"Race" in College Admission FAQ & Discussion 11

Applying to College
1941

@GMTplus7 The publication you site states their is a strong correlation in terms of URM status and test scores due to the widening test score gap between URMs, whites and Asian applicants. The reasons for the score gap are Socioeconomic factors(income, wealth, resources of schools) and Racial segregation among high schools. The paper basically argues for affirmative action at universities taking into consideration this test score gap along with other racial disparities.

As of right now there is no consideration of race at UCs, Asian applicants with higher test scores are admitted at almost twice the rate of URMs and are set to make up the majority of students in the future. I think Asians already make up the majority of student at some UCs already since Asian americans make up 40% of enrolled students and the fact that most international students come from Asian countries(China, India etc…), the total could be +50% at some schools.

1942

@SAY “You clearly have great interest in the sociologic aspects of the applicant pool which is not a topic I’m going to pursue”
You do realize socioeconomic factors are considered in the holistic admissions process right? Along with other subjective factors such as extracuriculars, essay, awards, overall “fit”. When comparing students with similar gpa and test scores you ignore all of these factors. Also applicants to UCs tend to come from families households with incomes exceeding $100,000, since URMs are likely to come from poorer households this is taken into account and gives them a boost in admission especially in the supplementary review and final review when these factors matter most.

“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.”

I welcome your insults and would like to state that I’m glad this exchange is over.

1943

@Ali1302

You would run into issues converting raw scores to scaled scores. Fudging the data using general knowledge-based questions and then comparing them to old exams with a different question format would result in bad data.

The only IQ tests that measure intelligence accurately is the Raven’s progressive matrices exams.

Also, we’ve been through the environment issue many times before. Steven Pinker of Harvard wrote about a study on this. When accounting for IQ, environment plays NO role in predicting test scores. Just because you ‘feel’ like environment plays a role in influencing test scores doesn’t make it so.

You and everyone pro-Affirmative Action are either severely uneducated in terms of statistics or blatantly choosing to ignore solid data.
You can not just use the correlation between SAT scores and income to claim income affects SAT scores, because you run into omitted variable bias.

Why? Look at the proof below.
Let the true model for Y be Y = B[0] + B[1]X[1] + B[2]X[2] + u, where u is the error term.

If you do not account for X[2] in your model and only estimate Y and B[1], then your model degenerates into this:

Y = C[0] + C[1]X[1] + v, where v = B[2]X[2] + u

C[1] = B[1] + B[2]A[2], where A[2] is the slope coefficient if you regress X[1] in the degenerate model with the omitted variable.

You can see where this is heading, as A[2] would equal 0 if the two independent variables aren’t related.

E(C[1]) = E(B[1] + B[2]A[2]) = E(B[1]) + E(B[2])A[2] = (True)B[1] + (True)B[2]A[2]

Bias(C[1]) = (True)B[2]A[2], which does not equal 0 since A[2] is not 0.

Again, once you account for IQ, income plays NO role in predicting SAT scores.

1944

@dsi411

That’s because Asians congregate in areas with the highest costs of living. That $60k income in NYC will take you a lot less than a white family making $50k in the mid-west.

Asians also have the highest poverty rates in the US. Low-income Asians still get high test scores.

1945

@IQTrumpsEffort Please stop factoring in IQ with everything as this is pretty irrelevant in terms of how universities make decisions. Also Socioeconomic factors such as income, wealth and health are probably more highly correlated with test scores and GPA.

I’m not going to get into a debate on IQ which is clearly what your trying to achieve here. I keep telling you African American IQ is increasing from 85 to 89 mean and 98 for 5 year olds, you respond by telling me the tests are dumbed down. So basically when IQ scores for minorities goes up its because tests are dumbed down and when kids have variable IQs due to the environment Its due to prenatal development or intrinsic variability?

You just keep ignoring a lot of evidence proving the Flynn effect right and that IQ difference between races is caused by the environment. Keep coming up with your own theories why don’t you. This is an endless debate lets just agree to disagree.

1946

@IQTrumpsEffort “Asians also have the highest poverty rates in the US. Low-income Asians still get high test scores”

Stupid statements such as these aren’t doing you any favours. First URMs by far have the Highest poverty rates in America and lowest incomes. Second, low income Asian families spend a higher percentage of their income on their children’s education. Most low income Asian parents would research high ranked schools and move to better neighbourhoods. This is because most Asian parents are educational fundamentalists. As a result even low income Asians have a socioeconomic advantage over low income URMs as they go to better schools with better resources that offer advanced courses and have more opportunities.

1947

@Ali1302

“Also Socioeconomic factors such as income, wealth and health are probably more highly correlated with test scores and GPA.”

Superficial correlations should not be used to enact misguided policies that ultimately hurt the competitiveness of this country.
Socioeconomic factors like income, wealth and health are correlated with test scores because these variables are also highly correlated with IQ. There is a positive relationship between IQ and income, wealth and health. You can not just take the correlation coefficient of income and test scores, because you would run into omitted variable bias and bias the regression coefficients. See my proof in one of my previous post.

I am not implying that all rich people are smart or that all healthy people are smart, but the average rich person and the average healthy person have higher IQs than the average poor person and the average unhealthy person.

“I’m not going to get into a debate on IQ which is clearly what your trying to achieve here.”

As much as you want to deny it, IQ is actually the most important piece of this puzzle. IQ is one of Psychology’s finest inventions that has incredible predictive power no matter how many times the Politically Correct people believe otherwise.

“I keep telling you African American IQ is increasing from 85 to 89 mean and 98 for 5 year olds, you respond by telling me the tests are dumbed down.”

I’ve explained this before - IQ becomes more genetically-controlled as you age.
Also, some races mature faster than others, while other races finish mental development at a much later age. Blacks develop faster than whites, who develop faster than Asians.
What matters is length of maturation, not rate of maturation.
You should not look children’s IQ scores. 10-year-old Korean-Americans have an average IQ of 122.

“you respond by telling me the tests are dumbed down. So basically when IQ scores for minorities goes up its because tests are dumbed down and when kids have variable IQs due to the environment Its due to prenatal development or intrinsic variability?”

It’s undeniable that environment plays no role. Adopted kids, no matter their socioeconomic status, track the SAT/IQ scores of their biological parents even if they have never seen their biological parents before. This means kids who have biological parents who were wealthy (Likely to have a high IQ) and were adopted into poor households when they were infants track the average SAT scores of their biological parents.

“Stupid statements such as these aren’t doing you any favours. First URMs by far have the Highest poverty rates in America and lowest incomes.”

Doesn’t matter. Low income Asians who don’t try hard still get high test scores.

“Second, low income Asian families spend a higher percentage of their income on their children’s education. Most low income Asian parents would research high ranked schools and move to better neighbourhoods. This is because most Asian parents are educational fundamentalists. As a result even low income Asians have a socioeconomic advantage over low income URMs as they go to better schools with better resources that offer advanced courses and have more opportunities.”

As explained before, there is no such thing as “socioeconomic advantage” when determining test scores. For high g-loaded tests like the SAT, scores are based on IQ and some luck.

1948

@IQTrumpsEffort “Superficial correlations should not be used to enact misguided policies that ultimately hurt the competitiveness of this country.
Socioeconomic factors like income, wealth and health are correlated with test scores because these variables are also highly correlated with IQ. There is a positive relationship between IQ and income, wealth and health. You can not just take the correlation coefficient of income and test scores, because you would run into omitted variable bias and bias the regression coefficients. See my proof in one of my previous post.”

So my correlations are superficial but your correlations are always considered a causation? Were talking about the difference in IQ since IQ is highly variable during adolescence and for children socioeconomic factors could play a strong part in determining IQ.

“I’ve explained this before - IQ becomes more genetically-controlled as you age.
Also, some races mature faster than others, while other races finish mental development at a much later age. Blacks develop faster than whites, who develop faster than Asians.
What matters is length of maturation, not rate of maturation.
You should not look children’s IQ scores. 10-year-old Korean-Americans have an average IQ of 122.”

I don’t buy the length of maturation argument here but the fact that kids have a higher IQ than adults strongly proves the Flynn effect true. Also you say IQ becomes more genetically controlled so as to acknowledge that during adolescence and childhood IQ is highly variable due to non-genetic factors such as the environment I believe IQ is determined at this stage then stabilizes at the age of 16. This has been proven by numerous studies.

“It’s undeniable that environment plays no role”

Biggest load of rubbish ever. This is your belief/theory not fact and your example provides no strong evidence. First why would a kid from a wealthy family be adopted by poor parents? I would say this is a pretty rare, so not representative enough. Also if the kid was raised in a high income home to begin with the study is flawed. I would say your example is not representative of the general population. You cannot seriously make an argument that eliminates the environment, there are so many studies that prove the role of the environment during childhood an even a small role during adulthood that your suggestion is silly. The availability of resources, nutrition and living in a stimulating environment effect intelligence. IQ varies greatly due to the environment during adolescence and childhood and then stabilizes at the age of 16 onwards.

“Low income Asians who don’t try hard still get high test scores.”

How the hell do you know whether they do or do not try hard? Keep making stupid statements to prove your point.

" As explained before, there is no such thing as “socioeconomic advantage” when determining test scores. For high g-loaded tests like the SAT, scores are based on IQ and some luck"

Your personal beliefs=fact. It’s not the environment by the way according to you its “luck” like winning the lottery.
I can’t begin to tell you how ignorant and false a lot of your statements are but you seem to be convinced that what you believe is true so I guess there is no point telling you. Also the SAT although it strongly correlates with IQ isn’t completely determined by IQ and I supposed you used “luck” to explain this?

1949

IQ keep in mind you are spending time arguing with a HS student.

1950

@Ali1302

“So my correlations are superficial but your correlations are always considered a causation? Were talking about the difference in IQ since IQ is highly variable during adolescence and for children socioeconomic factors could play a strong part in determining IQ.”

If my correlations are superficial, than your correlations are even more superficial. For predictive models of the SAT, you can’t just use something as narrow as income, since all the other significant variables (Mainly IQ) get absorbed by the stochastic process and bias your regression coefficients.
There is also a very low goodness-of-fit in your model for single-variate regressions.

The reason why income is not statistically significant/has no predictive power in a good model of SAT scores is because poor students with high IQs also end up with very similar SAT scores of rich kids with the same IQ. The model adapts to this discrepancy and income becomes statistically insignificant at all confidence intervals.

The correlation between SAT and income is a very shallow one, as income is a proxy variable for intelligence.

Something as complicated as SAT/IQ/intelligence prediction models is not something a common high school student should argue about, as it goes far beyond the education of a typical high schooler.
At best, high schoolers learn about simple correlations and univariate regressions in their algebra classes, but that is too simple for good models.
When you get to college, try to take a graduate-level econometrics class and you’ll understand why you are wrong.

“I don’t buy the length of maturation argument here but the fact that kids have a higher IQ than adults strongly proves the Flynn effect true. Also you say IQ becomes more genetically controlled so as to acknowledge that during adolescence and childhood IQ is highly variable due to non-genetic factors such as the environment I believe IQ is determined at this stage then stabilizes at the age of 16. This has been proven by numerous studies.”

Total intelligence as an adult = Rate of maturation multiplied by the length of maturation.
A slightly lower rate of maturation with a longer duration results in higher overall intelligence compared to a slightly faster rate of maturation but lower duration.

A 10-year-old child with a 122 IQ does not make him/her smarter than a 100 IQ 22-year-old adult. IQs are standardized to their age group. Children also take much easier intelligence exams that narrow the standard deviation of range of raw scores.
The issue is when the 100+ IQ 10-year-old stagnates at 14 while the 90-100 IQ 10-year-old continues growing well into his 20s. In adulthood, the 100+ IQ 10-year-old ends up with a 90 IQ in an adult IQ test while the 90-100 IQ child could end up with an adult IQ of 120+. This is one strong explanation for the accelerating increase in IQ gap between races as they age.

“Biggest load of rubbish ever. This is your belief/theory not fact and your example provides no strong evidence. First why would a kid from a wealthy family be adopted by poor parents? I would say this is a pretty rare, so not representative enough. Also if the kid was raised in a high income home to begin with the study is flawed. I would say your example is not representative of the general population. You cannot seriously make an argument that eliminates the environment, there are so many studies that prove the role of the environment during childhood an even a small role during adulthood that your suggestion is silly. The availability of resources, nutrition and living in a stimulating environment effect intelligence. IQ varies greatly due to the environment during adolescence and childhood and then stabilizes at the age of 16 onwards.”

Of course, almost everything in science is a theory. The only thing we argue about is which theories sound plausible.
The reason why income can’t predict SAT scores once you account for IQ is that poor children with similar IQs to rich kids end up with similar SAT scores.
Of course, if you’re then arguing that IQ is influenced by income/environment, I would say that your position is still implausible, as children who have never met their biological parents trace the SAT/IQ scores of their biological parents.

Considering the evidence, my position is more credible.

“How the hell do you know whether they do or do not try hard? Keep making stupid statements to prove your point.”

In Stuyvesant, half the Asians there like me didn’t try hard and got 2200+ on the SAT.

“Your personal beliefs=fact. It’s not the environment by the way according to you its “luck” like winning the lottery.
I can’t begin to tell you how ignorant and false a lot of your statements are but you seem to be convinced that what you believe is true so I guess there is no point telling you. Also the SAT although it strongly correlates with IQ isn’t completely determined by IQ and I supposed you used “luck” to explain this?”

My personal beliefs are shaped by rigorous empirical evidence and looking at all arguments from both sides.
You, on the other hand, only look at flawed data from Mickey Mouse studies from the anti-SAT camp that I thoroughly debunked.
People like you come up with your own theories and try to find data and studies that match your preconceived beliefs, which is why I don’t take your arguments seriously.
My way is the scientific way; your way is the backwards scientific way.

Also, the “luck” portion is part of the stochastic process of a model - Random variations. Please take a graduate-level course in statistical analysis before confronting me with flawed data from politically-charged groups.

1951

@SAY

The guy seems very motivated about this topic, so maybe this argument will give him a good push to start researching the truth on his own instead of blindly accepting anti-SAT groups’ studies.

My original 30-page econometrics term paper was on SAT scores and income, but I felt the results were too politically incorrect and ended up changing my topic to welfare and labor force participation rate. Spent 48 hours straight writing that crap.

Unfortunately, a classmate of mine did a study on IQ and income and found no statistical significance between the 2 and won the $25,000 prize for the best economics term paper for that year. The professor kept saying he was so “brave” for challenging typical beliefs and all that nonsense.
She was right though. I guess I was too much of a coward to stick up for my beliefs.
There are so many academics with politically incorrect beliefs but are so scared to publicly voice their views.

1952

The interesting thing is that among the actual experts in this field there is very little debate about the basic facts. IQ though imperfect is highly predictive of intelligence. IQ except among impoverished 3rd world people is largely based on genetics. The SAT while not a pure IQ test highly correlates with IQ. Among the true experts few if any would disagree with the basic premise of these statements. However these facts do present some difficult challenges that many people refuse to accept because they believe being inclusive is more important than the truth. However once you accept these facts then most of the issues surrounding the problems of education in the USA can be easily understood such as American HS students ranking 15-19th in the world. The truth is that US Asian/White HS students are in the top five in the world by every measure. The Hispanic Americans score higher than any other hispanics except Spain and our black Americans score higher than any other groups of blacks. It’s only when you mix them together and then compare this heterogenous group to homogeneous countries like Japan/Finland etc that we rank so low. This of course is hardly a fair comparison. But I’m not sure discussing this topic yet again will offer any new insights to the HS student/parent trying to gain admission to one of the highly selective colleges.

1953

@IQTrumpsEffort I think I now know why your insistent to sticking to your obviously ignorant and false position on IQ. Also the fact that you label a lot of studies that prove the environment along with other socioeconomic factors effect IQ. Wealth would probably be a much stronger correlation than simply taking into account income since the cost of living isn’t factored in here.

Anyway, because your Asian you hold a personal grudge against others who argue against your model and feel that you and your fellow Asians are the most entitled based on IQ alone. This is obviously false since differences in test scores between whites and Asians are very trivial. The fact that you believe most Asians like you don’t try hard is laughable. Most Asians lock themselves up in their rooms studying for months for tests, constantly doing their homework and working “hard”. Or were your parent any different in emphasizing “hard work”? Have you heard of tiger parenting where it is normal for parents to abuse their kids for higher academic performance? This is very common amongst Asian families.

Now, Your conclusions and views aren’t in any way credible but are considered complete nonsense based on the overwhelming scientific evidence against you. I could link you to many studies proving the role of the environment as well as socioeconomic factors in influencing IQ, the fact that you keep denying this is what is frustrating with your model. Since IQ is highly variable during childhood and adolescence due to the environment then it is possible to have a child with a high IQ from a poor family. Now you state that the longer you take to mature the higher your IQ but the rate of maturation is so variable among individuals you can’t simply look at means for each race. The rate of maturation is also a poor argument since IQ growth slows down and IQ hardly changes after the age of 16. In fact maturing a lot quicker could be beneficial especially if your a child with a high IQ, your IQ stabilizes faster. Also stop with the stupid argument that children have easier exams, you said it yourself the tests are standardized. Finally if you state that the race gap in terms of IQ is getting wider then how is the African American IQ increasing from 85 to 89 and how did the White-Black IQ gap decrease by a third over a few decades?

Furthermore, Whether I’m a highschool student or not doesn’t effect my credibility especially when judging your flawed model of IQ. You keep labelling studies that are against your beliefs anti-SAT or pro affirmative action how does this change the evidence that the studies come up with. It’s hard arguing with delusional people that aren’t willing to accept theories other than there own. I don’t mid people being politically incorrect at all but when your plain wrong it’s best not to start a stupid argument. I also didn’t know it was common for highschool students to get $25,000 prizes(holy crap :open_mouth: ), bad luck there but the student that won the prize only used income in his model ignoring all other socioeconomic factors aswell as cost of living. Wealth would probably have a much stronger correlation than income as proven by many studies, I wouldn’t assume either you or your friend were right here.

1954

@SAY Your credibility after ignoring all my statistical evidence on admission is zero and the fact that you are willing to jump onto the IQ debate clearly demonstrates your motives. First, black Americans don’t have the highest IQ British black adults in the UK have a mean IQ of 94 compared to African Americans mean of 89. Also Hispanics in America aren’t the smartest since the mean IQ of Spain is 98 while Mexican Americans have a mean IQ of 95. I would disagree that IQ in Finland is higher, IQ in Finland is 99 compared to the us that has a mean IQ of 98 barely one point higher. This disproves your model of homogenous countries having higher IQs. Also countries such as Singapore are largely made up of Chinese immigrants that have higher IQs than the mean in their native country.

1955

Ali you are like a broken record of misinformation who should try reading what I actually stated which is correct. The term Hispanic does not refer to Spanish who are European but rather just other people who speak Spanish. . At 25 or 30 you may realize just how little you know today. You are looking for controversy where none exists.

1956

@Say, your main argument and evidence here seems to be that you’re older than the people disagreeing with you. Do you have anything else to offer?

1957

@say should also do some reading. “Especially” does not mean “only”.

His·pan·ic
adjective

of or relating to Spain or to Spanish-speaking countries, especially those of Latin America.
    of or relating to Spanish-speaking people or their culture, especially in the US.
1958

OHMom do you and your husband take financial advice from your HS age children? Really what nonsense. As for your other statement you are wrong.

Today, organizations in the United States use the term as a broad catchall to refer to persons with a historical and cultural relationship with Spain, regardless of race and ethnicity.[6][7] The U.S. Census Bureau defines the ethnonym Hispanic or Latino to refer to “a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race”[33] and states that Hispanics or Latinos can be of any race, any ancestry, any ethnicity.[34] Generically, this limits the definition of Hispanic or Latino to people from the Caribbean, Central and South America, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race, distinctly excluding all persons of Portuguese origin.[dubious – discuss]

1959

Did you seriously just copy and paste from Wikipedia? If you’d continued you’d have gotten to this:

“Officially, however, the U.S. Government has defined Hispanic or Latino persons as being “persons who trace their origin or descent to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central and South America, and other Spanish cultures”. This includes Spain which is the origin of Spanish culture.[36]”

Try again.

1960

No it doesn’t you silly person. I’ve lived in Spain and no one there would ever consider themselves Hispanic. They are white Europeans and all consider themselves to be much different. Have you ever been to Spain and looked at the people? The term Hispanic is used by colleges to denote URM applicants most of which are of mixed ancestries. So you are going to claim that Cortes, Pissarro, and Christofer Columbus’s crew would be URM’s. That certainly explains why activists protest what Columbus Day represents.

“The majority of Iberian paternal lineages are of Indo-European (R1b, G2a3b1, J2b2 and a small amount of R1a), which can be attributed to the Proto-Celtic and Hallstatt Celtic invaders, and to a lower extent to later Roman and Germanic settlers. In total, these amount to 50-85% of Spanish Y-DNA and 60% of Portuguese Y-DNA. Maternal lineages, on the other hand, appear to have a mostly Neolithic and Mesolithic origin, notably haplogroups H1, H3, HV0, K1a, J1c, J2a1, J2b1a, T2, U5b, V and X, which make up over 80% of the mtDNA in regions like the Basque country or Asturias, and always over 50% of the population of any region.”

Now compare this to the DNA of what the colleges refer to as Hispanic people and you will see the vast difference.