Inside Higher Ed
Peter Schmidt
April 20, 2009
If members of some minority groups are admitted to elite colleges because of affirmative action -- and don't perform as well as they expected -- does this show a serious flaw in efforts to diversify student bodies?
Critics of affirmative action answer in the affirmative, and this is the basis of the controversial "mismatch" theory -- namely that affirmative action doesn't actually help its intended beneficiaries because they may struggle academically where admitted instead of enrolling at less competitive institutions where they might excel. Mismatch is heatedly debated -- in part because of the political potency of the argument. After all, it allows critics of affirmative action to say that they aren't just worried about white applicants, but about black and Latino students, too.
In a paper released Friday, four scholars at Duke University (three in economics and one in sociology) propose a new way to test for mismatch. They say that much more information is needed than has typically been available in the past. But because they were able to obtain this information for Duke, they argue that a mismatch test is possible. They propose a test in which applicants admitted to an elite university are asked to predict their first-year grades and are then told the average grades earned by members of similar ethnic and racial groups admitted under similar circumstances. In this situation, they argue, students admitted under affirmative action could make an informed judgment on whether they were being mismatched.
The data released by the scholars in explaining their idea could be quite controversial. Private colleges and universities historically release very little information, broken down by race and ethnicity, about the admissions qualifications and subsequent performance of students. Getting even SAT averages by race can be difficult. Duke provided the researchers not only with SAT averages, but with admissions officers' average rankings of admitted students on a five-point scale, by race, as well as the students' own projected first-year grades and actual grades.
Generally, the data show that Asian admitted students had better rankings and scores than all other groups, although their advantage over white students was modest. But Asian and white applicants are generally far above other applicants. And while all groups, on average, overestimated their academic performance in their first year at Duke, black and Latino students had the largest gaps between the performance they expected and what they achieved.
The study, "Does Affirmative Action Lead to Mismatch," is by Peter Arcidiacono, Esteban M. Aucejo, Hanming Fang and Kenneth I. Spenner, and was released by the National Bureau of Economic Research. (An abstract is available here, as is information on how to download the study for $5.)
Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/20/mismatch
Showing posts with label minority mismatch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label minority mismatch. Show all posts
Monday, April 20, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
The 10% Fight Is Back
Inside Higher Ed
January 12, 2009
Location. Location. Location.
That’s the theory in real estate, and new research suggests that the same theory may apply to graduation rates, too. Attend a more selective institution and you are more likely to graduate. That may not seem shocking, if you assume that better students attend more competitive institutions. But the new study focuses on the impact of the “10 percent” admissions system in Texas and was done in a way that challenges the theory of “minority mismatch,” in which some critics of affirmative action say that graduation rates for minority students would be better if they attended institutions they could enroll at without any special admissions system in place.
The key finding is that minority students in Texas are significantly more likely to graduate if they enroll at a competitive institution through the 10 percent plan than if they enroll at a less competitive, and theoretically easier, institution. In fact the only minority students who don’t appear to benefit from 10 percent are those who are below the top decile of their high school classes and who might have previously won admission to a highly competitive institution, but now frequently lose their spots and end up at other institutions. These students see a decline in graduation rates.
The percent plan idea originated as a law in Texas to respond to court rulings against affirmative action, but has been used elsewhere with different cutoffs. In Texas, those in the top 10 percent of their high school classes are assured admission to the public university of their choice — regardless of standardized test scores.
The idea behind the percentage plans is that black and Latino students, on average, don’t do as well on standardized tests as do white and Asian students. In addition, Texas is a state with many high schools that are overwhelmingly Latino or overwhelmingly black. Since every high school has a top 10 percent, eliminating the testing requirement meant that these largely minority high schools were going to end up producing good numbers of Latino and black students who would be admitted — without consideration of race in ways that might offend courts or critics of affirmative action — to such competitive institutions as the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M at College Station.
In many respects, the plan has been a major success in Texas, helping the flagship institutions to admit more minority students than they would have been able to otherwise — at least while the state was under a court order not to use affirmative action. But ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that public colleges could consider race in admissions, University of Texas officials have been pushing to get rid of 10 percent and to instead rely on other admissions strategies (including affirmative action). In the 2007 legislative session, the university was expected to win its fight, but at the last minute, the 10 percent system survived.
Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/12/tenpercent
January 12, 2009
Location. Location. Location.
That’s the theory in real estate, and new research suggests that the same theory may apply to graduation rates, too. Attend a more selective institution and you are more likely to graduate. That may not seem shocking, if you assume that better students attend more competitive institutions. But the new study focuses on the impact of the “10 percent” admissions system in Texas and was done in a way that challenges the theory of “minority mismatch,” in which some critics of affirmative action say that graduation rates for minority students would be better if they attended institutions they could enroll at without any special admissions system in place.
The key finding is that minority students in Texas are significantly more likely to graduate if they enroll at a competitive institution through the 10 percent plan than if they enroll at a less competitive, and theoretically easier, institution. In fact the only minority students who don’t appear to benefit from 10 percent are those who are below the top decile of their high school classes and who might have previously won admission to a highly competitive institution, but now frequently lose their spots and end up at other institutions. These students see a decline in graduation rates.
The percent plan idea originated as a law in Texas to respond to court rulings against affirmative action, but has been used elsewhere with different cutoffs. In Texas, those in the top 10 percent of their high school classes are assured admission to the public university of their choice — regardless of standardized test scores.
The idea behind the percentage plans is that black and Latino students, on average, don’t do as well on standardized tests as do white and Asian students. In addition, Texas is a state with many high schools that are overwhelmingly Latino or overwhelmingly black. Since every high school has a top 10 percent, eliminating the testing requirement meant that these largely minority high schools were going to end up producing good numbers of Latino and black students who would be admitted — without consideration of race in ways that might offend courts or critics of affirmative action — to such competitive institutions as the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M at College Station.
In many respects, the plan has been a major success in Texas, helping the flagship institutions to admit more minority students than they would have been able to otherwise — at least while the state was under a court order not to use affirmative action. But ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that public colleges could consider race in admissions, University of Texas officials have been pushing to get rid of 10 percent and to instead rely on other admissions strategies (including affirmative action). In the 2007 legislative session, the university was expected to win its fight, but at the last minute, the 10 percent system survived.
Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/12/tenpercent
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