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Asian-American admissions at Harvard

marginalrevolution.com

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Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#61

Post by barry-cotter »

learc83 wrote: post #50
SatvikBeri wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The research suggests SAT test prep has an effect of about one seventh of a standard deviation – about 50 points out of 2400[1]. That's significant but not huge. Most of the perception of large gains comes from the fact that people do better as they get older with or without coaching. (None of the research is great, but better than nothing.) [1]: https://www.jefftk.com/p/sat-coaching-what-effect-size

The College Board released new results in 2017 showing a more than 50 point increase out of 1600 versus students who didn't practice. This was with just 20 hours of practice. Many high achieving students practice for 5+ hours per week. South Korean cram school style 2-3 hours per day is in a completely different league than a standard SAT prep course, but much of the research that shows no result counts them the same…

This phenomenon is known as the practice effect. It has a ceiling in terms of IQ tests, just like it does in terms of physical tests. IQ tests are designed to be as close to ungameable as possible.

This is like pointing out that I can make large gains in my 100m sprint time by practicing for half an hour a day for a month and predicting that I can make the Olympic team if I put in a thousand hours practice. Novice gains are real and significant but they peter out pretty quickly.

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#62

Post by [deleted] »

tomdell wrote: post #10
toasterlovin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say nothing of the logical contortions required to argue that modern standardized tests discriminates based on ancestry or skin color.

That is not the argument. Tests are written by people who talk a certain way, in a way that is easier to process for people who talk the same way. Different communities use different language, and this is reflected in how quickly different students process the problems on standardized tests. There's also the issue that standardized test scores are higher for students who have the time and encouragement to study for t…

[deleted]

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#63

Post by learc83 »

skookumchuck wrote: post #58
learc83 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don't think that there is an advantage gained by being a native speaker of a dialect a test is written in? The academic consensus is that there is. The clearest example is that vocabulary is a large part of most standardized tests and native speakers have larger vocabularies than proficient L2 speakers.

How about the math part? Besides, if I was on a college admissions board, I'd give consideration to an L2 speaker if his verbal scores were unusually below his math scores.

I'm less familiar with math testing in general, but as far as direct effects go (not something caused by language of instruction) my guess is that it would be limited to instructions and word problems.

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#65

Post by barry-cotter »

fooker wrote: post #21
slantyyz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true for getting into undergraduate programs, but when it comes to graduate programs, dentistry, medical, law schools etc, I believe we still do use the same standardized tests as in the USA.

For grad school, GRE and the other tests exist to filter out obviously unmotivated candidates. So, a good GRE score can not get you in with any certainty, but a bad one can disqualify you.

Obviously unmotivated?

Your thoughtless dismissal of those less intelligent is enraging. Do you think all the people who work harder than you to get worse results are less motivated?

There are tens of thousands of people who would love to get into top graduate programmes, who love the subject they study but who just aren’t as smart as other people and you’re shitting on them as unmotivated?

Conscientiousness and intelligence are negatively correlated.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/30661143/Con...

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#66

Post by panda88888 »

rdtsc wrote: post #15

The linked report (exhibit A) is interesting to read: http://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-c... It would seem at first that Harvard wants to help poor students and race just happens to be a proxy for socioeconomic status, but it turns out that's not what they are doing: > Harvard’s preferential treatment of African-American and Hispanic applicants is not the result of efforts to achieve socioeco…

I always assumed there are racial disadvantage for an Asian male applicant, but it seems to be worse than I thought.

> Race plays a significant role in admissions decisions. Consider the example of an Asian-American applicant who is male, is not disadvantaged,3 and has other characteristics that result in a 25% chance of admission. Simply changing the race of this applicant to white—and leaving all his other characteristics the same—would increase his chance of admission to 36%. Changing his race to Hispanic (and leaving all other characteristics the same) would increase his chance of admission to 77%. Changing his race to African American (again, leaving all other characteristics the same) would increase his chance of admission to 95%.

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#67

Post by pwaai »

ajross wrote: post #36
doubleunplussed wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Affirmative action has biases of its own, should be blinded to prevent it. Let it be based on family income only. In Australia university admissions are based pretty much solely on one number [1] that represents your high school results (unless you didn't go to high school in Australia), plus bonus points if you are disadvantaged (for which race is not relevant unless you are an indigenous Australian or Torres S…

> race is not relevant unless you are an indigenous Australian or Torres Strait islander So... race is relevant, then? I mean, that's a pretty big "unless".

same deal in canada although for doctors and lawyers the bamboo ceiling is real...

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#68

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

There's an article in the NYT about this story. Here are key quotes:

Alumni interviewers give Asian-Americans personal ratings comparable to those of whites. But the admissions office gives them the worst scores of any racial group, often without even meeting them, according to Professor Arcidiacono.

and then

At the end of the admissions process, the class of applicants is fine-tuned through a so-called “lop list,” which includes race. Almost the entire page in which the plaintiffs describe that fine-tuning has been blacked out. Mr. Blum, the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, said Friday that it was “disreputable” of Harvard to complain that information was being taken out of context while at the same time insisting on significant redactions of the evidence.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollme...

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#69

Post by ralusek »

forapurpose wrote: post #16

Almost all discussion of racism is not about the facts of discrimination, it's about politics of the 'culture war', including here on HN: 1. Consider whether you can predict with high accuracy a person's attitude toward a racial discrimination issue, while being blind to that issue's facts, based solely on the political beliefs of the person and on the race of the alleged victim. (You can do the same with politicians…

Because the white people who take issue with actually verifiable discrimination against Asians, purely on the basis of their race, have so much to personally gain from speaking out against it. Your world view is so unbelievably flawed.

Re: Asian-American admissions at Harvard

#70

Post by learc83 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #61
learc83 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The College Board released new results in 2017 showing a more than 50 point increase out of 1600 versus students who didn't practice. This was with just 20 hours of practice. Many high achieving students practice for 5+ hours per week. South Korean cram school style 2-3 hours per day is in a completely different league than a standard SAT prep course, but much of the research that shows no result counts them the same…

This phenomenon is known as the practice effect. It has a ceiling in terms of IQ tests, just like it does in terms of physical tests. IQ tests are designed to be as close to ungameable as possible. This is like pointing out that I can make large gains in my 100m sprint time by practicing for half an hour a day for a month and predicting that I can make the Olympic team if I put in a thousand hours practice. Novice ga…

IQ tests are gameable to a degree. They are accurate across large populations largely because most people don't practice, not because they are actually ungameable.

SATs are different in 2 respects.

1. There is a large incentive to practice.

2. It isn't an IQ test, it only correlates fairly strongly with scores on IQ tests.

SATs are highly knowledge based--most of the math questions can be answered by memorizing algorithms, and the verbal section depends heavily on vocabulary.

>This is like pointing out that I can make large gains in my 100m sprint time by practicing for half an hour a day for a month and predicting that I can make the Olympic team if I put in a thousand hours practice. Novice gains are real and significant but they peter out pretty quickly.

It's unlikely you could become an Olympic sprinter, but with enough practice you could probably move into the top 1% of everyone in your age group because the vast majority aren't going to spend that much time practicing.

The SAT equivalent (for the 2018 test) would be somewhere in the 1500-1550 range.

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