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Asian-American admissions at Harvard

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Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#81

Post by jakecopp »

barry-cotter wrote: post #54
sien wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Australian National University, headed by the Nobel Prize winning Brian Schmidt is going to change their admissions policy to be more like the US. http://theconversation.com/anus-new-entrance-criteria-wont-d... Amongst Australian academics there is a push to change ATAR allegedly because it reflects socio-economic status (SES) too much. https://theconversation.com/should-we-scrap-the-atar-what-ar... Andrew Norton…

Replacing ATAR with more holistic admissions is like the campaign to get rid of the GRE in graduate admissions, a combination of the ignorant and venal. The well connected, rich and prestigious will get ahead just fine in a system where academic merit is not the one and only measure. Amusing that ANU is changing to keep out Asians the same way the Ivy League did to keep out Jews.

The ATAR isn't broken as such, the process of getting one is.

For a NSW student a good ATAR means you can ace a test after 2 years of study, where as Canberra/ACT focuses a lot more on project work and has much more flexibility in subjects.

The difference of experience between Canberra/ACT high school leavers and NSW school leavers is staggering, especially when it comes to project work.

The Canberra secondary school system is incredible, and the rest of Australia could learn a lot from it. Happy to elaborate if anyone is interested.

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#82

Post by colordrops »

learc83 wrote: post #45
colordrops wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it is case that native speakers of a specific dialect score higher, it's not clear that the result is due to language barriers, and could be a correlation with socio-economic groups. That is the point of bringing up non-native speakers doing well, as the test is not even their native language, which is certainly a greater disadvantage than a different dialect.

So you don't think that there is an advantage gained by being a native speaker of a dialect a test is written in? The academic consensus is that there is. The clearest example is that vocabulary is a large part of most standardized tests and native speakers have larger vocabularies than proficient L2 speakers.

I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that it's not clear that the advantage is so much as to be a relevant factor. I grew up in a very poor minority neighborhood and the language the teachers used in school was the same as the ones on the standardized test, so it's not like I wasn't prepared.

It's almost insulting to think that dialect matters that much considering how much exposure everyone gets to the mainstream dialect.

In China they've got a standard dialect and there doesn't appear to be any advantage for those that are from the area north of Beijing where the dialect originates.

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#83

Post by rdl »

With computer based testing, we should be able to make a far better test than the SAT -- something where being able to master it would actually be solid evidence of both "g" and knowledge.

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#84

Post by int_19h »

pessimizer wrote: post #71

Let's be honest here; bias towards blacks and hispanics is intended to address larger societal inequities, and assumes a rough justice is to aim for representation of those groups at their proportion of the population. Bias against Asian admissions is aiming for the same outcome - maintaining white proportion in the student body at a similar level as the wider population, though without the aim of addressing societal…

> Separately: minorities face material discrimination at every income and wealth level. I understand that it's tough for some white people to support anything positive that they're left out of, but racial bias in college admissions is meant to be a counterbalance to other, negative things that white people were also left out of, at every income and wealth level.

Thing is, it's just not sustainable. No matter how it is justified in the grand scope of things, for an individual that was rejected over someone on the basis of race (or any other trait they have no control over), it will feel unfair, and rightly so. In aggregate, this creates long-term resentment that is focused on the very traits you're trying to mitigate discrimination over. Eventually, you get pushback - and since the group pushing back is the majority, it can get really nasty (indeed, to some extent, we're already observing it).

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#86

Post by learc83 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #77
learc83 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ tests are gameable to a degree. They are accurate across large populations largely because most people don't practice, not because they are actually ungameable. SATs are different in 2 respects. 1. There is a large incentive to practice. 2. It isn't an IQ test, it only correlates fairly strongly with scores on IQ tests. SATs are highly knowledge based--most of the math questions can be answered by memorizing algor…

The SAT is highly g loaded and it correlates with tests that are designed and marketed as IQ tests at levels sufficient that saying it isn’t one is quibbling. The lowest estimate I found for IQ SAT correlation was an r^2 of 0.76. SATs are more knowledge based than a test designed to be culture fair, like Raven’s Progressive Matrices but they’re not meant to be culture fair either, they’re for testing educated English…

Vocabulary correlates with IQ about as strongly as SAT score, yet vocabulary can clearly be hugley improved with practice.

Even if correlation with IQ somehow proved score durability, a correlation of 0.76 or even .8 is low enough to allow for huge swings away from IQ in a very large percentage of the population.

A big chunk of students practicing and increasing their scores 200-300 points could easily be hiding in that 0.76 correlation.

>As far as algorithms and vocabulary go, most people have limited ability to follow complex algorithms because that requires a lot of working memory, which correlates with... Intelligence!

Most algorithms at that level are designed to be written out step by step explicitly to reduce working memory requirements.

Part of SAT prep is learning algorithms for solving word problems that reduce working memory load by memorizing patterns in the questions and writing down the components in a standardized form.

You said

>As far as algorithms and vocabulary go

And then never mentioned vocabulary.

It has nothing to do with working memory and most definitely can be improved dramatically with practice.

One more thing. The SAT was rewritten in 2016 to be far more content based, so the correlation with IQ will likely fall even further.

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#87

Post by lotsofpulp »

jpao79 wrote: post #74
rdtsc wrote: post #15

The linked report (exhibit A) is interesting to read: http://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-c... It would seem at first that Harvard wants to help poor students and race just happens to be a proxy for socioeconomic status, but it turns out that's not what they are doing: > Harvard’s preferential treatment of African-American and Hispanic applicants is not the result of efforts to achieve socioeco…

There could be a case that it is not just for photographs but it is actually the marketing pitch for the value proposition of Harvard over, as the Tyler Cowen mentions, UC Irvine. If you are trying to train and prepare a student to lead global teams, set global government policy, guide diverse groups toward a common solution, etc., you will need exposure to a diverse set of ideas and a diverse future network of fello…

>If you are trying to train and prepare a student to lead global teams, set global government policy, guide diverse groups toward a common solution,

That's a pretty big if, people in power like to keep it in their network.

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#88

Post by lotsofpulp »

yashevde wrote: post #60

"A group that claims Harvard puts quotas on Asian-American applicants contends the university scores them higher than students of other races on academics and extracurricular activities but ranks them lowest in a "personal" category covering such traits as likability and 'attractive to be with.' " - https://cnn.it/2ldoPd1 That last parameter - "attractive to be with" - is aggravating. What is this, a matchmaking inst…

Yes, it is. At the higher end of the socioeconomic scale, your network becomes extremely important, and who you marry will certainly form a huge part of your network.

Many people don't realize, but that actually is a core purpose of selective higher education institutions. Biology and physics is the same at a community college versus Princeton, but you don't get the opportunity to meet the kids of diplomats and board members etc.

You also want to sprinkle some natural, hard working geniuses in there and you have a good recipe for a network that can take advantage. Usually for their own monetary gain.

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#89

Post by bsaul »

And then one day they'll just create an asian university, full of high scoring asian students, flipping the finger to politically correct universities walking on their heads.

Or simply , with time, universities applying those kind of discrimination will fall behind the ones that don't in rankings.

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#90

Post by learc83 »

colordrops wrote: post #82
learc83 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don't think that there is an advantage gained by being a native speaker of a dialect a test is written in? The academic consensus is that there is. The clearest example is that vocabulary is a large part of most standardized tests and native speakers have larger vocabularies than proficient L2 speakers.

I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that it's not clear that the advantage is so much as to be a relevant factor. I grew up in a very poor minority neighborhood and the language the teachers used in school was the same as the ones on the standardized test, so it's not like I wasn't prepared. It's almost insulting to think that dialect matters that much considering how much exposure everyone gets to the mainstream…

How much of an impact it has is debatable, but the academic consensus is that it is relevant. If you trust your own experiences and opinions more than the current research, there isn't much I can do to convince you otherwise.

>It's almost insulting to think that dialect matters that much considering how much exposure everyone gets to the mainstream dialect.

Whether it's insulting is irrelevant to whether it's true.

>In China they've got a standard dialect and there doesn't appear to be any advantage for those that are from the area north of Beijing where the dialect originates.

I'd be interested to know what your basing this assertion on. Gaokao scores in Beijing are distorted by families who try to move there from other areas to take the test and migration in general.

Combined with with relative lack of reliable data, I'm not sure how you could confidently make this claim.

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