"Race" in College Applications FAQ & Discussion 12

Applying to College
4261

@ChangeTheGame I think you are completely right and I (and I am assuming @privatebanker) was talking about a different stage of “perception” than you bring up, but your point is well taken.

I assumed by the time they were all in the hypothetical board room, the people in the room had moved beyond that level of superficial scrutiny, But you are right, perhaps they wouldn’t have.

I do think that immediate, superficial perception that concerns you is an even bigger deal and possibly the biggest problem of all. People make judgements about others based on the color of their skin (and other superficial factors) without getting to know them all of the time and that is a major problem.

I think the following point that you make @changethegame is perhaps the reality we are yet to tackle properly as a society:

“Money does not help my son’s fear when he is pulled over by the police, or gets followed in a department store because of how he looks.”

I wish I had the answer to that, but I don’t. I know you disagree with this, but I don’t think getting rid of AA would be part of the solution at all. In a nutshell, I think if we did away with it, there would be less blacks in the better colleges (or perhaps in college at all) and I think that would have a negative impact on society.

I think we need more representation from all racial groups in our nation’s top colleges, in our government and in our most influential companies and agencies. I feel like AA, along with fixing A LOT of things before a child even applies to college, has to be part of the solution. But it’s a bit of a catch 22.

In the meantime, back to the board room issue. That black female executive running the meeting…while there will be some people in the room that are cynical and shrug off her credentials as less impressive because they assume she got into Harvard via AA, not everyone would feel that way. I know I woudln’t. Just because SOME people might feel that way about black people that graduate from Harvard does NOT mean other people do. And hopefully those cynics will become fewer and farther between as more and more URM’s rise up in society and make positive contributions to society. After all, this country elected a black man for President that may have benefited from AA. I take that as a sign of hope. Let’s just hope we haven’t reversed any momentum we may have had going with that. Getting rid of AA in my mind might dignify a reversal which would be a devastating blow for our country. This is just IMO, of course.

4262

I’m sorry you felt slighted? I didn’t respond to that point because I didn’t have anything to add to it.

4263

Many kids are looking for a more even racial balance in college too. I know my kids were.

4264

I’m sure many kids would prefer to have just more classmates of the same race too but nobody wants to go to lengths to achieve that.

It’s not about what your kids want, it’s about what is right, both morally and under the law. And that is clearly non-discrimination by race in admissions.

4265

@OHMomof2

Yes, very true and religious balance as well. My question is whether that is a good reason to keep the preferences going. I am very torn on this issue. My gut reaction is that AA does more good than harm, however, I can’t disregard the lived experience of @ChangeTheGame. He certainly has a perspective that I lack.

4266

Whether it is a “good reason” likely depends on which point of view it is from: a college’s marketing department, a prospective applicant, an applicant, an admit, a current student, an alum, an employer who may recruit there, a donor, or someone else who may be relevant (and different people in each category may have different opinions). Of course, the college’s marketing department pays attention to what it believes are the opinions of all of the categories to determine what it believes is best for the college’s marketability to all of them.

4267

@collegemomjam Yep, I understand that point about perception from @privatebanker. I just wanted to note that most of the minorities that I know are acutely aware of how we are perceived in all facets of society and that it matters (it affects how we act and react to our surroundings). I have always respected and agreed with your points on diversity and its benefits, but I have seen some of the negatives of AA that have made me come to the conclusion that the “means don’t justify the ends”. But the end goals are the same. I am not as afraid of the reversal of AA being a devastating blow (it would definitely hurt at 1st), because I see the plight of large swaths of URM not being any better off than it was when AA was instituted 50+ years ago (URMs may be worse overall from a financial and family structure standpoint).

@OHMomof2 No slight felt. Do you have any comments on the data pulled by @Data10 (at least at Harvard) are not shown any favor for men. I figured that the top 3-5 schools in America don’t struggle with getting men on a similar level to women.

4268

It validates my earlier correction to roethlisburger’s contention that H favors women. It does not. Women have a tiny disadvantage in admit rate. H - and maybe the top 3-5 schools struggle far less than those a rung down to build their ideal class.

This is sounding very similar to your argument about AA isn’t it? That it’s the lower ranked schools that “suffer” because H and the tops have no trouble getting fully qualified URM students? Why would they also struggle to get fully qualified men? Similar dynamic at work - they get the pick of the litter, so to speak, and thus the freedom to build the class they want. Lower down colleges have to compromise more on stats.

4269

@OHMomof2

Per the section you quoted,

In other words, when Harvard has a choice between an equally qualified male and female applicant, they admit the female applicant. Women could only be admitted at a lower or equal rate to men if they had lower qualifications.

4270

Only for Asian women, @roethlisburger - not white, black, Hispanic, native or anyone else. (And of course, only Harvard.)

4271

@OHMomof2

Not just Asian women. If you look at Data10’s post, black women do better than black men and white women do better than white men.

4272

Being able to discriminate against women in college admissions was an intentional loophole in Title IX, which originally was to prohibit that discrimination for any college receiving federal funds.

Public colleges aren’t allowed to discriminate against women, but privates are.

4273

“Statistically significant” @roethlisburger

Your example was poor.

Bring up MIT, Caltech, WPI, RPI or one of the other handful of “tech” schools that favor women in admission. There are real discernible differences there.

But they are dwarfed by those at the many dozens of privates that give men preference.

4274

@roethlisburger I’ll add that whatever Harvard is doing on the front end, male students are still graduating more slowly/less often than female students are. H is still not a great example (I’d never have used it because a lot of colleges have much better numbers for my point but roe did so i"ll continue on with it), but even Harvard has a 2+% grad rate difference between men and women.

In fact men overall have a lower 6 year grad rate than any (combined gender) racial group. Including white and Asian. Except Native American and i’ll guess there were very few of those.



Graduation rates within 6 years by gender
Women   97.4 %
Men 95.3 %
Graduation rates within 6 years by race/ethnicity
White   96.5 %
Black african-american  96.6 %
Hispanic    95.8 %
Asian   96.2 %
American Indian or Alaskan Native   100.0 %
Race-ethnicity Unknown  91.8 %
Non-resident alien  97.3 %
4275

@ChangeTheGame I really enjoy your posts and your perspective, thank you.

“Money does not help my son’s fear when he is pulled over by the police, or gets followed in a department store because of how he looks”
We live in a very liberal, mixed community (local high school is 15% white). There is a thriving AA middle and upper class here, one of the few places in the country where that can be said with a straight face. The other day, my 15 year old son and I (Caucasians) were at a local chain clothing store buying some things. The security guard (AA) was standing at the door checking everyone’s bags as they left the store. As we walked up to him, he looked straight at me and said, “Have a nice day, sir” and let us walk right by with our bags. Racial profiling is alive and well.

“One African American male student posted getting into all 12 schools he applied to (3 in-state institutions along with 9 of the top 15 ranked USNWR schools in the country while receiving 5 likely letters and he noted his stats (4.0 GPA, 2nd in his class, and a 1600 SAT score on his 3rd sitting for the test) and while not specifying his ECs said that he thought that they were not a weakness. He makes a bad joke about AA which I believe shows that he deals with the perception of himself by others (race was why he got in) even with his level of achievement.”

This very accomplished young man is benefiting from the URM status, even with those great accomplishments. My DS19 has (eerily) those exact same stats and some excellent EC and awards. He applied to 4 of the top 25 USNWR universities/LAC’s (no HPYSM), was rejected by one and waitlisted by the others. The reality is that no one gets into any of the top schools on academics alone, let alone 9 of them, without a hook of some kind or some crazy EC. There is no doubt that this young AA man is smart enough and accomplished enough to thrive at whatever school he decides to attend, and he shouldn’t have to feel inferior about his place as he is supremely qualified. But AA preference was part of why he got in to 9 top schools.

4276

Yes, people can be racist against their own race…

Some years ago, there was a presumed-non-URM student in California who went 9 for 9 (HYPSM and 4 UCs) applying to highly selective colleges.
https://www.kcra.com/article/harvard-bound-elk-grove-teen-it-s-your-choice-to-have-a-fulfilling-life/6405116

Remember that the unobservable-to-outsiders aspects of an application (essay, recommendations, etc.) are often highly important, and can make the difference between a student with multiple admissions to highly selective colleges and one with similar stats being shut out of highly selective colleges. Because test scores, grades, legacy, and race/ethnicity are the observable and comparable factors to outsiders, most people assume that those are the most important factors in college admissions, while treating the unobservable-to-outsiders aspects as “random”.

4277

The lawsuit analyses indicate there may be a slight preference for women, but I believe that preference only reached statistical significance for Asian applicants. This possible gender preference is minuscule compared to the preference for URMs or any hook, so small that the indication of its existence can vary by year.

My earlier post listed the admit rate by gender from the most recent CDS. Admit rates from the larger multi-year lawsuit sample are below. Asian women had a slightly higher admit rate than Asian men. In other races, men had a slightly higher admit rate than women in spite of the possible slight preference for women. This effect was particularly notable among URM applicants. Specific numbers are below. The combination of admit rate and regression coefficients suggests that if there is a gender based difference in qualification of applicants, it’s most likely to be among URM women vs URM men. Perhaps academically weaker URM women are more likely to apply in response to Harvard’s mailings than are academically weaker URM men. This is consistent with 60% of Black applicants to Harvard being women, compared to 46% for White applicants and 49% for Asian.

Admit Rate in Harvard Lawsuit Sample
“Baseline” Otherwise Unhooked White – 4.6% Women, 5.1% Men
“Baseline” Otherwise Unhooked Asian – 5.5% Women, 4.8% Men
“Baseline” Otherwise Unhooked Black – 7.0% Women, 8.4% Men
“Baseline” Otherwise Unhooked Overall – 5.4% Women, 5.5% Men
“Expanded” Sample With Hooks – 6.5% Women, 6.7% Men

Harvard’s expert digs a little deeper into differences between male and female Asian applicants in his analysis. He found the following percentage of Asian applicants received high 1-2 ratings. Asian men as a whole did better in the academic rating, and Asian women as a whole did better in the ECs and personal ratings. As such Asian women were more likely to have high ratings in 3+ categories, which is correlated with being admitted.

Percent of Asian Applicants with High 1-2 Ratings
Academic – 64% men, 54% women
ECs – 26% men, 30% women
Personal – 16% men, 20% women
Athletic-- 6% men, 5% women
3+ High Ratings – 7% men, 8% women

4278

You are completely right that URM with basically perfect stats are helped by AA, because similar ORM students have a much harder time reaching those kind of admissions results (I have seen a couple of ORM students run the table, but it is so much harder and I have seen, read, and heard about a lot more URM students doing so at elite schools). The part that makes this student good from all sides of the debate is that it is hard to deny the student’s statistical qualifications. I have never personally seen an African American student EVER get rejected from a school in which they have reached the 75th percentile standardized test score or seen an African American student within the 25th-75th percentile standardized test score range who has applied to multiple reach schools (below 25% acceptance rate) not get into some of them. I believe that those "bad’ scenarios must happen, but I have never seen it personally. So AA seems to almost “guarantee” top African American students some form of admission to top schools and although I believe that those students are qualified, it can not feel good to know that is happening as an ORM student.

For URM students below the 25th percentile, it can be a crap shoot to find those students who show the potential to grow, but I have seen some African American students accepted to schools that use AA that are not qualified by any means (including signs of work ethic needed to overcome being behind academically) and it has hurt those students. Even some of my friends who are AA proponents have admitted that the racial preferences have gotten too strong in some cases (bottom tier racial preference schools who are scrapping to find qualified URM students to enhance student body diversity, but are hindered by a lack of URM depth). The “tip” for AA is definitely being “applied like a sledgehammer” at some schools today, and that is what I predict will be its downfall long-term.

4279

MODERATOR’S NOTE:
There’s a way to get one’s point across without being snide. “Perhaps you did not see…” is far preferable to “Did you even take the time to read…” Not only is the latter not preferred, I’m just going to delete such comments.

4280

Thanks for the detailed info @Data10 . It would be interesting to see that level of detail for more schools, the Browns, Vassars, and so on. I suppose they’d need to also be sued to release those details.

I wonder what Harvard is doing to help the men catch up to the women in terms of graduating on time. Or if they view that as an issue at all.