SFFA doesn't like the Asian American %

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Wonder how people would feel if admissions was largely based on SAT score and this resulted in classes at top schools heavily skewed towards men and mem are significantly more likely to score higher on the SAT than women

As overall students, women are better than men, and it’d be interesting to see what these colleges’ classes would look like if they stopped their 50/50 gender policies and went blind.

STEM (except stuff that can get you into medical school) would be vastly more male, most other majors would be vastly more female.

Which is a cultural issue that should be fixed, not an admissions one. Many other countries have women more represented in all stem subjects, so it comes down to understanding why there’s such a massive gap in the US, and why our standardized exam results in women with worse scores across the board

I think the gap in stem is mostly cultural and not really a big concern considering there are more women in law schools and medical schools than men.

The gap in standardized test scores are at the tails. Women have slightly higher average test scores but there are more men at the very bottom and the very tops of the curve.

Correct about distribution of test scores which is precisely why the poster who keeps insisting that if a school doesn't just auto-admit everyone with above a 1550 on the SAT they are racist is not making sense. Schools know some students have outlier test scores and that is why they tend to view test scores as a threshhold factor instead of a ranking factor. They will look at students who have scores and GPAs above a specific threshhold but once you are in this group they will look at the totality of the application not simply rank the students by scores. And that includes "squishy" factors like whether the student brings a unique perspective or skill set to the school that could benefit the school as a whole. Thus it is generally not in a school's interest to simply admit all the highest scoring students who also often tend to share a lot of the same characteristics -- they lean male and and Asian and tend to have similar backgrounds. Well schools don't want a bunch of identical kids so they recruit kids with lower scores in order ot keep it diverse. This is legal even under the SC ruling and considered beneficial by most people applying to these schools.

There is no cutoff above which all sat scores are equal. You always want the higher test score but you may value something more than 10 more points on the sat.

The let's get rid of superscoring. It's just another way to give inferior applicants another chance . That 10 point difference may actually have been 100 points since real life doesn't cherry pick outcomes like this.

Funny how ignorant people think college admissions is a meritocracy and squabble over "10 point" differences in test scores.

It's a BUSINESS.

Superscoriing puts millions in the College Board's coffers.

It's not going away.

Superscoring was another way to dilute the effect of test scores in college admissions.

Nope.

To continue the grift of the multi billion dollar test prep industry.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:You think only white families engage in test prep and tutoring in order to game admissions testing. Hmm okay. So students scoring 1560 or 1590 are just walking into the SAT at age 17 and acing it with absolutely no prep whatsoever and not *years* of pushing from parents to prep for the exam or enrollment in schools with curriculums geared toward standardized tests and no use of test prep agencies or tutors. Interesting.

Why is it so hard for you to believe that there are kids out there who are just that smart?

+1 I mean, if prepping is taking a few sample tests, both free and a book bought on Amazon, then I guess my DC did prep. Took the test once, got 1580.

Yes, DC is that *smart*. Coasted through magnet programs.

Do we "push" our kids to study and get good grades? Insofar as they take their studies seriously, yes. Expecting straight As and super high test scores? No. I'll be happy if DC#2 gets a 1350+.

Perhaps more parents should "push" their kids to get better grades, then the schools wouldn't have to dumb down the curriculum so much.

Yes there are of course kids that are that smart (and also just naturally good test takers). I knew a kid who got a 1600 on the SAT on the first try and they were just smart and didn't do a bunch of extra prep. Also she was from a family with 6 kids and none of her siblings scored that high. They were all bright but she was an outlier.

However in 2024 if you don't think that a significant portion of the kids scoring over 1500 on the SAT are being heavily prepped by very well-resourced parents and schools that seek to maximize standardized test scores of students than you are naive. Also if you spend any time at all looking at the way SAT scores correlate to socioeconomic levels and you'll realize that wealthier kids start of at a huge advantage. If you have two kids with the same natural ability who put in the same level of self-motivated prep but one is working class and the other is upper class then the upper class kid will get a higher SAT score every day of the week. Growing up privileged with educated parents and having fewer stressors in the home and attending better schools will result in higher test scores regardless of how smart you are. And growing up poor with uneducated parents and a lot of stress related to poverty and institutionalize racism and attending failing schools will depress your score even if you are a very smart and hard working self-starter.

Um.. yea I know because I (the PP) grew up in a lower middle class family to immigrant parents who don't speak any English. And I have several friends who are like me. Some got great test scores; some didn't.

I think it's fine that colleges look at the family background (first gen college), income, and zip code of where they live, but not race.

Also, I happen to be Asian American.

[Anonymous]

You do understand though that income and zip code are often correlated with race?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:However in 2024 if you don't think that a significant portion of the kids scoring over 1500 on the SAT are being heavily prepped by very well-resourced parents and schools that seek to maximize standardized test scores of students than you are naive.

1500 is a very good score in 2024, but it's really not that impressive. It basically equates to a 1440 from when most of us took the test 30 to 40 years ago.

In 2024 a 1500 is a good score. 🙂

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:However in 2024 if you don't think that a significant portion of the kids scoring over 1500 on the SAT are being heavily prepped by very well-resourced parents and schools that seek to maximize standardized test scores of students than you are naive.

1500 is a very good score in 2024, but it's really not that impressive. It basically equates to a 1440 from when most of us took the test 30 to 40 years ago.

This is an interesting point. The test is "too easy" at the top in the sense that, if they augmented it with harder questions, there are a bunch of kids who would be well to the right of 1600. So SAT differences substantially understate the preparedness gap at the top. When you look at, say, Asian American outperformance on the SAT as a group, this outperformance would be much more extreme if the test were appropriately hard.

The changes you are mentioning have exacerbated this effect. It is now much harder to distinguish among top students using the SAT because the scores are so compressed up there. This is probably by design.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Yes as long as they can't prove you were using geography as an artifice for racial discrimination.

Good luck with that legal theory!

Sometimes there is proof. Emails, texts and other preserved communication.

Proof of what -- wanting to promote geographic diversity because of a belief that it will make students more expansive in their thinking.

You are not going to find emails and texts of admissions committees discussing how their recruitment of a geographically diverse class is just an end run around being forced to admit more asian kids because that's not what it is (except in your own broken mind).

Harvard lost because of evidences and proofs.

This is not correct at all. This was not a gotcha case where the court found that Harvard was secretly biased against asian applicants. Harvard had an explicitly race-conscious admissions system (affirmative action -- you might have heard of it since it was what pretty much all schools have been doing for decades) and the court decided that even though the policies were implemented with good intentions and in good faith (meaning not with the intention of discrimination) they still violated the constitution because according to the court they were not narrowly tailored enough to a "compelling government interest."

In other words the court found that Harvard had acted in good faith and the that the goal of the policy was sound but that the policy itself did not match the goal well enough. This is an incredibly narrow ruling and one that 100% leaves room for Harvard and other schools to continue to use a holistic admissions process that emphasizes diversity as long as that process in not explicitly race-conscious. Which means schools can absolutely use geography and high school and background. In fact the SC even says there is nothing to prevent schools from considering race as part of the student's overall background and experience via how it is discussed in for example a personal essay.

Harvard did not lose because of "evidences and proofs." Harvard lost very narrowly because a more restrictive interpretation of the 14th amendment won the day within a divided Supreme Court.

And a year later the court declined to take the TJ admissions appeal so the 4th circuit decision that permit's TJ's holistic admissions approach which has had the effect of greatly reducing the percentage of asian students at TJ while boosting the percentages of black and hispanic students is viewed as the current standard for holistic admissions.

I think someone who is so passionate about ensuring that only people who deserve it gain admission to selective schools should understand what I just described instead of having this childish and simplistic interpretation of the current state of race in admissions.

You don't make any sense.

The US Supreme Court found that "the admissions programs at both universities violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment". This is based on evidences and proofs. They don't just say it because they feel like it.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:However in 2024 if you don't think that a significant portion of the kids scoring over 1500 on the SAT are being heavily prepped by very well-resourced parents and schools that seek to maximize standardized test scores of students than you are naive.

1500 is a very good score in 2024, but it's really not that impressive. It basically equates to a 1440 from when most of us took the test 30 to 40 years ago.

This is an interesting point. The test is "too easy" at the top in the sense that, if they augmented it with harder questions, there are a bunch of kids who would be well to the right of 1600. So SAT differences substantially understate the preparedness gap at the top. When you look at, say, Asian American outperformance on the SAT as a group, this outperformance would be much more extreme if the test were appropriately hard.

The changes you are mentioning have exacerbated this effect. It is now much harder to distinguish among top students using the SAT because the scores are so compressed up there. This is probably by design.

Colleges are looking at bottom line scores, today. Not from "30 to 40 years ago."

A 1500+ is just that..a 1500. 98th percentile.

It basically corroborates a 4.0+ GPA high school transcript. Nothing else. The real sorting to shape a freshman class takes place with the other stuff, ECs, departments, athletics, demographics, etc.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Yes as long as they can't prove you were using geography as an artifice for racial discrimination.

Good luck with that legal theory!

Sometimes there is proof. Emails, texts and other preserved communication.

Proof of what -- wanting to promote geographic diversity because of a belief that it will make students more expansive in their thinking.

You are not going to find emails and texts of admissions committees discussing how their recruitment of a geographically diverse class is just an end run around being forced to admit more asian kids because that's not what it is (except in your own broken mind).

Harvard lost because of evidences and proofs.

This is not correct at all. This was not a gotcha case where the court found that Harvard was secretly biased against asian applicants. Harvard had an explicitly race-conscious admissions system (affirmative action -- you might have heard of it since it was what pretty much all schools have been doing for decades) and the court decided that even though the policies were implemented with good intentions and in good faith (meaning not with the intention of discrimination) they still violated the constitution because according to the court they were not narrowly tailored enough to a "compelling government interest."

In other words the court found that Harvard had acted in good faith and the that the goal of the policy was sound but that the policy itself did not match the goal well enough. This is an incredibly narrow ruling and one that 100% leaves room for Harvard and other schools to continue to use a holistic admissions process that emphasizes diversity as long as that process in not explicitly race-conscious. Which means schools can absolutely use geography and high school and background. In fact the SC even says there is nothing to prevent schools from considering race as part of the student's overall background and experience via how it is discussed in for example a personal essay.

Harvard did not lose because of "evidences and proofs." Harvard lost very narrowly because a more restrictive interpretation of the 14th amendment won the day within a divided Supreme Court.

And a year later the court declined to take the TJ admissions appeal so the 4th circuit decision that permit's TJ's holistic admissions approach which has had the effect of greatly reducing the percentage of asian students at TJ while boosting the percentages of black and hispanic students is viewed as the current standard for holistic admissions.

I think someone who is so passionate about ensuring that only people who deserve it gain admission to selective schools should understand what I just described instead of having this childish and simplistic interpretation of the current state of race in admissions.

You don't make any sense.

The US Supreme Court found that "the admissions programs at both universities violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment". This is based on evidences and proofs. They don't just say it because they feel like it.

You are not arguing effectively. You can agree with the SC decision, as I do, while at the same time acknowledging that is subjective and probably driven by this court's biases.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Yes as long as they can't prove you were using geography as an artifice for racial discrimination.

Good luck with that legal theory!

Sometimes there is proof. Emails, texts and other preserved communication.

Proof of what -- wanting to promote geographic diversity because of a belief that it will make students more expansive in their thinking.

You are not going to find emails and texts of admissions committees discussing how their recruitment of a geographically diverse class is just an end run around being forced to admit more asian kids because that's not what it is (except in your own broken mind).

Harvard lost because of evidences and proofs.

This is not correct at all. This was not a gotcha case where the court found that Harvard was secretly biased against asian applicants. Harvard had an explicitly race-conscious admissions system (affirmative action -- you might have heard of it since it was what pretty much all schools have been doing for decades) and the court decided that even though the policies were implemented with good intentions and in good faith (meaning not with the intention of discrimination) they still violated the constitution because according to the court they were not narrowly tailored enough to a "compelling government interest."

In other words the court found that Harvard had acted in good faith and the that the goal of the policy was sound but that the policy itself did not match the goal well enough. This is an incredibly narrow ruling and one that 100% leaves room for Harvard and other schools to continue to use a holistic admissions process that emphasizes diversity as long as that process in not explicitly race-conscious. Which means schools can absolutely use geography and high school and background. In fact the SC even says there is nothing to prevent schools from considering race as part of the student's overall background and experience via how it is discussed in for example a personal essay.

Harvard did not lose because of "evidences and proofs." Harvard lost very narrowly because a more restrictive interpretation of the 14th amendment won the day within a divided Supreme Court.

And a year later the court declined to take the TJ admissions appeal so the 4th circuit decision that permit's TJ's holistic admissions approach which has had the effect of greatly reducing the percentage of asian students at TJ while boosting the percentages of black and hispanic students is viewed as the current standard for holistic admissions.

I think someone who is so passionate about ensuring that only people who deserve it gain admission to selective schools should understand what I just described instead of having this childish and simplistic interpretation of the current state of race in admissions.

You don't make any sense.

The US Supreme Court found that "the admissions programs at both universities violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment". This is based on evidences and proofs. They don't just say it because they feel like it.

Nah, it all politics. This conservative majority SCOTUS overruled decades of precedent and lower federal court rulings that no racial discrimination existed against Asian-Americans.

The colleges are operating accordingly. That's why the percentages haven't changed much. There are smart and qualified applicants of all races and ethnicities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You do understand though that income and zip code are often correlated with race?

Often, but not always. The majority of FARMs students at the NY magnet program Stuyvessant are Asian American.

But, pro-affirmative action folks will tell you that those poor Asian American kids (who are typically first gen college) should still take a backseat to the even lower performing URM kids because "diversity".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:However in 2024 if you don't think that a significant portion of the kids scoring over 1500 on the SAT are being heavily prepped by very well-resourced parents and schools that seek to maximize standardized test scores of students than you are naive.

1500 is a very good score in 2024, but it's really not that impressive. It basically equates to a 1440 from when most of us took the test 30 to 40 years ago.

This is an interesting point. The test is "too easy" at the top in the sense that, if they augmented it with harder questions, there are a bunch of kids who would be well to the right of 1600. So SAT differences substantially understate the preparedness gap at the top. When you look at, say, Asian American outperformance on the SAT as a group, this outperformance would be much more extreme if the test were appropriately hard.

The changes you are mentioning have exacerbated this effect. It is now much harder to distinguish among top students using the SAT because the scores are so compressed up there. This is probably by design.

+1 It's like lowering the academic expectations in K-12 because then the gap seems smaller

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Yes as long as they can't prove you were using geography as an artifice for racial discrimination.

Good luck with that legal theory!

Sometimes there is proof. Emails, texts and other preserved communication.

Proof of what -- wanting to promote geographic diversity because of a belief that it will make students more expansive in their thinking.

You are not going to find emails and texts of admissions committees discussing how their recruitment of a geographically diverse class is just an end run around being forced to admit more asian kids because that's not what it is (except in your own broken mind).

Harvard lost because of evidences and proofs.

This is not correct at all. This was not a gotcha case where the court found that Harvard was secretly biased against asian applicants. Harvard had an explicitly race-conscious admissions system (affirmative action -- you might have heard of it since it was what pretty much all schools have been doing for decades) and the court decided that even though the policies were implemented with good intentions and in good faith (meaning not with the intention of discrimination) they still violated the constitution because according to the court they were not narrowly tailored enough to a "compelling government interest."

In other words the court found that Harvard had acted in good faith and the that the goal of the policy was sound but that the policy itself did not match the goal well enough. This is an incredibly narrow ruling and one that 100% leaves room for Harvard and other schools to continue to use a holistic admissions process that emphasizes diversity as long as that process in not explicitly race-conscious. Which means schools can absolutely use geography and high school and background. In fact the SC even says there is nothing to prevent schools from considering race as part of the student's overall background and experience via how it is discussed in for example a personal essay.

Harvard did not lose because of "evidences and proofs." Harvard lost very narrowly because a more restrictive interpretation of the 14th amendment won the day within a divided Supreme Court.

And a year later the court declined to take the TJ admissions appeal so the 4th circuit decision that permit's TJ's holistic admissions approach which has had the effect of greatly reducing the percentage of asian students at TJ while boosting the percentages of black and hispanic students is viewed as the current standard for holistic admissions.

I think someone who is so passionate about ensuring that only people who deserve it gain admission to selective schools should understand what I just described instead of having this childish and simplistic interpretation of the current state of race in admissions.

You don't make any sense.

The US Supreme Court found that "the admissions programs at both universities violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment". This is based on evidences and proofs. They don't just say it because they feel like it.

Well first of all the Supreme Court does not examine evidence because it does not make findings of fact. It can only make findings of law. So no their decision was not based on "evidence and proofs." Like all Supreme Court opinions it is based on a combinaton of historical precedent and a judicial interpretation of the law.

Second to a degree they did say it "because they feel like it." They overturned prior court precedent. That means they were announcing a NEW interpretation of the constitution and how it applies to affirmative action in college admissions. A prior court made a different finding of law and schools operated under that finding for many years before this ruling. So on some level yes that's exactly what it is -- a new set of justices changing the interpretation of a constitutional provision because they feel like it. Sure it's based on judicial and legal philosophies about how to interpret and apply the 14th amendment but this stuff is subjective by definition. Otherwise two Supreme Courts couldn't arrive at different conclusions on the same issue.

But sorry I'm just a lawyer. Go ask some 17 year old with a 1590 SAT and they'll probably be able to explain it better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:However in 2024 if you don't think that a significant portion of the kids scoring over 1500 on the SAT are being heavily prepped by very well-resourced parents and schools that seek to maximize standardized test scores of students than you are naive.

1500 is a very good score in 2024, but it's really not that impressive. It basically equates to a 1440 from when most of us took the test 30 to 40 years ago.

This is an interesting point. The test is "too easy" at the top in the sense that, if they augmented it with harder questions, there are a bunch of kids who would be well to the right of 1600. So SAT differences substantially understate the preparedness gap at the top. When you look at, say, Asian American outperformance on the SAT as a group, this outperformance would be much more extreme if the test were appropriately hard.

The changes you are mentioning have exacerbated this effect. It is now much harder to distinguish among top students using the SAT because the scores are so compressed up there. This is probably by design.

I don't think the difficulty has changed much at all. Sure, some types of verbal questions are now gone, but my understanding is that the scoring scale has changed (along with getting rid of any penalty for wrong answers).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do understand though that income and zip code are often correlated with race?

Often, but not always. The majority of FARMs students at the NY magnet program Stuyvessant are Asian American.

But, pro-affirmative action folks will tell you that those poor Asian American kids (who are typically first gen college) should still take a backseat to the even lower performing URM kids because "diversity".

It's more complicated than that.

If I were an Admissions Officer at a Top 20 school, I would take that kid from Ballou or Eastern with the 1350 any day of the week over the 1580 from Sidwell or TJ.

No one talks about any of this. It's not just race or income. It is culture. That poor first generation Asian American - whether Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian - comes from a culture that values education. That kid coming out of Eastern - 91 percent poor black - is facing some serious headwinds 24/7 every day of the week for 18 years. No one is interning at Goldman Sachs from that neighborhood.

Any good, smart student from those circumstances - zero support in life - is extraordinary.

But in reality, URM from Anacostia or Eastern or Ballou don't go to Top 20 schools. It's the well to do at GDS and similar that have been taking advantage of those circumstances. And I think most would agree that it was unfair and it was time to end those advantages and priviliges for another color of rich.

The URM representation at top 20 universities from Sidwell and GDS over the past five years is ridiculous. The URM representation from DC publics at top 20 schools - besides a few from Jackson Reed - is non-existent.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:PP. I agree, there should be a similar number of white and asian students at most of these schools except at the MOST selective schools because at the 1550+ level asians outnumber whites by 2::1

Schools are allowed to decide that, above a certain very high score, differences don't matter for admissions purposes.

But they are not allowed to select the white student over the asians student because they want more white kids.

But if the kind of diversity that they're seeking regarding geography or extracurricular activities has the coincidental effect of admitting white over Asian applicants, that's still allowed.

Yes as long as they can't prove you were using geography as an artifice for racial discrimination.

Even then, it’s not like people from New York are a protected class. If Harvard only wants to take students from Miami, no one other than their donors are stopping them

+1 Harvard could decided it only wanted rural applicants tomorrow and this would result in a class that was 60% white and 35% black and 4% Native and this would be considered absolutely legal even if not one of those students scored over a 1500 on the SAT.

The PP just cannot conceptualize the idea that a Harvard degree is not a public good that is supposed to be fairly distributed via some kind of government mechanism. It's a private good that Harvard can choose to sell to whomever it wants as long as they don't discriminate based on race. But "not discriminate based on race" does NOT mean only admitting the highest scoring applicants and it never ever will.

As long as harvard takes federal funds and enjoys non-profit status, it is subject to these rules. If they decide to only take rural students in order to exclude asians, then it runs afoul of these rules.
The suspicion is that these schools are bending over backwards to avoid achieve racial diversity.

Here is the problem with this entire conversation:

You think that anything a school would do to promote any group of people that is NOT asian students is being done to "exclude asians." So a school focusing on rural students or trying to promote first gen students or recruiting from inner city schools is always doing these things for the express purpose of excluding asians from admissions and there is no other justifiable reason a school would do any of these things.

No I don't think this is the only reason why someone would pick rural students over urban students but if they suddenly change their preferences after being told to stop using race and the result of this change in preferences has a pronounced racial effect then I am suspicious. So if I sue and if discovery reveals that they're racist, then why would you want to defend them or prevent others from revealing their racism?

At the same time you continually advocate for admissions policies that would explicitly benefit asian applicants and -- you believe -- lead to much larger percentages of asian students at top schools. You want schools to admit students based purely on test scores or to focus on hard science applicants over liberal arts and your express reason for this is to promote and advance asian students.

So almost every other country in the WORLD uses a college admissions system that explicitly benefits asians? We don't have to use test scores and only test scores but when every other fkin thing is being used as a pretext for discriminating against asians, then I want to take away your ability to use those things.

You assume that everyone else is doing the same thing for their "favorite" race and as a result you think all admissions strategies and decisions that don't result in overwhelmingly asian classes must be de facto prejudiced against asians since (according to you) asian students are obviously the most qualified and deserving and therefore should be filling the classes of all the top colleges. Every black or hispanic or white student who gets a spot at these schools is stealing it from a more deserving asian applicant.

No not every black/hispanic/white student is stealing their spot from an asian. We have studies, some by these very colleges telling us what the racial breakdown would be (for example at harvard) based on their own selection critieria if race was not taken into account. Any significant variance from that justifiably raises questions of whether you were lying to the court about what would happen if you couldn't consider race without racial preferences or are you using a different means of achieving the same racist goals. We don't know, but these numbers are suspicious and litigation is warranted.

What you will never understand is that a lot of us don't view races as teams in this way and genuinely prefer diverse academic environments for a variety of reasons even if placing value on diversity necessarily means that qualified applicants of some races will lose spots to (also qualified!) applicants of underrepresented races.

More qualified applicants are losing out to less qualified applicants.

It's not discrimination.

When you are choosing less qualified applicants over more qualified applicants on the basis of race, then it is racial discrimination.

It's the choice to preference diversity of thought and experience over other factors. But you're never going to understand this. I am certain you will reply to what I just said with "if it excludes asian applicants in any way it's racist and violates the law." That's not true but there's no way to convince you of that so I guess we are at an impasse.

Racists have thought they were correct to be racist as long as I have known racists to exist.