Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep... best way to hide their discrimination.

What discrimination?

You do understand it's perfectly acceptable to accept students with lower test scores? For whatever reason they want? And that choosing to have just a disproportionate amount of Asian students versus a GROSSLY disproportionate amount of Asian students is perfectly valid discrimination, right? It's discimination in the sense that when you choose red wine to drink over white wine, you've discriminated against the white wine. Oh well. It doesn't make it wrong.

The reason these schools are getting rid of test scores is that they see the writing on the wall- there are cases before the Supreme Court where schools very clearly discriminated against certain races (Asians and Whites) in favor of other racial/ethnic groups, and the court seems set to strike down these discriminatory policies. And the plaintiffs made their cases based on test scores and grades of applicants who were treated differently based on race. The numbers showed very clearly that Asian applicants in particular with high test scores were discriminated against in favor of Black and Hispanic applicants with significantly lower test scores.

These schools want to get rid of test scores (and probably grades), because getting rid of objective numbers in favor of subjective acceptance criteria will allow them to more easily discriminate without leaving evidence that is easily discoverable the next time they get sued for racial discrimination. It's a pretty transparent ploy.

It's not "discrimination" to drop test scores when test scores themselves discriminate.

No, it's illegal discrimination if a school drops test scores in an attempt to make it easier to discriminate based on a protected class (such as race). It's pretty easy to see through what they're trying to do. They know their current discriminatory practices likely won't survive this court challenge, so they're trying to come up with a way to discriminate that doesn't leave such an obvious evidentiary trail.

And the evidence that tests discriminate based on race is incredibly weak. The logic is circular- certain minority groups don't do as well on tests, so the tests must be discriminatory.

The evidence that the tests are discriminatory is stronger than the nonexistent evidence that supports your first paragraph.

Given how unfriendly the current 6-3 court appears to be towards racially-based admission policies, I'm pretty comfortable that there are going to be a lot of losses in court for universities going forward. Eventually, after spending millions of dollars in legal fees, they'll probably learn their lesson. Granted, the people who populate admissions departments aren't typically the sharpest crayons in the box, so it will require the adults who pay the bills at universities to step in.

So, no more college football, then.

(Football players are disproportionately not Asian, you know.)

Is there evidence that college football players are recruited in a racially discriminatory manner? That uses to be the case (some schools refused to recruit black players, for example), but college football has recruited based purely on merit for decades now.

Their test scores suck. So how is that fair?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not fair that schools recruit club swim athletes when club swim costs thousands of dollars a year, either.

The more you insert human decision-making into the process, the less fair it gets, in many ways. Race-based preferences, lower academic requirements for athletes, legacy admissions, admissions for the children of big financial donors etc. Some of these preferences are legal, others not. But, they all make the process more subjective and less objective.

Determining admission purely on GPA and test scores would be, objectively, the most fair process, because it would eliminate human bias.

Last I checked, the high school teachers who give the grades were human beings.

Anonymous wrote:Here's an anecdote for you. I'm a white guy from a working class background with parents who never finished high school. I went to a no-name college because it never even occurred to me to apply anywhere else. I ended up with an extremely high GPA and, with coaxing and coaching from a dean of the college, ended up winning a highly prestigious scholarship for graduate studies abroad .

I did not do well on the SAT and also bombed the LSAT. Coming from my background, it honestly never even occurred to me that I needed to or should prep for it. I literally thought to myself "ok, to apply to law school you need to take the LSAT," so I simply signed up and walk into the exam room and took it.

My LSAT score easily placed me in the bottom ten percent of accepted applicants. In a school where the median score of my entering class was well above the 90th percentile, my score was in the 60th percentile. I was admitted to the law school solely on the basis of my GPA and because I applied from abroad while on my graduate scholarship.

I finished my 1L year first in the class, and it wasn't close. Number 2 was an Ivy League grad with a perfect LSAT score. I was retroactively awarded a full scholarship. I ended up graduating in the top 5, landing a top federal court of appeals clerkship, getting hired by one of the most selective Biglaw firms in the country, and eventually made equity partner.

Bottom line: my test scores obviously did not reflect the full extent of my abilities in any way, shape or form. My law school apparently knew that and took a chance on me. I'm grateful for that.

My kids, on the other hand, all had SAT and ACT scores that blew mine completely out of the water, and all of them ended up attending top colleges and universities. I love my kids and obviously think they're smart, but I don't think for a second that a bunch of near geniuses (exaggerating but you get the point) were the spawn of idiot genes. It typically doesn't happen that way.

No, what happened is this: my kids' test scores were the combined product of both their natural intelligence AND the privilege of being raised in a high income environment with educated parents who understood the system and had the wherewithal to make it work for them. It's just so painfully obvious.

This board suffers from the delusion that standardized test scores used for college admissions are more than just a blunt instrument. They're not. They're axes, not scalpel. The notion that high test scores should trump everything else -- or that low test scores should be disqualifying -- is ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you can simultaneously believe schools should have latitude to deprioritize test scores for reasons the successful lawyer articulated while asserting that they are doing so now as a workaround for the affirmative action ruling. They don’t want data that suggests systematic racial preferences. So it is better not to have the data. I think in practice everyone knows white and Asian kids are at a huge disadvantage if they do not submit test scores barring exceptional circumstances (low income, special hardship or a fantastic transcript). Certainly some white and Asian kids get admitted without scores but the odds are probably quite low. The schools of course don’t provide any meaningful statistics on this.

This is the truth. Test optional means really only test optional for URM. If you're Asian and you don't submit test scores ... forget it.

Anonymous wrote:My personal view is that test optional will make testing more important than ever. Instead of having the schools’ test score data muddied by URMs and other special cases, people will just focus on the 50-75 pct of the student body that submits. Schools will continue to strive to have a high average or range. Does Williams really want to have a lower average SAT than Amherst? Will Colby let itself slip below Bates? Of course not. So there is a two tier system shaping up. URMs and first Gen and other special cases apply into one pool and then the “privileged” students compete against each other in another pool. People will compare schools based on the relative quality of the privileged pool. Admissions offices will continue to manage towards a high average SAT because they know they can’t afford to slip behind peer schools as they will be seen as less selective and then students and parents will have less interest in applying and it will be a downward spiral.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chicago is test optional and disagrees with MIT. However, the whole package has to show tremendous academic strength, whether it is demonstrated in GPA in the most difficult courses, extracurricular awards, or the unique Chicago essays. In order to be able to write (and enjoy writing) the Chicago essays, one needs to be a very creative and intellectually curious thinker. My kids loved writing those essays, which was a strong indicator that Chicago wouldbe a good fit.

Chicago essays can be purchased from consultants

Anonymous wrote:Chicago is test optional and disagrees with MIT. However, the whole package has to show tremendous academic strength, whether it is demonstrated in GPA in the most difficult courses, extracurricular awards, or the unique Chicago essays. In order to be able to write (and enjoy writing) the Chicago essays, one needs to be a very creative and intellectually curious thinker. My kids loved writing those essays, which was a strong indicator that Chicago wouldbe a good fit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not fair that schools recruit club swim athletes when club swim costs thousands of dollars a year, either.

The more you insert human decision-making into the process, the less fair it gets, in many ways. Race-based preferences, lower academic requirements for athletes, legacy admissions, admissions for the children of big financial donors etc. Some of these preferences are legal, others not. But, they all make the process more subjective and less objective.

Determining admission purely on GPA and test scores would be, objectively, the most fair process, because it would eliminate human bias.

Anonymous wrote:It’s not fair that schools recruit club swim athletes when club swim costs thousands of dollars a year, either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep... best way to hide their discrimination.

What discrimination?

You do understand it's perfectly acceptable to accept students with lower test scores? For whatever reason they want? And that choosing to have just a disproportionate amount of Asian students versus a GROSSLY disproportionate amount of Asian students is perfectly valid discrimination, right? It's discimination in the sense that when you choose red wine to drink over white wine, you've discriminated against the white wine. Oh well. It doesn't make it wrong.

The reason these schools are getting rid of test scores is that they see the writing on the wall- there are cases before the Supreme Court where schools very clearly discriminated against certain races (Asians and Whites) in favor of other racial/ethnic groups, and the court seems set to strike down these discriminatory policies. And the plaintiffs made their cases based on test scores and grades of applicants who were treated differently based on race. The numbers showed very clearly that Asian applicants in particular with high test scores were discriminated against in favor of Black and Hispanic applicants with significantly lower test scores.

These schools want to get rid of test scores (and probably grades), because getting rid of objective numbers in favor of subjective acceptance criteria will allow them to more easily discriminate without leaving evidence that is easily discoverable the next time they get sued for racial discrimination. It's a pretty transparent ploy.

It's not "discrimination" to drop test scores when test scores themselves discriminate.

No, it's illegal discrimination if a school drops test scores in an attempt to make it easier to discriminate based on a protected class (such as race). It's pretty easy to see through what they're trying to do. They know their current discriminatory practices likely won't survive this court challenge, so they're trying to come up with a way to discriminate that doesn't leave such an obvious evidentiary trail.

And the evidence that tests discriminate based on race is incredibly weak. The logic is circular- certain minority groups don't do as well on tests, so the tests must be discriminatory.

The evidence that the tests are discriminatory is stronger than the nonexistent evidence that supports your first paragraph.

Given how unfriendly the current 6-3 court appears to be towards racially-based admission policies, I'm pretty comfortable that there are going to be a lot of losses in court for universities going forward. Eventually, after spending millions of dollars in legal fees, they'll probably learn their lesson. Granted, the people who populate admissions departments aren't typically the sharpest crayons in the box, so it will require the adults who pay the bills at universities to step in.

So, no more college football, then.

(Football players are disproportionately not Asian, you know.)

Is there evidence that college football players are recruited in a racially discriminatory manner? That uses to be the case (some schools refused to recruit black players, for example), but college football has recruited based purely on merit for decades now.

Their test scores suck. So how is that fair?

It's perfectly legal and fair to recruit students based on athletic merit. It would only be illegal and unfair if you discriminated against one athlete versus another based on race or some other protected category.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep... best way to hide their discrimination.

What discrimination?

You do understand it's perfectly acceptable to accept students with lower test scores? For whatever reason they want? And that choosing to have just a disproportionate amount of Asian students versus a GROSSLY disproportionate amount of Asian students is perfectly valid discrimination, right? It's discimination in the sense that when you choose red wine to drink over white wine, you've discriminated against the white wine. Oh well. It doesn't make it wrong.

The reason these schools are getting rid of test scores is that they see the writing on the wall- there are cases before the Supreme Court where schools very clearly discriminated against certain races (Asians and Whites) in favor of other racial/ethnic groups, and the court seems set to strike down these discriminatory policies. And the plaintiffs made their cases based on test scores and grades of applicants who were treated differently based on race. The numbers showed very clearly that Asian applicants in particular with high test scores were discriminated against in favor of Black and Hispanic applicants with significantly lower test scores.

These schools want to get rid of test scores (and probably grades), because getting rid of objective numbers in favor of subjective acceptance criteria will allow them to more easily discriminate without leaving evidence that is easily discoverable the next time they get sued for racial discrimination. It's a pretty transparent ploy.

It's not "discrimination" to drop test scores when test scores themselves discriminate.

No, it's illegal discrimination if a school drops test scores in an attempt to make it easier to discriminate based on a protected class (such as race). It's pretty easy to see through what they're trying to do. They know their current discriminatory practices likely won't survive this court challenge, so they're trying to come up with a way to discriminate that doesn't leave such an obvious evidentiary trail.

And the evidence that tests discriminate based on race is incredibly weak. The logic is circular- certain minority groups don't do as well on tests, so the tests must be discriminatory.

The evidence that the tests are discriminatory is stronger than the nonexistent evidence that supports your first paragraph.

Given how unfriendly the current 6-3 court appears to be towards racially-based admission policies, I'm pretty comfortable that there are going to be a lot of losses in court for universities going forward. Eventually, after spending millions of dollars in legal fees, they'll probably learn their lesson. Granted, the people who populate admissions departments aren't typically the sharpest crayons in the box, so it will require the adults who pay the bills at universities to step in.

So, no more college football, then.

(Football players are disproportionately not Asian, you know.)

Is there evidence that college football players are recruited in a racially discriminatory manner? That uses to be the case (some schools refused to recruit black players, for example), but college football has recruited based purely on merit for decades now.

Their test scores suck. So how is that fair?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep... best way to hide their discrimination.

What discrimination?

You do understand it's perfectly acceptable to accept students with lower test scores? For whatever reason they want? And that choosing to have just a disproportionate amount of Asian students versus a GROSSLY disproportionate amount of Asian students is perfectly valid discrimination, right? It's discimination in the sense that when you choose red wine to drink over white wine, you've discriminated against the white wine. Oh well. It doesn't make it wrong.

The reason these schools are getting rid of test scores is that they see the writing on the wall- there are cases before the Supreme Court where schools very clearly discriminated against certain races (Asians and Whites) in favor of other racial/ethnic groups, and the court seems set to strike down these discriminatory policies. And the plaintiffs made their cases based on test scores and grades of applicants who were treated differently based on race. The numbers showed very clearly that Asian applicants in particular with high test scores were discriminated against in favor of Black and Hispanic applicants with significantly lower test scores.

These schools want to get rid of test scores (and probably grades), because getting rid of objective numbers in favor of subjective acceptance criteria will allow them to more easily discriminate without leaving evidence that is easily discoverable the next time they get sued for racial discrimination. It's a pretty transparent ploy.

It's not "discrimination" to drop test scores when test scores themselves discriminate.

No, it's illegal discrimination if a school drops test scores in an attempt to make it easier to discriminate based on a protected class (such as race). It's pretty easy to see through what they're trying to do. They know their current discriminatory practices likely won't survive this court challenge, so they're trying to come up with a way to discriminate that doesn't leave such an obvious evidentiary trail.

And the evidence that tests discriminate based on race is incredibly weak. The logic is circular- certain minority groups don't do as well on tests, so the tests must be discriminatory.

The evidence that the tests are discriminatory is stronger than the nonexistent evidence that supports your first paragraph.

Given how unfriendly the current 6-3 court appears to be towards racially-based admission policies, I'm pretty comfortable that there are going to be a lot of losses in court for universities going forward. Eventually, after spending millions of dollars in legal fees, they'll probably learn their lesson. Granted, the people who populate admissions departments aren't typically the sharpest crayons in the box, so it will require the adults who pay the bills at universities to step in.

So, no more college football, then.

(Football players are disproportionately not Asian, you know.)

Is there evidence that college football players are recruited in a racially discriminatory manner? That uses to be the case (some schools refused to recruit black players, for example), but college football has recruited based purely on merit for decades now.

Anonymous wrote:Chicago is test optional and disagrees with MIT. However, the whole package has to show tremendous academic strength, whether it is demonstrated in GPA in the most difficult courses, extracurricular awards, or the unique Chicago essays. In order to be able to write (and enjoy writing) the Chicago essays, one needs to be a very creative and intellectually curious thinker. My kids loved writing those essays, which was a strong indicator that Chicago wouldbe a good fit.