5 ms·

There is one hold out on affirmative action for admissions, CalTech.

by EVdotIO 6y ago

chillee 6y ago
The UC system is also race-blind. Correspondingly, you see 33% asian in UCs, and 43% asian at Caltech.
- babesh 6y ago
  It isn’t quite race blind. It is race blind if you pass the initial bar. After that they take subjective things into account like your essay.
  - babesh 6y ago
    The well known hack for the essay is to emphasize how you grew up poor, disadvantaged, first in family to go to college, escaped war, etc... Apparently helpful both for college and medical school.
- ucgradtemp 6y ago
  In my experience, it is not race-blind (see above comment). Also, Professor Sander at UCLA is suing the UC system over alleged violations of Prop 209. https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/11/19/new-lawsuit-suggests-u-california-has-been-considering-race-admissions https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/11/19...
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  The UC system is legally required to be race-blind. They aren't actually race-blind, and funnily enough they're happy to admit that in official documents. The recent study on "should we stop accepting SAT scores from applicants" specifically noted that, although black and hispanic applicants have much lower SAT scores than other applicants, the effect of ignoring SAT scores on black and hispanic admissions would be negative. Ultra-low SAT scores are a plus! If and only if you belong to a certain race.
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    >They aren't actually race-blind Do you mean they take race into account when admitting an individual? >Ultra-low SAT scores are a plus! Do you have direct evidence of this? Just because black and hispanic applicants have lower SAT scores on average and they're harmed overall by ignoring SAT scores doesn't mean having a low SAT score is a plus. Black and hispanic applicants might have a much different distribution of SAT scores than other applicants. >If and only if you belong to a certain race. How does that work, are the admissions people factoring in race?
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      > Just because black and hispanic applicants have lower SAT scores on average and they're harmed overall by ignoring SAT scores doesn't mean having a low SAT score is a plus. Black and hispanic applicants might have a much different distribution of SAT scores than other applicants. The distribution satisfying the following constraints: - low SAT scores are bad for your application - the average black SAT score is very low - absence of SAT scores would result in a net loss in black admissions looks like most blacks scoring above average (so that their applications are hurt by the loss of the score) and a few blacks scoring deeply negative numbers (to get the average down). You can't actually get a negative score on the SAT. In reality, black and hispanic scores are roughly normally distributed, just like white scores, but substantially lower.
      - Thorrez 6y ago
        I just skimmed part of the report[1]. I don't see anything indicating "Ultra-low SAT scores are a plus!" There's nothing indicating that it's advantageous for an individual to get a lower score. It does seem to show that black and hispanic students seem to have a lower admission standard for SAT scores. But I can come up with a couple hypotheses for why we might see this data even if the admission ignores race: 1) The admission might largely ignore SATs already. If that's the case, and if black and hispanic applicants have lower SATs, then it it would be expected that black and hispanic accepted students would also have lower SATs because nothing is really filtering out low SAT scores, they're just passed through unfiltered. 2) The admission might have a lower SAT standard for students from low income families. Black and hispanic students might be on average lower income, and thus on average be aided by the income-based standard policy, even though students' race is actually not taken into account. [1] https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/underreview/sttf-report.pdf https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/underreview...
GhostVII 6y ago
California is required to be race blind because they have stronger anti descrimination laws (prop 209). They are trying to repeal those laws with prop 16 this year.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  Caltech is a private university. They have to be race-blind because their graduation requirements make it impossible to admit students who can’t do math.

There is one hold out on affirmative action for admissions, CalTech.

chillee 6y ago

The UC system is also race-blind. Correspondingly, you see 33% asian in UCs, and 43% asian at Caltech.

babesh 6y ago
It isn’t quite race blind. It is race blind if you pass the initial bar. After that they take subjective things into account like your essay.
- babesh 6y ago
  The well known hack for the essay is to emphasize how you grew up poor, disadvantaged, first in family to go to college, escaped war, etc... Apparently helpful both for college and medical school.
ucgradtemp 6y ago
In my experience, it is not race-blind (see above comment). Also, Professor Sander at UCLA is suing the UC system over alleged violations of Prop 209. https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/11/19/new-lawsuit-suggests-u-california-has-been-considering-race-admissions https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/11/19...
thaumasiotes 6y ago
The UC system is legally required to be race-blind. They aren't actually race-blind, and funnily enough they're happy to admit that in official documents. The recent study on "should we stop accepting SAT scores from applicants" specifically noted that, although black and hispanic applicants have much lower SAT scores than other applicants, the effect of ignoring SAT scores on black and hispanic admissions would be negative. Ultra-low SAT scores are a plus! If and only if you belong to a certain race.
- Thorrez 6y ago
  >They aren't actually race-blind Do you mean they take race into account when admitting an individual? >Ultra-low SAT scores are a plus! Do you have direct evidence of this? Just because black and hispanic applicants have lower SAT scores on average and they're harmed overall by ignoring SAT scores doesn't mean having a low SAT score is a plus. Black and hispanic applicants might have a much different distribution of SAT scores than other applicants. >If and only if you belong to a certain race. How does that work, are the admissions people factoring in race?
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > Just because black and hispanic applicants have lower SAT scores on average and they're harmed overall by ignoring SAT scores doesn't mean having a low SAT score is a plus. Black and hispanic applicants might have a much different distribution of SAT scores than other applicants. The distribution satisfying the following constraints: - low SAT scores are bad for your application - the average black SAT score is very low - absence of SAT scores would result in a net loss in black admissions looks like most blacks scoring above average (so that their applications are hurt by the loss of the score) and a few blacks scoring deeply negative numbers (to get the average down). You can't actually get a negative score on the SAT. In reality, black and hispanic scores are roughly normally distributed, just like white scores, but substantially lower.
    - Thorrez 6y ago
      I just skimmed part of the report[1]. I don't see anything indicating "Ultra-low SAT scores are a plus!" There's nothing indicating that it's advantageous for an individual to get a lower score. It does seem to show that black and hispanic students seem to have a lower admission standard for SAT scores. But I can come up with a couple hypotheses for why we might see this data even if the admission ignores race: 1) The admission might largely ignore SATs already. If that's the case, and if black and hispanic applicants have lower SATs, then it it would be expected that black and hispanic accepted students would also have lower SATs because nothing is really filtering out low SAT scores, they're just passed through unfiltered. 2) The admission might have a lower SAT standard for students from low income families. Black and hispanic students might be on average lower income, and thus on average be aided by the income-based standard policy, even though students' race is actually not taken into account. [1] https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/underreview/sttf-report.pdf https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/underreview...

GhostVII 6y ago

California is required to be race blind because they have stronger anti descrimination laws (prop 209). They are trying to repeal those laws with prop 16 this year.

SamReidHughes 6y ago
Caltech is a private university. They have to be race-blind because their graduation requirements make it impossible to admit students who can’t do math.