I see Blum isn’t pretending Asian students are bring wronged in this case, he’s more upfront about defending white students here.
Of course, as is the case with nearly every state.
UNC-CH is one of the very few that is need-blind and also meets full need though, even for out of state applicants. I believe UVa is the other. The other sought-after state schools (UCLA, Michigan etc) are not, for out of state residents.
Elite LACs probably are not on the radar for anyone trying to score political points in this respect, compared to famous names like Harvard or the more selective state flagships.
But also, those small LACs have rather large percentages of (mostly white) athletes, so the optics of publicizing what goes on in admissions there may not be what Blum wants.
@ucbalumnus That is what I like about CC. That perspective never even crossed my mind but it made sense as soon as I read it.
@SatchelSF The plaintiff in this case is much better stats wise (4.48 Weighted GPA, 2180 SAT, 32 ACT) than the plaintiff in the case against the University of Texas Austin and is an in-state white student at one of North Carolina’s top 5 high schools, so this case looks to be a tough one for supporters of racial preferences in college admissions. That is a pretty high flying student rejected from UNC-CH which wasn’t the case in Fisher vs. University of Texas. I also see the break down of stats by race of admitted students in your 1st link (on pages 18-19) and the numbers look pretty conclusive that the racial component in admissions looks to play an oversized role in students accepted at UNC-CH. I now see why this case was chosen by opponents of racial preferences in admissions.
@changethegame UT is diverse in terms of race (if you think that’s important), because of the top percent rule but at what cost?
UT School officials themselves have criticized the policies.
@ChangeTheGame - The plaintiff also had 800 on both SAT2 math level 2 and physics, which is also decently impressive. The distribution of scores, though, on his SAT struck me as a little odd: 800 critical reading, 710 math and 670 writing. The 800s would suggest a STEM-y person, but the 710 on the math is anomalous.
No big deal, as you said, this was clearly a strong candidate on stats for sure.
@UndeservingURM I definitely see some of the issues that the top ten percent rule can cause. I have read articles on the cutthroat nature of the student bodies at some of the best high schools in the state of Texas. My own thoughts is that they may be taking in too many students as auto admits. In my home state (GA), at every public and private high school with 50 or more students, the valedictorian and salutatorian who meets Georgia Board of Regent minimum requirements for admission will be guaranteed acceptance into every in-state school (including Georgia Tech and UGA). That may not be an easy requirement to reach, but it guarantees the tax payers from all parts of GA (from small rural areas to inner-city areas) are represented at our top state institutions. For a tax payer funded state institution, I believe that some representation from across an entire state is a good thing, but Texas auto-fills a lot of seats. I have no idea where the cutoff should be to benefit the state of Texas most.
I understand the appeal of auto-admitting the top X% by school, a chief one being that it promotes political support throughout the state.
But a better approach might be to accept the top X% by school and the top Y% by state, where X and Y are adjusted to fill the target number of seats. That way you don’t heavily penalize school systems like Plano where its top quarter of students are stronger than top X% of a weaker school system.
I think you are right that there probably is a more fair algorithm out there and they should continue to try to perfect it. There will always be some of the wrong people getting in and some of the right people not getting in, but trying to minimize at least the perception of that is worth while.
@hebegebe That is a really good idea… I would hate to be the one who had to figure out the percentages, but it would probably look better (perception-wise) than what is happening in Texas today. I wonder how Texans in general feel about their current setup, but I assume it is probably split statewide (weaker school districts in favor and that stronger districts are against the current setup). @collegemomjam is right that there will be some that will never be happy regardless of the setup, but I always hope that politicians would look for something that is best for the State of Texas and its taxpayers.
Nice idea, but so long as the metric is simply grades (class rank), wouldn’t it require harmonization of grading systems across very different school systems? Otherwise, how could you compare students for purposes of the Y metric on a state wide basis? Pressure would also be intense to reduce acceleration options and AP classes, I would guess. Students would game the system (and districts would cooperate, for bragging rights) to inflate numbers of weighted courses, or weights would have to be removed entirely.
Maybe you could add some standardized score measure to arrive at an academic index sort of criterion, but then the purpose of the plan (to ensure representation at UT across races and districts) would be compromised. Just thinking out loud, maybe there is a simple solution?
21% of math level 2 subject test takers earn 800, and 13% of physics subject test takers earn 800. Clearly, they are not difficult tests for those who know the material. For comparison 8% of SAT takers earn 700+ on the math section and <1% earn 800 on the math section, although one should be aware of the self-selection effect of who takes the math level 2 and physics subject tests versus the SAT.
https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/sat/pdf/sat-subject-tests-percentile-ranks.pdf
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/sat-percentile-ranks-gender-race-ethnicity.pdf
To reduce the cutthroat behavior, they could try having rank percentile GPA thresholds were set by the previous class, so that the current class students are “running their own race” against GPA thresholds, rather than wanting to cutthroat their classmates. Yes, it could result in a stronger class having 11% in the “top 10%” or a weaker class having 9% in the “top 10%”. Of course, that would also have to be allowed by the state universities.
Most Texas public universities do not come close to filling their seats with top 10% automatic admits; many of them have additional ranges of assured admission by rank and usually SAT/ACT scores. The exception is UT Austin, where a smaller top percentage is set to fill about 3/4 of the seats with automatic admits (currently 6%).
However, automatic or assured admission by rank (and SAT/ACT scores beyond the top 10% at those campuses that do that) does not necessarily mean automatic or assured admission to the student’s preferred major. For example, a student may be automatically admitted to UT Austin by class rank, but not admitted to a popular major like CS, business, or an engineering major.
California does something similar, but the assurance is only admission to a UC (not necessarily the applicant’s choice of campus; in practice this means UC Merced if the applicant does not get into any other UC) for top 9% in local context (one’s high school) or top 9% statewide. Class rank determined by the high school is not used at all, and GPA is recalculated by a specified method with limited weighting for AP and some honors courses. Top 9% in local context is determined by GPA meeting a threshold GPA set by a recent previous class at the high school. Top 9% statewide is determined by a combination of GPA and test scores that are pre-set to approximate 9% of the high school graduates. Basically, this looks like they are trying to avoid creating incentives to cutthroat behavior like in Texas (which was the original inspiration for the top 9% in local context admission).
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/freshman/california-residents/local-path.html
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/california-residents/admissions-index/index.html
the Harvard Asian discrimination admissions case has brought up an interesting point. while harvard tries to deflect the argument as one of affirmative action (ie blacks hispanics etc) it has much less to do with affirmative action per say and more to do with Harvard giving preference to underqualified whites vs more qualified Asians.
Asians have to score 140 more SAT points than whites for the same chance of admission to selective universities.
Instead of secretly penalizing Asians with inherently racist sterotypical “personality scores” as Harvard has been doing… just admit the obvious. Whites are just as much an affirmative action group as blacks or hispanics.
In fact that largest affirmative action group at selective universities are whites as a whole. Asians are competing more with whites for spots vs blacks or Hispanics so the whole Affirmative action argument really winds up being a deceptive ploy by Harvard to deflect its racial preference for whites over Asians despite the fact Asians are more qualified for admission as a whole.
of course the white power structure at these universities would never allow that to happen.
@sbballer you raise some very interesting points. I think a lot of people agree and have said that this whole thing has more to do with helping whites in the end than the Asians that are feeling discriminated against.
Having looked into the whole issue of preference a bit, I’d say there is not much difference in the qualifications of unhooked whites and unhooked Asians, or in their respective chances for admission. These groups collectively sustain the academic prestige of Harvard.
Right now, the largest beneficiary of preferences is of course whites. But that is because of legacy, athletic and development preferences that to some degree reflect the demographics of the past, that is, who attended 30 years ago and who have ascended socioeconomically and politically to positions of influence.
As Asians become larger in these groups over time, they will enjoy the same preferences – and to the same degree. People might recall the experience of Jewish Americans in the mid 20th century. More talented Asians should probably go to law school and into politics. Our system is set up to favor “transferors” over “producers,” as anyone who has spent even a little time on Wall Street can affirm.
On balance, I really don’t think there is any preference for “white” skin, per se, or any specific penalty for being Asian. Whites are currently heavily represented in the preference groups I mentioned, but that will change.
@SatchelSF as it relates to Wall Street, doesn’t it seem like Asians are an underrepresented minority there? And you see that changing? Are there signs this is changing already?
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by the following but I’m interested in what you meant:
Our system is set up to favor “transferors” over “producers,” as anyone who has spent even a little time on Wall Street can affirm.
My interest in this is based on the fact that my daughter just went through the whole big bank recruiting/superday thing in NYC. She applied through a Diversity program that allows women, blacks, hispanics, native americans, and lbgtq to apply as sophomores (junior year is open to everyone). So obviously, white and Asian men are excluded from that. And I really don’t know, but I feel like that’s a double whammy for Asian men…harder to get into the top programs that are at the target schools and then even though they might be underrepresented on Wall Street (but maybe I’m wrong?), they still don’t count as diversity.
I’m sure I’m missing something hear in my superficial analysis, but this kind of strikes me as harsh for Asian men. My daughter did get an internship so I am going ask her what the diversity is like once she is there, both among the interns/lower levels and upper management.
Probably means whether one’s profession involves transferring value/money/assets around (while collecting some of it for oneself as it moves by) versus producing something (goods or services) of value that others pay for.
Of course, one could argue that the act of transferring is something that people are willing to pay for to some extent. Indeed, some financial services are critical to a smoothly-running economy. But then one could also argue that financial service providers use their privileged and essential position in the system as power to skim off far more for themselves than the value they provide to the rest of the economy, or impose uncompensated risks on the rest of the economy.
That’s quite on oversimplification, are we saying Wall St doesn’t provide a service of value??? of course it does, its just that the numbers are so large that when you take a 10% commission it can be 100’s of millions of dollars vs someone who is in small business producing a good/service with a 10% profit margin making 100’s of thousands. Just examples don’t take the numbers literally…
Harvard uses racial stereotypes to systematically downgrade Asians in admissions. (some of these personality scores were made without an actual interview). btw this is also true of other selective universities not just Harvard.
Asians have to score demonstrably higher on the SAT scores for the same chances of admission as whites to selective universities. without rehashing previous studies… even accounting for legacy and athletics this bias against Asians still holds true. while folks may want to believe it isn’t so it doesn’t jive with the facts.
schools that don’t use race as a factor have proportionally higher Asian students (caltech, berkeley).
instead of secretly penalizing Asians and giving preference to underqualified whites over more qualified Asians… just list whites as an affirmative action group.
btw no one complains that selective universities are 20-25% Jewish but there seems to be a covert view that there are too many Asians.