3 ms·
Have you seen the SAT score vs. race charts? This would just make Harvard 50+% Asian (like Caltech), when they make up 7% of the US.
by carabiner 5y ago
Have you seen the SAT score vs. race charts? This would just make Harvard 50+% Asian (like Caltech), when they make up 7% of the US.
- jacobr1 5y agoWow, I looked up the data to refute this, but it was worse than I presumed: https://www.brookings.edu/research/race-gaps-in-sat-scores-highlight-inequality-and-hinder-upward-mobility/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/race-gaps-in-sat-scores-h... My initial thought was we could just have a floor. We don't need to ensure a perfect score amongst the pool that gets randomly selected, so if there there is minimum that is still "high," and that isn't biased toward outliers from any race, then it would work. But it looks like the floor we'd need to have a reasonable representation would be something like a 500/800 math score. That is much too low, at least for elite schools. Choosing something like a 700 cut-off ends up being very racially selective.
- usaar333 5y agoMath is much more disparate than Verbal (ERW). You can see the data at https://reports.collegeboard.org/pdf/2020-total-group-sat-suite-assessments-annual-report.pdf https://reports.collegeboard.org/pdf/2020-total-group-sat-su...
- kbelder 5y agoMaybe that's what it should be, then? I wouldn't expect to get in, displacing a student with a higher score, just because I'm white.
- carabiner 5y agoMaybe it is. This is a philosophical discussion that adcoms have been struggling with for 40 years.
- sanxiyn 5y agoMaking more universities like Caltech sounds wonderful to me.
- jlos 5y agoI think you misunderstood. A Random acceptance above an achievable standard (e.g average marks of 80%) would reduce racial disparities. It doesn't matter what races are the top performers, it just matters how many people can achieve the base standard.