← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · madrussian

Admissions at UC Berkeley Questioned

Thread ID: 10282 | Posts: 12 | Started: 2003-10-05

Wayback Archive

madrussian [OP]

2003-10-05 21:53 | User Profile

The ethnic breakdown of those who were denied admission and those who got in with the idiot scores would be interesting to look at.

Sue McGuire for KCBS-740 AM

(AP) -- The University of California, Berkeley admitted hundreds of freshmen students in 2002 with SAT entrance exam scores far below those of other applicants who were denied admission, according to a confidential report.

The preliminary analysis, prepared for the UC Board of Regents and obtained by the Los Angeles Times, reveals that nearly 400 students were admitted to UC Berkeley in 2002 with SAT scores falling between 600 and 1,000, well below the 1,337 average for last year's total admitted class.

Nearly 2,600 applicants with scores from 1400 to 1500 were not admitted and 600 would-be Cal students with SAT scores above 1500 were also rejected. Berkeley officials said some of those high-scoring students that were denied admission had relatively low grade-point averages.

Campus administrators also issued a statement Saturday, saying the Times grossly mischaracterized the results of the 2002 admissions process.

yummybear

2003-10-07 05:21 | User Profile

And it should be remembered that people get 400 points just for showing up which means that some of them only got 200 points out of a possible 1200. This is all thanks to Richard Atkindson the outgoing President of the University of Calif. and Jew, of course. He turned the admissions process into a version of the crying game in order to gain more minorities. People actually got points for being from dysfunctional families, etc. Talk about turning the Jewish victim mentality into a criteria for admission to the university. These miserable ****ers will do anything to keep Whites out.

madrussian

2003-10-07 15:53 | User Profile

[url]http://vdare.com/misc/orland_quotas.htm[/url]

By David Orland

Hilaire Belloc’s advice to Edwardian children has now come true for white Americans: the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger has effectively replaced the quota-and-point-system discrimination of traditional affirmative action with an ill-defined “interest in diversity” as an intrinsic public good.

Not for the first time, this horrible idea can be blamed on California—where a leaked Board of Regents report has just revealed that, in 2002, social engineering admissions officials at UC Berkeley admitted nearly 400 students with SAT scores of 600-1000, while rejecting thousands of students with scores above the entering class’s average—average!—of 1337. [UC Berkeley Admissions Scrutinized , Los Angeles Times, October 4, 2003 By Rebecca Trounson, Tony Perry and Stuart Silverstein]

And, as I have earlier argued, a Yes vote on Proposition 54, which seeks to eliminate quotas by eliminating government collection of racial data, won’t help.

At least the traditional affirmative action system had two great merits:

An implicit sunset provision: once the representation of favored minorities achieved something like proportionality, affirmative action could be said to have run out of reasons to exist.

No mission creep: since only certain groups (i.e. blacks and Native Americans) could plausibly claim to be the victims of sustained institutional discrimination, affirmative action was blatantly over-reaching when it sought to benefit recent immigrant groups—that is, people whose ancestors weren’t in the U.S. to suffer discrimination in the first place.

The Supreme Court has changed all that. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor's 5-4 majority opinion that racial preferences are justified, not by past discrimination but rather by an “interest in diversity” has assured that quotas can now be extended with impunity to groups for whom affirmative action was never intended.

This raises an intriguing—if so far unexplored—question: will whites, too, be eligible for admissions preferences in cases where they find themselves under-represented?

Not a chance.

In the first place, there is the notion of “critical mass” introduced by the University of Michigan and endorsed by O’Connor’s majority ruling. Critical mass, O’Connor claims is that percentage of students from a given racial group necessary to make all members of that group feel “comfortable” on campus while contributing to the “breaking down of racial stereotypes” held about that group by outsiders. [See O’Connor’s majority Opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger]

Not coincidentally, what constitutes “critical mass” in particular cases is almost entirely up for grabs. This situation suits university administrators just fine (not so surprising, really, when you consider that it was university administrators who invented the concept).

Even so, there will obviously be an upper-limit beyond which “critical mass” considerations can no longer apply - say, when the representation of a given racial or ethnic group exceeds 25% of the student body. Even with current mass immigration, it will be some time before white student representation on public university campuses falls below this level.

The “critical mass” to make white students “comfortable,” in other words, will be assumed achieved - whether or not whites are under-represented relative to their share of the state’s population.

Hence no racial preferences for whites.

Secondly, diversity-conscious college administrators simply don’t care about whites.

Consider California. Following the passage of Proposition 209, the 1996 state ballot initiative banning the use of race and ethnicity in public hiring and admissions, the University of California was compelled to re-think how it did racial preferences. In place of crude quota discrimination, UC administrators introduced a supposedly more nuanced system that, as they put it, sought to balance the “need for diversity” with their interest in staying this side of the law.

For supporters of racial preferences, this looked like very bad news indeed. Without a very considerable leg-up, the substandard test scores and GPAs of black and Hispanic students would put them at a significant disadvantage compared to whites and Asians. Proposition 209, its critics warned, would mean an end to diversity in the University of California system.

But it didn’t work out that way.

Remarkably, in the years since the Proposition 209’s passage, the representation of under-represented minorities has not significantly diminished. In some cases it has actually increased.

The reason: an aggressive and hugely expensive campaign by the University to promote diversity.

The result: the vast disparities noted by the leaked Board of Regents report. Of course, UC administrators made vague noises about “other” factors in these students’ admission, such as high school grade point averages. But all these claims collapsed upon examination, as The Los Angeles Times Rebecca Trounson, Tony Perry and Stuart Silverstein noted, to their credit. [VDARE.COM is scrupulously fair!]

But diversity has for the moment been saved.

Or has it? The story is quite otherwise for the University’s white students.

Whites are today a minority of the California state population. And they are also an under-represented minority in its public university system. With the exception of one year (1999), white representation on UC campuses has actually declined since the passage of Proposition 209 - from 43.7% in 1997, the last year that affirmative action was in force on UC campuses.

Yet you would seek in vain for evidence of public concern over the representation of the state’s largest minority -- whites -- in its public institutions.

If “diversity” were applied fairly and across the board in California, whites would also be included under its umbrella.

But it isn’t and it won’t be.

Thanks to Sandra Day O’Connor and her majority of Supremes, California now threatens to be the model for our future. O’Connor even went so far as to single out California (together with Florida and Washington) as examples of how public universities might tailor diversity-sensitive admissions policies in the post-affirmative action era.

The Supreme Court’s ruling means more (and different) preferences, imposed on us for longer. It would be absurd to wax nostalgic for the bad old days of quotas and racial set-asides. But it is clear that, for the disfavored majority, the new legal situation has gotten worse.

In her opinion, Justice O’Connor did muse, vaguely, that in 25 years we might not need racial preferences in university admissions, any more.

And perhaps she’s right. Given current rates of immigration, in 25 years, whites will be just another minority in many—if not most—states.

We shall all be living in California—unless we take political action.

Soon.

JAT

2003-10-07 19:18 | User Profile

Honestly, I do not know what it will take to wake up the majority of Whites in the U.S. Any rational mind ought to be enraged by this, among the thousands of other occurrences that are actively discriminating against Whites in a country their ancestors built. Particularly outrageous are the newly arrived Mestizos, the Koreans, et al who enter the U.S. and immediately, by default, become protected victims due special entitlements.

madrussian

2003-10-07 20:16 | User Profile

Just as predicted, squeezing out whitey isn't stopping, and unless whitey fights back it never will. It's has never been about fairness.

If giving up so much without a fight is what it takes for the majority to wake up, too bad.

edward gibbon

2003-10-07 21:47 | User Profile

I wrote about the Berkeley quotas and white cowardice in my book, *[B][COLOR=Blue][FONT=Times New Roman]War, Money and American Memory: Myths of Virtue, Valor and Patriotism[/FONT][/I][/COLOR] [/B]There has been little or no change. [QUOTE]An ominous indication of how poorly blacks have been served by the American educational system has been their performance in the SAT's. In 1987 the average score for blacks taking the SAT's was 353 on the verbal and 384 on the mathematics part which gives a score of 737 combined. With dozens of universities requiring a score of 1200 for the median student in their incoming freshmen classes the performance of blacks has been abysmal. As late as 1983 there were only 600 black students nationwide who scored 1200 or above on their SAT's. If every one of these students went to the Ivy League, blacks would still be underrepresented by race on those campuses. Black economist and sociologist Thomas Sowell used the Berkeley campus of the University of California for his case study. All 312 students admitted at Berkeley in 1987 were admitted under affirmative action. Their median score was 952 while the university average was 1181. More than 70 percent of blacks admitted failed to graduate from Berkeley.

White presence at the University of California at Berkeley had fallen in the 1980's.  [COLOR=Red][I]During the reign of Chancellor Ira Michael Heyman the presence of non-white undergraduate students grew from 27 percent in 1980 to 51 percent in 1988.  In a news conference in 1989 Mr. Heyman thought the increase in what he termed diversity in the undergraduate student body was his greatest accomplishment.[/I][/COLOR]  In the graduate division and in the faculty Mr. Heyman thought they "had a long way to go".   A university professor, writing in the Nation, gave for the incoming class of 1987 at Berkeley the percentages as [COLOR=Red]12 percent black, 17 percent Latino, 26 percent Asian and only 40[sic] percent white[/COLOR].   Even then Asians had begun to complain about discrimination as they felt they were entitled to more places in admission.   With their heritage of respect for scholarship and their work habits young Asians had scored well on tests like the SAT's and done well in school.  In 1987 non-Hispanic whites were 62 percent of the state's high school graduates, but were denied a like presence in the state's university system.  In 1995 Asians with only 9 percent of the state's population were 39 percent of Berkeley's 21,000 undergraduates; Hispanics with 25 percent of the population were 14 percent; blacks with 7 percent of the state population were 5.5 percent; and whites with 58 percent of the population were only 32 percent of the student body.  The average Scholastic Aptitude Test scores for blacks was 994; for Chicanos 1032; for whites 1256; and 1293 for Asians.   No mention was made for the presence of Jews among the whites.  If the past would be any guide, they would be attending college in much greater number than they were being present in the general population.  The silent majority remained silent out of ignorance, indifference or stupidity.  The moral cowardice of the whites continued.[/QUOTE]

Roy Batty

2003-10-08 00:33 | User Profile

Keep in mind that the SAT has been adjusted every so often since 1982. Officials call it "re-centering". Overall scores have been inflated at least 100 - 130 points over the last 19 years. Blacks and browns are doing even worse than realized, while Whites have actually dropped overall in scoring when this is taken into account. Asians scores have gone up over the last 20 years like Whites, until the re-centering is taken into account.

The test is going to be further altered anyway. They have to find some way to skewer Whitey completely. Several years ago, it was revealed that the SAT scores for blacks and latinos averaged over 200 points less than the average for Whites and Asians who were admitted to Berkeley. Same at UCLA. This has been going on for years and years. At UCLA, I had some classes with blacks and browns who didn't belong at the school at all. They weren't even competent enough to be in remedial classes at a JC. It was embarrassing and irritating, especially when they would fire off the most ignorant remarks while maintaining looks of supreme arrogance and self confidence. Meanwhile, some Whites and Asians I knew were going to JC's for their first two years of school, and then transferring to UCLA to finish. Why didn't they get into UCLA right away? Their scores that ranged from 1200 - 1400 had to have been better than the scores of the black and brown campus retard radicals. So ... you tell me. (Yeah, I got in because I had a very high score - some idiots like myself are good at standardized tests. These days I'll bet I'd have ended up in some kind of lottery to be admitted, if I were lucky, or just going to a JC or other UC campus) A lot of qualified Whites are shut out of UCLA and Berkeley and shuttled off to UC Davis, UCSB, etc. instead. Asians are also affected by this, but not in the same manner as Whites, they still have a small race card to pull. But they also work very hard, that I have to give them. The average Asian kid is spending more time per day on homework than the average White kid does per week, at least in CA according to surveys. I believe it.

Faust

2003-10-08 00:42 | User Profile

[B]Why would anyone in thier Right-mind want to go to UC Berkeley?[/B]

Rumblestrip

2003-10-09 09:20 | User Profile

Why would anyone in thier Right-mind want to go to UC Berkeley?

Right-mindedness is a rare commodity these days.

Acorn

2003-10-11 00:37 | User Profile

Maybe UC Berkeley is their local college, where they can still live at home and maybe get a degree that theoretically should lead to a decent jobs, as opposed to the kind of jobs Whites are being channeled into, like cleaning floors etc.

I bought a printer from a White today working at Fry's for $7 an hour, guy has an engineering degree but he's White so he has to get minimum wage at fry's. I talked with him a bit, and think I got him turned on to Kevin McDonald and vdare.

I will not accept the idea that Whites must feel afraid to go to any college in THEIR LAND. We can't all run away to Idaho either, we must go on the OFFENSIVE. We must re-take our neighborhoods, our states, and our schools.

madrussian

2003-10-11 18:46 | User Profile

At least one student agreed...But others said they weren't concerned. -- yeah, right

Fri Oct 10, 4:27 PM ET

John Lobertini

Some say a new admissions policy at U.C. Berkeley has allowed hundreds of students with sub-par SAT scores to enter the elite school.

Under the policy, the school considers socioeconomic status along with grade-point average and community service. **Race is not supposed to be a factor, but some regents say that a close look at the numbers show that race-based admissions may still be part of the university.

In 2001, 422 students were admitted to Berkeley with SAT scores under 1000, considered the average score. Out of that pool, 90% were minorities. A regents' audit of 2002 showed that 3218 students who scored above 1400 on the SAT were denied admission, while 374 applicants who scored 600-1000 did get in.

"It is outrageous," John Moores, Chair of the U.C. Board of Regents told the San Francisco Chronicle. "They don't have any business going to Berkeley."

At least one student agreed. "It's a little bit bothersome that there are certain people that have just sort of slipped under the radar, and not had to meet the criteria that the rest of us have had to meet," said senior Daniel Frankenstein.

But others said they weren't concerned.**

"We need to help certain people who aren't as fortunate," said freshman Taylor Grisby.

An admissions official told the San Francisco Chronicle there could be a number of explanations for the discrepancy -- including the extremely competitive engineering school, and athlete recruitment. But the university said it was still reviewing the numbers.

madrussian

2003-10-11 19:54 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Faust][B]Why would anyone in thier Right-mind want to go to UC Berkeley?[/B][/QUOTE]

Good engineering school, for one. And much more affordable compared to Stanford. Every white denied the chance to go to a better school because of racial preferences is one more less-earning and under-appreciated worker in the future.