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DavidWaldron t1_iu2mjy1 wrote

Reply to comment by 685327593 in [OC] Racial breakdown of students at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford compared to students scoring 1400+ on the SAT by tabthough

Family wealth is also predictive of future success. Should colleges try to admit students from wealthy families?

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685327593 t1_iu2n0av wrote

The whole point of standardized testing is to provide a way for smart kids from poor backgrounds to compete with the kids of the wealthy.

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DavidWaldron t1_iu2ndgb wrote

It’d be nice if it worked that way. After accounting for academic performance in high school, a lot of the remaining variation in college success explained by standardized tests reflects student background.

Edit: source for the downvoters

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685327593 t1_iu2oom6 wrote

The "problem" is simply that the kids of the rich are legitimately the smartest kids. There's a considerable "nurture" component to intelligence and higher income kids receive it more than poor kids do. By the time they're 17 kids from high income families are just factually more intelligent and well rounded individuals. And that's not to mention any genetic intelligence advantage they may receive.

PS: While rich kids are nurtured better than poor ones I'd argue it's certainly possible for poor parents to provide a good head start to their kids. We see that even poor Asian kids greatly overperform on academic metrics because their parents stress it a lot at home and focus what resources they have primarily on education.

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DavidWaldron t1_iu2s9oy wrote

That’s not really true (about Asians). If you look at, say, the Hmong population in Minnesota, or the Burmese population where I currently live, they are less successful academically than average. Everyone loves to talk about “Asian culture” as a reason for Asian-American academic success, but it’s way overstated. The main reason Asians are successful is simply that a large portion of us are children or grandchildren of immigrants and immigration to America (aside from poor refugees) selects from the highest socioeconomic strata of foreign countries.

Edit for sources: for a general overview of what causes immigrant success in America I recommend Boustan and Abramitzky’s recent book, Streets of Gold. I also like Ed Lazear’s paper on the nuts and bolts of selection in America’s immigration system, but that’s a bit technical.

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685327593 t1_iu2tq0g wrote

"Asian" is a poor way to lump together dozens of different ethnicities. It's obviously not true that they all value the same things, however in general there's no doubt Asian culture is more focused on education.

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DavidWaldron t1_iu2u2mj wrote

And in response to the first paragraph, the question is whether you want the post secondary education to simply reflect people’s advantages up to that point, or whether you also want to capitalize on ability that has been underdeveloped and under-recognized. If you want the former, reward standardized test (or straight-up family wealth). If you think the latter has benefits you can use policies like Texas‘s top percent policy which gives automatic acceptance based on percentile performance within schools. This is empirically shown to increase college attainment among economically disadvantaged students with no real downsides.

Edit: here’s the Texas Top Percent research

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685327593 t1_iu2vhf8 wrote

I think top colleges should admit the most qualified students. Lowering the standards of our top academic institutions isn't the solution to poor parenting and school funding. State colleges are perfectly fine institutions of higher learning and a person attending one has plenty of opportunity to succeed in life. A Harvard education isn't required to get ahead for an intelligent and motivated individual. If politicians want to do something to help poor people get more educated they should change the way schools are funded since the current model of using local property taxes is manifestly unfair. The reality is that by the time a person is 18 its already too late to make up for a learning deficit acquired early in life.

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DavidWaldron t1_iu2w0v3 wrote

I don’t care about Harvard either, to be honest. I care much more about public universities. It simply doesn’t follow that admitting the “most qualified” students maximizes the benefits of the education system. It doesn’t. It is actually less efficient than a design like in Texas.

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Abstract__Nonsense t1_iu3108m wrote

Ok that’s fine, and they have no moral desert for attending the most prestigious colleges. Go take your fallback option at Vassar, Rick, privileged white kid. If your aptitude for life mirrors your aptitude for tests that education will serve you just fine…

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DavidWaldron t1_iu3a6d9 wrote

Yes, in fact that’s exactly what happens when you award automatic admission based on relative performance within one’s high school. Economically disadvantaged students have improved education and employment outcomes, while kids at top-ranked feeder schools have essentially the same outcomes, but some of them attend less prestigious colleges.

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