4 ms·

They don’t do number two, that is not need blind (blind means admissions doesn’t look at financial need, and this makes sense because the applications are due b

by smugma 4y ago

They don’t do number two, that is not need blind (blind means admissions doesn’t look at financial need, and this makes sense because the applications are due before financial aid is filled out). But here’s what they do do: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/education/edlife/finaid-pappano-t.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/education/edlife/finaid-p... B.U. may be need-blind in admissions, but like many colleges, it is not talent-blind in financial aid. When the admissions office accepts a student, the file gets a rating before going to the financial aid office. That rating, Dr. Pohl says, is based on a holistic read of the application: factors like leadership, talent, motivation and personal character are weighed as well as grades and test scores.

chaostheory 4y ago
> based on a holistic read of the application: factors like leadership, talent, motivation and personal character are weighed as well as grades and test scores This is another problem. Instead of primarily looking at things you can quantitatively measure, the arbitrary measures now have more weight, meaning they can now more easily discriminate against “boring” student applicants. https://priceonomics.com/do-elite-colleges-discriminate-against-asians/ https://priceonomics.com/do-elite-colleges-discriminate-agai...
lumost 4y ago
The article is pay-walled, but barring a publicly disclosed admissions criteria - I am dubious of this claim. Consider how adding the following leadership/club activities as "desirable" in the admissions process would affect how much need the student body would need. - "Polo" - "Cross-Country skiing" - "Ski team" - "International volunteer work" It's pretty easy to skew admissions criteria in favor of affluence without overtly checking financials. The university could just as easily de-select items such as. - "Shift manager for Dunkin Donuts" - "Barrista at Starbucks" - "Valet"
barry-cotter 4y ago
> of the application: factors like leadership, talent, motivation and personal character are weighed as well as grades and test scores. Yes? So they have a catch all justification for discrimination against and for whoever they like. Remember, holistic admissions was invented to keep out the Jews. Now it’s used to keep out Asians.
- smugma 4y ago
  I’m not disputing that. They claim to be need-blind, and explicitly acknowledge they have a bunch of other fuzzy criteria. While they could discriminate against poor people who put crappy jobs in their applications, it goes against their diversity goals. Whether or not you agree with said goals, (liberal arts) colleges and universities want a diverse population (and yes, to the detriment of Asians).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    Visible diversity is far more important to them than social class diversity. There are large boosts to admissions for non-Asian minorities, much smaller boosts for poor visible minorities and penalties for being both white and poor. > Espenshade and Radford also take up very thoroughly the question of “class based preferences” and what they find clearly shows a general disregard for improving the admission chances of poor and otherwise disadvantaged whites. Other studies, including a 2005 analysis of nineteen highly selective public and private universities by William Bowen, Martin Kurzweil, and Eugene Tobin, in their 2003 book, Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education, found very little if any advantage in the admissions process accorded to whites from economically or educationally disadvantaged families compared to whites from wealthier or better educated homes. Espenshade and Radford cite this study and summarize it as follows: “These researchers find that, for non-minority [i.e., white] applicants with the same SAT scores, there is no perceptible difference in admission chances between applicants from families in the bottom income quartile, applicants who would be the first in their families to attend college, and all other (non-minority) applicants from families at higher levels of socioeconomic status. When controls are added for other student and institutional characteristics, these authors find that “on an other-things-equal basis, [white] applicants from low-SES backgrounds, whether defined by family income or parental education, get essentially no break in the admissions process; they fare neither better nor worse than other [white] applicants.” > Distressing as many might consider this to be–since the same institutions that give no special consideration to poor white applicants boast about their commitment to “diversity” and give enormous admissions breaks to blacks, even to those from relatively affluent homes–Espenshade and Radford in their survey found the actual situation to be much more troubling. At the private institutions in their study whites from lower-class backgrounds incurred a huge admissions disadvantage not only in comparison to lower-class minority students, but compared to whites from middle-class and upper-middle-class backgrounds as well. The lower-class whites proved to be all-around losers. When equally matched for background factors (including SAT scores and high school GPAs), the better-off whites were more than three times as likely to be accepted as the poorest whites (.28 vs. .08 admissions probability). Having money in the family greatly improved a white applicant’s admissions chances, lack of money greatly reduced it. The opposite class trend was seen among non-whites, where the poorer the applicant the greater the probability of acceptance when all other factors are taken into account. Class-based affirmative action does exist within the three non-white ethno-racial groupings, but among the whites the groups advanced are those with money. https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2010/07/12/how_diversity_punishes_asians/ https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2010/07/12/how_diversity_pu...

by smugma 4y ago

chaostheory 4y ago

> based on a holistic read of the application: factors like leadership, talent, motivation and personal character are weighed as well as grades and test scores This is another problem. Instead of primarily looking at things you can quantitatively measure, the arbitrary measures now have more weight, meaning they can now more easily discriminate against “boring” student applicants. https://priceonomics.com/do-elite-colleges-discriminate-against-asians/ https://priceonomics.com/do-elite-colleges-discriminate-agai...

lumost 4y ago

The article is pay-walled, but barring a publicly disclosed admissions criteria - I am dubious of this claim. Consider how adding the following leadership/club activities as "desirable" in the admissions process would affect how much need the student body would need. - "Polo" - "Cross-Country skiing" - "Ski team" - "International volunteer work" It's pretty easy to skew admissions criteria in favor of affluence without overtly checking financials. The university could just as easily de-select items such as. - "Shift manager for Dunkin Donuts" - "Barrista at Starbucks" - "Valet"

barry-cotter 4y ago

> of the application: factors like leadership, talent, motivation and personal character are weighed as well as grades and test scores. Yes? So they have a catch all justification for discrimination against and for whoever they like. Remember, holistic admissions was invented to keep out the Jews. Now it’s used to keep out Asians.

smugma 4y ago
I’m not disputing that. They claim to be need-blind, and explicitly acknowledge they have a bunch of other fuzzy criteria. While they could discriminate against poor people who put crappy jobs in their applications, it goes against their diversity goals. Whether or not you agree with said goals, (liberal arts) colleges and universities want a diverse population (and yes, to the detriment of Asians).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  Visible diversity is far more important to them than social class diversity. There are large boosts to admissions for non-Asian minorities, much smaller boosts for poor visible minorities and penalties for being both white and poor. > Espenshade and Radford also take up very thoroughly the question of “class based preferences” and what they find clearly shows a general disregard for improving the admission chances of poor and otherwise disadvantaged whites. Other studies, including a 2005 analysis of nineteen highly selective public and private universities by William Bowen, Martin Kurzweil, and Eugene Tobin, in their 2003 book, Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education, found very little if any advantage in the admissions process accorded to whites from economically or educationally disadvantaged families compared to whites from wealthier or better educated homes. Espenshade and Radford cite this study and summarize it as follows: “These researchers find that, for non-minority [i.e., white] applicants with the same SAT scores, there is no perceptible difference in admission chances between applicants from families in the bottom income quartile, applicants who would be the first in their families to attend college, and all other (non-minority) applicants from families at higher levels of socioeconomic status. When controls are added for other student and institutional characteristics, these authors find that “on an other-things-equal basis, [white] applicants from low-SES backgrounds, whether defined by family income or parental education, get essentially no break in the admissions process; they fare neither better nor worse than other [white] applicants.” > Distressing as many might consider this to be–since the same institutions that give no special consideration to poor white applicants boast about their commitment to “diversity” and give enormous admissions breaks to blacks, even to those from relatively affluent homes–Espenshade and Radford in their survey found the actual situation to be much more troubling. At the private institutions in their study whites from lower-class backgrounds incurred a huge admissions disadvantage not only in comparison to lower-class minority students, but compared to whites from middle-class and upper-middle-class backgrounds as well. The lower-class whites proved to be all-around losers. When equally matched for background factors (including SAT scores and high school GPAs), the better-off whites were more than three times as likely to be accepted as the poorest whites (.28 vs. .08 admissions probability). Having money in the family greatly improved a white applicant’s admissions chances, lack of money greatly reduced it. The opposite class trend was seen among non-whites, where the poorer the applicant the greater the probability of acceptance when all other factors are taken into account. Class-based affirmative action does exist within the three non-white ethno-racial groupings, but among the whites the groups advanced are those with money. https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2010/07/12/how_diversity_punishes_asians/ https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2010/07/12/how_diversity_pu...