7 ms·
> Targeting class diversity naturally gets you racial diversity anyways. Not always true. Look at the SHSAT. If you looked at the poor kids and took the top sc
by crackercrews 3y ago
> Targeting class diversity naturally gets you racial diversity anyways.
Not always true. Look at the SHSAT. If you looked at the poor kids and took the top scores, it would be mostly Asians.
The same thing applies for admissions to the Ivies. If they set aside 25% of their incoming class to be from the bottom 25% of the income distribution they'd fill most of those slots with Asians.
- koolba 3y ago> Not always true. Look at the SHSAT. If you looked at the poor kids and took the top scores, it would be mostly Asians. But they’re simply gaming the admission systems by studying rather than spending all their waking hours on TikTok and Fortnite.
- _gabe_ 3y ago> But they’re simply gaming the admission systems by studying rather than spending all their waking hours on TikTok and Fortnite. That is the point, is it not? The whole reason for higher education is to study and research. The point of higher education is not to spend all your waking hours on TikTok and Fortnite. Shouldn’t the people dedicated to studying get in? I’m unsure how that’s gaming the system. It seems like the system is working as intended.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago> Not always true. Look at the SHSAT. If you looked at the poor kids and took the top scores, it would be mostly Asians. That's assuming you're filling these slots solely on the basis of highest score and not, for example, setting a threshold score below which you might not expect those students to be able to succeed in that environment and then choosing from the remainder by lottery. After all, if the point is diversity, "students with near-perfect standardized test scores" might not be the most heterogeneous group. And the kids with the near-perfect scores should be able to get in without consideration of their income level.
- crackercrews 3y agoYes it depends on where you set the threshold. If you try to keep as close to your academic standards as possible, but also admit some kids from the bottom 25% of income then you'll get mostly Asians. If you set a much lower threshold and do a lottery as you propose it depends much more on the composition of the applicant pool.
- janalsncm 3y ago> mostly Asians So what? A few generations ago they said the same thing about Jews which was why they added extra admissions criteria in the first place. If one person has proven to be more academically qualified than another, they should be admitted. It doesn’t matter if they’re Jewish, Asian (which is an entire continent so it’s a bit silly to lump them all together, as if someone from China and someone from India have any kind of shared experience) or whatever.
- crackercrews 3y agoI'm not taking issue with the outcome described. I'm pointing out that targeting class diversity will not always result in racial diversity as claimed.
- smcin 3y agoSHSAT is an NYC-only HS thing, right? Are there any other US cities or regions doing similar at HS admissions level (ages 12-14)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_High_Schools_Admissions_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_High_Schools_Admis...
- crackercrews 3y agoI don't know. But it's well known that this test is based on academic achievement and that low-income Asians do very well.
- smcin 3y agoonly if you live in NYC. If you don't live in NYC you won't ever have heard of it.
- crackercrews 3y agoThe test and controversy have been heavily covered in national media for years.
- smcin 3y agoI live in California, I read national media for decades, and I've never heard of it. When I google for it, the top-10 news hits for it are mostly NYPost, City Journal, NBC New York, NYDailyNews, also Manhattan Institute, TheNation. Even if you google "SHSAT site:latimes.com" you only get hits for NYT, etc. SFChronicle has only ever mentioned it once, and that was in 2021 in the context of the local (SF) debate about Lowell HS's entrance exam: (https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-s-Lowell-isn-t-the-only-selective-school-15941488.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-s-Lowell-isn...). Googling "site:sfchronicle.com SHSAT" only has that one hit.