8 ms·

>Maybe the Ivies will move to a similar system in the wake of the current SCOTUS case. AFAICT, the ivies don't have a problem with filling their graduating cla

>Maybe the Ivies will move to a similar system in the wake of the current SCOTUS case. AFAICT, the ivies don't have a problem with filling their graduating class. I believe a place like Harvard even considering the top 10% of students would increase the applicant pool. I'm reciting these numbers from memory, but apparently the size of the incoming class at Harvard is roughly 2,000 students, but there are ~5,000 applicants that scored 95th percentile of the SAT. (Edit: This source [3] says there are 22,000 students who scored in the top 1% percentile; Harvard could likely admit every perfect scorer if it pleased). While I believe there is belief that Harvard is accepting C-students over asians A+ students I think the reality is much closer; they are rejecting students with perfect scores and accepting students who scored in the 98th percentile. The real problem is the size of the undergrad class for these select elite schools have remained the same (The harvard class size of 1992 was 2,200[1] compared to 1,954 today[2]), while the US population has grown almost 30% in the same time frame. You have more and more qualifying students fighting for the same number of spots and an organization that is more than happy to split imaginary hairs to keep the class size the same. [1] https://www.thecrimson.com/column/a-new-day-at-harvard/article/2021/2/12/berger-increase-undergrad-enrollment/ https://www.thecrimson.com/column/a-new-day-at-harvard/artic... [2]https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/4/1/admissions-class-of-2026/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/4/1/admissions-class... [3] https://go.collegewise.com/how-many-people-get-a-perfect-sat-score https://go.collegewise.com/how-many-people-get-a-perfect-sat...

Frost1x 4y ago
>While I believe there is belief that Harvard is accepting C-students over asians A+ students I think the reality is much closer; they are rejecting students with perfect scores and accepting students who scored in the 98th percentile. While I'm all for objective nd fair opportunity, I don't think the SAT is an example of this, so admitting people who didn't do as perfectly but still spectacularly on some test metric probably isn't a terrible idea. The question is what other weights they apply to the decision and how objectively fair or not those are.
duvenaud 4y ago
> While I believe there is belief that Harvard is accepting C-students over asians A+ students I think the reality is much closer; they are rejecting students with perfect scores and accepting students who scored in the 98th percentile. You don't need to speculate, the gap is more like 99th vs 93rd percentile: "Asian-Americans admitted to Harvard earned an average SAT score of 767 across all sections. ... African-American admits an average of 704." https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/22/asian-american-admit-sat-scores/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/22/asian-american...
- cuteboy19 4y ago
  Point being racial discrimination is acceptable so long as there is some plausible deniability
  - xbar 4y ago
    Is that point obvious? Perhaps the point is taking race completely out of the equation is going to descimatr Native American Latino and black attendance at Harvard. ~11% of white students will be be replaced by Asian students but the population will remain overwhelmingly white. I think the ~1300 Asian students that didn’t get into Harvard from 2010-2015 that scored above white students that were admitted really suffered as a result of Harvards policies. I am not convinced the new system is going to be any better for society in the long run. But Asian applicants to Harvard will likely be less victimized.
    - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
      > but the population will remain overwhelmingly white. That is highly unlikely. As a comparison, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a magnet school in Northern Virginia that has often been ranked the best high school in the US, had a student body that was 73% Asian in the last year that they had completely race-blind admissions (largely based on scores on an entrance exam and grades) despite Asians making up 20% of students in the entire county. In 2021 they switched to a policy that gave automatic admission to the top X% of students in their respective schools with the goal of increasing black and Latino enrollment. Asian enrollment fell from 73% to 54%, black enrollment went from 1% to 7%, Hispanic enrollment from 3% to 11%, and white enrollment from 18% to 22%: https://apnews.com/article/hispanics-racial-injustice-science-race-and-ethnicity-education-b02f6ed353ef89258e0eadf7eabec24d https://apnews.com/article/hispanics-racial-injustice-scienc... Point being, Harvard currently has a freshman class that is < 50% white, so going to a completely race-blind policy would take that down considerably.

Frost1x 4y ago

>While I believe there is belief that Harvard is accepting C-students over asians A+ students I think the reality is much closer; they are rejecting students with perfect scores and accepting students who scored in the 98th percentile. While I'm all for objective nd fair opportunity, I don't think the SAT is an example of this, so admitting people who didn't do as perfectly but still spectacularly on some test metric probably isn't a terrible idea. The question is what other weights they apply to the decision and how objectively fair or not those are.

duvenaud 4y ago

> While I believe there is belief that Harvard is accepting C-students over asians A+ students I think the reality is much closer; they are rejecting students with perfect scores and accepting students who scored in the 98th percentile. You don't need to speculate, the gap is more like 99th vs 93rd percentile: "Asian-Americans admitted to Harvard earned an average SAT score of 767 across all sections. ... African-American admits an average of 704." https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/22/asian-american-admit-sat-scores/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/22/asian-american...

cuteboy19 4y ago
Point being racial discrimination is acceptable so long as there is some plausible deniability
- xbar 4y ago
  Is that point obvious? Perhaps the point is taking race completely out of the equation is going to descimatr Native American Latino and black attendance at Harvard. ~11% of white students will be be replaced by Asian students but the population will remain overwhelmingly white. I think the ~1300 Asian students that didn’t get into Harvard from 2010-2015 that scored above white students that were admitted really suffered as a result of Harvards policies. I am not convinced the new system is going to be any better for society in the long run. But Asian applicants to Harvard will likely be less victimized.
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    > but the population will remain overwhelmingly white. That is highly unlikely. As a comparison, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a magnet school in Northern Virginia that has often been ranked the best high school in the US, had a student body that was 73% Asian in the last year that they had completely race-blind admissions (largely based on scores on an entrance exam and grades) despite Asians making up 20% of students in the entire county. In 2021 they switched to a policy that gave automatic admission to the top X% of students in their respective schools with the goal of increasing black and Latino enrollment. Asian enrollment fell from 73% to 54%, black enrollment went from 1% to 7%, Hispanic enrollment from 3% to 11%, and white enrollment from 18% to 22%: https://apnews.com/article/hispanics-racial-injustice-science-race-and-ethnicity-education-b02f6ed353ef89258e0eadf7eabec24d https://apnews.com/article/hispanics-racial-injustice-scienc... Point being, Harvard currently has a freshman class that is < 50% white, so going to a completely race-blind policy would take that down considerably.