That is an ad hominem argument. Do you have any actual proof of your assertion? All the “proof” you have provided is the fact that it is “common knowledge” that UCs use affirmative action and an article that could hardly be considered trustworthy from a guy who is just trying to sell his book. Ali has provided actual statistics that prove that URMs couldn’t possibly have an advantage at the UCs. How do you believe that Caltech doesn’t use affirmative action yet you believe that the UCs do? Caltech has started to give females an advantage in admissions, why do you think it would be below them to do the same for URMs? We all know that most elite colleges practice affirmative action, but the UCs do not. The UCs already have such small numbers of black people that aren’t athletes, when will you be satisfied? When there are none?
dsi411 I suggest you read the data before you make any more statements. Professor Groseclose isn’t just some guy trying to sell a book. He was on the UCLA Admission Committee and had access to the actual data which is posted on his site. After he published his data UCLA never claimed the data was wrong but instead fell back on how grades and stats are just one part of the application. This is of course the exact purpose of holistic admissions. Yes most/all the top engineering schools do slightly favor high end girls just because otherwise the class is so unbalanced but it’s not based on race. As I said Cal Tech is the only school I am aware of in the US(no other country uses AA) that uses no racial preference or any preferences for sports recruits. It is amazing that a topic that has been studied so thoroughly with dozens of books with volumes of data can still upset people on a CC thread. As I told Ali there is no controversy or debate left to have about this topic as it exists today. I completely leave the merits or fairness of the system for others to determine.
http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2010/12/why_caltech_is_in_a_class_by_i/
@SAY “After a first look results in most applications being either accepted or rejected, a handful of senior university staff sift through those marked for further consideration, according to Groseclose. That’s where the alleged bias happens. He found black applicants were accepted at a 43 percent rate in the second round, while whites were accepted at a 15 percent rate and Asians at an 18 percent rate.”
Complete nonsense. I’m going to refer to UC Berkeley here to disprove any of your assertions that URMs have an advantage.
First lets start with African Americans. African Americans make up 6% of total applications to UC Berkeley while only making up 3.6% of admits and only 2.8% of students that matriculate. Now given these stats this would translate into 4060 African American applicants from a pool of 67,665 applicants in the year 2013-2014 and 508 African Americans admitted from that applicant pool of the total 14,103 students admitted. This gives African American applicants a total acceptance rate of 12.5%.
Now lets compare this to the Asian applicants to UC Berkeley. Asian applicants make up 37.2% of all applicants, 44.1% of those admitted and make up 40% of the entering class. This means out of the 25,171 Asians that apply, 6,219 are admitted. This gives Asian applicants a 24.7% admit rate to UC Berkeley.
Next, White applicants that make up 27% of the applicant pool, 29% of those admitted and 29% of those enrolled. This means of the 18,270 whites that apply to UC Berkeley, 4,090 students are admitted. This gives white applicants a 22.4% admit rate to UC Berkeley. Finally, Hispanics that make up 25.7% of applicants, 17.7% of those admitted and 13% of those that enrol. This means of the 17,390 Hispanics that apply, 2,496 applicants are admitted. This gives Hispanics a 14.4% admit rate.
In conclusion, the Asian admit rate is 24.7%, the White admit rate is 22.4%,the Hispanic admit rate is 14.4% and the African American admit rate is 12.5%. The admit rates by ethnicity rank in order of greater to lower chances of getting in are as followed: Asians >>Whites >> Hispanics>> African Americans.
Sources:
Information on applicants/admits to UC Berkeley and ethnicity 2013-14: http://www.dailycal.org/2013/04/22/admissions/
Information giving total applicants and admits 2013-14: http://news.berkeley.edu/2013/04/18/campus-announces-2013-14-freshman-admissions-decisions/
Information on ethnicity of students enrolled 2005-2012: http://diversity.berkeley.edu/undergraduate-students-current-census
@say oh the irony of reading this on page 129 of a cc thread devoted to this very topic. Clearly you haven’t read any of it 
Ali you are so young to be so rigid. Professor Groseclose on his site provides the actually data that proves his assertion. dsi411 accused me of attacking you for pointing out you are a high school student. If you want to believe UCB admits students with no preference based on race you are free to do so. I have no interest in trying to convince you or dsi411 or anyone else who can’t separate personal ideology from the actual facts of elite college admissions. I have posted many of the relevant links and this information is widely available from many sources. Ali your statistically analysis is completely incorrect. I recommend you carefully read the professors book to see the proper way to do the statistical analysis which shows the huge advantage given at UCLA to URM with matched SAT/grades compare to Asians/whites. As I have said there is no controversy among anyone who has studied the subject. All of the elite schools consider URM to be a hook though there is some variation from school to school. I remain puzzled that in 2015 that this statement should upset anyone on this site. I am not advocating any change to the system or objecting to any school’s methods of selection but it serves no one’s interest on the CC site to be dishonest about the truth.
@SAY Rather than change the subject please refer back to my previous comment. All of my stats and numbers come from credible sources and plus my analysis was on UC Berkeley on my previous comment not UCLA.
I dare you to disprove any of my statistics when it comes to admit rates by ethnicity to UC Berkeley
It is clear using all the statistics I could gather on applicants and admits of all ethnic backgrounds that the Asian admit rate is the highest among all ethnicities.
Asians are 9.3% more likely to get admitted than whites, 41.7% more likely to get admitted than Hispanics and 49.4% more likely to be admitted to UC Berkeley than African Americans. This is a fact and I’ve given every piece of statistically evidence to prove this fact.
@dsi411 “How do you believe that Caltech doesn’t use affirmative action yet you believe that the UCs do? Caltech has started to give females an advantage in admissions, why do you think it would be below them to do the same for URMs? We all know that most elite colleges practice affirmative action, but the UCs do not. The UCs already have such small numbers of black people that aren’t athletes, when will you be satisfied? When there are none?”
Finally, someone with sense on this thread. You know it’s truly ironic that @SAY would state that caltech doesn’t have affirmative action while in his opinion UC’s do since I can argue that the complete opposite is true. In fact in 2010, 106 black students applied to caltech, 19 were admitted and 6 attended,this gives african americans an 18% admit rate at caltech.Whereas all other applicants to caltech had a 12.6% chance of admission. Therefore, being african american and applying to Caltech you have a 30% advantage in terms of admission chances in comparison to other applicants. Even with this higher admit rate, african americans only make up only 0.9% of each entering class. Imagine what that percentage would be without a 30% boost probably closer to 0.5%, that’s half a percent of the student body being african american without a boost . Nevertheless, socioeconomic factors and athletes could have lead to the higher chances at caltech for black students.
At UC Berkeley the complete opposite is true. Asians have an admit rate of 24.7%, Whites have an admit rate of 22.4%, Hispanics have an admit rate of 14.4% and African Americans have the lowest admit rate of 12.5%.
Asians clearly have the advantage when it comes to UCs since they are 9.3% more likely to get admitted than whites, 41.7% more likely to get admitted than Hispanics and 49.4% more likely to be admitted to UC Berkeley than African Americans.
Ali you are making very basic math mistakes in the way you are deriving your admit rates. A quick read of the professor’s book will show you how to properly figure out the statistics. After you read the book I think you will see just how preposterous your statement is about Asians being 49.4% more likely to be admitted than black students.
Because one book is the definitive word on this, lol.
@SAY I’m not going to go as far as teaching you basic statistics. When Asians make up 37.2% of 67,665 applicant to UC Berkeley there are 25,171 Asian applicants. Now when Asians make up 44.1% of the 14,103 students admitted that means 6,219 Asian applicants were admitted. Now when you divide those admitted by those who applied and times this by 100 you get the 24.7% admit rate. The same applies for African Americans where you get a 12.5% admit rate. Since a 24.7% admit rate is 49.4% greater than a 12.5% admit rate, Asians are 49.4% more likely to get admitted than African American applicants. I know this may be hard to believe but the facts are the facts.
Furthermore, addressing you point on the later rounds of admission, these rounds account for only 16% of decisions. The first round i.e Regular decision accounts for 84% of all decisions and 75% of all favorable decisions. Those 16% of decisions are not going to give African Americans an overall advantage in fact one of the main reasons African Americans could have an advantage here is because of socioeconomic factors that are most likely to affect URMs. This means African American are more likely to be considered for supplement review and also Athletic admission, however this doesn’t mean they have an overall advantage. Also, varying admit rates are also affected by the randomness of the admissions process hence why white applicants had a higher success rate at later rounds in 2007 than in 2008. In addition to this, it’s very difficult to define what "equivalent " applicants are and this is mainly due to subjective factors in the admissions process so such applicants are defined by similar gpa and test scores. This is where the authors assumption that 33% of African Americans are admitted wrongly comes from, this is due to the way his model defines applicants characteristics.
At a UCLA meeting for African-American families and prospective students some years ago, the hosting group, whose name I cannot remember, as well as the admissions office-liaison, expressed their full awareness of the relatively miniscule numbers of African-American students accepted each year. This was concerning to them not because they felt there were no eligible candidates, but because the cost of admission and the existing numbers, discouraged potential admits from applying. The group existed to make sure that “every qualified applicant to UCLA can afford to attend UCLA.”
The numbers are small there already, to be sure. But, according to what I learned in that meeting, there is no push by anyone in-house to preference admission for the African-American candidate; not even by this outreach group.
@Waiting2exhale Shouldn’t the groups focus also be on encouraging African American applicants to apply in the first place to increase the numbers of African Americans admitted?
I saw this video on youtube of an African American student rhyming about how the fact that African Americans don’t have an even playing field in admission hurts black students at UCLA.
here’s a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEO3H5BOlFk
In the way that the group expressed their mission on the financial end, while speaking to targeted students (something had come in the mail), I think that was how they encouraged students to apply. Kind of a “Si, se puede,” effort, if you will.
The moment was quite powerful, to be honest. Some impressive alumni, and an incredibly gorgeous estate. I think any kid who was seriously thinking about applying would have told themselves to go ahead and hit submit afterwards.
Now, if outreach is to be effective and meaningful, I think this is the group of students that one does indeed want to talk with. (Kids with the credentials who can hold their own at this, the #1 rated public research institution/university in the world. I think that’s right.)
Ali I will leave it to others to try to explain the complete math errors of your statements as it relates to applicant admission. For starters you have to equate the GPA/SAT of the applicants. So for instance you have compare say Asians with a 4.2 weighted GPA/1450 CR+M against the same scores for other groups. Then you compare each normed group to each other to see the admission percentage. Once this is done the results show URM’s are admitted at 2-3x the rates of non-URM’s with the same stats. To compare the raw admission numbers without equating the GPA/SAT provides no meaningful information other than some ethnic groups are better prepared for college than others. Claiming admission is tilted against African Americans at UCLA is dishonest and you weaken your position by making such obviously false statements. Everyone wants every child to do well but the truth is that 75-80% of HS students simply can’t perform the work required to attend a top school like UCB or UCLA. But now we are headed into a sociology discussion which has no good answers.
@SAY URMs have no advantage when it comes to the first stage of admission the regular review where 84% of decisions are made, the advantage lies on the later stages of admission. The advantage URMs have is in the supplementary review and final review stage where most URMs would be selected over other students. Equating students simply based on gpa/test scores as a measure of merit is invalid as this ignores other subjective factors in the admissions process. On the later stages of admission, the admissions office is already aware of an applicants test score/gpa and these become less of a factor during supplementary and final review. Socioeconomic factors, essay and extracurriculars become major factors at this stage and because URMs tend to be more socioeconomically disadvantaged and come from poorer background they have a natural advantage. The results are only as good as your model.
Overall, Asians are more than twice as likely to get admitted into UCs in comparison to URMs. This is what would be expected of the normal admissions process due to gaps in test scores and gpa. I just don’t see where the bias is against Asians. If anything even African American admits are disadvantaged because a number dropout due to a lack of financial aid and many might fell isolated among the community of students at the big UCs. This is why it’s important to encourage URMs to apply so that more can be represented at these universities.
Ali it’s good to see you are beginning to accept the facts as they exist. Your first paragraph is mostly correct and you are free to argue that the “holistic” factors are relevant but the professors research has proven beyond doubt that these factors end up benefitting URM’s. Both positions can be true and fair minded people can disagree. The one thing we can agree on is that economically disadvantaged students deserve some help. Unfortunately rarely occurs and the primary beneficiaries of AA are middle and upper middle class URM’s. However your second paragraph is a complete falsehood you destroy your credibility when you make such statements. My children are not Asian so I have no dog in the hunt but it serves no one to post demonstrably untrue statements on the top college admission website. When normed for GPA/SAT Asians are admitted at a much lower rate than other similarly qualified URM’s. The truth is that you seem to unaware of the very large super well qualified Asian applicant pool. My children’s large public HS has a class of close to 800 students and of the top 50 students 35-40 were Asian. Every math and science AP were filled primarily with Asian students. These students are not wealthy and few have any advantage. Do you think it’s fair to discriminate against them?
@SAY You keep stating my statistics are false when I’ve shown you all of my sources and even how to calculate the admit rate for each ethnic group. Why are you in so much denial when presented with the facts? Also I’ve already discussed how norming for gpa is invalid and the data you get is meaningless since you ignore so many factors in the admissions process. How about this what percentage of URMs come from household with over $100,000 income? I doubt that it wouldn’t come anywhere close to Asian or white applicants. Why do think a lot of URMs drop out due to lack of financial aid? You can’t ignore subjective factors, socioeconomic factors and overall fit(expressed on the essay) when comparing students with similar test scores and gpa.
Please don’t use personal anecdotes as some form of credible evidence here because many people have different stories. I didn’t deny that Asians have higher test scores or gpa than URMs that’s why they are admitted at more than twice the rate in comparison to URMs. UC Berkeley admits Asians at a rate of 24.7% in comparison to URMs at a rate between 12%-14%. This is a fact backed up by evidence showing the overall admit rate of students of different ethnic groups and to be honest with you the results show zero bias in fact Asians are preferred because of their higher test score and gpa. I don’t see your argument here? I didn’t say all Asians are wealthy but in comparison to URMs I would say at least 70% of Asian applicants come from +$100,000 households. Most Asians attend schools that actually offer APs and have the best resources. A lot of the Socioeconomic factors even cultural factors disadvantage URMs greatly but that is not to say that a significant percentage of them can’t be excellent students. Your overall argument that Asians are disadvantaged doesn’t have credible evidence backing it up, from what I see Asians are preferred over URMs this is backed up statistically with evidence published by the universities.
Ali your statements about UCB admission will not be taken seriously by anyone. Norming for GPA/SAT is of course required or else the data is meaningless. Your analysis is flawed from start to finish as is your data about 70% of Asians coming from incomes over 100k. You seem to be confusing the socioeconomics of Asians with Jewish families. You clearly have great interest in the sociologic aspects of the applicant pool which is not a topic I’m going to pursue. It would be interesting to see if your analysis changes after you take some college level classes on statistical analysis. Good luck on school and gaining admission to UCB.
@SAY Asian Americans have the highest median income of all the ethnic groups in America.
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/demo/p60-249.pdf (graph on pg.5)
http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-median-income-in-the-us-by-race-2013-9
FWIW, a newly released study by UC Berkeley on SAT’s racial impact.
Link to the actual research paper. Refer especially to Figure 2 and Figure 8.
THE GROWING CORRELATION BETWEEN RACE AND SAT SCORES:NEW FINDINGS FROM CALIFORNIA
October 2015
Saul Geiser
Center for Studies in Higher Education University of California, Berkeley
http://www.cshe.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/shared/publications/docs/ROPS.CSHE_.10.15.Geiser.RaceSAT.10.26.2015.pdf
The paper goes on to discuss policy implications for addressing the racial scores gap.