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Of course colleges want students from wealthy families. There's a reason Marx noticed class warfare, class is the primordial hierarchy. However, among the frac

Of course colleges want students from wealthy families. There's a reason Marx noticed class warfare, class is the primordial hierarchy. However, among the fraction of the class that's accepted for reasons other than wealth, it seems like colleges play ethnic and gender favorites: https://twitter.com/DavidRozado/status/1140063678345011200 https://twitter.com/DavidRozado/status/1140063678345011200

mfoy_ 7y ago
I think this is the point: >There is a popular and persistent image of college admissions in which diversity-obsessed universities are using affirmative action to deny spaces to academically talented affluent students while admitting low-income students with lower ability in their place. Boeckenstedt says the opposite is closer to the truth.
- romaaeterna 7y ago
  I'm sure that Boeckenstedt is a good blogger and everything, but you can actually calculate how many SAT points race is worth (black positive, Asian negative) compared to wealth. And poor, non-Jewish white and East Asian males, are huge losers in the current admissions system. One problem is that "diversity" means a lot of things to different people, and unfortunately to some, it means "freedom to exercise my hatred of <insert non-diverse boogeyman group>."
  - Simon_says 7y ago
    There’s no such thing as black race being worth positive SAT points and Asian negative. It’s only relative. Your race can only be an absolute positive or negative factor if there’s a no-race or neutral race to compare against ... oh you mean compared to white.
    - romaaeterna 7y ago
      Not true even a little. You can compare to the average or median applicant.
      - Simon_says 7y ago
        Yea, I guess that's a good point.
- username90 7y ago
  Does he have any statistics to back up that claim? Every study I have seen says that students with privileged backgrounds get better results in college which suggests that the disadvantaged students who currently gets admitted are worse.
tzs 7y ago
Gender diversity is important at college because students live at college and often have little time for socializing outside of campus. If you have too unbalanced a male/female ratio among the heterosexual students it's very annoying for both the males and the females. At best it is very distracting, and at worst very depressing, and can lead to poor academic performance.
- 1000units 7y ago
  It's called a bachelor's degree for a reason. Women only harmed my academic performance. Full disclosure: I love my wife, whom I met in college. I also graduated summa.
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  Hm… I don’t know about the poor academic performance claim. Colleges were male only or completely gender segregated until actually pretty recently. If anything, the academic performance was stronger 100 years ago than it is today.
  - 1000units 7y ago
    With little exception, college isn't about scholarship anymore. It's about having a good time and preparing you for your trade. Caltech doesn't have demographic quotas; there's the exception.
    - tzs 7y ago
      > Caltech doesn't have demographic quotas; there's the exception. They don't have quotas, but Caltech has gone to considerable effort to lower the male/female ratio to address the problems mentioned in my comment. They were male only before 1970, and then started admitting undergraduate women. When I was a student there, in the late '70s and early '80s, around 15% of the undergraduates were women, and this imbalance was the #1 complaint by far among both the male and female students about campus life. Caltech worked on improving this by actively recruiting female students. They didn't change admission standards or give any preferences to females when evaluating applications, but they tried hard to make sure than more females applied, and that those accepted didn't pick another school over Caltech. For example, as a male with good enough grades and test scores to get into Caltech but only about average for an incoming Caltech student, Caltech was indifferent to whether or not I applied, or whether or not I accepted when they offered admission. For a female with the same grades and test scores, they would have reached out and tried to convince her to apply, and there is a good chance they would even have sent someone in person to argue the case for Caltech to her and her parents. These efforts paid off, with the male/female ratio steadily improving. They are now at about 55% male/45% female.

mfoy_ 7y ago

I think this is the point: >There is a popular and persistent image of college admissions in which diversity-obsessed universities are using affirmative action to deny spaces to academically talented affluent students while admitting low-income students with lower ability in their place. Boeckenstedt says the opposite is closer to the truth.

romaaeterna 7y ago
I'm sure that Boeckenstedt is a good blogger and everything, but you can actually calculate how many SAT points race is worth (black positive, Asian negative) compared to wealth. And poor, non-Jewish white and East Asian males, are huge losers in the current admissions system. One problem is that "diversity" means a lot of things to different people, and unfortunately to some, it means "freedom to exercise my hatred of <insert non-diverse boogeyman group>."
- Simon_says 7y ago
  There’s no such thing as black race being worth positive SAT points and Asian negative. It’s only relative. Your race can only be an absolute positive or negative factor if there’s a no-race or neutral race to compare against ... oh you mean compared to white.
  - romaaeterna 7y ago
    Not true even a little. You can compare to the average or median applicant.
    - Simon_says 7y ago
      Yea, I guess that's a good point.
username90 7y ago
Does he have any statistics to back up that claim? Every study I have seen says that students with privileged backgrounds get better results in college which suggests that the disadvantaged students who currently gets admitted are worse.

tzs 7y ago

Gender diversity is important at college because students live at college and often have little time for socializing outside of campus. If you have too unbalanced a male/female ratio among the heterosexual students it's very annoying for both the males and the females. At best it is very distracting, and at worst very depressing, and can lead to poor academic performance.

1000units 7y ago
It's called a bachelor's degree for a reason. Women only harmed my academic performance. Full disclosure: I love my wife, whom I met in college. I also graduated summa.
commandlinefan 7y ago
Hm… I don’t know about the poor academic performance claim. Colleges were male only or completely gender segregated until actually pretty recently. If anything, the academic performance was stronger 100 years ago than it is today.
- 1000units 7y ago
  With little exception, college isn't about scholarship anymore. It's about having a good time and preparing you for your trade. Caltech doesn't have demographic quotas; there's the exception.
  - tzs 7y ago
    > Caltech doesn't have demographic quotas; there's the exception. They don't have quotas, but Caltech has gone to considerable effort to lower the male/female ratio to address the problems mentioned in my comment. They were male only before 1970, and then started admitting undergraduate women. When I was a student there, in the late '70s and early '80s, around 15% of the undergraduates were women, and this imbalance was the #1 complaint by far among both the male and female students about campus life. Caltech worked on improving this by actively recruiting female students. They didn't change admission standards or give any preferences to females when evaluating applications, but they tried hard to make sure than more females applied, and that those accepted didn't pick another school over Caltech. For example, as a male with good enough grades and test scores to get into Caltech but only about average for an incoming Caltech student, Caltech was indifferent to whether or not I applied, or whether or not I accepted when they offered admission. For a female with the same grades and test scores, they would have reached out and tried to convince her to apply, and there is a good chance they would even have sent someone in person to argue the case for Caltech to her and her parents. These efforts paid off, with the male/female ratio steadily improving. They are now at about 55% male/45% female.