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What's the Asian to White ratio of qualified college applicants? i.e. are there more Whites or Asians who would be accepted based on factors other than their ra
by wfunction 13y ago
What's the Asian to White ratio of qualified college applicants? i.e. are there more Whites or Asians who would be accepted based on factors other than their race?
If it's > 1, then obviously Asians will take a bigger hit, since they're the majority, that's the whole point of my comment.
If it's <= 1 though then yes, the situation is very interesting indeed.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- wfunction 13y ago> Asians comprise < 5% of the US population, so the first option strikes me as highly unlikely. It doesn't strike me as highly unlikely. Asians tend to have much higher education levels than Whites: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0229.pdf http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0229.p...
- wchou 13y agoThat ratio cannot possibly be > 1 considering that there are more White students than Asian students at these colleges.
- wfunction 13y agoWait, what? I asked about candidates who would be accepted, you're talking about candidates who are accepted. When the whole question is about discrimination in the admissions process, you can't just assume those two are similar quantities without backing it up.
- wchou 13y agoConsider the following true statement: IF there were more qualified Asian applicants than qualified White applicants (ratio > 1) _and_ admissions was not racially biased, THEN there should be more Asians than Whites in the student body. We know that there are more Whites than Asians in the student body of these colleges, so look at the contrapositive: IF there are more Whites than Asians in the student body, THEN there more qualified White applicants (ratio <= 1) _or_ admissions was racially biased.
- wfunction 13y agoI don't get it. If you agree with me that admissions could be racially biased, then what makes you think "That ratio cannot possibly be > 1"?
- wchou 13y agoI meant racially biased against Asians. Look carefully at the logic statement I wrote - it means that one of two things must be true: 1. There exists racial bias specifically against Asians in admissions. 2. Qualified White applicants outnumber qualified Asian applicants. If you concede (1), then your point that Asians get treated more harshly because they're majority is moot. If you concede (2), then, as you said, your argument doesn't work since "ratio < 1". I don't know how to make this more clear than by using propositional logic.
- wfunction 13y agoI'm sorry, I'm just not understanding how my point is moot. Maybe it's just because I'm running low on sleep, but consider this scenario: 1. Qualified Asian applicants outnumber qualified White applicants. 2. A higher percentage of qualified White applicants are admitted than that of qualified Asian applicants. 3. There are more Whites than Asians in the admitted student body. Can you tell me which sentence of mine this scenario runs counter to, or which logical impossibility you think it results in?
- wchou 13y agoYour second statement shouldn't be true unless Whites and Asians are treated differently in admissions.
- wfunction 13y agoYeah exactly, that's the entire point. Asian DO seem to be be treated differently, that's the premise of the entire discussion. How is that surprising? What's so impossible about that possibility? That's neither a sentence of mine, nor a logical impossibility. It's a perfectly valid, logically sound scenario, but for some reason you think it's a logically impossible scenario. Just because you think it's false doesn't make it logically impossible! And here I was arguing with propositional logic as if I'd claimed 2+2=5.