Matt Matejcek, Daily Nexus (UC Santa Barbara), April 8, 2009
A new UC admissions policy meant to increase diversity has prompted backlash from some who charge that the changes give an unfair advantage to white applicants at the expense of prospective Asian-American students.
Starting in 2012, the University will no longer consider applicants’ scores on the SAT II Subject Tests. The change, which would shift the focus to the SAT I Reasoning Test, was made in an attempt to broaden student eligibility university officials said. However, evidence from the National Center for Fair and Open Testing has shown that Asian-Americans generally outperform other groups on the SAT II while white students do better on the SAT, thus creating a potential disadvantage for the former.
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The 2009 California Postsecondary Education Commission eligibility study predicts a drop in the percentage of Asian-American students accepted into the UC system from 36 to 29 percent. It also forecasts a rise for white applicants’ acceptance from 34 to 44 percent. The changes estimated for black and Latino applicants admitted were both within one percent.
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In response to concerns over the implications of this new policy, Chancellor Henry T. Yang has stated that the intent of the change is to promote diverse access to the leading public university.
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Ada Marie Sison, a first-year student at UCSB, said she is concerned about the new and troubling questions raised by the findings of the eligibility study.
“It’s a bit discouraging to hear,” Sison said. “If you’re going to tinker with one SAT test, you should tinker with them both. Maybe create one whole new test altogether. This policy change just makes me feel like there won’t be an even playing field for the upcoming 2012 applicants.”
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Original article
(Posted on April 8, 2009)
Matt Krupnick, San Jose Mercury News, March 31, 20099
The University of California on Tuesday fended off growing criticism of its new admissions standards, telling state lawmakers it would help poor and minority students get a college education.
Hounded by Asian-American legislators and community groups since adopting the changes in February, university officials told a legislative panel the reforms would open the university to thousands of students who are not eligible now.
The university has estimated that nearly 4,000 more Asian-American and Pacific islander students would have had their applications considered this year under the new policy, which takes effect in 2012.
That increase compares to about 1,800 more black students, 7,500 more Latinos and 15,000 more whites.
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Lawmakers and Asian-American groups repeated their criticism that the university should have sought much more public input before approving the change.
The university should rescind the reforms until more data is available, particularly on the possible effects on Asian-American and Pacific islander applicants, state lawmakers said at the legislative hearing in Sacramento.
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Tuesday’s hearing was the latest evidence of growing discontent with the university among Asian-Americans. At a San Francisco conference last week, several legislators, educators and community leaders also called for the changes to be rolled back.
The UC Board of Regents in February approved a proposal to remove the SAT subject test as a requirement, although the SAT reasoning test will remain a prerequisite.
Supporters of the reforms have said the subject tests prevent poor and minority students from applying. Asian-American applicants tend to perform well on those tests, critics say.
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UC leaders on Tuesday reiterated their intention to go ahead with the changes in 2012.
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The debate has illuminated the diversity of countries and views represented among California’s Asian population.
Although Chinese, Korean and Japanese students are well-represented on UC campuses, Pacific islanders and southeast Asians—many of whom live in poverty—are not.
The Sacramento hearing illustrated the confusion surrounding the new requirements. After one legislator cited estimates released by the university, Rashid said there was no way to predict how the standards would affect different ethnic groups.
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Original article
Comments
Some interesting facts.
SAT scores by race
ACT scores by Racehttp://www.blackexcel.org/06-sat-act-scores-by-race-ethnicity.htm
SAT-IQ translation by race
The gap between Whites-Asians is 4 points while the gap between Blacks and Whites is 22 points…
On a similar note-colleges proposed to remedy the shortage of male students by putting more weight onto the SATs a while back too. The same situation here.
Good for the Asians! If you’re going to support a truly blind application system, then it has to be across-the-board, whether Whites always come out on top or not.
By the same token, they can’t just use the math and science scores, and act like the verbal and reading scores are meaningless.
The problem isn’t too many scores and tests, it’s too few that are required/reported, allowing certain groups to cherry-pick those most favorable and claim that nothing else matters.
A new UC admissions policy meant to increase diversity has prompted backlash from some who charge that the changes give an unfair advantage to white applicants at the expense of prospective Asian-American students.
Translation: Prospective non-white college students, in this case “Asian-Americans”, get a taste of the hoops their fellow white prospectives must go through for being phenotypically dissimilar to the “chosen classes” and (no surprise) complain.
However, evidence from the National Center for Fair and Open Testing has shown that Asian-Americans generally outperform other groups on the SAT II while white students do better on the SAT, thus creating a potential disadvantage for the former.
Notice how the “disadvantage” only occurs when “Asian”-American students perform lower on the SAT tests compared to whites , yet their clear advantage in the SAT II tests are ignored ?
Blacks are better at sports than whites …but we need more “diversity” in hockey, swimming, golf… Hey, that hurts!
Yes, another example overall of how non-whites really don’t like a taste of what whites go through.
Although Chinese, Korean and Japanese students are well-represented on UC campuses, Pacific islanders and southeast Asians—many of whom live in poverty—are not.
As a sidenote to this comment, I must note that the grouping of East Asians, South-East Asians and Pacific Islanders as “Asian” by the U.S. government is as ridiculous as grouping Northern Europeans, North African, Central Asians etc as “white” (which they do as well).
Asians don’t care about what’s fair, they only want more for their own group. Having Asians take over our universities is bad for whites, therefor we must oppose it. “Is it good for whites” is how we must determine if something is right or wrong. That is the logic that every other group, including Asians, already uses. White people need to get over this idea that we need fairness for everyone. No other race is willing to reciprocate with us on that.
Asians are all for affirmative action and college selection criteria that benefit them, but when rule changes prefer some other group, especially American born citizens, they scream. A huge number of Asians in California have simply parachuted into our state to get a high quality education at little or no expense. They crowd all the professional and engineering majors, and then form little discriminatory enclaves in the private sector after they graduate.
Asians didn’t found or build UC, yet the children of California whose families have been here for generations, whose taxes over the decades have built this institution, are supposed to step aside. Forget it. The SAT subject tests favor kids who go through Korean style cram schools, not necessarily the most intelligent or creative kids. SAT I does a better job of flagging the best and brightest.
It’s time to get past the positive stereotypes of Asians. They value education for its cash-dollar value, not because they believe in the need for a well educated citizenry for a more just, democratic society. And they have no qualms about breaking rules to get free public goodies. Not only are there a huge number of illegal Asians in the UC system, there are huge numbers of Chinese parents using the homes of their friends as mail drops, or claiming residency in garages and tool sheds, to send their kids to good schools they do not support with taxes. That is theft of taxpayers services. And Chinese stay closely connected to their culture - and in a moments notice, will pick up and move to another country if they feel like there are better opportunities.
So why should we invest in education for global gypsies who feel absolutely not loyalty to this country, whether they come here legally or not?
Since whites are a minority in CA, shouldn’t they get the minority preferences? I mean, are we going to be consistent?
The US educational was or were tiered in accordance with inherent intellectual capabilites not by race. The UC system was for the most intellectual advanced to be taught by a superior faculty. Now kids are being admitted where they would be better elsewhere perhaps at a junior or state college or even at a high school level. The magical thinking is that when these less than capable kids are admitted to schools where they do not belong, they will magically be transformed to a higher intellectual level. This is the same kind of magical thinking started in the 60’s to integrate blacks into white schools which deteriorated the US educational system to its present level. If the true Asians (not Pacific Islanders/southeast asians) should be placed in a superior/higher academic setting, why should they be held back by playing around with the rules? The bar is raised for true Asians but lowered for blacks and hispanics. How does this truly benefit society other than making some people feel good? The holy grail for some US educational officials is to close the racial learning gap which is impossible unless all the racial genes are lowered to the level of blacks and hispanics. All of humanity will then suffer. Hopefully, some brave souls will speak up and take some action before that catastrophe happens. The white race needs to regain the majority status before this country completely disappears. Of course, the break down of this country has been planned since the beginning of this century.
Obscuratus writes:
“As a sidenote to this comment, I must note that the grouping of East Asians, South-East Asians and Pacific Islanders as “Asian” by the U.S. government is as ridiculous as grouping Northern Europeans, North African, Central Asians etc as “white” (which they do as well).”
Exactly so, which is why the meaningless, one-size-fits-all PC buzzword “Asians” has been foisted upon us in lieu of the more precise term “Orientals.” “Asians” is supposed to include everyone from Pakistanis to Koreans, people who obviously have little to nothing in common, racially. Asia is a geographical location — and a very large one — not a racial descriptor. By this “logic,” one could just as well classify Russians as “Asians.”
We should be speaking of Orientals and Polynesians , not “Asians.” The purpose of “Asians” is to obscure, not to clarify.
Two points I’d like to make: First, why didn’t the “Asians” complain when black and Hispanic students were given an advantage? Also, considering that “Asians” are only about 4% of the U.S. population, well, couldn’t one say that they are overrepresented, and therefore the playing field has to be leveled? Maybe this is one instance where European-Americans actually benefit from the diversity fanatics.
Ironically, the best thing that could happen to prospective UC students is that they get turned down for admission. UC is a mafia criminal organization that perpetuates itself with propaganda designed to cover the fact that UC campuses are nothing more than taxpayer-supported campgrounds for overpaid, underachieving PhD academic prostitutes. I predict gross lack of accountability will eventually shock the world when the $100billion UC retirement fund is discovered to be another ponzi scheme. UC is for whores and wannabe whores.
“Asians don’t care about what’s fair, they only want more for their own group.”
If that were really the case, then I doubt UC Chancellor Yang would be defending the new policy. But he is. So maybe you’re mistaken?
“I predict gross lack of accountability will eventually shock the world when the $100billion UC retirement fund is discovered to be another ponzi scheme.”
Unfortunately that’s already the case with Calstrs and Calpers:
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/03/calipersnication.html
“CalPERS had $173.6 billion in total assets at March 26, which represents a loss of 26.6% after costs between July 1, 2008 and January 31, 2009. The full January 31 CalPERS asset summary can be found here. Additionally, CalPERS seems to be suffering from the book-to-market marking syphilis that is pervasive throughout Wall Street: book value of CalPERS’ assets was $194.9 billion at January 31, a non-trivial $21.3 billion overestimation of its market value. “
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/04/calistrsnication.html
Seeing how some of the major names in the $37 billion PE portfolio are the who’s who of private equity firms getting majorly washed on the 2005-2007 LBO wave, it is no wonder that CalSTRS is using the same generic J-curve excuse and “long-term” IRR calculations to avoid the interim fluctuations that CalPERS uses.
“considering that “Asians” are only about 4% of the U.S. population, well, couldn’t one say that they are overrepresented, and therefore the playing field has to be leveled? Maybe this is one instance where European-Americans actually benefit from the diversity fanatics.”
This happened in the 1920’s also. Jews were filling up colleges in the big eastern schools, yet they were only a small segment of the overall population. Some schools (some of them) went as far as to have a quota on the number of Jews they would admit.
The thing is, 50 years later, and for the last 50 years since, these same past policies are used as proof of discrimination, white evil, and as a rational for affirmative action programs they use.
Conceivably (just going by history) 50 years from now, if whites are still around, there could be anti-white affirmative action in place, to make up for the evil policies white racists inflicted in 2008.
I am a Korean man in Canada and even if the same policy gets applied in Canada I still could not care less. If you do well, you will get to wherever you want.
And moreover, in my area of study, the GPA or what school you came from does not matter. When you submit your resumes, the school or GPA is one of the least of the employers’ concerns. If you can do what the employers look for, you will get the job. If you can’t do what the employers look for, you won’t get the job. It is as easy as that.
(one more thing it really helps in this industry: connections)
A riddle for AmRen members:
What do Michael Dell, Larry Ellison(CEO of Oracle), Bill Gates, Steve Jobs(iPod daddy) Paul Allen have in common?
Answer:
None of them have a college degree.
“Maybe this is one instance where European-Americans actually benefit from the diversity fanatics.”
This strangely happened in San Francisco. Following San Francisco NAACP v. San Francisco Unified School District, the school district gave a 4 point (out of 69) advantage to white students in admissions to the city’s select high school.
All the people here complaining about fairness should just shut up. The truth is that we now live in a country that operates as a racial spoils system, so its time to start fighting for our own. Which system is best? I used to answer that by saying “that which creates the most good for the greatest number. No other race believes that, though, so I now answer by saying “that system which gives the most to whites.”
If the worst thing you can claim about a group of people (Koreans, Chinese, Japanese) is that they drive their kids too hard to achieve academically, or that they are overrepresented in higher education, this group of people is not a problem. East-Asians are a minuscule proportion of the population and probably have the same TFR as whites. Whether one wants to admit it or not, their culture is meritocratic and shame plays a huge role in behavior. Meaning if one member of their community does something wrong, the whole community feels shame and will pressure that person to stop doing wrong. Can you say that about blacks or Hispanics? Perhaps I’m idealizing East-Asians but its unfair to complain about them in the same breath as complaining about the blacks. There is NO comparing the two.
Okay. Let us raise the bar (but only for Asians).
Does anyone here honestly believe that Asians are not up to the challenge?
So, what will be the eventual outcome of raising the bar only on them? They will try to rise to the challenge, and maybe more of them will fail, but for the few that do make it, they just may be a little smarter than the rest; collegiately, they just may do better than the rest; they just may graduate more than the rest; they just may make more than the rest; they just may save more than the rest. Does this help the situation?
Thank you for listening.
I read both articles in full, but saw no mention of what these new tests are about. Are they essay exams, where you are given a topic out of the blue and have to explain your views on it, in good, clear English paragraphs? Pen and paper with no electronic assistance? I’ve taken those in the old days, and you had better have a broad understanding of your subject if you expect to do well. They’re harder to grade, but harder to scam.
It’s not a matter of raising the bar, but only for Orientals. Are Orientals the only ones who have to take the test? It’s a matter of raising the bar for everyone in an aspect of mental ability that Orientals are relatively weak in. It’s like having a test of brute strength to become a fireman. It’s the same test for everyone, but men have an advantage over women, and Whites and Blacks will have a smaller advantage over Mexicans and Orientals, due to relative size.
Not mentioned in all of this is the fact that the for the last two decades the UC system has done its best to shuttle qualified whites away from their first choice in the UC system, making them have to settle for their second or third choices.
Asians duly complain about certain types of tests. When I was at UCLA the Asians would literally go bonkers if a biology professor would decide he wanted an essay exam instead of a multiple choice test. Few people realize our educational system at its core rewards rote learning, memorization. Of course you must have an understanding of a subject to get through it, but actually writing about it shows another layer of understanding, of depth.
“Of course you must have an understanding of a subject to get through it, but actually writing about it shows another layer of understanding, of depth.”
