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

[Derec]

when for-profit colleges control access to accreditation,

For-profit colleges (University of Phoenix, DeVry, now defunct Corinthian Colleges) are a rather small slice of US higher education and are considered as a joke by most.
Vast majority of even private universities are not-for-profit.

 

[Derec]

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.

And being the "correct" race buys the ability to get into schools like Harvard and later into med schools for example with far lower grades and SAT/MCAT scores than those of "wrong" skin color.
Even with tutors and test prep books/software the students have to put work in. Also, people of all races can avail themselves of these products.

But with racial preferences no hard work is required. You get an automatic bonus for an immutable quality. How is that just?

 

[Derec]

Those schools also have different criteria for admissions than most elite schools.

Even for the same school, such as Harvard, blacks with scores significantly lower than their white and Asian brethren get admitted.

 

[Metaphor]

Which thread have you been reading?

Because this one starts with "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."

What have you been reading?

I directly replied to your statement about legacy admits being a small fraction of all admits. Can you defend or give up that claim without running off on a tangent?

Legacy admits are a small fraction of all admits. The 43% refers to three different kinds of non-ordinary admits. The exact number of 'legacy' admits might be in the larger paper (but it's not 43%).

 

[Derec]

I don't think ronburgundy asked for SAT scores to be eliminated from consideration. As far as I can tell, he objected to painting them as some kind of entirely objective measure floating in the ether and unaffected by any kind of context. So they shouldn't be the sole criterion. Which part of that says they shouldn't be *a* criterion?

They may not be an "entirely objective measure" but they are certainly many orders of magnitude better than basing admissions on race. And yet ronburgundy not only supports race-based admissions, he calls those who oppose them "racist" when in fact, basing admission decisions on race is what's racist!

 

[Derec]

Even now, since the vast majority of Harvard attendees are white, legacy admissions are still a form of affirmative action for white people.

As usual, you are talking out of your ass.


White students are definitely not a "vast majority" at Harvard.

 

[Derec]

That's not the relevant question though - the relevant question is whether the part that's not attributable to aptitude alone is random or systematically correlates with other identifiable factors (such as SES).

Even if it does correlate with variables such as SES, that does not answer why it correlates, i.e what is the cause.
Is it expensive tutors? Is it taking the test more than once? (at $65 bucks for SAT or $62.50 for ACT, both with essay, taking them 2 or 3 times is not prohibitively expensive even for those of modest means)?
Or is it maybe the different home environment, the higher regard education, reading, maybe musical instruments play at home? After all, SES is not just income/wealth of a family, it is also the educational attainment and profession of the parents. Note also that parents transmit both nature (via DNA) and nurture (via child rearing and the home environment). If children of higher SES parents develop to have higher scholastic aptitude on average, you would expect that SES would positively correlate with test scores. But that would not detract from ability of SAT/ACT to measure aptitude.

If a high SES candidate landing in the 96th percentile has a bigger chance of finding out they don't have what it takes for the program after wasting everybody's time and effort for two years than a low SES student landing in the 92nd percentile, it makes economic sense for the school to give preference to the latter.

It would, if that were the case. But as I have argued, at least some (and probably most) of the SES correlation is going to overlap genuine aptitude measurement.
On the other hand, if a black student with 1200 SAT is no more likely to succeed than a white kid with 1200, why is the black kid given a preference?
Many schools want to drop standardized tests because they do not like the outcome - i.e. they do not like that certain non-preferred groups are scoring higher than preferred groups. Also, why should a daughter of a V103 radio personality from Atlanta for example be given preference over a white coal miner's daughter from Appalachia?

If

A lot of "ifs".

Since no-one has suggested dropping SAT scores altogether as one (among several) criteria, your question is neither here nor there.

No, but you guys desperately cling to consideration of race that skews admissions to a very significant degree.

 

[Derec]

Second, using pedantry to miss the point is pathetic that legacy admissions are a de facto form of admitting unqualified white people.

Legacy admissions are a way to admit unqualified people in general, not just white people.

 

[Derec]

No one said otherwise.

ld labors under the misconception that "vast majority" of Harvard students are white, and that therefore legacy admissions are still almost always white.

It is however also a fact that 30-40 years ago, when today's college or high school graduates' parents were students, black people in the USA were more underrepresented at universities (in general and elite universities in particular) than today.

Affirmative action existed 30-40 years ago.

More even a generation before that. It is an inherent property of legacy admissions that they tilt the composition of the student body towards what it used to be, and away from what it would otherwise be today.

But racial preferences tilt the composition even more. Without racial preferences, but with legacy and athletics, 2% of those admitted to Harvard would be black (1% on purely academic criteria) as opposed to 11% with racial preferences.

It is a logical consequence of these two facts that, in the context of the US today, legacy admissions have a significant effect of making universities more "white" than they would be without them, and that, all else equal, the proportion of people who got in due to the legacy admissions policy is much lower among black students than among white students.

And racial preferences make universities less white and Asian and more black and hispanic than they would be under race-neutral policies.

Not your straw men.

It's not a straw man to correct ld when he makes false claims.

 

[Derec]

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).

WBUR seems to be understating the numbers, according to this. The numbers I have is 1% black admissions with academic only, 2% with legacy and athletics added in and 11% with racial preferences added in.
So that means that 82% of all blacks admitted to Harvard were admitted due to "affirmative action".

 

[Derec]

I directly replied to your statement about legacy admits being a small fraction of all admits. Can you defend or give up that claim without running off on a tangent?

43% does not just include legacy, it includes athletics and donors as well.

 

[Derec]

Ivy League doesn't have athletic scholarships, I believe.

I do not know about scholarships (although they probably do), but Harvard most certainly has admission preferences for athletics, as numbers quoted in this thread show.

 

[Jokodo]

ld labors under the misconception that "vast majority" of Harvard students are white, and that therefore legacy admissions are still almost always white.


Affirmative action existed 30-40 years ago.

More even a generation before that. It is an inherent property of legacy admissions that they tilt the composition of the student body towards what it used to be, and away from what it would otherwise be today.

But racial preferences tilt the composition even more. Without racial preferences, but with legacy and athletics, 2% of those admitted to Harvard would be black (1% on purely academic criteria) as opposed to 11% with racial preferences.

It is a logical consequence of these two facts that, in the context of the US today, legacy admissions have a significant effect of making universities more "white" than they would be without them, and that, all else equal, the proportion of people who got in due to the legacy admissions policy is much lower among black students than among white students.

And racial preferences make universities less white and Asian and more black and hispanic than they would be under race-neutral policies.

Not your straw men.

It's not a straw man to correct ld when he makes false claims.

ld did not make the claim that all legacy admits are white - only that they tend to favour whites. Pretending he did is a straw man.

 

[Derec]

ld did not make the claim that all legacy admits are white - only that they tend to favour whites. Pretending he did is a straw man.

Naw.

Second, using pedantry to miss the point is pathetic that legacy admissions are a de facto form of admitting unqualified white people.

No qualification ("favoring") or similar. He is pretending that it legacies are "de facto" white people, which is false.

Come on. The long history of Harvard is an institution for WASPS up until the 1960s, so legacy admissions were most certainly a form of affirmative action for children of "legacies" (who were white). Even now, since the vast majority of Harvard attendees are white, legacy admissions are still a form of affirmative action for white people.

He thinks that presently "vast majority" of Harvard students are white. That is demonstrably false.
He also isn't writing that legacy admissions are "favoring" white people; he is claiming that they are a "form of affirmative action for white people". Another falsehood.

 

[Jokodo]

It is a logical consequence of these two facts that, in the context of the US today, legacy admissions have a significant effect of making universities more "white" than they would be without them, and that, all else equal, the proportion of people who got in due to the legacy admissions policy is much lower among black students than among white students.

And racial preferences make universities less white and Asian and more black and hispanic than they would be under race-neutral policies.

Yes. Though your own source says that Harvard is overall more, not less white than it would be based on easily quantifiable academic measures alone (43% vs. 38%) - despite this factor that puts them at a disadvantage. This actually nicely confirms ld's point, namely that legacy/donor admits overwhelmingly help white people.

 

[Jokodo]

I directly replied to your statement about legacy admits being a small fraction of all admits. Can you defend or give up that claim without running off on a tangent?

43% does not just include legacy, it includes athletics and donors as well.

I know.

Wanna make a bet which of these is the largest fraction among those 43%? I'm pretty sure it's legacy. This source states that legacy admits make up 14% of the entire student bodies. For reasons I've explained and that should be obvious even to you, the proportion will necessarily be much higher among white students: "Today, according to Harvard, legacy students make up around 14 percent of the undergraduate population."

 

[Jokodo]

But that's a very dishonest way to look at it, because the base is lower.
Proper question would be: what percentage of blacks admitted to Harvard are not qualified using the same standard used for whites.

From the perspective of a promising but poor white or Asian student who didn't get it because some less qualified student took their place, the absolute numbers matter more than the percentages.

If your main concern is the unfairness that student suffers, legacy admissions are thus a bigger problem than AA admissions.

If your main concern is that the university population is getting too brown, that's of course another story.

 

[Metaphor]

Wanna make a bet which of these is the largest fraction among those 43%? I'm pretty sure it's legacy. This source states that legacy admits make up 14% of the entire student bodies. For reasons I've explained and that should be obvious even to you, the proportion will necessarily be much higher among white students: "Today, according to Harvard, legacy students make up around 14 percent of the undergraduate population."

So...something more than 14% among white students are legacy admits. So....what? I haven't approved of legacy admits.

 

[Jokodo]

Wanna make a bet which of these is the largest fraction among those 43%? I'm pretty sure it's legacy. This source states that legacy admits make up 14% of the entire student bodies. For reasons I've explained and that should be obvious even to you, the proportion will necessarily be much higher among white students: "Today, according to Harvard, legacy students make up around 14 percent of the undergraduate population."

So...something more than 14% among white students are legacy admits. So....what? I haven't approved of legacy admits.

You did however claim that "legacy admissions are a small fraction of all admissions".

Which is what I responded to.

I know, vague adjectives and all. So your point is that 14% should count as "a small fraction", amirite?

 

[Jokodo]

Naw.

No qualification ("favoring") or similar. He is pretending that it legacies are "de facto" white people, which is false.

Come on. The long history of Harvard is an institution for WASPS up until the 1960s, so legacy admissions were most certainly a form of affirmative action for children of "legacies" (who were white). Even now, since the vast majority of Harvard attendees are white, legacy admissions are still a form of affirmative action for white people.

He thinks that presently "vast majority" of Harvard students are white. That is demonstrably false.
He also isn't writing that legacy admissions are "favoring" white people; he is claiming that they are a "form of affirmative action for white people". Another falsehood.

Exactly where is he writing that last bit? Is that supposed to be a direct quote? I searched the thread and the only mention I find of that phrase is Metaphor's straw man. When I challenged him to provide a quote, he evaded saying that he's seen it elsewhere on the internet often enough (which makes it still a straw man since this discussion isn't elsewhere on the internet but here).

Maybe you can do better than him?