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Myths and Tradeoffs The Role of Tests in Undergraduate Admissions (1999) / Chapter Skim
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Tradeoffs
Pages 28-31

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From page 28...
... The book goes on to describe the growth of race-conscious measures and government efforts to encourage colleges to go beyond simply allowing African Americans to enroll and affirmatively seek to increase minority enrollment. But as this book and many other observers of the situation have been at pains to make clear, colleges seek diverse populations not simply to make amends for past discrimination, but in an effort to achieve specific, important benefits, which include: ethnically and racially diverse student populations foster intellectually stimulating exchanges of ideas and perspectives.
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From page 29...
... "If a selective college with an applicant pool of students with test scores in the top ten percent granted a preference to students with family incomes below $20,000, only one out of six would be black or Hispanic" (Kane, 1998:450~. Kane concludes that there is an inescapable tradeoff between race blindness and racial diversity.
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From page 30...
... Indeed, every decision to select one student over others entails a tradeoff between the particular assets each individual might bring. No ready solution to these dilemmas is apparent there is currently no efficient tool for predicting the kinds of college success that are not directly measurable by grade point averages: campus leadership, persistence, intellectual curiosity, and the like.
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From page 31...
... In sum, the need to sort large numbers of students into a range of slots, the most desirable of which are limited, entails necessary tradeoffs between efficiency and accuracy, efficiency and responsiveness, and institutional mission and individual expectations. Consideration of the multiple tradeoffs inherent in the task of sorting students for college leads the steering committee to conclude that the hope for a magic solution to current controversies and confusion is futile.
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  • enroll racially

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  • directly measurable
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  • family incomes
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  • affirmatively seek
  • race blindness


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