111–120 of 602 posts
Alternate headline: "Colleges that ditched admissions tests have to actually holistically evaluate applicants rather than reduce them to two numbers" No doubt that it's more subjective and more difficult; human beings are complex, multi-dimensional entities and I find it sad that in many of these selection processes, they are reduced to a few numbers for the sake of low effort filtering.
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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…
The idea of a “well rounded student” reflects the WASP roots of these elite institutions. The ideal “Harvard man” was a well bred WASP who didn’t appear to try too hard (which would be unseemly) and balanced academic pursuits with sports and social activities accessible to people who had connections and didn’t work for a living. That’s who you wanted running your Wall Street banks, corporations, etc. Holistic admissi…
And an effective part of that litmus test could be 'already has substantial power, but is able to self-restrain their abuse of it.'
Caligula vs the recent British monarchy, etc.
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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.
I'm not sure that wasn't the original intention for many if not most of the people advocating those positions.
I suspect nearly all people would fail this test, execpt those who've been on both sides (at least in small ways) enough times.
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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.
Then discriminate on the socioeconomic inequalities. A poor white person and a poor black person should get aid. Obama’s daughter (black, but rich and powerful) doesn’t need any aid or discrimination in her favor. Discriminating on the basis of race for these programs is so stupid. Ask why and people say “because socioeconomic status”, but then why don’t you discriminate on that? I think people know this but it’s a p…
I think a lot of bad faith prevarication prevents any improvement (such as the question I was replying to).
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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.
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Fortunately I feel convinced that it's a passing fad. I just hope that the pendulum does not swing too far the other way.
Maybe I'm in a bubble, but every anecdote I read online in the past year or two is someone royally fed up with liberal politics. On Twitter, Reddit, and real life, the majority of people keep complaining about crime, drugs, homelessness. Sounds like a perfect environment for a generation of conservatives to get elected. Hopefully they stay close to the center for a long time.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your comment but in the US, these issues are the result of conservative politics.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Who are the best and brightest? How do you determine that?
Do the best&brightest from one community or circumstance always have the same traits as the best&brightest from another community or circumstance?
My understanding is diversity initiatives attempt to address the latter part (effective or not).
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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…
Families with more resources are going to be able to use those resources to game anything . The question is then, which metrics have the most resistance to gaming? Testing would seem more resistant to gaming than extracurricular activities or how well "you" write essays.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fortunately I feel convinced that it's a passing fad. I just hope that the pendulum does not swing too far the other way.
Maybe I'm in a bubble, but every anecdote I read online in the past year or two is someone royally fed up with liberal politics. On Twitter, Reddit, and real life, the majority of people keep complaining about crime, drugs, homelessness. Sounds like a perfect environment for a generation of conservatives to get elected. Hopefully they stay close to the center for a long time.
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.