Here's an excerpt fr0m my new VDARE.com article:
My VDARE.com article last week on Advanced Placement (AP) tests provoked my favorite type of letter: one that tells me I don’t know what I’m talking about and then proceeds to be so informative that I finally do know. ...
My correspondent, a test tutor called Mitchell Carr, emails:
Carr proceeds to document that the proliferation of Advanced Placement classes in high schools has harmed the chances to get into the University of California of white (and to some extent middle class black and Hispanic) kids. It benefits some inner city blacks and Latinos—but mostly it boosts upscale Asians. Result: as USA Today reported in April:
Why? It’s largely due to a complicated (and, not surprisingly, not terribly competent) ploy by University of California administrators to get around the ban on affirmative action in government imposed by California voters in 1996.
Ever since Proposition 209, UC administrators have searched for sneakier ways to admit more Latinos and blacks. The California Latino Legislative Caucus made clear to the UC Board of Regents that they’d better manipulate the system to admit more Hispanics or they’d have their budget cut.
Their stratagems, however, have been quickly deciphered by workaholic Asians. (As the May 2008 Minutes of the University of California Academic Council state, “… Asian students seem to be very good at figuring out the technical requirements of UC eligibility.”) ...
As Carr explains, the UC schools downplayed absolute test scores in favor of relativistic high school grades: “Once affirmative action was outlawed, UCs made GPA ever more important, and it now represents 75% of admissions decisions.” ...
Inevitably, UC’s decision to give more weight to grades led to schools engaging in a grade inflation arms race. The key point: classes designated “AP” by the high schools come with a “bonus point” when calculating GPA. That makes an A in an AP class worth 5 on the traditional 0 to 4 scale. Thus, freshmen admitted to UC Berkeley in 2003 averaged an absurd GPA of 4.31 on a 0 to 4 scale. ...
Moreover, the University of California admissions process gives no weight to getting a good score on the actual AP Test. Hence the rush by many high schools to rig the system by sticking the “AP” label on sundry mediocre classes. ...
In contrast, honest grading gives high school students a better picture of what competition will be like in the UC colleges—but not a better chance of getting into one in the first place. ...
Paradoxically, the big winners from the UC’s attempt to discriminate in favor of Non-Asian Minorities are … Asian Minorities. Carr points out:
Asians tend to be harder working, more organized, more conformist, and more devoted to gaming the system. In contrast, white Americans tend to have a touching faith that experts have no doubt devised fair methods for selection, so it wouldn’t be sporting to try to find an edge … an assumption that immigrants find most amusing.
Carr continues:
Read the whole thing on VDARE.com and comment about it here.
My VDARE.com article last week on Advanced Placement (AP) tests provoked my favorite type of letter: one that tells me I don’t know what I’m talking about and then proceeds to be so informative that I finally do know. ...
My correspondent, a test tutor called Mitchell Carr, emails:
“I know more about AP, SAT, and ACT test scores and their use in college admissions than you do, and that's saying a lot. … Your AP article's focus is totally screwy … The public policy issue about AP has nothing to do with the pass rate of APs, but rather AP's influence on college admissions via Grade Point Average (GPA).”
Carr proceeds to document that the proliferation of Advanced Placement classes in high schools has harmed the chances to get into the University of California of white (and to some extent middle class black and Hispanic) kids. It benefits some inner city blacks and Latinos—but mostly it boosts upscale Asians. Result: as USA Today reported in April:
“Asian-Americans are the single largest ethnic group among UC's 173,000 undergraduates. In 2008, they accounted for 40% at UCLA and 43% at UC Berkeley — the two most selective campuses in the UC system — as well as 50% at UC San Diego and 54% at UC Irvine. Asian-Americans are about 12% of California's population …” [University of Calif. admissions rule angers Asian-Americans, April 24, 2009]
Why? It’s largely due to a complicated (and, not surprisingly, not terribly competent) ploy by University of California administrators to get around the ban on affirmative action in government imposed by California voters in 1996.
Ever since Proposition 209, UC administrators have searched for sneakier ways to admit more Latinos and blacks. The California Latino Legislative Caucus made clear to the UC Board of Regents that they’d better manipulate the system to admit more Hispanics or they’d have their budget cut.
Their stratagems, however, have been quickly deciphered by workaholic Asians. (As the May 2008 Minutes of the University of California Academic Council state, “… Asian students seem to be very good at figuring out the technical requirements of UC eligibility.”) ...
As Carr explains, the UC schools downplayed absolute test scores in favor of relativistic high school grades: “Once affirmative action was outlawed, UCs made GPA ever more important, and it now represents 75% of admissions decisions.” ...
Inevitably, UC’s decision to give more weight to grades led to schools engaging in a grade inflation arms race. The key point: classes designated “AP” by the high schools come with a “bonus point” when calculating GPA. That makes an A in an AP class worth 5 on the traditional 0 to 4 scale. Thus, freshmen admitted to UC Berkeley in 2003 averaged an absurd GPA of 4.31 on a 0 to 4 scale. ...
Moreover, the University of California admissions process gives no weight to getting a good score on the actual AP Test. Hence the rush by many high schools to rig the system by sticking the “AP” label on sundry mediocre classes. ...
In contrast, honest grading gives high school students a better picture of what competition will be like in the UC colleges—but not a better chance of getting into one in the first place. ...
Paradoxically, the big winners from the UC’s attempt to discriminate in favor of Non-Asian Minorities are … Asian Minorities. Carr points out:
“Once GPA became increasingly important in UC admissions, the strongest kids started taking all the AP courses they could, because of the bonus points. The irony, of course, is that grades became important because of the low achieving kids, but the public universities have to be consistent, so it rippled up. The emphasis on GPA after affirmative action was banned is the reason for the explosion of Asian students—Asians have much higher GPAs than whites (but not much higher test scores, for the most part).”...
Asians tend to be harder working, more organized, more conformist, and more devoted to gaming the system. In contrast, white Americans tend to have a touching faith that experts have no doubt devised fair methods for selection, so it wouldn’t be sporting to try to find an edge … an assumption that immigrants find most amusing.
Carr continues:
“As for the reason white students are underrepresented in AP classes, it's probably because access is granted by GPA in most suburban schools. Asians have a better GPA, while not higher competence, than whites, and this keeps whites (particularly boys) from getting into AP classes. Parents can challenge this, but few choose to—because few white parents understand the impact that AP has on GPA.”
Read the whole thing on VDARE.com and comment about it here.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Posts
103 comments:
Why would anyone want to pay for the privledge of sending their kid to a school that tries to be a magnet for third world dregs and the The Dirty Thirty?
Then again one has to wonder why anyone but third world dregs would want to live in California anyway...
"Ever since Proposition 209, UC administrators have searched for sneakier ways to admit more Latinos and blacks. "
I was under the impression that the number of blacks and latinos had gone up slightly since prop 209, but they had just been resorted through the system- so people who would once have been admitted to UCLA with inadequate test scores and then flunked out- end up going to campuses they are qualified for and graduating.
Most Asian countries are much less represented at the far ends of the bell curve compared to white nations. Even Japan (which was industrialized for most of the 20th century) has only 1/10th as many Nobel prizes per capita as the USA. Japan is just under Poland and Spain, having about half as many Nobel prizes per capita as ITALY! Yes, Italy, which is known for the blazing, focused industry of it's citizens. And that siesta that the Spanish take must be a cultural evolution which makes them supergood at math.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_nob_pri_lau_percap-nobel-prize-laureates-per-capita
I am a Californian like you. I am not reflexively WN. I care about the truth above all.
Steve, do you think non-whites are capable of preserving western civilization?
I suspect, going by Lynn's work on IQ, that the NE Asians (Chinese, Japanese & Korean) do have a slightly higher median competence than the whites, though not to the extent of the disparity in UCLA admissions.
In contrast, white Americans tend to have a touching faith that experts have no doubt devised fair methods for selection, so it wouldn’t be sporting to try to find an edge
Silly, soft little people. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. Learn to scrap.
P.S., I hope your kids get the school they want, Steve.
YEAH BABY!
another filtering system rigged against the white natives...
WHAT A SURPRISE!
but it's really no big deal.
let's get us some of that super high octane asian iq and let's get it into the key power positions in america. then america will finally be able to compete with the rest of the world.
YEAH BABY!
"...approval seeking conformists are what will make america great!"
"If anybody cares about where the next set of creative ideas that will shake up the world will come from, then we ought to be thinking about the next generation of white guys."
I agree, except that we should also be thinking about Jews.
Anyway, it's an interesting question: Is the West doing enough to make sure that a decent number of brilliant and creative people are channelled into situations where their brilliance can benefit the whole human race?
It's something I'm concerned about. If Richard Feynman had been born in 1990, what would his life look like?
Presumably he would still have gotten into a top undergraduate school like MIT. But after that? I could easily see him deciding that getting a PhD carries too much of a risk of "no job" for a white or jewish man and instead going into law or finance.
Damn. This 'experiment' with mass Asian immigration is working out well - at least for us plain old American types.
Steve, can we get a lot more Asian immigrants into the country ASAP? I know it's a lot to ask during a depression. The general populace is prone to xenophobia and irrational bigotry against immigrants who successfully compete for local jobs, after all. Yada yada yada.
Hey, screw the bigoted nativists. We need fresh blood around here in America. Thirty million more Asians should do the trick. Shoot, how about sixty million? (I'd really like to see one hundred and sixty million--but don't tell anyone).
It's obvious that Teddy Roosevelt was an ignorant bigot who shamefully and irrationally discriminated against the Asiatic hordes.
We can see now that all the Asiatic hordes ever wanted to do was come here and assimiliate to good old American values. All they wanted to do was leave the ways of the old country behind them. Anyone who was worried about Asiatics using group strategy tactics to 'take over' was paranoid and highly delusional.
Damn, I hate delusional bigots. They make me sick. Can't we deport these damn nativists?
Truth be told, I'd like to deport the Founding Fathers and all the rest of the bigoted American nativist culture. Is that really so radical a concept? The original 'America' is like a cancer upon this continent. They need to go like a tumor needs to go.
Damn, I feel positive about the future of this country! The future has never looked brighter.
Asians have much higher GPAs than whites (but not much higher test scores, for the most part)
Oh, the irony.
"Women" have higher GPAs than "men" (but not higher test scores, for the most part).
(I have a half-asian child that got into Berkeley at the age of 16. The child eventually went to a private Engineering school in the East.)
Also I imagine that having knowledge of a foreign language and then taking an AP class in it anyway might help? Where I grew up we didnt have AP classes, but we did have a lot of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans acing Spanish class year after year.
more evidence for my hypothesis of the superior east asian student. primarily organizing themselves around taking tests and planning every career step ahead of time almost like building a character in a video game. nothing wrong with this, it works and is a completely legitimate approach to school.
i'm willing to bet east asian test scores are higher than european test scores when you remove all the other asian test scores. southeast asians are likely bringing the aggregate "asian" score down. then again, so many non-europeans are now designated as "white" in the california census, the same effect could be happening to euro americans.
the euro students could take more AP tests, sure. for typical smart white kids though, entering college as a sophomore is not their goal and they're not willing to give up other activities so they can take and pass 8 AP tests when they're 17.
The States will eventually use a one-off exam of the type used in China. It avoids all this trouble, including the possibility of paid-for grades, a problem quite common in all those countries with an awesome respect for pedagogy.
Completely off-topic here, but I thought Steve would be interested to know that Malcolm Gladwell was just heard on a South African radio station agreeing that Barack Obama is an African prince, praising him for his princely hauteur and for being a total "outlier" in terms of coolness and handsomeness etc.
This is only possible because Asians are historical oppressors who brought Hispanics to California as slaves! Stop discrimination! Stick it to the Asian hegemony!
Naw just kidding.
It's time for equality.
End affirmative action now.
So UC policies have a disparate impact on California whites, right?
So Justice Ginsburg would vigorously support action to correct this, right?
"Asians take three times as many AP Tests as whites per capita. Yet, passing rates on the AP Tests are almost identical, suggesting that whites could take a lot more AP classes if they merely got their acts together."
What? Are you suggesting that the greater Asian "motivation" enables them to have 300% higher per capital pass rate? More in accord with your HBD thinking, Occam's razor suggest a well-documented higher Asian average 'g' explains most of this discrepancy.
In addition, much of behavior and personality is beginning to be understood as possibly as genetically determined 'g'. Why do you expect that Caucausian's can become equally behaviorally as focused, obedient and disciplined as Asians, but NAMs cannot substantially raise their 'g' to the levels of non-NAMs?
Intelligent, ambitious people are annoying. They keep breaking through the heaviest systems designed to keep them down. Most of them.
What would happen if they abandoned the system to its own devices? Collapse of that system. But Asians are conformist. So they keep trying to meet the standards set by others who are their enemies.
"Asian-Americans are the single largest ethnic group among UC's 173,000 undergraduates. In 2008, they accounted for 40% at UCLA and 43% at UC Berkeley — the two most selective campuses in the UC system — as well as 50% at UC San Diego and 54% at UC Irvine. Asian-Americans are about 12% of California's population"
The irony is that even with these disproportionate numbers, Asians are probably still being actively discriminated against. These huge % make Asians the #1 enemy of diversicrats who look for every trick to even out the numbers.
When I was at Berkeley, the Dept of Justice was investigating exactly such anti-Asian discrimination (the overwhelming number of top candidates rejected were Asian). The findings were never made public, but obviously some wrong doing was found as the % Asians suddenly bumped up immediately after the probe.
There's an undercurrent of hostility in the tone of this article that I find puzzling. Hardworking Asian students trying to "game" UC Admissions by taking AP classes is unfair? Wait, do you really believe in meritocracy or not? There should not even be a hint of blame upon them for those actions -- isn't your kid a 7th-grade-AP-Biology whiz kid, skipping over other Whites for future opportunities by leaps and bounds?
Your relativistic assessment of them as "conformist" seems to imply a somehow detrimental "blandness" as well, something I don't necessarily see, and besides while the first adjective may simply connote a positive statement, your tone throughout is decidedly normative. In any case, that's exactly the kind of individual that our higher education system selects for, as Bruce G. Charlton has noted, since those individuals are more successful by the metrics those institutions measure. As I see it, the US needs a great deal of conformism right now anyway and a little less of that "White creativity" in quite a few venues like public policy -- say marriage. How many people have actually swallowed all of Kanazawa's Krazy Kool-Aid? Spit it out, it's cheap swill until rigorously proven otherwise.
"Asians have a better GPA, while not higher competence, than whites, and this keeps whites (particularly boys) from getting into AP classes."
BS. I want some proof for this, a theory. Competence at what? Academic success? Lifetime income? - pshaw, apparently not. Vague and amorphous notions of "civilizational" success, I suppose.
Presumably, the Ivy League and equivalent colleges, which are not "gamed" in the same manner as the UC system, use Grades and SAT scores for a reason - the first as a proxy for Conscientiousness, and the second as a proxy for IQ. The way I see it, the higher the USNWR ranking, the higher the IQ threshold required for matriculating students to succeed - but after convocation, Conscientiousness matters much more. (First-year undergraduate GPA becomes a better predictor of academic success than IQ by proxy of SAT.) What's their PC reason? No doubt Asian immigrants should be perfectly justified in their assessment of White students as relatively lazier.
Boy, Steve's coverage of education sure is relentlessly demoralizing. Where to turn for consolation?
What about the famous study that suggested that students who were admitted to [Harvard?] but didn't attend, did about as well as those who were admitted?
That suggests that it really is IQ (plus bourgeois virtues, of course) that makes the most difference, and that the various gatekeeping institutions have diminishing influence over the long term.
That kid who winds up at Cal Poly instead of Berkeley, or Haverford instead of Yale, is going to do just fine in life.
Then there's this story praising DeWitt Clinton High in the Bronx for having so many Jewish students:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/dewitt-clintons-remarkable-alumni/
So, what is the solution? Get white kids to act like nose-to-the-grindstone Asians? Did it ever occur to you that nose-to-the-grindstone Asians are that way because of genetics?
Somehow, I don't think that many White parents are going to follow your advice. White kids aren't going to give up extra-curricular activities so that they can study for more AP tests/classes.
You sure play up your white nationalist tone for VDare articles, whereas here you seem more like an amused spectator. What's the deal? Gotta impress your friends there?
Isn't figuring out the system itself an IQ test?
That 4.31 number is staggering. You're talking about a kid with straight A's, who took 31% AP classes. And that's the average?
I guess in retrospect I took that many AP classes, but we only got half a point extra for them. This GPA would not have been possible at my school.
But let's not gloss over this point too quickly:
"this keeps whites (particularly boys) from getting into AP classes"
This whole phenomenon would not be allowed to continue if it affected white girls and women nearly as much as it affects white boys and men. Many white parents are content, even proud, to see little Sally go off to college while Harry down the street drops out and works at a gas station.
The flight from objectivity happened in order to advantage women over men; any racial outcome is just a side effect. It's no surprise that Asians, being more feminine than whites, would benefit from this.
It seems that we are in the process of losing a whole generation of boys, and the powers that be are just fine with it.
The key point: classes designated “AP” by the high schools come with a “bonus point” when calculating GPA. That makes an A in an AP class worth 5 on the traditional 0 to 4 scale. Thus, freshmen admitted to UC Berkeley in 2003 averaged an absurd GPA of 4.31 on a 0 to 4 scale. ...
Heck, New Trier gives a 5.67 GPA for an A in an AP class with a couple of levels between that and the 4.0 levels
Isn't this a little too "Goldilocks"?
Normally, Steve spends much of his time complaining that black and Latino students are insufficiently studious.
Now, he puts up a column complaining that Asian students are just TOO studious.
"Thus, Asians take three times as many AP Tests as whites per capita. Yet, passing rates on the AP Tests are almost identical, suggesting that whites could take a lot more AP classes if they merely got their acts together."
I interpret that to mean if more whites took AP tests, the pass rates would drop because of the scraping bottom effect.
"...Asians have much higher GPAs than whites (but not much higher test scores, for the most part)"
How do you explain the overrepresentation of Asians at places like MIT and Caltech, where test scores play a very important role in the admissions process?
Here are the latest IMO results:
http://www.imo-official.org/year_country_r.aspx?year=2009
China #1 (6 gold medals), Japan #2, etc.; HK and Singapore (those are *cities* with population 5-7 million) ahead of France, Spain, Nordic countries
Also, have a look at the composition of the US, Australian and Canadian teams.
Asians have a better GPA, while not higher competence, than whites, and this keeps whites (particularly boys) from getting into AP classes. Well, I propose that the successful applicant's parents, of any ethnicity, are more willing to manage and organize their teen's time, effort, and pleasures to enter the university of their choice, than those who fail.
High school freshman must be willing to begin taking any AP or honors course offered throughout their high school career. Sophomores must begin cramming for CollegeBoard AP tests and SAT or ACT by their second semester and continue cramming throughout their junior and first half of their senior year.
Caring parents with the tenacity to stick to 'THE PLAN' can expect a flood of acceptance letters by the spring of their child's senior year. In addition, your teenager may not share some of the sweet teenage memories you hold dear and its not pleasant explaining the parents of your teenagers boyfriend or girlfriend that your child cannot attend that wonderful date\game\family gathering\whatever they planned because he MUST STUDY that day or night. And yes, my daughter will be attending Berkeley next month as a freshman and we intend her younger brother to attend Cal too.
The unintended consequences of affirmative action programs in general would be amusing if it were not so tragically unjust.
The increased admission rates of Asian minorities in California schools reminds me of what happened in medical schools across America following the government's efforts to "correct" the disproportionate number of white males in medical school.
See "Affirmative Action, Immigration, Curing America Of White Doctors" on VDare.
http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/070509_nd.htm
That effort was primarily designed to increase the number of African-American medical students but resulted in a huge increase in Asians at the expense of whites instead.
The percentage changes from 1978 to 2005: Blacks +39%, Whites -18%, Asians +867%. (!?!)
Oh well, it may not have helped the target group that much but as long as the only people hurt are Northern European whites, no harm done, right?
This reminds me of the controversy over Moorestown (New Jersey) High School’s valedictorian, Blair Hornstine, in 2003. She gamed the system by claiming an illness that allowed her to take classes at home and bulk up on AP courses to boost her GPA. (She even has her own Wikipedia entry!)
Moorestown is an affluent Philadelphia suburb, with a history that dates back to the late 1600s. The population is 90% white, with many WASPs and a large Jewish population. The school is ultra-competitive and sends a lot of students to the Ivy League every year. Parents were furious that Hornstine had gamed the system, and they pressured the superintendent to create multiple valedictorians that year. Ultimately, the US District Court found in favor of Hornstine.
The story had a somewhat happy ending. After it was discovered that letters to the editor that she had written for a local paper were partly plagiarized, Harvard revoked her offer of admission.
Weekly Standard’s Jonathan Last, also a Moorestown High grad, wrote about it.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=2852&R=162611C15D
"Parents can challenge this, but few choose to—because few white parents understand the impact that AP has on GPA.”
"No, no, no!" to that last point. I taught in what was once a decently performing high school which became a designated "underperforming high school" with a very diverse population in a community that has undergone rapid demographic changes brought about by the loss of the town's industrial base and the housing boom in CA.
Believe me, the white parents as well as some of the minority parents do indeed know that their kids get an extra g.p.a. point for grades earned in an AP class. Also, some of the well-behaved flee to these classes not because they are academically advanced but because they want to escape the classes loaded with the thugs and goof-offs.
At our particular school, the requirements for getting into the AP classes in subjects like Enlgish and history are very relaxed: the school board members and the principal love to point to enrollment numbers as something to be proud of--it's a sham. Teachers fight that and lose every time.
Back to my point, though--the parents do indeed know the system!
My wife applied to the UC School of Public Health a year ago. I went with her to the orientation meeting with her just to check it out. There were about 120 people in the audience most who were students.
The Person who led the meeting was a white male. He had a hard science background and did real research. He did not waste a lot of time. He let his partners do that.
The two other people that Berkeley hired to accompany him were straight out of central PC casting. One was a black woman and the other a Latina woman. The Latina especially, kept babbling on about how we need to "change" to serve the new population and even went as far to say that it was the UCs job to start assisting in other countries (Mexico and Latin America) because of how it impacts "us". I guess she was worried about peoples health before they immigrate here. After listening to the dog and pony show they then went on to explain how to apply. My mouth dropped open when they started telling everyone that what they really wanted to see was the personal history statement. They wanted to know what adverse circumstances the students had to overcome. Reading between the lines, it was very clear that they wanted to know who was Latin or black. The largely White (I indlude the whole area from Iran to Morocco) and Asian audience seemed to understand that they were not really what the UC was looking for either.
Is this article a sign that your citizenism phase is over?
"In contrast, white Americans tend to have a touching faith that experts have no doubt devised fair methods for selection, so it wouldn’t be sporting to try to find an edge"
BWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH
I'm sorry but that is one of the dumbest comments from you in a while
Steve
"white Americans tend to have a touching faith that experts have no doubt devised fair methods for selection, so it wouldn’t be sporting to try to find an edge."
Isn't that a classic definition/ example of a conformist? Adhering to established customs or doctrines.
The unintended consequences of affirmative action programs in general would be amusing if it were not so tragically unjust.
The increased admission rates of Asian minorities in California schools reminds me of what happened in medical schools across America following the government's efforts to "correct" the disproportionate number of white males in medical school.
See "Affirmative Action, Immigration, Curing America Of White Doctors" on VDare.
http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/070509_nd.htm
That effort was primarily designed to increase the number of African-American medical students but resulted in a huge increase in Asians at the expense of whites instead.
The percentage changes from 1978 to 2005: Blacks +39%, Whites -18%, Asians +867%. (!?!)
Oh well, it may not have helped the target group that much but as long as the only people hurt are Northern European whites, no harm done, right?
IIRC, currently UCs give additional GPA credit for upto four AP/Honors courses.
One may pass more than four AP courses, and earn college credit for them, but not GPA credit.
This is clearly designed to not put students at a disadvantage if the school that they attend does not offer many AP/Honors courses.
One of my children took 9 AP courses, and received credit for all of them at UCSD.
Oy,
Look guys, I know it sucks not getting into the college of your dreams because the "diversicrats" gave your place to a "NAM" and in this case because Asian Americans are so much more enthusiastic at "gaming the system" (since when did hard work become "gaming the system"?). But this is the USA. There are plenty of colleges in this country and spots for anyone who wants to go. You know when I was applying to undergrad, I was turned down from Princeton, Harvard and Yale, despite my stellar grades, good AP scores...etc. Poor me, I decided to go to Columbia instead since they accepted me. Anyway so a bunch of white kids can't get into UCLA or Berkley. No problem, there are plenty of other UC campuses they can go to. Or they could try Santa Clara University or Pepperdine...etc. All perfectly good schools.
This is a bit of a change: when I applied to Berkeley in 1991, they didn't give any extra weight to grades from AP classes. Out of all the schools I applied to (University of Chicago, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, Grinell, University of Illinois, Illinois Institute of Technology, Michigan State, Augustana), Berkeley was alone in doing that.
I was gaming the system-I slacked in some classes early on, but worked my behind off in the AP classes (which were generally more interesting, anyway) to make up for it in my last two years of high school.
I ended up getting into Berzekeley anyway, even though I had decided I didn't want to go there after a campus visit made me realize how painfully bizarro left-wing the place was: I kept it as a safety school in case I didn't get into the University of Chicago.
Anonymous Maroon
"...white Americans tend to have a touching faith that experts have no doubt devised fair methods for selection, so it wouldn’t be sporting to try to find an edge..."
I think you're giving us white Americans a lot too much credit here, Steve. At my virtually all-white NC mountain high school, as seniors we were able to take what was called a "release period" - exactly what it sounds like - in place of a class. This had the effect of concentrating the effect of AP classes (2 full "quality points"). So it was not unusual for kids to face the following conundrum as seniors: whether to drop classes (music, journalism, art) which might "dilute" GPA, or stick with the resume-building 4-year commitment to whatever semi-creative endeavor. We were all quiet aware of the system, and very few of us 3rd and 4th and 15th-generation American whites had the least bit of Eloistic compunction about gaming it.
Finally Steve, you are getting it.
Of course the system is rigged against Boys, and particularly White Boys.
The educational system is female dominated, and women by and large hate the "beta male" with a passion, most boys lag in maturity and physical development and so generate nothing but contempt from the female educational establishment. And as you note, single mothers are clueless about boys.
What we have, basically, is a spoils system. Blacks and Hispanics first, then Asians, then White Women. White males LAST. This is possible because that political coalition is about 51% or so, give or take voter fraud. Most White women would quite happily sacrifice the well-being of their sons for that of non-Whites and White women. It's gender and cultural solidarity, where they themselves have advantages.
As for the futility of AP classes, I can attest to that. As a former barrio teacher, I had plenty of AP classes, almost none of my students bothered to take the test, oddly enough the few that did were Asian, and scored 4-5 (this was about 2-3 out of combined classes of 45 or so). Most of my AP kids were brighter Hispanics or Asians, the higher IQ kids. [Teaching remedial classes is punishment, basically, like scooping up after the elephants in the circus.] I had one bright Hispanic girl take the test, scored a 4. Other than that, no Hispanics took the test.
Having taught both suburban White kids and Barrio kids, the Barrio kids are about as smart as the smartest White kids. It's just that the Barrio pool is a lot, and I mean a LOT smaller.
Anecdotally, the private, after-school charity I'm involved in finds that Eastern/Midwestern schools are dropping SAT/AP scores and GPA, and wanting the ACT, since it's not as gamed. This is the mid-tier, non Harvard schools like Emory, Univ. of Iowa, Purdue, etc.
-----------------
There's also the elephant in the room, as a former HS teacher I can attest to. Girls, even or especially smart, pretty girls focused on school, DO NOT LIKE guys who study hard and get good grades. In fact, that's an impediment to dating success. The guys who were successful were studly top athletes, or total non-conformist trouble makers with tats/piercings/dyed hair, or gang-bangers (you'd be surprised, or maybe not, at how many "nice" girls totally focused on college admissions top gangbangers had around them).
A White, Latino, or Black kid knows he's going to be a dateless wonder in HS if he studies and does well. Asian boys seem able to deal with this (probably because they know women find them unattractive to begin with) and have "a plan" for girls: study hard, get rich, use money to attract them after College.
Ugly but true -- the HS sexual marketplace punishes immediately boys who study hard, girls (and other boys) have nothing but derision for them. "Schoolboy" was the term used. It was not flattering. Asian parents also as Toadal argues, exert more power over boys to defer sex/relationships until after College. Of course later, after College, Asian men (according to Asian women) tend to view women as consumerist objects they "earned" by about 8 years of pretty celibate sacrifice.
/testing99
i don't agree with steve that the east asian student strategy is wrong. but i do agree with his general point that the UC system was not set up by white americans so that an endless supply of self selected east asian immigrants could swamp it. there are 1.5 billion east asians and another 1.5 billion other asians. it's retarded to build and maintain a university system for your descendents that asians have clearly targeted for takeover, while at the same time removing qualified students from your own group and giving their spots to unqualified mestizos. some of which are just plain border jumpers. how they are even going to college is beyond me. how INS doesn't simply arrest them on the first day they arrive on campus is a complete mystery.
HBD is incompatible with a normal society where everyone feels justice has been served. HBD will ravage trust and instill bitterness.
Americanism is built on the expired concept of free will; men can choose to be successful or not. Hard work got you those top scores Mr. Ricci? Nope genetics did. How “free” will white Californians feel with a distinct class of people ruling over them? Get ready for a awkward, rancorous caste system.
My mouth dropped open when they started telling everyone that what they really wanted to see was the personal history statement. They wanted to know what adverse circumstances the students had to overcome. Reading between the lines, it was very clear that they wanted to know who was Latin or black.
This has long been an open secret. Several Latinos at Berkeley have admitted to me that they got in simply by virtue of "casually" mentioning in their personal statements that they were "poor" Latinos.
Whiskey said...
Finally Steve, you are getting it.
The educational system is female dominated, and women by and large hate the "beta male" with a passion
Why, you little punk. Are you implying that Steve's boys are beta males?
I can't blame asians one iota for gaming the system. What I blame are white people who TOLERATE the system. I don't want to work as hard as Asians do, and I don't want my kids to work as hard as Asians do either. I want them to have a normal upbringing with serious study and work, but also time to goof off and be a kid. That's called moderation, balance. Asians can and should work as hard as they want-in Asia. They should benefit from their hard work and study-but looking at Asia, why aren't they? They work like dogs and do OK, but overall their lifestyle doesn't appeal to me.
Our schools should be for us.
"Steve, do you think non-whites are capable of preserving western civilization?"
Whites sure aren't.
"...for a white or jewish man."
Dude, have you ever actually seen a Jew?
There's an undercurrent of hostility in the tone of this article that I find puzzling. Hardworking Asian students trying to "game" UC Admissions by taking AP classes is unfair? Wait, do you really believe in meritocracy or not?
I second your perception of Steve’s article. It reeks of resentful racial grievance. Did not Steve just devote numerous threads championing meritocratic standards for promoting firemen after white guys like Ricci came out on top? Why all of a sudden is he seemingly throwing meritocracy out the window in the case of UC admissions? Is it because Asians are coming out on top in that particular system?
The racial bias is laughable. When whites outperform blacks on promotional exams, such as in the case of Ricci, black leaders characterize the act of studying diligently for a test as "gaming the system." When Asians outperform whites on admissions to UC due to superior GPAs in AP courses, Steve Sailer characterizes such diligent studying as "gaming the system."
I guess meritocracy is desirable and noble, unless your group does not chiefly benefit from it.
"That 4.31 number is staggering. You're talking about a kid with straight A's, who took 31% AP classes. And that's the average?"
No, then the average would be 5.0
Talk about gaming the system, in China parents and students falsely classify themselves as minorities in order to get extra points on their college entrance exam:
http://chinanewswrap.com/2009/07/20/investigation-into-problems-with-affirmative-action-in-chongqing/#more-2518
Right not, it's a big scandal there.
Hey, Toad, do you have arguments with other parents about whether you're a Black Hawk or just a helicopter?
Do you know what these kids are going to do when they grow up, or is the plan that they never grow up?
"In contrast, white Americans tend to have a touching faith that experts have no doubt devised fair methods for selection, so it wouldn’t be sporting to try to find an edge"
That's funny as I just wrote about Cliques:
http://americangoy.blogspot.com/2009/07/cliques-this-is-what-bailout-is-all.html
"When whites outperform blacks on promotional exams, such as in the case of Ricci, black leaders characterize the act of studying diligently for a test as "gaming the system." When Asians outperform whites on admissions to UC due to superior GPAs in AP courses, Steve Sailer characterizes such diligent studying as "gaming the system."
And when NFL football players make rosters, they are "gaming the system" by spending more time in the weight room and staying late in practice...
Knock-knock...anyone home?
"Dude, have you ever actually seen a Jew?"
Dude, every time I look in the mirror.
Will the real Steve Sailer please standup? Are you for meritocracy, or just pretend to be?
"Asians have a better GPA, while not higher competence, than whites, and this keeps whites (particularly boys) from getting into AP classes."
Let me change it a little, so we can see it clearer:
"White firemen have a higher score, while not higher competence, than Black and Latino, and this keeps black/Latino from getting the promotion."
Does it sound familiar?
Do we care about how hard Asian work to get their GPA/AP score up? If you want it bad enough and work hard at it, shouldn't you get it?. Do we have a quota system for Asian that take in underqualified asian students? Don't think so!
On the contrary, asian students need higher GPA/SAT than white to get in the same university. There is a book called "The price of Admission" which documented how much harder for asian to get into ivy league schools.
So, Steve
Who are you? What you really believe in?
When Asians outperform whites on admissions to UC due to superior GPAs in AP courses, Steve Sailer characterizes such diligent studying as "gaming the system."
Actually, the UC characterized Asians as "gaming the system" or, in its own words, "figuring out the technical requirements."
I didn't get the impression that Steve was faulting Asians for using the rules to their advantage. He was faulting Asian identity organizations for complaining about more whites in UCs.
The irony is that even with these disproportionate numbers, Asians are probably still being actively discriminated against.
I agree with this. I suspect UCs are doing away with the Subject test requirement precisely because they want a more respectable way of getting more whites in the school.
Remember, if they just used test scores with a less weighted GPA, whites enrollment would almost certainly go up. The problem is that they can't unweight the GPA without losing their cover for affirmative action.
but i do agree with his general point that the UC system was not set up by white americans so that an endless supply of self selected east asian immigrants could swamp it.
Finally someone says it. The UC was founded by whites, its reputation built while the bills were being sent to an overwhelmingly white taxpayer population. Who cares if marginally more academically inclined Asians 'merit' admission more than whites. Sorry, but the white folks that, you know, actually conquered California -- and their kin and descendants -- have the right to see the institutions they created continue to serve their posterity.
Meanwhile, we've had, what 30 -40 years of Asian supergeniuses flooding in. I've yet to see a Claude Shannon, a Robert Goddard, a Samuel Morse , let alone a Milikan or Wright Bros, or a John Nash
Native-born whites being squeezed out of college places by Asians? Sounds like the situation here in Australia.
So, Steve
Who are you? What you really believe in?
He's a white guy with white kids who believes in giving his offspring the biggest boost he can by any means possible.
Then again one has to wonder why anyone but third world dregs would want to live in California anyway...
Well, the weather's nice. Oh, and there are lots of good ethnic restaurants.
"Dude, have you ever actually seen a Jew?"
Dude, every time I look in the mirror.
Oh, then you're Falasha then.
"[the white folks]...have the right to see the institutions they created continue to serve their posterity."
No they don't. Rights are for whoever takes them and holds on to them.
Steve, has your phobia of WWII references really extended to banning a brief mention of the 20th century's most famous and talented French author and his assessment of what the greatest battle of the greatest war fought in that century meant for this very topic being discussed here? Or did you just not like my dig at golf?
-Zai jian.
well i'm not big on disparaging hard studying east asian students, but the issue, as with all immigration, is the numbers. there are over 1 billion east asians and the american west coast is, relatively speaking, the closest non-dump, open borders nation for them to go. a straight shot, one connecting flight trip over the pacific. out to hawaii, and then take your pick of landing in washington, oregon, or california.
east asians are smart. they know what they're doing. millions of them are deliberately taking over-advantage of american hospitality. they WANT to swamp california. if they could jump the border like mexicans, california would be china instead of mexico. only the huge pacific ocean prevents boat after boat of them from washing up on shore. it's undiluted stupidity to open the UC system to a bottomless well of asians. it's the immigration safety valve fallacy. the idea that america can save the world by taking in 500 million immigrants. well, that would raise their standard of living by a small amount, at the cost of reducing american standard of living by a huge amount, while still leaving 5 billion humans in third world conditions.
but it's even worse than that, as california is going to be majority mestizo, and mestizo border jumpers can just go to UC without even being legal immigrants AND as affirmative action admits who took the place of a native californian! that's bonkers. so the pressure of both china and mexico is brought to bear on 20 million euro americans in california. a challenge that any group would fail.
"Of course later, after College, Asian men (according to Asian women) tend to view women as consumerist objects they "earned" by about 8 years of pretty celibate sacrifice."
While I don't agree with all of the sentiments in your post - especially your observations about the amorous predilections of "smart, pretty girls", this is completely on the mark as regards Asian guys who were raised in Confucian societies (Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Korea and Japan). While studying abroad, whenever I asked a college student in Beijing if he had a girlfriend, at the age when in the West you are supposed to be sowing your wild oats, the general attitude was "I am a young guy, I should be studying. When I have established my career, and have earned more money, I will have all the women I want."
"In fact, that's an impediment to dating success. The guys who were successful were studly top athletes, or total non-conformist trouble makers with tats/piercings/dyed hair, "
I have to confess to some reservations about the way that the term "conformist" is applied in this context. Isn't a kid who indulges in fashion affectations which, while not part of the mainstream, comprises a pre-defrined alternative, and does thing which he's seen other people do, like dye his hair and get piercings, just as conformist as anyone else?
For that matter, in my experience, I can't see how whites, Asians, or members of any other races, are more or less conformist than each other. People usually just abide by the received standards of the culture they were born into. Do you find that white football jocks vary a great deal in their lifestyle habits and aspirations?
I think the key distinction that people seek to elucidate when they apply the term "conformist" to Asian families is the idea that
a) Parents in such families perhaps exert greater control over their children until a later age (which is questionable).
b)If Asians are conformist, and this is a negative attribute, then this at least provides me with solace for their higher levels of competence.
""That 4.31 number is staggering. You're talking about a kid with straight A's, who took 31% AP classes. And that's the average?"
No, then the average would be 5.0"
I'm guessing that you were never terribly good at math.
This is only peripherally related. If you have a chance, take a look at census, voter, birth and death records for the L.A. region between the time it became a state in 1850 and about 1970. It was surreal for me.
I knew objectively it was a very white place pre 1970, but seeing all those European names, and SO few non-white ones was mind-blowing. You'd never know it from what you see these days in the mass media. It's as if several atom bombs had struck the region ~40 years ago and two-thirds of the population had been replaced with foreigners.
I agree with the above posters. Telling everyone Asians “game” school by studying for AP exams is reminiscent of black firefighters. Is skipping easy classes “figuring out the technical requirements” for UCLA? Although I bet Steve knows this but doesn’t want Vdare regulars to.
Half of the STEM graduate students are foreign and therefore Asian or middle eastern or sometimes Slavic. There are billions of Orientals in Asia and tens of millions who could qualify for our UC. Even mestizos, being so numerous now, will produce a noticeable percentage of qualified students.
Good advice for white students would be to relearn the virtue of sacrificing for future generations by having a lot of smart children so medical treatment doesn’t rely on the Other and not to get caught up in utopian rapture, rewritten history, and the What This Country Really Stands For doctrine.
@Anon with the Amren link.
Wilkinson writes Chinese will be about six percent of the total Australian population by 2030. This is reasonable and "traditional Australians" might want to not offend China. Just make sure the military and medical profession is not swamped.
California is a dystopia and Asians are the robots.
"Dude, every time I look in the mirror."
I thought you people didn't have a reflection!
"Who are you? What you really believe in?"
Do I contradict myself?
Very well, I contradict myself.
I am large and contain multitudes.
-Walt Whitman
I don't think taking more AP tests/classes should be called "gaming" the system. I doubt Asian parents are forcing their children to take a more demanding class load so they can inflate their GPAs. I think it's far more likely that these parents simply believe they are pressing their kids to take the most challenging options. To call that sinister seems to be a whiny reaction to the more diligent and hard working.
Testing99:
"Most White women would quite happily sacrifice the well-being of their sons for that of non-Whites and White women. It's gender and cultural solidarity, where they themselves have advantages."
No way. Stop writing ridiculous statements like this. You have some good observations based on your personal experiences, but the above statement just ruins the overall quality of your post.
Steve should decide whether he wants to advocate White Nationalism or not.
Sometimes he almost seems to be making the case for White Nationalism, but then he later steps away from that position.
I think in the future, whites probably will have to practice some form of White Nationalism in order to keep from getting trampled by other ethnic groups.
Steve's citizenism just doesn't make sense in a country where every other ethnic group practices ethnic nationalism.
Professor McUCLA said...
"Whites sure aren't."
Not preserving it now and being capable of preserving it are two different things. They made it, of course they are capable of preserving it. Decadence overcomes any civilization at some point. That doesn't mean we should die off, or become Brazil. Perhaps the question should have been: Can anyone but whites revive western civilization?
All white women (except Sarah Palin, of course) have literally split open the chests of their sons and made burnt offerings of their still-beating hearts on the altar of the dark Alpha Male Cock God, in return for which evil service they are permitted to join His harem and appointed to affirmative-action sinecures free of any white beta male contamination. This is why the few surviving remnants of maledom must band together, subdue the fiendish harpy horde through a relentless campaign of suitcase nukings, and set the world right again by forcing these sultry demonesses onto breeding farms run by the victorious white beta male warriors. To the barricades, comrades!
The whole "my kids should get preferential treatment to good schools, because some guy who looked like them built them 300 years ago" thing is a great argument for reparations if you think about it.
"Sorry, but the white folks that, you know, actually conquered California -- and their kin and descendants -- have the right to see the institutions they created continue to serve their posterity."
it's funny you choose to state things that way. whites killed a bunch of non-whites and you think that gives whites a perpetual "right" to what they have or had?
there's no such thing. even assuming this "right" existed, the only way to preserve a right is to fight for it any time it's challenged. whites in california aren't succeeding in a system they created themselves.
if you whites don't like it, then maybe you should tell your kids to study harder. asians will happily displace (conquer) you in californa's higher ed system in the meantime.
To all who accuse Steve of abandoning meritocracy:
Do you really believe that merits are best measured (to the tune of 75%) by the high-school GPA, despite all the quirks that Steve has documented? If merits means "politically correct preference," then I guess it works out perfectly. Girls are more meritorious than boys; 1000 in the hood beats 1200 in the burb; a 5 in Human Geography trumps a 4 in Physics C.
In such a meritocracy, New Haven fire fighters would choose what exams they want to take, which would then be graded separately by neighborhood. I doubt Rev. Kimber would have a problem with that, though Ricci might.
Personally, I would rather define merits as the contribution to society that a prospective student is likely to make with the training and prestige provided by the institution. There's no perfect way to measure that, but a straightforward combination of 50% SAT and 50% of ungamed GPA (ideally adjusted for competitiveness) would be vastly superior to the current Californian system.
That is not to say that the percentage of Asians at Berkeley would drop under the new criteria. It may very well increase. But at least, high-school students, Asian or otherwise, would be spending their energy on taking their classes rather than choosing them.
Steve seems to think that whites should be better represented if colleges are looking for seeds of Nobel-worthy researches and world-changing innovations (which they should be). I tend to agree. But besides using the SAT and GPA as an imperfect proxy, there's no way to select for potential on a large scale without openning a whole can of subjective worms.
Tom V
PS Dog of Justice, another Asian and a Caltech grad, once remarked on this very blog that Asians test significantly better than whites despite having only slightly higher average IQ. He wanted to "stop the madness." Apparently he doesn't equate GPA with competence. I tend to agree.
DAJ said:
When whites outperform blacks on promotional exams, such as in the case of Ricci, black leaders characterize the act of studying diligently for a test as "gaming the system." When Asians outperform whites on admissions to UC due to superior GPAs in AP courses, Steve Sailer characterizes such diligent studying as "gaming the system."
You and others here misunderstand the point. It is not Asians fault for “gaming the system.” The point is that the system itself is the problem. Look at the prediction/validation studies yourself. Highly g loaded measures (like the SAT, SAT II (achievement tests) or ACT) are by far the best predictors of performance (both academic and job). HSGPA is so variable from class to class and school to school that it isn’t that g-loaded and adds very little to the predictive validity over and above g-loaded tests. (That it even adds a little is probably because it shows conscientiousness.) It is also much easier to improve than one’s performance on g-loaded tests relative to one’s peers. There’s probably no point in giving a college education to people below the 80th or 90th percentile in g. By emphasizing low-g measures for university admission, you end up selecting people whose g, even if they are motivated students, is below the probability threshold that they can master the material in a technical field.
Steve’s point is that the current system has deemphasized highly g-loaded measures to help lower g NAMs gain more admissions to university and that Asians were the unintentional the main beneficiaries. There’s nothing wrong with Asians’ higher conscientiousness causing them to surpass whites more in the less g-loaded measure of HSGPA than on higher g-loaded aptitude tests (where they have an advantage, but only a modest one), but when selecting the people who should be getting a college level education, it is the g-loaded tests that are the better gatekeeper.
Mitch is almost certainly correct when he wrote:
“Remember, if they just used test scores with a less weighted GPA, whites enrollment would almost certainly go up. The problem is that they can't unweight the GPA without losing their cover for affirmative action.”
The Ricci case is qualitatively different. In fact, you accuse Steve of hypocrisy when he is in fact arguing against the same thing: the City of New Haven was trying to do exactly the same thing as UC – deemphasize a better measure of g (and better predictor of job performance) for more subjective, less g-loaded (and, hence, less predictive) criteria.
Anon:
“How do you explain the overrepresentation of Asians at places like MIT and Caltech, where test scores play a very important role in the admissions process?”
Even though the data is by now somewhat dated, I notice looking in the “Bell Curve” that at elite institutions, Asians tend to slightly outscore whites on the SAT, whereas at state lower ranked state institutions the pattern is reversed, with whites doing better. About a year ago, I looked at which scores National Merit Scholar Semifinalists went to. Less than 1 in 15 went to an Ivy. State schools got most of them, so clearly there are a lot of talented people not going to Ivies and similar schools. So, to answer your question, you have to look at motivation: how much do people from different ethnic and religious groups value the prestige of a highly ranked elite university versus the much lesser cost of a state honors program with a substantial scholarship. From what I have observed (admittedly anecdotal), Asians, Jews, and old line elite WASPs (Episcopalians, etc.) place much greater emphasis on academic prestige than white non-elite Protestants (Scots-Irish, etc.) or ethnic Catholics. Even though the density of highly talented individuals is higher in the academic prestige valuing groups, the later groups are much more numerous. I would bet that the top scoring Asians (and Jews and elite WASPs) are far more likely to place value on gaining admission to and to attend elite Universities than generic whites matched for g/SAT scores. Put another way, a much higher portion of Asians, Jews, Episcopalians, etc. that have the requisite g to attend an elite university do so (and pay the excessive price just to say, “my son goes to Harvard).
Sabril said:
“Is the West doing enough to make sure that a decent number of brilliant and creative people are channelled into situations where their brilliance can benefit the whole human race?”
I share your concerns. Look at all those people with high quant skills that go work in the financial industry (how’s that working out?) instead of the sciences.
Simon said:
“I suspect, going by Lynn's work on IQ, that the NE Asians (Chinese, Japanese & Korean) do have a slightly higher median competence than the whites, though not to the extent of the disparity in UCLA admissions.”
One thing I noticed about Lynn’s meta-analyses showing higher average East Asian IQ is that on the larger, more representative samples, such as the standardizations of the Wechsler, Kauffman (KABC, KAIT), McCarthy, DAT, DAB, the NLSY’s AFQT (although small sample in that case) tests, and some of the larger Raven’s standardizations in East Asian Countries as well as the US, East Asians don’t tend to have IQs in the 106 range as Lynn and Rushton repeatedly claim. They seem to do better than whites, but usually in the 101 to 104 range and also show a marked difference in verbal and visuospatial IQ. The higher scores, in the 106 + range seem more questionable, often from small or select populations. For instance, Lynn includes a study by Geary asserting that Chinese have a 113 IQ based on samples of students at an American and a Chinese University (i.e., using the US college students as a norm, the Chinese students scored nearly 1 SD better). How is this comparison worthwhile? It all depends on which University in each country you look at. Also, Lynn reports high scores (105-110+) for samples of school children in Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. From his data, I have no problem believing that the average IQ in these urban financial and political centers is around 106 or even higher. However, are they representative of NE Asian Mongoloids as a whole? I would image that the white population of Washington D.C., or many European capitals, also has an IQ above 100. For instance, Lynn cites Buj’s 1981 study of IQs in various European capitals using the Cattell Culture Fair Test. Lynn gives the IQs for Bonn, Amsterdam, and Warsaw as 107, 107, and 106 respectively, which is much higher than any of the norming studies on Germany, Holland or Poland have ever shown. Again, I think Lynn is correct that East Asian Mongoloids are higher in g than European Caucasoids, but I think he tends to be a bit sloppy on his selection of studies and sometimes exaggerates his conclusions.
The more interesting question is how white and East Asian populations compare with respect to their population variance in g. I have been able to find surprisingly little info on this. Seligman way back in his book on IQ in the early 90s claimed that the Wechsler standardizations in Japan show an SD of slightly under 13 compared to an American SD of 15, although it was unclear if he was referring only to whites or Americans in general (where large racial gaps would tend to widen the SD compared to homogenous Japan). Steve Hsu, on the other hand, analyzed the SDs on PISA scores and found that, if anything, East Asians had a slightly wider SD than whites. However, I am not completely convinced by this is as dispositive as Hsu thinks. Although PISA scores are highly correlated with g (see Rindermann), it seems probable that the character of the education system could influence the variance on these tests. If students are tracked by ability and rigorously educated to their potential, not only will the average improve, but the SD will widen as the more able students get more out of increased investment in their education. From what I have read and heard, this seems to be how East Asian educational systems work. In the egalitarian West/US, we play to the lowest common denominator and tend to dumb things down to accommodate the slower students. Even though motivated parents are attempting to get around this by de facto tracking in AP or honors classes, we in the West probably compress our population variance on academic achievement tests due to the pernicious effect of egalitarian dogma on our educational systems.
Truth said...
The whole "my kids should get preferential treatment to good schools, because some guy who looked like them built them 300 years ago" thing is a great argument for reparations if you think about it.
Touché. Score one for Truth. Sometimes--not often, but sometimes--he brings it.
"About a year ago, I looked at which scores National Merit Scholar Semifinalists went to. Less than 1 in 15 went to an Ivy. State schools got most of them, so clearly there are a lot of talented people not going to Ivies and similar schools."
There are 15k semi-finalists per year. That is not exactly a hyper-elite group.
If you set the threshold high enough (e.g., top thousand seniors in the country) you will find that the elite schools get more than all other schools combined. That was perhaps not the case 20 years ago, but it is now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Merit_Scholarship_Program
I'm an East Asian guy who was too much of a nerd to date at all until late in college. But once I figured out how to game the "dating game" I could date all of the white girls that I wanted, except for the trashy and super-slutty ones. This was way easier to figure out than the SAT, the ACT, the APs, or the ASVAB. It was easy: I just followed Steve's instructions--act white and be successful. Happily, because most white guys are too busy listening to rap music, wearing their pants around their knees, playing video games and/or smoking pot, being iSteve-white is easier than it sounds.
This is really sad and hypocritical as the defenders of the meritocracy when it comes to "NAMs" suddenly feel that a student's "unquantifiable potential" (to win a Nobel even) should be taken into consideration when evaluating whites and folks like myself. Incidentally I think the folks who have the potential to win a Nobel Prize are going to be accepted anyway (no matter what there race, with or without affirmative action).
Second point, you people act like there aren't any white folks being accepted into the UCs. Last time I checked the major UC campuses still had a significant population of whites. Ya'll are not being "dispossessed of your birthright." It's just that some of you might just have to work a little harder to keep it. But hey, competition is good right?
Oh and Testy the Deranged...I know that was supposed to be satire but it took me a while to realize it :D
Actually, pzed, the Conquest of California was fairly bloodless, with the Californios putting up enough resistance to satisfy honor. Then, once we had the territory, we set about building the institutions that exist today, including the UC. Several generations of mostly white Californians, and indeed Americans as the UC gets funding from a variety of nationwide programs, built the schools. There was simply no reason why we have to hand them or the state over to Asians. In fact, we should emulate Korea (which seems to be your ancestral homeland, and allow virtually no immigration.
Truth said...
The whole "my kids should get preferential treatment to good schools, because some guy who looked like them built them 300 years ago" thing is a great argument for reparations if you think about it.
Touché. Score one for Truth. Sometimes--not often, but sometimes--he brings it.
Uh, not so much, for the simple reason that black Americans are much richer than Africans. It was those same white guys 300 years ago who built the institutions that eventually made that possible. If anything, black folks owe whites rent.
Who cares if marginally more academically inclined Asians 'merit' admission more than whites. Sorry, but the white folks that, you know, actually conquered California -- and their kin and descendants -- have the right to see the institutions they created continue to serve their posterity.
So is affirmative action wrong or not?
" I could date all of the white girls that I wanted, except for the trashy and super-slutty ones."
Ummm... You do realise that those ones are the easiest ones to 'date'?
The whole "my kids should get preferential treatment to good schools, because some guy who looked like them built them 300 years ago" thing is a great argument for reparations if you think about it.
I agree. When blacks cry for reparations because their dead co-ethnics were enslaved by whites some two hundred years ago, whites on this site decry such an assertion as ludicrous and unjust. Oddly, these selfsame guys are now advocating reparations for whites in the form of easier admission into UC because their dead co-ethnics founded the schools one to two hundred years ago. In other words, both liberal blacks and paleoconservative whites espouse unearned reward based on race. They are opposite sides of the same coin.
Wow, this is a popular thread. Judging by the International Math Competition results and last year's Nobel laureates, I'm predicting this will be the "Asian Century".
Uh, not so much, for the simple reason that black Americans are much richer than Africans. It was those same white guys 300 years ago who built the institutions that eventually made that possible. If anything, black folks owe whites rent.
I now understand the reason that HBD discussion cannot get off the ground and go mainstream. Comments as the one above put off most reasonable whites (and others). The surfeit of mean-spiritedness and haughtiness chokes the movement before it can grow to fruition. It is sad.
The whole "my kids should get preferential treatment to good schools, because some guy who looked like them built them 300 years ago" thing is a great argument for reparations if you think about it.
300 years ago??
How long ago was 1980, when the non-hispanic white population in the U.S. was 79.7%?
Or 1990, when it was 75.6?
Or 2000, when it was 69.1?
Just when was it that the U.S. university system became as good as it is today? Last year?
"The surfeit of mean-spiritedness and haughtiness chokes the movement before it can grow to fruition. It is sad."
You, know, it really, really is sad.
Because everyone knows that "movements", religious, social, political or otherwise, spring from joy and contentment vis-a-vis the status quo. What you call "reasonable" whites are only able to exist right now due to the current environment, which is changing even as I type these words.
Most Asian countries are much less represented at the far ends of the bell curve compared to white nations. Even Japan (which was industrialized for most of the 20th century) has only 1/10th as many Nobel prizes per capita as the USA.
That's a highly flawed method of judging intelligence. It should go without saying that Europe and the United States dominated ALL of the early years of the Nobel Prize (first awarded in 1901). It also includes irrelevant categories for this discussion, such as the Nobel Prize for Peace (the much maligned Nelson Mandela is a recipient of this, so all you white nationalists here should temper your enthusiasm for this one). It would be more accurate to look at the recent results of science based awards, and here Japanese are strong.
Chemistry: 4 in 10 years. Germany and the UK combined have a greater population than Japan, together they have 2.
Physics: 4 in 10 years. Germany and the UK combined: 5.
The white dominance is clearly slowing as years pass. Asians came up big in the most recent round of high end awards.
2008 Nobel Prize in Physics: All 3 awards won by Japanese.
2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: 1 Chinese, 1 Japanese, 1 white.
2006 Fields Medal (highest award for mathematics): 1 Chinese, 3 whites.
Someone already mentioned the Asian dominance at the 2009 International Math Olympiad, and I'm having trouble finding the exact results of the Physics Olympiad, but it looks like another Chinese domination. It was lopsided the previous year as well.
2008 IMO: All 3 perfect scorers were Chinese.
2008 International Physics Olympiad: Another Chinese sweep, with individuals winning top overall score, top score in theory, and top score in experimental.
China is going to be lagging behind in Nobels for a while, because the facilities, funding, and experience conducting world class research isn't close to the level of the West. They have only very recently begun to make significant investments in R&D.
Anyway, I'm not advocating Asian supremacy here, I like both Asians and whites! Egalitarians are out of control claiming environment is the cause of everything, but guess what? You guys go too far with your "genes explain everything" too.
China’s College Entry Test Is an Obsession
"For the past year, Liu Qichao has focused on one thing, and only one thing: the gao kao, or the high test.
"Fourteen to 16 hours a day, he studied for the college entrance examination, which this year will determine the fate of more than 10 million Chinese students. He took one day off every three weeks...."
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