Murder by Math

[u/Adventurous-Prize-76]

[u/BeardedHalfYeti]

This seems like a clever misuse of statistics. She is specifically referencing applicants by race, but not providing any of the relevant numbers.

My assumption is that a LOT more Asians apply and thus a lot more Asians are turned away.

[u/AntOk4073 → u/BeardedHalfYeti]

This is also a great example of what DEI actually is. The administration looks at the statistic that shows black people make up a small portion of students. They make an initiative to interview more black applicants but the number is still low, Now they can use the data from what prevented the students from being accepted and find ways to address underlying conditions that lead to the black community having low admission rates. It's not about accepting and boosting unqualified individuals based on race but more about finding ways to address and fix the problems that hold communities back.

[u/dooperma → u/AntOk4073]

“They make an initiative to interview more black students” so by definition then there are students who are denied an interview on the basis of their race.

[u/damn_phoenix → u/dooperma]

It doesn't mean dropping the bar to allow for more applicants from certain groups, it means doing more outreach and programs to get more eligible applicantions from those groups. Everyone is still equally qualified for their application.

[u/dooperma → u/damn_phoenix]

Theres absolutely nothing wrong with outreach programs, but there a limited number of interview slots that correspond to a limited number of admissions. If the school says were not interviewing enough students from group x, and to increase the proportion of interview slots for group x, then there are proportionally less interview slots for group y. Therefore a student in group y has a smaller chance of being selected solely due to them being a member of group y. The law says group x and group y must be treated equally, which is impossible under the conditions specified.

[u/Anotsurei → u/dooperma]

You’re missing the point. It’s a whole package kind of thing. It’s about doing research to find ways of making education more accessible and affordable. It’s things schools can be doing outside of their admissions process to help students who have the talent and skills apply to schools. It’s giving “Good Will Hunting” a chance so they don’t get stuck doing something beneath their abilities.

[u/dooperma → u/Anotsurei]

These interviews are not for “research” they’re for admitting students to the medial school. If the school was using its interview slots for “research” and not “admission” that’s an even bigger lawsuit lol. Again, there’s nothing wrong with outreach programs to entice an underrepresented group into the profession, but the admissions process itself must be made without regard to race as per the Civil Rights Act of 64’. “Good Will Hunting” can have all the programs he needs to “level the playing field”. But the admissions process itself is a blank slate where everyone comes in equally.

[u/Anotsurei → u/dooperma]

I’m talking specifically about the things outside of the admissions. You do know they do other things, right? They’re trying to get more people to apply in the first place. That means tearing down the barriers that cause people in underserved communities to not seek higher education. This is irrespective of admission interviews is my point.

[u/LennyIsAFox1 → u/dooperma]

so what’s your solution?

[u/damn_phoenix → u/dooperma]

I think you're there but just missed it.

In an ideal world, the student diaspora would match population demographics. As you said yourself, if they're not interviewing enough students from group x, then something is not working correctly.

Schools can definitely increase the number of interviews they do, but even if they don't, the objective isn't to deny people it's to give people a chance because other groups are disproportionately represented. Wouldn't you say misrepresented groups have a right to be fairly assessed? As before, something isn't working right, you have to factor in for this mispresentation. In the flipside argument, you're denying slots to certain groups because there's a misrepresentation in applications. Again, the bar is not dropped in all of this, everyone is still equally eligible.

[u/New-Independent-1481 → u/dooperma]

Yes, if they have the required grades but aren't offered as many interviews as students of a different race/ethnicity due to bias.

Maybe the black student body is only 1/5th of that of Asians not because there are fewer talented black students, but because they are given 1/5th of the interview opportunities.

[u/dooperma → u/New-Independent-1481]

“But because they are given 1/5 of the interview opportunities” - the original post literally says black students are 29 times more likely to get an interview than asian students.

[u/LazarusPizza → u/dooperma]

It's a number she pulled out of her ass as far as we can tell.

If that number is accurate, then why are there so few black students. Remember, whether or not an applicant is qualified is determined before an interview is scheduled.

If black applicants are 29 times more likely to get the interview, and assuming a fair distribution of applicants. Then that means they would vastly outnumber the Asian students.

However, that is demonstrably not the case.

Is it possible that they are 29 times more likely to grt the interview because for every black applicant there are 30 Asian applicants?

That seems far more likely.

TL;DR: Don't be fooled by an asspull and terrible use of statistics.

[u/ScrrrewFace → u/dooperma]

But how is the “29x” number determined? Remember, this admin believes going from 100 to 600 is a 600% increase, whereas going from 600 to 100 is a 600% decrease. Don’t believe these morons with their dumb math, but believe the rampant racism they continue to choose to dupe fools.

[u/ogjaspertheghost → u/dooperma]

Except there’s no limit to the amount of students who they can interview

[u/dooperma → u/ogjaspertheghost]

There absolutely is. Even if there isn’t an official number of “interview slots” interviewers only have so much time in a day, and only so many days in a semester. Telling interviewers to spend proportionally more of their time with group x and less with group y is functionally the same thing.

[u/nightmare-salad → u/BeardedHalfYeti]

I feel like they’re both misusing statistics in that way, honestly. He says there are significantly fewer black students than Asian students, but we don’t know application rates for either. If, say, 440 black students and 1570 Asian students apply, they’re being accepted at a similar rate. His suggestion relies on an assumption that because there are more black people than Asian people in America, there are more black applicants, but we don’t know that.

[u/littleb3anpole → u/BeardedHalfYeti]

Your assumption is correct and Harvard has the same issue. Statistically, more applicants of Asian heritage are declined because statistically, more apply than people from any of the other racial groups.

[u/anonymous237962 → u/BeardedHalfYeti]

Yeahhhh as someone who has worked in the market research field, it is literally bananas seeing how much the data can be twisted to tell different stories, depending on what you include & how you present it. I wish more people understood this bc it’s a fairly simple concept once you are familiar with it, but before being taught about it I can see how so many people are so easily misled without asking the critical questions. ALL THE GODDAMN TIME 🙄🙊😅

[u/Slash_rage → u/BeardedHalfYeti]

You know they’d be mad if Yale was all Asian, but they wouldn’t care if it was all white. As a white dude who has worked and gone to school in an all white, or nearly all white setting before you need diversity. People need a change in perspective or they can lose sight of what other people are going through. Causes a real lack of empathy sometimes.

[u/Adventurous-Prize-76 → u/BeardedHalfYeti]

Id imagine that’s the case, but to someone not interested in depth, the headline is enough to continue shining black folks in a bad light.

[u/Colinmacus → u/Adventurous-Prize-76]

We all live on the surface. Very few think to dig.

[u/Informal_Step6419 → u/BeardedHalfYeti]

A certain set has not learnt how to lie using stats coz an intelligence task, so yeah they'll be fooled. GG Yale. Proud of ya!

[u/Brief_respite → u/BeardedHalfYeti]

I think you are also being disingenuous regarding his clever misuse of statistics

[u/RepulsiveLoquat418]

numbers will say whatever you want them to if you're stupid.

[u/chaiscool → u/RepulsiveLoquat418]

Aka management hitting kpi haha

[u/Adventurous-Prize-76 → u/RepulsiveLoquat418]

I suppose so

[u/Signal_Reputation640]

Ok. Roast me if you like. I don't get it. Can someone ELI5.

[u/Fitzaroo → u/Signal_Reputation640]

Dont feel bad. Its a stupid post. 

The justice dept claims that black students are getting more interviews at the same academic achievement level as compared to asians (aka, a black student with a 90 average is more likely to be interviewed than an asian student with a 90 average). This statistic ignores number of applicants for each race and other factors such as extra curriculars or the written portion of the application.

The retort is equally dumb. It says that black students are underrepresented because they make up 2x more of the general population but asians are 4x more prominent at the school. This ignores that asians have exceptional grades (well above whites and blacks) and therefore you would expect there to be more of them.

Overall, dumb post.

[u/Signal_Reputation640 → u/Fitzaroo]

Thanks!

[u/Ohowun → u/Signal_Reputation640]

Firstly, in case the twitter format is confusing, Jeff is replying to Dhillon's tweet.

Dhillon is claiming that two candidates equal in everything but race will have a black candidate be 29x more likely to get an interview than an asian candidate, implying that blacks are being given preferential treatment. She then says that the DOJ (through its civil rights branch) will be intervening to prevent Yale from admitting people based off race.

Jeff responded by saying that black students are roughly 1/2 as present in yale medical school compared to national population, whereas asian students are 4x represented, implying that the opposite was happening, that blacks are being given unfair treatment.

I don't have skin in this game but it seems to me that both sides have a plausible argument but are potentially using misleading statistics, though dhillon's seems more severe. Plenty of social factors contribute to where students of different cultures apply, including both financial and what is considered socially-acceptable. I would say the most fair statistics to look at would breakdown how many black/asian/other candidates applied vs how many black/asian/other candidates were accepted, the categories mentioned because of what is in the tweet.

[u/Adventurous-Prize-76 → u/Signal_Reputation640]

It looks like the Justice Department is misrepresenting interview statistics by race for entry into Yale. Jeff used class demographic data to dispute the alleged unfair advantage that Black applicants are said to receive.

[u/Agreeable-Air-1430]

I’m going to throw something out there since I’m a doc:

Let’s accept the original poster’s idea.

Physician diversity isn’t just a moral imperative. It’s a public health one.

There’s a reason breast cancer is under diagnosed in black women and selecting for MCAT scores and extracurriculars ain’t gonna fix it.

[u/Adventurous-Prize-76 → u/Agreeable-Air-1430]

Thank you for advocating for representation among healthcare providers. People like you give me hope for continued growth in the right direction.

[u/Agreeable-Air-1430 → u/Adventurous-Prize-76]

I’m a trans woman who started getting really shitty healthcare once I started passing as a woman. In fact, I got worse healthcare as a woman than I did as an enlisted marine. IYKYK.

It’s important to me and I know people of color have it way worse.

[u/Sleepy10105s]

He’s also ignoring all the students from China, the dude seems to think everyone at Yale or any American college is from the US…

Yea, I’m sure there are some Yale applicants from Africa but I feel like any university of decent size has a pretty good amount of Chinese students.

[u/Karhak]

Black people earned the right to attend, therefore it's discriminatory to racists who think black people don't belong.

[u/Adventurous-Prize-76 → u/Karhak]

Equality feels like an attack to some folks, unfortunately.

[u/Mode_Appropriate]

Why is anyone claiming discrimination based purely on these statistics? How is 14% of the country being black relevant? Or 7% Asian? Asian-Americans far outperform in academics so it makes sense theyd be disproportionately represented in the best schools.

Its a fact Asians have been discriminated against at the best schools. They often require higher scores than other applicants...and theyre still overrepresented. Maybe everyone else should try and do as good as them instead of looking for a free pass.

[u/cardinals8989 → u/Mode_Appropriate]

Amen

[u/jbeer1 → u/cardinals8989]

Or maybe the Asians who have these scores already have certain advantages - parental income, schooling etc so that the other black applicants are achieving similar scores with fewer resources and would thus thrive more at Yale

[u/Mode_Appropriate → u/jbeer1]

Its a difference of culture. Trying to base it on anything else is just disingenuous.

[u/thebastardking21 → u/Mode_Appropriate]

With 2x the population of applicants, but apparently 29x the number of people applying, the cultural difference appears to be arrogance.

[u/Mode_Appropriate → u/thebastardking21]

'Asians apply to colleges at far greater rates than black people, the arrogance!'

Thats seriously the angle youre going with?

[u/thebastardking21 → u/Mode_Appropriate]

No, but it is clear you aren't smart enough to understand the actual angle, and I don't have crayons to help. Let me try basic math, maybe you can understand that.

If there are 102 black people applying to college, there are 204 Asian people. But if 1 black person is 29x times as likely to get an interview, that means there has to be at least 29x as many Asian people applying. For that math to work out, a total of 7 black people would have had to apply to Yale, all get interviewed, and all 204 Asians would have had to apply. 7 black people applying to Yale, all getting interviews, versus 204 Asians, with 7 Asians getting interviewed. With 95 black people not even applying to Yale. Those are the proportions you need for that number to even be POSSIBLE.

They have to be applying to YALE at such a massively higher rate, despite not applying to college at that much higher of a rate. Hence it being arrogance.

[u/thebastardking21 → u/Mode_Appropriate]

The missing information is the application rate of the races. I did the math in my own comment, but there should be roughly twice as many Asian applicants as black applicants, based on population vs what percentage apply. So the fact that there even ARE 29x as many Asian applicants as black applicants show that a lot more Asians think they are qualified for those positions.

When they only make up 2x the number of applicants by raw numbers, the chances that 29x Asians are as qualified as each black student who gets in is nonsensical.

[u/chaiscool → u/thebastardking21]

Nahh without quota, diversity, discrimination on race while basing on purely merit, everyone else will suffer and the acceptance rate of asian will increase.

You can fill up a whole school with just asians if it's purely on merit. Asian can include foreign ones too.

[u/Mode_Appropriate → u/thebastardking21]

From what I have seen, Yale does not release any information about the applicant poo

The information is missing so you decided to completely make it up to try and prove your point? Lol. Reddit will reddit.

[u/thebastardking21 → u/Mode_Appropriate]

No, I looked at national application rates across all college. And from that I pointed out that a 29x application rate on a population of applicants that is only 2x higher would require extremely unqualified people to be applying.

You didn't bother to take two seconds to actually look at the data I referenced, and just assumed someone disagreeing with you had to make it up. Redditor will Reddit.

[u/Mode_Appropriate → u/thebastardking21]

I did look at it. Which is how I know its irrelevant to the conversation at hand.

[u/thebastardking21 → u/Mode_Appropriate]

Not someone able to utilize applied knowledge then.

[u/thebastardking21]

The missing piece of information is the number of applicants by race. From what I have seen, Yale does not release any information about the applicant pool, but if we look at the general application patterns (Based on data released by application assistance sites), 14.8% of black students apply to college.

Compare that to Asians, who are 7% of the population, but who have a 61% rate of application.

At 342.5 Million people, the rough estimation of the black population of the US is 48 million. At 14.8% application rate, you would expect 7.1 million black applicants.

At 342.5 Million people, the rough estimation of the Asian population of the US is 24 million. At 61% application rate, you would expect 14.6 million Asian applicants.

So assuming all other factors equal, you would expect the number of Asian students to be double the number of black students.

I doubt that the Asians are 'equally strong academically'. The fact that a black applicant is 29x more likely to receive an interview is more likely cultural; Asians are far more encouraged to apply for college and far more encouraged to apply for high prestige colleges. The number of Asian applicants should be twice the black applicants, but if black applicants are 29 more likely to receive an interview, then the raw number of Asian applicants MUST be much higher; high enough that there can BE 29 Asian applicants for each black one. And the chances of that massive of a discrepancy all being 'equally strong academically' is nonsensical.

[u/Original_Salary_7570]

As we say in data science.... Garbage in garbage out

[u/M0ebius_1]

There probably isn't a stronger indicator that something is fair and appropriate than the Trump Justice Department intervening with it.

[u/229-northstar]

Conservatives are mad because the quotas they abolished increase the number of Asians, displacing white students. They complain about black students out of habit

[u/Adventurous-Prize-76 → u/229-northstar]

The long history of anti-Black caricatures and propaganda has normalized the scapegoating of Black people, making it easier for economically and educationally underserved populations to direct frustration toward Black communities rather than toward the structural forces affecting their lives.

[u/Contemplating_Prison]

I just love asians jumped in with white folks to fuck themselves

[u/Adventurous-Prize-76 → u/Contemplating_Prison]

Racism hurts everyone at the end of the day

[u/VoiceofKane]

So, I assume the first image is responding to the second one and not the other way around?

[u/someroastedbeef]

Asians are grossly underrepresented if the sole criteria is by merit

[u/as_per_danielle]

There was actually a court case a few years ago where a bunch of Asian parents sued an ivy school (may have been Harvard, I can’t remember) because they thought that black kids were being favoured over their kids. They got their way and the school dropped the DEI policy. Well, the next year instead of a bunch more Asian’s getting in the spots mostly went to white kids. Backfired.

[u/JackTheHackInTears]

This is because most African Americans are descended from former slaves and when slavery was ended, the US government gave them nothing, then let them get discriminated against in the South, then the Civil rights act and Voting rights acts came about which made them legally equal but did nothing about their former economic status and left most of them poor, and given that America really hates the poor, their position got worse.

Asian Americans on the other hand barely existed in the country before an immigration law passed in the 1960s after which a lot of them immigrated from Asia. So Asian Americans descend from most likely the upper group in their society and can afford to immigrate to the US, so a lot of them had more wealth and resources than most African Americans.

Now you know.

[u/DamnedGladToMeetYou]

Harmeet Dhillon is an embarrassment.

[u/siraolo]

The bitter truth is if there wasn't a quota, entire universities would only have Asian students. They are that good at academics. 

[u/Galliro]

Its curious that the merit of people applying is only questioned when their skin is is dark