Race in college admissions is back in front of the Supreme Court Oral Argument on Oct. 31 (Monday)
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
+1 Your points make too much sense to engage with the troll talking about monkeys and fish. |
Anonymous
The core issue is that those schools that have been practicing holistic admissions still weren’t getting the “desired” diversity that they wanted when looking at all of those factors you’ve mentioned without directly looking at race. As a result, at least Harvard systemically and artificially reduced totally subjective personality scores on Asian applicants at the admissions office level. Let’s stop with the trope that Asian applicants were just robots studying for grades and test scores - the Harvard disclosures showed that Asian applicants also had leadership positions and extracurricular activities in line (or better) than all other races. The one factor that changed was the admissions office that never met these applicants putting in lower personality scores for Asians. THAT is patently unfair no matter how much one believes in a desired outcome. We know it’s patently unfair because if you replace “Asian” with any other race (or religion or sex or sexual orientation), it would be recognized as racist right away. If Black students were getting the best grades, garnering the highest test scores, and had extracurricular activities and interview scores that were in line with every other race… but then the Harvard admissions office assigned a totally subjective personality score to Blacks that were lower than all other races because they were worried that Blacks would be too overrepresented at Harvard, that would rightfully be called out as racist immediately. If you applied Jewish people in that hypothetical, it would rightly be called antisemitic immediately (and that’s actually what happened at elite schools in the middle of the 20th century - it’s why holistic admissions exist in the first place). For some reason, people either don’t recognize that the fact this pattern is happening to Asians is racist or, arguably even worse, effectively know that it’s racist but think that the ends justify the means, it appalling to me. By and large, I’m a liberal on cultural issues. I volunteer for the Democratic Party and will be voting for them on Tuesday up and down the ballot for many reasons. However, on this particular issue, too many liberals seem to have a complete blind spot. I firmly believe in DEI efforts as a goal, but they simply can’t use racist policies (against a minority group, no less) to achieve such goals as that defeats the idea behind DEI initiatives in the first place. |
Anonymous
| There are some truly dense people on DCUM who keep saying URMs are unqualified based test scores. This isn't China! If you want a system based entirely on test scores, you are in the wrong country. |
Anonymous
It's actually test scores and every other observable metric. What you have to rest on is that somehow the things you can't observe are significantly better for URMs. That seems unlikely. |
Anonymous
The subcategories of the bogus personality score are Courage, Kindness, and Likability. Seriously WTF is that, and these people are saying mighty Harvard has the right to do that. Hey Asians sorry just suck it up for the greater good? Unbelievable. |
Anonymous
+1000 Anyone who's enlightened about the history of the United States and its implementation of standardized testing, and the racist objective should know this. The SAT / ACT is fake " merit" |
Anonymous
Welcome to the thread, but seat down. For the millionth time, it's not just 'test scores' You are completely off. |
Anonymous
But SAT + GPA + Activities + Leadership + Intereview is most likely not 
|
Anonymous
On the other hand, there are some truly dense people on DCUM that keep saying that a college application should be based more on test scores (which I agree with), but then act as if though Asian applicants to Harvard also don’t have all of those leadership and extracurricular activities that people deem to be important in holistic admissions. The factor that is in dispute in the Harvard case isn’t that other racial groups had better leadership experiences or extracurricular activities than Asians, but rather even after taking all of that into account, Harvard still thought Asians would be too overrepresented and then artificially and systemically assigned lower personality scores to that group. THAT is the part that is frankly being neglected on both sides of the argument - it’s not about test scores on the one hand and it’s not about leadership/extracurricular activities on the other hand. Instead, even if you minimized or not required test scores and solely concentrated on grades and extracurricular activities, Harvard still didn’t get the racial balance that it wanted and used a subjective personality score to suppress a particular racial minority group. The use of a subjective personality score where the purpose is to try to provide cover for rejecting more applicants from a particular minority group is what the issue is here. |
Anonymous
GPA and rigor is the primary basis for academic merit. Period. The rest like ECs, leadership, interviews is to help elite colleges shape a class. |
Anonymous
If it's "not just the test scores, why are you and others calling low-scoring admitted URMs unqualified? Just own your racist beliefs. |
Anonymous
And for the millionth time, there is no data suggesting that all of the Asian students submitted were the top of all the Asians nor any other group. So the 13% or whatever of Asian that are admitted are not the best of their own subgroup of students submitting applications. Even with top scores across everything, including personality scores, it is not a guaranteed seat. |
Anonymous
| *typo in post above - I meant “On the other hand, there are some truly dense people on DCUM that keep saying that a college application should be based more THAN JUST test scores (which I agree with)…” |
Anonymous
It's relative thing. There's strong indication that other applicants are more qualified holistically but victimzied by racial discrimination. |
Anonymous
The discovery in the Harvard case actually did indicate this - Harvard’s own internal analysis showed that if it had based admissions on academic and extracurricular records (meaning more than test scores), there would be a substantially higher number (likely close to twice as many with an outright majority) of Asian students on campus. If people want diversity to be a goal, which is something that I agree with, then that’s absolutely great. However, people getting blinded that they’re employing a discriminatory process against a minority group in order to achieve that goal is an inherent problem. |