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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 lik

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.
- peter422 3y ago
  Your cut off makes no sense, because Harvard is about potential. If we had a perfect, balanced, equitable test for academic potential than of course we'd use it, but we don't. So you can't just use the distributions about existing tests to prove your point. If you truly think that the top 2.5% of black students would be "out of place" at Harvard then you have a completely invented mysticism of what it means to go to Harvard.
  - xyzzyz 3y ago
    You are wrong, we have excellent tests of potential. Read about, for example, about SMPY, where researchers identified kids with high potential in middle school, then tracked their life as they grew up and built their careers. The test they used turned out to be highly effective and predictive: inordinate high percentage of those identified as talented turned out to be highly successful in academic and professional careers. See https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/DoingPsychScience2006.pdf https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/DoingPsychScien... What was this highly predictive test? It was, quite simply, taking SAT at 11-12 years of age. SAT is really good test, and is highly predictive of academic success, its biggest flaw is that it is too easy for those at the top of distribution, but that can be ameliorated by administering it earlier than typical. > If you truly think that the top 2.5% of black students would be "out of place" at Harvard then you have a completely invented mysticism of what it means to go to Harvard. If 2.5% of all black students were of Harvard quality, then something like 16% of white students would be, which is something like 3 kids in every high school class. Harvard can afford to be much more selective than that, and in fact it must be so to keep its brand.
    - peter422 3y ago
      So you do have a mysticism about what it is like to go to Harvard. Regardless of how selective they are with admissions it also doesn't mean that a large chunk of the people they rejected wouldn't have also done fine there. Arguably it's much easier to get good grades at Harvard due to grade inflation if you are a good student (which you are by definition if you are at the top of your class) than at state schools.

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.

peter422 3y ago
Your cut off makes no sense, because Harvard is about potential. If we had a perfect, balanced, equitable test for academic potential than of course we'd use it, but we don't. So you can't just use the distributions about existing tests to prove your point. If you truly think that the top 2.5% of black students would be "out of place" at Harvard then you have a completely invented mysticism of what it means to go to Harvard.
- xyzzyz 3y ago
  You are wrong, we have excellent tests of potential. Read about, for example, about SMPY, where researchers identified kids with high potential in middle school, then tracked their life as they grew up and built their careers. The test they used turned out to be highly effective and predictive: inordinate high percentage of those identified as talented turned out to be highly successful in academic and professional careers. See https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/DoingPsychScience2006.pdf https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/DoingPsychScien... What was this highly predictive test? It was, quite simply, taking SAT at 11-12 years of age. SAT is really good test, and is highly predictive of academic success, its biggest flaw is that it is too easy for those at the top of distribution, but that can be ameliorated by administering it earlier than typical. > If you truly think that the top 2.5% of black students would be "out of place" at Harvard then you have a completely invented mysticism of what it means to go to Harvard. If 2.5% of all black students were of Harvard quality, then something like 16% of white students would be, which is something like 3 kids in every high school class. Harvard can afford to be much more selective than that, and in fact it must be so to keep its brand.
  - peter422 3y ago
    So you do have a mysticism about what it is like to go to Harvard. Regardless of how selective they are with admissions it also doesn't mean that a large chunk of the people they rejected wouldn't have also done fine there. Arguably it's much easier to get good grades at Harvard due to grade inflation if you are a good student (which you are by definition if you are at the top of your class) than at state schools.