@hebegebe I am now confused a bit. I am sure this is where context enters and I certainly want to be given it so I can become more educated (why I love coming to CC honestly). @roethlisburger says for elite colleges, there is an expectation that all applicants meet a certain baseline, hooked or not. Does Espenshade’s study show that baseline is significantly lower for URMs?
I have seen quite a few threads on legacy and athletic admissions. For more than a few of the elite schools, being either gives significant advantage. And yet, ORMs do not seem to be concerned about that particular advantage penalizing them. Or perhaps those legal cases just have not been publicized? So my question remains, why just “blame” URMs? Seems there would be more than enough to go around. (I am agreeing with your ETA, just expressing frustration that society tends to point fingers in only one direction. Though I would add I don’t think there should be any blame. Schools do not want all of any one thing and have every right to fill their classes the way they wish. We are the entitled ones who believe we should have our expectations met and when we don’t have to find someone to “blame”.)
I do not think the baseline changes for ORM, URM or other. It is the minimum standard. After that, there may be patterns among various demographics of admitted students, but the minimum will have been met by all. At these elite schools, even the athletes must meet a fairly steep minimum. Note you don’t see any demographic admitted with, say a 900 SAT/2.9 GPA.
@websensation “. Before you apply to colleges, try to get to know the system and try not to get crushed by the system. Explore the road less traveled and be willing to look outside HYPSM.”
This is great advice for every one! For example, schools like Brown or Tufts get a lot more female applicants. It is harder to get accepted as a woman. Be aware of that and strongly consider schools where females are underrepresented. If you are male, consider an LAC, or any school where most applicants are female, which is most schools. If you are Asian, consider Lehigh or Bucknell. There is no demographic that is not prized by some of the top schools.
You have to be willing to look outside of your local area, and beyond HYPSM. The fact that so many people refuse to do that is why these opportunities still exist.
Note: I am not commenting on how any of the this should work, just playing the game as it currently is.
Espenshade’s study is controversial, to say the least. Debunked might be a strong word, but you can search this very thread for very long and detailed discussions about its weaknesses. It’s brought up regularly and discussed regularly.
Princeton released all its admissions data to the DOE for the lawsuit but doesn’t want it released to the general public as is now being called for. I imagine we’d all like to see it anyway, though I’m sure it will not prove anything one way or the other.
And @Much2learn makes a great point about looking at schools where one attribute or another is preferred.
Women are at a disadvantage at most colleges but not at tech schools. Asians are sought after by many LACs (their diversity fly-in programs even at the most elite colleges generally include Asians as one of the “diversity” they want to include) , etc.
One of many diversity fly-in recruitment programs (a competitive application for a weekend visit in which lower income kids’ travel is paid for by the college) that considers Asians to be one of the groups they are actively recruiting: https://www.amherst.edu/admission/diversity/divoh?shib_redir=2006354227
The Espenshade study is typical of initial important studies in a field, in that it states an anomaly that was not otherwise explained. As you rightly point out @OHMomof2, it is now quite old, which is why I chose the past tense “were” rather than present tense “are” in my post above.
But in academic circles, the right response to a study you disagree with is to create a study showing the flaws in the original one, using the explanatory variables that I suggested above or others that are more appropriate. Everyone with a background in statistics understands that while you have to be careful in doing so, this is not rocket science.
Instead, the response to Espenshade’s study was as though he revealed the family’s ugly secrets in polite company, and wouldn’t it just be much better if he simply stopped talking and everyone just ignored what he said.
I believe that schools that operate independently of federal funds, can make whatever policies they choose (see Liberty University). On the other hand, I believe that schools that accept federal funds (which includes all the Ivy+ schools) should be free of discrimination.
My child was just accepted to her first choice school that has a single digit acceptance rate. I have no need to blame anyone. I just believe that admissions on the basis of race is wrong (but am happy to consider admission on the basis of SES, family structure, education level of parents, etc.).
I think the problem is that there isn’t sufficient data to analyze. Colleges (rightly or wrongly) do not release their complete app/accept data to the public (I assume at least in part for privacy reasons - though Princeton did so for the federal government).
So one can only do studies like Espenshade’s, that use just one or two pieces of a complex puzzle. He had no rec letters, no EC lists, no essays, only GPA and test scores (and race).
Yes, it is clearly too old to be useful today for anything more than raising questions about the current state of the world.
I do think there is public data today that could make for interesting analysis. There are a small number of students that get accepted each year in to all 8 Ivys, and they make news because of it. We could look at the racial makeup of those students relative to the population at large, and determine how likely that would happen by chance. Here are key assumptions here that come to mind right away:
All races are equally likely to apply to all 8 Ivy League schools.
The qualifications of the best applicants is independent of race.
All races are equally likely to disclose to the press.
I can’t think of any reason why these would be false.
But “people who apply to all 8 Ivies in the first place” is a tiny sample to begin with.
And the sample of kids who get into all 8 is corrupted by the fact that the only ones we know about are the ones that want it known.
I think the confidential nature of college applications and admissions makes it impossible to do any kind of useful study. Even public schools can’t offer a useful level of data beyond race/gpa/test scores, right?
In some cases, you don’t need many samples. It all depends on the inherent likelihood of the situation. To use an easy to understand example, it is possible that a die could come up with a one, 6 times in in a row, but doing so with only six rolls is high likely to arouse suspicion about its fairness.
All of you need to take a step back and look at the facts. Almost all colleges except for the Historically Black schools have an extremely low percentage of Black and Hispanic students. If you all think these minorities are taking your spots or your kids spots, you need to think twice. It’s not true. There are far more white students taking the spots as athletes and legacies. For every minority student admitted there are at least 5 white/Asian students if not more. Both my D’s can practically count how many Blacks are at their respective schools and they attend pretty great schools. Believe it or not, AA can actually score well on tests and have top grades. They can even end up with a 4.0 as a double major at a top school. I’m tired of hearing about high school students who have the top scores in everything. Clearly colleges don’t necessarily find that admirable. Not everyone can afford to or are willing to take the SAT or ACT multiple times. They want to see passion for something more than taking 20 AP classes. Find your passion and revel in it. Everything does not revolve around test scores and gpas or generic applications.
This isn’t even close to true at the top schools. If you look at the most recent CDS data for the Ivy league, you’ll find non-hispanic whites and Asians comprise about 56-64% of the undergraduate student body, depending on the school, or roughly their same proportion in the college age population. To reverse that, URMs are not under-represented at the top colleges and probably haven’t been for a couple of decades.
You misunderstood my post. If you add non-Hispanic Asians and non-Hispanic whites together, you get about 60% at the top schools, which rely on holistic admissions. In other words, 40% of the student body is diverse(excluding non-Hispanic Asians). If you want facts, look at CDS data.
Just looked at Harvard stats: 47.6 % white, 17.2% Asian, 9.7 % Hispanic, 7.8% international, 6.3% black, 5.6 % 2 or more races and 5.5% unknown. So according to this only about 6 % are black so…
According to the US Census in 2010, Hispanic/Latinos were 16.3% of the US population and Blacks/AAs were 12.6% of the population. Can you name many selective colleges that exceed those percentages?