MCATs, Affirmative Action, and DEI, Oh My

[Gospel]

My two cents' worth: I remain of the opinion that it's happening because of the specific circumstances of the thread -- its origin in the flap over Arday at Cambridge. Somebody brought up MCATs in the Arday thread; that's why we have an MCAT thread in the first place. People brought up MCATs because they thought it was relevant, and they thought it was relevant because the AAMC publishes data that implies there's a lot of AA on behalf of black people going on, so somebody cited it.

The people who brought up MCATs because they thought it was relevant were, as I pointed out in that thread, flat out wrong.

US medical school admissions are completely irrelevant to Cambridge University's postgraduate hiring practices.

Different legal jurisdictions with different rules, customs, practices and histories, in which different institutions doing different things hire different people for different purposes to different ends? There's no relevance at all.

Oh, and Sociology of Language is, I suspect, not a very closely related discipline to Medicine.

People here started talking about MCATs because they are Americans, and are familiar with MCATs (or at least with the US practice of administering standardised tests for college* admissions), and unfamiliar with literally everything about Cambridge University. So rather than discuss the case at hand, they flew off on an irrelevant tangent that had the sole merit of not being a complete mystery to them.

From my own perspective, in which US practices and testing systems are the alien topic, and the bizarre customs and practices of Cambridge University are, if not sensible, at least familiar (both my father and brother went to Cambridge, and my father remains a Fellow at Christ's), this diversion into the completely unrelated US way of doing things seems truly pointless.

The only** link I can discern between the Arday case and MCAT is the hobbyhorse topic of alleged bias against what the (allegedly fictional) American Socialist White People's Party described as "decent, law-abiding white folk, just like you".








* Even the word "college" means a different thing in the US to what it means in the UK, and within the UK means a different thing in relation to Cambridge University than it means in relation to the wider education system.

** Well, there's also the fact that my brother read Natural Sciences at King's, and that course is often abbreviated to "NatSci", which is a close homophone to "Nazi". Still, that's also a very tenuous link...

Ahh, so my derail callout was outside its jurisdiction. That explains a lot.

 

[Toni]

My two cents' worth: I remain of the opinion that it's happening because of the specific circumstances of the thread -- its origin in the flap over Arday at Cambridge. Somebody brought up MCATs in the Arday thread; that's why we have an MCAT thread in the first place. People brought up MCATs because they thought it was relevant, and they thought it was relevant because the AAMC publishes data that implies there's a lot of AA on behalf of black people going on, so somebody cited it.

The people who brought up MCATs because they thought it was relevant were, as I pointed out in that thread, flat out wrong.

US medical school admissions are completely irrelevant to Cambridge University's postgraduate hiring practices.

Different legal jurisdictions with different rules, customs, practices and histories, in which different institutions doing different things hire different people for different purposes to different ends? There's no relevance at all.

Oh, and Sociology of Language is, I suspect, not a very closely related discipline to Medicine.

People here started talking about MCATs because they are Americans, and are familiar with MCATs (or at least with the US practice of administering standardised tests for college* admissions), and unfamiliar with literally everything about Cambridge University. So rather than discuss the case at hand, they flew off on an irrelevant tangent that had the sole merit of not being a complete mystery to them.

From my own perspective, in which US practices and testing systems are the alien topic, and the bizarre customs and practices of Cambridge University are, if not sensible, at least familiar (both my father and brother went to Cambridge, and my father remains a Fellow at Christ's), this diversion into the completely unrelated US way of doing things seems truly pointless.

The only** link I can discern between the Arday case and MCAT is the hobbyhorse topic of alleged bias against what the (allegedly fictional) American Socialist White People's Party described as "decent, law-abiding white folk, just like you".








* Even the word "college" means a different thing in the US to what it means in the UK, and within the UK means a different thing in relation to Cambridge University than it means in relation to the wider education system.

** Well, there's also the fact that my brother read Natural Sciences at King's, and that course is often abbreviated to "NatSci", which is a close homophone to "Nazi". Still, that's also a very tenuous link...

For some people US medical school admissions is a symbol of woke and racism
against Asians. So any time a person of color ( not Asian) anywhere in the world has any issue related to academia or academic performance or admissions, it’s because of DEI Wokeness and the world is going to hell. Because lord knows a black man cannot possibly have earned his degree fairly.

 

[Elixir]

AI was used to screen his resume and approve his cover letter. It makes me wonder where is he in the whole process.

So where the heck are we headed?

When the AI bots start warring for supremacy, humans will be their unwitting pawns. Whether or not they are truly intelligent or aware is an interesting speculation, but not really even germane. The same systemic feature of competitive landscapes will cultivate the same behavioral features we see in ourselves.

 

[Politesse]

US medical school admissions are completely irrelevant to Cambridge University's postgraduate hiring practices.

Unless of course you believe all of those things are merely two tentacles of one massive, intercontinental conspiracy to displace the White race. Then it makes perfect sense to see them all as "somehow" connected.

 

[Bomb#20]

** Well, there's also the fact that my brother read Natural Sciences at King's, and that course is often abbreviated to "NatSci", which is a close homophone to "Nazi". Still, that's also a very tenuous link...[/SIZE]

Reminds me of that nature cruise in Alaska I went on. The ship biologist got a bee in her bonnet about the passengers talking about all the seagulls we kept seeing, and she was at pains to inform us we were wrong -- they were just gulls, Nazi gulls.

 

[Bomb#20]

Quite so. But by itself, pointing out additional criteria is utterly incapable of accounting for any systematic difference in odds of getting accepted between two students with the same scores but different ethnicities. To account for that, you'd also need a reason to think one ethnicity systematically does better on that criterion.
... Adding a random factor cannot cause a systematic discrepancy. ... To get an explanation, a counterargument, a material consideration, you need a nonrandom factor. You need to reply, "But they look at recommendation letters too, and Native Americans come with systematically better recommendation letters than Asians.". That last part is a vital component of any refutation of the racial discrimination hypothesis.

So you tell me. You posted a long list of additional criteria. Is there something on that list you think Native Americans do a lot better on than Asians?

Maybe GPA's can explain how one 509 MCATs is rejected over another. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Good hypothesis; and it certainly can in individual cases -- all other things equal, a 509 with straight A's is more likely to get accepted than a 509 with some B's. But when accounting for the overall statistics, we can check the AAMC data and find out if that's what's going on; it turns out the average GPA of Native Americans who get accepted is 3.64; Asians average 3.83.

(Source)

 

[Bomb#20]

Quite so. But by itself, pointing out additional criteria is utterly incapable of accounting for any systematic difference in odds of getting accepted between two students with the same scores but different ethnicities. To account for that, you'd also need a reason to think one ethnicity systematically does better on that criterion.
... You need to reply, "But they look at recommendation letters too, and Native Americans come with systematically better recommendation letters than Asians.". That last part is a vital component of any refutation of the racial discrimination hypothesis.

So you tell me. You posted a long list of additional criteria. Is there something on that list you think Native Americans do a lot better on than Asians?

Maybe GPA's can explain how one 509 MCATs is rejected over another. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Or interviews, resumes and letters of recommendation..

But merely listing other criteria doesn't explain a systematic disparity!! Merely listing race does!

You say that as if it's a gotcha, a proof of special-pleading. But I wasn't "merely listing" race -- I listed it, but I also supplied documentation showing people of one race needed systematically higher scores to get in than the other. If Toni can likewise supply documentation showing Native Americans systematically perform better in interviews than Asians, or have systematically better resumes or recommendation letters, that will put her on an equal footing -- she too will be doing more than merely listing other criteria. If she can do that it would instantly undermine the case for thinking racial discrimination is going on.

 

[Toni]

Quite so. But by itself, pointing out additional criteria is utterly incapable of accounting for any systematic difference in odds of getting accepted between two students with the same scores but different ethnicities. To account for that, you'd also need a reason to think one ethnicity systematically does better on that criterion.
... You need to reply, "But they look at recommendation letters too, and Native Americans come with systematically better recommendation letters than Asians.". That last part is a vital component of any refutation of the racial discrimination hypothesis.

So you tell me. You posted a long list of additional criteria. Is there something on that list you think Native Americans do a lot better on than Asians?

Maybe GPA's can explain how one 509 MCATs is rejected over another. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Or interviews, resumes and letters of recommendation..

But merely listing other criteria doesn't explain a systematic disparity!! Merely listing race does!

You say that as if it's a gotcha, a proof of special-pleading. But I wasn't "merely listing" race -- I listed it, but I also supplied documentation showing people of one race needed systematically higher scores to get in than the other. If Toni can likewise supply documentation showing Native Americans systematically perform better in interviews than Asians, or have systematically better resumes or recommendation letters, that will put her on an equal footing -- she too will be doing more than merely listing other criteria. If she can do that it would instantly undermine the case for thinking racial discrimination is going on.

No—you showed that Asian and white applicants had on average highest scores than other racial groups.

That’s not the same thing.

Plus it totally disregards any factor than GPA and MCAT score.

Also, do we know that each of these applicants are unique and only counted one time? Is applicant A counted 5 times if A applies to 5 schools? Is applicant B counted 15 times if they apply to 15 schools??

 

[Derec]

Unless of course you believe all of those things are merely two tentacles of one massive, intercontinental conspiracy to displace the White race. Then it makes perfect sense to see them all as "somehow" connected.

It doesn't have to be a "conspiracy", i.e. people somehow colluding. All that is needed is that people in charge of educational institutions on both sides of the pond believe that diversity and racial balancing is more important than individual merit. This is a common article of faith on the left.

 

[Bomb#20]

Job interviews often don't care as much about metrics (if at all), as much as personality, compatibility, and competence. Interviewers are often measuring intangibles, signs that they look for in a good match for employment. The graduation rates for medical students in spite of the MCAT is incredible. While some have spun 92% graduation rate for a relatively meager MCAT score as awful, 92% is empirically high, all things considered. Which implies the medical schools are looking for and finding the right attributes for medical school students even if the MCAT and/or GPA wasn't as shiny.

That's a bizarre inference. Graduation rates for med students were high in the 1950s too; do you think that implies the medical schools were looking for and finding the right attributes for medical school students back then? They were discriminating against black students! All a high grad rate means is they're good at excluding students who can't cut it.

Indeed, that was my point.

The Admissions boards are good at excluding students who can't cut their program and vindicates their selection process. Meaning that their admission standards, whatever they are, are "good" at admitting QUALIFIED students. This means that they are good at finding the attributes in applicants that suggest to the Admissions Board that any particular applicant can cut their program and graduate successfully, vindicating their admission standards.

Dude, you wrote to me. Why did you do that if you don't want to think about what I have to say? You're simply repeating yourself and not engaging at all with the counterargument. Your reasoning is flawed. The Admissions boards being good at excluding students who can't cut their program does not vindicate their selection process. Do you think that medical schools in the 1950s that also had high graduation rates and that openly refused to take black students had a vindicated selection process? That's a yes or no question.

Asians being admitted at high rates isn't a reason to think there isn't a thumb on the scale against them; Asians being admitted at high rates is precisely the reason schools put a thumb on the scale against them.

And my point is that your full of crap when you use the word "them". 45% to 50% acceptance rate indicates Asian medical school applicants are taken VERY seriously and to consider that admissions boards are discriminating "them" is just ignorant.

You are completely wrong; I have already explained at length why that reasoning is wrong; if you aren't good enough at math to understand the explanation we can go over it again or we can agree to disagree, your option. But if you think calling me ignorant and full of crap qualifies as a substantive mathematical argument, think again.

Congress passed a law against it in 1964, the Civil Rights Act: the same law that says you can't thumb the scale against black people says you can't thumb the scale against any ethnicity.

You must think I am incredibly dumb to not notice the difference between a Federal Law designed to stop a class of people from being segregated from White Society and Admissions Standards that look at each student's qualities, achievements, and potential individually regardless of race. The Civil Rights Act wasn't trying to manage minor thumb scaling trying to balance some diversity, it was passed to deal with treating African Americans as fourth class citizens who were isolated from White America.

Jimmy, take it down a notch. I'm trying to be nice to you but you're not making it easy. Have you ever talked to one of those Christians who is utterly convinced to the depth of his soul that everybody knows God is real and Christianity is true, and when you say you're an atheist you're lying and just being a pill about admitting you know he's right, because you're mad at God or because some Christian hurt you or whatever. You must know the type. Don't be that guy. When I tell you who I am, believe me. I am an infidel. I do not believe in your religion. I really, really don't. Your religion is dumb. Incredibly dumb. So stop taking for granted that I think you're right, and start taking seriously the reality that there's a whole world of unbelievers out here who really, sincerely, disagree with you. When I wrote "Congress passed a law against it in 1964, the Civil Rights Act: the same law that says you can't thumb the scale against black people says you can't thumb the scale against any ethnicity.", I was not trying to mislead you into not noticing something I had noticed. For you to say that's what I was doing is exactly the same thing as that Christian telling you you aren't really an atheist and you're denying God because you're being a dick about it. Your mental model of the world is not derived from what actually happened; it's derived from some ideological echo chamber that believes things because it wants to believe them.

You're looking at the Civil Rights Act from a worldview that focuses on groups, on "a class of people being segregated", on "White Society". You do this because leftist religion teaches the host brains it parasitizes to think that way. And the left-wing dominance of the "chattering classes", the media and academia and so forth, that's built up over the last fifty years, makes it seem entirely normal and natural to think that way. But that's not where the country was in 1964. Actual liberalism -- individualism -- was far more common at the time in America than your collectivist fantasies about classes were. That's why the Civil Rights Act passed with stronger support from Republicans than Democrats. The country agreed to outlaw discrimination against black people because the majority were persuaded it was unfair to individuals. When you reject an applicant because you're prejudiced against black people, that's something you do to him, not to a class of people being segregated. If you read the text of the Civil Rights Act, actually read it, you'll see it is expressed entirely in terms of individuals, not classes of people. This wasn't some rhetorical flourish anachronistic 21st-century leftists would like to see it treated as; it was written that way because this is how the authors and the people who voted them into office thought about the issue. If some congressthing had introduced a bill in 1964 saying you couldn't discriminate against black people but discriminating against white people was a-ok, it probably wouldn't have gotten a single vote.

This whole business of anachronistically reinterpreting individual rights into being some conception of favored-group rights isn't confined to the left wing. It's MAGA too. You guys aren't the only ones who like to pretend an old law written by individualists to protect all individuals was actually only about protecting some ingroup so it doesn't apply to your outgroup. Trump likes to pretend since "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States" was designed to stop ex-slaves from being treated as noncitizens, that means it doesn't apply to anyone else, and any minor thumb scaling trying to deal with illegal immigration is his job to manage, not the Constitution's job. Don't be Trump.

Asians have higher acceptance rates while African American have lower acceptance rates. That is the actual racial disparity. It is explained by showing the average scores for Asians is higher than African Americans. The numbers work out. Better numbers generally have better acceptance rates.

That is a collectivist fantasy. The actual racial disparity the law cares about is racial disparity in treatment of individuals, not ratios of population sizes. And African Americans have lower acceptance rates because the ones with grades and scores too low to be likely to get in are more willing to roll the dice and submit longshot applications than Asians are -- you can tell from the spread between the mean scores for accepted students and the mean scores for applicants. If longshot Asians applied at the same rate as longshot African Americans then Asians could have an equally low acceptance rate.

 

[Politesse]

It doesn't have to be a "conspiracy", i.e. people somehow colluding. All that is needed is that people in charge of educational institutions on both sides of the pond believe that diversity and racial balancing is more important than individual merit

What it needs is a critical mass of people who do not believe, likely because they are themselves highly literate and believe in evidence-based pedagogies, that performance on a standardized exam constitutes on its own an objective measure of "individual merit". Indeed, the notion that class disparities can be explained as a difference of individual merit is regressive and absurd. You're the one racializing this conversation, I've seen no evidence at all that the institutions in question are engaged in a conspiracy to attack white people.

 

[Toni]

Job interviews often don't care as much about metrics (if at all), as much as personality, compatibility, and competence. Interviewers are often measuring intangibles, signs that they look for in a good match for employment. The graduation rates for medical students in spite of the MCAT is incredible. While some have spun 92% graduation rate for a relatively meager MCAT score as awful, 92% is empirically high, all things considered. Which implies the medical schools are looking for and finding the right attributes for medical school students even if the MCAT and/or GPA wasn't as shiny.

That's a bizarre inference. Graduation rates for med students were high in the 1950s too; do you think that implies the medical schools were looking for and finding the right attributes for medical school students back then? They were discriminating against black students! All a high grad rate means is they're good at excluding students who can't cut it.

Indeed, that was my point.

The Admissions boards are good at excluding students who can't cut their program and vindicates their selection process. Meaning that their admission standards, whatever they are, are "good" at admitting QUALIFIED students. This means that they are good at finding the attributes in applicants that suggest to the Admissions Board that any particular applicant can cut their program and graduate successfully, vindicating their admission standards.

Dude, you wrote to me. Why did you do that if you don't want to think about what I have to say? You're simply repeating yourself and not engaging at all with the counterargument. Your reasoning is flawed. The Admissions boards being good at excluding students who can't cut their program does not vindicate their selection process. Do you think that medical schools in the 1950s that also had high graduation rates and that openly refused to take black students had a vindicated selection process? That's a yes or no question.

Asians being admitted at high rates isn't a reason to think there isn't a thumb on the scale against them; Asians being admitted at high rates is precisely the reason schools put a thumb on the scale against them.

And my point is that your full of crap when you use the word "them". 45% to 50% acceptance rate indicates Asian medical school applicants are taken VERY seriously and to consider that admissions boards are discriminating "them" is just ignorant.

You are completely wrong; I have already explained at length why that reasoning is wrong; if you aren't good enough at math to understand the explanation we can go over it again or we can agree to disagree, your option. But if you think calling me ignorant and full of crap qualifies as a substantive mathematical argument, think again.

Congress passed a law against it in 1964, the Civil Rights Act: the same law that says you can't thumb the scale against black people says you can't thumb the scale against any ethnicity.

You must think I am incredibly dumb to not notice the difference between a Federal Law designed to stop a class of people from being segregated from White Society and Admissions Standards that look at each student's qualities, achievements, and potential individually regardless of race. The Civil Rights Act wasn't trying to manage minor thumb scaling trying to balance some diversity, it was passed to deal with treating African Americans as fourth class citizens who were isolated from White America.

Jimmy, take it down a notch. I'm trying to be nice to you but you're not making it easy. Have you ever talked to one of those Christians who is utterly convinced to the depth of his soul that everybody knows God is real and Christianity is true, and when you say you're an atheist you're lying and just being a pill about admitting you know he's right, because you're mad at God or because some Christian hurt you or whatever. You must know the type. Don't be that guy. When I tell you who I am, believe me. I am an infidel. I do not believe in your religion. I really, really don't. Your religion is dumb. Incredibly dumb. So stop taking for granted that I think you're right, and start taking seriously the reality that there's a whole world of unbelievers out here who really, sincerely, disagree with you. When I wrote "Congress passed a law against it in 1964, the Civil Rights Act: the same law that says you can't thumb the scale against black people says you can't thumb the scale against any ethnicity.", I was not trying to mislead you into not noticing something I had noticed. For you to say that's what I was doing is exactly the same thing as that Christian telling you you aren't really an atheist and you're denying God because you're being a dick about it. Your mental model of the world is not derived from what actually happened; it's derived from some ideological echo chamber that believes things because it wants to believe them.

You're looking at the Civil Rights Act from a worldview that focuses on groups, on "a class of people being segregated", on "White Society". You do this because leftist religion teaches the host brains it parasitizes to think that way. And the left-wing dominance of the "chattering classes", the media and academia and so forth, that's built up over the last fifty years, makes it seem entirely normal and natural to think that way. But that's not where the country was in 1964. Actual liberalism -- individualism -- was far more common at the time in America than your collectivist fantasies about classes were. That's why the Civil Rights Act passed with stronger support from Republicans than Democrats. The country agreed to outlaw discrimination against black people because the majority were persuaded it was unfair to individuals. When you reject an applicant because you're prejudiced against black people, that's something you do to him, not to a class of people being segregated. If you read the text of the Civil Rights Act, actually read it, you'll see it is expressed entirely in terms of individuals, not classes of people. This wasn't some rhetorical flourish anachronistic 21st-century leftists would like to see it treated as; it was written that way because this is how the authors and the people who voted them into office thought about the issue. If some congressthing had introduced a bill in 1964 saying you couldn't discriminate against black people but discriminating against white people was a-ok, it probably wouldn't have gotten a single vote.

This whole business of anachronistically reinterpreting individual rights into being some conception of favored-group rights isn't confined to the left wing. It's MAGA too. You guys aren't the only ones who like to pretend an old law written by individualists to protect all individuals was actually only about protecting some ingroup so it doesn't apply to your outgroup. Trump likes to pretend since "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States" was designed to stop ex-slaves from being treated as noncitizens, that means it doesn't apply to anyone else, and any minor thumb scaling trying to deal with illegal immigration is his job to manage, not the Constitution's job. Don't be Trump.

Asians have higher acceptance rates while African American have lower acceptance rates. That is the actual racial disparity. It is explained by showing the average scores for Asians is higher than African Americans. The numbers work out. Better numbers generally have better acceptance rates.

That is a collectivist fantasy. The actual racial disparity the law cares about is racial disparity in treatment of individuals, not ratios of population sizes. And African Americans have lower acceptance rates because the ones with grades and scores too low to be likely to get in are more willing to roll the dice and submit longshot applications than Asians are -- you can tell from the spread between the mean scores for accepted students and the mean scores for applicants. If longshot Asians applied at the same rate as longshot African Americans then Asians could have an equally low acceptance rate.

Why do you think ‘lower scoring black’ applicants are more likely to apply to more med schools compared with Asian applicants who are likely to apply to only a small number of schools?

Job interviews often don't care as much about metrics (if at all), as much as personality, compatibility, and competence. Interviewers are often measuring intangibles, signs that they look for in a good match for employment. The graduation rates for medical students in spite of the MCAT is incredible. While some have spun 92% graduation rate for a relatively meager MCAT score as awful, 92% is empirically high, all things considered. Which implies the medical schools are looking for and finding the right attributes for medical school students even if the MCAT and/or GPA wasn't as shiny.

That's a bizarre inference. Graduation rates for med students were high in the 1950s too; do you think that implies the medical schools were looking for and finding the right attributes for medical school students back then? They were discriminating against black students! All a high grad rate means is they're good at excluding students who can't cut it.

Indeed, that was my point.

The Admissions boards are good at excluding students who can't cut their program and vindicates their selection process. Meaning that their admission standards, whatever they are, are "good" at admitting QUALIFIED students. This means that they are good at finding the attributes in applicants that suggest to the Admissions Board that any particular applicant can cut their program and graduate successfully, vindicating their admission standards.

Dude, you wrote to me. Why did you do that if you don't want to think about what I have to say? You're simply repeating yourself and not engaging at all with the counterargument. Your reasoning is flawed. The Admissions boards being good at excluding students who can't cut their program does not vindicate their selection process. Do you think that medical schools in the 1950s that also had high graduation rates and that openly refused to take black students had a vindicated selection process? That's a yes or no question.

Asians being admitted at high rates isn't a reason to think there isn't a thumb on the scale against them; Asians being admitted at high rates is precisely the reason schools put a thumb on the scale against them.

And my point is that your full of crap when you use the word "them". 45% to 50% acceptance rate indicates Asian medical school applicants are taken VERY seriously and to consider that admissions boards are discriminating "them" is just ignorant.

You are completely wrong; I have already explained at length why that reasoning is wrong; if you aren't good enough at math to understand the explanation we can go over it again or we can agree to disagree, your option. But if you think calling me ignorant and full of crap qualifies as a substantive mathematical argument, think again.

Congress passed a law against it in 1964, the Civil Rights Act: the same law that says you can't thumb the scale against black people says you can't thumb the scale against any ethnicity.

You must think I am incredibly dumb to not notice the difference between a Federal Law designed to stop a class of people from being segregated from White Society and Admissions Standards that look at each student's qualities, achievements, and potential individually regardless of race. The Civil Rights Act wasn't trying to manage minor thumb scaling trying to balance some diversity, it was passed to deal with treating African Americans as fourth class citizens who were isolated from White America.

Jimmy, take it down a notch. I'm trying to be nice to you but you're not making it easy. Have you ever talked to one of those Christians who is utterly convinced to the depth of his soul that everybody knows God is real and Christianity is true, and when you say you're an atheist you're lying and just being a pill about admitting you know he's right, because you're mad at God or because some Christian hurt you or whatever. You must know the type. Don't be that guy. When I tell you who I am, believe me. I am an infidel. I do not believe in your religion. I really, really don't. Your religion is dumb. Incredibly dumb. So stop taking for granted that I think you're right, and start taking seriously the reality that there's a whole world of unbelievers out here who really, sincerely, disagree with you. When I wrote "Congress passed a law against it in 1964, the Civil Rights Act: the same law that says you can't thumb the scale against black people says you can't thumb the scale against any ethnicity.", I was not trying to mislead you into not noticing something I had noticed. For you to say that's what I was doing is exactly the same thing as that Christian telling you you aren't really an atheist and you're denying God because you're being a dick about it. Your mental model of the world is not derived from what actually happened; it's derived from some ideological echo chamber that believes things because it wants to believe them.

You're looking at the Civil Rights Act from a worldview that focuses on groups, on "a class of people being segregated", on "White Society". You do this because leftist religion teaches the host brains it parasitizes to think that way. And the left-wing dominance of the "chattering classes", the media and academia and so forth, that's built up over the last fifty years, makes it seem entirely normal and natural to think that way. But that's not where the country was in 1964. Actual liberalism -- individualism -- was far more common at the time in America than your collectivist fantasies about classes were. That's why the Civil Rights Act passed with stronger support from Republicans than Democrats. The country agreed to outlaw discrimination against black people because the majority were persuaded it was unfair to individuals. When you reject an applicant because you're prejudiced against black people, that's something you do to him, not to a class of people being segregated. If you read the text of the Civil Rights Act, actually read it, you'll see it is expressed entirely in terms of individuals, not classes of people. This wasn't some rhetorical flourish anachronistic 21st-century leftists would like to see it treated as; it was written that way because this is how the authors and the people who voted them into office thought about the issue. If some congressthing had introduced a bill in 1964 saying you couldn't discriminate against black people but discriminating against white people was a-ok, it probably wouldn't have gotten a single vote.

This whole business of anachronistically reinterpreting individual rights into being some conception of favored-group rights isn't confined to the left wing. It's MAGA too. You guys aren't the only ones who like to pretend an old law written by individualists to protect all individuals was actually only about protecting some ingroup so it doesn't apply to your outgroup. Trump likes to pretend since "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States" was designed to stop ex-slaves from being treated as noncitizens, that means it doesn't apply to anyone else, and any minor thumb scaling trying to deal with illegal immigration is his job to manage, not the Constitution's job. Don't be Trump.

Asians have higher acceptance rates while African American have lower acceptance rates. That is the actual racial disparity. It is explained by showing the average scores for Asians is higher than African Americans. The numbers work out. Better numbers generally have better acceptance rates.

That is a collectivist fantasy. The actual racial disparity the law cares about is racial disparity in treatment of individuals, not ratios of population sizes. And African Americans have lower acceptance rates because the ones with grades and scores too low to be likely to get in are more willing to roll the dice and submit longshot applications than Asians are -- you can tell from the spread between the mean scores for accepted students and the mean scores for applicants. If longshot Asians applied at the same rate as longshot African Americans then Asians could have an equally low acceptance rate.

Actually Asians are more likely to apply to more medical schools compared with other demographics.

 

[Bomb#20]

I don't see anyone saying it should only be MCAT and GPA.

Actually, this thread is obsessed with it. Bomb#20 doesn't think they are important, but then hinges on them. You are doing likewise.

"It is completely unimportant. That is why it is so interesting." - Agatha Christie

Whether MCAT and GPA are important factors for producing good doctors, and whether they are important evidence for solving a mystery, are two entirely different questions. To assume those are the same question because they both contain the word "important" is an equivocation fallacy.

 

[Bomb#20]

... And African Americans have lower acceptance rates because the ones with grades and scores too low to be likely to get in are more willing to roll the dice and submit longshot applications than Asians are -- you can tell from the spread between the mean scores for accepted students and the mean scores for applicants. If longshot Asians applied at the same rate as longshot African Americans then Asians could have an equally low acceptance rate.

Why do you think ‘lower scoring black’ applicants are more likely to apply to more med schools compared with Asian applicants who are likely to apply to only a small number of schools?

Wow. Had to reread that a few times before it stopped blowing my mind with how unrelated it was to what I said. But I guess the way I phrased that actually was ambiguous. Sorry, my bad -- not at all what I meant. I was not talking about how many med schools applicants apply to. I was talking about whether a person who gets his MCAT results back with a disappointingly low score decides to lick his wounds and adjust his career plans or maybe redouble his studies and try again next year, or whether he instead decides to take his chances and go to the effort and expense of submitting 16-odd applications with that low MCAT anyway, knowing full well there's a good chance that every school he applies to will look at his score and toss his application in the reject pile out of hand. That's what I meant African Americans are more likely to do than Asian Americans.

(We can tell they're more likely to from the data in the tables. The tables don't show us the psychological reason for this, so I can only speculate. My guess is both ethnicities have eminently sensible reasons. The statistics are public and well-known, so apart from left-wing ideologues like the folks disputing it in this thread, people generally know there's a thumb on the scale. African American students rationally expect that to work in their favor; Asian American students rationally expect it to work against them.)

Actually Asians are more likely to apply to more medical schools compared with other demographics.

Yes, slightly more, that's correct.

 

[Bomb#20]

There's a study that has a table. I have only skimmed some sparse text around the table. Something like there was a survey of doctors working for the Indian Health Services, not everyone responded. The goal of the survey was not demographics, I don't think, but questions were asked and this racial/ethnic breakdown is in the table for respondents:

Race/ethnicity*
White 261 (78)
American Indian/ Alaska Native 48 (14)
Hispanic 32 (9)
Asian 26 (8)
Black 13 (4)
Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander 1 (1)
Other 1 (1)

I don't think it is entirely unreasonable to extrapolate this, but again I have not read the study in full. What I immediately observe is there are only 8% Asian doctors but Asian doctors in the general population are much larger than that.

This is true, but it's easy to read more into it than is warranted. Geography plays a big role -- the states where people served by the IHS are concentrated, like Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, have low Asian American populations. There are ten times as many white doctors as Asian doctors working on reservations but that doesn't mean Asians are less willing than whites; it just means those states are chock full of white people. Doctors like anyone else mostly want to work close to home.

Also, there are 14% NA/AN doctors but NA/AN doctors in the general population of doctors are like less than 1%.

Very true, and it's important; but again, it's easy to read too much into it. Race is a lousy proxy for willingness. Over 90% of NA doctors don't work on reservations; they get jobs in cities just like everybody else.

 

[Bomb#20]

And my point is that your full of crap when you use the word "them". 45% to 50% acceptance rate indicates Asian medical school applicants are taken VERY seriously and to consider that admissions boards are discriminating the Asian race is just stupid.

They are being discriminated against if race itself is being used to advantage or disadvantage applicants in the admissions process, regardless of the overall acceptance rate. It sounds stupid at first, but when you actually think it through, it makes sense. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, Harvard acknowledged that it used race as a factor in admissions, and the evidence showed that some Asian applicants who were rejected would have been admitted had race not been considered.

But that isn't discrimination of a race. And over 40% of the latest Harvard class 2029 is Asian.

Using race to thumb a scale (at some point) isn't "discrimination of a race" and when Bomb#20 uses the term "them", that is the implication.

"Discrimination of a race"? Is that a term-of-art in your bubble? Out in the world of normal English speakers, that isn't a thing. You appear to have a problem with separating what's happening from what you think should be happening and from what the words used to describe them mean. When I used the term "them" about Asian American students, I didn't imply a goddamn thing about "discrimination of a race", whatever the heck that is. I only implied schools put a thumb on the scale against them. Oh, wait, no, I didn't imply that -- I literally said exactly that. You appear to have decided I must actually have been speaking erroneously of "discrimination of a race", rather than accurately of a thumb on the scale, based on you thinking a thumb on the scale doesn't matter and "discrimination of a race" is what does. That's not how discourse works. Your moral priorities are not part of the information that determines what I mean when I talk.

It can become a bias in the calculus, on an individual basis. Is it black and white morally fair. Newsflash! There is no black and white morally fair. Is it perfect? No. Can our society maintain open and free access to medical school for all races with this being the policy. Heck yes!

Asians are killing it in collegiate admissions. And people are complaining, but they aren't killing it enough.

You appear to be saying you don't care about individuals being discriminated against on account of their skin. You only object to discrimination if, once you've divided people up into subsets by whatever criteria you see fit, an entire one of your subsets is excluded en masse. If somebody is treated badly, that's okay with you provided some other person is treated well and you assign the two people to the same subset. Do I have that right?

If that's what you mean, fine. Advocate that. It's a perfectly coherent moral position and lots of people agree with it. But keep in mind it's a moral claim. So what are you getting on my case about it for? I didn't say it was wrong; I didn't make any moral claim it conflicts with. I described what is, not what ought to be.

 

[Toni]

And my point is that your full of crap when you use the word "them". 45% to 50% acceptance rate indicates Asian medical school applicants are taken VERY seriously and to consider that admissions boards are discriminating the Asian race is just stupid.

They are being discriminated against if race itself is being used to advantage or disadvantage applicants in the admissions process, regardless of the overall acceptance rate. It sounds stupid at first, but when you actually think it through, it makes sense. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, Harvard acknowledged that it used race as a factor in admissions, and the evidence showed that some Asian applicants who were rejected would have been admitted had race not been considered.

But that isn't discrimination of a race. And over 40% of the latest Harvard class 2029 is Asian.

Using race to thumb a scale (at some point) isn't "discrimination of a race" and when Bomb#20 uses the term "them", that is the implication.

"Discrimination of a race"? Is that a term-of-art in your bubble? Out in the world of normal English speakers, that isn't a thing. You appear to have a problem with separating what's happening from what you think should be happening and from what the words used to describe them mean. When I used the term "them" about Asian American students, I didn't imply a goddamn thing about "discrimination of a race", whatever the heck that is. I only implied schools put a thumb on the scale against them. Oh, wait, no, I didn't imply that -- I literally said exactly that. You appear to have decided I must actually have been speaking erroneously of "discrimination of a race", rather than accurately of a thumb on the scale, based on you thinking a thumb on the scale doesn't matter and "discrimination of a race" is what does. That's not how discourse works. Your moral priorities are not part of the information that determines what I mean when I talk.

It can become a bias in the calculus, on an individual basis. Is it black and white morally fair. Newsflash! There is no black and white morally fair. Is it perfect? No. Can our society maintain open and free access to medical school for all races with this being the policy. Heck yes!

Asians are killing it in collegiate admissions. And people are complaining, but they aren't killing it enough.

You appear to be saying you don't care about individuals being discriminated against on account of their skin. You only object to discrimination if, once you've divided people up into subsets by whatever criteria you see fit, an entire one of your subsets is excluded en masse. If somebody is treated badly, that's okay with you provided some other person is treated well and you assign the two people to the same subset. Do I have that right?

If that's what you mean, fine. Advocate that. It's a perfectly coherent moral position and lots of people agree with it. But keep in mind it's a moral claim. So what are you getting on my case about it for? I didn't say it was wrong; I didn't make any moral claim it conflicts with. I described what is, not what ought to be.

Except that they don't. Asian applicants (depending, of course, on which Asian minority one is discussing) have a high rate of admissions and acceptance. They also tend to apply to many more schools compared with other demographics. My observation is that among a subset of certain people (not exclusive to Asian people), there is a certain status to be gained by being accepted by the most or the most Ivies, which is different than being accepted by your first (or second or third or fourth) choice or the one that actually best meets your actual needs according to your goals.

As Don noted upthread, admissions must weigh accepting the most qualified with accepting the most qualified who are likely to actually attend their school. Offering admissions to student A who is unlikely to ultimately choose that school means denying a spot to another student B who really really really wants that particular school---until A selects the school they prefer by which point B may have moved on to a less preferred option.

 

[Derec]

What it needs is a critical mass of people who do not believe, likely because they are themselves highly literate and believe in evidence-based pedagogies,

that performance on a standardized exam constitutes on its own an objective measure of "individual merit".

It certainly does, . It's not the only measure of individual merit, of course, but it's an important one.
Besides, on that AAMC table, the relative distributions of GPAs are similar to distributions of MCATs.

Indeed, the notion that class disparities can be explained as a difference of individual merit is regressive and absurd.

Why? Any "class" is just a collection of individuals.

You're the one racializing this conversation,

Wrong. For one, this thread is about so-called "affirmative action" which is very much a racial policy/ideology.
This conversation has been racialized since before Bakke, when schools used crude quotas to effect race preferences. It continued in the era of awarding points for being the politically correct skin color (like the 20 points awarded by UMich). And it evidently continues to this day, since differences in average GPAs and MCATs for admitted students persist.

I've seen no evidence at all that the institutions in question are engaged in a conspiracy to attack white people.

As I said, it doesn't have to be a conspiracy, just a shared belief system that "diversity" trumps individual merit.
Are you really going to deny that academic institutions want to give preferences to members of certain groups in order to increase their representation? That level of reality denial would be truly Trumpian.

 

[Derec]

Except that they don't. Asian applicants (depending, of course, on which Asian minority one is discussing) have a high rate of admissions and acceptance.

Overall, acceptance rates are comparable across groups.
And when adjusted for scores and grades, Asians have a much lower admissions rates than groups given preferences, i.e. blacks, Hispanics and American Indians.

They also tend to apply to many more schools compared with other demographics.

[citation needed]
And even if true, it would not explain why Asians need higher grades and scores.

My observation is that among a subset of certain people (not exclusive to Asian people), there is a certain status to be gained by being accepted by the most or the most Ivies, which is different than being accepted by your first (or second or third or fourth) choice or the one that actually best meets your actual needs according to your goals.

Whites and Asians with middling stats would not be applying to Ivies. Again, none of what you said explains why whites and Asians with middling grades and scores have a much lower chance at admissions compared with preferred groups

 

[laughing dog]

Except that they don't. Asian applicants (depending, of course, on which Asian minority one is discussing) have a high rate of admissions and acceptance.

Overall, acceptance rates are comparable across groups.
And when adjusted for scores and grades, Asians have a much lower admissions rates than groups given preferences, i.e. blacks, Hispanics and American Indians.

They also tend to apply to many more schools compared with other demographics.

[citation needed]
And even if true, it would not explain why Asians need higher grades and scores.

My observation is that among a subset of certain people (not exclusive to Asian people), there is a certain status to be gained by being accepted by the most or the most Ivies, which is different than being accepted by your first (or second or third or fourth) choice or the one that actually best meets your actual needs according to your goals.

Whites and Asians with middling stats would not be applying to Ivies. Again, none of what you said explains why whites and Asians with middling grades and scores have a much lower chance at admissions compared with preferred groups

To be fair, nothing you’ve said substantiates any of your claims.

The reliance on national averages masks any relevant variation by region or mission or subgroup or any other factors that might help explain differences.