Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:In 2018:

707 black kids got a 5 on AP CalcBC
19,710 Asian kids got a 5 on AP CalcBC

Herein lies the problem

In U.S. education based on the unique history of this country, I'm not surprised this gross disparity exists.

However in strictly looking at the zero sum dynamic of elite college admissions, it is supply and demand.

Those 707 black students - and black students of that caliber - are in extremely high demand.

When you see the news articles about a black kid getting accepted to ALL of the Ivies, this is the cohort.

So when detractors say that these same black kids at elite schools are " unqualified," no they are not.

?? Why would anyone say these kids who got 5 on AP Calc BC are not qualified? most of them are probably well qualified. However when we go color blind, they might not get in all of the Ivies. Race should not be treated as rare commodity. These kids are probably the biggest victims of Affirmative Action. They don’t get the credit they deserve.

These kids would absolutely benefit from affirmative action -- it uses race as only 1 factor to tip the scales when students are typically competitive. Without it, the number of African American students, based on this stat, would drop just by the odds of number of kids earning 5s on this AP. Then the schools lose out on diversity, and society loses out on leadership. There was an excellent argument made about integration in OCS and equity. Race has to be a factor to achieve equity at times.

"Society loses out on leadership" showing your bias that Asians can't be leaders.

You've misunderstood me (pp here). I am talking about groups that go un or underrepresented in leadership, using military officers as an example. It was a problem in the armed forces that had to be remedied by being race conscious (why I mentioned ocs). I am talking about including, not excluding. That is what the admissions offices are trying to do -- make sure the underrepresented minorities have some presence at these institutions. Have diverse representation in leadership because having different perspectives is important. No one is seeking to exclude other students.

Giving "presence" to one race, for racial reasons, of necessity excludes other students of other races. And you only have to look at the numbers to see that elite universities are consciously seeking to exclude Asians.

And all this leaves aside the question of whether "race consciousness" has improved our military leadership. Seems to me we haven't won a lot of wars lately...

The numbers prove the opposite. There is a far higher percentage of Asian American students in top colleges than the overall population.

No, the numbers clearly prove discrimination.

Asians students are disproportionately intelligent and hardworking relative to their numbers in the population. The proportion of Asians you would see at top colleges on the basis of merit would be far higher than it is - the numbers are lower than they should be because the top schools are discriminating against them. To put it in terms people in the DMV would understand, without discrimination the demographics at the top colleges would look like the demographics of TJ High School - 60 or 70% Asian.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 2018:

707 black kids got a 5 on AP CalcBC
19,710 Asian kids got a 5 on AP CalcBC

Herein lies the problem

In U.S. education based on the unique history of this country, I'm not surprised this gross disparity exists.

However in strictly looking at the zero sum dynamic of elite college admissions, it is supply and demand.

Those 707 black students - and black students of that caliber - are in extremely high demand.

When you see the news articles about a black kid getting accepted to ALL of the Ivies, this is the cohort.

So when detractors say that these same black kids at elite schools are " unqualified," no they are not.

?? Why would anyone say these kids who got 5 on AP Calc BC are not qualified? most of them are probably well qualified. However when we go color blind, they might not get in all of the Ivies. Race should not be treated as rare commodity. These kids are probably the biggest victims of Affirmative Action. They don’t get the credit they deserve.

These kids would absolutely benefit from affirmative action -- it uses race as only 1 factor to tip the scales when students are typically competitive. Without it, the number of African American students, based on this stat, would drop just by the odds of number of kids earning 5s on this AP. Then the schools lose out on diversity, and society loses out on leadership. There was an excellent argument made about integration in OCS and equity. Race has to be a factor to achieve equity at times.

"Society loses out on leadership" showing your bias that Asians can't be leaders.

You've misunderstood me (pp here). I am talking about groups that go un or underrepresented in leadership, using military officers as an example. It was a problem in the armed forces that had to be remedied by being race conscious (why I mentioned ocs). I am talking about including, not excluding. That is what the admissions offices are trying to do -- make sure the underrepresented minorities have some presence at these institutions. Have diverse representation in leadership because having different perspectives is important. No one is seeking to exclude other students.

Giving "presence" to one race, for racial reasons, of necessity excludes other students of other races. And you only have to look at the numbers to see that elite universities are consciously seeking to exclude Asians.

And all this leaves aside the question of whether "race consciousness" has improved our military leadership. Seems to me we haven't won a lot of wars lately...

The numbers prove the opposite. There is a far higher percentage of Asian American students in top colleges than the overall population.

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We get that is the argument, but what is the solution that is more fair? I see both ways but tests are at least somewhat objective. And I have been on BOTH sides of the aisle here, growing up poor, first gen, no test prep options vs. what I can now offer my kid.

"more fair"?

Basketball players are judge by how well they play basketball
Dancers are judged by how well they dance
Legacies are judged by how well they help fund the school and if they will provide connections to current students
Some kids are judged by SAT scores
Some kids are judged by the fact they started a movement after somebody shot up their school


If you want to be in the top 5% there are many ways to do that and GPA and SAT is only one way. Stop using that measure to say the other kids were not qualified.
If 20 kids are great basketball players the coach picks the 5 he wants, you don't have to understand why he picked those 5 kids. I don't care if you scored more baskets than the 5 he chose.

The core issue is that those schools that have been practicing holistic admissions still weren’t getting the “desired” diversity that they wanted when looking at all of those factors you’ve mentioned without directly looking at race. As a result, at least Harvard systemically and artificially reduced totally subjective personality scores on Asian applicants at the admissions office level. Let’s stop with the trope that Asian applicants were just robots studying for grades and test scores - the Harvard disclosures showed that Asian applicants also had leadership positions and extracurricular activities in line (or better) than all other races. The one factor that changed was the admissions office that never met these applicants putting in lower personality scores for Asians. THAT is patently unfair no matter how much one believes in a desired outcome.

We know it’s patently unfair because if you replace “Asian” with any other race (or religion or sex or sexual orientation), it would be recognized as racist right away. If Black students were getting the best grades, garnering the highest test scores, and had extracurricular activities and interview scores that were in line with every other race… but then the Harvard admissions office assigned a totally subjective personality score to Blacks that were lower than all other races because they were worried that Blacks would be too overrepresented at Harvard, that would rightfully be called out as racist immediately. If you applied Jewish people in that hypothetical, it would rightly be called antisemitic immediately (and that’s actually what happened at elite schools in the middle of the 20th century - it’s why holistic admissions exist in the first place). For some reason, people either don’t recognize that the fact this pattern is happening to Asians is racist or, arguably even worse, effectively know that it’s racist but think that the ends justify the means, it appalling to me.

By and large, I’m a liberal on cultural issues. I volunteer for the Democratic Party and will be voting for them on Tuesday up and down the ballot for many reasons. However, on this particular issue, too many liberals seem to have a complete blind spot. I firmly believe in DEI efforts as a goal, but they simply can’t use racist policies (against a minority group, no less) to achieve such goals as that defeats the idea behind DEI initiatives in the first place.

+1 this post should be required reading for all

Except for the fact that there's no proof that Harvard looked at the applications of Asian applicants and lowered their scores in order to keep them out.

It's the job of the Supreme Court.
We'll see.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 2018:

707 black kids got a 5 on AP CalcBC
19,710 Asian kids got a 5 on AP CalcBC

Herein lies the problem

If you’re going to throw around numbers, please provide a citation/link to back up your data.

Not quite the same as PP, but https://digitalcommons.csp.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1192&context=cup_commons_grad_edd shows ~30% of Asian kids scored 5 while far fewer black (4%) or Hispanic (12%) scored a 5 in Calc AB.

Anonymous wrote:
Harvard was disgusting, and soon it won't have a choice to racially discriminate.

Anonymous wrote:
Except for the fact that there's no proof that Harvard looked at the applications of Asian applicants and lowered their scores in order to keep them out.