Except that would be illegal, because Prop 209 forbids the state to discriminate against or grant preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, and public contracting.
Any attempts to rebalance on the basis of sex in violation of the law would be even more obvious than attempts to change the racial make-up via “holistic” assessment (which was why there was a failed attempt at repealing Prop 209 last year). Though I can’t imagine many California activists thinking that boosting male opportunities would be something to push for.
It’s even less likely for professors who are required to submit a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion statement as part of hiring. Look at the examples here: https://equity.ucla.edu/programs-resources/faculty-search-process/faculty-search-committee-resources/sample-guidance/ which highlight candidates’ commitment to encouraging more women to participate. Candidates would be laughed out of town (or more likely cancelled permanently) if they said they wanted to encourage more male participation.
I guess I see a different view of testing. When there are free Khan Academy college entrance opportunities and the ability to buy a $20 test prep book at Barnes and Noble instead of opting to buy the latest gadget or clothes or video game purchases- I see a difference in priorities. I am sure there are low income people who prepped and are motivated to take a test. Why take that away from them and others up the economic spectrum. There are ways to prep inexpensively for all exams. So I just find all the uproar in opposing opinions on test prep hypocritical yet ok for the PSAT. What about the high selection scores needed in CA for PSAT- and how that disadvantages Hispanic students in low income areas? I know I am veering off topic and I will stop commenting on this- but it all seems hypocritical to me.
This is an important point. For students who are enrolled in rigorous courses and taught well, prepping for standardized tests and doing well shouldn’t require so much effort and expense. So, the bigger problem I see is weak schooling rather than inability to prep adequately for these tests. That problem, of course, is more challenging to address.
This begins to get to the heart of the matter, and what no one wants to discuss. By and large, the students who do well on the SAT have sound foundations in math and reading, and have had adults around them - since birth - that support their education and instill a love of learning. Test prep may help a little bit, but not as much as some folks claim.
I recall when Khan Academy SAT prep was introduced, it was touted as leveling the playing field for those who could not afford expensive test prep. While I’m certain that it has helped some disadvantaged students, I suspect that far more often it is used by above average students looking to sharpen their skills and get a few more points on the SAT. There isn’t anything wrong with that, though it is one of many attempts to create equal outcomes without examining all of the reasons those outcomes are unequal.
Getting rid of the SAT harms those disadvantaged students who perform well on the SAT and have no other way to distinguish themselves from others in their school with a 4.0. It also harms the 4.0 students with poor academic preparation (no fault of their own) when they are admitted to a college full of students used to rigorous, fast-paced courses - they will quickly fall behind. These students are bright kids who would be better served at a college that might be a down a tier from the top colleges, but ensures that they have the educational supports needed for success.
I did not say anything about basing the new admissions decision-making process on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. I said it would be more fair and more equitable to all. I said it would not be based on factors (Test Scores and GPA) easily gamed by the privileged.
For the past few decades (if not longer) the system has been preferentially tilted toward certain groups. I suggested making it more fair and less preferential.
I beleive that’s true (e.g. I only knew my S took PSAT after the fact). However, if that becomes the alternative colleges use to gauge a student’s academic readiness for college, more students would likely prepare for such a test. Why not take the logic a step further and implement periodic standardized assessment tests instead, perhaps at the end of each school year. Colleges can look at the history of such series of tests to assess the applicant however they wish. The lack of standardization is the problem with HS grades.
How do you get to 50/50 without discriminating on the grounds of sex? We are already at nearly 60/40 female to male at UCLA and trending higher almost every year.
Those colleges that do explicitly seek more balance in certain subjects are forced to discriminate. Ask a ballet dancer about the standard for male vs female dancers. The only question is whether and when someone would sue. In a state where this is the law for public institutions, any major shift would prompt an immediate lawsuit.
And if there was an attempt to enforce equality, you would be very unlikely to achieve it by having 50% males in nursing, teaching, etc just like you can’t get to 50% male dancers even if you lower the admission standards for them. So should we stop the programs that encourage female STEM participation?
This is a very complex problem that is made even more complex in the opaque holistic system of admissions in the US.
I do think that it would be lovely to have 50% male teachers. It would benefit boys to have strong role models in their early education. My daughter had a male kindergarten teacher and he was phenomenal. He also intuitively “got” young boys and his classroom was designed to support them. My son had a male 5th grade teacher that was pivotal in turning around his deep seated aversion for elementary school. He also “got” boys. I also wish that we had 50% male nurses. Their physical strength is an asset in many settings and they are always in high demand by their female coworkers when heavy yet gentle lifting is required. As an ex-ballet dancer turned engineer I can’t say I would recommend more men put on point shoes. They are brutal to your body. Men already participate in spectator activities that are harmful to them so I would not encourage more.
Should we encourage men (and women) to pursue careers that are beyond what they have historically done? Yes! Should we mandate it? No. I think Sweden has done some social engineering in this area and the results were not quite as egalitarian as they thought they might be. It seems than when you strongly encourage people to follow a career that doesn’t suit them it doesn’t work out that well.
And I agree with a previous poster that removing the SAT from consideration by the UCs and CSUs will disproportionately disadvantage boys. Grades for male applicants are on average lower than for female applicants and I don’t know how they plan to remedy or address this issue. I don’t have the answers but I’d like to see a more balanced gender ratio in most colleges. Entrance exams usually level the playing field gender-wise but I don’t see the UCs or any other college system going that route. I don’t know, but the statistics are not great for young boys, both in terms of college attendance or labor participation.
There was a great This American Life episode that dealt with the idea that ‘under-prepared’ students who had great GPAs at less rigorous high schools wouldn’t be able to handle college at UT Austin.
It is worth listening to what happened with one of those students when put into a program UT Austin offers - it might just turn around some of the assumptions being made on this thread in regards to students with discrepant SAT scores.
Your assumptions seem to be based on accepting the notion that the current system is equitable. Your assumptions presume all the current percentages (gender, SES, racial) result from an inherently fair admissions process, thus the results are fair and unbiased, and thus any future admissions process that results in a more even appropriation of admissions must be unfair.
I disagree that the current system is equitable and fair. I would guess that most people agree the current system is not equitable and fair. Granted, maybe not a majority of parents/students on College Confidential boards feel that way, but a majority of the people I speak to (of all genders, races, and SES) feel the process could be improved to be more equitable.
I think we can all agree the current system is not the best. We may disagree on how it can be improved, but almost everyone seems to agree some things should be changed. Again, not all agree the same changes should be made, but most agree some changes should be instituted.
CA is in a tough position. TPTB kept making all these pronoucements of “unbiased” admissions processes, when in reality the segments that were being dispreferenced were the least squeaky. Now that some louder squeaky wheels (white male students and their parents) are going to be dispreferenced, CA will have to admit that shifting from TestScores+GPA to only GPA still leaves a lot of inequitable practices in the process.
Obviously, boys who enter college with lower HS GPAs (whether by 0.10 or 1.50) than girls are capable of completing college and moving on to productive careers. Once admitted to college, the graduation rates of males:females differs by 5 or 9 percentage points, (figure 2) with females graduating at a slightly higher rate. If large numbers of males were admitted to college without the academic skills to graduate, the difference would be larger. Also, the difference decreases as we move from 4yrs-to-graduate to 5 and 6-years-to-graduate, implying that maybe, as you pointed out, males take a little longer to mature overall than females. Not that males are less capable than females, but it may take a year or two for some males to take their education as seriously as females.
That’s why I say that using TestScores+GPA in a competitive manner in the admissions process is inherently inequitable. On their own, once a minimum score/GPA is reached, those two metrics do not predict who is not capable of graduating college. Put another way, in most instances it is an inequitable process to decide admission based on a 4.0 GPA to a 3.6 GPA, or based on a 1520 SAT compared to a 1250 SAT. All students in those ranges can do the work necessary to graduate college. The military doesn’t choose officers based on which cadets have the shiniest shoes - they choose based on who displays the most leadership potential. TestScores+GPA (above a certain level) are the equivalent of shiny shoes. They’re nice to look at, but not very useful in a practical sense.
I’ll admit that higher math scores may be a minimum predictor of success for Engineering majors (and the like) but Engineering majors do not comprise the majority of admissions for most colleges, especially public campuses.
Thus, it is long past time to get to work and create a brand new admissions process. There is no shame in admitting things can be improved. And we would be stupid to think the admissions process is perfect as is. It’s always been in a state of flux, and this is apparently a fluxier state than the past 30 years. I say it’s about time. It’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to the hard work of making things better.
I wanted to make a separate post to address another issue that is used improperly. It is not logical to compare the college admissions process to athletic competitions.
Let’s use a race as an example. In a 1-mile race, there is one way to judge the competitors. They all run 1 mile, and whoever finishes first wins the race. That’s it. There is nothing to judge later, much less six years later. The immediate competition is the only measuring stick for producing a “victor”.
What about that resembles college? Admission to a college is not a race, and no one “wins” on decision day. No one can take their Admissions letter from UCLA, go to a company, and say they won admission so they should be hired for a job. No, students “win” college by staying for 4 (or 5 or 6) years, graduating, and then getting hired. The students who enter at the lower 25% (according to TestScore or GPA) of their cohort can graduate and do just as well in the job market as students who entered at the upper 25% of their cohort.
It is as inherently unfair to judge a student’s college graduation chances (based mainly on TestScores+GPA) entering 12th grade as it would be to stop a 1-mile race at the 100-meter mark, give every racer a lung-capacity test and declare the winner based on whose lungs were stronger at that point. Or to stop a baseball game after the second inning and declare a winner based on batting percentage at that juncture. Those metrics are important in the overall game, but in no way should they be used to decide the victors, and certainly not at such a premature point. However, by basing admissions decisions largely on TestScores+GPA, we have also been deciding who is allowed to graduate from college … before they even got the chance to attend.
Test Scores should have never been as big a factor in the admissions process as they have become. The race to higher and higher GPAs should never have been allowed to dictate admissions decisions. Seriously, we have to be reasonable enough to admit there is no shame in being a 3.8 student, and that most 3.8 High School students should be good enough academics to graduate from most colleges.
Instead of comparing the college admissions process to a sporting event, we should compare it to becoming an author, or mechanic, or teacher, or politician. No one goes from High School to Stephen King in one application season. No 17-year old goes from changing his father’s oil to being a senior mechanic at the local dealership during one application season. No one becomes an award-winning teacher their first year out of college. All these things take time to manifest, and we’d be foolish to look at a dozen high school wannabe authors and decide at that point that eight should not be allowed to continue to learn their craft.
College is not a race. It is a process. Let’s not confuse the two.
This discussion reminds me of a Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote:
“When I’m sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, ‘When there are nine,’ people are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.”
Maybe equal numbers shouldn’t be the goal. Maybe redefining what is “fair” to be about who is most capable rather than by demographic representation should be. Maybe focusing on the disparate preparation for college/pipeline issues is a better use of resources than a new college entrance exam. That sure would make it easier for colleges to compare apples to apples.
I agree. Before we appoint more women to the Supreme Court, we should first do more to ensure more female law school students graduate with the academic wherewithal and judicial knowledge to be qualified to serve on the Supreme Court.
My opinion….there is an ever growing list of colleges who have elected to go test optional (Fairtest.org) and this was before Covid. They have had no difficulty figuring out who to enroll….or not.
Our kids both got caught up in changes to the SAT…one where they added the writing section for all, and one where they deleted it. Also the change eliminating the analogies. The tests those years were not exactly proven commodities…and everyone survived.
There will still be plenty of kids in CA taking the SAT or ACT because some will apply to OOS or private colleges that require one of these tests.
I think the CA public universities know what they are doing.
We don’t have to stop appointing women in the meantime!
But my point is similar to yours I think. College admissions are broken, but part of the fix is investing in k-12. Make sure high school seniors regardless of their background have the wherewithal and knowledge to make good decisions about college. And as you say, understand that 17 is very young to be making monumental decisions. It has to be a process.
Not at all. I’m not making a judgement about the current percentages, in fact I would say all decision processes apart from a lottery are “unfair” in some sense, for example one might argue that the UCs are discriminating against kids who don’t work hard and aren’t intelligent.
I’m simply pointing out that the result is likely to be a further increase in the percentage of girls, which may well have negative social consequences both in college (eg it’s suggested this contributes to a hookup culture) and afterwards (for example if women want to marry high achieving men, and having a large number of disaffected, underachieving men is certainly bad for society). And I don’t believe the UCs will (or are legally able to) do anything about that.
There is never going to be a completely “fair and unbiased” process that relies on holistic admissions, since it is subject to the biases of admissions staff. In fact when viewed in conjunction with the attempt to repeal Prop 209 it is clear that some at the UCs thought the implementation of racial or gender preferences or quotas was their preferred solution.
It may not be possible to eliminate all bias in test or achievement based processes (like Texas’s top 6% rule) either, and it can certainly cause undesirable behaviors (“grade grubbing”), but it is more readily seen as “fair” since the criteria are known in advance.
I’d bet that UC would not care one iota if campuses started to approach 70% female. (And I can guarantee you that they certainly don’t care about marriage prospects.)
btw: both Yale and Harvard Law are matriculating more than 50% women in their first year classes. (Stanford is close to parity.)
That’s a particularly ironic comparison to make since the military requires everyone (officers and enlisted soldiers alike) to take the ASVAB (or the equivalent Air Force/Navy test) which is simply an SAT test in disguise (so much so that there is a concordance table https://www.nrcs.net/Downloads/ASVAB%20CONCORDANCE%20TABLES.pdf). And your score directly dictates which jobs you are eligible for.
I don’t see anyone in the armed forces complaining that it’s discriminatory and should be abolished.
