<p>“desultory”</p>
<p>token, you seem way too biased to be moderating this subject.</p>
<p>Well, what information does marking the checkbox </p>
<p>“Racial/ethnic status” </p>
<p>as </p>
<p>very important </p>
<p>important </p>
<p>considered </p>
<p>or </p>
<p>not considered </p>
<p>provide a student, if the college doesn’t put in its viewbook, or on its website, or SOMEWHERE its description of which racial or ethnic statuses it is looking for? If a whole lot of colleges check “considered” (would that happen to be the plurality practice?), doesn’t that still leave unanswered a lot of the pragmatic questions students have been asking in this thread and in the previous threads on this subject? Yes, I used the word “desultory” to indicate a querulous attitude toward the colleges, but that is out of compassion to applicants who are simply trying to get straight information about what the colleges’ practices are. </p>
<p>See </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.commondataset.org/docs/0910/CDS2009_2010.htm[/url]”>http://www.commondataset.org/docs/0910/CDS2009_2010.htm</a> </p>
<p>for the checkboxes as they appear on the current Common Data Set questionnaire.</p>
<p>I didn’t say you were wrong!</p>
<p>Can anyone find specific info regarding how affirmative action affects southeast Asian students? I can’t come up with anything on the web. I would really like to find this out because it appears that our ideas are at ends and without a conclusive statement on the matter t will be hard to argue one way or the other.</p>
<p>
Precisely. I hope this puts a stop to the absolutely preposterous posts claiming that Asians are selfish and have numerous college opportunities available but only want HYPSM.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Fascinating that you’re actually suggesting that “quality of student” is quantifiable as “data.” Perhaps some others of you, additionally on this thread, believe that human experience and/or human potential is reducible to data points. Again, you would like to remake college admissions in your own image, but keep banging your head against the wall because the administrators have no intention of subscribing to a singularly or even heavily quantitative world view. </p>
<p>And may I suggest, that since many of you seem so bitter about the supposedly essential ‘pedigree’ of the Elites whose policies you rail against at every possible turn, it doesn’t sound as if 4 yrs. there would be an enjoyable experience for you who feel this way. However, no one can make you feel inadequate unless you allow them to. During the time I got my undergraduate degree, one of the Elites that many in my life wanted me to attend was perceived as providing a superior education. I knew otherwise and instead went to the outstanding public of my choice. And when I worked in the business world, the managers had a robotic policy by which they rigidly chose the “elite” graduates over the public graduates, until they saw that I outperformed, on many levels, those competitors. It caused the managers to change their minds and soon after, their hiring & promotion policies. All because I persevered in quietly demonstrating 'the right stuff." So if you let “perceptions” rule your world and define your futures, you have only yourselves to blame.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I haven’t done a comprehensive survey, nor (I doubt) have you. I will just say that those I have met who have matriculated to various Elites, have gone there primarily for specific programs in their academic interests within a geographical location they prefer, within an institution small enough to feel “personal” to them, and with peers from all U.S. locations and backgrounds that they find more interesting than more homogeneous student bodies in institutions they rejected. (That’s what they’ve expressed to me; it’s obviously an anecdotal sample.)</p>
<p>I have met recent graduates and current students of Elites in more than 10 academic majors, none of whom are lacking in “quality of student.” (But again, a small sampling vs. entire student bodies of at least 10 “Elites.”)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is really not that hard. They are recent posts, outside of this threat.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Is this not what social sciences is all about? So you think they are scams?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I am a Canuck, remember? My interest is why. Why are you playing backgammon when the rest of the world is playing chess? By simply borrowing concepts from international relations (I know, a social science) and applied it to college admission, the answer literally hits me in the face. When I test it out by examining quantitative and qualitative information that is available, I know my hypothesis is robust. As I said before, I am still waiting for data to prove me wrong. Only by constantly testing can our understanding be refined.</p>
<p>What I find disturbing here in this threat is the lack of critical thinking and the constant appeal to authority that harkens back to the time before the Enlightenment. Doe empiricism, rationalism, and scientific skepticism means nothing to you?</p>
<p>Life never ceases to amaze…</p>
<p>
Your tactic remains the same, blaming me for not researching your claim. It would be easier for you to just list the majors than to repeatedly give excuses why you won’t. :)</p>
<p>Vo, Go to the College Search and Selection subforum. Check out post 22 on the thread, “Which college has smartest kids? – 10 yr Putnam competition.”</p>
<p>So if one buys into the premise, first of all, that particular test performances (SAT and GRE) sift for intelligence (vs. sifting for test-taking ability, of which intelligence is only one part), and further that intelligence determines quality of student (often not), then Canuckguy believes he has “data” that “proves” that his particular fave kind of student (which would be only particular fields) is the standard for “quality of student.”</p>
<p>Huge stretches, all of them.</p>
<p>^ Yes, research universities apply diverse academic criteria to applicants because they have multiple academic departments, and no professors in any department desire that their department cease to exist for lack of enrollment.</p>
<p>Post 509:</p>
<p>Except that the rules of logic do not transfer inclusion to exclusion. It does not follow that because departments need to be full, those departments which are less-cutthroat-competitive than other departments (for admission) have stupid students and professors in them.</p>
<p>It’s been decades since I’ve known of highly regarded research universities where any significantly large department (doesn’t matter the field) has not turned away excellent students who have applied.</p>
<p>ephiphany, thank you; odd that CG was undermining his own argument by hiding the data. I learned that there is a correlation of majors with GRE scores. Equating quality with GRE score is clearly one opinion.</p>
<p>epiphany, I may not have made my implication clear that I was largely agreeing with you. In other words, no research university will rely solely on math prowess to define smart students, because such a university is looking for a lot of kinds of smart students. </p>
<p>(I am most familiar with what universities claim to look for in would-be math majors, as a math coach, but as a humanities major I remember other kinds of academic departments filled with smart learners, at my state flagship university.)</p>
<p>^Sorry. Thanks for that clarification!
:)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh, dear me. I think fabrizio is right.</p>
<p>If you want to quote me, do so. Please do not caricaturize my position based on one single post of mine. This is not helpful.</p>
<p>Is this your tactic to avoid my question concerning social sciences? Since they are doing exact what you said can not be done, are they all frauds? If Adcoms are not using data points, which the Duke study shows differently btw, are they then relying on “gut feelings” or Divine guidance?</p>
<p>As I have written above, I would like to see more independent scholars from various disciplines (statistics, economics, sociology, social psychology, higher education administration, law, etc.) do studies of college admission practices. Reports of such studies could allay student concerns, help counselors give better application advice, and prompt thoughtful reform of the admission process.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>…except that vossron and I tried to get you to be less enigmatic. You refuse, then cry “caricature.” I decided to unveil your deliberately coy remarks by going to a thread you obliquely referenced yourself. I read the all the posts in there – yours & others’. And if you did not mean that students of certain majors are “smarter” categorically across the board, then you should have contradicted those posters (on that thread) who disagreed with the apparent premise of that thread, or with where those conclusions were headed. But you did not. (Qui tacit consentit.) So the fault is your own when you expect transparency but provide none yourself.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/775305-college-has-smartest-kids-10-year-putnam-competition.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/775305-college-has-smartest-kids-10-year-putnam-competition.html</a></p>
<p>Here is the threat in its entirety for those interested. Look it over carefully and decide for yourself what I said and what some folks claimed I said. This does not belong here and we all know it. Clearly just another tactic of evasion.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I “should” have? Why? On what philosophical and moral ground must I “should” or “should” not have? </p>
<p>This has to be the most arrogant statement I have ever seen. Did you talked to God and He told you to be the next inquisitor? </p>
<p>The diversion tactic does not work. Do you believe social sciences are a fraud or not? You are still avoiding the intellectual quagmire you are constantly putting your foot into, and I believe fabrizio nailed you on it on many occasions. Brilliantly too.</p>
<p>“Do you believe social sciences are a fraud or not?”</p>
<p>Obviously, every college and university is out of step with one who believes social sciences are a fraud. :)</p>
<p>One scholar from UC Berkeley (a professor of English, as it happens) has a very good book about scholarly delusions: </p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays (9781593761509): Frederick Crews: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Follies-Wise-Dissenting-Frederick-Crews/dp/1593761503/]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Follies-Wise-Dissenting-Frederick-Crews/dp/1593761503/) </p>
<p>The essays in this book are beautifully written, as one would expect of the essays of an English professor, but also very soundly based on scientific reasoning and replicable research.</p>
<p>??? There’s no mention of social science on that page; is there in the book? The book seems to be about psychoanalysis, with mentions of humanities and psychology in the reviews. Does the author believe that social science is a fraud?</p>