe cannot handle the curriculum of their schools; however, as we all know, a large, large chunk of applicants to top colleges who get rejected are capable of handling the work.</p>
<p>I do think that low SES should be a hook if we are defining, or including in the definition of merit the idea of “overcoming adversity to achieve” — or simply “achieving to an extent that is against the odds.”</p>
<p>In a way it may be a hook, colleges brag about their Pell % so may actively seek out Pell eligible students…though of course those kids will need significant FA and that works against them at many schools.</p>
<p>When you think, “huge edge becase they are Black,” you deny what the individual holistic reviews of each application are about. </p>
<p>I sometimes think the real argument is with holistic, not diversity-? Many don’t like that rank, gpa and scores can yield status in a hs context, but no predictability re: admissions to a top college. It may belie a misunderstanding of what top colleges truly seek, to maintain their academic mission, standards and the campus experience (non-academic.)</p>
<p>I just doubt that holistic means the same thing to them as it does to us. They have to quantify things with ratings to handle the load of applications they get; these provide organization and a streamlined way to holistically evaluate candidates. </p>
<p>They do holistic admissions with respect a desired end result. They will make sure that by the end of the rounds, they have a certain class composition. To achieve this composition, they’ll really have to go out of their ways when enough obviously qualified applcants aren’t around — and this means giving an at least implicit edge to people of desired groups.</p>
<p>It’s an imperfect system, but it works. I believe in it.</p>
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<p>Yes, and they also benefit from Pell grants, tax-deductibility of contribution, tax-free gains on their endowments, and Federal research money. They should not take my taxes and then discriminate against my children on the basis of race. I know people here are saying they do not, but I don’t buy their arguments.</p>
<p>“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race”.</p>
<p>Of course using statistical analysis to establish discrimination is strictly verboten. And if I recall correctly the latest “guidance” on employment discrimination demands proof that the employer intended to discriminate. Excuse me if I take legal pronouncements with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>I’ve been going through some of my favorite dramas from the sixties. Tonight it was Advise and Consent. I suppose it’s technically correct to say the film was in black and white … except that it was devoid of anyone but caucasians. I’m sure all the actors and actresses were chosen on the basis of merit … not a surprise that only whites were chosen, given that everyone making those “merit” choices was also caucasian.</p>
<p>I like Texans. They’re action-oriented. (No offense, but too many persons in my neck of the woods sit on their hands waiting for a perfect solution to appear.) Texans get an idea and act on it. I like that.</p>
<p>One of the things Texas did was set a clear path for admission to their flagship public universities. Not everyone was happy with the result … football coaches and 2nd decile students at the better high schools come to mind. Still, it was a bold move to open university slots to the best students at every Texas high school … independent of SES.</p>
<p>“a strict meritocracy …”</p>
<p>Is this the same as “born to rule?” Because no one yet has figured out how to look at a 17-year-old and know what his adult contributions will be.</p>
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<p>What edge, if any, exists for various criteria depends on the college. Indeed, it appears that the URM preferences today (which in some public university cases have been eliminated completely) are widely overrated, both by wishful URMs and resentful non-URMs (in contrast to decades ago, when the preferences were very large in some cases).</p>
<p>“Of course using statistical analysis to establish discrimination is strictly verboten. And if I recall correctly the latest “guidance” on employment discrimination demands proof that the employer intended to discriminate. Excuse me if I take legal pronouncements with a grain of salt.”</p>
<p>If anything, the legal standard has swung far in the other direction. Today, an employer faces the assumption of discrimination if their hiring practices do not sufficiently reflect the racial makeup of the general population. There used to be an explicit 80% rule: An employer was automatically considered to be discriminatory if the number of minority employees was not at least 80% of the population as a whole. This was independent of the number of potentially qualified employees of that race. This has softened only slightly.</p>
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<p>No evidence I’ve found really supports this hypothesis. The boost that African American URMs get even at the best colleges is pretty substantial, though it indeed falls the higher you go.</p>
<p>It’s probably as great or greater than the boost a person gets for applying early to a top 20 college. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence to support this across the forum, and not really any disconfirming evidence anywhere that even suggests much has changed.</p>
<p>Truly confirming evidence of this anywhere, of course, is scarce.</p>
<p>“The boost that African American URMs get even at the best colleges is pretty substantial …”</p>
<p>Wow, I didn’t realize that America’s best colleges were overrun with African Americans. Learn something new everyday.</p>
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<p>[PJ</a> Media Yellow Peril Redux](<a href=“http://pjmedia.com/blog/yellow-peril-redux/]PJ”>http://pjmedia.com/blog/yellow-peril-redux/)</p>
<p>In 2009, Thomas Espenshade, a Princeton University professor, and Alexandria Walton Radford, who holds a doctorate from Princeton, published a study that revealed students of Asian descent faced discrimination at elite colleges and universities. An Asian student needs to score 140 points higher than whites on the math and reading portions of the SAT, 270 points higher than Hispanics, and 450 points higher than blacks to have the same chances of admission.</p>
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<p>Doing the math, relative to whites the benefits or penalties for racial groups, in SAT points are</p>
<p>-140 Asians
+130 Hispanics
+310 blacks</p>
<p>These are not small differentials.</p>
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<p>Public universities in California and Florida do not consider race or ethnicity by policy. Yes, those which use holistic reviews can theoretically “leak” small amounts of preference despite the policy, but such possible preferences were found to be statistically insignificant in at least one study. But many public universities just admit by GPA and test score formula, which leaves no room for such “leakage”.</p>
<p>Be cautious when taking CC anecdotal evidence as any sort of universal truth. Some of it is “I heard,” some is “I think.” And, some is “well, my neighbor said her cousin knows someone who…”</p>
<p>Re: Espenshade: fwiw, “9000 students who applied to one of ten selective colleges between the early 1980s and late 1990s.”</p>
<p>Also, NYT, 2012: Mr. Espenshade cautioned against jumping to conclusions. “The empirical work that we’ve done suggests that Asian-American applicants might be at some competitive disadvantage,” he said.</p>
<p>“Some people say ‘Isn’t that prima facie evidence of discrimination?’ ” He continued, “and I say no, not necessarily. Mainly because we are looking at a portion of information that admissions deans have access to.”</p>
<p>Oh, of course, and that’s pretty interesting of them. But I restrict my comments to refer to tiptop ranked national universities (1-20).</p>
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<p>That says more about the pool than about the schools, sadly.</p>
<p>As JBHE reported, after Harvard increased its financial aid policies to be especially attractive to rich black applicants, who often happen to be the vast, vast majority of well-qualified black applicants out there (again, this really sucks), the outcry from other colleges about losing access to qualified black students caused Harvard to promise to restrict its black acceptances to about 200 a year.</p>
<p>I’m not even joking. This angers me.</p>
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<p>I’m referring more to african americans reporting their acceptance results.</p>