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‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

nytimes.com

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Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#111

Post by thecleaner »

Amezarak wrote: post #110
arkh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France, the most sought after enginnering schools use an entrance exam. No need to check for old academic performances as everyone is tested on the same things. They usually also have alternate admittance system but that's for 2% or 3% of students.

By 'academic performance' he is almost certainly including their ACT and SAT test scores, which serve essentially as standardized university entrance exams in the US. The problem is for schools like Harvard or Stanford, almost all the applicants have near-perfect scores, so they're not a good differentiator - people with lower scores will not apply, since they know they will not be accepted.

I guess thats a problem with the SAT. I saw a couple of questions and a lot of them are very easy for college entrance exams. I think university entrances should be a bit on the tough end (China's standardized tests and JEE from India come to mind). Of course schools could look at a lot more but if so many people get perfect scores then that clearly is a problem with the tests themselves.

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#112

Post by jstoeffler »

Amezarak wrote: post #110
arkh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France, the most sought after enginnering schools use an entrance exam. No need to check for old academic performances as everyone is tested on the same things. They usually also have alternate admittance system but that's for 2% or 3% of students.

By 'academic performance' he is almost certainly including their ACT and SAT test scores, which serve essentially as standardized university entrance exams in the US. The problem is for schools like Harvard or Stanford, almost all the applicants have near-perfect scores, so they're not a good differentiator - people with lower scores will not apply, since they know they will not be accepted.

The French system he’s talking about is more a contest than an exam. They are intentionally too hard/long for anybody to score perfectly. This way it’s possible to differentiate between two excellent students. Not saying it’s perfect, but at least it’s sort of fair.

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#113

Post by thecleaner »

kart23 wrote: post #5

College admissions aren't about sat scores anymore. I graduated from high school this year, and know 2 people going to Harvard. It doesn't matter if you get perfect sat scores, it matters about what you do outside of school, and whether you spend all your time studying or actually doing something that will contribute to society. Numbers just aren't enough to admit students by, since if they admitted everyone with per…

I think without numbers the way students get selected would be the same way ball players got selected before Billy Beane and Oakland As. The problem is with the metric not the method.

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#114

Post by pc86 »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #64
verylongname wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See CalTech for an example of an elite school that has race-blind admissions. As far as I can tell, it hasn't put any pressure on the Ivy's to change. Incidentally, Caltech's latest class is roughly 50% Asian and about 30% white.

There may be some geographic bias there because California’s Asian population is much higher than the US as a whole.

I would be interested to see if there is any bias toward state of residence for a school as widely known and respected as CalTech.

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#115

Post by betterunix2 »

IvyAdmisions wrote: post #108
fmajid wrote: post #94

They just repurposed a system that was designed in the 1930s to keep Jews out, to keeping Asians out. The smoking gun is how the admissions committee's ratings for “personality” differ so much from alumni volunteer interviewers.

Agreed and for similar reasons imo, to guard against admiting too many students with no ambition beyond a comfy middle class lifestyle.

...Jews and Asians have no ambition beyond a comfy middle class lifestyle?

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#116

Post by leetcrew »

zimablue wrote: post #86
IvyAdmisions wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. There's a belief at the very top of these schools that they only want so many people leading one-dimensional lives focused on entering upper middle class trades like law and medicine.

This is just classism dressed up as racism. People who don't want to enter the upper middle class and have strong extracurriculars are just the already upper middle class/upper class. The professions like law/medicine are what the lower classes shoot for, trying to be a journalist or a political player is the domain of the higher classes. "These people work too hard for too low aspirations, we need more people who wo…

ivy league educations are obviously a very scarce good. is it really so wrong to want to limit the amount of unambitious professionals they matriculate?

i was a smart enough kid that i probably could have done well academically at an ivy league school, but the whole time i was in college i knew i had no loftier goals than just getting a nice job as a software engineer and enjoying my time after work. there are hundreds of good state schools that do a great job preparing you for this kind of life if you put in the work. a spot at a school like MIT would honestly have been wasted on me, even though i was likely "smart enough" to be there.

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#117

Post by frockington »

danieltillett wrote: post #90
bigcostooge wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can answer that by asking yourself another question: who at Harvard understands supply and demand?

A lottery is such an obvious solution that we can only conclude that the people who developed the Harvard admission process are irredeemable racists.

Imagine if the lottery produced only White and Asian males being accepted. The meltdown and tears that a even a less than 0.01% event would cause prevents the lottery concept. I personally agree that a lottery is a valid suggestion but I don't think it would ever happen, at least completely random without "supervision"

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#118

Post by Amezarak »

thecleaner wrote: post #111
Amezarak wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By 'academic performance' he is almost certainly including their ACT and SAT test scores, which serve essentially as standardized university entrance exams in the US. The problem is for schools like Harvard or Stanford, almost all the applicants have near-perfect scores, so they're not a good differentiator - people with lower scores will not apply, since they know they will not be accepted.

I guess thats a problem with the SAT. I saw a couple of questions and a lot of them are very easy for college entrance exams. I think university entrances should be a bit on the tough end (China's standardized tests and JEE from India come to mind). Of course schools could look at a lot more but if so many people get perfect scores then that clearly is a problem with the tests themselves.

0.06% of ACT takers scored perfectly in 2013. A smaller percentage get a perfect score on the SAT. I don't think the problem is the test is too easy.

The problem is there are 400 million people in the USA, and the 1-2% of entering freshmen across the country having high scores mostly apply to the same few schools.

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#119

Post by kanox »

IvyAdmisions wrote: post #68

From an earlier thread: I was a college admissions officer for a few years and am familiar with the process at the top Ivies. The outcome is racist but there's no intent to be racist. Imagine your job is to create the best possible 2000-student freshman class for Harvard from the 40,000 students who apply. You review the applications and notice to your horror that 600-1000 of them all have perfect or near perfect tes…

[flagged]

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#120

Post by extra88 »

paulsutter wrote: post #103
IvyAdmisions wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't taking aim at robotics club (which is awesome). I was taking aim at slim resumes with 1-2 activities.

You might also give Mark Zuckerbergs and Bill Gates a reason to actually stay at Harvard (I’m taking aim at the slim technical curriculum and easy As) Philip Greenspun on “Lean In”: > Sandberg confirms that “A is Average” at Harvard. Her brother David...takes “a class in European intellectual history”, skips all but two lectures and all but one book, gets tutored for three hours and receives an A for the semester (p3…

They teach Humanities courses at Caltech too. And Harvard teaches Physics. Mixing critiques of grade inflation and the Humanities weakens both.
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