Asian Versus Black SAT Scores Discrimination at Williams
https://campusquest.blogspot.com/2018/12/asian-versus-black-sat-scores.html
12/12/2018
Asian Versus Black SAT Scores
Posted by David Dudley Field '25 under Michael McPherson, URM Admissions Tue 4 Apr 2017
http://ephblog.com/2017/04/04/asian-versus-black-sat-scores/
Notes that at Williams SAT score range there are actually more Asians than whites in SAT pool but whites still outnumber Asian 4 to 1, suggests affirmative action and hidden quota may act against asians,
commenter notes seeing a lot of perfect students who are turned down and some say those may be asians.
claim - graduation rates for blacks same as other groups - but not true. Over 90% for all groups but big gap is in the failure rate which is usually 2 to 3 times for any college with an affirmative action program regardless of overall graduation rate
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https://campusquest.blogspot.com/2018/12/asian-versus-black-sat-scores.html
12/12/2018
Asian Versus Black SAT Scores
Posted by David Dudley Field '25 under Michael McPherson, URM Admissions Tue 4 Apr 2017
http://ephblog.com/2017/04/04/asian-versus-black-sat-scores/
Notes that at Williams SAT score range there are actually more Asians than whites in SAT pool but whites still outnumber Asian 4 to 1, suggests affirmative action and hidden quota may act against asians,
commenter notes seeing a lot of perfect students who are turned down and some say those may be asians.
claim - graduation rates for blacks same as other groups - but not true. Over 90% for all groups but big gap is in the failure rate which is usually 2 to 3 times for any college with an affirmative action program regardless of overall graduation rate
WA: I haven’t dived in this data in a while, but I believe that this is accurate.
6-year failure to graduate rate:
white: 3.9%
Asian: 3.2%
black: 9.3%
Here is paper one commenter who is white but sympathizes with asians:white: 3.9%
Asian: 3.2%
black: 9.3%
says:
Here’s part of an essay I wrote in my freshman year sociology class about discrimination against Asians at Williams (for what it’s worth, I’m a white male). It’s a wall of text so feel free to skim, but it is worth noting how often this issue is discussed.
My school’s college counseling office offered a service called Naviance, which created scatter plots of a given college’s past acceptances and rejections, respectively represented by green and red dots distributed over a graph whose y-axis was GPA and x-axis SAT scores. First observing Naviance graphs, I was baffled to see red dots in the upper-right corner of Williams’ graph, representing rejected students with 2400 SAT scores and valedictorian-caliber grades. My college counselor offered a simple explanation: those were Asian students.
It is hardly a question of whether or not this raised standard exists; the evidence suggesting so goes beyond the mountains of anecdotes. Thomas Espenshade, sociology professor emeritus at Princeton, found that, on average, Asian students would need an SAT score 140 points higher than their white counterparts for a similar chance of admission to a given college; a margin of 140 points can be the difference between the 50th and 66th percentile (Espenshade et. al., 2004). This is a confusing reality, for Williams puts forth an image that is non-discriminatory and prides itself on embracing the best students from all income levels. On Williams’ admission website, a non-discrimination statement is prominently featured, claiming that the college does not discriminate based on race: “Williams does not discriminate in admission, employment, or administration of its programs and activities on the basis of race” (Williams College Admissions). Williams is quick to boast about its diversity in admissions materials and campus tours, again suggesting anything but discriminatory admissions policies. To understand this reality, it is critical to investigate the changing landscape of diversity at American colleges.
Williams has a legacy that is white, male, and elitist: the college did not become coeducational until 1970 and it is widely known that the school maintained a policy of racial segregation after its founding (Phelps, 1888). College applicants no longer hail from strictly white and privileged backgrounds: women and minorities are applying to college today at rates greater than ever in the past. Therefore, it has become essential to the college’s future to shake its historical reputation of elitism, sexism and racism. In a globalized, post-civil rights movement era, many college applicants are more socially conscious and more eager to learn in a diverse environment than their peers throughout history. More and more students want to connect with peers from diverse backgrounds: there is a perceived value in being exposed to a wide array of cultures so that a student can become more “worldly”. Prospective college students are increasingly averse to schools with reputations for favoring the elite and wealthy: such “preppiness” is derogatory.
College admissions officers at Williams appear to understand this trend of averseness to white elitism amongst college applicants. To suggest diversity and non-elitism, an increasingly prominent metric advertised in college admissions booklets is the racial composition of the student body. On the first page of the current Williams’ admissions booklet, a breakdown of the student body’s racial composition is found, while about five years ago this same chart was on the fifth page, and fifteen years ago was absent (Williams College Admissions). In photos prominently placed in Williams’ admissions materials and website, there are consistently images depicting a happy, racially-integrated community. As a bonus of this diversity, Williams is able to write to its alums about how progressive and inclusive their college is. In a preface to the Class of 1990’s twenty-fifth reunion book, President Falk is quick to cite the school’s increasingly diverse community, which likely helps the college garner larger, feel-good donations from alumni. Williams is going out of its way to achieve certain diversity statistics and put forth an image of diversity and inclusivity, and for good reason: the college reaps rewards through the students it attracts, reputation it puts forth, and donations it earns.
Does this emphasis on diversity in Williams’ admissions account for Asians experiencing disadvantages in the admissions process? Taking what the college claims at face value, one would assume this is not the case: Williams explicitly claims to not have racial biases and instead states that they consider socioeconomic status in their pursuit of diversity. For instance, in press releases regarding incoming classes, admissions officers tend to brag about having created a “socioeconomically” diverse group of students. Dick Nesbitt, head of admissions at Williams, said of the Class of 2019, “We are especially gratified by the socioeconomic diversity represented in the Early Decision group, a direct result of the success of two expanded fall fly-in programs for high-ability, low-income students” (Williams College). However, this is not entirely forthright. The program Nesbitt refers to, called Windows on Williams, is not targeting low-income students: it targets non-Asian minorities. In the application for Windows on Williams, one of the requisites is being “a traditionally underrepresented minority” such as African-American, Native Hawaiian, Native American, or Hispanic, but not Asian. And, observing Windows on Williams occur on a weekend in September, it was apparent that the program had recruited mostly blacks and hispanics. Furthermore, some peers who participated in the program claimed that their families have no problem paying full tuition. If the program was truly trying to create a socioeconomically diverse class, as the press release suggests, one would expect for there to be low-income students of all races present. This was not the case: race appears to have been the determining factor.
It feels unlikely that Williams has embraced racial diversity entirely by its own accord, calling attention to the social forces that put a racial emphasis on diversity. Although diversity does not refer to race by definition, race appears to be associated with diversity more frequently than any other variable. Group photos on facebook showing a sports team that is racially homogenous, such as a skiing or rowing team, will occasionally receive sarcastic comments like, “What great diversity!”. A Google image search of the term “diversity” does not show people of varying ages and ethnicities dressed in their cultural garb, but photos of clasped hands where the only thing diverse is skin color. Considerations of a group’s varying nationalities, income levels, and personal experiences apparently fall second to race in judgements of diversity. With a definition of diversity hinging on race, it is not surprising that Asians are discriminated against. Asians are applying to top colleges in record numbers and with greater qualifications than any other group, so racial discrimination is necessary to create that front-and-center graphic in the admissions booklet boasting a racially balanced student body. This reality is also why there is no graphic to be found showing the student body’s family income distribution: students are more concerned about race demographics. If low-income families were favored and race was not considered, American colleges would be considerably more Asian, and when prospective students would visit campus and see a plurality of Asians, they would leave with the impression that the school lacks diversity even if many of those Asian students hailed from low-income families, because American youth seem to equate diversity with equal representation of many races. This precise phenomenon is seen at UCLA, a part of the California university system, which has been specifically regulated to not consider race in their admissions and has a student body that is 33.5% Asian, compared to Williams at 13% (UCLA). Sure enough, students complain about the lack of “diversity” at UCLA, joking that the school’s initials stand for “U C Lots of Asians”, and searching UCLA on Urban Dictionary yields the definition, “University of Caucasians Lost amongst Asians”. Students disdainfully equate this high proportion of Asians to a lack of diversity in discussions on online forums.
Essentially, colleges appear to be put into a position by the nature of today’s college applicant where they must be racially biased in their admissions policies but at the same time deny such biases. To admit to holding Asians to a higher standard would be akin to admitting racial discrimination, which would cause criticism, lawsuits, and possibly loss of federal funding. But this does not make the process any more fair to Asians. In terms of socioeconomic diversity, the perspectives and experiences offered by Asians add an important dimension to college life and enhance the student body just as any other student would. Asian college applicants often hail from low-income immigrant families who left behind poverty in Asia and faced racism and cultural challenges in their assimilation to America, learning a foreign language among those challenges. Something more than a distaste for a lack of racial diversity is perhaps fueling this discrimination against students who have the potential to contribute greatly to the cultural and economic diversity of a college. Beyond an aversion to a racially homogeneous student body, what else makes college applicants less attracted to a high percentage of Asians in a student body?
The discrepancy in treatment Asians experience in admission to Williams is likely fueled by the differing levels of sympathy that Americans feel towards Asians versus other minorities. Americans are quite cognisant of their society’s historic and ongoing mistreatment of blacks — the narrative of American history taught in high schools is one of overcoming slavery and its ongoing legacy. Much less attention is paid to Japanese internment camps during World War II or how today Asians are stereotyped as stoic, anti-fun people whose best role is to sit in front of a computer or crunch numbers. Indeed, when “Why are asians” is typed into a google search field, the auto-fill top-hit is “Why are Asians so smart”. While they are historically mistreated and presently stereotyped just like other minorities in America, because they are stereotyped as hardworking and bright, promoting their enrollment in American colleges does not qualify as “diversity”, even if they hail from a background just as adverse as another minority. It is true that, on a national scale, Asians as a demographic are doing quite well. They above and beyond have the highest annual income of any racial group in the United States, at $68,636, compared to whites at $57,009 and blacks $33,321, as well as the highest high school graduation rate (Perlberg, 2013; Bidwell, 2015). Generalizations about Asians’ success as a demographic, therefore, do not help increase sympathy by any means. But, of course, the success of the demographic does not mean that there are not Asians hailing from low-income or otherwise disadvantaged backgrounds. As articulated by Lipsitz, “Aggregate figures can obscure serious differences within racial groups… The experiences of members of minority groups are not interchangeable” (Lipsitz, 383). The vast and valuable range of experiences among Asians is reduced by American stereotypes, and because college admissions officers understand these stereotypes and how prospective students will view their institution if they admit Asians with the same standard as whites, they tend to act accordingly.
What are the implications of this apparent discrimination for Asians in America? For one, it sets a precedent of discrimination in what should ideally be one of the more meritocratic aspects of American society — if colleges discriminate against Asians, it is entirely conceivable an employer may do the same. Further, by admitting only the most exceptionally qualified Asian applicants, American students who come to college will have their “smart-Asian” stereotype reinforced, as they will be exposed to “average” Asians with much less frequency than would be truly representative of the Asian population in America.
ue 4 Apr 2017
This Brookings Report highlights the continuing gaps in performance on the SAT and similar IQ tests among racial groups. Former Economics Professor Mike McPherson also gets a mention. Key chart:
Several Ephs tweeted out a link to the related New York Times story:
“Race gaps on the SATs are especially pronounced at the tails of the distribution,” the two authors note. In math, for example,among top scorers — those scoring between a 750 and 800 — 60 percent are Asian and 33 percent are white, compared to 5 percent Latino and 2 percent black. Meanwhile, among those scoring between 300 and 350, 37 percent are Latino, 35 percent are black, 21 percent are white, and 6 percent are Asian.Translating those percentages into concrete numbers, Reeves and Halikias estimate thatin the entire country last year at most 2,200 black and 4,900 Latino test-takers scored above a 700. In comparison, roughly 48,000 whites and 52,800 Asians scored that high. The same absolute disparity persists among the highest scorers: 16,000 whites and 29,570 Asians scored above a 750, compared to only at most 1,000 blacks and 2,400 Latinos.
There should be a way to combine this data with what we know about college admissions and applicant preferences to get a more up-to-date estimate of racial distribution of SAT scores at Williams. Start with the latest available Common Data Set (pdf):
Full analysis left as an exercise for the reader! Comments:
1) About 2/3s of Williams students score above a 1400 combined. Speaking very roughly (and using hand-waving as my statistical estimation method of choice), whites and Asian Americans have about the same raw numbers in this pool. (There are, of course, many more white than Asian 17 year-olds in the US, but the whites do much worse on the SATs (and most other IQ tests)). So, why is the ratio of whites to Asians among Williams students almost 4:1? This suggests that Williams might discriminate against Asian-Americans in admissions. Now, there are many other plausible explanations other than discrimination which might explain this, mainly involving student/family preferences. But there is an interesting Record article (or senior thesis!) to write about this topic.
2) The ratio of Asian-Americans (74) to African-Americans (43) in the class of 2020 is not quite 2:1. But the ratio of students with Williams caliber SAT scores between these two groups is at least 20:1. The only thing that could possibly explain this discrepancy is massive preferences for African-Americans (relative to Asian-Americans) in Williams admissions. Taking another hand-waving guess, I would estimate that at least 70 of the Asian-Americans scored higher on the SAT/ACT than at least 40 of the African-Americans. In other words, the two distributions probably have almost no overlap, looking something like:
That couldn’t cause any problems on campus, could it? Below is an example of the sorts of “conversations” that students with radically different SAT scores have at Williams.
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white: 3.9%
Asian: 3.2%
black: 9.3%
The comments by the individual about black incarceration rates,black pregnancy, etc don’t merit a response.There is a problem with teen pregnancy in every race.The prison population is not all black or Hispanic,but includes white people as well.