http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/court-prepares-affirmative-action-decision-softer-standards-men-182205509.html
QuoteThe Supreme Court is poised to release its opinion on an affirmative-action case that could forever change the way public colleges and universities consider race in admissions. But even if, as some predict, the justices issue a broad ruling slapping down the use of race in admissions, an open secret in higher education—that many colleges lower their admissions standards for male applicants—remains unchallenged and largely unremarked upon.
For years, the percentage of men enrolled in college has been declining, with women making up nearly 57 percent of all undergrads at four-year colleges last year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. While schools are prohibited under the federal Title IX law from discriminating based on gender, some admissions officials have admitted in recent years that male applicants get a leg up from colleges hoping to avoid gender imbalances on campus.
Jennifer Delahunty Britz, the dean of admissions at the private liberal arts school Kenyon College, was among the first to admit this when she wrote an op-ed titled "To All the Girls I've Rejected" in The New York Times in 2006.
"The reality is that because young men are rarer, they're more valued applicants," she wrote, adding that two-thirds of colleges report that more women than men apply for admission. "What messages are we sending young women that they must, nearly 25 years after the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, be even more accomplished than men to gain admission to the nation's top colleges?"
Delahunty Britz's acknowledgment opened the floodgates, and reporters began looking closely at schools that admitted a much higher percentage of male than female applicants.
Of course, these gaps don't necessarily mean that women are being discriminated against. It's possible that the male applicant pool is better qualified on average, though that's hard to ascertain when colleges generally resist releasing their admissions data.
The University of Richmond, a private liberal arts school, acknowledged in 2009 that it attempts to keep its gender balance at about 50-50, which meant women's admit rate was about 13 percentage points lower than men's over the previous 10 years. Admissions officer Marilyn Hesser told CBS that men and women had about the same standardized test scores, but that male applicants' GPA was lower on average. (The college's admission rate suddenly became more gender neutral the following year, in 2010-2011, when men's acceptance rate was only 3 percentage points higher than women's.)
The same year, the College of William and Mary, a public institution in Virginia, accepted 39.4 percent of its male applicants and 27.2 percent of female applicants. The school's admissions dean, Henry Broaddus, said men have slightly higher standardized test scores but lower GPAs than women, on average.
Broaddus defended the policy, insisting that William and Mary's female students want the college to to be gender-balanced and that colleges in general risk becoming less attractive to both men and women when the gender balance tips too far toward women.
...[more in link]
This kind of thing has been going on at liberal arts schools for awhile, or at least it was when I was applying back in 1995.
What's diverse for the goose is diverse for the gander.
Quote
The school's admissions dean, Henry Broaddus, said men have slightly higher standardized test scores but lower GPAs than women, on average.
Is that consistent?
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on June 21, 2013, 02:41:43 PM
Quote
The school's admissions dean, Henry Broaddus, said men have slightly higher standardized test scores but lower GPAs than women, on average.
Is that consistent?
:huh:
I mean is it a regular occurrence that men have lower grades and higher test scores. I'm curious why that would be.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on June 21, 2013, 02:46:34 PM
I mean is it a regular occurrence that men have lower grades and higher test scores. I'm curious why that would be.
Probably because part of their grade is based on things other than tests.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on June 21, 2013, 02:46:34 PM
I mean is it a regular occurrence that men have lower grades and higher test scores. I'm curious why that would be.
Grades measure consistency and maturity, tests measure peak performance.
Fuck Admissions, how about a little special treatment from HR?
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 21, 2013, 05:45:45 PM
Fuck Admissions, how about a little special treatment from HR?
Where's our Languish.org HR subject matter expert?? Fuck HR is just unreliable. :mad:
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 21, 2013, 05:45:45 PM
Fuck Admissions, how about a little special treatment from HR?
Google: GPAs don’t predict anything about who is going to be a successful employee.“One of the things we’ve seen from all our data crunching is that G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless — no correlation at all except for brand-new college grads, where there’s a slight correlation,” said Laszlo Bock, Google’s senior vice president of operations. “Google famously used to ask everyone for a transcript and G.P.A.’s and test scores, but we don’t anymore, unless you’re just a few years out of school. We found that they don’t predict anything. What’s interesting is the proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time as well. So we have teams where you have 14 percent of the team made up of people who’ve never gone to college.”
“After two or three years, your ability to perform at Google is completely unrelated to how you performed when you were in school, because the skills you required in college are very different,” he said. “You’re also fundamentally a different person. You learn and grow, you think about things differently. Another reason is that I think academic environments are artificial environments. People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they’re conditioned to succeed in that environment. One of my own frustrations when I was in college and grad school is that you knew the professor was looking for a specific answer. You could figure that out, but it’s much more interesting to solve problems where there isn’t an obvious answer. You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer.”
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130620142512-35894743-on-gpas-and-brain-teasers-new-insights-from-google-on-recruiting-and-hiring
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.licdn.com%2Fmpr%2Fmpr%2Fp%2F6%2F000%2F28c%2F2c3%2F09d6b51.jpg&hash=a5a81c6013b5594ed7ac2b9840948491796261ca)
I really wouldn't consider Google as indicative of your average American RomneyCorp.
Sometimes I get the feeling they're running a cult over there.
I don't think they even wear ties over there. There's something just not right about that.
Quote from: 11B4V on June 21, 2013, 05:47:40 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 21, 2013, 05:45:45 PM
Fuck Admissions, how about a little special treatment from HR?
Where's our Languish.org HR subject matter expert?? Fuck HR is just unreliable. :mad:
Probably eating dinner at some gas station :P
Quote from: HVC on June 21, 2013, 07:53:00 PM
Quote from: 11B4V on June 21, 2013, 05:47:40 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 21, 2013, 05:45:45 PM
Fuck Admissions, how about a little special treatment from HR?
Where's our Languish.org HR subject matter expert?? Fuck HR is just unreliable. :mad:
Probably eating dinner at some gas station :P
:lol:
A lot of gas station food is better quality than BK triple stackers.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on June 21, 2013, 08:23:08 PM
A lot of gas station food is better quality than BK triple stackers.
:yeahright:
Heck, IIRC Cal's definition of the term could encompass them. Plenty of BKs attached to gas stations.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on June 21, 2013, 08:31:05 PM
Heck, IIRC Cal's definition of the term could encompass them. Plenty of BKs attached to gas stations.
They are? :w00t: I see now why Cal eats there all the time.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 21, 2013, 07:42:10 PM
I don't think they even wear ties over there. There's something just not right about that.
Sounds like paradise.
For somebody that traipses around in government issue BDUs, I'd expect you not to have a grasp of men's fashion.
On Monday's, when we have to wear our service uniform, I bust out the clip-on. :yeah:
But only because the open-collar alternative looks too 70s chest-hair douchy.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 21, 2013, 07:42:10 PM
I don't think they even wear ties over there. There's something just not right about that.
They sure as hell better not.
Quote from: Google guy on June 21, 2013, 06:10:06 PMOne of my own frustrations when I was in college and grad school is that you knew the professor was looking for a specific answer. You could figure that out, but it's much more interesting to solve problems where there isn't an obvious answer. You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer."
I can so relate to that. I was a dreadful student. I really hated uni.
And then I started working and my boss said to me: "we need you to develop a project that matches these specs. None of us has done anything similar, so you're on your own". It was ridiculously fun.
Quote from: Tonitrus on June 21, 2013, 08:42:09 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 21, 2013, 07:42:10 PM
I don't think they even wear ties over there. There's something just not right about that.
Sounds like paradise.
It's a west coast thing. On the Atlantic side they follow the NYC way and suit up like Barney Stinson.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 21, 2013, 07:42:10 PM
I don't think they even wear ties over there. There's something just not right about that.
Why would an engineer or a boffin wear a tie to work? Or a suit, for that matter.
And in science programmes women get special treatment.
Doesn't make it somehow particularly worse that men are getting the treatment here because there used to be real discrimination against women.
I'd say discrimination based on sex is bad in all cases. The problem is really how come the boys aren't getting better grades and the girls aren't getting better test scores.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on June 21, 2013, 11:42:53 PM
I'd say discrimination based on sex is bad in all cases. The problem is really how come the boys aren't getting better grades and the girls aren't getting better test scores.
The test oriented school system is pretty biased in favour of women on a lot of levels, e.g. a larger proportion of men are practically minded.
The biggest one IMO is that boys develop later, so women generally have all their hormonal becoming an adult crap out of the way before it comes to the time to really get their heads down and work at getting into university. For men that can come right in the middle of their most important years academically.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on June 21, 2013, 11:42:53 PM
I'd say discrimination based on sex is bad in all cases.
I disagree. I think that there are distinct advantages to having a variety of experiences in an educational setting, so actively working to create that environment should be encouraged, not discouraged.
QuoteThe problem is really how come the boys aren't getting better grades and the girls aren't getting better test scores.
It seems to be a uniquely Western problem, which makes me think that culturally we have issues.
Quote from: merithyn on June 22, 2013, 10:24:47 AM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on June 21, 2013, 11:42:53 PM
I'd say discrimination based on sex is bad in all cases.
I disagree. I think that there are distinct advantages to having a variety of experiences in an educational setting, so actively working to create that environment should be encouraged, not discouraged.
I don't understand how "a variety of experiences in an educational setting" is sex discrimination. How would that be connected?
As a 16-year-old computer geek, Daniel Ek applied for a job at Google but was turned down because he didn't have a college degree. "I was kind of upset about that," he says. "I was like, 'I'll show them—I'm going to create my own search engine!' "
That turned out to be harder than he thought, so instead he spent several years building an online advertising company in his native Sweden (and no, he never did finish college). In 2006, he sold the company's rights and related patents for over $2 million.
"Now I was 23 and a multimillionaire, but I didn't have anything to do," he said over lunch recently in midtown Manhattan. He became depressed. "You're supposed to be the happiest guy on the planet but…there's no reason why you're existing," he says. "I realized it's really, really fun for a while to go big and go to all of these nightclubs," but just spending money was not satisfying.
In search of a purpose, he came up with a new model for listening to music: Spotify, a digital streaming service that has made the music business look viable again.
...
Today Spotify is worth an estimated $3 billion, making money from both advertising and subscription fees, with premium users paying up to $10 a month to listen to songs ad-free. The company has over 24 million active users and over six million paying subscribers (double the number of a year ago), and Spotify is one of the most popular apps on Facebook.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323566804578553691334279504.html (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323566804578553691334279504.html)
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsi.wsj.net%2Fpublic%2Fresources%2Fimages%2FRV-AK857_WKCONF_DV_20130621141932.jpg&hash=bcfef9ed16176aa4ab7cd280d49474623a19f6aa)
well, fucking hooray for him.
If we were all entrepreneurs, if we were all very good with computer systems, and if we all came up with extremely profitable ideas, we could all be multimillionaires. The problem is that most of us are really, fundamentally, lazy.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 22, 2013, 08:35:19 PM
If we were all entrepreneurs, if we were all very good with computer systems, and if we all came up with extremely profitable ideas, we could all be multimillionaires. The problem is that most of us are really, fundamentally, lazy.
Well even those of us who are not lazy tend to lack those qualities.
Quote from: merithyn on June 22, 2013, 10:24:47 AM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on June 21, 2013, 11:42:53 PM
QuoteThe problem is really how come the boys aren't getting better grades and the girls aren't getting better test scores.
It seems to be a uniquely Western problem, which makes me think that culturally we have issues.
We obviously do. The problem is that we punish normal adolescent expression of masculinity with means that interrupt education with things like suspensions and jail terms. It's the same reason men are more likely to be unemployed. Women are less likely to behave in ways that are against school rules are illegal (they may behave exceptionally poorly, but usually within socially and legally acceptable channels). Even when they do, they are less likely to receive the same magnitude of punishment. [citation needed]
Obviously, normal adolescent masculinity should be punished, but it used to be punished with smacks to the face or push-ups and the like, which leave an impression but don't fuck up lives.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 22, 2013, 08:35:19 PM
If we were all entrepreneurs, if we were all very good with computer systems, and if we all came up with extremely profitable ideas, we could all be multimillionaires. The problem is that most of us are really, fundamentally, lazy.
An idea can only be had once. After that, it's a rehash.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on June 22, 2013, 08:41:41 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on June 22, 2013, 08:35:19 PM
If we were all entrepreneurs, if we were all very good with computer systems, and if we all came up with extremely profitable ideas, we could all be multimillionaires. The problem is that most of us are really, fundamentally, lazy.
An idea can only be had once. After that, it's a rehash.
That's Taker talk.
Quote from: Valmy on June 22, 2013, 08:36:16 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on June 22, 2013, 08:35:19 PM
If we were all entrepreneurs, if we were all very good with computer systems, and if we all came up with extremely profitable ideas, we could all be multimillionaires. The problem is that most of us are really, fundamentally, lazy.
Well even those of us who are not lazy tend to lack those qualities.
Then there are those of us who have it both ways: unimaginative and lazy
Quote from: PDH on June 22, 2013, 09:30:02 PM
Then there are those of us who have it both ways: unimaginative and lazy
:showoff:
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on June 22, 2013, 03:34:29 PM
I don't understand how "a variety of experiences in an educational setting" is sex discrimination. How would that be connected?
I don't think it is discrimination to try to balance genders, races, cultural backgrounds, etc. If you have a program with 95% women, then I see nothing wrong with giving men a leg up. At the same time, if you have a program with 95% men, I see nothing wrong with giving women a leg up. I don't think anyone should necessarily be shooting for 50/50, but heading toward 70/30 isn't a bad idea.
I know that I'm in the minority here believing this, but I'm okay with that. :)
It's nice to see men getting something good for once.
Quote from: PDH on June 23, 2013, 09:35:47 PM
It's nice to see men getting something good for once.
Preferable admission to crappy Liberal Arts schools? Meh.
Saw that the affirmative action case was kicked back down to the lower courts.