7 ms·

Using parental income as well as parental education level in admissions would have helped GP's father just fine without any need for race-based affirmative acti

by ummonk 3y ago

Using parental income as well as parental education level in admissions would have helped GP's father just fine without any need for race-based affirmative action.

commandlinefan 3y ago
> parental income as well as parental education level in admissions But that leads to the same fundamental problem - somebody who was "unfortunate" enough to be born into decent circumstances but _who was actually more qualified_ than the diversity admit gets rejected.
- kaitai 3y ago
  That's where things fall down, though. I've done some admissions work (I am not professionally in admissions or HR or anything, I was just an academic mathematician). A lot of "qualifications" are experiences you can buy. You can buy volunteer experiences here or there, whether as literally as flying your child to Africa to volunteer or as simply as not asking your kid to contribute to paying the rent and letting them tutor for no cash. You can buy your kid test prep classes -- yes, the poor kid can get an SAT prep book from the library but the rich kid can have a tutor take their child by the hand and cajole/harass/massage the kid through test prep. You must pay pay pay to have your kid participate in traveling soccer league, dance team, lacrosse, etc. Remember travel soccer and similar activities are a way of divesting from the public schools, ensuring that this money and coaching benefits kids whose parents can pay (the right kinds of kids, the kids you want your kid to marry). What else? The music lessons, the robotics contests, the school district that has a full suite of AP or IB classes rather than just a couple, but in which houses start at $425k... I sure as shit am buying qualifications for my kid, fully recognizing my role in participating in this flawed system. Kid's in robotics, language classes, gets to travel. We switched the kid's school to go to a school with higher standards. We teach the kid both reading (100 Easy Lessons...) and writing (workbooks from the non-US country with better public education) -- small expenses in $ but nevertheless expenses. I'm sure someone will happily tell me that the last part is just good morals on my part, or something, but you can't tell me that $100/day for a robotics summer camp is just good morals. I am buying that kid qualifications. And then someone will tell me that's not race-based, but look at the perpetuation of wealth disparity thru US history, from chattel slavery on through the robbery from the Freedmen's Bank to the riot that burned down Black Wall Street to the fact that Black servicemen couldn't get mortgage assistance or GI Bill college assistance after WW2. Follow the money.
- CuriouslyC 3y ago
  Poverty has a huge impact on childhood accomplishment. If someone is a regular A student while dodging bullets with a mother on crack, they are probably a much stronger human than someone who comes from an upper middle class family and gets valedictorian, is class president, does volunteer work and won a teen writing award or some-such.
  - worrycue 3y ago
    > Poverty has a huge impact on childhood accomplishment. So help the poor. This has nothing to do with race.
    - foogazi 3y ago
      But no one helps the poor - and by the time they get to college they are at a huge disadvantage So nothing happens
    - 101011 3y ago
      To be fair, this person didn't say anything on the topic of race.
- foogazi 3y ago
  What’s wrong with some randomness in the system? If schools can reserve spots for legacy admissions or international students to the detriment of merit based then they can also reserve spots for a lottery system
xyzzyz 3y ago
Indeed, but the goal of affirmative action as actually practiced is not to help people who are unlucky in terms of where they are born and are growing up, but to literally just achieve desired racial balance. It is pure racism, it’s all about skin color. This is why, for example, children of African immigrants are something like half of black Harvard students, despite being a minuscule fraction of population: they want to meet their 13% black quota, but there are too few American descendants of slaves who will not be utterly out of place, so they make up the shortage with Africans.
- peter422 3y ago
  You don't believe there are 300 multi-generation American black students per year that wouldn't be utterly out of place at Harvard? Don't throw out numbers like that unless you are willing to back them up, because your claim seems completely insane.
  - xyzzyz 3y ago
    There are, but Harvard is not the only one competing for them. Once you consider all top schools, the population of ADOSes who can make it based on academics is really tiny: given the fundamental constant of sociology being 1 sigma difference between white and black Americans, given how normal distribution works, the difference in figures at the top of distribution is enormous. For example, if Harvard only wants to admit people 2 sigma above median, by 68-95-99.7 rule it will be 2.5% of white applicants, but 0.15% of black applicants. That’s 16-to-1 even before you adjust for the fact that non-Hispanic whites are 60% and blacks are 13% of population, after which you get something like 75 qualified whites for each whites. Add to that Hispanics whites, who, while overall having lower academic achievement, are not nearly as low as blacks, and Asians, who have even higher achievement than whites, you’ll easily get something like 100 to 150 qualified non blacks for every black applicant. Even more concretely: there are something like 2 million freshmen every year. 2 sigma cutoff means only 2.5% of them qualify, which is only 50,000 people. 1 in 100 means only 500 blacks qualify at above 2 population sigma. Then you have all Ivies and other top schools compete for these. So yes, you can find 300 blacks at 2 sigma cutoff, but Harvard won’t get all of those. Thus, Africans.

by ummonk 3y ago

Using parental income as well as parental education level in admissions would have helped GP's father just fine without any need for race-based affirmative action.

commandlinefan 3y ago

> parental income as well as parental education level in admissions But that leads to the same fundamental problem - somebody who was "unfortunate" enough to be born into decent circumstances but _who was actually more qualified_ than the diversity admit gets rejected.

kaitai 3y ago
That's where things fall down, though. I've done some admissions work (I am not professionally in admissions or HR or anything, I was just an academic mathematician). A lot of "qualifications" are experiences you can buy. You can buy volunteer experiences here or there, whether as literally as flying your child to Africa to volunteer or as simply as not asking your kid to contribute to paying the rent and letting them tutor for no cash. You can buy your kid test prep classes -- yes, the poor kid can get an SAT prep book from the library but the rich kid can have a tutor take their child by the hand and cajole/harass/massage the kid through test prep. You must pay pay pay to have your kid participate in traveling soccer league, dance team, lacrosse, etc. Remember travel soccer and similar activities are a way of divesting from the public schools, ensuring that this money and coaching benefits kids whose parents can pay (the right kinds of kids, the kids you want your kid to marry). What else? The music lessons, the robotics contests, the school district that has a full suite of AP or IB classes rather than just a couple, but in which houses start at $425k... I sure as shit am buying qualifications for my kid, fully recognizing my role in participating in this flawed system. Kid's in robotics, language classes, gets to travel. We switched the kid's school to go to a school with higher standards. We teach the kid both reading (100 Easy Lessons...) and writing (workbooks from the non-US country with better public education) -- small expenses in $ but nevertheless expenses. I'm sure someone will happily tell me that the last part is just good morals on my part, or something, but you can't tell me that $100/day for a robotics summer camp is just good morals. I am buying that kid qualifications. And then someone will tell me that's not race-based, but look at the perpetuation of wealth disparity thru US history, from chattel slavery on through the robbery from the Freedmen's Bank to the riot that burned down Black Wall Street to the fact that Black servicemen couldn't get mortgage assistance or GI Bill college assistance after WW2. Follow the money.
CuriouslyC 3y ago
Poverty has a huge impact on childhood accomplishment. If someone is a regular A student while dodging bullets with a mother on crack, they are probably a much stronger human than someone who comes from an upper middle class family and gets valedictorian, is class president, does volunteer work and won a teen writing award or some-such.
- worrycue 3y ago
  > Poverty has a huge impact on childhood accomplishment. So help the poor. This has nothing to do with race.
  - foogazi 3y ago
    But no one helps the poor - and by the time they get to college they are at a huge disadvantage So nothing happens
  - 101011 3y ago
    To be fair, this person didn't say anything on the topic of race.
foogazi 3y ago
What’s wrong with some randomness in the system? If schools can reserve spots for legacy admissions or international students to the detriment of merit based then they can also reserve spots for a lottery system

xyzzyz 3y ago

Indeed, but the goal of affirmative action as actually practiced is not to help people who are unlucky in terms of where they are born and are growing up, but to literally just achieve desired racial balance. It is pure racism, it’s all about skin color. This is why, for example, children of African immigrants are something like half of black Harvard students, despite being a minuscule fraction of population: they want to meet their 13% black quota, but there are too few American descendants of slaves who will not be utterly out of place, so they make up the shortage with Africans.

peter422 3y ago
You don't believe there are 300 multi-generation American black students per year that wouldn't be utterly out of place at Harvard? Don't throw out numbers like that unless you are willing to back them up, because your claim seems completely insane.
- xyzzyz 3y ago
  There are, but Harvard is not the only one competing for them. Once you consider all top schools, the population of ADOSes who can make it based on academics is really tiny: given the fundamental constant of sociology being 1 sigma difference between white and black Americans, given how normal distribution works, the difference in figures at the top of distribution is enormous. For example, if Harvard only wants to admit people 2 sigma above median, by 68-95-99.7 rule it will be 2.5% of white applicants, but 0.15% of black applicants. That’s 16-to-1 even before you adjust for the fact that non-Hispanic whites are 60% and blacks are 13% of population, after which you get something like 75 qualified whites for each whites. Add to that Hispanics whites, who, while overall having lower academic achievement, are not nearly as low as blacks, and Asians, who have even higher achievement than whites, you’ll easily get something like 100 to 150 qualified non blacks for every black applicant. Even more concretely: there are something like 2 million freshmen every year. 2 sigma cutoff means only 2.5% of them qualify, which is only 50,000 people. 1 in 100 means only 500 blacks qualify at above 2 population sigma. Then you have all Ivies and other top schools compete for these. So yes, you can find 300 blacks at 2 sigma cutoff, but Harvard won’t get all of those. Thus, Africans.