What the admissions looks like after Supreme Court band affirmative action?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's very likely SCOTUS will ban affirmative action in late June 2023 decision.

Once that happens -affirmative action will immediately be banned as a factor.

So what happens then for HS classes of 2024 onward? Will private colleges voluntarily ban legacy preference? I have heard a number of Ivies are discussing this to have ready to announce.

Will more public schools offer the Texas model of guaranteed admit for top 10% of each high school in the state?

Would love a sober discussion of this here....

They should base affirmative action on socioeconomic status alone.

[Anonymous]

Why are colleges so intent on lowering standards and quality in homage to “diversity” of any kind? Do we see any other nation in the world sideline their intellectuals in favor of “diversity”? I’m actually very interested in why colleges think this helps society. All these reparations for biased test questions? Have y’all looked at the the Sat questions? Please explain how these are biased in 2022? Honestly I fear for our future with this colllective stupidity. It may be rooted in kindness to help lower achievers but it will lead to the end of us all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are colleges so intent on lowering standards and quality in homage to “diversity” of any kind? Do we see any other nation in the world sideline their intellectuals in favor of “diversity”? I’m actually very interested in why colleges think this helps society. All these reparations for biased test questions? Have y’all looked at the the Sat questions? Please explain how these are biased in 2022? Honestly I fear for our future with this colllective stupidity. It may be rooted in kindness to help lower achievers but it will lead to the end of us all.

First, there are many high performing students across demographics that can fill highly selective college classes. Academic standards aren't being lowered: top schools do have smart and diverse students.

Second, if the SAT/ ACT was an intelligence test your rant would make a little sense. Well, it's not and colleges are making them less relevant for admissions. The College Board might lose out, but oh well.

Affirmative Action will be banned, but top colleges will STILL have diverse classes, and URMs and first gens will still be the scapegoats for UMC whites and Asains who didn't get into their desired school (s).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have spent a lot of time thinking about this. I have really bright students who score very high on standardized tests. They are smart and work very hard. I am sure in the future, they will have high SAT scores. However, I don't know if they will be as high as children from college educated parents due to life factors.

I am ok with admitting some students with slightly lower scores when considering these factors. That would include students of all races. I do not think tests should be eliminated. My experience is that 95% of students score within the range of their abilities.

+1 longtime educator here. I agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are colleges so intent on lowering standards and quality in homage to “diversity” of any kind? Do we see any other nation in the world sideline their intellectuals in favor of “diversity”? I’m actually very interested in why colleges think this helps society. All these reparations for biased test questions? Have y’all looked at the the Sat questions? Please explain how these are biased in 2022? Honestly I fear for our future with this colllective stupidity. It may be rooted in kindness to help lower achievers but it will lead to the end of us all.

First, there are many high performing students across demographics that can fill highly selective college classes. Academic standards aren't being lowered: top schools do have smart and diverse students.

Second, if the SAT/ ACT was an intelligence test your rant would make a little sense. Well, it's not and colleges are making them less relevant for admissions. The College Board might lose out, but oh well.

Affirmative Action will be banned, but top colleges will STILL have diverse classes, and URMs and first gens will still be the scapegoats for UMC whites and Asains who didn't get into their desired school (s).

Meh, the research shows that test plus grades more predicative of college success than grades alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens on applications? Do they just stop asking race?

It will still be on applications because the federal government requires it under Title VI. This will not change if the Supreme Court overturns affirmative action in college admissions. For example, CA and TX don't consider race in admissions but must collect the information via applications and later during enrollment if accepted.

So race cannot be checked off on the application but talking about race or being discriminated against can still be mentioned in essays and can certainly be considered as a positive in the context of character development - overcoming adversity and confronting a challenge. If the Supreme Court holds that diversity is not a compelling interest in college admissions and that race cannot be a factor, however small, it cannot be considered. If that happens, hopefully colleges and universities will eliminate geographic diversity and eliminate the huge preference provided to athletes, legacies, and children of donors and faculty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens on applications? Do they just stop asking race?

It will still be on applications because the federal government requires it under Title VI. This will not change if the Supreme Court overturns affirmative action in college admissions. For example, CA and TX don't consider race in admissions but must collect the information via applications and later during enrollment if accepted.

So race cannot be checked off on the application but talking about race or being discriminated against can still be mentioned in essays and can certainly be considered as a positive in the context of character development - overcoming adversity and confronting a challenge. If the Supreme Court holds that diversity is not a compelling interest in college admissions and that race cannot be a factor, however small, it cannot be considered. If that happens, hopefully colleges and universities will eliminate geographic diversity and eliminate the huge preference provided to athletes, legacies, and children of donors and faculty.

Legacy is on the table and Students for Fair Admissions support the elimination of legacy to promote race neutral diversity in admissions per the filed brief.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would it be impermissible discrimination if a university chose to mimic the demographics of the United States in their freshman class?

Yes racial quotas are (and should be IMO) illegal.

We don't have racial quotas.

If racial quotas were REALLY in place we wouldn't have URMs, would we?

Colleges would be artificially represented by demographic percentages.

Umm, yes, I was responding to a PP who asked about the possibility of matching a class to demographics. Leaving side the reading comprehension issues, though, I’d prefer honest racial quotas to deceptive “holistic” admissions criteria where people have to burn so much energy trying to work a process that really only exists to provide a fig leaf for demographic balancing exercises.

Holistic admissions are great.

Standardized testing is overrated.

Grades and rigor over 4 years trumps a test driven by how much one's parents can pay for test prep, or how many times it's taken for super scoring.

Grades and rigor, as a combo, are highly correlated to how much one's parents can pay for their house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are colleges so intent on lowering standards and quality in homage to “diversity” of any kind? Do we see any other nation in the world sideline their intellectuals in favor of “diversity”? I’m actually very interested in why colleges think this helps society. All these reparations for biased test questions? Have y’all looked at the the Sat questions? Please explain how these are biased in 2022? Honestly I fear for our future with this colllective stupidity. It may be rooted in kindness to help lower achievers but it will lead to the end of us all.

First, there are many high performing students across demographics that can fill highly selective college classes. Academic standards aren't being lowered: top schools do have smart and diverse students.

Second, if the SAT/ ACT was an intelligence test your rant would make a little sense. Well, it's not and colleges are making them less relevant for admissions. The College Board might lose out, but oh well.

Affirmative Action will be banned, but top colleges will STILL have diverse classes, and URMs and first gens will still be the scapegoats for UMC whites and Asains who didn't get into their desired school (s).

Meh, the research shows that test plus grades more predicative of college success than grades alone.

Wait, the results of subjective measures that is biased in favor of a group correlate to later success using subjective measures for that group?

Let me guess, *those* results are then predictive of career success?

It’s almost as if the system is designed a certain way.

#leopardsatemyface

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't realize the supreme court had a band.

BWAHAHAHA... it's also ironic that someone spells like that on a College forum

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are colleges so intent on lowering standards and quality in homage to “diversity” of any kind? Do we see any other nation in the world sideline their intellectuals in favor of “diversity”? I’m actually very interested in why colleges think this helps society. All these reparations for biased test questions? Have y’all looked at the the Sat questions? Please explain how these are biased in 2022? Honestly I fear for our future with this colllective stupidity. It may be rooted in kindness to help lower achievers but it will lead to the end of us all.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens on applications? Do they just stop asking race?

It will still be on applications because the federal government requires it under Title VI. This will not change if the Supreme Court overturns affirmative action in college admissions. For example, CA and TX don't consider race in admissions but must collect the information via applications and later during enrollment if accepted.

So race cannot be checked off on the application but talking about race or being discriminated against can still be mentioned in essays and can certainly be considered as a positive in the context of character development - overcoming adversity and confronting a challenge. If the Supreme Court holds that diversity is not a compelling interest in college admissions and that race cannot be a factor, however small, it cannot be considered. If that happens, hopefully colleges and universities will eliminate geographic diversity and eliminate the huge preference provided to athletes, legacies, and children of donors and faculty.

Once IRam status moves away from being a presumptive benefit for admission, you are absolutely right that applicant will still be able to discuss overcoming difficulties as part of their personal statements. But, that means that anyone who want that bump will need to think carefully and be convincing that their URM status can be raised in a meaningful way. And, they will need to use their limited text in the essay to try to argue for this, and use up space where they could otherwise be speaking about their achievements, background, views and goals. And they will need to realize that admissions committees will be receiving many, many essays about overcoming discrimination, and will need to identify what’s significant or unique or particularly impactful about their own situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What happens on applications? Do they just stop asking race?

YES just like you don't specify your race on resume, housing application, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't realize the supreme court had a band.

I was thinking the OP meant there was a ring around something to mark it.

I think this explains why my DC's English 101 prof is teaching grammar one day a week.

I think your post highlights why most first grade teachers teach about "context clues" when teaching the six-year-olds how to read Typos happen. D and S are right next to each other on the keyboard- probably meant to type "bans" not band. But common sense is not so common these days!

I thought they were saying "banned", a homophone of the word band.

I thought the Supreme Court was going to name their new band "Affirmative Action".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have spent a lot of time thinking about this. I have really bright students who score very high on standardized tests. They are smart and work very hard. I am sure in the future, they will have high SAT scores. However, I don't know if they will be as high as children from college educated parents due to life factors.

I am ok with admitting some students with slightly lower scores when considering these factors. That would include students of all races. I do not think tests should be eliminated. My experience is that 95% of students score within the range of their abilities.

Abilities is one thing, but these tests measure the willingness to prep as much as they do abilities. Some kids can hack it on their own (yours truly, way back when), but others do get a leg up via paid help. I would love for colleges to start require to disclose any prep, paid and unpaid, received, with severe punishments for not being truthful. And putting a firewall between them and college consultants - no private convos, public information only. But they'll never do that because that's how those underpaid junior admission officers hope to make money in a few years.

PP. also, one can very easily design a multiple choice test for math that eliminates most educated guesses, rendering the strategies taught at prep classes useless. I've taken these types of tests, it's much harder when you can't really guess. I wish the SAT math would go that way.

Are you referring to a guessing penalty? Earlier versions of the SAT penalized had a guessing penalty, but test prep was still effective.

A lot of the moms who's kids are good test tskers want the tests renormed around a much lower mean. Looks like the College Board et al have decided against that. (And if they do it, it won't be for the math section only.)

No, I am referring to a different design. On SATs (and most other standardized tests in US), there is the right answer and the wrong answers are the results of the common mistakes. Very often you can deduce how they are trying to catch you, i.e. the stupid thing they did to get 3 of 5 answers, and even if you don't know how to get to the right one, you now have 50% chance of getting it right. Prep teaches you to spot those stupid answers. Another great one is the geometry problems where the figures are drawn to scale. If you just measure with a ruler and scale it, you are likely to eliminate a few wrong answers as well, sometimes all 4 of them.

In an alternative design, all the answers are given as ranges, so you can only guess on the magnitude, if it helps (it may not). E.g., the correct answer is 14, and the answers are given as a) less than 5, b) [5, 10), c) [10, 15), d) [15, 20), e) 20 or more. You need to answer c). But the ranges given for each question may or may not correspond to the true magnitude of the answer. In the example above, you know that if you calculated it multiple times and you are still getting a 1014, you may be right, the answer doesn't have to be between 0 and 25. Those ranges sometimes do capture the common mistakes, e.g. dividing by 100 instead of multiplying, but the bottom line, you don't get that many hints by just looking at the answers.

I went through a math exam system where the first few exams are done the SAT way and then there are a few with ranges. There is a noticeable drop off in scores among very smart people once they encounter the ranges. You can argue that educated guesses also allow you to demonstrate your knowledge, but when the prep courses spend lots of time on "strategy", it's better to use the range based answers to equalize the outcome for the non-prepped ones.

The trend will be LESS emphasis on standardized tests.

The SAT is lower stakes now via test optional.

The flagship University of California colleges are test blind.

MIT research shows Test gives them better measure so MIT reinstated test required. More elite schools will follow that.