121–130 of 684 posts
HN gets bizarrely left-wing when wokeness comes up.
Ruling classes keeping the poor down? You simply don't see that kind of talk here unless affirmative action or similar is discussed.
It'll be a double win if these attempts to undermine wokeness lead to a society that truly provides equality of opportunity for all.
As an Asian person, I think it's a cultural thing. There is this old joke about how even if you are a one-in-a-million person, there are still 8000 of "you"s to choose from; how does one chose who to pick, if there aren't positions for all of them? So how do you make it "fair"? Since of the number of seats are limited, so imagine if the cut-off for the last seat is for someone who is in the 90.3765335th percentile, l…
So many examples of casually thrown around of borderline racist-ish terminology/dog whistles..."tiger parents", "hard working"...all the "model minority" stuff.
It really is a population density issue...which leads to resource scarcity...as a westerner all you have to do is interact personally with someone from India or China where you have millions of people competing for a seat at a university and it becomes pretty clear how you get the "Asian work ethic".
Standardized tests remain the only criteria totally in the control of the student. You can study for them and objectively do better, become a better applicant. Everthing else is either circumstantial or based in the opinion of others, mostly highschool teachers. If i had to rely on my highschool teachers' opinion of me i would not have ever gone to university let alone have won scholarships. Standardized testing allo…
I've seen this recently with the elementary school near me. Grading is extremely opaque, and seems to be largely based on teacher intuition. Some very advanced students have gotten grades below where they are (I've heard many teachers just won't give the highest grade until the end of the year because of the weird system). Thankfully they also have standardized test scores, which both have a much more transparent sco…
The following paragraphs were especially powerful: > The chattering class is using poor kids as pawns to eliminate standardized testing. Which helps their own kids. Rich kids who “don’t test well.” But they know how to strategically boost their GPAs, get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” >…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People can participate in the social life of campus at any college. The problem with using this supposed socializing metric at the expense of more academically qualified kids is that it just shuffles the more academically talented kids to a lesser University. Where they what? Supposedly socialize less. Why should the social kids go to the academically rigorous college and the academic talents go to a lesser Universit…
> Why should the social kids go to the academically rigorous college and the academic talents go to a lesser University? I was speaking from the perspective of college admissions, not from the perspective of applicants. Note also that I said "for better or worse". I wasn't making an overall judgment of the university system, merely noting that colleges themselves find extra-curricular activities important. I personal…
I'm unsure how you arrived at that conclusion. I'll chalk it up to me being unintentionally unclear.
What I am saying is that its largely a fallacy that Universities are commonly put to the decision of a more social candidate versus a more academically talented candidate.
The more common reality being that the leading academically talented candidates are as or more qualified in their extra-curricular participation.
At least within a deviation of academic and social metrics that is meaningful.
Selectivity of admissions allows for selectivity of curriculum. Selectivity of curriculum allows for better trained / educated students.
As well as tailoring of education to meet a student's ability, both on the high and lesser ends.
You may as well ask what the purpose of special education or gifted programs are. To put in in the terminology of those commonly concerned with the plight of haves and have nots, the answer is educational justice.
Last, maximizing the education of elite academic performers tends to maximize results for the nation in the real world in a manner that raises the living standards for have nots.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How could whites be discriminated against if Asians would rise to 90% of the accepted population? There aren’t enough underrepresented minorities at selective all combined to get Asians to 90%. That is most of the pool that Asians would take is from White students. From a pure counting perspective, more whites get in over “more deserving” Asians than any other group (assuming your numbers are accurate). Based on this…
I was incorrect about the 65% of Berkeley as Asian. It's 30.6%. Note this is double the percentage as the Ivy League schools - and it's based on a framework that was specifically developed as a way to get around the 1996 ban on affirmative action. I still believe the only explanation for eliminating clear, measurable and quantifiable metrics for university admissions is because universities are looking for discrete w…
It does make me wonder about the marketing of anti-affirmative action. For example you see on social media the kids who posts about their great grades and scores and not getting into the Ivies. The common refrain is that some black kid got their spot due to affirmative action. Although it’s actually more likely, if the applicant is Asian, that it is a white kind who got that spot due to affirmative action. I wonder how public perception changes if they knew that reality?
Standardized tests remain the only criteria totally in the control of the student. You can study for them and objectively do better, become a better applicant. Everthing else is either circumstantial or based in the opinion of others, mostly highschool teachers. If i had to rely on my highschool teachers' opinion of me i would not have ever gone to university let alone have won scholarships. Standardized testing allo…
> Standardized tests remain the only criteria totally in the control of the student. You can study for them and objectively do better, become a better applicant. This view ironically makes schools and education irrelevant. Why even send students to school, if test scores are "totally" in the control of the student?
That hardly makes the school “irrelevant”.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Legacy” applicants is the opposite of woke, it’s been how the “old boys network” has run for hundreds of years, getting under qualified students into top Universities.
That's an urban myth perpetuated by people interested in generalized grievance. At least from the period I attended prep school, and beyond. From the mid-1990's. Almost in-total, the "old boys" applicants are not under-qualified. When compared to almost any kid that attended lesser secondary schools than the privileged kid attended, on average. These kids have almost always proven themselves in elite educational envi…
Legacy should have been abolished long time ago. It’s the epitome of systematic racism.
As an Asian person, I think it's a cultural thing. There is this old joke about how even if you are a one-in-a-million person, there are still 8000 of "you"s to choose from; how does one chose who to pick, if there aren't positions for all of them? So how do you make it "fair"? Since of the number of seats are limited, so imagine if the cut-off for the last seat is for someone who is in the 90.3765335th percentile, l…
Its proven pretty true so far.
Maybe I'm old or insufficiently woke, but I don't see legacy or identity as substitutes for demonstrated learning. I see the decay of rigor and achievement as signals of decline of excellence and the crumbling of knowledge. The mythology of "everyone needs degrees" created a wealth transfer scam and a lowering of standards to sell more student loan debt for sheepskins. Maybe we need to throw away arbitrary employment…
If everyone must be equitable, then the most expedient way to achieve that is to reduce the standard.
We need a word for this. “Separate but equitable”?