Reply to Here's how much legacy/athlete preferences matter at Harvard

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]On the first point, how do you make the argument that the number of admitted white students doesn't meaningfully change if you remove all ALDC preferences?

On the table, it shows that removing the A (athlete) preference lowers white admissions by 204, or about 4%.

Removing the L (legacy preference) lowers white admissions by 303, or about 6%.

If you removed A and L, you would lower white admissions by 507, or about 10%.

Remember, this does not include D (development) or C (faculty).  As I noted earlier, Harvard has stated that the development cases are about 100 admits per year, or which 70-75% are white.  So, conservatively, that's another 250 white admits not getting in.  Now, we don't know where those spots will go, but some of them aren't going to whites.

I just don't see how you come to the statement that it wouldn't meaningfully change.  It could.[/quote]

On page 49, table 11, "no race/legacy/athlete" line: removing these preferences results in +145 white admits.  That's about a 3% increase.  Removing legacy and athlete preference decreases white admits but removing race preference increases white admits to an even greater degree, more than cancelling out the impact of legacies and athletes.

Meanwhile for asians the number of admits increases by 1206.  That's more than a 50% increase.  These numbers are the basis for my statement that there's no meaningful change in white admission numbers.  You're correct that there are edge cases (dean's list and faculty children) that are unaccounted for that are presumably majority white, but even if that's another 150 white kids in total (a high estimate), it still doesn't move the needle much.

[quote=Anonymous]As far as the anti-white sentiment you perceive, you're blind if you haven't been on this board and seen the hypocritical position that whites take on this issue.  It's all test scores and merit when they're talking about AA and Hispanics, but then they turn around and scream about robots and test takers who cheat when talking about Asians.  Even the data you so lovingly cite suggests something else is at play.  If Asians are being discriminated against because whites are being siloed off, how is it that this is only the fault of race preferences?  It's equally being caused by whites getting a fixed percentage of the class (as you clearly already admit).  Why is that fair?[/quote]

I agree with you that parents who feel their kids can't compete will hypocritically complain and try to move the goal posts and this is absolutely happening as asian students out-compete white students on standardized tests.  I call this out every time I see it.  I've heard many middle class white parents complain about this, but really it can be parents of any race.  As I mentioned earlier, the loudest voice in this issue is the mayor of NYC who wants to create racial quotas for NYC's best performing public schools.[/quote]

Well, that's the problem.  Race is NOT an ALDC category.  ALDC is only athletic, legacy, development and faculty.  So when you said when removing the ALDC preferences meant that white admits wouldn't change, I assumed you weren't including race.

Now, if you include race, the numbers look as you say, but even there, I have two issues.  One - I don't understand how those numbers work such that Asians see the larger share of new admits once AA and Hispanic students are not admitted.  It makes no sense, unless your silo theory is correct.   Two - in your original theory, whites were siloed.  That's how rich and poor whites compete with each other.  If that theory is correct, then 100% of the gains should be Asian. But the numbers don't bear that out since 600 more white students are admitted.  It just makes no sense.  The silo theory doesn't fit these number.  (Not for nothing, but the silo theory, if true, would be even more problematic than race preferences by the way because what it the silo theory other than a set aside for whites?)

I suspect the last line in the table is pure fudge.  This study is written by one of the experts in the Harvard trial.  He must reach the conclusion that removing racial preferences increases Asian enrollment, otherwise, Asian groups wouldn't sign on to a lawsuit if removing the race preference just meant the same 1.6 to 1 admittance ratio of whites to Asians remained.  But there's no reasonable explanation why the gains in admittance in this one limited situation flow to Asians when all other admittance data favors whites.  No back-up or explanation is provided either.  It's just tossed in there.  I think this study is interesting, but I don't necessarily trust it.

DeBlasio is an idiot.  He's going to screw up the one shining jewel of the NYC public school system.

That being said, what you perceive as anti-white bias is me just not being, dare I say, politically correct.   I was just predicting what would (and frankly is) happening based on available evidence.  I would also find your admonition more credible if you were calling out some of the posters on this forum who post stuff a lot worse than what I wrote.
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