6 ms·

One problem is that the poor and highly qualified are mostly white kids from flyover country and to a lesser extent recent Asian immigrants, both of which are e

One problem is that the poor and highly qualified are mostly white kids from flyover country and to a lesser extent recent Asian immigrants, both of which are ethnic anti-priorities for colleges.

smeyer 12y ago
I don't have statistics on hand, but my experience as a Harvard undergrad (class of 2013) was that the less wealthy students at the school were more economically diverse than the more wealthy students. Any efforts by Harvard to increase racial diversity and increase economic diversity would likely work hand in hand.
- gnarbarian 12y ago
  I would bet that's because there are far more scholarships available for poor minorities.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - hkmurakami 12y ago
    Hmm, I'm not so certain. My alma mater (Princeton) probably has similar scholarship structures to Harvard, and there, need based aid gets given out to every student who needs it, regardless of race. (iirc there is now a system where families making less than $180,000/yr only pay 10% of their household income for tuition) But you might be right that there may be additional scholarships that students can apply for (I remember a few friends writing letters to their scholarships annually to update them on what they've been up to as part of the scholarship deal, provided by bodies separate from the school itself -- presumably set up by alums with a set of stipulations as to who can qualify), may perhaps these may be skewed one way or another along various dimensions.
  - smeyer 12y ago
    Nope, I don't think that has anything to do with it. Harvard's policy is pretty similar to Princeton's described by hkmurakami. You can check out the calculations at [1], but the basic idea is that it's free up to 60k family income for Americans regardless of race then about 10% up to 180k income. This means that you can be making the median family income and still have an expected family contribution of $0 at Harvard. Obviously these sorts of levels of financial aid are only at the top few schools, but at places like Harvard and Princeton it really is independent of race. [1] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat...
    - Ntrails 12y ago
      One of the issues plaguing the UK is that the wealthy students go to private schools, which have the best facilities/teachers etc and are able to produce far far higher results. The argument becomes "when n% of the people with maximum A level grades come from private schools, that's the % you should expect at the top universities which gate by grades, regardless of their history". So I guess I have 2 questions: Do you have a similar issue where the wealthy buy better tuition to ensure higher results and get a better shot at the best colleges? Is there a scaling factor applied to those of different backgrounds to mitigate this?
      - smeyer 12y ago
        I think the answers to those two questions are roughly yes and yes. I get the impression a lower percentage of people here go to private schools in general (and could be totally wrong), but many do. There are also plenty of other opportunities that are easier to access with wealth. Even with public schools, wealthier people tend to live in school districts with better schools. There's no simple scaling factor because there's no numerical value to scale (admissions at places like Harvard are not just an objective formula of grades and test scores) but background is certainly taken into account. A kid going to a school without lots of AP classes isn't expected to take lots of AP classes, for example. A kid from a rough economic background who has to work a minimum wage summer job for financial reasons will get more understanding than the rich kid who chooses a summer job for spending money instead of volunteering in a research lab, and so on. As I mentioned in another comment, I think one challenge is that it is harder to differentiate kids without these opportunities. To use the AP class example, you can help separate kids from top schools by looking at how many/which AP classes they took and what scores they got on the tests. If you take a similarly sized cohort of kids at a school without AP classes, how do you differentiate them?
guelo 12y ago
This white "reverse racism" meme seems to have really caught on in the last decade or so. To the point that white people now think they are discriminated against more than black people[1]. Our culture sucks. [1] http://politicalblindspot.com/study-finds-white-americans-believe-they-experience-more-racism-than-african-americans/ http://politicalblindspot.com/study-finds-white-americans-be...
- refurb 12y ago
  No, it's not that white people think they are discriminated again more than black people. The idea is that discrimination based on race is bad regardless of who it is practiced against.
nooron 12y ago
Hey fiatmoney. I think you're concerned about some thing that a lot of people don't vocalize civilly, so I'm glad that you are. Though I don't work in admissions, I work alongside a number of people of that do. I've gone out of my way to ask about those "white kids from flyover country". I will elaborate on those of my alma mater here. Very few kids from rural school districts perform highly on standardized testing. Very few receive the encouragement (familial and cultural) to go to high-quality, distant schools. If you want to hear some horror stories about this from me, shoot me an email. I'd be happy to share them in private. Point being that even within its state, my large public school struggles to recruit from its rural parts. Contrary to what you assume, they actually do employ recruitment and affirmative action policies towards to the exact folks you're talking about -- predominantly poor and culturally disadvantaged rural people who are predominantly white.
- gnarbarian 12y ago
  I'm interested in hearing a few of these stories.
  - nooron 12y ago
    If you email me at jordan at birnholtz dot com, I will get right back to you. Hell, if you email me right now with your phone number, I'll even call you. I think these stories are worth telling, but I'm not going to compromise the privacy of my very close friends in the public forum without their consent.
    - enraged_camel 12y ago
      Couldn't you anonymize personally-identifiable information?
      - nooron 12y ago
        Reasonable question. I don't think I've made my motive for not sharing publicly very clear. That you'd parse their identities is a secondary concern to me (as I don't think you could). I'm more concerned about their feelings, since they could easily find this post (as my real name is tied to this account). While I think it's alright to anonymize and subsequently discuss my friends' lives in private, 1-to-1 discourse, I'm not ready to make their lives part of the public record with out their approval. Does that make sense, enraged_camel?
a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
Ron Unz found clear evidence that in the ivy league qualified poor whites and asians are actively discriminated against. Jews are disproportionately admitted. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/ http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
    This is obviously controlling for qualifications like test scores, dummy.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- tuananh 12y ago
  hence the word "rare" in the title.

One problem is that the poor and highly qualified are mostly white kids from flyover country and to a lesser extent recent Asian immigrants, both of which are ethnic anti-priorities for colleges.

smeyer 12y ago

I don't have statistics on hand, but my experience as a Harvard undergrad (class of 2013) was that the less wealthy students at the school were more economically diverse than the more wealthy students. Any efforts by Harvard to increase racial diversity and increase economic diversity would likely work hand in hand.

gnarbarian 12y ago
I would bet that's because there are far more scholarships available for poor minorities.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- hkmurakami 12y ago
  Hmm, I'm not so certain. My alma mater (Princeton) probably has similar scholarship structures to Harvard, and there, need based aid gets given out to every student who needs it, regardless of race. (iirc there is now a system where families making less than $180,000/yr only pay 10% of their household income for tuition) But you might be right that there may be additional scholarships that students can apply for (I remember a few friends writing letters to their scholarships annually to update them on what they've been up to as part of the scholarship deal, provided by bodies separate from the school itself -- presumably set up by alums with a set of stipulations as to who can qualify), may perhaps these may be skewed one way or another along various dimensions.
- smeyer 12y ago
  Nope, I don't think that has anything to do with it. Harvard's policy is pretty similar to Princeton's described by hkmurakami. You can check out the calculations at [1], but the basic idea is that it's free up to 60k family income for Americans regardless of race then about 10% up to 180k income. This means that you can be making the median family income and still have an expected family contribution of $0 at Harvard. Obviously these sorts of levels of financial aid are only at the top few schools, but at places like Harvard and Princeton it really is independent of race. [1] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat...
  - Ntrails 12y ago
    One of the issues plaguing the UK is that the wealthy students go to private schools, which have the best facilities/teachers etc and are able to produce far far higher results. The argument becomes "when n% of the people with maximum A level grades come from private schools, that's the % you should expect at the top universities which gate by grades, regardless of their history". So I guess I have 2 questions: Do you have a similar issue where the wealthy buy better tuition to ensure higher results and get a better shot at the best colleges? Is there a scaling factor applied to those of different backgrounds to mitigate this?
    - smeyer 12y ago
      I think the answers to those two questions are roughly yes and yes. I get the impression a lower percentage of people here go to private schools in general (and could be totally wrong), but many do. There are also plenty of other opportunities that are easier to access with wealth. Even with public schools, wealthier people tend to live in school districts with better schools. There's no simple scaling factor because there's no numerical value to scale (admissions at places like Harvard are not just an objective formula of grades and test scores) but background is certainly taken into account. A kid going to a school without lots of AP classes isn't expected to take lots of AP classes, for example. A kid from a rough economic background who has to work a minimum wage summer job for financial reasons will get more understanding than the rich kid who chooses a summer job for spending money instead of volunteering in a research lab, and so on. As I mentioned in another comment, I think one challenge is that it is harder to differentiate kids without these opportunities. To use the AP class example, you can help separate kids from top schools by looking at how many/which AP classes they took and what scores they got on the tests. If you take a similarly sized cohort of kids at a school without AP classes, how do you differentiate them?

guelo 12y ago

This white "reverse racism" meme seems to have really caught on in the last decade or so. To the point that white people now think they are discriminated against more than black people[1]. Our culture sucks. [1] http://politicalblindspot.com/study-finds-white-americans-believe-they-experience-more-racism-than-african-americans/ http://politicalblindspot.com/study-finds-white-americans-be...

refurb 12y ago
No, it's not that white people think they are discriminated again more than black people. The idea is that discrimination based on race is bad regardless of who it is practiced against.

nooron 12y ago

Hey fiatmoney. I think you're concerned about some thing that a lot of people don't vocalize civilly, so I'm glad that you are. Though I don't work in admissions, I work alongside a number of people of that do. I've gone out of my way to ask about those "white kids from flyover country". I will elaborate on those of my alma mater here. Very few kids from rural school districts perform highly on standardized testing. Very few receive the encouragement (familial and cultural) to go to high-quality, distant schools. If you want to hear some horror stories about this from me, shoot me an email. I'd be happy to share them in private. Point being that even within its state, my large public school struggles to recruit from its rural parts. Contrary to what you assume, they actually do employ recruitment and affirmative action policies towards to the exact folks you're talking about -- predominantly poor and culturally disadvantaged rural people who are predominantly white.

gnarbarian 12y ago
I'm interested in hearing a few of these stories.
- nooron 12y ago
  If you email me at jordan at birnholtz dot com, I will get right back to you. Hell, if you email me right now with your phone number, I'll even call you. I think these stories are worth telling, but I'm not going to compromise the privacy of my very close friends in the public forum without their consent.
  - enraged_camel 12y ago
    Couldn't you anonymize personally-identifiable information?
    - nooron 12y ago
      Reasonable question. I don't think I've made my motive for not sharing publicly very clear. That you'd parse their identities is a secondary concern to me (as I don't think you could). I'm more concerned about their feelings, since they could easily find this post (as my real name is tied to this account). While I think it's alright to anonymize and subsequently discuss my friends' lives in private, 1-to-1 discourse, I'm not ready to make their lives part of the public record with out their approval. Does that make sense, enraged_camel?

a8da6b0c91d 12y ago

Ron Unz found clear evidence that in the ivy league qualified poor whites and asians are actively discriminated against. Jews are disproportionately admitted. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/ http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
  This is obviously controlling for qualifications like test scores, dummy.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

tuananh 12y ago
hence the word "rare" in the title.