4 X more "unqualified" white students admitted to Harvard than black students

[ruby sparks]

Yet, conservatives who claim to only to care about fairness, focus almost exclusively on the non-whites admitted by affirmative action. This reveals a lack of principled commitment to actual fairness, and a racial ulterior motive by such conservatives.

Yes, it suggests that for many, the issue is not about fairness, even though they would dress it up as such.

 

[ronburgundy]

The fact that a rich person was too dumb to even take advantage of how their wealth can boost their scores beyond their true intellectual ability has no logical relevance to the empirical fact that wealth can be and is used by many of the rich to boost test scores.

The only way wealth can be used to boost test scores, is for an average but wealthy person to marry a smart but modest person and hope the kids take the smart side. Otherwise, there is no empirical evidence that wealth buys cognition.

So, you are claiming that there is no empirical evidence that taking a test multiple times improves your score, or that been trained one-on-one by experts who've studied the way that particular test is constructed will have any impact. The level of dishonesty required to make that assertion makes it futile to even waste my time getting the references for you.

 

[Trausti]

Ah, here it is.

SAT Only Admissions: How Would It Change College Campuses?

A review of SAT and ACT standardized test scores among students in a recent class at the nation’s 200 most selective colleges finds that if all students were admitted solely on the basis of their test scores and no new seats were added, 53 percent of incoming students at the nation’s most selective colleges would no longer be attending (Figure 1). These students had median test scores that were 110 points below the median of all students at selective colleges (1140, compared to 1250). More than half of the students who would be ousted are affluent students—from families in the top quartile of socioeconomic status (SES)

Wait. With SAT only admissions, those from higher SES families would see a drop in admissions? But Ron said there were empirical facts saying the opposite!

In addition to having more affluent students, selective colleges would become notably less racially diverse. The White enrollment would grow by about 14 percent. Meanwhile, the combined Black and Latino enrollment3 at selective colleges would be reduced by 43 percent, and Asian enrollment would decline as well—by about 9 percent.

Eww, yuck. White people. Amirite Ron?

 

[laughing dog]

The fact that a rich person was too dumb to even take advantage of how their wealth can boost their scores beyond their true intellectual ability has no logical relevance to the empirical fact that wealth can be and is used by many of the rich to boost test scores.

The only way wealth can be used to boost test scores, is for an average but wealthy person to marry a smart but modest person and hope the kids take the smart side. Otherwise, there is no empirical evidence that wealth buys cognition.

It bought enough cognition for people to buy others to falsify test results or to take the tests in lieu of their children.

It is an illusion that there is a single metric to measure potential collegiate ability or intelligence .

 

[Trausti]

Empirical Fact! Empirical Fact! Empirical Fact!

What We Know, Are Still Getting Wrong, and Have Yet to Learn about the Relationships among the SAT, Intelligence and Achievement

SAT scores correlate moderately with socioeconomic status [15], as do other standardized measures of intelligence. Contrary to some opinions, the predictive power of the SAT holds even when researchers control for socioeconomic status, and this pattern is similar across gender and racial/ethnic subgroups [15,16]. Another popular misconception is that one can “buy” a better SAT score through costly test prep. Yet research has consistently demonstrated that it is remarkably difficult to increase an individual’s SAT score, and the commercial test prep industry capitalizes on, at best, modest changes [13,17]. Short of outright cheating on the test, an expensive and complex undertaking that may carry unpleasant legal consequences, high SAT scores are generally difficult to acquire by any means other than high ability.

 

[Trausti]

The fact that a rich person was too dumb to even take advantage of how their wealth can boost their scores beyond their true intellectual ability has no logical relevance to the empirical fact that wealth can be and is used by many of the rich to boost test scores.

The only way wealth can be used to boost test scores, is for an average but wealthy person to marry a smart but modest person and hope the kids take the smart side. Otherwise, there is no empirical evidence that wealth buys cognition.

It bought enough cognition for people to buy others to falsify test results or to take the tests in lieu of their children.

It is an illusion that there is a single metric to measure potential collegiate ability or intelligence .

Ron's thesis is that with wealth a child can be taught to ace the SAT. That is demonstratively untrue.

 

[Trausti]

Universal screening increases the representation of low-income and minority students in gifted education

A longstanding concern about gifted education in the United States is the underrepresentation of minorities and economically disadvantaged groups. One explanation for this gap is that standard processes for identifying gifted students, which are based largely on the referrals of parents and teachers, tend to miss many qualified students. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that a universal screening program in a large urban school district led to significant increases in the numbers of poor and minority students who met the IQ standards for gifted status. Our findings raise the question of whether a systemic failure to identify qualified students from all backgrounds may help explain the broader pattern of minority underrepresentation in all advanced K−12 academic programs.

Standardized tests are a proxy for IQ.

 

[rousseau]

It's an interesting problem.

The facade is that universities are about education, when really they're in the business of selling accreditation. But it sounds like the US has a real problem here - when for-profit colleges control access to accreditation, which is essential to people's economic well-being, there probably should be a level entry point for all candidates.

Even in Canada there are some shady-practices - like taking in students that are woefully unqualified for a program, then culling them with difficult courses while pocketing their tuition.

But how do you properly regulate a school that needs to turn a profit? At the very least there should be standard qualifications that 100% of the students need to meet (without getting into a tired argument about affirmative action).

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

A study found that 43% of white students admitted to Harvard were admitted for reasons other than academic qualifications, such as legacy, $ donors, and children of faculty. 75% of them would not have been admitted based upon their academic credentials. Given that whites are about 50% of all admissions, that works out to be .43 X .75 X .50 = .16 or 16% of all students being whites given preferential treatment and taking seats from more academically qualified students.

Court documents from the lawsuits about Harvard affirmative action policies show that about 4% of Harvard's students are black students admitted due to affirmative action preferences (out of 14% total black student population).

IOW, for every black student admitted because of affirmative action and thus "took the seat from a more qualified student" (to use standard rhetoric), there are 4 white students who took a seat from a more qualified student.

Yet, conservatives who claim to only to care about fairness, focus almost exclusively on the non-whites admitted by affirmative action. This reveals a lack of principled commitment to actual fairness, and a racial ulterior motive by such conservatives.

This isn't news to conservatives. They already know they can buy their way into things, including college with "donations." The whole Affirmative Action crying game was always a distraction because conservative principles are not about fairness in the first place. They are about protecting the elite. Look at Donald Trump. He paid someone to take his SATs. His unqualified children all got into Penn. And then those unqualified children became staff members of the Administration. And who backs it all up? Conservatives...

And the best way to ensure fairness and merit, and stop the Lori Loughlins of the world, is to use standardized testing.

That reality tv stars like Hair Furor and the other Hollywood elites can all buy.

Hahaha!

 

[blastula]

Falsifying a test score is why Huffman went to prison.

Right. She paid a proctor to fix her daughter’s wrong answers. Her wealth couldn’t make her daughter ace the SAT.

Their money did allow them to get in without having to pass the tests, until they got caught.

 

[ronburgundy]

Empirical Fact! Empirical Fact! Empirical Fact!

What We Know, Are Still Getting Wrong, and Have Yet to Learn about the Relationships among the SAT, Intelligence and Achievement

SAT scores correlate moderately with socioeconomic status [15], as do other standardized measures of intelligence. Contrary to some opinions, the predictive power of the SAT holds even when researchers control for socioeconomic status, and this pattern is similar across gender and racial/ethnic subgroups [15,16]. Another popular misconception is that one can “buy” a better SAT score through costly test prep. Yet research has consistently demonstrated that it is remarkably difficult to increase an individual’s SAT score, and the commercial test prep industry capitalizes on, at best, modest changes [13,17]. Short of outright cheating on the test, an expensive and complex undertaking that may carry unpleasant legal consequences, high SAT scores are generally difficult to acquire by any means other than high ability.

Note the lack of empirical data in your cite, and the meaningless vague equivocation language like "generally difficult" rather than cannot be done as your arguments assume.

Those who take the ACT a second time average 2.9 points higher (which is the difference between being 82nd percentile rather than 78th percentile. Taking it a third time add about 2 more points, and 4 times another point. That's a 6 point average boost from taking it three extra times, which is the difference of being in the 96th rather than 78th percentile.

And whites are more likely to take it multiple times, and most people with family income below 36K only take it once while most those above 60K take it 2-10 times.

This all jives with a mountain of empirical data showing that taking practice tests is often more effective than spending that same time studying the material more.

This meta-analysis of randomized controlled lab studies showed that coaching increases SAT math scores by and average of 32.7 points, which amounts to going from the 79th to 85th percentile.

And a number of for profit companies guarantee 100 point or more increases on total scores. They'd be out of business if they couldn't deliver on that.

 

[ronburgundy]

It bought enough cognition for people to buy others to falsify test results or to take the tests in lieu of their children.

It is an illusion that there is a single metric to measure potential collegiate ability or intelligence .

Ron's thesis is that with wealth a child can be taught to ace the SAT. That is demonstratively untrue.

Nope, I demonstrated it is true with actual data, unlike your citation that made a data-free meaninglessly vague claim.

 

[laughing dog]

It bought enough cognition for people to buy others to falsify test results or to take the tests in lieu of their children.

It is an illusion that there is a single metric to measure potential collegiate ability or intelligence .

Ron's thesis is that with wealth a child can be taught to ace the SAT.

No, the empirical facts are that a child can be taught to improve their SAT or ACT score. And there are plenty of for-profit business that prosper on that fact. Which to an ardent admirer of the free market should indicate that it is empirically valid.

 

[ronburgundy]

Wait. With SAT only admissions, those from higher SES families would see a drop in admissions? But Ron said there were empirical facts saying the opposite!

I never said any such thing, you're just incapable of basic reasoning and constantly draw false inferences to suit your faith. A drop in high SES families is b/c it is almost entirely rich families getting in from legacy and donor admissions, which are the majority of all other non-SAT based admissions. If you are losing all those rich applicants, then even if SAT scores are inflated by wealth, you will lose high SES students. Only if high SAT scores were impossible to achieve without high SES (which no one said or implied) would that not be true. Suppose 100 dumb rich kids get replaced by kids scoring in the 95th percentile. Now suppose that even when kids are of equal intellect, being rich doubles your odds of being in the 95th percentile. While many of the new kids with high scores would be rich, some would not, thus the net change from eliminating legacy and donors is still a drop in rich kids.

In addition to having more affluent students, selective colleges would become notably less racially diverse. The White enrollment would grow by about 14 percent. Meanwhile, the combined Black and Latino enrollment3 at selective colleges would be reduced by 43 percent, and Asian enrollment would decline as well—by about 9 percent.

Eww, yuck. White people. Amirite Ron?

Yuck to your pathetic lack of intellect is right. That has nothing to do with Harvard or even Ivy Schools. That's claims for 200 colleges averaged, and it doesn't even make any sense. Asians average at the 74th percentile while whites average at the 58th percentile on SAT scores. So, how the fuck would using only SAT scores lower the % of Asians who get accepted? It's impossible. They would become the majority population at Harvard, all Ivy, and most highly competitive schools. The only schools where Asian enrollment would drop would be mediocre schools that Asians reject b/c they are no longer getting rejected by better schools to give seats to white legacy students.

 

[Toni]

The fact that a rich person was too dumb to even take advantage of how their wealth can boost their scores beyond their true intellectual ability has no logical relevance to the empirical fact that wealth can be and is used by many of the rich to boost test scores.

The only way wealth can be used to boost test scores, is for an average but wealthy person to marry a smart but modest person and hope the kids take the smart side. Otherwise, there is no empirical evidence that wealth buys cognition.

It does buy higher test scores. Which is not the same thing as cognition.

As has been pointed out repeatedly on this board and I think at least once in this thread, wealthy DOES buy tutors, test prep programs, access to multiple attempts at testing, coaching for tests, schools designed specifically to boost test scores--starting at pre-K, btw. For starters.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I think there is more going on here as well. Probably would not impact the conclusions of ron but it would explain different trends we see.

For example, some people are hiring others to take the tests for them. It is unknown how many, but probably it's more rich people doing it than poor people.

Some cultures on average probably take the test more as a variable, eg. Asians. Those persons probably on average also apply to more colleges and more elite colleges out of them.

African Americans being on average lesser SES, probably are taking the tests much less. But African Americans may not be applying to the same schools as Asians and Whites on average since there are a number of traditionally African American schools such as Moorehouse. Those schools also have different criteria for admissions than most elite schools.

 

[ronburgundy]

I think there is more going on here as well. Probably would not change the conclusions of ron but it would explain different trends we see.

For example, some people are hiring others to take the tests for them. It is unknown how many, but probably it's more rich people doing it than poor people.

Some cultures on average probably take the test more as a variable, eg. Asians. Those persons probably on average also apply to more colleges and more elite colleges out of them.

African Americans being on average lesser SES, probably are taking the tests much less. But African Americans may not be applying to the same schools as Asians and Whites on average since there are a number of traditionally African American schools such as Moorehouse. Those schools also have different criteria for admissions than most elite schools.

Yeah, one of my posts mentions that number of test attempts is highly variable by race and SES (b/c it costs $), plus number of test attempts predicts steady increases in scores, raising a person 12 percentile rankings from first to fourth attempt (on average). That's a huge difference, that would be the difference between acceptance and rejection much of the time.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I think there is more going on here as well. Probably would not change the conclusions of ron but it would explain different trends we see.

For example, some people are hiring others to take the tests for them. It is unknown how many, but probably it's more rich people doing it than poor people.

Some cultures on average probably take the test more as a variable, eg. Asians. Those persons probably on average also apply to more colleges and more elite colleges out of them.

African Americans being on average lesser SES, probably are taking the tests much less. But African Americans may not be applying to the same schools as Asians and Whites on average since there are a number of traditionally African American schools such as Moorehouse. Those schools also have different criteria for admissions than most elite schools.

Yeah, one of my posts mentions that number of test attempts is highly variable by race and SES (b/c it costs $), plus number of test attempts predicts steady increases in scores, raising a person 12 percentile rankings from first to fourth attempt (on average). That's a huge difference, that would be the difference between acceptance and rejection much of the time.

Another variable, though, is that different races may apply to different numbers and types of schools on average. I believe this impacts acceptance/rejection rates.

 

[ronburgundy]

I think there is more going on here as well. Probably would not change the conclusions of ron but it would explain different trends we see.

For example, some people are hiring others to take the tests for them. It is unknown how many, but probably it's more rich people doing it than poor people.

Some cultures on average probably take the test more as a variable, eg. Asians. Those persons probably on average also apply to more colleges and more elite colleges out of them.

African Americans being on average lesser SES, probably are taking the tests much less. But African Americans may not be applying to the same schools as Asians and Whites on average since there are a number of traditionally African American schools such as Moorehouse. Those schools also have different criteria for admissions than most elite schools.

Yeah, one of my posts mentions that number of test attempts is highly variable by race and SES (b/c it costs $), plus number of test attempts predicts steady increases in scores, raising a person 12 percentile rankings from first to fourth attempt (on average). That's a huge difference, that would be the difference between acceptance and rejection much of the time.

Another variable, though, is that different races may apply to different numbers and types of schools on average. I believe this impacts acceptance/rejection rates.

Type would matter, but number of schools would only impact acceptance rates when measured at the aggregate level where you ask if a student was accepted anywhere they applied. It's a rare stat that isn't collected b/c it can't be collected by schools, but only by researchers who directly contact students to ask if they got accepted any place they applied. It's not even the "average acceptance rate of groups across schools", which uses acceptance rates at individual schools as the unit of measurement. Although it is true black students would be better served by applying more places, even though that is yet another SES issue b/c applications cost $.

 

[ronburgundy]

It bought enough cognition for people to buy others to falsify test results or to take the tests in lieu of their children.

It is an illusion that there is a single metric to measure potential collegiate ability or intelligence .

Ron's thesis is that with wealth a child can be taught to ace the SAT.

No, the empirical facts are that a child can be taught to improve their SAT or ACT score. And there are plenty of for-profit business that prosper on that fact. Which to an ardent admirer of the free market should indicate that it is empirically valid.

In fact many such businesses guarantee a score increase, which guarantees bankruptcy very fast if Trautsi's absurd claim was true.