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UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

auditor.ca.gov

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Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#351

Post by klyrs »

saagarjha wrote: post #332
lumost wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A test that splits the top .1% of test takers vs. the top 1% likely isn't the best indicator of future career performance ( the source of university prestige ), or necessarily academic performance.

Ok, a test that splits between the top 0.01% and the top 1%. One student goes to national competitions, the other is merely a decent student at your local high school. The SAT lacks the granularity to distinguish between them.

Throughout my academic career, I've met quite a few brilliant mathematicians with no interest in such competitions. And quite a few "goes to competitions" folks with little interest in higher pursuits. Placing too much faith in any measure is fraught

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#352

Post by lumost »

saagarjha wrote: post #332
lumost wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A test that splits the top .1% of test takers vs. the top 1% likely isn't the best indicator of future career performance ( the source of university prestige ), or necessarily academic performance.

Ok, a test that splits between the top 0.01% and the top 1%. One student goes to national competitions, the other is merely a decent student at your local high school. The SAT lacks the granularity to distinguish between them.

My point was that there is likely diminishing likelihood that the a test with such granularity would return a meaningful score. One would need to include a both a wider and deeper set of subject matter that still conforms to the context of the test. Eventually such a test would pick out the best studiers of generalized aptitude tests. While studying for a test is useful in academia - it's not "The" skill.

It's much simpler to have a candidate include notable achievements on their CV including competitions and after-school programs. However, even here you'll find factors that don't correlate to future performance e.g. those with the means and desire to min-max a CV for college admittance ( A very important life skill ) may not be the best leaders, academics, or students.

While both of the above skills will be correlated to future performance there are almost certainly diminishing returns from selecting the top .1% according to a single dimension.

Curiously the list of fields medalists does not appear to contain a mathlete at present. Providing at least one datapoint that performance in math competitions may not be correlated to future (Academic) mathematics achievement.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#354

Post by Galanwe »

arcticbull wrote: post #321
MiroF wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I meant the pronunciation!

Haha it’s should be the same - but maybe that’s because I learned French in Canada.

It's different, though maybe native English speakers will struggle because there is no equivalent of "é".

"et", "è", "ai" are all pronounced the same. Similar to the "e" in "best".

For "é" and "er" I struggle to find a definite English equivalent sound. Sometimes "a" is close, but it depends on the accent of the speaker. Maybe the best example is just the last "é" when pronouncing "Beyoncé" or "fiancée"

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#357

Post by godelski »

solveit wrote: post #300
strombofulous wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking about the SAT and ACT, I would challenge the idea that they can accurately distinguish between the good and outstanding. At most they provide a rough indication. I know this because I got a much higher score than I deserved to on the ACT because you can read the test pretty easily if you put yourself in the shoes of the people making it (I got a 31 overall and a near-perfect 35 on the science portio…

I'm specifically not talking about the SAT and ACT since they're widely used by elite universities. Those tests top out way too early and can't reliably distinguish between the top 1% and the top 0.1% (The fraction of perfect scorers is much smaller than 1% but the standard error of measurement is way too large). The exams I have in mind are those like the science olympiads and the Cambridge STEP. STEP in particular…

Are you trying to get students that can pass specific kinds of tests or students that will be successful? The two aren't strongly correlated. I'd argue successful builds more prestige for the university. And let's be real, everyone knows these tests are purposefully tricky. In the real world people don't give you multiple choices and try to trick you into picking the wrong answer and then laugh at you when you picked the one try tried to get you to pick (politics aside). In classes, unless your professor is an asshole, they aren't trying to trick you. Success depends on a lot of factors well beyond what these tests measure. This is why SAT and ACT don't measure success or even academic success (as in they don't strongly correlate [0][1] with success. This source should decent correlation with first year grades but not second).

I'm not sure why one would even think an academic test could determine success. One of the biggest lies many of us have been told is that if you're just smart enough you'll be successful. Sorry, but that's not how it works.

[0] https://edpolicyinca.org/publications/predicting-college-suc...

[1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-22/grades-v...

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#358

Post by tehjoker »

ajkjk wrote: post #141
mywittyname wrote: post #89

People are always going to use their money to buy status. So as long as these college offer prestige & status, people with money are going to use it to get in. Much like doping in sports, you have two paths you can take: try to combat cheating, or accept the cheating as part of the game. I think these universities should accept that they are providing an education, but they are selling prestige, and split their admis…

I'm generally opposed to this kind of acceptance-of-bad-things but in this case I kinda agree. If people are willing to pay millions to go to college, that's potentially a great advantage to students who otherwise have trouble affording it -- let the rich kids subsidize it for everyone else. By not funneling the donations through weird under-the-table transactions it can be more directly used for a net good for the s…

"let the rich kids subsidize it for everyone else."

This is also known as a progressive taxation system.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#359

Post by kepler1 »

MiroF wrote: post #264
kepler1 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't think UC has a diversity quota, you are deceiving yourself. The entire sub-part of UC admissions having to do with top 9% of students (by school) being guaranteed admission is an effort to achieve racial diversity without calling it that and violating the law. See page 9 and 21 of the UC's admissions materials. https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/file...

It's racism against white people to automatically admit everyone to UC (not Cal) who is in the top 9% of their class?

No, it's racism against everyone who is displaced from otherwise being admitted, so that the UC can under-the-table enact a policy designed to increase the number of black and Hispanic admits without saying it's affirmative action.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#360

Post by woodruffw »

User23 wrote: post #348
analog31 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the schools are trying to curate their student body so it doesn't turn into a freak show, which would itself reduce prestige. It would be like a zoo that contains exactly one species of animal. This is the dilemma. Taking the top 1000 scorers on some particularly difficult exam, and putting them all together in one place, would be a freak show. Not because they are freaks per se , but because any monocultur…

Also pure test based admission ends up being something around 75% asian, 15% white, and 10% others. See Stuyvesant for example[1]. For some reason Harvard feels like being 75-80% Asian would be bad for their brand so they got sued for discrimination. But Harvard is Harvard and it's hard to win a lawsuit against an institution that is that well connected. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuyvesant_High_School#Demogr…

As someone who went to one of those “pure test based” NYC schools: this is not the testament that you think it is.

The number of Black and Hispanic students at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science was an order of magnitude higher in the 1970s; the current demographics are a consequence of paid preparation being a reliable way to score highly on the SHSAT.

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