Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support • Hacker News Board

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#181

Post by SenseiMaster » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 9:18 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #135

univalent wrote: post #128

I think the problem lies with SATs/GREs/GMATs. The tests (especially SAT, GRE) are ludicrously simple. I'm your run of the mill IIT-an and placed 98th and 99th percentile without breaking a sweat in the GRE when it came time for grad school. I think I maxed 2 of the 3 sections and was 98th percentile in both. What's the point of a test like that? Thousands of people max/get to the highest percentile and it becomes us…

The SAT, which is the more relevant test for this discussion, was intentionally made easier years ago, so that it would be better suited to measuring the vast majority of USA college applicants. That made it less suited to Harvard's needs, but not as much as one might think. Plenty of Harvard students had less than the maximum SAT scores. Some might prefer that admission be based solely on test scores, but that is no…

Or it works in Harvard's preference by potentially hiding the academic disparities of the different ethnic groups studying at Harvard.

If everyone's score is truncated at 800 on a test out of 1200, then you can't tell the difference between a group that averages 800 vs one that averages 1100

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#182

Post by Symmetry » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 9:20 PM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #170

Symmetry wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since the alumni interviewers who actually meet the candidates give Asian candidates basically the same marks for personality as White candidates.

But are the students who meet with alumni a representative sample? If I were a socially inept applicant I would take my chances without the interview.

The way it worked when I was interviewing was that every applicant had an interview.

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#183

Post by SenseiMaster » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 9:23 PM UTC

camjohnson26 wrote: post #139

There's obviously an inequality problem between races in America but why don't we just provide affirmative action to low income people of all races? It could be as simple as boosting the chances of admission for all low income applicants by 5%. Just because systematic racism has lead to the oppression of black people in the country doesn't mean that race is the only factor we can look at to encourage diversity.

I'm guessing that the poor students that are academically decent enough for Harvard are mostly Asian with some children of European immigrants and a few of African immigrants.

I think that Asians are even more represented in the set of poor students that can academically fit into Harvard than the set of upper middle class and above students that can academically fit into Harvard.

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#184

Post by sctb » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 9:23 PM UTC

jaisfj wrote: post #72

malcolmgreaves wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect: you're probably grabbing the Webster dictionary definition. Which is made by white people. Your go to citing is an example of racsim: control the definitions to make everything better for white poeple (and make it seem like white people can be affected by racsim hah!). This is probably the first time you've heard this fact: racism is systematic, instutionalized, collective, cultural, social oppression of p…

Non-white people can go back to wherever they came from if they're so uncomfortable in the first world.

We've banned this account.

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#185

Post by lmpostor » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

atribd wrote: post #151

tdb7893 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My view on it is that all ethnicities are necessarily equal (no race is smarter than any other) so large scale differences in admissions are the result of cultural and historical circumstances. By picking off most metrics you will get a "better" student body by those metrics but you are also responsible for perpetuating those biases. In addition to this philosophical reasons there is the practical reason that diversi…

> My view on it is that all ethnicities are necessarily equal (no race is smarter than any other) I'm curious as to why you think that should necessarily be the case.

Lack of compelling statistical evidence that explicitly shows otherwise when taking into account different environmental and societal backgrounds.

Sure that is a nearly impossible to accomplish considering how convoluted this equation is so we have to step back and it becomes a question of belief, and in this world of belief I can really only condense it into two categories.

1. If it exists, it doesn't matter 2. It exists and does matter ("does matter" in my mind precludes equality, one must be superior)

To me it is really a question of whether I personally choose be racist or not, racism being defined as "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior".

I'm going to cut this short at that I do not believe someone can both believe a specific race is superior and act without prejudice. Again a lot of assumptions, but if wanted to keep going down the ladder of explanations I'd write an essay or a book.

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#186

Post by millermp12 » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

40acres wrote: post #7

This argument, while important, is the low hanging fruit of the affirmative action debate in my opinion. We would not need affirmative action if legacy based admissions wasn't so prevalent in top schools. We would not need affirmative action if every school district in America recieved proper funding to support teachers and enable smaller class sizes, test prep for students to take specialized exams, and after school…

I think you're completely missing the artificial signaling that is at stake here. The scarcity is _by design_.

Cf Brian Kaplan "The Case Against Education" https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/d...

Robin Hanson "Elephant in the Brain" https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Brain-Hidden-Motives-Everyda...

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#187

Post by millermp12 » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #47

40acres wrote: post #7

This argument, while important, is the low hanging fruit of the affirmative action debate in my opinion. We would not need affirmative action if legacy based admissions wasn't so prevalent in top schools. We would not need affirmative action if every school district in America recieved proper funding to support teachers and enable smaller class sizes, test prep for students to take specialized exams, and after school…

"The best elementary schools in the nation are driven by property taxes, how many people do you know bought their house because of the school district?" Sometimes I wonder how much of this is everyone mistaking causation vs. correlation. School districts with high property taxes tend to have a number of other features in common, like: stable 2-parent households; high incomes; ability to afford private tutors and enri…

also hereditary high cognitive ability, i.e. population genetics. But you're not supposed to notice that because the Left wants Diversity (but without Disparity).

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#188

Post by hackinthebochs » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

SenseiMaster wrote: post #177

hackinthebochs wrote: post #152

The subtext of the hand-wringing over this case is that somehow Asians have earned or deserve their spot in Harvard for having X GPA or Y SAT scores, and thus it is "unfair" for people with lower GPA/SATs to be admitted over them. But this is just flat out wrong. The issue is that admissions to top universities isn't strictly meritocratic. Or to put it another way, "merit" in this context isn't simply GPA and SAT sco…

It most definitely is a moral issue when students are racially discriminated against. There is a trade-off between racial diversity and racial discrimination. What you're saying here is that non-Asian leaders who are individually worse leaders take the spot of Asian leaders who are individually better leaders because the race of non-Asian leaders makes them better leaders.

>racially discriminated against

But we haven't settled whether they're being racially discriminated against. If some legitimate feature to discriminate or filter against correlates with race, then it will look a lot like racial discrimination when it isn't. Harvard wanting to maximize their future prestige by carefully constructing the makeup of their student body is such an instance. Maximizing leadership potential of their student body will look like racial discrimination. It's similar to how the distribution of housing loans can look like racial discrimination if you didn't already know that income correlates with race.

> non-Asian leaders who are individually worse leaders take the spot of Asian leaders who are individually better leaders

No. I'm saying GPA and SAT scores only correlate with leadership potential up to a point. Once you've passed that threshold, other factors start contributing more, e.g. your background, interests, etc. It is not the case that the person with the higher GPA/SAT necessarily has more leadership potential.

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#189

Post by hackinthebochs » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 10:06 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #178

hackinthebochs wrote: post #152

The subtext of the hand-wringing over this case is that somehow Asians have earned or deserve their spot in Harvard for having X GPA or Y SAT scores, and thus it is "unfair" for people with lower GPA/SATs to be admitted over them. But this is just flat out wrong. The issue is that admissions to top universities isn't strictly meritocratic. Or to put it another way, "merit" in this context isn't simply GPA and SAT sco…

My interpretation of your statement is that you're arguing for Harvard's business prerogative to turn business knobs to achieve business outcomes. But do you not agree that there is moral wisdom in striking race as a consideration from the market? There are all sorts of scenarios where there are natural incentives to discriminate on race; perhaps a bank can improve their model on creditworthiness if they considered r…

>But do you not agree that there is moral wisdom in striking race as a consideration from the market?

Sure, but not when done naively. Naive "anti-racism" policies generally serve to cement the current status-quo, which is why they have so much support these days. This is only to argue against the idea that being race blind across the board is a moral imperative.

The issue is what responsibility does Harvard have to admit students in a "meritocratic" (i.e. GPA/SAT are paramount) manner. I don't see that they have any such responsibility. I don't think they should discount Asian applicants because they're Asian. I do think its fair to positively weigh diversity in background and interests. But in a zero-sum scenario, this will look like racial discrimination from the outside, and that's OK.

>perhaps a bank can improve their model on creditworthiness if they considered race

Banks do use income and wealth in their model of creditworthiness. But if you didn't already know that race correlates with income, you might think that they are using race as an independent factor. Presumably you have no issue with this.

Re: Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support

#190

Post by nostrademons » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 10:09 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #174

nostrademons wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was looking more for studies than anecdotes, like the one mirajshah posted. My anecdote is that I went to a charter school that served 23 different communities across basically half the state of Massachusetts. Median family income from these communities ranged from $54K (Leominster) to $202K (Lincoln). And there were very noticeable differences in both behavior and academic achievement between students from the Fit…

Did your charter school have entrance requirements?

No, it was all by lottery, with preference given to students from the school's home town and to siblings. That was mandated by the state's charter school laws.