2 ms·

Are you saying the racial demographics of students who score above 1010 are very different from that of all graduating students who intend to go on to post seco

by lokar 5y ago

Are you saying the racial demographics of students who score above 1010 are very different from that of all graduating students who intend to go on to post secondary education, and that fact would be politically unacceptable?

rahimnathwani 5y ago
No, I'm not saying that, and had not considered that question. But FWIW my guess is that the two groups you list have similar demographics (racial, socioeconomic etc.). What I was saying: GP suggested having a threshold used for qualification, and then selecting from qualified candidates using other criteria. If you support this proposal, there's an upper limit to the threshold you choose. If you choose too high a threshold, then the % of students who are Asian will exceed the % of Asians in the applicant pool (or general population, whatever) and you will be accused of having a racist admissions policy. So you must choose a threshold which is low enough that you have lots of freedom to pick on opaque/subjective criteria. Then you can achieve any demographic mix you want. But if you choose a threshold as low as 1010, then it's probably not going to be any different from UC's current system, which ignores SAT altogether.
- lokar 5y ago
  I actually had in mind selecting at random from the pool that meet the minimum criteria.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    You could also randomly select with a bias to meet any particular requirement of gender, ethnic background, poverty etc. but possibly that's not currently legal in California.
ngc248 5y ago
No, what he is saying is that preparing for the SAT (or any competitive exam) is like an arms race. Immigrants from asia (where it is already hyper-competitive and the population is more) will be determined and over-prepare and clear the SAT with high scores. It is like "knowing is half the battle". This will fill all the classes with asians, that is why you read about all of the ivy league's etc having a different cutoff for asians. If determined immigrants start getting in more than your local populace, how do you make sure that admissions are balanced. That is the problem. But yeah some "administrator" evaluating subjective criteria like courses taken, rigor etc is also not good and a pure objective test is also not good. I feel a balance needs to be struck, it is a hard problem
- Ekaros 5y ago
  >how do you make sure that admissions are balanced. I have never understood why the admission should be balanced? In my mind it should be absolute pure meritocracy. If you don't score high enough, try again until you do or accept institution with lower requirements. Meritocracy is the fairest system overall.
  - rahimnathwani 5y ago
    The argument is: if the general population has x% of broad racial group A then x% students at university B must be group A. If not, the reason must (by definition) be systemic racism, which is unfair. Of course, this argument is not entirely without merit.
- rahimnathwani 5y ago
  This is closer to what I meant, but a few things I feel I should clarify: - I am an immigrant, ethnically Asian (Indian), and moved to the US from Asia (China) - The 'Asians are overrepresented' meme isn't targeted at _immigrants_, but at Asians, regardless of birthplace. When I meet Asians who went to UC, they were usually born in California. - When people decide to implement racial quotas (or policies that allow them to effect racial quotas without calling them racial quotas), they necessarily decide not to treat each person as an individual. Each person becomes just a 'representative' of some racial group.

by lokar 5y ago

rahimnathwani 5y ago

No, I'm not saying that, and had not considered that question. But FWIW my guess is that the two groups you list have similar demographics (racial, socioeconomic etc.). What I was saying: GP suggested having a threshold used for qualification, and then selecting from qualified candidates using other criteria. If you support this proposal, there's an upper limit to the threshold you choose. If you choose too high a threshold, then the % of students who are Asian will exceed the % of Asians in the applicant pool (or general population, whatever) and you will be accused of having a racist admissions policy. So you must choose a threshold which is low enough that you have lots of freedom to pick on opaque/subjective criteria. Then you can achieve any demographic mix you want. But if you choose a threshold as low as 1010, then it's probably not going to be any different from UC's current system, which ignores SAT altogether.

lokar 5y ago
I actually had in mind selecting at random from the pool that meet the minimum criteria.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  You could also randomly select with a bias to meet any particular requirement of gender, ethnic background, poverty etc. but possibly that's not currently legal in California.

ngc248 5y ago

No, what he is saying is that preparing for the SAT (or any competitive exam) is like an arms race. Immigrants from asia (where it is already hyper-competitive and the population is more) will be determined and over-prepare and clear the SAT with high scores. It is like "knowing is half the battle". This will fill all the classes with asians, that is why you read about all of the ivy league's etc having a different cutoff for asians. If determined immigrants start getting in more than your local populace, how do you make sure that admissions are balanced. That is the problem. But yeah some "administrator" evaluating subjective criteria like courses taken, rigor etc is also not good and a pure objective test is also not good. I feel a balance needs to be struck, it is a hard problem

Ekaros 5y ago
>how do you make sure that admissions are balanced. I have never understood why the admission should be balanced? In my mind it should be absolute pure meritocracy. If you don't score high enough, try again until you do or accept institution with lower requirements. Meritocracy is the fairest system overall.
- rahimnathwani 5y ago
  The argument is: if the general population has x% of broad racial group A then x% students at university B must be group A. If not, the reason must (by definition) be systemic racism, which is unfair. Of course, this argument is not entirely without merit.
rahimnathwani 5y ago
This is closer to what I meant, but a few things I feel I should clarify: - I am an immigrant, ethnically Asian (Indian), and moved to the US from Asia (China) - The 'Asians are overrepresented' meme isn't targeted at _immigrants_, but at Asians, regardless of birthplace. When I meet Asians who went to UC, they were usually born in California. - When people decide to implement racial quotas (or policies that allow them to effect racial quotas without calling them racial quotas), they necessarily decide not to treat each person as an individual. Each person becomes just a 'representative' of some racial group.