New "Affirmative Action" nonsense

[Loren Pechtel]

If the applicant is from a family that donates a lot of money to the university, that applicant gets a very large number of points.

The university also wants diversity in its student body because that creates part of the environment that makes the university experience what it is. This is not just racial diversity; if the university has fewer students from rural areas, then that year applicants from rural areas get more points.

If you're worried about less qualified students getting in, the situation is much more pronounced when we're talking about students from rich families, but strangely, we never see a right winger complaining about underqualified rich kids getting into a university at the expense of another candidate, and only rarely complain when the same thing happens with an unusually talented football player. These circumstances are much more common and involve far less qualified students than you will get with a minority student or a rural student, but for some reason we only ever hear complaints when this happens with students of certain racial backgrounds.

Ever wonder why that is?

Actually, I can see a good reason for legacy admissions--see my emphasis above. The issue is whether they actually displace anyone and so long as enough money is involved I don't think they do.

You have a university that admits 10,000 honestly. Lets say they do 500 legacy admissions also. Did that displace 500 qualified students? Or do they now have enough money to admit 10,000 qualified students *AND* the 500 legacy ones?

If it's less than enough then the legacy admissions are bad. If it's more than enough the legacy admissions are a net good. (Note that you need to average it over all donors, not on a case-by-case basis.)

 

[Tom Sawyer]

the argument available to her is "yes, I didn't make the grades/scores required but that shouldn't keep me out." Correct? That mean could stem from a myriad of reasons, among them (1) grades/score are arbitrary and/or unfair and/or not valid measures to use in admissions, OR other students with deficiencies have been admitted, making the use of standards with regard to some students and not with others a discriminatory practice.

Now the school will say they use grades/scores because they are predictive of academic success. But here's the thing. There are many other things that are much better predictors of success. Parental college experience, socio-economic level of family, family address, for instance, all are far better predictors, so why not use them? If the young woman falls below the average gpa/test scores of the entering freshman class, she's not alone. Half the group will fall below the average and yet they are getting in. Why?

So, among a host of other criticisms, you wind up with an argument for a certain degree arbitrariness of chosen standard and a practice of applying those standards to some students while granting a suspension of the standards for others.

You get rid of the second argument by never granting suspension of standards to anyone ever.

The half which falls below average and gets in will have something else exceptional about them which compensates for their lower academic scores. This girl doesn't appear to have anything like that. While there should be a wide range of factors which admissions people look at and standards should be used as a guideline to allow them to have some flexibility as opposed to hard and fast rules, the further any given group is from the elite, the fewer members of that group should get in. If you have a 4.0 GPA and get a 36 on the ACT, you likely have your pick of schools and there would need to be some serious red flags for even a U of M not to accept you. If you're a B+ student who did average on the ACT, you're not going to get into a top tier university unless you display some other wow factor to compensate for that. There are people who wow the university in one way or another, so they get in with subpar academic performances. If you're just a member of the second tier group who doesn't stand out from it, you don't get into an elite university.

Now, what is it about this girl that makes you feel that she should have taken the place of a top tier candidate and gotten into the school instead of them? I don't see it. I see someone who should have been an unsuccessful applicant. What makes me wrong about that to the point that I should withhold judgement about there being some kind of hidden subversive agenda to keep her out of the place due to her race as opposed to how she did on the other admission criteria?

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While one does not have to look for nefarious reasons, that does not preclude that there are not nefarious reasons.

So ... you're saying that we're just supposed to assume them?

What's the rationale for assuming that there's any credibility at all to her claims?

 

[Sarpedon]

Actually, I can see a good reason for legacy admissions--see my emphasis above. The issue is whether they actually displace anyone and so long as enough money is involved I don't think they do.

That's absurd. There's a limit to the number of students a professor can teach. There's a limit to the number of students an administrator can keep track of. There's a legal limit to the occupancy of a classroom. Like all right wingers, you seem to think that money is a magical thing that conjures things out thin air, as if all the people and physical objects that make the thing possible don't exist. Its as childishly simplistic as the city kid who thinks that food comes from the grocery store.

Sure, enough money can hire another professor, but where will he teach? Sure you could build a new classroom building, but where? There's a legal limit to the number of square feet of building you can put on a site. Oh, but of course you could buy more property, convert it to classrooms, hire more professors, and indeed, colleges do this all the time...but however much they do, they are still adding a finite number of student capacity to a finite student capacity, and you can't escape the fact that some of that limited capacity is given to under-performing students just because they are rich.

 

[laughing dog]

So ... you're saying that we're just supposed to assume them?

Holy strawman, Batman.

What's the rationale for assuming that there's any credibility at all to her claims?

I have no idea whether the claims are credible. Because they are not incredible, there is no reason to heap scorn on her or call her names.

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That's absurd. There's a limit to the number of students a professor can teach. There's a limit to the number of students an administrator can keep track of. There's a legal limit to the occupancy of a classroom. Like all right wingers, you seem to think that money is a magical thing that conjures things out thin air, as if all the people and physical objects that make the thing possible don't exist. Its as childishly simplistic as the city kid who thinks that food comes from the grocery store.

Not only does it ignore those realities, but the same rationale can apply to any category of special admissions.

 

[Sarpedon]

Absolutely. The obvious solution is to have a universal educational system with the same resources spent on every student regardless of their local tax base, with education freely provided to all students for as far as they are willing and able to meet the ever-toughening standards they will encounter.

Of course, some would call this socialism.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Absolutely. The obvious solution is to have a universal educational system with the same resources spent on every student regardless of their local tax base, with education freely provided to all students for as far as they are willing and able to meet the ever-toughening standards they will encounter.

Of course, some would call this socialism.

That doesn't make any sense. You're going to need better and worse schools. The guys who go to Harvard Law don't benefit from being in the same class as the guys who go to the West Texas Legal Academy. Even if there are resources given to everybody, there's going to need to be a segregation between those in the elite courses and those who don't qualify for the elite courses.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Why does everyone pick on WTLA!

 

[Derec]

Agreed. If anything I would think "punk" would favor whites--the image that comes to my mind is the rebellious teenager, crazy hair, piercings etc.

Well she has the "rebellious teenager" and "crazy hair" (although not in 80s punk style) parts down, and the photo is not enough to judge piercings (other than ears).

 

[Sarpedon]

Tom, I'm not the only one who needs practice reading complete sentences. Read my post again, carefully. It's not very long.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Tom, I'm not the only one who needs practice reading complete sentences. Read my post again, carefully. It's not very long.

How would what you're saying relate to the topic at hand? If everyone who wants a university education gets provided the resources for one, this girl is still going to find herself in the exact same situation as she's in now. She doesn't qualify for the elite education and has to settle for the less than elite education. She's currently good enough to get into most universities and there are no reports about her lacking the means to get one, since she seems to have been able to pay for U of M. Having more resources provided for education wouldn't change the discussion at all.

 

[Derec]

How would what you're saying relate to the topic at hand? If everyone who wants a university education gets provided the resources for one, this girl is still going to find herself in the exact same situation as she's in now. She doesn't qualify for the elite education and has to settle for the less than elite education. She's currently good enough to get into most universities and there are no reports about her lacking the means to get one, since she seems to have been able to pay for U of M. Having more resources provided for education wouldn't change the discussion at all.

I think he means K-12 education. He has a point, there are geographical differences in school funding and performance, but I do not think it is at all applicable in this case, as there is no indication Kimbrough went to an underfunded school.

 

[Sarpedon]

My wider point was that the children of the rich, if academically unqualified are as undeserving of elite education as said teen. In fact, they can be seen as even LESS qualified, as they still don't excel even given their advantages. And yet, they are allowed access to the education because of their wealth. That was the whole point, as Athena brought it up.

Unqualified students are allowed in if they are rich and white, why not if they are poor and black?

And I didn't just mean K-12. So long as you continue to pass the ever harder trials, you should be allowed to go as far as you wish.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

My wider point was that the children of the rich, if academically unqualified are as undeserving of elite education as said teen. In fact, they can be seen as even LESS qualified, as they still don't excel even given their advantages. And yet, they are allowed access to the education because of their wealth. That was the whole point, as Athena brought it up.

Unqualified students are allowed in if they are rich and white, why not if they are poor and black?

And I didn't just mean K-12. So long as you continue to pass the ever harder trials, you should be allowed to go as far as you wish.

They get in because they have something extra to offer the university - namely money from their parents. Talented athletes who can't read get in because they offer their football catching abilities and the ticket revenue that comes with that. So yes, you're correct that if the schools didn't require revenue because we lived in a world where communism was a viable socioeconomic philosophy then these advantages would not exist and these students would need to show something else to compensate for their lack of academic achievement the same way that poor non-athletes do.

This girl didn't have rich parents willing to pay extra to open up a spot for her. She's not a star athlete who can bring any kind of prestige to the school. She didn't have the grades to earn a spot through her achievement. There's nothing about her which qualifies her to become a successful applicant as opposed to an unsuccessful applicant. That's why cries about how it's even potentially racist that she's an unsuccessful applicant are invalid.

 

[RavenSky]

Unfortunately for this student, it appears that the low end of the ACT scores being accepted at the University of Michigan is 28. http://collegeapps.about.com/od/theact/a/top-michigan-act.htm I do understand that other criteria needs to go into the decisions, but an ACT score a full 5 points lower than the lower end of what is typical for the university is a lot.

 

[Sarpedon]

I don't believe this person should be allowed in either. I just don't think ANY of them should be allowed.

The theory is that the poor and disadvantaged DO have something to offer: diversity and a fresh perspective for the other students. I remember when I toured my college for the first time; the (black) student guide said there were some students from small towns who had never spoken to a black person before meeting him. Would you say that this is not of some value?

And thank you for making my point about money: Money that some students bring is considered valuable, the things that others bring are not. Go on, continue to consider your discrimination based on things that correlate to race isn't the same as racial discrimination.

 

[Metaphor]

I don't believe this person should be allowed in either. I just don't think ANY of them should be allowed.

The theory is that the poor and disadvantaged DO have something to offer: diversity and a fresh perspective for the other students. I remember when I toured my college for the first time; the (black) student guide said there were some students from small towns who had never spoken to a black person before meeting him. Would you say that this is not of some value?

Even if you regarded merely meeting people as valuable, why do you think it's worth discriminating against people by race in order to enable this? I went to University to learn psychology. Females strongly outnumber males in undergrad pscyhology -- should the University have kept out some more qualified females so that some less qualified males could get in and offer a 'fresh perspective'?

 

[Shadowy Man]

Unfortunately for this student, it appears that the low end of the ACT scores being accepted at the University of Michigan is 28. http://collegeapps.about.com/od/theact/a/top-michigan-act.htm I do understand that other criteria needs to go into the decisions, but an ACT score a full 5 points lower than the lower end of what is typical for the university is a lot.

That's not the lower end, that's the 25th percentile. That means 25% of the students who enrolled had lower than a 28. So, a 23 is not necessarily a show stopper.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I don't believe this person should be allowed in either. I just don't think ANY of them should be allowed.

The theory is that the poor and disadvantaged DO have something to offer: diversity and a fresh perspective for the other students. I remember when I toured my college for the first time; the (black) student guide said there were some students from small towns who had never spoken to a black person before meeting him. Would you say that this is not of some value?

And thank you for making my point about money: Money that some students bring is considered valuable, the things that others bring are not. Go on, continue to consider your discrimination based on things that correlate to race isn't the same as racial discrimination.

That's not discrimination anymore than choosing applicants based on their grades is discrimination against stupid people. It costs money to run a university and, in the absence of the government paying more, you either raise tuition and make the school less accessible to the student body as a whole or you toss some benefits to a select few who are willing to pick up the tab for everyone else.

It's also of a benefit to the university to have a diverse student body. There's not so narrow a range of diverse students who want to go there as there is of rich people willing to fork over extra cash, however, so you don't need to lower your standards as much and can pick diverse candidates from qualified applicants as opposed to being forced to take the Jones kis pecifically or else Mr Jones stops coming to the alumni fundraisers.

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That's not the lower end, that's the 25th percentile. That means 25% of the students who enrolled had lower than a 28. So, a 23 is not necessarily a show stopper.

But you do need an exceptional reason to compensate for it. Without such a reason, there's no good reason to assume someone with scores like that would be considered enough so tht it's her race which stopped her from getting in.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's absurd. There's a limit to the number of students a professor can teach. There's a limit to the number of students an administrator can keep track of. There's a legal limit to the occupancy of a classroom. Like all right wingers, you seem to think that money is a magical thing that conjures things out thin air, as if all the people and physical objects that make the thing possible don't exist. Its as childishly simplistic as the city kid who thinks that food comes from the grocery store.

Sure, enough money can hire another professor, but where will he teach? Sure you could build a new classroom building, but where? There's a legal limit to the number of square feet of building you can put on a site. Oh, but of course you could buy more property, convert it to classrooms, hire more professors, and indeed, colleges do this all the time...but however much they do, they are still adding a finite number of student capacity to a finite student capacity, and you can't escape the fact that some of that limited capacity is given to under-performing students just because they are rich.

In any one year, obviously, you don't increase the number of students much. In a system where you have an ongoing stream of donor money, though, it funds a bigger university than you would have otherwise.

What's important to me is how many qualified students it serves. If adding some legacy admissions to the mix increases the number of qualified students then it's a good thing. If it lowers the number it's a bad thing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Absolutely. The obvious solution is to have a universal educational system with the same resources spent on every student regardless of their local tax base, with education freely provided to all students for as far as they are willing and able to meet the ever-toughening standards they will encounter.

Of course, some would call this socialism.

Bad idea. Consider what happens in the classroom. Lets say you have a class with 4 students:

Angela learns 10 facts/hour
Bob learns 9 facts/hour
Charlie learns 8 facts/hour
Diane learns 7 facts/hour

Lets try 4 different approaches:

1) Teach 10 facts/hour: Angela does her best, Bob struggles (learns 8 facts), Charlie and Diane are lost and learn little (say 1 fact/hour). Total learning: 20.

2) 9 facts/hour: Angela is a bit bored, Bob does his best, Charlie struggles (7 facts) and Diane is lost (1 fact). Total learning 26. Note how teaching less ends up with more learning.

3) 8 facts/hour: Angela and Bob are bored, Charlie does his best and Diane struggles (6 facts). Total learning: 30. Again, less teaching translates to more learning.

4) 7 facts/hour. Angela, Bob and Charlie are bored, Diane does her best. 28 facts. There comes a point where teaching less means less learning.

Now, lets try two classes. Put Angela and Bob in the fast class, they'll learn 18 facts whether you teach 9 or 10 per hour. Charlie and Diane are in the slow class and learn 14 facts either way. Total learning: 32.

Note how splitting the class increased the total learning. (And splitting again would increase the learning to 34.)

We see this in practice--there's a range of universities from the Ivy League down to the community college. We even see this in high school--my school offered A, B and C versions of the classes with enough students to fill the sections. We also see it in the inner city schools--there are so many poor students that the teachers accomplish more teaching way below level.

It's also why competent home schoolers can do better than the classroom--the learning rate is more customized to their kids.