A sad casualty of DEI/Woke at Cambridge University

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

No it doesn't.

Of course it does.

You would need to not understand what an "average" is to claim that. I'm pretty certain you understand what the word "average" means.

The real question is: do you?

If the acceptance rate was equivalent despite the difference in MCAT / GPA scores or the acceptance rate was random or reversed as shown relative to MCAT / GPA, that would provide evidence of your claim.

Not necessarily.

Instead, the stats above show that higher score/GPA means you have a better chance at acceptance.

Slightly better chance of acceptance, yes. But because the applicant pools have very different stats, the slightly different acceptance rates do not begin to compensate for that. That means that among matriculants, not applicants, there are still vast differences in grades and scores. I did an analysis of the MCAT data earlier. Let me post it again.

View attachment 55053
Look at the vast difference of where the black and Hispanic confidence intervals are compared to white and Asian ones. American Indian and Alaska Native have an even worse mean MCAT, but their numbers are so low, the confidence interval is wide and approaches black and Hispanic CIs.

Okay, look - they're different. Some of them look like they're even statistically significantly so. Here's what's missing:

• What is the overall mean and standard deviation of the population as a whole, and how representative is the sample?
• Do the ranges of the cohorts fall within the range of the population as a whole in a way that suggests sampling error is the more likely explanation for the differences?
• Is there bias or skew in the sample selection criteria, either intentional or inadvertent?

And most importantly:

• Is the difference material?

It's a constant annoyance to me. There are tons and tons of things out there where you can create a division on some identifiable characteristic, and if you look at the results for each cohort, find a statistically significant variance. But if you step back and look at the range of possible outcomes, the absolute difference between the means and their ranges is only a very small wedge. The difference is not material.

I’d like to add a few more points to build on this: (1) MCAT scores are not the sole metric for admissions. Committees weigh multiple factors, and these variables often distribute differently across the demographic groups being discussed. (2) The groups under discussion do not apply to or attend the same tiers of schools at identical rates. For example, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) educate roughly 10% of African American college students. Because different subsets of institutions often have different baseline criteria or flexibilities, comparing the entire national applicant pool as a single monolith is misleading. (3) Many medical schools actively recruit candidates who commit to working in underserved communities. This specific mission inevitably influences acceptance rates differently among the demographic groups being discussed.

While I don’t deny that race can factor into individual college admissions decisions at times, relying on uni-dimensional averages to make sweeping claims about systemic unfairness lacks intellectual rigor. Pointing to average differences in a single variable does not mathematically prove vast unfairness—more often than not, it could be an apples-to-oranges comparison hiding behind a graph. Serious discussions about race and admissions require far more rigor than just whipping out this same chart every time affirmative action, SATs, or DEI comes up.

Since this is a derail, I have created a thread for discussion of MCATS:

Thread 'MCATs, Affirmative Action, and DEI, Oh My'

Aug 23, 2026

This is a space to discuss these things without derailing some other threads about current events. In particular, US college admissions into pre-med schools has come up and different averages across demographic groups in MCATs and how that could play a role.

Thoughts?

• Don2 (Don1 Revised)
• Replies: 1,108
• Forum: Political Discussions

 

[Toni]

He is assuming nothing of the sort. This has been explained to you many times. Why do you persist in misrepresenting your opponents on this issue? At some point it stops looking like an innocent misunderstanding on your part and starts looking like a deliberate strawman.

One more time. When a black guy with a 506 MCAT has a good chance of getting admitted and an Asian guy with a 506 MCAT has a negligible chance of getting admitted, it follows that either the admissions officers are discriminating against Asians or else that Asian applicants are systematically worse than black applicants on some other criterion of student desirability being applied. There is no value judgment involved here, no reliance on anyone's opinion about whether MCAT is important or whether something else is more important or whether there's any correlation with doctor quality -- you could bloody well assume the only important criterion is birth order and a middle child makes the best doctor if you like and the admission probability argument is still decisive. It is an inference about what admissions officers do, not about what they ought to do.

So if you think medical schools aren't discriminating against Asians, what criterion do you think admissions officers are applying alongside their reliance on MCAT that's making up for some students' lower MCAT scores? And why do you think Asian students are worse than black students at satisfying that criterion?

I think that admissions to medical schools is not the same thing as winning a race, with the highest GPAs and MCAT scores across=fastest speeds.

Everybody here agrees with that. You keep arguing against a policy no one advocated.

I think that many high achieving students apply to all the ‘ best’ medical schools based solely upon the perceived status of the medical school instead of whether a particular small set of medical schools is actually a good match for what they envision their future career to be.

If it's true that what Asian students are worse at than black students is applying to "safety" schools instead of "best" schools, then yes, that could in theory account for some or all of the discrepancy in test scores without anti-Asian racial discrimination by schools. But I'll have to ask, do you have any actual evidence for this hypothesis? It seems staggeringly implausible. Medical student wannabes apply to sixteen or more schools on average; and the average Asian student applies to even more than the average black student does. The notion that Asians systematically don't have the wit to deploy at least a few of those sixteen-plus applications to lower-tier schools they have the best chance of getting into strains credulity.

However it is unlikely that medical schools are as blinded by perfect scores as you seem to be

You are not a competent judge of what others seem to be blinded by. I am not blinded by perfect scores; moreover, I do not seem to be. You trumped that accusation up out of whole cloth for the purpose of giving yourself permission not to think about my actual argument.

I thu k looking solely at average scores obscures a great deal of detail about students who are admitted.

Very true. To get unassailable proof we'd need individual schools to publish their breakdowns of how many students of each ethnicity applied and how many were accepted at each score level. But of course schools invariably choose not to publish that information, because it would open them up to endless discrimination lawsuits.

And feeds the bigotry of those who think that only test scores do matter.

That's a bigoted thing for you to say. Nobody thinks only test scores matter; you're simply peddling a stereotype your ideology puts out about the infidel.

But people are actually arguing that only GPA and MCAT scores count, highest X composite scores should be admitted, with X being the number of slots for first year students.

Also there is zero way to determine if the highest scoring students who are offered admissions are white, Asian, Hispanic, NA, or Black. The general assumption is that Asian students have the highest scores, followed by whites and then, everybody else because who cares? They are dark skinned people and get all good things handed to them, including, of course, the assumption that they did not actually earn their place but were given it because of their race.

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).

AFAIK, there is no data showing how many/demographics of medical school applicants who apply and are accepted at multiple medical schools or at no medical school.

 

[Bomb#20]

But, but the USA is the world leader in everything, even British universities.

You jest; but in fact that's correct. ... That's how the "diversity" meme went from a Harvard curiosity to an America-wide phenomenon, and thence to the rest of the world.

That... entire history is remarkably out of touch with reality. Where do you get this stuff?

I get this stuff from fifty-plus years listening to affirmative action debates. What in it do you think is out of touch with reality, and where do you get this stuff?

I wrote: Did any published justifications for affirmative action in Europe rely on diversity prior to 1978?

Google replied:

AI Overview
No published justifications for affirmative action (or "positive action") in Europe relied on a "diversity" rationale prior to 1978. Before 1978, European discussions concerning preferential or remedial measures focused almost exclusively on corrective justice, compensatory protection, or substantive equality to offset historical disadvantages (primarily concerning gender equality in employment). The explicit productivity-driven or educational "diversity rationale" did not emerge as a core legal or public justification until later, heavily influenced by the American Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) decision and subsequent US diversity management discourse.​

 

[TSwizzle]

Unlike those black parents who don’t care enough not to raise their kids in the projects.

Parents, plural? lol. Few and far between these days.

Okay, see, that's kinda racist. I know it's not necessarily incorrect, but you're playing on a negative stereotype in a derogatory way.

As uncomfortable as it may be to you, "kinda" true though.

 

[Toni]

Unlike those black parents who don’t care enough not to raise their kids in the projects.

Parents, plural? lol. Few and far between these days.

Okay, see, that's kinda racist. I know it's not necessarily incorrect, but you're playing on a negative stereotype in a derogatory way.

As uncomfortable as it may be to you, "kinda" true though.

It’s not ‘kinda racist.’ It’s full on racist just as the systems that keep people in poverty and refuse to provide social and economic support for those living near or below the poverty line are racist. The system of enslavement did as much as it could to sever family connections and to keep enslaved people as livestock rather than as fellow human beings.

For middle class and lower, two parent households are not necessarily bringing in sufficient income to cover housing, food and medical care at a basic level, yet combining wages puts families over the threshold to receive necessary subsidies for housing, daycare, medical care and even SNAP benefits. So a few generations ago, men left families so that their family could get needed assistance. So fewer people got married.

And up the economic men just leave families, throw some cash at the problem and look for a younger model, never thinking to address the underlying cause of their malaise.

And it’s all ok: women can get jobs now! Have their own money and bank accounts and everything—except actual physical and emotional support needed to raise children well.

 

[laughing dog]

Unlike those black parents who don’t care enough not to raise their kids in the projects.

Parents, plural? lol. Few and far between these days.

Okay, see, that's kinda racist. I know it's not necessarily incorrect, but you're playing on a negative stereotype in a derogatory way.

As uncomfortable as it may be to you, "kinda" true though.

From what I can tell, about an estimated 44% of black households have one parent. That hardly seems like “few and far between”. So it seems more than “kinda racist”.

 

[Emily Lake]

I think that admissions to medical schools is not the same thing as winning a race, with the highest GPAs and MCAT scores across=fastest speeds.

I think that many high achieving students apply to all the ‘ best’ medical schools based solely upon the perceived status of the medical school instead of whether a particular small set of medical schools is actually a good match for what they envision their future career to be. However it is unlikely that medical schools are as blinded by perfect scores as you seem to be and such students are unlikely to be admitted to every school they apply to.

I thu k looking solely at average scores obscures a great deal of detail about students who are admitted. And feeds the bigotry of those who think that only test scores do matter.

I'm gonna provide a plausible mechanism that would support Derec's argument, but wouldn't cause your argument to fail. In short, it would result in both of you being right. This is speculative, and mostly because I see a scenario that produces this outcome, and it amuses me to share it. I feel clever.

But I also feel lazy, so I'm not going to go back and find the numbers to make sure I'm moderately in line with them and I'm not going to do the actual math. I'm just going to keep it high level and conceptual to demonstrate that it's possible.

Let's assume that there's a fixed threshold for admittance. When applied to applicants stratified by race, that threshold consistently results in a lower proportion of admitted black students than the proportion that applied. For argument's sake, let's say the admittance threshold of 8/10 results in 80% white students and 20% black... but the proportion of applicants is more like 65%/35%. Turns out that the average score for black applicants was lower than the average score of white students, and they had different standard deviations, and maybe even some skew.

Let's say that you have a desire to have an admission rate that mirrors that of the applicants, or is at least much closer. How can that be accomplished?

Well, there are probably lots and lots of things that could be done that would have some marginal effect, but for the most part the things that are likely to have a material effect fall into two camps: influence the root cause of the difference or lower the criteria in order to attain a representative admission rate.

One of those approaches is really, really, persistently, and confoundingly hard to do. The other is very easy to do, and in many cases can be done without being expected to tell anyone.

That would satisfy your assertion: the applicants aren't being selected in descending order from the highest scores to the lowest, and you are correct. It also satisfies Derec's assertion: the standards are being manipulated in order to achieve a non-academic and non-competence goal that reduces the expectation of academic merit.

It ignores the absolute fact that admissions are not based solely upon test scores and MCAT scores.

It ignores the fact that very high scoring applicants apply to abd are accepted at multiple schools but can attend only one.

Which means the schools not chosen have to fill spots down their list.

And of course this ignores the fact that every application comes with personal statements, recommendations from professors and those who have worked with the applicants in relevant work.

Also consider that medical schools need to turn out physicians who intend and have demonstrated a commitment to serving as general practitioners, internists, pediatricians, especially in underserved communities —positions that do not pay nearly as well as cardiovascular surgery or neurosurgery or some oncology specialties or even anesthesia.

Also consider: There are very many extremely bright parents who would make poor physicians because they lack requisite skills such as team work, listening skills, complex priblem solving and soft skills.

My very intelligent husband once told me that if he wanted, he could have gone to med school. I laughed in his face because as smart as he is, he struggled to get through dissections in high school biology. He struggles not to faint at the site of blood. He’s not necessarily the best listener and has little grasp of basic biology. A firmer classmate at university is one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known. She decided to take a bunch of biology classes and go to med school. For fun she took math and physics classes. She had a stellar GOA and MCAT scores…. And is now happily a Ph.D in mathematics and a tenured professor at a university—where she belongs. I have nothing but admiration for her but she would not have been a good doctor —and the med schools she applied to thought the same.

I didn't ignore those things, Toni. I provided a mechanism that results in both you and Derec being correct.

But whatever. You seem to have developed a strong enough dislike for me that you simply cannot read my posts in an objective way, I guess. I don't know, and it doesn't really matter.

Nobody listens to other people with an open mind these days.

 

[Emily Lake]

Unlike those black parents who don’t care enough not to raise their kids in the projects.

Parents, plural? lol. Few and far between these days.

Okay, see, that's kinda racist. I know it's not necessarily incorrect, but you're playing on a negative stereotype in a derogatory way.

As uncomfortable as it may be to you, "kinda" true though.

It's not discomfort. It's the observation that you chose to make a denigrating comment about an entire group of people based on skin color, in a way that was unnecessary, off topic, and amplifies a negative stereotype.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Just got through reading his Wikipedia page:

Jason Arday

Holy crap. It seems his whole life story was embellished, if not outright fabricated. Not just his academic record. He should never have been hired by Cambridge in the first place. What a shit show from beginning to end.

You're taking wiki to heart on a very hot button political topic?

Wikipedia skews left. That those allegations made it into the page says a lot.

 

[Elixir]

Wikipedia skews left.

I think you have Wikipedia confused with reality.

 

[Bomb#20]

I think that admissions to medical schools is not the same thing as winning a race, with the highest GPAs and MCAT scores across=fastest speeds.

Everybody here agrees with that. You keep arguing against a policy no one advocated.
...

And feeds the bigotry of those who think that only test scores do matter.

That's a bigoted thing for you to say. Nobody thinks only test scores matter; you're simply peddling a stereotype your ideology puts out about the infidel.

But people are actually arguing that only GPA and MCAT scores count, highest X composite scores should be admitted, with X being the number of slots for first year students.

Nobody here is arguing that. If you saw some idiot on reddit say that, argue with him on reddit.

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 general assumption is that Asian students have the highest scores, followed by whites and then, everybody else because who cares? They are dark skinned people and get all good things handed to them, including, of course, the assumption that they did not actually earn their place but were given it because of their race.

You're stereotyping again.

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?

AFAIK, there is no data showing how many/demographics of medical school applicants who apply and are accepted at multiple medical schools or at no medical school.

For no schools, sure there is; it's been cited repeatedly upthread. All those numbers about rejection rates weren't saying the average school rejects so many applicants of each ethnicity; they were saying that's how many applicants are rejected by all the schools.

For multiple schools, I looked it up. About half the students who get accepted at all get accepted by only one school, and about half get multiple offers. I couldn't find that number broken down by ethnicity.

 

[TSwizzle]

Unlike those black parents who don’t care enough not to raise their kids in the projects.

Parents, plural? lol. Few and far between these days.

Okay, see, that's kinda racist. I know it's not necessarily incorrect, but you're playing on a negative stereotype in a derogatory way.

As uncomfortable as it may be to you, "kinda" true though.

It's not discomfort. It's the observation that you chose to make a denigrating comment about an entire group of people based on skin color, in a way that was unnecessary, off topic, and amplifies a negative stereotype.

There is nothing denigrating about it. It is well documented that around 70% of black kids are in a single parent situation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In 70s 80s I supported affirmative action. Blacks and others were blatantly discriminated against in hiring. Police and fire unions complained that minorities lower on the qualification lli9sts than whites got hired.

I looked at it as priming the pump.

But eventually it got out of control.

I'll nitpick a bit: I see what happened as breaking the stigma from treating blacks equally. One a business wouldn't suffer backlash from not keeping blacks down the market would push things towards balance.

But removing the discrimination doesn't undo the past. And we had a bunch of liberals who figured 9 women could make a baby in a month. What started out as a good thing has become a bad thing.

 

[Elixir]

As uncomfortable as it may be to you, "kinda" true though.

As is the trope that European male Caucasians are racists.
Good for the goose, eh.

 

[laughing dog]

Unlike those black parents who don’t care enough not to raise their kids in the projects.

Parents, plural? lol. Few and far between these days.

Okay, see, that's kinda racist. I know it's not necessarily incorrect, but you're playing on a negative stereotype in a derogatory way.

As uncomfortable as it may be to you, "kinda" true though.

It's not discomfort. It's the observation that you chose to make a denigrating comment about an entire group of people based on skin color, in a way that was unnecessary, off topic, and amplifies a negative stereotype.

There is nothing denigrating about it. It is well documented that around 70% of black kids are in a single parent situation.

No it’s not. But if it is well documented, it should be easy for you to document it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

 

[laughing dog]

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.

Good plagiarism checkers are not free. Especially ones that would be checking tens of thousands of words in a top candidate’s publication record.

As I have noted, it is not unreasonable to expect/assume that the Phd granting institution to check dissertations for plagiarism or the journal staff to check articles for plagiarism.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think his rise was made possible because people were afraid to challenge a black mans, (pretty obviously bullshit) stories because they were afraid to be seen as racist.

Exactly. The unfortunate reality is that members of groups that have been discriminated against often aren't challenged when they do actual wrongs.

 

[Toni]

Unlike those black parents who don’t care enough not to raise their kids in the projects.

Parents, plural? lol. Few and far between these days.

Okay, see, that's kinda racist. I know it's not necessarily incorrect, but you're playing on a negative stereotype in a derogatory way.

As uncomfortable as it may be to you, "kinda" true though.

It's not discomfort. It's the observation that you chose to make a denigrating comment about an entire group of people based on skin color, in a way that was unnecessary, off topic, and amplifies a negative stereotype.

There is nothing denigrating about it. It is well documented that around 70% of black kids are in a single parent situation.

Link? And compare to white lids being raised by a single parent.

 

[Toni]

I think that admissions to medical schools is not the same thing as winning a race, with the highest GPAs and MCAT scores across=fastest speeds.

Everybody here agrees with that. You keep arguing against a policy no one advocated.
...

And feeds the bigotry of those who think that only test scores do matter.

That's a bigoted thing for you to say. Nobody thinks only test scores matter; you're simply peddling a stereotype your ideology puts out about the infidel.

But people are actually arguing that only GPA and MCAT scores count, highest X composite scores should be admitted, with X being the number of slots for first year students.

Nobody here is arguing that. If you saw some idiot on reddit say that, argue with him on reddit.

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 general assumption is that Asian students have the highest scores, followed by whites and then, everybody else because who cares? They are dark skinned people and get all good things handed to them, including, of course, the assumption that they did not actually earn their place but were given it because of their race.

You're stereotyping again.

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?

AFAIK, there is no data showing how many/demographics of medical school applicants who apply and are accepted at multiple medical schools or at no medical school.

For no schools, sure there is; it's been cited repeatedly upthread. All those numbers about rejection rates weren't saying the average school rejects so many applicants of each ethnicity; they were saying that's how many applicants are rejected by all the schools.

For multiple schools, I looked it up. About half the students who get accepted at all get accepted by only one school, and about half get multiple offers. I couldn't find that number broken down by ethnicity.

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