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The Los Angeles Times is running an article describing the challenges faced by Asian Americans as they apply for acceptance to top colleges.
The article describes the impact that their race and ethnicity has on their SAT scores:
Lee's next slide shows three columns of numbers from a Princeton University study that tried to measure how race and ethnicity affect admissions by using SAT scores as a benchmark. It uses the term “bonus” to describe how many extra SAT points an applicant's race is worth.
She points to the first column. African Americans received a “bonus” of 230 points, Lee says.
She points to the second column. “Hispanics received a bonus of 185 points.”
The last column draws gasps. Asian Americans, Lee says, are penalized by 50 points — in other words, they had to do that much better to win admission.
“Do Asians need higher test scores? Is it harder for Asians to get into college? The answer is yes,” Lee says.
A core tenet of the American philosophy, even from before the days of the Founding Fathers, is that through hard work and excellence one should be able to obtain success in life. But is this ideal even possible when certain underachieving groups are given artificial advantages, while those with the most merit are artificially held back?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Monday March 02 2015, @10:43AM
Sounds logic, but shouldn't stop there. Next question should be, *why* do they have worse grades? I don't believe in intellectual superiority of one ethnic above another. If some ethnics live on average in worse conditions, these conditions have to be changed. If the worse grades are caused by racist teachers, the bonus points might actually be a workaround (the solution would be to educate racist teachers).
Another approach would be to check the current dropout-rate of different ethnics and check them against their bonus-points. Are the dropout-rates of blacks or hispanics actually higher? Or do they compensate worse previous grades somehow? (And before any white guy feels discriminated now: I'm not per se assuming they'd be more diligent; just there might be a chance growing up in a worse condition might make them fight harder to get our of these.)
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday March 02 2015, @07:52PM
Next question should be, *why* do they have worse grades?
Yes, lets have that discussion. It would be a very productive one if it were actually allowed to take place. But it has no place in THIS discussion.
Reality is what IS, not what shoulda, coulda, oughta be. Reality is that a university faces vast differences in test scores with very painfully observable differences by race, class, etc. They have policy decisions to make, and are currently making pretty much the worst one possible, to discriminate based on race and do do it long enough they have a track record proving it harms the very people they claim they want to help. Putting students in courses with people who scored hundreds of points higher on the SAT is a sure fire way to cause them to fail and drop out. Those students almost certainly could have done fine in less rigorous programs. Pretty much the only logical conclusion to be drawn from the actual practice is that it isn't done for the benefit of the students, it is done for the feels of the SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION. So they can feel good about their social justice credentials, give themselves gaudy awards, and keep Al Sharpton from staging riots.
I don't believe in intellectual superiority of one ethnic above another.
I know it is accepted as Holy Writ and everyone is expected to mouth the platitude, what in the name of Science leads you to think it is actually so?
Human Biological Diversity. Google it. Humans vary in almost every other way, it is irrational and silly to think that the one way we are exactly the same (taken only on large scale population ratings, everyone agrees we vary as individuals) on a racial basis is in the brain. Of course we have statistical variation by race in things mental. We know some groups exhibit more or less ability in different intellectual tasks. We aren't permitted to apply the methods of Science to ask meaningful questions in this area, but some of the variations are pretty obvious.
Remember, if we want[1] to "Celebrate Diversity" it means there needs to be diversity. Not just in genitalia, skin pigmentation and other unimportant things. We are unique among the animals for our minds, if we all think (or are forced to by PC) exactly alike there isn't any diversity to celebrate.
Are the dropout-rates of blacks or hispanics actually higher?
They are. Much higher. Criminally higher.
[1] And we do. A civilization that can successfully harness the power of diversity has very measurable advantages vs those who can't. Because NOBODY is best at everything. Success at any task is easier when division of labor can be draw from as varied a pool as possible.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday March 02 2015, @08:13PM
Racist teachers could certainly be a factor in why minority students have worse GPAs, but it seems a bit unlikely when many minority students come from school districts where they are in fact the majority. Why would a white racist teacher go teach school in an inner-city school that's all black? Of course, for minority students coming from schools where they are in fact minorities, this could be a factor.
However, this article is about SAT tests. These are totally color-blind. They're not related to high-school GPAs in any way; they're a standardized test that you take (usually in a totally different location, at least that's how it was when I was in school) and are graded by machine, except for the essay part. And even that might be difficult to be racist with because surely they don't let the graders see the names of the students as that would obviously bias them.
The appalling thing here is that it's Asians, who are themselves a minority, and a smaller one than blacks and Hispanics, which are being given the worst treatment here. I really don't see how this can be justified without a completely racist argument.