Rules changing on For Profit Schools in USA? Affirmative Action too?

[Jolly_Penguin]

Under that theory, is race based admissions and standards excusable when its done to put a barrier to black people getting in as well, or only Asians? A lot of history could be excused under such a theory perhaps. Bad theory.

Yes, if you assume that theory performed in a vacuum and unaffected by the laws of the state. By why would one make such an assumption?

I would not propose such a theory in the first place. And I would hope that there would be laws against such racist treatment against people for being Asian or for being black. I hope that you agree.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Question, are Asians being prevented from attending Harvard? Asians represent over 1 in 5 students at Harvard (Asians represent about 1 in 16 people in the US). Blacks represent about 1 in 7 students. Latino are about 1 in 9. Whites are about 1 in 2. So Asians are the second highest represented race in Harvard and well beyond their representation within the general US Population... and they are being discriminated.

Once again, the old garbage of a disparate result is proof of discrimination.

It's quite possible for them to be the most numerous and yet discriminated against.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How? With the over 1 in 5 representation, sounds like Harvard is allowing Asians to attend Harvard. I could be wrong, but 1 in 5 seems larger than 0 in 5.

If the allegations are true, then there are numerous Asian students are who excluded from attending Harvard due to their race.

Wait, so some Asians are being blocked from going to Harvard. So Harvard has a policy of allowing all Blacks, all Hispanics, and all Whites in, but Harvard draws the line on Asians.

It's amazing the contortions you will go to in order to avoid admitting that Harvard is discriminating against Asians.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In theory, a college admission could be calculated by giving so many points for GPA and so many points for SAT scores.

That is your theory, but there is no reason to adopt it for all cases. Another theory is that college admission standards should be set by the institution of higher learning that are consistent with its goals. That may mean some numerical standard, it may not.

And I suppose you would have no problem with a business saying "no more than 1 black at a time may enter this establishment". Same thing, just turned the other way around.

- - - Updated - - -

Fascinating.

"Even though you're saying 'in theory' I'm still going to go out of my way to say you are wrong."

Let's get down to basics.

Premise: Assume All A is B.

Now go ahead and tell me I'm wrong about that.

The fact is that more and more universities and medical schools are questioning the old admissions criteria that relied so heavily on test scores and GPA’s and even abandoning these as primary criteria. They are doing this because stellar GPA’s and test scores have proven to be unreliable predictors of academic success at their universities and medical schools. This seems incredible unless you consider a few factors, including grade inflation, and the fact that many students achieve their success in these metrics because. Mom and dad could foot the bill for tutors and cram schools and prep courses to ensure that their little darlings got the highest scores possible. This is not the same thing as teaching a great work ethic nor is it indicative of raw talent that can be overlooked in students who come from more modest means. Or from parents who are willing to allow them to succeed or fail on their own efforts rather than the efforts of mom and dad and the six tutors who have coached every aspect of the applicants’ lives. This is not synonymous with preparing a student to excel at university where they must rely upon their own motivations and efforts and utilize the skills of an increasingly independent thinking and acting young adult. Profs are actually not impressed by parents trying to run interference for their little darlings. Because it doesn’t serve the best interests of the student.

They are questioning the old ways because the old ways expose their discrimination.

In practice the old ways do a pretty good job of predicting who will succeed and who won't--and a college should be aiming for students that will graduate.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

How? With the over 1 in 5 representation, sounds like Harvard is allowing Asians to attend Harvard. I could be wrong, but 1 in 5 seems larger than 0 in 5.

If the allegations are true, then there are numerous Asian students are who excluded from attending Harvard due to their race.

Wait, so some Asians are being blocked from going to Harvard. So Harvard has a policy of allowing all Blacks, all Hispanics, and all Whites in, but Harvard draws the line on Asians.

It's amazing the contortions you will go to in order to avoid admitting that Harvard is discriminating against Asians.

By not using a bubble to judge student achievements?

 

[Trausti]

It's amazing the contortions you will go to in order to avoid admitting that Harvard is discriminating against Asians.

By not using a bubble to judge student achievements?

Go ahead, judge student achievements. Race isn't an achievement; so don't consider that unless you favor institutional racism.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It remains to be seen if they did that, but that is the accusation the students have made against them.

There is little reason to believe they did, I mean other than wanting to view oneself as a victim.

We don't know.

Your posting in this thread seems to imply you think you do.

All we know for sure so far is that they are accused of it and it is being litigated in court, and that they sought to exclude their records from court review (possibly to obscure it?; They claim its for privacy reasons).

Possibly because they take Asians and turn them into rendered pig feed... which explains why they represent 1 in 5 new students, but only 1 in 15 graduates. This is an accusation I have made. It must be taken seriously.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Possibly because they take Asians and turn them into rendered pig feed... which explains why they represent 1 in 5 new students, but only 1 in 15 graduates.

Would you oppose it if that were it true?

I ask because you have repeatedly dodged answering if you endorse or oppose what the plaintiffs have actually brought an action against the school for. Why? Why be afraid to admiit your thoughts on this one way or the other?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

It's amazing the contortions you will go to in order to avoid admitting that Harvard is discriminating against Asians.

By not using a bubble to judge student achievements?

Go ahead, judge student achievements. Race isn't an achievement; so don't consider that unless you favor institutional racism.

That really is fascinating isn't it. People who you would think would oppose institutional racism wind up supporting it when we just change around the who.

 

[Derec]

Congressional Black Caucus bashes Trump’s move to scrap affirmative action

The head of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) hammered the Trump administration on Tuesday for revoking federal guidelines that encourage colleges to consider race in their admissions determinations, calling the move an unveiled attack on minorities.
[..]
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) added to the criticism, saying Trump’s decision constitutes an “attack on communities of color” that will steal education opportunities from some of the nation’s most vulnerable students.

"Attack on communities of color"? How so? Treating everybody equally is now "attack on communities of color"? That's outright Orwellian. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
And "steal opportunities"? How is this "stealing opportunities"? Everybody should have the same opportunity. But "affirmative action" means that some have more opportunity than others
Pelosi is ridiculous!

“Our economy, society and democracy are enriched when every person, regardless of their zip code, has a shot at a quality education that allows them to climb the ladders of opportunity,” she said in a statement.

Is she going senile? What do zip codes have to do with anything? Does she think applicants from certain zip-codes get blackballed by colleges or something?

“The President,” Richmond said, “is sending a message to his future nominee and to his base that he and his administration don't care about diversity and will actively work to turn back the clock.”

Should "diversity" really be ranked above treating individual students justly and fairly?

This nonsense might yet cost Dems the midterms.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

This nonsense might yet cost Dems the midterms.

This is the kind of thing that has become PC to support, but falls apart and is clearly and blatantly racist on even the smallest bit of analysis, which is why we are seeing none from these people. Institutional racism is hard to spin for Dems, so they will pretend this is something else and react with righteous indignation.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It's amazing the contortions you will go to in order to avoid admitting that Harvard is discriminating against Asians.

By not using a bubble to judge student achievements?

Go ahead, judge student achievements. Race isn't an achievement; so don't consider that unless you favor institutional racism.

And herein lies the issue, the presumption that race is viewed as an achievement. And how do they come to this conclusion? A lot more Asians go to Harvard than Blacks and Hispanics. That math fails.

 

[laughing dog]

And I suppose you would have no problem with a business saying "no more than 1 black at a time may enter this establishment". Same thing, just turned the other way around.

Once you ignore the that admissions to a college or university might very well hinge of a variety of factors, while entrance into a supermarket or pharmacy do not, I agree. However, ignoring that big difference means it is not the same thing.

 

[Derec]

And herein lies the issue, the presumption that race is viewed as an achievement. And how do they come to this conclusion? A lot more Asians go to Harvard than Blacks and Hispanics. That math fails.

It is your math that fails. The point is not whether there are more Asians than blacks and hispanics. The point is how many there would be if there was no discrimination by race.
Let me give you NBA as an example. About 75% of NBA is black, 0.2% is Asian. If NBA started a "race conscious hiring policy" and blacks went down to 50% and Asians increased to 2% of the NBA, there'd still be a lot more blacks in the NBA but blacks would still be discriminated against and Asians for.

 

[Toni]

Congressional Black Caucus bashes Trump’s move to scrap affirmative action

"Attack on communities of color"? How so? Treating everybody equally is now "attack on communities of color"? That's outright Orwellian. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
And "steal opportunities"? How is this "stealing opportunities"? Everybody should have the same opportunity. But "affirmative action" means that some have more opportunity than others
Pelosi is ridiculous!

Is she going senile? What do zip codes have to do with anything? Does she think applicants from certain zip-codes get blackballed by colleges or something?

“The President,” Richmond said, “is sending a message to his future nominee and to his base that he and his administration don't care about diversity and will actively work to turn back the clock.”

Should "diversity" really be ranked above treating individual students justly and fairly?

This nonsense might yet cost Dems the midterms.

Here's the thing that conservatives refuse to acknowledge: Affirmative action has never, ever been about admitting unqualified candidates to universities. University admissions has never, ever been about admitting the top X scoring candidates, with scores = some combination of GPA + test scores.

University admissions has always been about establishing a threshold for admissions and then looking at applicants who meet that threshold. That threshold is and historically has been permeable for legacy admissions and for athletes. In the past, part of that threshold has been gender, skin color/race, ethnicity, and religious background, strongly in favor to the point of admitting only white males from Christian affiliated homes.


Universities are and should be institutions of higher learning, not institutions established to maintain current social order or for job training. Education is more than what happens in classrooms. The most important thing about education is to be exposed to new ideas and new people and different ways of thinking. This happens when one is exposed to a variety--that is a diversity of opinion, thought, philosophies, disciplines, people. If one attends university with people who look and think exactly like the ones you went to prep school with, you are being seriously cheated out of the best opportunity for education that there is.

I've got a lot on my plate today but I will try to get back and post links you asked for earlier about schools and medical schools, etc. moving away from reliance on SAT and ACT scores and GPAs. This has come up in multiple discussions on affirmative action in the past and I've posted links before. I don't have the time to search now but I've found it really interesting that elite universities have found the old paradigm of GPA + Test scores to be an unreliable predictor of academic success. My personal theory is that this is perhaps because it is well known that wealthier students come from parents who are highly invested in the idea that their offspring are imminently qualified and MUST be admitted to whatever they wish to attend and are willing and able to pay for every cram course, prep course and expensive extracurricular activity available to ensure that happens--and make endowments to be on the safe side. This does a couple of things: it gives wealthy students a distinct unfair advantage in admissions but it also can and does inflict real harm on those students who are following a path that mommy and daddy selected for them without ever having the opportunity to discover whether or not they are interested in that path or discovering what they want and are actually good at. This isn't good for those students and it displaces students who are less wealthy and who have the raw talent to succeed in highly competitive institutions if they are given the opportunity afforded more affluent students whose parents purchase their admissions.

I've stated multiple times that my husband teaches at a (non-elite) university. From listening to him and other professors--and admissions counselors! I know that even at non-elite universities, some parents call up the university to ensure that their little son or daughter is being treated properly, is having their attendance in class tracked and corrected, that someone is ensuring that if they don't show up to class, that they are contacted, that their performance on every assignment is 'fairly' graded (i.e. they get top scores), and much much more. If this happens at non-elite schools where tuition is relatively modest, what do you think happens when it's a university where tuition (and tuition only!) tops $65K/year?

FWIW, I've known some people who come from backgrounds I would consider quite wealthy--not Bill Gates wealthy but trips to Europe, pool in the back yard of the country home, NYC city apartments, places on the Cape, that considered themselves to be middle class and felt bad at having to keep up with the rich kids at their Ivy League school. The social pressures are enormous. Kudos to any kid from an actual middle or working class home who can make it. Triple points if you are not white.

 

[laughing dog]

Under that theory, is race based admissions and standards excusable when its done to put a barrier to black people getting in as well, or only Asians? A lot of history could be excused under such a theory perhaps. Bad theory.

Yes, if you assume that theory performed in a vacuum and unaffected by the laws of the state. By why would one make such an assumption?

I would not propose such a theory in the first place. And I would hope that there would be laws against such racist treatment against people for being Asian or for being black. I hope that you agree.

One would think that my responses would have made that crystal clear.

 

[laughing dog]

Question, are Asians being prevented from attending Harvard? Asians represent over 1 in 5 students at Harvard (Asians represent about 1 in 16 people in the US). Blacks represent about 1 in 7 students. Latino are about 1 in 9. Whites are about 1 in 2. So Asians are the second highest represented race in Harvard and well beyond their representation within the general US Population... and they are being discriminated.

Once again, the old garbage of a disparate result is proof of discrimination.

Interestingly, that is the plaintiff's argument in the case against Harvard. Hmmm.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's amazing the contortions you will go to in order to avoid admitting that Harvard is discriminating against Asians.

By not using a bubble to judge student achievements?

What bubble?

There are two things strongly related to how a student fares:

1) How they do on stuff like the SAT.

2) How they did in high school.

You want to find some way to sneak race into this while pretending not to discriminate.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Go ahead, judge student achievements. Race isn't an achievement; so don't consider that unless you favor institutional racism.

And herein lies the issue, the presumption that race is viewed as an achievement. And how do they come to this conclusion? A lot more Asians go to Harvard than Blacks and Hispanics. That math fails.

The notion that this is a rebuttal shows that you do not understand.

Asians are being required to meet higher standards in order to get in.

Discrimination, plain and simple.

 

[Derec]

Here's the thing that conservatives refuse to acknowledge: Affirmative action has never, ever been about admitting unqualified candidates to universities.

It certainly is about admitting less qualified applicants of certain races compared to those of other races.

University admissions has never, ever been about admitting the top X scoring candidates, with scores = some combination of GPA + test scores.

There is more than grades and scores, yes, but those two should be the most important criteria. Then there is the essay, the extracurriculars etc. but all those are about the student's achievements. Race is not, and should not be considered in the admission process.

University admissions has always been about establishing a threshold for admissions and then looking at applicants who meet that threshold.

Not quite true. It's not that if you clear the threshold you have the same chance as everybody else who clears the threshold no matter by how much. The chances of admission increase progressively with better grades and scores, but the shape of the curve is shifted to the left for blacks and hispanics.
Look at the chart of medical school admission chances to see what I mean.

That threshold is and historically has been permeable for legacy admissions and for athletes. In the past, part of that threshold has been gender, skin color/race, ethnicity, and religious background, strongly in favor to the point of admitting only white males from Christian affiliated homes.

So because in the past there was discrimination against certain groups and because such discrimination is wrong, now we must discriminate against other groups?

Universities are and should be institutions of higher learning, not institutions established to maintain current social order or for job training. Education is more than what happens in classrooms. The most important thing about education is to be exposed to new ideas and new people and different ways of thinking. This happens when one is exposed to a variety--that is a diversity of opinion, thought, philosophies, disciplines, people. If one attends university with people who look and think exactly like the ones you went to prep school with, you are being seriously cheated out of the best opportunity for education that there is.
Two wrongs do not make a right!

I've got a lot on my plate today but I will try to get back and post links you asked for earlier about schools and medical schools, etc. moving away from reliance on SAT and ACT scores and GPAs. This has come up in multiple discussions on affirmative action in the past and I've posted links before. I don't have the time to search now but I've found it really interesting that elite universities have found the old paradigm of GPA + Test scores to be an unreliable predictor of academic success.

Yeah, I am really curious what you come up with. Here is something I have come up with.

This research examined the relative utility of various predictors of college success as
measured by students’ sophomore and senior-year college GPAs. The variables used in this
prediction study included HSGPA, SAT, and CLA scores. As expected, HSGPA was found to be
the best single predictor of college success (Atkinson & Geiser, 2009), accounting for 21.4% of
the variance in sophomore-year GPA and 20.0% of the variance in senior-year GPA.
[...]
Despite its predictive efficacy, HSGPA should not be used in isolation when predicting
college GPA because standardized tests such as the SAT, ACT, and CLA improve the prediction
significantly. Results from this study revealed that the best prediction of college GPA was
obtained using the combination of HSGPA and a standardized test, which corroborates previous
predictive validity research (ACT, 2009; Kobrin, et al., 2008; Rothstein, 2004).

Emphasis mine.
I suspect the reason some colleges want to downplay grades and scores is because it allows them to fudge admissions to obtain a politically correct racial distribution.

My personal theory is that this is perhaps because it is well known that wealthier students come from parents who are highly invested in the idea that their offspring are imminently qualified and MUST be admitted to whatever they wish to attend and are willing and able to pay for every cram course, prep course and expensive extracurricular activity available to ensure that happens--and make endowments to be on the safe side.

First off, the number of people who can "buy" their kids' admission by donating a building or at least an expensive piece of kit is infinitesimal and would not significantly impact the data. As to taking extra classes, the students still have to do the work or it's all a waste of money. And there are inexpensive ways to prepare too. Books on SAT prep go for less than $20.

This does a couple of things: it gives wealthy students a distinct unfair advantage in admissions but it also can and does inflict real harm on those students

Yes. More wealthy people enjoy advantages in life. But there are plenty of wealthy black and hispanic people as well as poor whites and Asians. If you want to argue for taking socioeconomic status into account, you'd be on much more solid ground than arguing for race-based admissions.

who are following a path that mommy and daddy selected for them without ever having the opportunity to discover whether or not they are interested in that path or discovering what they want and are actually good at. This isn't good for those students and it displaces students who are less wealthy and who have the raw talent to succeed in highly competitive institutions if they are given the opportunity afforded more affluent students whose parents purchase their admissions.

So how do you propose to measure "raw talent" if not through grades and tests? Certainly not by focusing on wishy-washy criteria like "likeability".
And what does giving preferences based on race have to do with any of this?

I've stated multiple times that my husband teaches at a (non-elite) university. From listening to him and other professors--and admissions counselors! I know that even at non-elite universities, some parents call up the university to ensure that their little son or daughter is being treated properly, is having their attendance in class tracked and corrected, that someone is ensuring that if they don't show up to class, that they are contacted, that their performance on every assignment is 'fairly' graded (i.e. they get top scores), and much much more. If this happens at non-elite schools where tuition is relatively modest, what do you think happens when it's a university where tuition (and tuition only!) tops $65K/year?

Yes, some parents are helicopter parents. Some excessively so. What does that have to do with race-based admissions or with discounting objective criteria like grades and scores?

Kudos to any kid from an actual middle or working class home who can make it. Triple points if you are not white.

Why "triple points" if they are not white? None of your posts makes one shred of argument why college admissions should be based on race.