A sad casualty of DEI/Woke at Cambridge University

[Loren Pechtel]

Also, we have to differentiate between family wealth/status helping you with specific metrics for admissions and genuinely preparing you academically throughout your life. If you grow up in a household where you are nurtured intellectually your whole life - where you are read to as a child, where there are books in the house, where parents cared about your education, then you will be better prepared than somebody whose parents did none of those things. And of course, there is also the genetic component. The student should not be penalized for these advantages either because these things genuinely better prepare him or her.

Can't say I like the National Review, but the Freakonomics guys found this also. Reading to children matters. Books in the house matter. Book ownership does not--books from the library work just as well.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Those national averages could be masking the effects of how students by race seek admission by university.

Here is a hypothetical example to illustrate a point. Two candidates with identical GPAs and identical scores- one black and one white - apply to medical school. The black applicant gets into Howard while the white doesn't get into Harvard. The black applicant did apply to Harvard and the white student didn't apply to Howard.

Now think about if the application rates to schools not only differ by race or schools but by region. It is very possible that the "discrimination" is really the outcome of other factors.

That is something to think about, especially by those who use other factors to explain away discrimination against minorities.

And what is the relevance??

The issue isn't limited to one school.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I corrected my text. Bilbys link is irrelevant

You correction is hand waved wishful thinking.

The narrative of this story is that an intelligent man conned his way into Cambridge University. The claim that universities check for plagiarized publications among top candidates remains unsupported.

Let's think about the logistics of this. If universities actually did routine plagiarism checks on top candidates, the process would have to be automated. Manually cross-referencing a candidate's entire body of work against every other book and paper in existence is impracticable.

So, presuming they use a standard software tool to scan submissions, this DEI conspiracy theory requires us to believe one of two nonsensical things. Either the hiring staff said, "Hey waitaminnut, this guy is Black—let's bypass all our standard scans," OR the hiring staff ran the scans, looked at the plagiarized results, and actively conspired to say, "Hey waitaminnut, this guy is Black—let's bury this report and pretend it never happened." It's really quite absurd.

Makes you wonder—do these same conspiracy theorists think the GOP ran a background check on George Santos, saw his completely fabricated life story, and said, 'Hey waitaminnut, he's a Republican. Let's hide the lies and put him in Congress'?" Or is it just that that doesn't work well for the narrative they are trying to construct?

And why can't they check all his work? That's what plagiarism checking tools do--run any test document against a very wide variety of published works. It's viable to check every student's submissions, it certainly is viable to check any prospective hire's work.

He's not a student submitting a work or "any document" -- your phrase. He was a professor with a history of publications. Note his dissertation was from 8 years prior, not at Cambridge, and I wasn't arguing the point you thought I was making anyway.

 

[ZiprHead]

No, not really. The whole 3x on population infers enough that there isn't discrimination. But, I know that people are wanting to die on this molehill.

No, it doesn't. It shows a disparate outcome, it provides no evidence whether that is due to discrimination.

There is this. It is blog-ish so if someone finds sounder stats, please post them.

Group	MCAT	GPA	Acceptance Rate
Asian	514.3	3.85	44.5%
White	512.3	3.82	47.2%
Middle Eastern/North African	511.7	3.84	38.4%
Black/African American	507.2	3.65	35.9%
Hispanic/Latino	506.8	3.71	38.9%
American Indian/Alaska Native	505.2	3.64	40.7%

This would imply that demographics are being accepted at a rate that is generally proportional to their scores.

Let's look at what that actually is saying. These numbers are scores of applicants. Not of admissions. Red herring.

And it still says a lot. 505 is the 70% percentile. 514 is the 92% percentile.

What do you think acceptance rate means? Asking because I don't understand your meaning.

 

[Politesse]

The Independent

"a public execution"?!!
"a lynching"?!!

Good grief, these people are out of their ever loving minds.

They are. It's all about race for them.

Says the original poster of the thread.

Who framed a suicide committed over an academic dishonesty charge as a problem with "DEI", because he looked at a photo of a human being and could only see their skin. Repulsive, these white nationalist stooges.

You're missing the point. We have someone who almost certainly because of his race got into a position he doesn't appear qualified for. That's exactly what we are talking about with "DEI hire"!

A claim that you have in no wise been able to substantiate. Your belief that all Black professors are underqualified compared to whites is exactly what makes you regressive racist trash unprepared for life in this century, not anyone's reasonable critique of a particular case of academic dishonesty. No one actually disagrees that plagiarism is bad. But your "woke" this and "DEI" that isn't doing anything to reduce the likelihood of fraud in higher ed, that's a fucking joke. You see the people your "team" puts in place at the DOE? All white of course, because you are what you are, and all dumb as rocks, with no apparent academic qualifications of any kind. You don't care about higher education. You care about race.

 

[Toni]

No, not really. The whole 3x on population infers enough that there isn't discrimination. But, I know that people are wanting to die on this molehill.

No, it doesn't. It shows a disparate outcome, it provides no evidence whether that is due to discrimination.

There is this. It is blog-ish so if someone finds sounder stats, please post them.

Group	MCAT	GPA	Acceptance Rate
Asian	514.3	3.85	44.5%
White	512.3	3.82	47.2%
Middle Eastern/North African	511.7	3.84	38.4%
Black/African American	507.2	3.65	35.9%
Hispanic/Latino	506.8	3.71	38.9%
American Indian/Alaska Native	505.2	3.64	40.7%

This would imply that demographics are being accepted at a rate that is generally proportional to their scores.

Let's look at what that actually is saying. These numbers are scores of applicants. Not of admissions. Red herring.

And it still says a lot. 505 is the 70% percentile. 514 is the 92% percentile.

What do you think acceptance rate means? Asking because I don't understand your meaning.

He doesn't understand it either.

 

[Toni]

Those national averages could be masking the effects of how students by race seek admission by university.

Here is a hypothetical example to illustrate a point. Two candidates with identical GPAs and identical scores- one black and one white - apply to medical school. The black applicant gets into Howard while the white doesn't get into Harvard. The black applicant did apply to Harvard and the white student didn't apply to Howard.

Now think about if the application rates to schools not only differ by race or schools but by region. It is very possible that the "discrimination" is really the outcome of other factors.

That is something to think about, especially by those who use other factors to explain away discrimination against minorities.

And what is the relevance??

The issue isn't limited to one school.

I thought you believed you were literate in math and statistics? Logic?
Maybe not.

 

[laughing dog]

Those national averages could be masking the effects of how students by race seek admission by university.

Here is a hypothetical example to illustrate a point. Two candidates with identical GPAs and identical scores- one black and one white - apply to medical school. The black applicant gets into Howard while the white doesn't get into Harvard. The black applicant did apply to Harvard and the white student didn't apply to Howard.

Now think about if the application rates to schools not only differ by race or schools but by region. It is very possible that the "discrimination" is really the outcome of other factors.

That is something to think about, especially by those who use other factors to explain away discrimination against minorities.

And what is the relevance??

The issue isn't limited to one school.

No one said it was limited. It was a simplified hypothetical example to illustrate the point in the first sentence.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How does it imply that?

You need much higher grades and MCAT to get in you are white or Asian, and much lower if you are black of Hispanic.

No. That’s a specious claim based upon average GPAs and MCAT scores across racial demographics.

There is no evidence that any students who are admitted do not meet the threshold established.

You are operating under the assumption that medical schools should admit students based solely upon the the GPAs and MCAT scores, in order of highest scores, as though it were a race and the highest scores = fastest time.

When you're free to make the definition it's a useless yardstick. You can simply set it to define success.

Instead, look at the outcome. Minimum and average scores are higher for whites, even higher for Asians.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In any case, the acceptance rates are a red herring here. We have data for accepted students, and they show very different GPAs and MCAT too.

Do we have data after the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Here's a table that includes standard deviations.

The difference between the MCAT averages is greater than one standard deviation.

I'll take your word for it. I don't have the brain space right now to do the calculations and get them laid out in a way that will let me see it. I need to be able to visualize it.

It doesn't take math beyond addition/subtraction.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Despite the NBA being hugely disproportionally black, it would be possible to discriminate against blacks in the drafting process. The NBA largely selects players based on merit, but if they decided to implement a DEI based drafting process so as to make the teams more closely resemble the racial demographics of the US, they would necessarily exclude more qualified black players (i.e. discriminate against them) in favor of less talented Asians, Hispanics, whites, etc.

Exactly. There is a huge disparity in the applicant pool due to long tails. Tropical conditions favor a long and lanky build--blacks average slightly taller than other races. Everyday effect: meaningless. I don't know why Asians average slightly shorter, but they do.

But the differences that are completely lost in the noise in the middle of the curves become a big deal way out on the tail. And basketball places a huge premium on height. Thus the NBA is mostly black and last I knew there had been only one Chinese person to ever make it.

Nonsense. Where did you read this? Human height is based on the historical healthiness of a populations diet. What that means in practice is, the later a population shifted from hunter gatherers to farmers, the taller they are. The tallest people on earth are populations who only shifted to herding, but never to farming.

Farming communities produce a hell of a lot more calories than what hunter gatherers ever could. So have a lot more babies. But farmers are occasionally hit by crop failures and in combination with the Malthusian trap leads to mass starvation. This favours the survival of short people.

Another factor is how early they shifted away from subsistence farming and industrialised farming. This is why the tallest people on Earth are the Dutch. Stayed hunter gatherers until around 2500 BC (this is very late). Industrialised Early. Same story for Danes. Swedes stayed hunter gatherers even longer than the Dutch or Danes, but industrialised later.

Your factoid on the tall lanky vs short stocky debate, I suspect is lifted from the homo sapiens vs neanderthal debate. Ie, why did we beat them. Could that be it?

Who are the tallest in USA is based around selections of populations. I'm just speculating now, but USA was initially populated by the bottom dregs of Europe. Being tall denotes status. Non-aristocrats tend to be shorter. Slavers wanted tall and strong black slaves. Isn't this a better model explaining why blacks dominate the NBA?

Anyway... racial differences has not been studied yet. Not seriously anyway. So we're mostly just speculating. Since WW2 race studies are still viewed with suspicion and find it near impossible to get funding.

 

[Toni]

How does it imply that?

You need much higher grades and MCAT to get in you are white or Asian, and much lower if you are black of Hispanic.

No. That’s a specious claim based upon average GPAs and MCAT scores across racial demographics.

There is no evidence that any students who are admitted do not meet the threshold established.

You are operating under the assumption that medical schools should admit students based solely upon the the GPAs and MCAT scores, in order of highest scores, as though it were a race and the highest scores = fastest time.

When you're free to make the definition it's a useless yardstick. You can simply set it to define success.

Instead, look at the outcome. Minimum and average scores are higher for whites, even higher for Asians.

The outcome is that fewer than 1% of all medical students fail to complete their course of studies.

I believe that compares quite favorably with graduation rates at law schools and universities, including the Ivies..

 

[Bomb#20]

There is this. It is blog-ish so if someone finds sounder stats, please post them.

Group	MCAT	GPA	Acceptance Rate
Asian	514.3	3.85	44.5%
White	512.3	3.82	47.2%
Middle Eastern/North African	511.7	3.84	38.4%
Black/African American	507.2	3.65	35.9%
Hispanic/Latino	506.8	3.71	38.9%
American Indian/Alaska Native	505.2	3.64	40.7%

This would imply that demographics are being accepted at a rate that is generally proportional to their scores.

Let's look at what that actually is saying. These numbers are scores of applicants. Not of admissions. Red herring.

No, follow the link. It says "The table below compares average MCAT scores, GPAs, and acceptance rates by ethnicity using AAMC 2025–2026 data. MCAT and GPA values reflect mean scores for students who matriculated, not all applicants."

 

[Bomb#20]

Who framed a suicide committed over an academic dishonesty charge as a problem with "DEI", because he looked at a photo of a human being and could only see their skin. Repulsive, these white nationalist stooges.

You're missing the point. We have someone who almost certainly because of his race got into a position he doesn't appear qualified for. That's exactly what we are talking about with "DEI hire"!

A claim that you have in no wise been able to substantiate. Your belief that all Black professors are underqualified compared to whites is exactly what makes you regressive racist trash unprepared for life in this century, ... You see the people your "team" puts in place at the DOE? All white of course, because you are what you are, and all dumb as rocks, with no apparent academic qualifications of any kind. You don't care about higher education. You care about race.

You make false damaging groundless accusations like those ones against a lot of people, with malice and reckless disregard for the truth. In most cases, such as the numerous times you've done it to me, or, as in the first example above, when you did it to Derec or perhaps TSwizzle, your wrongdoing can have no legal consequences. That's because defamation against a pen name generally isn't actionable unless the target's true identity is common knowledge. My not really being named "Bomb#20" protects you. (In contrast, you not really being named "Politesse" doesn't protect you. If "Politesse" gets sued for libel the court can subpoena ZiprHead and make him give up your IP address.)

"Loren Pechtel" doesn't look to me like a pen name.

 

[Bomb#20]

...

Also there is zero way to determine if the highest scoring students who are offered admissions are white, Asian, Hispanic, NA, or Black.

Very true. All we have is overall statistics. If the top-scoring premed student in America is Black that doesn't magically mean Asians aren't being systematically discriminated against. Go back to 1938 when the SAT became commonplace. The top scoring high school student in America was probably white; that did not mean Black students weren't being systematically discriminated against.
...

The fact is that almost every person who is admitted and accepts a slot in med school graduates. Most go on to residency and after completing residency most go on to practice medicine, with some heading into research ( often MD-PhDs) or teaching.

Apparently however medical schools determine their admissions process, they do an excellent job of selecting students who are successful, complete the program, go on to residency and practice medicine or otherwise pursue medical careers ( research, teaching).

What's your point? The great majority of admitted medical students graduated and became doctors back in the 1950s too. Do you think that's evidence the schools weren't discriminating against Black applicants?
...

Why do you think that discrimination against black people, including students stopped at any point in the last 60-70 ( or 270) years?

I didn't say it stopped. I picked examples from 70+ years ago because there's no controversy about them because the discrimination was so blatant. My point was to prove by counterexample that the inference rule you were using to argue that Asians aren't being discriminated against today is illogical. It's perfectly feasible for schools to have high graduation rates and churn out a firehose of good doctors while at the same time turning away plenty of well-suited students on account of their ethnicity. They used to do it mostly to black people and Jews; now they mostly do it to white people and Asians; and that in no way implies they never do it to black people any more.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Who framed a suicide committed over an academic dishonesty charge as a problem with "DEI", because he looked at a photo of a human being and could only see their skin. Repulsive, these white nationalist stooges.

You're missing the point. We have someone who almost certainly because of his race got into a position he doesn't appear qualified for. That's exactly what we are talking about with "DEI hire"!

A claim that you have in no wise been able to substantiate. Your belief that all Black professors are underqualified compared to whites is exactly what makes you regressive racist trash unprepared for life in this century, ... You see the people your "team" puts in place at the DOE? All white of course, because you are what you are, and all dumb as rocks, with no apparent academic qualifications of any kind. You don't care about higher education. You care about race.

You make false damaging groundless accusations like those ones against a lot of people, with malice and reckless disregard for the truth. In most cases, such as the numerous times you've done it to me, or, as in the first example above, when you did it to Derec or perhaps TSwizzle, your wrongdoing can have no legal consequences. That's because defamation against a pen name generally isn't actionable unless the target's true identity is common knowledge. My not really being named "Bomb#20" protects you. (In contrast, you not really being named "Politesse" doesn't protect you. If "Politesse" gets sued for libel the court can subpoena ZiprHead and make him give up your IP address.)

"Loren Pechtel" doesn't look to me like a pen name.

I think Politesse is a poster child for the expression, the revolution is eating its children. She has impossible and unrealistic moral standards. If you don't slavishly comply then you're just like Hitler. She leaves no room for nuance. It makes it very hard to discuss anything in a meaningful way IMHO.

 

[Politesse]

Who framed a suicide committed over an academic dishonesty charge as a problem with "DEI", because he looked at a photo of a human being and could only see their skin. Repulsive, these white nationalist stooges.

You're missing the point. We have someone who almost certainly because of his race got into a position he doesn't appear qualified for. That's exactly what we are talking about with "DEI hire"!

A claim that you have in no wise been able to substantiate. Your belief that all Black professors are underqualified compared to whites is exactly what makes you regressive racist trash unprepared for life in this century, ... You see the people your "team" puts in place at the DOE? All white of course, because you are what you are, and all dumb as rocks, with no apparent academic qualifications of any kind. You don't care about higher education. You care about race.

You make false damaging groundless accusations like those ones against a lot of people, with malice and reckless disregard for the truth. In most cases, such as the numerous times you've done it to me, or, as in the first example above, when you did it to Derec or perhaps TSwizzle, your wrongdoing can have no legal consequences. That's because defamation against a pen name generally isn't actionable unless the target's true identity is common knowledge. My not really being named "Bomb#20" protects you. (In contrast, you not really being named "Politesse" doesn't protect you. If "Politesse" gets sued for libel the court can subpoena ZiprHead and make him give up your IP address.)

"Loren Pechtel" doesn't look to me like a pen name.

I think Politesse is a poster child for the expression, the revolution is eating its children. She has impossible and unrealistic moral standards. If you don't slavishly comply then you're just like Hitler. She leaves no room for nuance. It makes it very hard to discuss anything in a meaningful way IMHO.

I'm not a moralist, I just have little patience for bullshit. Oh, sorry, "nuance". If you don't want to be seen as racist, don't say racist shit. A is A. I'd happily say the same to a judge in your hypothetical horrors court. Funny how I'm supposedly an extremist, yet y'all the one threatening to sue me for talking wrong.

 

[Patooka]

I'm not a moralist, I just have little patience for bullshit. Oh, sorry, "nuance". If you don't want to be seen as racist, don't say racist shit. A is A. I'd happily say the same to a judge in your hypothetical horrors court.

Now you are just being woke /sarcasm

 

[Toni]

...

Also there is zero way to determine if the highest scoring students who are offered admissions are white, Asian, Hispanic, NA, or Black.

Very true. All we have is overall statistics. If the top-scoring premed student in America is Black that doesn't magically mean Asians aren't being systematically discriminated against. Go back to 1938 when the SAT became commonplace. The top scoring high school student in America was probably white; that did not mean Black students weren't being systematically discriminated against.
...

The fact is that almost every person who is admitted and accepts a slot in med school graduates. Most go on to residency and after completing residency most go on to practice medicine, with some heading into research ( often MD-PhDs) or teaching.

Apparently however medical schools determine their admissions process, they do an excellent job of selecting students who are successful, complete the program, go on to residency and practice medicine or otherwise pursue medical careers ( research, teaching).

What's your point? The great majority of admitted medical students graduated and became doctors back in the 1950s too. Do you think that's evidence the schools weren't discriminating against Black applicants?
...

Why do you think that discrimination against black people, including students stopped at any point in the last 60-70 ( or 270) years?

I didn't say it stopped. I picked examples from 70+ years ago because there's no controversy about them because the discrimination was so blatant. My point was to prove by counterexample that the inference rule you were using to argue that Asians aren't being discriminated against today is illogical. It's perfectly feasible for schools to have high graduation rates and churn out a firehose of good doctors while at the same time turning away plenty of well-suited students on account of their ethnicity. They used to do it mostly to black people and Jews; now they mostly do it to white people and Asians; and that in no way implies they never do it to black people any

2026 Medical School Acceptance Rates by Ethnicity | Med School Insiders

Compare medical school acceptance rates, MCAT scores, GPAs, and disparities across groups to better understand what’s required of you for acceptance.

medschoolinsiders.com

GROUP	MCAT	GPA	ACCEPTANCE RATE
Asian	514.3	3.85	44.5%
White	512.3	3.82	47.2%
Middle Eastern/North African	511.7	3.84	38.4%
Black/African American	507.2	3.65	35.9%
Hispanic/Latino	506.8	3.71	38.9%
American Indian/Alaska Native	505.2	3.64	40.7

White applicants are still accepted at a higher rate compared with all other groups. Asians are accepted at the next highest rate. Black/African Anerican applicants are still accepted at the lowest rate, despite having higher MCAT scores than Hispanic or NA applicants.

What the data dues not show is proportionally how large each applicant group by ethnicity applies to medical school, nor is the data available to show which med schools accept more applicants of any ethnic group. The data also does not reveal how many applicants of each ethnicity apply to multiple schools, or how many are accepted by more than one school.


The data does not reflect the fact that applicants consider a host of reasons for selecting which schools to apply to, including cost and geography. Harvard almost certainly receives a higher number of applicants compared with Many/most students prefer to apply to a medical school geographically closer to their home/family because of cost, access to family and friends for support.