Xavier is an excellent school for producing black students who attend med school. How is that supposed to inform us about whether it’s better for a black student at the lower end of UT’s stats to go to TAMU instead?
You are treating racial affirmative action as being synonymous w socio-economic affirmative action. They are not synonymous.
The UT percentage plan addresses SES inequality. UT stated EXPLICITLY that the percentage plan, however, tended to net lower SES URMs , and that it needed to use racial preferences in the holistic round to net higher SES URMS (including the ones that attend posh boarding schools which u revile so much).
Instead of asking if it is better for a black student to attend a less competitive school in place of UT, why not ask if students with test scores well below UT’s range (middle 50% ACT range of 25 to 31) should be looking at other less competitive colleges?
A question I’ve always wondered is why UT doesn’t admit fewer OOS and Internationals so it could up the % per high school? Of course, that would have its own diversity issues, but it might yield more instate URMs…or not. 
A 22 on the ACT is roughly a 1500 on the SAT, or about average for the US population. If her ACT score is indicative of her academic talent, I question whether Vanessa belongs in any four year university degree program, let alone UT. It sounds like even using the top 10%/7% admission criteria is a mistake.
Only ten percent of the freshman class can be OOS and international by law. Last year they enrolled only 9 percent. F
I don’t know about that. There are plenty of less-competitive colleges that can provide solid educations. For example, Xavier University of Louisiana’s middle range ACT scores are 20-26. Vanessa would have been a match there, and likely would not have struggled so much.
TIL being average means that you shouldn’t go to a four year university. /sarcasm
Also- 22 puts you in the top 27% of high school graduates. So…
(FWIW, Mr R scored in the low 20s on his ACT but had a 4.0 in high school. Went on to the same top 100 uni as me and graduated with ~3.5. We know that for most people, high school GPA is a better predictor of college GPA than any test scores.)
Back to the “critical mass” concept.
There are a lot of logic holes about critical mass being, not about illegal quotas, but being about:
- sufficient numbers to bring the educational benefits of diverse views to the classroom
- preventing a small group from feeling isolated and being forced to be the spokesmen of their race
With nearly identical percentages at UT for Asian & Hispanic students, why is the percentage of Hispanic students insufficient to bring diversity of views to the classroom, but the percentage of Asians sufficient?
If 5% Black students at UT makes them feel isolated, then should NativeAm & PacIslanders (both at 0.1% at UT) be admitted in numbers exceeding their state or US percentages, so they don’t have to feel isolated and be the spokesmen of their races? Or are the feelings of NativeAm and PacIslanders irrelevant because they are an inconsequential voting block?
The demographic breakdown:
Data Columns
1. UT Freshman class entering in 2015 (percentages after int’l students subtracted)
2. Texas state population (2010 Census)
3. USA population (2010 Census)
UT | Texas | USA |
43.3% | 43.5% | 62.1% | White, non-Hisp
24.1% | 4.5% | 5.4% | Asian ,non-Hisp
23.2% | 38.6% | 17.4% | Hispanic/Latino
4.8% | 12.5% | 13.2% | Black/AfAm, non-Hisp
3.6% | 1.8% | 2.5% | MultiRacial, non-Hisp
0.1% | 0.1% | 0.2% | Hawaiian/PacIslander ,non-Hisp
0.1% | 1.0% | 1.2% | NativeAm,non-Hisp
What’s interesting about these percentages is that it’s not the White students that are losing proportional slots at UT; they are aligned with their percentage of the Texas population. It’s the Asian admits that are really out of alignment. The Asians are the elephant in the room that are strangely not mentioned by either side in the case.
GMT:
using the % of state residents is probably not the correct stat. Instead, should it not be % of HS grads that meet the minimum admission requirement for UT?
My point in showing muliple sets of demographic percentages is: what is the basis of the quota that UT is really shooting for?
I couldn’t find recent high school grad population by race for Texas, although Texas has an admirable grad rate for all races.
However, the population of 19 year olds in Texas is (rough, rounded numbers) 34% white, 13% black, 46% Hispanic, 6% other. So as a percentage of Texans of the right age, white students are overrepresented at UT, black students are proportionally represented, and Hispanics are dramatically underrepresented.
quote=TatinG If we look at the colleges and universities that produced the most Black graduates of medical schools, Xavier University is by far the leader of the pack. Some 60 graduates of Xavier University earned their medical degrees in 2011. This was almost double the number of medical school graduates from Howard University, which ranked second nationally. In 2011, 32 Howard graduates earned medical degrees. The University of Florida, Harvard University, Duke University, and Stanford University all had 20 graduates who earned medical degrees in 2011.
[/quote]
According to Xavier University of Louisiana’s Common Data Set, it has 2,504 undergraduates, of whom 1,921 (77%) are Black or African-American. Xavier awarded 330 Bachelor’s degrees in 2012-13. The 6-year graduation rate at Xavier is slightly under 50%.
According to Harvard’s Common Data Set, it has 6,671 undergraduates, of whom 443 (6.6%) are Black or African-American. Harvard awarded 1,650 Bachelor’s degrees in 2012-13. The 6-year graduation rate at Harvard is 97%.
It’s impressive that 60 Black Xavier grads earned medical degrees in 2011—3 times as many as Harvard. But you need to consider that there are far more Black students at Xavier than at Harvard. Roughly 500 Black students enter Xavier as freshmen each year. That means roughly 12% of Black students who enroll at Xavier as freshmen ultimately earn medical degrees–again, a very impressive showing. Roughly 110 Black students enroll at Harvard each year, of whom 20, or 18%, ultimately earn medical degrees, So you can’t say that, statistically speaking, a Black student who enrolls at Xavier is more likely to earn a medical degree than a Black student who enrolls at Harvard; in fact, statistically the Harvard student has a 50% greater chance. And the 6-year graduation rate at Xavier is roughly half that at Harvard. We don’t have racial breakdowns on graduation rates at either school, but Black students so thoroughly dominate the student body at Xavier that the Black graduation rate must be pretty close to the institution’s overall sub-50% 6-year graduation rate; and even if the 6-year graduation rate for Black students at Harvard is somewhat below the institution’s 97% overall rate, it is almost certainly higher than the comparable rate at Xavier. So, statistically speaking, a Black student enrolling at Xavier is far less likely to successfully complete a Bachelor’s degree than a Black student enrolling at Harvard.
Of course, you also need to consider that that median Black student enrolling at Harvard has stronger academic credentials than the median Black student enrolling at Xavier, so that the Black student who succeeds at Harvard would almost certainly also succeed at Xavier. And that’s all well and good, but the brute fact remains that Harvard unabashedly practices affirmative action, and judging by medical school completion rates, its Black/African-American admits do awfully well in their academic pursuits and in positioning themselves for successful professional careers----more so than the leading predominantly Black institution.
Harvard’s uses affirmative action, but it still is admitting the “best of the best”. The middle 50% ACT for Freshman is 33 to 35 at Harvard, it’s 20-25 at Xavier. Comparing Xavier’s performance to Harvard isn’t informative as it relates to affirmative action. Why Xavier, with all of the challenges facing HBCU’s, is able to over perform is an interesting story, but not one germane to this discussion. I had only mentioned them as an interesting aside (and as a shout-out to the other thread).
The point of my post, was that UT-Austin (and the State of Texas public universities) badly under-performs in Black/AA graduation rates, as compared to other public university systems.
This is why (I think) UT-Austin want’s to recruit URM’s during the holistic phase, to improve it’s graduation rates**. They can’t come out and say that, so it’s a dance around “Diversity within Diversity”. The problem with keeping it’s reasons vague (as well as it’s definition of “critical mass”), is it doesn’t met the strict scrutiny standard (according to some on the court).
If UT-Austin had been using 100% holistic admissions that included affirmative action, it would be very difficult to build a case against it. However, the 10% rule is something of a political crutch. It’s easier to get political support for this rule, but, while it seems much less controversial than AA, it is far more limiting and does a rather poor job (IMHO) in handling admissions, as compared to a more holistic approach (that could include AA).
If you’re going to use AA, then USE it. Set clear goals and defend them. If you’re not going to use AA (like the state of Florida), then be prepared to do the hard work required to recruit and support URMs (out reach programs, financial aid programs, etc.).
**and participation rates in UT-Austin’s more rigorous programs, like the College of Engineering.
Very true. It is also why it is at least possible that the Court holds this case over until the Harvard and North Carolina cases make their way up to them so they can deal with the “whole ball of wax” at once.
One minor quibble, I don’t think the 10% rule is a political crutch, I think the 10% rule is a conservative legislature’s way of attempting to ensure geographic and economic diversity without resort to race. In other words, it is the Republican answer to AA. Will be interesting to see if this type of system expands after the decision in this case.
The Texas House was controlled by Democrats in 1997 and Republicans only narrowly controlled the Senate so it wasn’t a Republican notion although it passed with conservative support.
Where do international students fall in all this? I assume from the oral argument for Fisher II that the international students fall into the 25% admitted holistically.
It seems to me the case makes a great deal about a sliver of a sliver–those minority students who might have been admitted only due to race. However, while the percentage is perhaps 1% of the entire undergraduate enrollment, far, far more come from overseas.
https://world.utexas.edu/io/forms/isss/20149.statistical.report.pdf
The top 7% rule has achieved greater diversity at both UT and Texas A&M (where it is top 10%). It has achieved the goal of creating more diverse universities. There are more minority students, more small town kids, etc. I think this is the problem that UT faces when they state they want to use race as a basis for choosing the students who do not get in as an auto admit. And, as one poster suggested, I do think money plays a role because they are charging a lot for out of state kids and they want the in-state kids paying the full tuition. The schools that are really losing out with the top 7% rule are the difficult, large suburban schools where many students with excellent scores do not have a chance.
@Periwinkle the law states 90 percent must come from in state. Of that 90 percent, 75 percent come from top ten percent- which ends up at 7 percent some years and 8 percent others. The 10 percent is left for internationals and OOS.
Correct. But that doesn’t mean 10% must come from OOS. UT could easily make it 1% (or 0%), if they so chose, and admit more doctor’s kids from Dallas or St. Mark’s, who are in the 8-10% of their HS class. 
They choose not to (for all kinds of reasons).