That may well be right on the bubble, considering how lax most high schools are, but I think you could go down another 100 SAT points and maybe half a letter grade on HSGPA and still be ok.
Obviously, the current system of secondary and postsecondary education is ridiculously inefficient, and needs to be re-imagined. There is a gigantic societal cost associated with forcing too many young people onto a path of college prep and then traditional 4-year college.
I think we would be in pretty bad shape as a society if 80% of students were deemed to be incapable of college. Obviously, some students are going to be better served starting out at a 2-year college or attending a less rigorous regional college – not everyone should aspire to be a doctor or an engineer or a PhD. But there are a whole lot of jobs and careers where a college degree or even master’s degree is the norm which are tied to careers and majors that aren’t typically even offered at elite universities. (As well as plenty of students with SAT scores in that 1200 or below range who end up attending and doing quite well at more selective universities)
50th percentile correlates with a score of 1010.
(And it’s important to keep in mind that the SAT and ACT are norm referenced test which are DESIGNED to have scores fall along a bell curve spectrum – so it’s not a matter of the underlying quality of the high school education.)
But if you take away the supply of marginally qualified graduates, then those jobs will simply adjust to take people with lesser qualifications. The jobs will not go unfilled for lack of graduates with meaningless credentials. And if the credentials are actually worth something, then the employers will pay for them, rather than taxpayers or students.
That is right at about the midpoint of the range suggested by Murray in the article linked in #3920 above:
No, many of those jobs & careers have very specific degree requirements.
Do you really want your grandchildren taught by people without the requisite college degree and teaching credential because someone has decided that only the top 15% of the populace should be allowed to pursue that career?
Without going down the political rabbit hole, I think we have a very good idea of how a majority of SCOTUS would rule in an AA case, the next time it comes before the court in the context of college admissions.
Yes if there was strong proof. Note that I don’t defend legacy but I do defend the others.
I do think there can be small benefits with cultural diversity but using racial diversity as a proxy is not the way to go. “Racial diversity” in this context is another code word for promoting African American and Hispanic culture. But AA culture is already mainstream and isn’t really all that much different from white American culture (and has striking similarities to southern USA culture). AAs have been in the USA for generations so it’s not unexpected. I don’t think much cultural diversity is added with AAs if there are already white Americans in the school.
Hispanic culture is European in nature. It descends from Spain. All the Hispanic countries have similar culture because they all descend from Spain and speak Spanish. Culture for Hispanic countries can kind of be treated as one monolithic culture instead of many different, unique cultures. Given this, the quota for Hispanic students should be small because Hispanic culture is just culture from one country (Spain). If Spain deserves a large (10-15%) quota at every school as it does right now, why not other European countries?
Then there is Asia. For one thing, the two largest groups (Indians and Chinese) have very little in common with each other physically, culturally and linguistically. They can be considered entirely different races but they’re grouped under the same category. Asian countries are vastly different from each other because of language and geographical barriers.
And where do Arabs fit in with race?
Racial classifications aren’t meaningful. There’s no reason to use it, especially not when creating a quota.
I don’t think there are that many super wealthy/connected people in the world to say that there would be a “large number” of them. I’m talking about z-listers and not just the average upper middle/lower upper class person with 1 or 2 vacation homes with $300k-$800k household income bracket.
@roethlisburger I have given my own prediction before on a SCOTUS ruling (narrow ruling against parts of Harvard’s admissions policy affecting only Harvard, but other elite schools would proactively adjust), but I also see ways for Harvard to sidestep or not “follow the spirit of the court ruling” pretty easily if they want to. They could make a few adjustments to their admissions policy and start this entire legal process over with little change in the numbers of each racial group. I don’t think they would give up the half a billion plus dollars of federal aid, but they could and pretty much do whatever they wanted in admissions (Since the 14th amendment’s power is with government entities and Harvard is a private organization). The only real way to bully Harvard is to go after the endowment (Change tax status for non-compliance) that I have seen mentioned by others, but part of Harvard’s prestige comes from the power they wield in stopping things that are not in Harvard’s interests.
@UndeservingURM Your points are well thought out (diversity of thought > cultural diversity > racial diversity is how I look at things) and I think you bring up the crux of the entire issue. How much “value” does AA bring to elite universities? While I see some value, I don’t see enough to warrant racial preferences due to its negative impacts (perception of all URM students due to admitting some URM students with lower stats, and the treatment of all unhooked students due to so many preferences being used in elite college admissions), while others posters may believe there is no value (AA is against the law) or see immense value (AA is fixing past/current wrongs against historically marginalized groups) in what AA brings in building a student body. I don’t think there is a way to “prove or disprove” AA’s worth, but it sure would be nice if there was a definitive answer.
One of the things that is lost in the affirmative action at elite colleges discussion is the cascade of negative incentives that it creates. Just as importantly, although acknowledged a bit more, is avoidance: elites virtue signal as a way of avoiding the difficult questions, one of which is the state of K-12 education for poor people generally, which has concentrated effects on the black and Hispanic communities.
This recent Quillette essay by a retired NYC public high school teacher seems to capture aspects of both these dynamics. The writer is a dyed-in-the-wool progressive who nevertheless possesses the rare virtue of honesty (as Schumpeter said, “the first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie”):
She essentially argues that politically correct squeamishness (avoidance) about discipline allows a relatively small minority of kids to disrupt the entire process for all. She also talks about the farce that accountability has become at the administration level of these schools. Well worth reading in my opinion.
@SatchelSF People don’t like to hear inconvenient truths. One of the absolute biggest problems with AA is that it perpetuates lowered expectations. For the black youth that I tutor and deal with, they know it and respond that way (even in the suburbs and it is so much worse in American inner cities). The article just points to something that I have noted as a key for African Americans which is to stop counting on the government/schools and fix our own families, because to think otherwise just means that we will continue to struggle.
But I would literally kick every single kid out of school who threatened a teacher, was not participating as a student, not showing up to class, was disruptive in class etc. But some school districts have gone “soft” on that due to data showing that African American students are suspended in much higher numbers nationally. Parents need to know if they are not providing enough parental control, their kids will be at home with them, or in a military like setting for disruptive youth (my own preference and I promise they will beg to go to regular school if I get to set the schedule). It is only fair for those who are trying to learn because an education can be the way out of a tough environment.
Those stats could make it just as clear that male students are unfairly getting admissions bumps they do not deserve.
Perhaps they are mismatched at the most elite schools :))
@1NJParent I think the 6 is a lot but typically people say co-ops,engineering students, and simply students that take a semester or year off to work or whatever ought to count. I also know kids at our ginormous state U who couldn’t get all the sequenced classes in time, due to failing one and retaking or switching majors.
4 year grad rates are also available. I wonder if there is much difference, first gen/low income, URM to men/women, in 4 vs 6 though?
Unfortunately it’s not that simple to just expel a kid from his local public school. It’s one of the reasons Charter Schools in Philadelphia are so popular because they have a much easier time expelling kids like that as the family still has the local public school available for the child.
^ It is actually pretty simple to deal with disruptive kids. It just requires the political will. NYC used to have what is known as “600” schools, but the last of them were were done away with in the 1970s.
As in all aspects of life, incentives matter a great deal. Most kids will fall in line, rather than go to the 600 school. Just as they used to.
I actually didn’t expect the graduation rates to be different because:
It is hard to fail out of the non-STEM focused top schools. Hard to get in, easy to graduate. They are elite social clubs where the main attractions are the peers, social connections and on-campus recruiting, not rigorous classes or excellent teaching.
2, Students can just switch out to easy or joke majors if they’re failing in a harder major.
URMS are more likely to take the non-STEM majors that are easy to pass.
The fact that there is a graduation rate difference means that the colleges are royally screwing up with their admissions processes. Whether the students are unable to graduate because of ability, choosing an unprofitable major and being in too deep before realizing that the degree would be useless or from lack of funds, the reason doesn’t matter that much (I suspect it’s mostly the former 2). The graduation rates should not be very different.
@Dolemite - On reflection, I agree wholeheartedly that political will is not simple. Especially because there is zero chance that any of the policymakers’ kids will ever set foot in one of these schools.
“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm – but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” – T.S. Eliot
There is no need for Harvard to go test optional. They get to choose from some of the very best black students in the country. We’ve looked into it in this and other threads. I believe I concluded from the litigation data that the SAT score gap between black and white students in the admitted pool was less than 60 points. Less than 80 points separated the black and Asian students.
The preference is large of course because there are not many black applicants with very high test scores compared with whites or Asians. But objectively, there is little difference in stats among the groups who are actually admitted.
It is telling that people assume that there are large score gaps at Harvard. That is one effect of affirmative action. Going test optional would strengthen this effect.
(By the way, there are only 23 points between Asians and unhooked whites, 20 of them on math, if I recall correctly.)
Well, aren’t those 23 points or whatever the crux of the claimed discrimination?
I agree with you that its not significant and I don’t think people who debate these things understand how holistic colleges look at scores, or what colleges mean when they say that they look at scores “in context.” But it seems to me that the lawsuit is premised on the idea that the scores are a quantifiable means of comparison among admitted students. (That is, some sort of barrier put out in front of Asian applicants requiring them to score higher to win admission).
@Dolemite Administrators may have a little more power in the South where I live, but you are right. With my wife being a teacher and teaching in a Title I school early in her career, she has had some good and not so go administrators at the schools and it is about using the power you have. I don’t tend to have many problems with any kids that I have mentored/tutored (but being a big black guy from a bad neighborhood, I think the kids see that I can relate and will not be putting up with any disrespect).
@calmom You make a good point. Even if the SCOTUS rules that Harvard is blantantly wrong using racial preferences, switching to a test optional policy could make the current lawsuit moot and they would have to start all over again. It would probably lower the percentage of URM some, but it would not be as drastic a cut as just removing racial preferences.
?? Why would going test-optional lower the percentage of URM? It seems to me that if anything it would open the door somewhat, since the URM’s with less impressive scores would no longer have to submit them.
Basically what happens with test-optional policies is the students with above-median scores continue to submit, and students with below-median scores don’t — but of course, the students with the less impressive scores who get accepted have strong GPA’s & academic credentials. (Without that they simply don’t get admitted).
My guess is that there are probably a significant number of students from all backgrounds who have very strong academic credentials but so-so test scores and are deterred from applying to Ivy & equivalent because they can see that their test score put them at the bottom of the applicant pool. But given the option to withhold the scores, then more will apply. And overall statistics suggest that the URM’s are more likely to be within that group. So I’d think that test-optional would probably have the tendency to result in a very slight increase of URM percentage. (Slight because all the other factors that Harvard is using would still apply – I think it really would be more tied to minor changes in the demographic makeup of the applicant pool than to actual changes in admissions determinations).