431–440 of 448 posts
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Is that a logical conclusion? Seems like other countries would do the same if it were that simple.
Simple does not mean easy. It is hard to become a country that attracts the brightest immigrants in the world.
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Huh? Sensible racial grouping is trivial. The overwhelming majority of people on earth fall neatly into racial cateogies of white (European), black (African), Native American (American Indian), or Pacific Islander. Sure, the edges are fuzzy, (and good luck with the whole race/ethnicity thing vis-a-vis hispanics) but to pretend that makes it difficult to measuring population-level averages is just silly.
> Sure, the edges are fuzzy Handwave of the century
Here's a question: How is it that we're able to measure the degree to which various racial minorities are underrepresented in congress, in colleges, in industry and in Emmy Award nominations? How is it that we're able to measure racial disparities in income, in COVID exposure, in medical outcomes and in every other conceivable context, if race is such a tricky concept to nail down?
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As someone with East Asian ancestry in North America, you quickly learn that hard work will only rarely help you find opportunities with institutions that have a huge demand of qualified applicants but not enough seats. This includes universities, high-prestige schools like medical schools, and a lot of creative industries (mentorship opportunities and scholarships just aren't there for you). This is unfair, but it's…
I’ve got a friend applying to med schools, he’s a little older (late 20s vs early 20s) so he took the spray and pray approach and applied to 60 MD and DO schools. He said by and large he’s the only or one of ~3 non-minorities in any of the MD group interviews, additionally Asians aren’t well represented there either. DO group interviews on the other hand are mostly white/asain.
What does this mean? Does it mean proportionally compared to the US population or does it mean proportional to their test scores?
[1] has data on US med school matriculants for MD granting institutions. It seems to show that of the approximately 22k matriculants to US med school between 2018-2019 and 2021-2022 admissions cycles, 5k (4,687 at the lowest and 5,151 at the highest) are Asian Only. So Asian Only is roughly 21 to 22% of med school matriculants.
US census results from 2020 seem to say Asians make up 6% of the population [2]. I know this isn't perfect because we really care about Asian population from those in the med school application age range, but I'm not familiar enough with US census data to find it.
Unfortunately I can't find data for DO schools or for GPA and MCAT scores for admissions by race.
[1] https://www.aamc.org/media/6031/download?attachment
[2] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/improved-race...
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I've long thought that our intuitions about IQ tests are backwards; they are the most fair and least biased method we have to sort applicants for things. The more 'holistic' the process, the more that subjectivity (and therefore bias) creeps in. The only way around it is affirmative action, which leads to the current state of affairs.
I think some of the persistence of hating on standardized tests is that standardized tests are one of the few barriers against the worst rich kids inheriting status from their parents. Sure, a little bit of test prep will help many people, if you’ve never seen a standardized test before some familiarity is good for you. But some of these kids could not test their way out of a paper bag and the only hope for them is h…
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I think some of the persistence of hating on standardized tests is that standardized tests are one of the few barriers against the worst rich kids inheriting status from their parents. Sure, a little bit of test prep will help many people, if you’ve never seen a standardized test before some familiarity is good for you. But some of these kids could not test their way out of a paper bag and the only hope for them is h…
Yeah I mean we just had a whole college admissions scandal a few years back with rich parents trying to get their not-so-smart kids into elite colleges.
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Simple does not mean easy. It is hard to become a country that attracts the brightest immigrants in the world.
Isn't yours a recursive argument then? You say immigrants are what makes it attractive to immigrate here.
Getting one started usually isn't a conscious policy choice. You have relatively better conditions to start with (no war, good location with stable climate, good civic institutions, limited immigration restrictions) which kicks off the virtuous cycle.
Here's an example. The Irish famine led to Irish emigration down the road, which benefited the US and Australia. This wasn't a policy choice of the receiving countries. It was mostly luck. These kind of relative differences in liveability between the two countries (US > Ireland) leads to a positive feedback loop in the US.
This anecdote is really something https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2022/10/sat-score-distribution...
I'm a current sophomore at Harvard, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. But those ECs and stats really aren't impressive enough to even qualify him for admission at any Ivy or T20. UIUC and UT Austin I agree, little surprising, but again, the CS program is very competitive, and it doesn't surprise me he didn't get in. Stats are irrelevant for Asians - if you have a 1500+ you're considered "good", you can't gain…
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Time, yes. For space you just need a desk. And if you have an internet connection, it doesn't require any money beyond what you've already paid your ISP.
K, not every kid has access to a desk and the internet. Those things take money not every family has.
I think I'm mostly surprised to see how many of the "White" scores are so low, and so far behind "Asians," after years of hearing that the test is biased towards white / Anglo / native-English speakers raised in Western culture. I'm also reminded that I (like probably most people commenting on Hacker News) exist in a really small bubble in which everyone I closely associate with was in the top two bands (after going…
> after years of hearing that the test is biased towards white / Anglo / native-English speakers raised in Western culture. Media bias/lies. It's similar for the GRE, many people coming in from China score extremely high on the English portion even though they do not speak English properly. I learned to stop listening to these divisive media outlets that have a clear agenda to tear down the fabric of society.