More than 20% of Harvard undergrads are "disabled"

[Swammerdami]

I saw this link to an Atlantic article on another message-board.

At many universities a large number of undergrads are given special treatment due to attention deficit, social anxiety or depression. The beneficiaries of these policies are typically NOT the traditionally disadvantaged (i.e. poor) students, but elites! (Why elites? Perhaps in part because elites have the connections to get useful diagnoses but mainly, I think, because of admission policies?)

 

[laughing dog]

I doubt it is admission policy. If a student has a diagnosis of a learning disability and asks for accommodation, they receive one. If they ask for one without a diagnosis, whether or not they get one depends on the institution’s policies.

 

[Swammerdami]

I doubt it is admission policy. If a student has a diagnosis of a learning disability and asks for accommodation, they receive one. If they ask for one without a diagnosis, whether or not they get one depends on the institution’s policies.

What I was suggesting -- too tersely -- is that students poor BOTH financially AND scholastically are unlikely to be admitted, IF they apply at all.

 

[Derec]

What I was suggesting -- too tersely -- is that students poor BOTH financially AND scholastically are unlikely to be admitted, IF they apply at all.

Unless they have a woke skin color.

 

[Shadowy Man]

What I was suggesting -- too tersely -- is that students poor BOTH financially AND scholastically are unlikely to be admitted, IF they apply at all.

Unless they have a woke skin color.

That’s the wrong plot to address the point of likelihood of admittance. What is the fraction of students that apply who are admitted? swammerdami is suggesting that fraction is small irrespective of financial or scholastic status.

Your plot just implies lower standards for the “colored folk” but doesn’t directly address the actual probability of acceptance.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

What I was suggesting -- too tersely -- is that students poor BOTH financially AND scholastically are unlikely to be admitted, IF they apply at all.

Unless they have a woke skin color.

There are a lot of artificial concepts here. How is race determined? What if someone is half-Asian and half-black - if they get a good score let's class them as Asian, and if they get a bad score let's call them black.
Why are Asians so much higher? It's because SAT is something that one can study for. This is a cultural thing.
What if chose basketball playing ability as your prerequisite? Or knowledge of rap music?
Also , there is not much difference between 720 and 760.
Plus, the graph only shows averages by "race". What if have an individual Native American who gets 790, and a "white" who gets 680?
That "white" person is getting in based on some form of DEI (their parent is influential, and so on).

 

[Shadowy Man]

What I was suggesting -- too tersely -- is that students poor BOTH financially AND scholastically are unlikely to be admitted, IF they apply at all.

Unless they have a woke skin color.

There are a lot of artificial concepts here. How is race determined? What if someone is half-Asian and half-black - if they get a good score let's class them as Asian, and if they get a bad score let's call them black.
Why are Asians so much higher? It's because SAT is something that one can study for. This is a cultural thing.
What if chose basketball playing ability as your prerequisite? Or knowledge of rap music?
Also , there is not much difference between 720 and 760.
Plus, the graph only shows averages by "race". What if have an individual Native American who gets 790, and a "white" who gets 680?
That "white" person is getting in based on some form of DEI (their parent is influential, and so on).

It would be interesting to see the actual distributions overplotted not just the averages. Wonder what the median scores would show. Is there a threshold score for admittance? What if all those “races” are above the threshold then does it matter if one race does ‘worse’ than the other? Is SAT performance the only metric worth considering for admittance? Seems like a plot designed to make a specific statement and couching it in damned lies statistics to make it seem legitimate.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Is SAT performance the only metric worth considering for admittance?

No and there is some evidence Asian Americans may tend to participate in extracurricular activities less, especially sports. So, apparently, if we saw a chart like that of sports (and other activities) there would be a different set of lines.

Why are Asians so much higher? It's because SAT is something that one can study for. This is a cultural thing.

Yes, there is evidence that Asian American families invest more resources in test prep and tutoring. If the effects of tutoring and test prep were somehow subtracted out, the graphs would be different.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

What I was suggesting -- too tersely -- is that students poor BOTH financially AND scholastically are unlikely to be admitted, IF they apply at all.

Unless they have a woke skin color.

That’s the wrong plot to address the point of likelihood of admittance. What is the fraction of students that apply who are admitted? swammerdami is suggesting that fraction is small irrespective of financial or scholastic status.

Your plot just implies lower standards for the “colored folk” but doesn’t directly address the actual probability of acceptance.

Yet another case of right wingers having no idea what they're talking about when they bring up statistics.

 

[Swammerdami]

Discussion has veered completely away from the points raised by the article. I mentioned that it was often the "elite" who were classified as "disabled" to make clear that the special treatment is definitely NOT the sort of "woke" or "anti-White discrimination" that gets the knickers of Derec and his ilk in such a tangle.

America is a complex society with a variety of trends pulling in many directions. I'm a fan of reductionism myself, but does EVERYTHING have to reduce to racism, or the woke-antiwoke divide?

(Blame me I suppose. Knowing that many wouldn't waste a click, my ambiguous "because of admission policies?" tried to cover an ambiguity. I should have guessed that Derec would show up and need to whine about how much he suffers from anti-white discrimination.)

 

[Politesse]

Is... anyone interested in a view from the other side of the podium? I definitely see this issue as being far more complicated than the Atlantic article implies, and not in a way that falls neatly along political lines. There are many abuses of the accomodations system, and everyone who teaches finds themselves being asked to do something infuriating and undeserved for a less than scrupulous student at some point. I don't think the Atlantic understands what actually produces those abuses, though, it isn't as simple as "end accomodations and support". The system is trying to address real problems and inequalities, and the fact that this introduces opportunities to game that system doesn't mean that resetting our whole system to 1965 would somehow make things better or fairer for any student. The most common college-provided accomodation is not testing-related, but rather "allowed to record lectures". Is that really such a big ask? Not to me, but I know there are some who whould disagree... especially at Amherst or Cal Berkeley.

 

[Tharmas]

I wonder how SAT scores correlate with academic success at Harvard or other universities. I know that they are only one of a good number of factors that contribute to a successful admission. There has been real discussion of eliminating SAT scores from the equation altogether.

 

[Politesse]

I wonder how SAT scores correlate with academic success at Harvard or other universities. I know that they are only one of a good number of factors that contribute to a successful admission. There has been real discussion of eliminating SAT scores from the equation altogether.

Generally speaking, they do. Thie correlating effect is extreme for the elite schools, but present at all schools.The same factors that produce good SAT scores - money and a lot of free time, mostly - also lend themselves toward academic success. Elite schools tend to have extreme standards toward admission, but lax standards in grading.

 

[Toni]

I wonder how SAT scores correlate with academic success at Harvard or other universities. I know that they are only one of a good number of factors that contribute to a successful admission. There has been real discussion of eliminating SAT scores from the equation altogether.

Generally speaking, they do. Thie correlating effect is extreme for the elite schools, but present at all schools.The same factors that produce good SAT scores - money and a lot of free time, mostly - also lend themselves toward academic success. Elite schools tend to have extreme standards toward admission, but lax standards in grading.

It's not just that: the SATs have been shown to have an upper middle class white bias.