On face value this system seems fair, the most capable students get accepted, regardless of ethnicity or race.
The problem with this is that a lot of students from disadvantaged minorities don't get the same opportunities growing up. They might be just as capable as non-disadvantaged students, but get worse grades because they had to work after school to help pay the bills, or didn't have internet access at home, or a variety of other reasons.
This is why in some systems, there is a different entry stream for minorities. It's been a while since I applied to university, but I believe that in New Zealand for subjects that have a grade cutoff for entry, Maori (indigenous) students have a lower cutoff for entry to account for this.
Of course, this is a blunt instrument in affirmative action. There are plenty of Maori kids who grew up in a middle class environment who are no worse off than white kids, but still get the same affirmative action as poor Maori kids, and there's white people who get left out because they grew up in a disadvantaged environment.
If you could come up with a model that works better than just bluntly delineating by race, that would be great. But it's hard to factor for every variable. Maybe you could base it on the median income for the zipcode of the school that the student went to, but then you'll be fooled by creative accounting and wealthy families sending their kids to poor schools.
> If you could come up with a model that works better than just bluntly delineating by race, that would be great.
Uhm, don't delineate by race. Trying to fix this by forcing equality of outcome is akin to trying to manage your resources in a 'planned' economy, you will always do more damage then good.
If you have the money to spend, then spend it by fighting poverty, pull more people into the middle class.
Even that would make little sense. Jeff Bezos' income is $0 (or maybe $1, can't remember) — you really think his kids would be disadvantaged tho? That just massively incentivizes financial trickery in order to reduce stated incomes.
For example if I were a parent I would just give all my money to my siblings with the understanding that they provide it to my kids under my management, state my income as $0 or even negative, and watch my kids' college acceptance letters roll in.
It's impossible to use finances as an admissions variable because finances are already so heavily gamed by modern accounting practices.
Meanwhile Harvard keeps being racist AF. Don't they know about Goodwins law!?!? Lol
Yes it's better but still so gameable it's essentially unusable. Also if you factor in assets reported to the IRS it would be damn near impossible not to be biased towards kids whose families have more assets and thus higher chances of contributing to your university's endowment via donations.
I guess it depends what the priorities are. Are they trying to increase the university endowment, increase diversity, teach bright students, run a winning college sports team, etc.
I Dunno dude we were talking about fairness in admissions and now you're talking about the goals of colleges. I agree different colleges have different goals. I'm just saying that taking finances into consideration is so gameable that it shouldn't be a factor in a fair admissions process.
The problem with this is that a lot of students from disadvantaged minorities don't get the same opportunities growing up. They might be just as capable as non-disadvantaged students, but get worse grades because they had to work after school to help pay the bills, or didn't have internet access at home, or a variety of other reasons.
This is why in some systems, there is a different entry stream for minorities. It's been a while since I applied to university, but I believe that in New Zealand for subjects that have a grade cutoff for entry, Maori (indigenous) students have a lower cutoff for entry to account for this.
Of course, this is a blunt instrument in affirmative action. There are plenty of Maori kids who grew up in a middle class environment who are no worse off than white kids, but still get the same affirmative action as poor Maori kids, and there's white people who get left out because they grew up in a disadvantaged environment.
If you could come up with a model that works better than just bluntly delineating by race, that would be great. But it's hard to factor for every variable. Maybe you could base it on the median income for the zipcode of the school that the student went to, but then you'll be fooled by creative accounting and wealthy families sending their kids to poor schools.