By “Most of them aren’t from the underrepresented groups”, I mean not only in absolute numbers but also in percentages.
How about limited samples chosen selectively? Arbitrary exclusions of other data? Different studies have reached different “conclusions” based on different data sets.
“The SAT and ACT are inherently racist and prejudiced systems built to keep the elite at the elite and suppress opportunities for marginalized communities.”
Interesting point, the SAT definitely has biased results, not sure that means it’s a biased test. Asians have done the best though, not really a marginalized community, in the way you’re describing.
"How many people getting 1000 on their SAT are really going to throw their hat in the ring for a top 20 school? "
Sure, but many don’t know they’re a 1000 test scorer since they never took the test. They may have good, maybe not great GPA and rigor, so probably would apply to a couple of T20s.
Yes, it does. Not to even mention the fact that many high income SES kids are getting unpaid/paid internships via family/social connections. Even with the same degree from the same college, students are not starting out in equal footing. This also acts as a “gate” into the most lucrative professions and companies. I have run across many weak links in companies only to find out later, they got there via a connection.
Entrepreneurs, IMO, aren’t usually propped up by their parents. Perhaps that is due to changes in the nature of business with technology often leading into new fields.
I have talked on CC about my own journey growing up Black and poor and some of the struggles I had with the SAT around the context of some passages because my own world was so far removed from the questions asked. At the same time, I also recognize that it was my early standardized testing ability coming from a very low performing elementary school that offered me an opportunity to attend a magnet middle school that changed my life.
I am a proponent of having the option of applying to top schools as test optional, but I would also like to see standardized testing improved or at least become more statistically relevant to college academic achievement. Currently, the SAT/ACT shows a large statistically relevant slant towards high SES students and against those from marginalized communities while not showing nearly as much importance to actual college achievement. Not enough effort is placed in fixing that conundrum. My own pet peeve does not worry about the test optional opportunities as much as low performing school districts (like my home district) that continue the perpetual cycle of academic underachievement in minority communities.
“Most” doesn’t make sense as a reference to a percent increase. For example, if the applicants from an underrepresented group increases by 1k to 2k, and the an overepresented group increase from 10k to 13k; the underrepresented group had a far larger % increase; even though “most” newly test optional applicants were not from the underrepresented group.
in any case, you are entitled to believe that traditionally higher scoring groups like White wealthy kids are expected to see a larger % increase in applications with the score barrier removed than traditionally lower scoring groups like URMs and lower income, but your position would be more convincing, if you provided some evidence of this theory, such as schools where it has happened before.
The referenced studies included results for dozens of colleges. All studies explain how those colleges were chosen, and they do not sound cherry picked for a particular results. Instead it appears to be either the college at which the researchers work or the colleges that agree to provide relevant data. In any case, results from dozens of colleges suggest traditionally lower scoring groups like URM, lower income, and first gen are overrepresented among test optional applicants at test optional colleges. And none I’ve seen show a different pattern, such as traditionally higher scoring groups like White + wealthy being overrepresented among test optional applicants compared to the overall pool. So we should assume that the higher scoring groups are the ones with larger % increase in applications upon going test optional?
Which studies have reached different “conclusions” about test optional applicants from traditionally lower scoring groups? If you are referring to the article you linked to earlier, if you click on the link to the study from the article, you’ll see that the study compared averages of enrolled students at test optional colleges vs test required colleges. For example, what portion of enrolled students are URMs at a group of test required colleges vs what portion of enrolled students are URMs a group of test optional colleges. This is a separate issue from % increase in applications from traditionally lower scoring groups, upon going test optional.
It’s really quite simple. Let me try to explain it again. The percentage of those who already possess, or think they possess, other elements (except for a good test score) of good applications to “top” schools is higher in groups other than in the underrepresented groups. If you agree with that, then TO policies benefit those groups more than the underrepresented groups.
Yes, the book is much more detailed. It’s actually a broader study of some of the same issues but reached some very different conclusions. I don’t have confidence in it, either, BTW. I’m not a fan of most of these types of studies, as you can probably tell.
I’d place bets that the odds of this are very, very rare. In cases I know of where someone with a low SES background does well they’ve always given credit to someone along the way, if not family. The person might not have helped with much money, but they gave inspiration and/or ideas like teachers helping kids find an academic path.
Most with low SES stay low SES unfortunately even if they work full time (as many do).
ETA For every lower SES kid who makes it, “without help” I imagine there’s an equal lower SES kid who could get in somewhere (college) and not be able to go, so ending up in a job and never actually getting to go to college because there wasn’t enough money. I recall one young lady fitting that profile a few years back. She was so happy she had been accepted, but later that fall I saw her waitressing at a restaurant. What happened, I asked? I couldn’t afford it, she replied, so I’m working to save up some money. It never happened. Some time later (a year or two?) I saw her name in our newspaper - OD’d. That may have happened if she’d gone to college too, of course. We’ll never know. My guess is she got depressed after all of her friends left and she got left behind. The druggie crowd is always welcoming unfortunately.
Again we are talking about percentage increase, not absolute percentage. To measure percentage increase, you need to instead compute the ratio of (portion who believe they are qualified without test scores removed / portion who believe they are qualified under test required required), and compare that ratio for different groups. I don’t doubt that White wealthy kids with higher average scores are more likely to believe they are adequately qualified under a test optional system than other groups (numerator), but White wealthy kids are also more likely to believe they are adequately qualified under a test required system (denominator), so that doesn’t mean there will be a larger % increase in applications than occurs for lower average scoring groups.
In a separate thread someone posted the application breakdown for UCLA this year. While overall applications increased by 28%, applications from black students grew 48% – that was the highest % among the various groups (white up 35% and Latinx up 33%). The only group of students where the % growth was below the overall figure, were Asian students who were up only 22%. Of course this is only a single instance, but it is probably not a complete anomaly.
Well yes and no. The road is straight uphill for sure. I lived in a town with many millionaires ( and a couple of billionaires). Surprisingly, many were born outside the US. The majority were from the Former Soviet Union and its satellites, Asian countries and others. What they had in common was being entrepreneurial. Most has nothing to lose. Many came to the US on scholarships and stayed. My view might slanted as this area has more tech, biotech and knowledge jobs than elsewhere.
I think saying that someone is poor and so will stay that way takes away their drive. People need grit and sometimes they need to work three jobs and scrape to get where they want to go.
My issue with thinking of income as stasis, is it locks people into a can’t do mentality.
I’ll end with positivity. Most of those who I’ve net that were wildly successful in their fields had a can do mentality. Nothing was going to stop them and nothing did. And they used this formula repeatedly to break down the barriers and keep going.
If we tell every kid that dreams big, they can only do small things, then we don’t have a lot of the technological breakthroughs we need. Everyone loses. We need to make sure everyone has a chance regardless of where and what SES level they cone from.
You don’t need the denominator if you’re comparing only those who wouldn’t have applied without TO from any of the groups. Those who would have applied anyway (regardless of test policies) don’t really matter. Just focus on the remaining applicants from any of the groups.
% increase is defined as (new/old) - 1. By definition, you need to include a denominator of the reference level to compute % increase above that reference level. If you just look at totals for (new - old) = those who wouldn’t have applied without TO, that’s an absolute increase, not a % increase.
I see what I see from an average public school. Yes, our immigrants and refugees often do well. I’m of the belief that our country would do better with more of them.
But I also see kids who don’t have great parents or examples in their lives. They go to school and compare themselves to their peers. No one has to do this for them. Some can be inspired by the belief that education can improve their lot. Then, when it comes time for education, some kids get it paid for (high SES or cream of the lot of low SES), but what about the rest? I guess they need that waitressing job.
It’s great if someone can persevere and waitress for a while to pay for college.
Personally I doubt that can happen with today’s wages and college costs, esp when they need to pay their own bills too. A few decades ago (our generation) that was more likely to be able to happen.
It’s great if some are able to come up with a new idea and it works making them rich without a dime of income from anyone else.
What about all the rest of them?
One of the best investments our country could make would be to pay for cc or 4 year state schools for those who make it in. I like NY’s plan where graduates have to work in the state for X years afterward. But in general as a country we invest very little, then complain about welfare costs.
It’s tough to fix crappy parents or other situations causing low SES, but every kid should have a chance IMO.
I believe the tangent about millionaires and billionaires related to a comment about how students would be impacted if test optional caused them to be admitted to a slightly more or less selective college than they would be otherwise.
As a general rule, chance of higher income has more to do with the characteristics of the particular student than whether they attend elite college x vs highly selective college y. These characteristics include things like field of interest (for example tech vs humanities); background including things like location, SES, and family; skill set; and motivations. For example, the classic Dale & Krueger study found that students who applied to and were accepted to (which colleges they applied to was more relevant than whether they were accepted or not) had similar average earnings.
A summary of chance of a bottom 20% income kid who attends various colleges becoming a top 20% income adult at various colleges is below, as listed in the NYT-Chetty Study. It wasn’t just the kids attending HYPSM that were becoming wealthy. It seemed to more follow whether the student attended a school with a large portion tech majors, and presumably whether the student was a tech major.
Ivy+ Colleges – 58% of low income kids became wealthy adults – Highest = 67% at MIT, Lowest = 48% at Chicago
“Other Elite” Private non-LACs – 56% of low income kids became wealthy adults – Highest = 78% at Rose Hulman, Lowest = 40% at Miami
However, none of the above selective private colleges had many low income kids who became wealthy adults because they had so few lower income kids attending the college. Instead the 4-year colleges with the largest portion of students moving up >=2 income quintiles were as follows – generally not super selective publics in urban areas… Some of the Ivy+ colleges scores as low as bottom 2% by this measure.
We seem to be have trouble communicating with each other. Let me use a concrete example instead. Suppose there’re only 2 groups. Group A has 1,000 applicants and group B has 200 applicants. 20% of group A would have applied to “top” schools regardless of test policies, while group B only 5% would have. Of the remaining applicants, there’re 800 applicants from group A and 190 from group B who may benefit from TO policies. However, not all of them would. Let’s assume 20% of remaing 800 applicants from group A already possess, or think they possess, other elements (except for a good test score) of good applications to “top” schools, and 5% of the remaining 190 applicants from group B already possess, or think they possess, those other elements. In other words, 160 additional applicants from group A and 9.5 (sorry for the fraction) additional applicants would apply to “top” schools under the TO policies. From group A, 160 additional applicants represent another 16% (160/1000) of total applicants from group A, while for group B, 9.5 additional applicants represent another 4.75% (9.5/200) of total applicants from that group. I’d say group A benefited more than group B.
I think of Covid as adding a lot of uncertainty to everyone’s life. Virtually every aspect of life and education and applications have changed. School itself, extracurriculars, testing, recommendations … it’s all different now.
Mentally, people put themselves into a curve of “where I might get accepted” and I think uncertainty makes people feel that curve is now wider.
People are are very focused on testing and the fairness or not fairness of that change. But think about the elite athletes whose competitions were canceled, the elite performers who can’t perform and so forth. That is driving uncertainty there too. And I think uncertainty drives people to believe (right or wrong) that they might have a shot at the elite schools.
To me, uncertainty is driving higher elite applications, and part of that (but not all of) the uncertainty is from the changes to testing.
A meta-comment, but I think an important one, for the subthread about economic mobility and the likelihood of moving from a non-hyperrich background into wealth:
It’s worth remembering that any discussions of who moves from the middle class to the upper class is going to be skewed by the honestly very strange phenomenon, as measured in gobs and bunches of studies, where the vast majority of Americans rate themselves as “middle class”. (And when I say “vast” I really do mean vast here—depending on the way questions are presented you can get approaching 90% of respondents saying they’re middle class.)
So somebody saying they moved from the middle class into the upper upper class? Well, for those who rate middle class as making $30k/year with no household wealth, sure, that’s a pretty amazing accomplishment. For those who rate their background as middle class when their family was bringing in $250k/year (or more!) with substantial investment and property holdings? Yeah, that not nearly as surprising.
(A request, hopefully not made in vain: Please don’t turn this into an argument about what counts as middle class given localized costs of living or such. That’s an honestly very, very boring topic. My point here is simply to note that “middle class” is an effectively meaningless designation.)
The question wasn’t which group you’d say benefited more. It was which group had the larger % increase in applications. In your example, group B had the larger % increase in applications,
Group A: (360 applied with T0) / (200 applied without TO) -1 = 80% Increase
Group B: (19.5 applied with T0) / (10 applied without TO) -1 = 95% Increase
Even that relative increase depends on the numbers chosen (20% vs 5%). If, instead of 5%, only 3% from group B would possess all the “other” elements, then only 5.7 additional applicants from that group would apply under TO. In reality, the lower percentage makes even more sense. The “top” schools have all been aware that it’s much harder to find additonal applicants from the underrepresented groups once the top students from those groups have committed to other schools.
“In a separate thread someone posted the application breakdown for UCLA this year. While overall applications increased by 28%, applications from black students grew 48% – that was the highest % among the various groups (white up 35% and Latinx up 33%). The only group of students where the % growth was below the overall figure, were Asian students who were up only 22%. Of course this is only a single instance, but it is probably not a complete anomaly.”
Ok, but you have to provide context as others have said when presenting these numbers, in Fall 2020, a little over 6K Blacks applied to UCLA, putting them at around 9K for 2021, while there were 24K Latinx, 34K Asians, 22K White and 18K International in 2020.