I’m assuming that’s Lowell high school in CA, not in MA (where I’m from)?
TO was gaining traction long before the Harvard lawsuit and escalated in the wake of covid-related testing issues. I think that is separate from what is happening in CA where test blind policies are being implemented. At most schools, if you have an outstanding test score you can submit it and it may very well help you. In CA they can’t even consider test scores which is very different.
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It is a zero sum game - there are only so many spots. If the goal is to increase representation of some underserved groups, it will come at the cost of decreasing representation of others.
The elephant in the room question, imo, is whether that is ok. Is it de facto racist to do away with a criterion that disproportionately impacts one group? Or is it de facto racist to keep it? Which is worse?
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“So it is certainly plausible to believe that the objective of some people is to reduce the overrepresentation of Asian kids at top UCs…”
While certainly plausible, I really don’t believe that is the objective of the UC system. Asian kids are just collateral damage in a bid to boost attendance of URM’s to make UC ‘look like California’. (And that is much, much easier than trying to fix K-12.)
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Yes, Lowell (San Francisco) is one of the top public high schools in the State (mean SAT ~1350). It had a merit-based (grades, test scores, writing sample, EC’s) admission system until the School Board changed it to a lottery. Lowell is >50% Asian. It is a top feeder to across-the-Bay UC Berkeley.
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More background on Lowell. There’s a documentary coming out about it.
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Please note that Asian-Americans make up of about 34% of the population in San Francisco, while Hispanic- and African-Americans comprise of about 15 and 5% respectively; this disparity in the racial composition of the general population in San Francisco contributes to the observed skew in the racial composition of the student body there (Lowell High School).
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There is already a thread on Try Harder!:
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It seems every selective school that aspires to make their school representative of their population ultimately adopts either a lottery or a quota system. Is there another way?
One of the objectives might as well be to identify and admit the wealthiest among every ethnic and gender subset of applicants, because that is what a TO and test-blind system is going to do.
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Keeping on track with the thread…all of the UCs are need blind, and I haven’t heard anything about them changing that policy.
So it is certainly plausible to believe that the objective of some people is to reduce the overrepresentation of Asian kids at top UCs, just as Harvard has been doing, and as we’ve seen at Lowell high school in SF
Reiterating a point I made above, the UCs were test blind this year and UCB’s freshman class remained disproportionately Asian (I haven’t looked at the other UC first year class race breakdown).
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The College Board itself says that SAT discrepant students tend to be from higher income families, while HS GPA discrepant students tend to be from lower income families ( https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED563419.pdf ). So de-emphasizing SAT scores relative to HS GPA is more likely to favor students from lower income families.
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it depends on your definition of ‘need-blind’. In fact, UC gives admission bonus points to low income kids. (Not saying its bad public policy, but its the opposite of being need-blind.)
Fair enough. But the UCs are already test blind, and are giving consideration for low income applicants. So, are you (and @CTDad-classof2022) saying you think that will change going forward to ‘identify and admit the wealthiest’ as noted in post #149?
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I’m not sure how you come to this conclusion when actual research on this topic points to the opposite - that test optional policies result in an increase in URM and lower SES applicants, and that, as a result, more of these students matriculate at the schools where these policies are in place.
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can’t speak for CT-Dad, but no, I do not agree that test-blind will result in higher ec kids at UC. Holisitic admissions will preclude that from happening. As I stated, UC gives bonus points for low income. UC also gives bonus points for first gen…
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UC Berkeley i’d like you to meet City College.
In most college admissions contexts, “need blind” is defined narrowly, meaning that a college does not look at the applicant’s calculated financial aid need (as defined by the college) for admissions purposes, but does not preclude looking at obvious correlates to financial aid need (e.g. first generation) or lack thereof (e.g. legacy). Nor does it preclude need awareness when setting overall admission policy to can tip the overall admit class toward more or less financial aid need (in terms of this thread, increasing or decreasing the weighting of SAT/ACT in admissions consideration can be expected to have some effect on the overall admit class’ financial aid need).
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“In most college admissions contexts, “need blind” is defined narrowly, meaning that a college does not look at the applicant’s calculated financial aid need (as defined by the college) for admissions purposes, but does not preclude looking at obvious correlates to financial aid need…”
That’s a distinction without a difference. If an Adcom knows that a kid is low income (Williams used to call them ‘low ec’), by definition, they need financial aid. And a a meets-full-need school, its not hard to guesstimate how much aid.
And wrt to UC, they even ask for parental income on the application, albeit a ‘voluntary’ field. Kinda hard to square that circle saying that they are need-blind when they ask for $$ right on the admission application.