Why Caltech Is in a Class by Itself

Re:Why Caltech Is in a Class by Itself by araneae on Monday January 10, 2011 @05:22PM (#2089985)

How is that misguided or offensive? It's simply a fact that if you lower academic standards for athletes, then the stereotype will be that the athletes are of lower academic caliber. Because they are. It was a statement of fact. I suppose the truth can be offensive...

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Re:Why Caltech Is in a Class by Itself by _pius on Monday January 10, 2011 @05:23PM (#2089989)

I suppose the truth can be offensive...

Except that it's not the truth ... no schools do that for minority students. It's a strawman.

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Re:Why Caltech Is in a Class by Itself by araneae on Monday January 10, 2011 @05:28PM (#2090005)

It's not a strawman. At UoM, the point system was designed so that being a racial or ethnic minority was worth the same number of points as a full grade point (i.e. a white student with a high school 4.0 was equivalent point-wise to a black student with a high school 3.0.) For athletes, I remember it was about 1/5 of that amount of points, but I could be wrong on that score.

Having taught at UoM, I can say that unfortunately this translated to their performance on exams as well...

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Re:Why Caltech Is in a Class by Itself by _pius on Monday January 10, 2011 @05:31PM (#2090010)

If you taught at U of M, I'd imagine you're at least passingly familiar with Gratz v. Bollinger, in which the Supreme Court explicitly made what you're talking about illegal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratz_v._Bollinger

So yes, it's a strawman ... no schools do that anymore. Lots of schools never did it. And the schools that were doing so, were doing so with a fundamental misunderstanding of and in non-compliance with both the spirit and letter of the law.

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Re:Why Caltech Is in a Class by Itself by araneae on Monday January 10, 2011 @05:40PM (#2090020)

The methodology has changed. Now they use humans instead of a point system. The result is identical. Entering "minorities" and athletes enter with lower GPAs and SATs. It's a fact, not a strawman.

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Re:Why Caltech Is in a Class by Itself by _pius on Monday January 10, 2011 @05:45PM (#2090024)

Well at the very least maybe you can finally admit that you're expressing a view about minority students. Quitting your denial of that would be a great first step.

Entering "minorities" and athletes enter with lower GPAs and SATs.

So? Surprise, surprise: when you start adding factors besides pre-college test scores to your admissions criteria you see ... variation in pre-college scores.

The methodology has changed. Now they use humans instead of a point system.

So you're unhappy that non SAT/GPA factors are taken into account. I'm curious if you've got the intellectual consistency to be in favor of simply ranking all students by their high school GPAs and SAT scores in descending order and taking the first N students. Maybe we don't actually need admissions committees or essays at all ...

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