Last year, Julia Sass Rubin of Rutgers University devised a solution to Harvard’s admissions policy problem. Harvard is bow being sued by a group called Students for Fair Admissions, which claims to be supporting Asian-Americans, but is actually fronting for white conservatives who hate affirmative action.
She writes:
“Harvard actually accepts a disproportionately large percentage of Asian students, who make up approximately 6 percent of the U.S. population but will comprise more than 22 percent of Harvard’s incoming class. The claims of anti-Asian bias in Harvard admissions are based, in large part, on the number of Asian applicants with high standardized test scores relative to the number admitted.
“Ironically, Harvard has contributed to its current legal challenges by requiring standardized tests as part of its admission process. This helps legitimize standardized tests as an objective means of evaluating applicants. In reality, the tests favor students from families with greater wealth and educational attachment….
“Standardized test scores are also impacted by test preparation, and students who have taken the test previously score higher than those who are taking it for the first time. This further skews test results in favor of wealthier students, whose families can afford expensive test preparation services and multiple rounds of test taking.
“The strong correlation between income, education and race/ethnicity translates the economic and educational bias of standardized tests into a racial one, giving an advantage to Asians and whites. Although substantial poverty exists among both groups, on average, Asians and whites in the United States are much wealthier and have significantly higher educational attainment than blacks and Hispanics…
“A January 2016 report released by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and signed by more than 80 admissions officers, including those from all eight Ivy League schools, urged universities to move toward test-optional admission policies. To date, more than 950 universities and colleges have adopted such policies or eliminated standardized tests entirely from their admission process. Unfortunately, that group does not include a single Ivy League university.
“This is a missed opportunity. By eliminating the use of standardized tests, Harvard and the other Ivy League schools could help end the myth of test-based meritocracy and highlight that our country’s persistent and growing inequality of opportunity requires universities to consider applicants’ race, ethnicity, gender and family income if they hope to achieve meritocratic outcomes.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Harvard and the rest of the elite schools get way too much attention, in my opinion.
The US would do better to focus on the schools the vast majority of people attend. Five colleges hold this ridiculously outsized place in the national dialogue.
These schools are insanely wealthy. They’re supported and glorified by powerful people in government and private industry already. It’s crazy that such a tiny, elite segment of higher education gets this much attention.
It leads to bad results, like politicians hearing “Harvard” or “Stanford” and adopting dumb or harmful policies because they come with that endorsement.
Ed reform has really bought into this. Read any of the hagiographies of the “founders” they churn out. They all start with listing their Ivy League credentials, as if that’s supposed to end all debate and analysis. They’re snobs. It’s not based on anything other than a small, snobby club who promote one another and hire one another.
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I think Harvard is finding themselves between a rock and a hard place and with a good case of poetic justice. I think they’re realizing that high test scores don’t produce the kinds of graduates who Do Big Things in the world, so they’ve been quietly downplaying the weight of those tests. But as others have pointed out, Harvard et al have made a name for themselves based in large part on promoting those very tests (not to mention the whole notion of test-based “meritocracy”), so they aren’t in a very good position to back down and go test-optional, so now they’re in a metaphorical position of having to stand on their heads in a canoe in a very tricky balancing act to save face. In other words, their karma ran over their dogma.
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It also becomes trickier to finesse when, like Harvard and Yale, you are a giant hedge fund with a higher education subsidiary…
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That too.
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What seems to be lost in this discussion is that it was reported that the Asian-American students were given lower personality scores compared to WHITE students. White students with lower test scores. Somehow very privileged white students who come from connected private schools seem to be admitted at an extremely high rate despite having lower standardized test scores than Asian Americans. And very likely despite having lower test scores than middle class white students from public schools.
It’s more useful for the privileged white folks funding this lawsuit to pit Asians against African-American and Latino students in order to distract from the fact that the real beneficiaries of affirmative action are privileged white students who take seats away from both higher scoring Asian students and higher scoring middle class white students. The cynic in me suspects that some of this movement by colleges to go test optional is to admit those very wealthy private school students based on their private school teachers and college admissions offices’ assurance that their affluent white students are simply superior to public school students in a way that no standardized test can ever measure.
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I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea that low personality test scores would be problematic at Harvard, unless the test we’re talking about is the Cleckley Checklist of Psychopathy.
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Havin some fun here NYCpsp:
“. . .in a way that no standardized test can ever measure.”
On this portion of the test after reading NYCpsp’s post you will write a short paragraph answer to the following prompt. Remember to include a topic sentence, three sentences backing your topic sentence and a concluding/summarizing sentence:
Considering that a standardized test doesn’t measure anything. . . .
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Duane,
I think there are two kinds of “standardized exams” (for lack of a better word) used for different purposes.
Testing every single 3rd through 8th grade student against some mythical “standard” is absurd.
But this post was about how to distinguish among a relatively small group of high school students who have spent 4 years challenging themselves academically in high school when a very selective university has to choose from among them and they are competing against some very rich students as well as some very poor ones.
Sure, there are excellent arguments to be made for why those colleges are worthless things to strive for and those kids will do well anywhere, so let’s just stop this discussion right now since it is meaningless.
But if you are going to participate in the discussion, then how would you choose students?
Holistic methods allow you to choose underprivileged students who haven’t benefitted from expensive test prep. But those methods ALSO allow you to choose very wealthy students who aren’t especially engaged scholars but since they attend a connected private school where almost every student gets an A or A- and top recommendations, they are admitted. And the college can claim they are admitted “on merit”.
My point is that it seems as if wealthy students — those from the 1% — will continue to be disproportionately admitted over more deserving middle class and upper middle class students. And instead of calling that out for what it is, we have middle class students being pitted against the poor fighting over the crumbs and other people saying “oh those crumbs aren’t worth it anyway, so let’s just leave the system where the 1% and especially the .01% benefit.”
I don’t like “standardized tests” that only public school students are required to take that are designed to show the public schools are failures.
But this isn’t about that. This is about a tiny subset of high performing students voluntarily applying to a very selective college that will only accept 5% of them.
So, if I were doing college admissions, I would make admissions test optional for students from disadvantaged high schools or for students from families with HHI under some threshold (like $60,000 or $75,000).
And I would require some kind of standardized tests from students in the 1% and .01% to see if they were really as deserving of admissions over middle class students (many of whom are Asian-American) as their disproportionately high admissions rates suggest.
(Cue a private school college admissions director explaining that their very privileged students are superior to middle class public school students in a way that no standardized test can ever measure….)
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Honestly NYCpsp, I don’t give a damn about how those supposedly “elite” schools pick their students. It’s outside of my little world and my concerns.
I was just using your comment to spoof a standardized test question, nothing more or less.
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Didn’t mean to be so brusque with the last response, NYCpsp. My main concerns focus on K-12 public education. Any policies and practices that hinder the teaching and learning process or that harm students, well, it doesn’t sit well with me. So that’s my main focus. I’m a “common” man, have never had much, never desired much, and still don’t. What I do desire is for this country to provide the proper education for all students. And that justice be fulfilled in providing that proper education.
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Duane,
I’m sorry! Your satire went right over my head! Didn’t mean to answer you so seriously.
“My main concerns focus on K-12 public education. Any policies and practices that hinder the teaching and learning process or that harm students, well, it doesn’t sit well with me. So that’s my main focus. … What I do desire is for this country to provide the proper education for all students. And that justice be fulfilled in providing that proper education.”
I am very glad you reminded me of that. It is one of the reasons I admire you and value your comments. I am so grateful that you and others like you on here are in the teaching profession. Thank you!
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Remembering a meme made be an astute thinker: So You Think Politics is A Meritocracy? You Must Be White
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While the strong correlation between income/class stratification, and the
purpose-driven science of meritocracy, (worthy vs unworthy) based on
“show me your papers”, is as evident as the masses of asses hiding thumbs,
some how, the rich getting richer continues.
Oh, the primary flaw of meritrickracy is test scores. Forget the equally human
concept. Capitulate to the title, or the elite ivy towers, as long as test scores
aren’t used to assess the fiction.
Due unto others as it is due to you.
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“Due unto others as it is due to you.”
And my check is in the mail to them.
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It is not clear from the quote how exactly Julia Sass Rubin solves Harvard’s admissions problem besides making a passing note that “by eliminating the use of standardized tests, Harvard and the other Ivy League schools could help end the myth of test-based meritocracy…” bla-bla-bla, which has already been said before, and which is hardly a solution.
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I have a really hard time caring about just who gets into Harvard. My undergraduate institutions did not have particularly stringent admissions requirements, but I got a great education, met students from all over the world, had professors(not TAs) who were caring, encouraging, and helpful. My classmates and I helped each other and worked together. Most of my classes had less than 25 students. I had a friend who went to an “elite” institution where classmates actually “hid” reference materials in the library to make sure that they had an edge on papers and where large classes were the norm. No thanks!
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Actually “hid” or actually hid?
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Tienes problema, ¿No?
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No tengo problemas con las citas.
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Look at our country’s leaders and you see why people want to get their children into those places. Yes, I know, many of those folks will be wearing handcuffs soon, but it’s all about access to power. I read once that your child has a twenty-five times greater chance of associating with the children of the top-tier rich in the selective private colleges than at a typical state university. I also read that Harvard doesn’t release its average SAT scores because then people would figure out the exceptions that are made for the legacies, the children of the connected, the fabulously wealthy, the insanely famous. Anyway, it’s not about the education–it’s about the valuable contacts your little social climber will make if s/he gains access to one of those institutions. I see the old boys’/old girls’ network in action all the time.
Making the SATs/standardized tests optional is a step in the right direction. I am not so sure about personality evaluations being important. Seriously, there are utter creeps in the news every day who have (on paper, at least) excellent name-brand educations. I guess the reason to have one yourself is to make it easier to fight back.
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Can you say Jared Kushner……one of the biggest legacy alums.
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Lisa Miller, his name did come to mind…in his case, a hefty gift from Dad to Harvard sealed the deal.
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All this talk of “elite” schools reminds me of:
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