John of Discriminations has a thoughtful reply to an unpublished study (excerpted in The Chronicle of Higher Education) about two common criticisms of AA:
[the study] examined longitudinal student data from 28 selective colleges in an attempt to determine whether any evidence supported two of the most common criticisms of race-conscious admissions policies. Those are the "mismatch hypothesis," which holds that such policies result in the admission of students who find themselves in over their heads academically, and the "stereotype-threat hypothesis," which holds that such policies stigmatize all minority students as academically subpar, thereby placing them under a form of psychological pressure that undermines their academic performance.
The authors apparently had at their disposal SAT scores and college GPAs by race for these universities. They deduced AA admissions by the following:
To try to measure how much of a role a particular student's race or ethnicity played in his or her admission, the researchers looked at the difference between that person's SAT score and the average for the entering class. (On average, black students' SAT scores were 131 points below the average for all students at the 28 colleges, while Hispanic students' SAT scores were 76 points below.)
John wonders, and rightfully so, why black and hispanics were compared to the average of the entire class, rather than the average of those who did not receive race-based preferences. That comparison would have provided a much clearer picture of the score gap.
Beyond that, I wonder why the authors made the assumption, as they seem to have done here, that all black and hispanic students who scored below the group SAT mean received race-based preference in admissions. I assume some non-minority students below the mean were also admitted, and it would have been enlightening to see how they did in school.
What's more, it's entirely possible that that admitted students of any race who had low SATs also had good high school GPAs or other indicators suggesting that they might do well in college. SAT and high-school grades are correlated, but not that highly. Wouldn't it have been logical to conclude that at least some of the low-SAT admittees were folks who didn't test well but had stellar extracurriculars and great references, and thus didn't need the race-based preferences? After all, unless everyone below the mean was a minority, we know that some non-minority kids did get in with middling SAT scores and no preferences. And unless every minority student below the SAT mean also had a subpar high school GPA and no references, there's no reason to assume that a student received racial preferences based on skin color and SAT alone.
John is also quite right to wonder at these conclusions:
The study found that those black and Hispanic students who had seemed to get the biggest break in admission actually tended to have slightly higher grade-point averages than other students, and were much less likely than other students to leave college. Their level of satisfaction with college was about the same as that of other students....
Again, we don't know that these students actually did get in because of race-based policies; we only know their SAT scores. And what about students below the SAT mean who didn't receive preferential treatment? That's really the group to whom these students should be compared.
And then we see this:
When all black and Hispanic students at an institution were examined collectively, however, evidence of "stereotype threat" emerged. The more a college used affirmative action, the lower were the grade-point averages of its minority students, and the more likely such students were to leave college and express dissatisfaction with their college experience. The negative correlation between a college's commitment to affirmative action and the grade-point averages of its black and Hispanic students grew stronger the longer the students were in college, suggesting that the effects of "stereotype threat" mounted as the students became more accustomed to the campus culture.
How on earth can the researchers look at this data and conclude that "stereotype threat" must exist, especially when they just said that the minority students they thought benefited from AA had higher GPAs than the average student? The only way they could reach this conclusion is if they assume that the "stereotype threat" hypothesis of AA is true, and rule out any other explanation why students admitted due to racial factors would do poorly.
Here's what I think is going on. In these colleges, some minority students below the SAT mean were admitted due to AA, and some were not. Those who had other strengths not measured by the SAT may have gone on to do okay in school, and that could increase the average of the below-SAT group. But the more a college indulges in AA - that is, the more they admit minority students with subpar SAT scores - the more likely it is they are going to get a group of students who are unprepared for and unhappy with the college environment.
Nothing I can see in these excerpts suggest that the "mismatch" hypothesis must be false, and that the "stereotype threat" hypothesis must be true. Nothing I see here supports the conclusion that AA policies are, as a rule, good for minority students. Statistical quibbling aside, these data are consistent with the idea that race-based admissions policies can be a bad idea, especially if the minority student not only has low SAT scores but doesn't qualify in other academic areas as well.
Posted by kswygert at February 22, 2005 03:18 PM