The shell game of Berkeley's holistic admissions

Gene Expression
By Razib Khan
Aug 3, 2013 12:36 PMNov 19, 2019 9:18 PM

Newsletter

Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news
 

The title refers to the basic thrust of a piece in The New York Times, Confessions of an Application Reader. The piece ends with a paragraph like so:

Underrepresented minorities still lag behind: about 92 percent of whites and Asians at Berkeley graduate within six years, compared with 81 percent of Hispanics and 71 percent of blacks. A study of the University of California system shows that 17 percent of underrepresented minority students who express interest in the sciences graduate with a science degree within five years, compared with 31 percent of white students.

You may or may not agree with this particular type of admissions policy (I do not, because I do not care if minorities are underrepresented at universities if that underrepresentation is due to transparent academic deficiencies, which I believe to be the case). Rather, I want to focus on the term 'underrepresented minorities' and ascertain how underrepresented minorities truly are at Berkeley. That's easy enough to do. About ~80% of UC Berkeley undergraduates are California residents. The Census allows us to query the racial makeup of a range of age brackets for various localities. What I did was look for the percentage of individuals between the ages of 15-19 in the 2010 Census for California, approximately the source population of students who are freshman in the 2012 class. Here are the percentages in the 15-19 age category in 2010: 30% Non-Hispanic White 6.5% Non-Hispanic Black 11% Non-Hispanic Asian 48% Hispanic Comparing to UC Berkeley's student data Non-Hispanic Whites are nearly perfectly represented (though they are underrepresented in freshman admits, making up for it in transfers). Hispanics are represented at 1/3 the proportion you'd expect, and Blacks at about 1/2. The unsurprising reality is individuals Asian ethnicity are overrepresented. The Berkeley website attempts to elide and obfuscate this obvious reality by disaggregating the Asian ethnicities. But it also allows one to compare to the Census data on these ethnicities.

0 free articles left
Want More? Get unlimited access for as low as $1.99/month

Already a subscriber?

Register or Log In

0 free articlesSubscribe
Discover Magazine Logo
Want more?

Keep reading for as low as $1.99!

Subscribe

Already a subscriber?

Register or Log In

Stay Curious

Sign up for our weekly newsletter and unlock one more article for free.

 

View our Privacy Policy


Want more?
Keep reading for as low as $1.99!


Log In or Register

Already a subscriber?
Find my Subscription

More From Discover
Stay Curious
Join
Our List

Sign up for our weekly science updates.

 
Subscribe
To The Magazine

Save up to 40% off the cover price when you subscribe to Discover magazine.

Copyright © 2025 LabX Media Group