He wrote it as an Expose, readers saw it as a "How To" Guide

[hashmander]

They're not being punished.

You roll in with the automatic assumption that SAT scores SHOULD determine who gets into college and then base everything on that. You ASSUME Black people just don't deserve to be in college. You've literally bought their narrative hook, line, and sinker.

If it's fair to arbitrarily judge students by their SAT score, then why not arbitrarily judge races by how much money they make? Like I pointed out above. What's the difference?

The 'ol "I did fine so fukk the rest of y'all" brother.

where the hell did i say that? here is what i will say: in america's racist subjective system whites will always get the biggest piece of the pie whether they deserve it or not. but in an objective system it's possible for a minority to be entitled to the biggest piece. whether that's a result of gaming the system or just being better at it, the numbers back them. i prefer knowing what the requirements are going in instead of relying on someone's gut feeling about me.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

where the hell did i say that?

You said:

it's asians (a minority) that are being punished by the subjectivity.

You can't be being "punished" unless you deserved it in the first place. If you assume the Asians "deserve" to be getting half the seats at Harvard, then by those standards you're assuming that Black people only deserve 1% of the seats.

You can't selectively apply the criteria just to the situations where you think it makes your argument. SATs are bullshyt for the numerous reasons I've already described. You can't toss all that out by just repeating the "objective" word over and over.

Why not just "objectively" admit students based on their family wealth? The amount of money in your bank account is an objective number too, and is even more useful for predicting future college performance than the SAT is. If all you care about is being "objective", then why not use that one?

here is what i will say: in america's racist subjective system whites will always get the biggest piece of the pie whether they deserve it or not. but in an objective system it's possible for a minority to be entitled to the biggest piece. whether that's a result of gaming the system or just being better at it, the numbers back them. i prefer knowing what the requirements are going in instead of relying on someone's gut feeling about me.

You keep pushing an ideological claim that simply doesn't have basis in Black reality.

In the "subjective" system you reject, Blacks get 10% of the seats at Harvard.

In the "objective" system you cape for, Blacks get 1% of the seats at Harvard.

Now you want to cape for "objective" just because you like privileged Asian kids so much?

Like I said, y'all REALLY need to read Weapons of Math Destruction. It shows how "objective" mathematical criteria can result in MORE systematic bias than subjective criteria, because the supposedly "objective" criteria is built heavily on past historic bias and yet the systems just assume those biases as fact without any human element to correct the injustice.


Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

“Cathy O’Neil has seen Big Data from the inside, and the picture isn’t pretty. Weapons of Math Destruction opens the curtain on algorithms that exploit people and distort the truth while posing as neutral mathematical tools. This book is wise, fierce, and desperately necessary.”

“By tracking how algorithms shape people's lives at every stage, O'Neil makes a compelling case that our bot overlords are using data to discriminate unfairly and foreclose democratic choices. If you work with data, or just produce reams of it online, this is a must-read.”

“O’Neil is passionate about exposing the harmful effects of Big Data–driven mathematical models (what she calls WMDs), and she’s uniquely qualified for the task… [She] makes a convincing case that many mathematical models today are engineered to benefit the powerful at the expense of the powerless… [and] has written an entertaining and timely book that gives readers the tools to cut through the ideological fog obscuring the dangers of the Big Data revolution.”

“This taut and accessible volume, the stuff of technophobes’ nightmares, explores the myriad ways in which largescale data modeling has made the world a less just and equal place. O’Neil speaks from a place of authority on the subject… Unlike some other recent books on data collection, hers is not hysterical; she offers more of a chilly wake-up call as she walks readers through the ways the ‘big data’ industry has facilitated social ills such as skyrocketing college tuitions, policing based on racial profiling, and high unemployment rates in vulnerable communities… eerily prescient.”

“Through harrowing real-world examples and lively story-telling, Weapons of Math Destruction shines invaluable light on the invisible algorithms and complex mathematical models used by government and big business to undermine equality and increase private power. Combating secrecy with clarity and confusion with understanding, this book can help us change course before it’s too late.”

“Many algorithms are slaves to the inequalities of power and prejudice. If you don’t want these algorithms to become your masters, read Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil to deconstruct the latest growing tyranny of an arrogant establishment.”

“In this fascinating account, Cathy O'Neil leverages her expertise in mathematics and her passion for social justice to poke holes in the triumphant narrative of Big Data. She makes a compelling case that math is being used to squeeze marginalized segments of society and magnify inequities. Her analysis is superb, her writing is enticing, and her findings are unsettling.”

 

[BoBurnz]

The concept of a meritocratic society is bullshyt. And even if it was real, I certainly wouldn't want to live in one.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Random shyt I ran into via the Malcolm Brogdon thread

Jaylen Brown:

In his year at college, before pausing his degree to play in the NBA, Brown wrote a thesis about how institutionalised sport impacts on education. “I was super emotional reading about it,” he says of his chosen subject. “There’s this idea of America that some people have to win and some have to lose so certain things are in place to make this happen. Some people have to be the next legislators and political elites and some have to fill the prisons and work in McDonald’s. That’s how America works. It’s a machine which needs people up top, and people down low.

“Even though I’ve ended up in a great place, who is to say where I would’ve been without basketball? It makes me feel for my friends. And my little brothers or cousins have no idea how their social mobility is being shaped. I wish more and more that I can explain it to them. Just because I’m the outlier in my neighbourhood who managed to avoid the barriers set up to keep the privileged in privilege, and the poor still poor, why should I forget about the people who didn’t have the same chance as me?”

 

[hashmander]

You said:

You can't be being "punished" unless you deserved it in the first place. If you assume the Asians "deserve" to be getting half the seats at Harvard, then by those standards you're assuming that Black people only deserve 1% of the seats.

You can't selectively apply the criteria just to the situations where you think it makes your argument. SATs are bullshyt for the numerous reasons I've already described. You can't toss all that out by just repeating the "objective" word over and over.

Why not just "objectively" admit students based on their family wealth? The amount of money in your bank account is an objective number too, and is even more useful for predicting future college performance than the SAT is. If all you care about is being "objective", then why not use that one?




You keep pushing an ideological claim that simply doesn't have basis in Black reality.

In the "subjective" system you reject, Blacks get 10% of the seats at Harvard.

In the "objective" system you cape for, Blacks get 1% of the seats at Harvard.

Now you want to cape for "objective" just because you like privileged Asian kids so much?

so now i like "privileged" asian kids. well guess what, the majority of black students at harvard are also privileged. diversity to elite schools is not we need more black and hispanic students from low income backgrounds, it's we need more well off black and hispanic students. so yes they are currently objectively admitting students based on their family wealth. very few in fact actually satisfy the goals of affirmative action and who was suppose to benefit from it.

i want more black students from poor families in virginia for example being able to take advantage of UVA's free tuition, books, room and board for those accepted from households making less than $30k (or free tuition alone for less than $80k). when these types of programs started becoming popular a decade or so ago i use to think "wow, what a game changer." but it's not really because these schools don't expect to admit many meeting the $30k criteria. i feel the best way to go about taking them up on their offer in a society that is rapidly souring on affirmative action is for us to play the standardized testing game to win.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

so now i like "privileged" asian kids. well guess what, the majority of black students at harvard are also privileged.

Please, this is a serious topic so don't juelz around it. You're okay with doubling the number of Asian kids at Harvard at the cost of losing 90% of the Black kids. If you don't think that those Asian kids who would be added aren't significantly more privileged in important ways that the Black kids who would be getting moved out, then what do you think the difference is?

diversity to elite schools is not we need more black and hispanic students from low income backgrounds, it's we need more well off black and hispanic students. so yes they are currently objectively admitting students based on their family wealth. very few in fact actually satisfy the goals of affirmative action and who was suppose to benefit from it.

Yes, so we agree that the "objective" portion of the current standards heavily favor wealthy families. However, there ARE a number of Black students at Harvard from poor families. Virtually all of those would be kicked out if we went with your "purely objective" model. Is that what you favor?

i want more black students from poor families in virginia for example being able to take advantage of UVA's free tuition, books, room and board for those accepted from households making less than $30k (or free tuition alone for less than $80k). when these types of programs started becoming popular a decade or so ago i use to think "wow, what a game changer." but it's not really because these schools don't expect to admit many meeting the $30k criteria.

Well, that's because 90% of the issue is in K-12, households, and local communties, tbh.

i feel the best way to go about taking them up on their offer in a society that is rapidly souring on affirmative action is for us to play the standardized testing game to win.

Which you could only do if you address the 10 racially disparate issues I pointed out above. How do you plan on doing that?

 

[get these nets]

I'm assuming ya'all think that just because you don't realize how biased these tests are and how much they simply measure how good your family had things.

Imagine if I made the following argument.
"I'm never going to trust any institution's subjective evaluation of my skin color because White people run all the institutions and White people are super racist. So I think that people of all races should be judged solely by how much wealth they control. Sure, white people control way more wealth than black people, but at least it's objective. If you want to be judged better than make more wealth."

You realize the enormous hole you'd dig for yourself if you decided that "objective" wealth was a more fair measure to judge a race than "subjective" opinion?

SAT scores don't limit racism, they give it cover. Just like judging people by their bank account, you're taking a judgment system that correlates strongly by race and then claiming it is "objective" so therefore it's not going to be racist. SAT scores favor White people over Black people in at least ten ways that I can think of:

1. Wealth - students with more money score higher due to access to a large range of advantageous life circumstances. White people control far more wealth than Black people.

2. School quality - students who go to better schools score higher. White people go to far better schools than Black people.

3. Colloquial language patterns - the test is geared towards the kind of language most White people speak every day. In fact, the gap between white and black performance on the SAT verbal is LARGEST for the "easier" questions and SMALLEST for the "harder" questions, virtual proof that the questions are racially biased. White people get the "easy" grammar questions right because they're just natural speech patterns for them, while Black people from households that don't speak that way have to work that much harder to answer everything.

4. Flynn effect - the more generations a population has access to abstract thought processes, the better they tend to perform on abstract tests, even if they aren't actually any smarter in real-world application of those abstractions. The average IQ score in developed nations goes up by about 3 points every decade due to this effect. But Black people in general have had access to abstract education and professions for a much shorter time period than White people, because they were purposely frozen out of that schooling for hundreds of years.

5. Stereotype effect - Black students perform significantly worse on tests when they believe that the test will reflect on their race. It's an extra level of test anxiety that White students never have to consider.

6. Verbal home environment - standardized test scores often correlate to the number of words a child hears from adults during their early development. Black kids tend to hear far far fewer words from adults over the course of a day than White kids, in part because they're more likely to be raised by single mothers or by low-wage parents who have to be at work all the time.

7. Generation effect - White students are far more likely to have had a more educated parent, more professionals in their extended family, less family debt, a better extended family safety net, and a whole range of other advantages born out of generational racism.

8. Schooling experience differences - Black students are more likely to be schooled in classrooms that have larger class sizes, in classes where they are a minority, by teachers of a different race than themselves, and with subject matter that doesn't reflect their own experience - all of which has been shown to depress student performance.

9. Environment differences - the average Black student grows up with significantly more stress, in a more dangerous neighborhood, in a noisier neighborhood, with more exposure to pollution, with poorer nutrition, with poor health care, and so on - all of which affect performance.

10. Test prep culture - even for the families that could afford test prep, there isn't the same culture of test prep in Black communities, so wealthy White and Asian communities have far more test prep tutors available who are more skilled at their jobs, and they have a greater peer push to take advantage of them. A lot of Black families don't even know such things exist.


How are you going to level that playing field? Some of those things can be addressed by a particularly motivated student or parent, but only if the parent is especially proactive. Others CAN'T be addressed by anything except fighting for much greater equality over multiple generations.

if we say that 98% of Black kids just aren't going to get such opportunities until equality is reached, how the hell is equality going to be reached?

Topic of this thread was initially about selective schools and their use of standardized test scores as part of the criteria for admission.
The ten ways you outlined which "show that SATs favor white people over Black people" are about social class as well as race.
I think that we'd both agree that each of those "ways" would continue to apply to the super competitive academic environment that each of the students faces once admitted into an elite school. I don't see why you would question why one of the entry barriers to such institutions would mirror the reality of being a student there.

Prep schools and boarding schools are what feeds the top colleges. Students from high performing public schools or individual high academic achievers from regular high schools round out the list of kids who get accepted into these schools.
In fact I'd imagine that the two tier system is still in place with children of wealthy parents...and bright children of humble backgrounds making up the majority of students. That reason is financial. Wealthy parents can afford to pay tuition easily, students from poor backgrounds get financial aid packages (or tuition waived at the top schools) that allow them to attend. Middle class kids can find themselves on the outside....parents make too much to qualify for packages.....but would struggle to pay the full tuition. That (high achieving)middle class kid would opt to take the full scholarship to a state school.

Now, entrance into an elite college isn't a right, so I'm also questioning why you think it's unfair for them to use an existing standardized testing system and reward only the top scorers.
-----

If we're talking about the use of the S.A.T. as part of criteria for college admission in general, how are you questioning schools using that existing system to evaluate applicants and use cutoff scores for entrance? From what I'm told, state schools and public universities place less emphasis on board scores. Students take placement exams once admitted so that that they are placed in the right classes.

 

[hashmander]

Please, this is a serious topic so don't juelz around it. You're okay with doubling the number of Asian kids at Harvard at the cost of losing 90% of the Black kids. If you don't think that those Asian kids who would be added aren't significantly more privileged in important ways that the Black kids who would be getting moved out, then what do you think the difference is?




Yes, so we agree that the "objective" portion of the current standards heavily favor wealthy families. However, there ARE a number of Black students at Harvard from poor families. Virtually all of those would be kicked out if we went with your "purely objective" model. Is that what you favor?




Well, that's because 90% of the issue is in K-12, households, and local communties, tbh.




Which you could only do if you address the 10 racially disparate issues I pointed out above. How do you plan on doing that?

that was no jeulzing, the average black and hispanic student and the average asian student at harvard share the same economic advantages. harvard's black students aren't being drawn from the general black population, they are being selected from a specific subset of black people with the same advantages as their non-black harvard peers. yes there are poor black students with tuition, room and board waivers, but there are also poor students of every race at harvard with those waivers.

i started noticing this when i was at UCLA. on campus there were two areas of over-representation by minorities. the total number of asians on campus in general and the number of black athletes in the major sports. in both areas they were judged on objective criteria: gpa, ap test scores & standardized test scores for admission and athletic ability for athletic scholarships. we're going to have to adapt to a changing situation because affirmative action is going away in our lifetime like it did in the big states. i want to get ahead of it now before it's put on us wholesale.

i didn't even know taking the SAT in middle school was a thing (I took the PSAT in 9th grade) for familiarization and talent identification until a neighborhood kid where I have my rental property saw me and asked if he could mow the lawn to pay for the SAT and I was like how old are you? after he told me what was up I just gave him the money and told him I'll be dropping off some books next time. I'm for helping anyone who shows interest in beating these people at their own game.

as for the 10 issues you listed. i see only one affecting middle and upper middle class black students with immigrant parents (that's the general profile of a black student at harvard) more when compared to asian harvard students with immigrant parents and that's: 5. Stereotype effect. the rest aren't problems the majority of black students at harvard are facing.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Topic of this thread was initially about selective schools and their use of standardized test scores as part of the criteria for admission.
The ten ways you outlined which "show that SATs favor white people over Black people" are about social class as well as race.
I think that we'd both agree that each of those "ways" would continue to apply to the super competitive academic environment that each of the students faces once admitted into an elite school. I don't see why you would question why one of the entry barriers to such institutions would mirror the reality of being a student there.

No, we wouldn't agree. I don't think you understand how tilted and arbitrary abstract standardized tests are, far worse than the typical coursework experience. Once again, SAT scores add NO predictive value towards whether someone will finish school or not.

The scam of admissions was probably most clearly revealed in the recent T.M. Landry College Prep scandal, where numerous kids (mostly minorities from low-income backgrounds with relatively poor school preparation) had their applications falsified by their school so that they could get admitted to top-flight colleges like Harvard. You know what the real scandal is? That a lot of those kids with false applications did just fine at those elite schools anyway.

T.M. Landry and the Myth of Meritocracy in Education - The Atlantic

But this is where the T. M. Landry accusations begin to look truly destabilizing, because now its miracles appear to be fictions. Many of its graduates were, by all accounts, hard-working and dedicated, but otherwise merely mortal. And yet, they did not implode the moment they breathed the rarified air of the Ivy League. Some struggled or dropped out, but a number of Landry students—particularly those who had spent more time in traditional schools—simply continued to advance.

This, to be blunt, raises some uncomfortable questions about who belongs in those colleges and universities. These are schools that treat selectivity as a necessary precondition for academic rigor, and then rely on that same selectivity to explain their racially and economically lopsided enrollments. One recent study showed that about 25 percent of graduates from the 99th income percentile attend an “elite” school. The comparable figure for the poorest quintile, even before taking race into account, is one-half of 1 percent. Why do the rules seem so different for white students from affluent backgrounds? Surely plenty of them are relatively average scholars, and yet they don’t make headlines when they’re accepted to an elite institution. And, generally speaking, affluent white students aren't asked to surmount drill-instructor discipline and punishing, all-work-no-play schooling to prove their worth.

America’s supposedly meritocratic system of elite higher education revolves around an intensive search for the most capable students. But if no one seems to know how to find those students when they come from the wrong background, and plenty of other people seem at least sufficiently capable, what’s the point of it all? If relatively ordinary people have a chance of success at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, why are so many ordinary people kept out—especially those who grow up black and lower-income? When so many suitable Ivy Leaguers can be found in the nonmiraculous town of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, surely plenty can be found in other poor communities of color, too. One could even start to wonder if anything would truly be lost if the gates of the elite academy were thrown open to a much wider range of people.

That’s the real mystery of T. M. Landry. But this one might prove too dangerous to solve.

Now, entrance into an elite college isn't a right, so I'm also questioning why you think it's unfair for them to use an existing standardized testing system and reward only the top scorers.

You're right, since entrance into an elite college isn't a "right", we should just shoot for a system that would arbitrarily exclude nearly all Black students.

If we're talking about the use of the S.A.T. as part of criteria for college admission in general, how are you questioning schools using that existing system to evaluate applicants and use cutoff scores for entrance? From what I'm told, state schools and public universities place less emphasis on board scores. Students take placement exams once admitted so that that they are placed in the right classes.

I'm saying that the SAT is a worthless part of that existing system. A student's coursework, recommendations, interviews, and body of achievement are more than adequate, as the elite schools which have made testing optional have already proven.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

that was no jeulzing, the average black and hispanic student and the average asian student at harvard share the same economic advantages.

A. You can't just make random claims and expect me to believe that they're true
B. Economic advantages are not the only ones, as I pointed out above.

harvard's black students aren't being drawn from the general black population, they are being selected from a specific subset of black people with the same advantages as their non-black harvard peers. yes there are poor black students with tuition, room and board waivers, but there are also poor students of every race at harvard with those waivers.

This is absolutely striking to me.

A. What is your proof for the claim that black students at Harvard have the "same advantages" as their non-black peers?
B. Are you aware that in the USA, there are significant disadvantages to being black that go BEYOND income level?

i started noticing this when i was at UCLA. on campus there were two areas of over-representation by minorities. the total number of asians on campus in general and the number of black athletes in the major sports. in both areas they were judged on objective criteria: gpa, ap test scores & standardized test scores for admission and athletic ability for athletic scholarships. we're going to have to adapt to a changing situation because affirmative action is going away in our lifetime like it did in the big states. i want to get ahead of it now before it's put on us wholesale.

You're acting like Black people only underperform on the SAT cause they don't give a shyt or something, and if they did then everything would be fine.

as for the 10 issues you listed. i see only one affecting middle and upper middle class black students with immigrant parents (that's the general profile of a black student at harvard) more when compared to asian harvard students with immigrant parents and that's: 5. Stereotype effect. the rest aren't problems the majority of black students at harvard are facing.

Yes, if you assume that every Black student at Harvard is a high-income immigrant who went to a great school then there's no problem at all.

 

[hashmander]

A. You can't just make random claims and expect me to believe that they're true
B. Economic advantages are not the only ones, as I pointed out above.




This is absolutely striking to me.

A. What is your proof for the claim that black students at Harvard have the "same advantages" as their non-black peers?
B. Are you aware that in the USA, there are significant disadvantages to being black that go BEYOND income level?




You're acting like Black people only underperform on the SAT cause they don't give a shyt or something, and if they did then everything would be fine.




Yes, if you assume that every Black student at Harvard is a high-income immigrant who went to a great school then there's no problem at all.

and you've actually assumed all these asian students admitted are privileged ... claiming that i'm caping for privileged asian students specifically (i guess over privileged whites, blacks and hispanics? ). i never said every black student is "a high-income immigrant who went to a great school " so how could I be assuming that? I said the typical, meaning more than the majority of black students at harvard come from a well off background, are children of immigrants and I could add bi-racial to this mix too and didn't have those other 9 obstacles you listed which are centered around poverty. for every group at harvard, their "typical" is well off. less than 5% of their students come from the bottom 20% and 67% from the top 20, 53% from the top 10%. harvard is a playground for the well off regardless of race. the poor are the lucky few they allowed in to experience it all.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

and you've actually assumed all these asian students admitted are privileged ... claiming that i'm caping for privileged asian students specifically

I didn't have to assume - the specific group of Asians that would be helped by your proposal are the ones that have high SAT scores and lots of AP tests but who did still aren't admitted. That group is disproportionately privileged for numerous reasons already detailed.

(i guess over privileged whites, blacks and hispanics? ).

Only 11% fewer Whites would be admitted, most of the rejects would be legacies, so yes, those are privileged Whites.

But 90% fewer Blacks and 78% fewer Hispanics would be admitted, and those are the ones who DON'T have great SAT scores or AP classes, so they are almost certainly coming from less privilege than the Asians who are now getting it.

i never said every black student is "a high-income immigrant who went to a great school " so how could I be assuming that?

You completely dismissed the other 9 points because high-income immigrants who went to great schools don't face such problems. You didn't deal with any of those other 9 points at all. So yes, your argument only works if you don't give a shyt about any of the other Black students.

And you still have provided zero citations that the large majority of Black students at Harvard are high-income immigrants who went to good schools.

for every group at harvard, their "typical" is well off. less than 5% of their students come from the bottom 20% and 67% from the top 20, 53% from the top 10%. harvard is a playground for the well off regardless of race. the poor are the lucky few they allowed in to experience it all.

NOTHING in that link supports your point. Black students could easily be disproportionately represented among poorer Harvard students, and they are almost certainly disproportionately underprivileged compared to the other Harvard students.

Yes, most students at Harvard are wealthy. Everything I've posted should show you that increasing the reliance on SAT scores will make that MORE true, not less. Yet you keep ignoring that basic fact.

 

[get these nets]

No, we wouldn't agree. I don't think you understand how tilted and arbitrary abstract standardized tests are, far worse than the typical coursework experience. Once again, SAT scores add NO predictive value towards whether someone will finish school or not.

The scam of admissions was probably most clearly revealed in the recent T.M. Landry College Prep scandal, where numerous kids (mostly minorities from low-income backgrounds with relatively poor school preparation) had their applications falsified by their school so that they could get admitted to top-flight colleges like Harvard. You know what the real scandal is? That a lot of those kids with false applications did just fine at those elite schools anyway.

T.M. Landry and the Myth of Meritocracy in Education - The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/educati...landry-and-myth-meritocracy-education/578149/

Wait, what is this story supposed to prove? That people who didn't get into top schools could the complete degree course work?
Phi Beta Kappa keys and Rhodes Scholarships are awarded to students from non elite colleges every year.There are students who graduate summa cum laude from non elite schools every year. It's reasonable to conclude that would have done well in any setting.

In fact, this recent scandal will show that most of the kids who had parents cheat, lie, bribe them into the schools do well and graduate once admitted.

The admissions criteria is what it is ,though and that high bar for entrance (GPA, board scores, essay ,recommendations, activities) is what attracts some of the top students in the world for undergrad. Equally stringent admissions criteria are used for the law schools, business schools and medical schools at these top universities. Standardized test scores for those applicants are used as a universal measuring stick to compare those applicants. I'd bet that some of the ones who didn't make the cut, could compete and thrive in those programs.
Using the current metrics ,attracting the top performers and having them compete against each other for grades is what elite schools are about.

You're right, since entrance into an elite college isn't a "right", we should just shoot for a system that would arbitrarily exclude nearly all Black students.

There are all types of colleges in the United States, each level with their own admissions criteria. Not getting into a top school doesn't mean that a person cannot attend college and pursue a degree. Without standardized tests, it would be more difficult for college to evaluate and compare applicants.
"Exclude all Blacks?" Again, I'm an immigrant from a non English speaking country, who grew up in a decaying Northeast urban center.........I know about competing against people with social advantages, but this world you speak of ,where Blacks do not score high on standardized tests is foreign to me. I'm not from their circle , but I know of and competed against Black students from affluent backgrounds who seemed to have most of the social advantages listed earlier.
Those "ten ways" you listed earlier involve race AND social class.What % of whites score in the top 10 percentile of the SAT? Does the system arbitrarily exclude the ones who don't ?

I'm saying that the SAT is a worthless part of that existing system. A student's coursework, recommendations, interviews, and body of achievement are more than adequate, as the elite schools which have made testing optional have already proven.

Without a universal measuring stick, it becomes more difficult to assess, evaluate,and compare applicants. It becomes a decidedly more subjective process.
I read a few articles about the U. of Chicago and their score optional application process.How many years do you think it will take for that decision to lead to an increase in % of Black students there.

 

[hashmander]

I didn't have to assume - the specific group of Asians that would be helped by your proposal are the ones that have high SAT scores and lots of AP tests but who did still aren't admitted. That group is disproportionately privileged for numerous reasons already detailed.




Only 11% fewer Whites would be admitted, most of the rejects would be legacies, so yes, those are privileged Whites.

But 90% fewer Blacks and 78% fewer Hispanics would be admitted, and those are the ones who DON'T have great SAT scores or AP classes, so they are almost certainly coming from less privilege than the Asians who are now getting it.




You completely dismissed the other 9 points because high-income immigrants who went to great schools don't face such problems. You didn't deal with any of those other 9 points at all. So yes, your argument only works if you don't give a shyt about any of the other Black students.

And you still have provided zero citations that the large majority of Black students at Harvard are high-income immigrants who went to good schools.




NOTHING in that link supports your point. Black students could easily be disproportionately represented among poorer Harvard students, and they are almost certainly disproportionately underprivileged compared to the other Harvard students.

Yes, most students at Harvard are wealthy. Everything I've posted should show you that increasing the reliance on SAT scores will make that MORE true, not less. Yet you keep ignoring that basic fact.

so you start talking about the financial profile of the asians WHO DIDN'T get in and then turn that into "so they are almost certainly coming from less privilege than the asians who are now getting it." your first point about the wealth of the rejected could possibly be true because maybe there was a reason harvard rejected those asians with great "stats" (maybe it was the hard quota and they said enough already), but you can't then make the claim that the asians who are now getting IN are wealthier than the blacks and hispanics who are getting in. there isn't anything to support that, in fact this refutes it:

The Harvard Crimson | Class of 2022 By the Numbers

White students were more likely than were students belonging to any other demographic to report an annual income above $250,000. About 33.5 percent of white freshmen did so. A much smaller percentage of admits of color — 21.6 percent of black students, 18.9 percent of Hispanic/Latinx students, and 19.7 percent of Asian students — reported a combined family income above that level.

Most Black Students at Harvard Are From High-Income Families

I never said all the black students at Harvard are rich, but you're sticking to this claim that every asian there is this rich kid who had greater privilege than his peers in other minorities at Harvard. The numbers don't support that. They aren't the equal of whites at Harvard when it comes to wealth. More black students might be in the under $40k family income group since the number of asians at Harvard being first generation in the current class is less (14.8%) than the black number (23.7%) and 45% of all first generation students are from under $40k families. but again those asians exist too apparently.

Roughly 40 percent of Hispanic/Latinx respondents indicated they are first-generation students, as did 23.7 percent of black students, 14.8 percent of Asian students, and 10.4 percent of white students.

• First-generation students were more likely to report a lower family income than were non-first generation students, according to the survey results. Roughly 9 percent of first-generation respondents reported a family income of over $125,000. About half — 45.7 percent — of first-generation students said they come from a family that makes a combined income of $40,000 or less.
• Nearly all first-generation students said they are also beneficiaries of the College’s financial aid program, with 93.8 percent reporting they are receiving financial assistance.

so the more first generation students you have, the greater the odds that they are in that 45.7% increases. So let's assume that most of the under $40k group are hispanic, then black, asian and white.

I read all 10 points. You think because I dismiss them for the majority of Harvard's black students compared to their asian classmates that I dismiss it for every black person in general and that's far from the truth. I'm just pointing out that Harvard isn't playing in that playground. Those kids who are largely affected by that are enrolling elsewhere.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

"Exclude all Blacks?" Again, I'm an immigrant from a non English speaking country, who grew up in a decaying Northeast urban center.........I know about competing against people with social advantages, but this world you speak of ,where Blacks do not score high on standardized tests is foreign to me. I'm not from their circle , but I know of and competed against Black students from affluent backgrounds who seemed to have most of the social advantages listed earlier.

I wanna start here because I feel you keep making arguments that defy objective reality.

The reality is that if you only used raw numbers like standardized tests, 90% of the Black students who currently get into Harvard do not get in. The reality is that if standardized tests were the measure, Harvard would be only 1% Black (and nearly all of that 1% would be from the most privileged slice of the Black population). Therefore the world where the vast majority of Black students do not score high enough IS reality.

Wait, what is this story supposed to prove? That people who didn't get into top schools could the complete degree course work?
Phi Beta Kappa keys and Rhodes Scholarships are awarded to students from non elite colleges every year.There are students who graduate summa cum laude from non elite schools every year. It's reasonable to conclude that would have done well in any setting.

But the T.M. Laundry story isn't talking about the greatest students in non-elite schools. We're talking about low-income non-White kids who had poor high school preparation. THOSE kids were succeeding at Ivy League schools even though they got in by fraud. That's a direct refutation of your suggestion that the biases in the system which lead to disparate SAT results will also make those kids unable to succeed if they did get in.

And I'm concerned that you keep using some of the most inappropriate comparisons. Only 0.001% of the college students in America get a Rhodes Scholarship, and if you take out the elite schools you cut that by more than half. Pointing out that a tiny percentage of kids can win a prize has literally nothing to do with pointing out that a SIGNIFICANT number of Landry students do just fine in elite schools.

The admissions criteria is what it is ,though and that high bar for entrance (GPA, board scores, essay ,recommendations, activities) is what attracts some of the top students in the world for undergrad. Equally stringent admissions criteria are used for the law schools, business schools and medical schools at these top universities. Standardized test scores for those applicants are used as a universal measuring stick to compare those applicants. I'd bet that some of the ones who didn't make the cut, could compete and thrive in those programs.
Using the current metrics ,attracting the top performers and having them compete against each other for grades is what elite schools are about.

None of that is an argument for why they should be using a basically arbitrary metric that has nothing to do with what the student will do in college, does not predict their ability to succeed in college, and is heavily a measure of

You're also not explaining how the University of Chicago, one of the top schools in the country, feels like they can get on without requiring the SAT.

You're also not addressing the argument that the only reason the SAT is emphasized so much at this point is due to arbitrary college rankings by third-rate newsmagazines, which rely on SATs only becuase they're too unsophisticated to do anything else.

There are all types of colleges in the United States, each level with their own admissions criteria. Not getting into a top school doesn't mean that a person cannot attend college and pursue a degree. Without standardized tests, it would be more difficult for college to evaluate and compare applicants.

Except that there's 0 evidence that SATs help colleges evaluate applicants in any meaningful way. In fact, evidence is that the SAT does NOT predict the end results for students.

I keep asking you why the colleges can't just replace the "SAT score" with "Bank account total". What would be the effective difference?

Those "ten ways" you listed earlier involve race AND social class.What % of whites score in the top 10 percentile of the SAT? Does the system arbitrarily exclude the ones who don't ?

Yes, the system arbitrarily excludes many people of all races. But I hope you can see that Black people are disproportionately impacted more than Whites for literally every single one of the ten points I listed.

Without a universal measuring stick, it becomes more difficult to assess, evaluate,and compare applicants. It becomes a decidedly more subjective process.
I read a few articles about the U. of Chicago and their score optional application process.How many years do you think it will take for that decision to lead to an increase in % of Black students there.

It depends on their objectives. Since the SAT adds virtually no information but only confirms the existing bias in the system, you could remove the SAT and still retain all the exact same biases. But retaining the SAT cements the biases, while removing it at least creates the option to defy them.