"Race" in College Applications FAQ & Discussion 12

@OHMomof2

“Your guess about my implication is wrong. Everyone should work hard, obviously.”

I don’t think you realize the damage a hard working culture does to a country’s genepool.
It ensures people who work way too hard but have inferior genes get to procreate with more women than people who are just naturally gifted.
Knowing a lot of useless garbage isn’t what makes a country successful, especially if the average people who work hard don’t have the intelligence to apply what they studied to practical endeavors. It just makes the people more miserable and inferior to what they could have been.
Do you think anyone enjoys studying 24/7?

“Who are the “smart people” who aren’t male supposed to procreate with? Sperm banks?”

With the smart males. I’m okay with polygamy.

Leaving your larger theory of the universe aside here, how does that affect colleges that decide to go to stats-only admissions?

@OHMomof2

Like I said, a hardworking culture will ensure the following:

  • Not so bright people study 24/7, but have no deep understanding of what they studied.
  • Get into good colleges and make better connections.
  • Succeed and mate with more women than naturally-gifted people.

If we changed our culture to one where everyone is, by law, forbidden from pursuing academic activities outside the classroom, then we would be able to build a stronger genepool where the work-a-holic grinds fall to the bottom of the economic ladder and fail to reproduce.

The succeeding generation will be much smarter than the previous generations. They will be able to tackle even the hardest academic tasks with the least difficulty and no studying, leaving more time for leisurely activities, which will ultimately lead to a happier society.

^Besides your eugenics view sounds a lot like that of 1930’s Germany it contradicts experience of every successful human society. Studies have shown that grit/hardwork is more of a predictor for accomplishment later in life (thus positive societal impact) than pure high IQ and that’s why top schools value both hardwork ethics and best academics. Entrepreneurs in silicone valley are full of workholics.

@jzducol

“Studies have shown that grit/hardwork is more of a predictor for accomplishment later in life (thus positive societal impact) than pure high IQ and that’s why top schools value both hardwork ethics and best academics”

I think you failed to comprehend my point.

What I quoted is exactly what is wrong with our culture. Hard work shouldn’t be rewarded, because hard work is the clutch of the talentless. It ensures bad genes survive.

People that support AA often bring up legacies, development cases, and athletes. You see it upthread, a lot. The litmus test for those folks should be:

If admission preferences for legacies, development cases, and athletes were actually abandoned, would you then agree that AA should be abandoned too?

A hypothetical, sure. Never going to happen, possibly. Consider it just a thought experiment.

IMO, if you support AA you should not bring up legacies, development cases, and athletes as a rhetorical argument unless you can answer “yes” to the question above. Otherwise, you’re just engaging in obfuscation.

So you would prefer highly intelligent people, many of whom don’t work very hard?

I once hired a person who was clearly very smart but never accomplished much in his prior jobs. I thought that perhaps he just wasn’t allowed to flourish in his previous jobs. Nope, he was just lazy. From then onward, I have always taken a bright hard working person over a brilliant lazy one every time.

AbstractMath I would have to agree somewhat with hebe that hard work does matter. I would however agree that hard work alone can not produce true genius.

“What I quoted is exactly what is wrong with our culture. Hard work shouldn’t be rewarded, because hard work is the clutch of the talentless. It ensures bad genes survive.”

Malcom Gladwell after studying successful people came up with the 10,000 hour rule, that you need to spend that much to be superb at anything. He cited the Beatles, of course it applies to other musicians (Miles Davis), athletes (Jordan, Serena), and scientists. Einstein and other nobel laureates were noted for their work ethic.

@abstractmath “…the guy at Google…fired for simply telling the very obvious truth.”

Okay, wow.

The Google guy may be bright guy, but he is way out of his area of expertise. He rant blends true statements, with false statements. He also puts forward a number of assertions that are debunked or not supported. He has also chosen to ignore better evidence when it does not agree with his view. This is classic confirmation bias.

The fact that you think it is a very obvious truth tells me that you failed to discern the pseudo science or to assess the article critically, probably because you thought it seemed to be a “very obvious truth.” Science does not decide that something is an “obvious truth” and work backwards. It considers all the evidence in attempting to accept or reject a hypothesis.

But, other than “probably a lot of Asian kids”, what does an admit-by-stats-only college look like?

It would like the UCs, so Berkeley would be a good representative. It has 60-70% Asian, remainder white and URMs. There’s still a football team and all sports are existing as they had before. I don’t think there would be a huge impact at large public universities. But I suspect as maybe you’re intimating, at smaller universities, a lot of sports would be eliminated at the div 1or div3 level.

You obviously did not have a large Asian contingent at your kids HS.

@AbstractMath

My sister in law sounds about like that…4.0UW BSCE/MSE/MBA …and she does not have a job!!! She is 40 and does not, cannot, and will probably never hold a job. She did work a teacher quit, worked for a software company fired, managed a Apple store fired.

She cannot work with people, she is the most arrogant, cocky, condescending, my way is the only way, do you know how gifted I am, clown of a woman on planet earth.

Her poor kids because she is a SAHM!! I just call her psycho, but a really smart psycho!!

Cal Poly Pomona has 42% Latino, 23% Asian, 18% white, 3% black.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?id=110529#enrolmt
CSU Bakersfield has 55% Latino, 19% white, 7% Asian, 6% black.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?id=110486#enrolmt
San Diego State has 33% white, 31% Latino, 14% Asian, 4% black.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?id=122409#enrolmt
San Jose State has 36% Asian, 26% Latino, 18% white, 3% black.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?id=122755#enrolmt

UC Berkeley has 35% Asian, 26% white, 15% Latino, 2% black.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?id=110635#enrolmt

Of course, I’m sure you think you are one of the people who need to procreate with multiple women. To do that you’ll need to crawl out of your mom’s basement and actually talk to a real woman. Note: look up “ewww” and get familiar with its meaning.

“UC Berkeley has 35% Asian, 26% white, 15% Latino, 2% black.”

That will change with 2017 class, I know students there who say white will be closer to 20%, Asians closer to 60%. There’s a difference between online stats and what’s on the street, de-facto numbers.

Anecdotal observations may be skewed by observations in class, where some classes may have higher or lower percentages of whatever race or ethnicity.

Also, observations of frosh will look somewhat different from observations of transfers. At UCB, frosh tend to have a higher percentage of Asian students, while transfers tend to have higher percentages of all other races/ethnicities.

Berkeley doesn’t admit by stats only, it uses a holistic method as outlined at http://admissions.berkeley.edu/freshman .

It admits by major - something I specifically asked how might be handled in a stats-only admissions system but no one has addressed - and considers all ECs and definitely recruits athletes.

So no, it wouldn’t look like UC Berkeley.

I think we all have different priorities regarding admissions preferences. There are reasons for all of them that some people will oppose or defend.

But I bring it up because the opposite is also true - if you oppose AA I think you should consider opposing athletic preferences, legacies and development admits. We have an entire super-lengthy series of threads here about AA and virtually none about the other admissions preferences, even though they disproportionately benefit high income white people - people who can hardly be said to need a helping hand.

Food for thought.

@OHMomof2 I agree. The converse of my challenge is equally valid:

“If you oppose AA I think you should consider opposing athletic preferences, legacies and development admits.”

Here is my opinion. I believe that I’m consistent:

Personally, I’d be happy to see preferences for legacies, development cases, and athletes eliminated. In my ideal world, teams would still exist, but they’d be composed of “walk ons,” kids admitted based on academic merit – no athletic scholarships whatsoever. The value of legacy is also dubious, IMO. And development cases are a travesty.

Regarding AA, like many people I want to see it replaced with preferences based strictly on SES, not race. High income people can be found in all of the races. Obviously, they’re not all white. IMO, “underrepresented” minority children of wealthy parents should not benefit from AA. That too is a travesty.