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Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

hechingerreport.org

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Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#81

Post by rayiner »

nerdponx wrote: post #42
MichaelCollins wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shaping the ethnic demographic of the school is a big component of the modern intent as well. Particularly, these "holistic" admission standards are designed to facilitate discrimination against Asian Americans. This is justified with transparently racist bullshit claims about Asian American students being too focused on academic performance, not "well rounded" whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. They reduce…

A more charitable interpretation is that a student body made up of too much of any one thing is not good. Part of the value proposition for going away to university for four years is to spend that time surrounded by diverse and interesting people. That doesn't excuse the actual racism that we've seen in admissions, of course.

> A more charitable interpretation is that a student body made up of too much of any one thing is not good.

So what would you say is “not good” about a “student body made up of too [many]” Indians? Or Jews? Or Chinese people?

Are schools in India or China or Israel inherently worse than those in America because those schools have “too much” of a single race?

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#82

Post by chitowneats »

inglor_cz wrote: post #63
tsunamifury wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really disappointing that many recent attempts of progressivism have just turned into new sexism and racism but defended as “the correct” versions of those. It erodes the intellectual validity of these institutions.

It is not just neo-racism and neo-sexism. It is also a weird kind of neo-feudalism, excluding outsiders that cannot or won't fit the expected mold. In the court of Versailles, you had to behave according to a certain stiff etiquette. If the same is required in institutions of higher learning, how many really creative people will be willing to put up with it?

They won't. Can't wait for all the great music in the next few decades.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#83

Post by 0x445442 »

bradleyjg wrote: post #58
kenjackson wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But at highly competitive schools you still have several times more students with 1500 SATs than you have available spots. So you eventually need to use holistic judgement anyways.

They could just admit at random from among that group. What would be the downside?

This is genius and would probably accurately capture the overall demographic makeup of that group of 1500 SAT applicants.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#84

Post by rajin444 »

nerdponx wrote: post #42
MichaelCollins wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shaping the ethnic demographic of the school is a big component of the modern intent as well. Particularly, these "holistic" admission standards are designed to facilitate discrimination against Asian Americans. This is justified with transparently racist bullshit claims about Asian American students being too focused on academic performance, not "well rounded" whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. They reduce…

A more charitable interpretation is that a student body made up of too much of any one thing is not good. Part of the value proposition for going away to university for four years is to spend that time surrounded by diverse and interesting people. That doesn't excuse the actual racism that we've seen in admissions, of course.

There’s infinite ways you can define diversity. Choosing to define it in the way you’re referring to (skin color, sex, sexual orientation) is just discrimination.

Colleges should be about furthering academic knowledge and preparing our best and brightest to make the world a better place. Diversity for diversities sake harms that.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#86

Post by Spivak »

subradios wrote: post #59
rainsford wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Of course having numerical values you can directly compare is going to be the easiest way to select students, but it's only "fair" to the degree those numbers accurately reflect the relative academic performance and potential of the students. I think the reason people so vigorously defend the use of standardized test scores in admissions is that we all have a built in bias towards viewing quantifiable compar…

On the contrary, test scoring is the most objective thing we had to evaluate students based on the diligent work of a company whose entire business is maintaining that perception of objectivity. Sure, it's "the perception of", but if you think there aren't smart people analyzing college board exam scores across the country for signs of skewed testing so they can write an expose on it, you're far from reality. In fact…

You’re glossing over the core issue which is that universities (and employers when hiring juniors for that matter) need to measure potential and many of the objective measures do correlate but do so weakly. It’s why we don’t hire based on Leetcode, whiteboard algorithms problems or GPA. Doing better on those is a positive sign but I can get a much much stronger signal through a conversation, probing to find out their strengths and passions and then setting them up to show off.

And look, race and gender ends up being a component but not in the way you’re describing. I’m not being like “woman good” it’s that a woman sitting across the table describing her technical achievements is made more impressive because I know first hand what women have to go in CS programs — you don’t put up with all the bullshit unless you’re really passionate. An example based on real life, a woman leading her capstone project group is unfathomably impressive because of how decisively strong her technical and communication skills have to be to earn the respect of the men in her class.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#87

Post by blep_ »

mschuster91 wrote: post #62
MichaelCollins wrote: post #22

Who could have seen that coming? The whole point of ditching quantitative tests is to empower the bureaucrats who want to make qualitative judgements based on their personal whims and biases. "Holistic" my ass.

The problem with "quantitative" tests is that they are not without their own bias - they select for students that had the luck (or the right parentage) to go to either a private school or to a public school in a well-funded school district. The result is that the student base will be overwhelmingly white rich kids, which is pretty problematic (see e.g. [1], fresh out of the press). Additionally, at least when one goe…

> they select for students that had the luck (or the right parentage) to go to either a private school or to a public school in a well-funded school district

You're not wrong, but I interpret this as evidence that the problem is earlier in the pipeline and trying to fix it here is a hack.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#88

Post by uri4 »

Maybe the "minorities" are actually smarter than you think, do they actually want to study there? What were rejection rates for minorities?

In many cases college is a scam, investment is simply not worth the money (future earnings). Diversity studies referenced in article were mostly performed on "liberal arts colleges". Maybe this type of study is good hobby for rich white kids. But most normal people will not throw away their future on such schools!

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#89

Post by hhmc »

brigandish wrote: post #80
kenjackson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a society we got ourselves into a situation where ignoring race now I promotes inequality as it helps those that have benefited from racism in the past. And doing ANYTHING proactive now is racism not. The question is just — what type of injustice do you prefer?

> ignoring race now I promotes inequality as it helps those that have benefited from racism in the past Does it?

I think the argument goes something like: if racial groups and socioeconomic outcomes are correlated due to previous inequalities, and social mobility is limited, then doing nothing further entrenches the inequalities.

Re: Colleges that ditched admission tests find it harder to fairly choose students

#90

Post by lotsofpulp »

petilon wrote: post #51
MichaelCollins wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shaping the ethnic demographic of the school is a big component of the modern intent as well. Particularly, these "holistic" admission standards are designed to facilitate discrimination against Asian Americans. This is justified with transparently racist bullshit claims about Asian American students being too focused on academic performance, not "well rounded" whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. They reduce…

At UW they call it "race equity" [1]. Meaning that you can't have more than x% of Asian Americans in the UW if the percentage of Asian Americans in the community is x%. The Supreme Court will soon decide if this practice is legal [2], and it is going to be interesting either way! [1] https://www.washington.edu/raceequity/ [2] https://edsource.org/2022/as-supreme-court-considers-affirma...

If that is not racism, and illegal according to the myriad anti discrimination laws the US must have, I do not know what could be.
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