Ah gotcha.
Those Harvard numbers certainly don’t advance the score disparity of the previous story, do they? That’s very encouraging news, if it is representative of admission statistics at other selective colleges. I’m happy that Harvard students seem to gain entrance on merits rather than prejudice. I stand corrected. Am I the only one who has been led down this erroneous path?
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The point should be why one would view a gap that amounts to 6-12 questions on average is a significant gap on a test with hundreds of questions.
Theses schools are all run by progressives and people of color so blaming racism in the schools is silly. No program can make all people equal in academics or their speed in the 40 yard dash.
granny is confused…again…
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-adv-asian-race-tutoring-20150222-story.html
@granny2: the counselor in the LA Times article is referencing the 20 year old data I linked to in post 34. The Harvard data is more current. Is that what has you confused?
@SHouldBeWorking: that study keeps cropping up, and lots of people are either being misled or choosing to believe what they want to believe without researching actual, current statistics. With the recent protests at Yale, for example, many commenters critical of the students were quick with the “‘those’ students are only at Yale because of affirmative action/lower test scores” line of attack, which was both inaccurate and ad hominem (and, in my view, not-so-veiled racist).
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Thank you, @classicalmama …the dates do have me confused as does this:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/03/sat-scores-drop-and-racial-gaps-remain-large
@granny2 It is true that whites and Asians score higher on the SAT on average than Hispanic and black students.
However, it is not true that there’s some yawning gap between the scores by race in elite college acceptances.
Fewer black and Hispanic students are accepted to elite colleges than whites and Asians. Perhaps partly because of that score discrepancy.
…and there are more wealthy students accepted to elite colleges too.
Thank you, @OHMomof2…I think I’ll just go back to my crocheting now.
@NickFlynn You should double check your Harvard Crimson SAT data that you reported in post #33. It is wrong. Hint, the graph of SAT by ethnicity is incorrect, the correct information is posted just below the graph. Apparently Harvard’s Crimson editors are fallible.
Once the corrected information is posted, a proper discussion is possible.
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Why don’t you post it, @rlpak14 ?
@NickFlynn Wow that gap is actually much smaller than what I thought it would be. AA really has been hyped up on CC.
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@class0f2017 Bitter people who are spurned by universities with sub-20% acceptance rates and have limited perspectives on how many talented people an entire nation, not to speak of world has, often turn to an easy target.
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[quote]
@NickFlynn You should double check your Harvard Crimson SAT data that you reported in post #33. It is wrong. Hint, the graph of SAT by ethnicity is incorrect, the correct information is posted just below the graph. Apparently Harvard’s Crimson editors are fallible.[/qupte]
Hint: He posted “the correct information below the graph” in post #36. Which we’ve referred to in several posts since.
Are South Asians(Indians) considered seperate from the Asian population? Why is it seperated on the Harvard profile?
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@OHMomof2 I am not sure why you are responding on behalf of @NickFlynn. It is his responsibility to correct the error since many including yourself have used his incorrect information in post #36 to make comments on Affirmative Action.
You are now claiming that the flawed data provided by NickFlynn is “the correct information” and “which we’ve referred to in several posts since.”
In fact, you and others have made posts that the Harvard Crimson survey results is newer and supports the position that Affirmative Action benefits in the admission process is not as great as reported by Prof. Espenshade. Some have even argued that because the Crimson “data” is newer it is better than the data used by Prof. Espenshade et. al.
Sorry @granny2 but you are going to be confused further with the rest of my post.
There are some problems with the “data” reported and posted by NickFlynn.
First the Harvard Crimson “data” was the result of a survey of incoming Harvard freshman, which in itself is not a problem, but the “data” it reported was not adjusted for ANY SELECTION BIAS. The Crimson admits this but it is buried in the middle of another section of the article. Thus, it is not usable as scientific data for researchers such as Prof. Espenshade et. al. As we all know Garbage IN leads to Garbage OUT.
Second, the “Crimson Data” falls flat when compared to actual data. The College Board no longer provides a breakdown of the number of Black students by test scores, but the ACT Researchers provided this information until 2013. In 2013, less than 500 Black students scored better than 32 on the ACT out of nearly 240,000 Blacks who took the test. A 32 ACT is approximately equivalent to a 2100 SAT. The data is on page 12 of the following link:
https://www.act.org/newsroom/data/2013/pdf/profile/AfricanAmerican.pdf
Since about the same number of Blacks took the SAT, if the ACT results are any indication, then less than 500 Blacks scored higher than 2100 on the SAT. Nick Flynn reported that Black students at Harvard had a SAT average of 2218. It would be impossible to have such a high average unless only the highest scoring Blacks enrolled at Harvard and these high performers only went to Harvard and no other schools. This I know to be false because I personally know 2 Black students who enrolled at Harvard with SAT scores less than 2000 and there have been articles of top scoring Blacks going to other schools. I believe that I am on firm ground assuming that top scoring Blacks attend schools other than Harvard.
BTW even if the actual reported SAT of 2149 for Harvard Black students who self reported their SAT is used, the same problem would exist. Not enough top scoring Blacks go to Harvard to achieve an average SAT of 2149. If the Harvard Crimson “data” is examined, I believe the effects of SELECTION BIAS would be evident (i.e. only the highest scoring Blacks reported their SAT scores and the low scorers just ignored that section of the survey)
I also believe Harvard Crimson article failed to live up to the high level of journalism that we all expect. It is unfortunate because too many people believe what they read without taking the effort to question whether the information is credible.
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Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you are leaving out the fact that Harvard superscores. You could get 2 2000~ scores and still wind up with a 2200~ superscore.
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Yes indeed Harvard does superscore. It says so right on the Crimson article.
But the real problem with @rlpak14 's ACT data and assertions that black people score lower on the ACT (which no one is contesting here), is that the super elites, like Harvard can indeed cherry pick the highest scoring students of any race and approximately 80% will enroll.
Using self reported data is an issue, though I wouldn’t compare it with the significant issues with Espenshade’s study (which uses data form the 1980s and 1990s). In any case, Espenshade warned against concluding that his study proved that colleges improperly discriminated. He knew the limitations of his data and his study. Not everyone does…
@rdeng2614 The effects of superscoring at Harvard would not have any affect on the relative scores of the different ethnic groups since it is available to all students. Thus it is a non-factor in relative scoring, but I agree it may lead to slightly higher overall average scores for all ethnic groups. According to the College Board, the average gain is only 40 points.
@OHMomof2 Your responses are the reason why I asked @NickFlynn to correct his mistake on post #36. His data shaped the view of many such as @ShouldBeWorking who now believes the SAT gap between different ethnicity is not very large. This individual would like to believe the “Harvard Crimson Data” was representative of other top schools. So I wrote at length to provided a reasoned response with actual DATA why the Crimson survey results may not be very accurate and are clearly not what was reported by the Crimson.
You have not provided any data to substantiate your claims to @granny2 that “it is not true that there’s some yawning gap between the scores by race in elite college acceptances.” You make this assertion without any data to back it up. I and others would like to see you support your beliefs.
The SAT gap between ethnicity is widening. In post #46 granny2 referenced the article from insidehighereducation providing data that SAT scores having dropped for every ethnicity with the exception of Asians over the past 10 years. You have helped confuse granny2 and others as a result of your unfounded statements based upon NickFlynn’s posting of bad data.
Please present valid references for your assertions that the racial gap is small and not as large as stated by Prof. Espenshade et. al. at Harvard or any other top school. Best of luck finding such data.
BTW Espenshade’s 230 point gap between Blacks and Whites is out of 1600 (CR+M), if it was out of 2400 (CR+M+W), the gap would be 345 points which is more than just a few correct answers on the SAT per @Nedcone’s comments.
Simply asserting that there is a gap in average SAT scores between racial and ethnic groups (which again no one is denying here) doesn’t say anything about elite college acceptances, other than that it might partially explain why there are so few black and Hispanic and Native American students at elites, which is true.
Rich kids do better on the SAT than poor kids. This isn’t news to us either, except that it might partially explain why there are more rich kids in elite colleges than poor ones.
But again this isn’t relevant at all to elite college admissions.
Espenshade’s data is 20-30 years old and it was lacking in several important respects which he enumerates when he cautions against drawing the conclusions from it that you seem to be drawing. It’s not relevant.
Maybe you’d like to read the Office of Civil Rights report on Princeton’s admissions process. It’s from just 3 months ago: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/investigations/02086002-a.pdf - you might just search “SAT” and find accounts of Native students with super high scores who were rejected, that over 50% of 2400 SAT scorers were rejected, that 85% of valedictorians were rejected, and records of Asian and white applicants who were admitted with lower scores than the P-ton applicant average.
But until schools feel like releasing accepted student data in its entirety, I suppose we won’t ever know for sure what the actual gaps in SAT between races are. We do know they are one piece of the puzzle only and for that reason won’t matter much even if we ever do, IMO.