Reply to Ivy League Affirmative Action from the inside

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A general goal of diversity (of all types -- geographic, sex, age, race, etc.) is fine. That is actually beneficial to the academic experience. As long as all applicants are similarly qualified.

However, the only PREFERENCE should go to those with a disadvantaged socio-economic background (i.e., poor, first generation to attend college, etc.). Granted, many of those applicants will be minorities and that is fine.

But there is a reverse irony where a well-to-do black applicant who attended privileged prep schools gets in over a poor, white applicant with a better profile who overachieved and is the first in his family to attend college. This actually happens on a fairly regular basis in academia. It is unjustifiable.[/quote]

I think there are probably soft quotas for all of these types and categories -- e.g. African-American students from prep schools, first generation white college students -- and they're generally not competing directly against other types -- more often within slightly broader categories and/or within regions.  So an African-American student from a prep school may be competing against an African-American student from public school and that competition won't be based strictly on tests and scores.  Sometimes the kid with higher grades/scores will win; sometimes she or he won't.

Basically, there are a bunch of different goals that highly selective private universities are pursuing simultaneously -- they're betting on future winners (i.e. they want tomorrow's elite -- in a host of different fields -- to have ties to the school), they're trying to create a diverse educational environment, they're trying to increase their endowment, they're trying to provide a vehicle for upward mobility for some groups, they're trying to be/become/remain a go-to source for employers in various fields, etc.  Note that identifying or educating the smartest kids isn't necessarily a goal on this list.  It's often on the faculty's wishlist, but faculty don't do undergrad admissions.  Undergrad admissions is geared toward enhancing the school's status/brand/power/resources.

To pursue these institutional goals, admissions officers have to sift through a huge pile of applications with limited data over a short period of time.  The "objective" data (tests and GPAs) are useful but not determinative.  For one thing, SATs don't do a good job distinguishing AMONG the brightest kids in a 16-18 yo cohort.  They help with the rough sort (disqualifying and probably deterring lots of applicants) and provide a broader context for interpreting GPAs, but they aren't really useful for rank-ordering candidates.  There's no reason to believe that a kid with a 2400 is smarter, more knowledgeable, or a better student than a kid with a 2340.  So unless the institutional goal is to raise or maximize the median SAT score(s) of the student body, SAT scores aren't going to be the admissions officers' primary benchmark of academic worthiness.  And, unlike SAT score, the other numerical indicator -- GPA -- doesn't provide commensurability.

So, basically, the logic here is (a) intelligence or capacity for learning or intellectual achievement isn't the only thing we're trying to rank and (b) to the extent that it is, grades and scores are inadequate measures.  Let me quickly say that I'm responding to the post I've quoted and the model of admissions it seems to assume -- and not to the lawsuit itself.  I think that the lawsuit is legit given recent rulings on affirmative action in higher education.  I understand that the argument is that even when non-academic criteria (e.g. extracurriculars) are taken into account, the racial disparity exists.  And I believe (as a Harvard alumn) that this is discussion worth having. But I'm not sure that the plaintiffs should prevail.  Abstractly, I believe in holistic admissions, but I also see how the process could lead to conscious or unconscious racial discrimination.  Whether that's what's happening here is, to me, an empirical question.

In the end, I think that the bottom line is that there isn't a single accessible-to-all formula for getting into highly selective schools.  The challenge is to stand out.  Grades/scores/ECs don't enable most high-performing kids to do that in these applicant pools.  And in environments/cultures where there's strong and sustained pressure to perform, it's easy to "forget to be awesome."  You're so busy doing the needful, there's not much time left over to explore or experiment or develop your own interests.  That just looks irresponsible or self-indulgent or risky.

Well, the data in the Michigan lawsuits were pretty revealing.  But O'Connor wanted elite schools to be elite and diverse, so that's where we are today, and where we'll be for the next century:  holistic admissions with a thumb on the scale.  In other words, society as a whole benefits. With the exception, of course, for ballot initiatives limiting affirmative action in MI and CA.

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