Can a 3.6 get into Harvard?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:URM harping wrt Ivy admissions always fascinates me, because it is clear to me that most people don't fully understand or appreciate the pool of applicants. Just doing a little bit of math can actually illuminate things dramatically.

Harvard being Harvard has their pick of any and all applicants, black, white, latino or asian. Now the US Dept of Ed estimates that there are about 12 million college students in the US, of which about 15% are black. So there are roughly 1.8 million black college students. Of those, the College Board tells us that the 99% for college bound black SAT takers is a score of 2100. That means that there are 18,000 black college students in the country with a score at least 2100, if not higher.

According to the Princeton Review, 2110 is the 25th percentile for admitted SAT scores, while Harvard self reported a mean SAT score for the class of 2017 of 2237.

So taken at face value, there are at least 18,000 black college students with SAT scores at Harvard's 25th percentile or higher. Which I would deem to be standard minimum qualifications.

However, Harvard has an undergraduate student enrollment of about 7200, of which 12% is black. Therefore, there are about 1080 black students at Harvard, which is 6% of the 18,000 black college students with minimum standard qualifications for enrollment. And it cannot be farfetched to assume that these are the absolute cream of the crop, with an expectation that their test scores would be significantly higher than the 99th percentile of SAT scores for black college students.

So stop it with this undeserving URM nonsense already.

Actually, if you look at the statistics it's not anywhere close to that number.

"If we raise the top-scoring threshold to students scoring 750 or above on both the math and verbal SAT — a level equal to the mean score of students entering the nation's most selective colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and CalTech — we find that in the entire country 244 blacks scored 750 or above on the math SAT and 363 black students scored 750 or above on the verbal portion of the test. Nationwide, 33,841 students scored at least 750 on the math test and 30,479 scored at least 750 on the verbal SAT. Therefore, black students made up 0.7 percent of the test takers who scored 750 or above on the math test and 1.2 percent of all test takers who scored 750 or above on the verbal section."

So, there are probably a few hundred Black students who scored at or above the mean score for Harvard.

I am 18:28. The above post (that went up while I was typing mine) is a statistical view of the source of the skepticism I referred to in my post. I know the counselors at my DC's school told us that unless DC had at least 750 or above on each part of the SAT (esp. on math and reading), our DC -- who was at the time likely to be one of the two top ranked students in the class -- would not be sufficiently competitive for top ivy league schools to even bother applying. Throughout the college process, we were told that unless DC was closer to 75% (obviously, better if above) he would not be a strong academic at candidate at these schools. So there you have it. The first poster above highlighted the number of AA students "qualified" because they were at or above the 25%. Our white DC was told he needed to be at or above 750 on the key SAT parts and that he should focus on that 75% number in thinking about being a competitive candidate. To put this in some perspective, at some top ivy league schools that 75% number is an SAT score approaching (or even reaching) 800. His counselors would not have deemed him competitive at 700s. Now, one can have a debate -- I don't have the facts/figures to prove it t either way -- whether there is much difference in the classroom between the 700 and 800 SAT kid on average. Anecdotally as a parent from I know of my DC's friends from high school, I would say there is a substantial difference in academic ability that tends to be associated with a difference in that 100 points but I can't prove it. So while I wholly agree that some white families spend to much time angsting about the unfairness of racial considerations in college admissions, I do appreciate the source of those feelings and telling white parents to essentially "get over it" is no more constructive than telling black parents that their kids should "get over" a building named after a former slave owner on campus. Unless and until colleges explicitly remove race as a factor in admissions or transparently explain how it will be used to promote diversity in a way that does not undermine perceived "fairness" of the admissions process. it will continue to divide students and their families of different races. I feel terrible for any minority students who feel they have any greater burden to justify their place on any college campus, or even if they don't feel it are aware that some of their classmates might not think they belong there.

Yes, there are certainly parallels between being denied admission to an Ivy League school and the legacy of slavery. Wait, what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: NP here. Thank you 16:59 for reporting the statistics - very informative. There is no doubt there are many qualified applicants from many racial, ethnic, socio-economic, religious, international and other unique backgrounds. I think the frustration often seen on these boards from parents of self-described otherwise unhooked white students is that the within the overall elite group of students applying to these colleges from which admissions committees look to find standouts, being of any race other than white (or probably Asian these days because of the high number of applicants) "counts" as one standout factor. I don't believe that is seriously in question, yet I do believe that is exactly the point that aggravates some unhooked parents. Race will not get anyone into a highly selective school, but it is a plus factor if you are an underrepresented minority -- including AA -- and not if you are white.

In a world where white people - as if there is some monolithic group like that -- had all the breaks and advantages by a huge margin over people of color (as if that too is a monolithic group), this may be -- or at least in years past by may have been -- a rationale tool to consider in admissions. There are many aspects of an application a student can control or at least influence - grades, test scores, ECs, etc, and some they cannot -- parental socio-economic status, race, disabilities, etc. I think for many people the consideration of factors unrelated to student effort seems unfair (note a student born into poverty, a poor school system, etc. who outperforms his/her peers to overcome the odds would be a student recognized for effort). At the same time, schools are committed to diversity as an inherent good itself. In a world of "all other things equal" taking factors into account a student does not control, such as race, to achieve another goal of diversity, is something that I believe would draw relatively few objections from majority/non-diverse groups (if there really is such a thing - but for simplicity, we'll call them white people). The perceived problem is that admissions decisions sometimes are made in favor of minority applicants when all other things are significantly unequal in terms of test scores, GPA, etc. This may or may not be true. But I believe most schools release no such detailed statistics about the issue so this feeds skepticism.

Holistic admissions has its benefits, but transparency is not one of them. I was a strong proponent of affirmative action in the 1970s and 1980s, but have come to conclude that at this point the societal benefits of taking race into account in college admissions in any instance other than when "all other things are essentially equal" in order to achieve diversity objectives are outweighed by the societal negative consequences. Granted, defining what "essentially equal" is will be subject to wide interpretation, but as has been pointed out elsewhere, for example, few people would seriously question that a 50 point difference in SAT scores, for example, is meaningful but those same people may view a 200 point difference as material. But absent transparency, it seems inevitable that many students of color will often feel on college campuses that many of their white peers question their right to be on campus, their academic prowess, etc. and -- as seen in the past year -- this is one of many concerns students of color have voiced on many college campuses. Diversity does have important benefits, but good policy must take into account the means of achieving it is just as important as the ends.

But if 17:09's stats are correct (I have no idea where they came from), then the biggest impact of ignoring race in admissions decisions will be a very sharp decline in the number of black students at elite colleges. Are you, former supporter of affirmative action, okay with that? Is the change in "means of achieving" worth that particular end?

I find your assumption that few people would think a 50-point difference in SAT scores is meaningful to be very quaint.

I'm not in any way associated with Harvard, nor do I harbor any hope to be. I am not in a position to benefit from affirmative action, nor are my children. So I've got no particular fish to fry here. But honestly, all this protestation about the evils of affirmative action? It seems like people protest just a bit too much. I don't believe for one minute this is about relieving students of color from the burden of having white peers question their competency.

Fair question whether I'd be ok with a drop off in the number of black students. That did happen I understand in one system -- I think it was the University of California -- which banned racial considerations. My answer, not surprisingly, would be yes -- at least to some extent. As a society, we needed to increase the number of college educated AA in our country in order to open up rising socio-economic opportunities for a significant portion of the population relatively quickly (compared to the long durations of slavery and Jim Crow), and we have done this now for several decades Different commentators will point to different statistics to argue that affirmative action has been more -- or less -- successful. But it is now very clear that many accepted minority students (and others who were socio-economically disadvantaged) were not -- and today many still are not -- prepared for the most rigorous college programs. In recent years, colleges have responded with a number of summer programs before freshmen year and other outreach efforts to help get them ready but I have read many students themselves at ivy league schools write about how unprepared they felt. If one looks at the broader society, I suspect this problem is far worse as one goes down one or two tiers below the ivy league. Now look at the broader economy. While some Presidential candidates push for free college education, other commentators are questioning whether too many children are attending college without realistic cost-benefit analyses and a need to increase our numbers of technically skilled employees. In other words, while a ticket to an "elite college" may still open many doors, there are relatively few slots there and the vast majority of students attend other colleges. And while these schools do turn out tens of thousands of very well prepared students each year, they also turn out many who are unemployed or underemployed. In other words, in today's economy the ticket to the middle class may sometimes lie in gaining technical skills but not necessarily four year degrees unless they are in majors like engineering, comp science, nursing, etc. or the students go on to graduate school. So you ask if I am ok with a decline in certain groups of students on college campuses (assuming you are correct for the moment that ending affirmative action would have this result), and I would begin an answer by asking why do we have affirmative action still? What are its goals /benefits? What empirical evidence do we have over the past few decades and -- importantly -- since the Great Recession. And what are the outcomes? I suspect that a larger share of URM students who had very strong SATs/grades -- comparable to their Asian or white peers -- end up in majors along the same percentage breakdowns as their non URM peers (whether STEM, Econ/social sciences, etc.), But is this true for students admitted with noticeably lower stats (whether because of an admission boost base on URM status, athletics, rich parents, etc.) or do they tend to avoid more rigorous majors? If universities want to participate as laboratories in the social fabric of our society, they should be looking at these issues in the context of examining their admissions policies. What about integration on campus? Is that a goal of a diverse student body? How well is it working? What policies need to be in place to foster integration. What role does affirmative action play in helping or hindering that effort? Too many of us spend too much time either complaining about or defending affirmative action and diversity policies without a deep dive into the empirical questions as well as questions of fundamental fairness. It is a tough issue, and both defenders and critics of current policies should acknowledge that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:URM harping wrt Ivy admissions always fascinates me, because it is clear to me that most people don't fully understand or appreciate the pool of applicants. Just doing a little bit of math can actually illuminate things dramatically.

Harvard being Harvard has their pick of any and all applicants, black, white, latino or asian. Now the US Dept of Ed estimates that there are about 12 million college students in the US, of which about 15% are black. So there are roughly 1.8 million black college students. Of those, the College Board tells us that the 99% for college bound black SAT takers is a score of 2100. That means that there are 18,000 black college students in the country with a score at least 2100, if not higher.

According to the Princeton Review, 2110 is the 25th percentile for admitted SAT scores, while Harvard self reported a mean SAT score for the class of 2017 of 2237.

So taken at face value, there are at least 18,000 black college students with SAT scores at Harvard's 25th percentile or higher. Which I would deem to be standard minimum qualifications.

However, Harvard has an undergraduate student enrollment of about 7200, of which 12% is black. Therefore, there are about 1080 black students at Harvard, which is 6% of the 18,000 black college students with minimum standard qualifications for enrollment. And it cannot be farfetched to assume that these are the absolute cream of the crop, with an expectation that their test scores would be significantly higher than the 99th percentile of SAT scores for black college students.

So stop it with this undeserving URM nonsense already.

Actually, if you look at the statistics it's not anywhere close to that number.

"If we raise the top-scoring threshold to students scoring 750 or above on both the math and verbal SAT — a level equal to the mean score of students entering the nation's most selective colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and CalTech — we find that in the entire country 244 blacks scored 750 or above on the math SAT and 363 black students scored 750 or above on the verbal portion of the test. Nationwide, 33,841 students scored at least 750 on the math test and 30,479 scored at least 750 on the verbal SAT. Therefore, black students made up 0.7 percent of the test takers who scored 750 or above on the math test and 1.2 percent of all test takers who scored 750 or above on the verbal section."

So, there are probably a few hundred Black students who scored at or above the mean score for Harvard.

Nice try, but I found the source of your data and it is from 2005. The College Board has changed both the exam and scoring since then. My data comes directly from the College Board itself and is from 2013.
http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html
http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-By-Gender-Ethnicity-2013.pdf

There are also a lot of other things about this that are not as clear cut as you think that this quote supports. Your data is for annual test takers, while I am extrapolating to the entire population of college students. So if these percentages still hold from 2005, despite modifications to the exam, it still proves that there are at least 1,000 black college students at or above the Harvard SAT mean. Which means that a substantial proportion of black Harvard undergrads will be above the mean score.

Anyway you slice and dice it, you are going to have a hard time finding significant preference for URMs in the data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:URM harping wrt Ivy admissions always fascinates me, because it is clear to me that most people don't fully understand or appreciate the pool of applicants. Just doing a little bit of math can actually illuminate things dramatically.

Harvard being Harvard has their pick of any and all applicants, black, white, latino or asian. Now the US Dept of Ed estimates that there are about 12 million college students in the US, of which about 15% are black. So there are roughly 1.8 million black college students. Of those, the College Board tells us that the 99% for college bound black SAT takers is a score of 2100. That means that there are 18,000 black college students in the country with a score at least 2100, if not higher.

According to the Princeton Review, 2110 is the 25th percentile for admitted SAT scores, while Harvard self reported a mean SAT score for the class of 2017 of 2237.

So taken at face value, there are at least 18,000 black college students with SAT scores at Harvard's 25th percentile or higher. Which I would deem to be standard minimum qualifications.

However, Harvard has an undergraduate student enrollment of about 7200, of which 12% is black. Therefore, there are about 1080 black students at Harvard, which is 6% of the 18,000 black college students with minimum standard qualifications for enrollment. And it cannot be farfetched to assume that these are the absolute cream of the crop, with an expectation that their test scores would be significantly higher than the 99th percentile of SAT scores for black college students.

So stop it with this undeserving URM nonsense already.

Actually, if you look at the statistics it's not anywhere close to that number.

"If we raise the top-scoring threshold to students scoring 750 or above on both the math and verbal SAT — a level equal to the mean score of students entering the nation's most selective colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and CalTech — we find that in the entire country 244 blacks scored 750 or above on the math SAT and 363 black students scored 750 or above on the verbal portion of the test. Nationwide, 33,841 students scored at least 750 on the math test and 30,479 scored at least 750 on the verbal SAT. Therefore, black students made up 0.7 percent of the test takers who scored 750 or above on the math test and 1.2 percent of all test takers who scored 750 or above on the verbal section."

So, there are probably a few hundred Black students who scored at or above the mean score for Harvard.

I am 18:28. The above post (that went up while I was typing mine) is a statistical view of the source of the skepticism I referred to in my post. I know the counselors at my DC's school told us that unless DC had at least 750 or above on each part of the SAT (esp. on math and reading), our DC -- who was at the time likely to be one of the two top ranked students in the class -- would not be sufficiently competitive for top ivy league schools to even bother applying. Throughout the college process, we were told that unless DC was closer to 75% (obviously, better if above) he would not be a strong academic at candidate at these schools. So there you have it. The first poster above highlighted the number of AA students "qualified" because they were at or above the 25%. Our white DC was told he needed to be at or above 750 on the key SAT parts and that he should focus on that 75% number in thinking about being a competitive candidate. To put this in some perspective, at some top ivy league schools that 75% number is an SAT score approaching (or even reaching) 800. His counselors would not have deemed him competitive at 700s. Now, one can have a debate -- I don't have the facts/figures to prove it t either way -- whether there is much difference in the classroom between the 700 and 800 SAT kid on average. Anecdotally as a parent from I know of my DC's friends from high school, I would say there is a substantial difference in academic ability that tends to be associated with a difference in that 100 points but I can't prove it. So while I wholly agree that some white families spend to much time angsting about the unfairness of racial considerations in college admissions, I do appreciate the source of those feelings and telling white parents to essentially "get over it" is no more constructive than telling black parents that their kids should "get over" a building named after a former slave owner on campus. Unless and until colleges explicitly remove race as a factor in admissions or transparently explain how it will be used to promote diversity in a way that does not undermine perceived "fairness" of the admissions process. it will continue to divide students and their families of different races. I feel terrible for any minority students who feel they have any greater burden to justify their place on any college campus, or even if they don't feel it are aware that some of their classmates might not think they belong there.

Yes, there are certainly parallels between being denied admission to an Ivy League school and the legacy of slavery. Wait, what?

I get that this is an attempt at sarcasm, but it can be read in very different ways depending upon whether the denial of admission to which you refer is of a white student or a black student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:URM harping wrt Ivy admissions always fascinates me, because it is clear to me that most people don't fully understand or appreciate the pool of applicants. Just doing a little bit of math can actually illuminate things dramatically.

Harvard being Harvard has their pick of any and all applicants, black, white, latino or asian. Now the US Dept of Ed estimates that there are about 12 million college students in the US, of which about 15% are black. So there are roughly 1.8 million black college students. Of those, the College Board tells us that the 99% for college bound black SAT takers is a score of 2100. That means that there are 18,000 black college students in the country with a score at least 2100, if not higher.

According to the Princeton Review, 2110 is the 25th percentile for admitted SAT scores, while Harvard self reported a mean SAT score for the class of 2017 of 2237.

So taken at face value, there are at least 18,000 black college students with SAT scores at Harvard's 25th percentile or higher. Which I would deem to be standard minimum qualifications.

However, Harvard has an undergraduate student enrollment of about 7200, of which 12% is black. Therefore, there are about 1080 black students at Harvard, which is 6% of the 18,000 black college students with minimum standard qualifications for enrollment. And it cannot be farfetched to assume that these are the absolute cream of the crop, with an expectation that their test scores would be significantly higher than the 99th percentile of SAT scores for black college students.

So stop it with this undeserving URM nonsense already.

Actually, if you look at the statistics it's not anywhere close to that number.

"If we raise the top-scoring threshold to students scoring 750 or above on both the math and verbal SAT — a level equal to the mean score of students entering the nation's most selective colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and CalTech — we find that in the entire country 244 blacks scored 750 or above on the math SAT and 363 black students scored 750 or above on the verbal portion of the test. Nationwide, 33,841 students scored at least 750 on the math test and 30,479 scored at least 750 on the verbal SAT. Therefore, black students made up 0.7 percent of the test takers who scored 750 or above on the math test and 1.2 percent of all test takers who scored 750 or above on the verbal section."

So, there are probably a few hundred Black students who scored at or above the mean score for Harvard.

Nice try, but I found the source of your data and it is from 2005. The College Board has changed both the exam and scoring since then. My data comes directly from the College Board itself and is from 2013.
http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html
http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-By-Gender-Ethnicity-2013.pdf

There are also a lot of other things about this that are not as clear cut as you think that this quote supports. Your data is for annual test takers, while I am extrapolating to the entire population of college students. So if these percentages still hold from 2005, despite modifications to the exam, it still proves that there are at least 1,000 black college students at or above the Harvard SAT mean. Which means that a substantial proportion of black Harvard undergrads will be above the mean score.

Anyway you slice and dice it, you are going to have a hard time finding significant preference for URMs in the data.

PP here, I would just add one more thing. If people want to object that it is "easier" for highly qualified black students to gain acceptance over equally qualified whites or asians, that is a fair criticism because the pool of highly qualified black applicants is significantly smaller. But the idea that lesser qualified black students are gaining admission to America's top colleges over more qualified white or asians, the data just does not back that up.

However, since the pool is smaller and once you add up all the highly qualified blacks enrolled at Ivies and other top colleges, you could probably wage a fair argument that many black students gaining admission to many of the "second tier" liberal arts colleges are probably not as highly qualified as their classmates, e.g. Bowdoin, GW, etc. But then I would suspect that the qualifications would even out again at the public universities, particularly since at many (e.g. Maryland) there is a lot variability around the mean as well as many in states like Washington, California and Texas that have race neutral admissions policies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:URM harping wrt Ivy admissions always fascinates me, because it is clear to me that most people don't fully understand or appreciate the pool of applicants. Just doing a little bit of math can actually illuminate things dramatically.

Harvard being Harvard has their pick of any and all applicants, black, white, latino or asian. Now the US Dept of Ed estimates that there are about 12 million college students in the US, of which about 15% are black. So there are roughly 1.8 million black college students. Of those, the College Board tells us that the 99% for college bound black SAT takers is a score of 2100. That means that there are 18,000 black college students in the country with a score at least 2100, if not higher.

According to the Princeton Review, 2110 is the 25th percentile for admitted SAT scores, while Harvard self reported a mean SAT score for the class of 2017 of 2237.

So taken at face value, there are at least 18,000 black college students with SAT scores at Harvard's 25th percentile or higher. Which I would deem to be standard minimum qualifications.

However, Harvard has an undergraduate student enrollment of about 7200, of which 12% is black. Therefore, there are about 1080 black students at Harvard, which is 6% of the 18,000 black college students with minimum standard qualifications for enrollment. And it cannot be farfetched to assume that these are the absolute cream of the crop, with an expectation that their test scores would be significantly higher than the 99th percentile of SAT scores for black college students.

So stop it with this undeserving URM nonsense already.

You are making shit up. We do not have to guess,these things are broken down by race. Every school district knows it hence the discussions about closing the gap.
The real problem is with the test. Unless you believe AA's are are actually inferior, and I don't, then SAT is not a great metric.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:URM harping wrt Ivy admissions always fascinates me, because it is clear to me that most people don't fully understand or appreciate the pool of applicants. Just doing a little bit of math can actually illuminate things dramatically.

Harvard being Harvard has their pick of any and all applicants, black, white, latino or asian. Now the US Dept of Ed estimates that there are about 12 million college students in the US, of which about 15% are black. So there are roughly 1.8 million black college students. Of those, the College Board tells us that the 99% for college bound black SAT takers is a score of 2100. That means that there are 18,000 black college students in the country with a score at least 2100, if not higher.

According to the Princeton Review, 2110 is the 25th percentile for admitted SAT scores, while Harvard self reported a mean SAT score for the class of 2017 of 2237.

So taken at face value, there are at least 18,000 black college students with SAT scores at Harvard's 25th percentile or higher. Which I would deem to be standard minimum qualifications.

However, Harvard has an undergraduate student enrollment of about 7200, of which 12% is black. Therefore, there are about 1080 black students at Harvard, which is 6% of the 18,000 black college students with minimum standard qualifications for enrollment. And it cannot be farfetched to assume that these are the absolute cream of the crop, with an expectation that their test scores would be significantly higher than the 99th percentile of SAT scores for black college students.

So stop it with this undeserving URM nonsense already.

Actually, if you look at the statistics it's not anywhere close to that number.

"If we raise the top-scoring threshold to students scoring 750 or above on both the math and verbal SAT — a level equal to the mean score of students entering the nation's most selective colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and CalTech — we find that in the entire country 244 blacks scored 750 or above on the math SAT and 363 black students scored 750 or above on the verbal portion of the test. Nationwide, 33,841 students scored at least 750 on the math test and 30,479 scored at least 750 on the verbal SAT. Therefore, black students made up 0.7 percent of the test takers who scored 750 or above on the math test and 1.2 percent of all test takers who scored 750 or above on the verbal section."

So, there are probably a few hundred Black students who scored at or above the mean score for Harvard.

Nice try, but I found the source of your data and it is from 2005. The College Board has changed both the exam and scoring since then. My data comes directly from the College Board itself and is from 2013.
http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html
http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-By-Gender-Ethnicity-2013.pdf

There are also a lot of other things about this that are not as clear cut as you think that this quote supports. Your data is for annual test takers, while I am extrapolating to the entire population of college students. So if these percentages still hold from 2005, despite modifications to the exam, it still proves that there are at least 1,000 black college students at or above the Harvard SAT mean. Which means that a substantial proportion of black Harvard undergrads will be above the mean score.

Anyway you slice and dice it, you are going to have a hard time finding significant preference for URMs in the data.

Different poster here. I just found the 2015 stats from the college board (link below). The attached shows that for 2015, there were about 219,000 African American students who took the SAT. To be in the 99% of all AA test takers on any part, one needed a score of 700. Personally, I think even if the above poster is right that 2100 would be a Harvard minimum qualified score, I suspect those students who are successful at ivy league schools generally test higher. In any event, the 99% for 2100 means that a total of about 2,190 AA students had a score of over 700 on any given part of the SAT. I suspect many of those students did over 700 on multiple parts, in which case the total number of AA test takers scoring over 2100 total (for 3 parts) could have been as low as only 2190 students nationally but theoretically as high as 6,570 students (if and only if no AA student scored over 700 on more than one part of the test -- seems doubtful). If you look at 750 as the cut off -- 99.5% of the students -- these figures are all cut in half. Here's the thing -- maybe the ivy league is filled with these relatively top test takers -- but the impact of affirmative action begins to look much more obvious as one goes down to students at the next tier of schools.

One thing that jumps out is that below the very top levels (near 800), the gap in relative percentiles by race gets much wider. If you are a strong test taker AA student and the school looks at you to some extent as competing more against other AA students rather than against all students for admission, you are likely going to have a far greater chance of admission than a white or Asian student with the same statistics. At 800, white and black students are at the 99th (or 99th+) percentiles measured against students of the same race. But by 700, black students are still in the 99th percentile, while white students are in the 94-95% -- a huge decline in applying to schools that only accept 5-6% of all applicants. I have no insight into admissions, but I suspect AA students at the 99th percentile have a much better shot at competitive admissions that white students at the same percentile since there are still more white students than AA students overall. At 650, black students are in still in the 98th percentile but their white counterparts are only in the 85-87%, and by 600 black students are still in the 94-95th percentile by race, while white students are between the 71-78th percentile. As we think of how racial preferences are used to achieve diversity at many state schools and privates besides the ivy league, the basic numbers of students by race vs. slots probably drives the gap in preparation to succeed in college wider than even at the ivy league.

https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/sat/sat-percentile-ranks-gender-ethnicity-2015.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:URM harping wrt Ivy admissions always fascinates me, because it is clear to me that most people don't fully understand or appreciate the pool of applicants. Just doing a little bit of math can actually illuminate things dramatically.

Harvard being Harvard has their pick of any and all applicants, black, white, latino or asian. Now the US Dept of Ed estimates that there are about 12 million college students in the US, of which about 15% are black. So there are roughly 1.8 million black college students. Of those, the College Board tells us that the 99% for college bound black SAT takers is a score of 2100. That means that there are 18,000 black college students in the country with a score at least 2100, if not higher.

According to the Princeton Review, 2110 is the 25th percentile for admitted SAT scores, while Harvard self reported a mean SAT score for the class of 2017 of 2237.

So taken at face value, there are at least 18,000 black college students with SAT scores at Harvard's 25th percentile or higher. Which I would deem to be standard minimum qualifications.

However, Harvard has an undergraduate student enrollment of about 7200, of which 12% is black. Therefore, there are about 1080 black students at Harvard, which is 6% of the 18,000 black college students with minimum standard qualifications for enrollment. And it cannot be farfetched to assume that these are the absolute cream of the crop, with an expectation that their test scores would be significantly higher than the 99th percentile of SAT scores for black college students.

So stop it with this undeserving URM nonsense already.

Actually, if you look at the statistics it's not anywhere close to that number.

"If we raise the top-scoring threshold to students scoring 750 or above on both the math and verbal SAT — a level equal to the mean score of students entering the nation's most selective colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and CalTech — we find that in the entire country 244 blacks scored 750 or above on the math SAT and 363 black students scored 750 or above on the verbal portion of the test. Nationwide, 33,841 students scored at least 750 on the math test and 30,479 scored at least 750 on the verbal SAT. Therefore, black students made up 0.7 percent of the test takers who scored 750 or above on the math test and 1.2 percent of all test takers who scored 750 or above on the verbal section."

So, there are probably a few hundred Black students who scored at or above the mean score for Harvard.

Nice try, but I found the source of your data and it is from 2005. The College Board has changed both the exam and scoring since then. My data comes directly from the College Board itself and is from 2013.
http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html
http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-By-Gender-Ethnicity-2013.pdf

There are also a lot of other things about this that are not as clear cut as you think that this quote supports. Your data is for annual test takers, while I am extrapolating to the entire population of college students. So if these percentages still hold from 2005, despite modifications to the exam, it still proves that there are at least 1,000 black college students at or above the Harvard SAT mean. Which means that a substantial proportion of black Harvard undergrads will be above the mean score.

Anyway you slice and dice it, you are going to have a hard time finding significant preference for URMs in the data.

Different poster here. I just found the 2015 stats from the college board (link below). The attached shows that for 2015, there were about 219,000 African American students who took the SAT. To be in the 99% of all AA test takers on any part, one needed a score of 700. Personally, I think even if the above poster is right that 2100 would be a Harvard minimum qualified score, I suspect those students who are successful at ivy league schools generally test higher. In any event, the 99% for 2100 means that a total of about 2,190 AA students had a score of over 700 on any given part of the SAT. I suspect many of those students did over 700 on multiple parts, in which case the total number of AA test takers scoring over 2100 total (for 3 parts) could have been as low as only 2190 students nationally but theoretically as high as 6,570 students (if and only if no AA student scored over 700 on more than one part of the test -- seems doubtful). If you look at 750 as the cut off -- 99.5% of the students -- these figures are all cut in half. Here's the thing -- maybe the ivy league is filled with these relatively top test takers -- but the impact of affirmative action begins to look much more obvious as one goes down to students at the next tier of schools.

One thing that jumps out is that below the very top levels (near 800), the gap in relative percentiles by race gets much wider. If you are a strong test taker AA student and the school looks at you to some extent as competing more against other AA students rather than against all students for admission, you are likely going to have a far greater chance of admission than a white or Asian student with the same statistics. At 800, white and black students are at the 99th (or 99th+) percentiles measured against students of the same race. But by 700, black students are still in the 99th percentile, while white students are in the 94-95% -- a huge decline in applying to schools that only accept 5-6% of all applicants. I have no insight into admissions, but I suspect AA students at the 99th percentile have a much better shot at competitive admissions that white students at the same percentile since there are still more white students than AA students overall. At 650, black students are in still in the 98th percentile but their white counterparts are only in the 85-87%, and by 600 black students are still in the 94-95th percentile by race, while white students are between the 71-78th percentile. As we think of how racial preferences are used to achieve diversity at many state schools and privates besides the ivy league, the basic numbers of students by race vs. slots probably drives the gap in preparation to succeed in college wider than even at the ivy league.

https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/sat/sat-percentile-ranks-gender-ethnicity-2015.pdf

They've tracked the numbers at the 750+ level; it's about 300 for each section give or take., way less than cutting it in half. 99+ doesn't mean 99.5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:URM harping wrt Ivy admissions always fascinates me, because it is clear to me that most people don't fully understand or appreciate the pool of applicants. Just doing a little bit of math can actually illuminate things dramatically.

Harvard being Harvard has their pick of any and all applicants, black, white, latino or asian. Now the US Dept of Ed estimates that there are about 12 million college students in the US, of which about 15% are black. So there are roughly 1.8 million black college students. Of those, the College Board tells us that the 99% for college bound black SAT takers is a score of 2100. That means that there are 18,000 black college students in the country with a score at least 2100, if not higher.

According to the Princeton Review, 2110 is the 25th percentile for admitted SAT scores, while Harvard self reported a mean SAT score for the class of 2017 of 2237.

So taken at face value, there are at least 18,000 black college students with SAT scores at Harvard's 25th percentile or higher. Which I would deem to be standard minimum qualifications.

However, Harvard has an undergraduate student enrollment of about 7200, of which 12% is black. Therefore, there are about 1080 black students at Harvard, which is 6% of the 18,000 black college students with minimum standard qualifications for enrollment. And it cannot be farfetched to assume that these are the absolute cream of the crop, with an expectation that their test scores would be significantly higher than the 99th percentile of SAT scores for black college students.

So stop it with this undeserving URM nonsense already.

You are making shit up. We do not have to guess,these things are broken down by race. Every school district knows it hence the discussions about closing the gap.
The real problem is with the test. Unless you believe AA's are are actually inferior, and I don't, then SAT is not a great metric.

The real problem is not as much with the test, but with differences in the quality of high school preparation of many AA students. The same can also be said about many white students from lower socio-economic backgrounds/ poor rural and inner city schools, etc. This isn't about inferiority, it is about opportunity and preparation. But I will add another dimension. Top schools today recognize "first generation" students as underprivileged in the college admission race. I was first generation -- smart kid and did very well in our flagship state U. But was I as prepared as my own children for the most rigorous colleges? No way. But my kids can hold their own in such schools academically because the State U route provided me with sufficient upward mobility/income to do more for my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:URM harping wrt Ivy admissions always fascinates me, because it is clear to me that most people don't fully understand or appreciate the pool of applicants. Just doing a little bit of math can actually illuminate things dramatically.

Harvard being Harvard has their pick of any and all applicants, black, white, latino or asian. Now the US Dept of Ed estimates that there are about 12 million college students in the US, of which about 15% are black. So there are roughly 1.8 million black college students. Of those, the College Board tells us that the 99% for college bound black SAT takers is a score of 2100. That means that there are 18,000 black college students in the country with a score at least 2100, if not higher.

According to the Princeton Review, 2110 is the 25th percentile for admitted SAT scores, while Harvard self reported a mean SAT score for the class of 2017 of 2237.

So taken at face value, there are at least 18,000 black college students with SAT scores at Harvard's 25th percentile or higher. Which I would deem to be standard minimum qualifications.

However, Harvard has an undergraduate student enrollment of about 7200, of which 12% is black. Therefore, there are about 1080 black students at Harvard, which is 6% of the 18,000 black college students with minimum standard qualifications for enrollment. And it cannot be farfetched to assume that these are the absolute cream of the crop, with an expectation that their test scores would be significantly higher than the 99th percentile of SAT scores for black college students.

So stop it with this undeserving URM nonsense already.

You are making shit up. We do not have to guess,these things are broken down by race. Every school district knows it hence the discussions about closing the gap.
The real problem is with the test. Unless you believe AA's are are actually inferior, and I don't, then SAT is not a great metric.

Indeed. And yet, that's what all these "meritocracy" agitators want colleges to use.

[Anonymous]

21:56 may be right about the 99+. I found something on Wikipedia that used the 99.5% equivalent for that figure - didn't see anything on the College Board web site which is why I estimated as I did. But it could be higher than 99.5. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:URM harping wrt Ivy admissions always fascinates me, because it is clear to me that most people don't fully understand or appreciate the pool of applicants. Just doing a little bit of math can actually illuminate things dramatically.

Harvard being Harvard has their pick of any and all applicants, black, white, latino or asian. Now the US Dept of Ed estimates that there are about 12 million college students in the US, of which about 15% are black. So there are roughly 1.8 million black college students. Of those, the College Board tells us that the 99% for college bound black SAT takers is a score of 2100. That means that there are 18,000 black college students in the country with a score at least 2100, if not higher.

According to the Princeton Review, 2110 is the 25th percentile for admitted SAT scores, while Harvard self reported a mean SAT score for the class of 2017 of 2237.

So taken at face value, there are at least 18,000 black college students with SAT scores at Harvard's 25th percentile or higher. Which I would deem to be standard minimum qualifications.

However, Harvard has an undergraduate student enrollment of about 7200, of which 12% is black. Therefore, there are about 1080 black students at Harvard, which is 6% of the 18,000 black college students with minimum standard qualifications for enrollment. And it cannot be farfetched to assume that these are the absolute cream of the crop, with an expectation that their test scores would be significantly higher than the 99th percentile of SAT scores for black college students.

So stop it with this undeserving URM nonsense already.

You are making shit up. We do not have to guess,these things are broken down by race. Every school district knows it hence the discussions about closing the gap.
The real problem is with the test. Unless you believe AA's are are actually inferior, and I don't, then SAT is not a great metric.

Indeed. And yet, that's what all these "meritocracy" agitators want colleges to use.

The only reason the people believe the SAT isn't a great metric is because different groups score differently on it. If this wasn't the case, nobody would have heartburn with it. If you truly think the SAT isn't a good test, please find a test out there (all IQ tests, ACT, GRE, PARCC, ASVAB, etc, etc) that DOESN'T show this same gap. I'll wait.

[Anonymous]

People in privileged positions defend reliance on standardized tests because it lets them believe there is a controllable, objectivity to things. That is true at most colleges, but only somewhat the case at our most selective schools. I remember well the episode oh The Sopranos where Meadow's mom acknowledged the reality that Tribal status would confer a key admissions edge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. DD had perfect SAT scores, perfect GPA with all AP classes senior year, 4 APs sophomore and junior year, 5 college classes, internships in the science labs at a local university, captain of varsity sport, leadership positions in 2 clubs, and extensive volunteer efforts (years, major projects). Rejected.

Makes you wonder what the 60% white kids admitted had thath your DD didn't?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People in privileged positions defend reliance on standardized tests because it lets them believe there is a controllable, objectivity to things. That is true at most colleges, but only somewhat the case at our most selective schools. I remember well the episode oh The Sopranos where Meadow's mom acknowledged the reality that Tribal status would confer a key admissions edge.

Well, when these measured things have significant and consistent correlations to outcomes in the real world it's hard not to. Let's do an experiment; let in a bunch of kids with good grades (3.9+) and low SAT scores (< 1000) to MIT, treat them like the rest of the students and see how they do. I'll bet SAT at that point becomes HIGHLY predictive of success.