Based on a handful of incidents by a handful of idiots, the University of California is considering lowering admissions standards to increase “diversity” on campus, otherwise known as “holistic review.”
The notion of holistic review is to consider the whole person, that is, the person’s life experiences. “I want a system that more effectively considers multiple factors beyond test scores and GPA,” UC president Max Yudof said. “I want one that has a larger pool of applicants that will be considered.”
Why a holistic review of applicants necessarily would result in more black students on campus and increase “tolerance” are never explained. Assuming UC would apply holistic review across the board, to every applicant, why would it increase the number of admitted (or enrolled) minorities?
I’ve thought about the question many times and posited an answer. In the post Holistic Admissions and Human Accomplishment, I proposed that schools like UC in fact don’t intend to apply holistic review across the board and to every applicant. If they did, more whites and Asians would be admitted. Why? I’ll quote myself:
Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, also wrote an excellent book titled, In Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950. He compiled an inventory of 4,002 significant figures over 2,750 years who pursued excellence and accomplished great things in the arts and sciences. His inventory overwhelmingly consists of white European males, as do other authoritative and respected inventories. Murray made the case that no significant non-European figures and events were omitted from the major inventories. What was known about great works of other cultures was included.
In response to charges that European accomplishment in the sciences is exaggerated and that sources used to compile inventories are biased against non-European countries (about 97 percent of significant figures and events in the sciences are Western), Murray encouraged critics to augment the list of “giants” with non-Europeans, with one caveat: You must use the same rules by which European figures and events were included.
This method would not increase the number of non-Europeans on the list, says Murray, but would add more Europeans to the list. Why? Because European countries were so prodigious; dropping standards of evaluation would result in more European countries, not fewer, and certainly not more non-Europeans.
If holistic assessments were applied equally across the board, the enrollment of whites and Asians – not blacks and Hispanics - would increase.
To clarify, let’s assume more whites than blacks apply to UC. Evaluating all applicants holistically would result in more admitted whites, as they on average tend to have higher grades and scores. As the pool of whites would be larger and better qualified, relaxing the rules for everyone equally would benefit them the most.
Unless…life experiences is code for something members of the white pool don’t possess. From John Rosenberg at Discriminations:
“What is the reason for assuming that the ‘life experiences’ of otherwise not accepted blacks and Hispanics provide better evidence of readiness for UC than the ‘life experiences’ of Asians or, heaven forbid, even whites who would have been accepted if those experiences had been taken into account? Does anyone really believe that the ‘holistic’ nod to ‘life experiences’ is anything other than a high-brow way to discount poor grades and test scores for certain groups?”
Some members of racial minority groups don’t seem to mind being treated this way. As long as they benefit, it’s okay. They simply ignore the double-edged sword and hope it doesn’t swing too closely.
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