April 6, 2001Recently, you received yet another letter from Professor Emeritus Lee Hansen, dated March 26, 2001. In this letter, and in all his previous letters, op-ed pieces, letters to the editor, and public utterances on the subject of UW-Madison Freshman admissions, Professor Hansen relies on at least two misapplications (errors) of statistical reasoning and one major erroneous assumption. They are as follows:
- Professor Hansen analyzes and compares various averages and percentages for majority and minority subsets of our applicants, admitted students, and enrolled students. For his comparisons to be valid, these subsets would have to be “the same in all other relevant respects” (other than minority status). In statistical terms, they would have to be random samples of their respective populations. They are not, so his comparisons have no face validity.
- Professor Hansen assumes that the well-known statistical correlation between (any of, or any combination of) those numerical indicators and first-year grades in college can be applied to individual applicants. That is another bit of fallacious reasoning. What is statistically and accurately true for a large group is not necessarily true for individual members of that group. In fact, counterexamples are easy to find. Some of us (you and I) may well be counterexamples — people who did much better or much worse in college than our entering numerical indicators would have predicted. We do not admit groups. We admit individuals.
- Professor Hansen assumes implicitly (sometimes asserts explicitly) that “admissibility” or “qualification for admission” can and should be judged primarily, if not solely, on some combination of high school grades, high school class rank, and standardized test scores. This is either an incorrect assumption or a mistaken belief.
I will amplify (briefly) on each of these in turn, but I don’t propose to consume any more of your or my time on this subject than absolutely necessary. In 1996, I wrote a 20-page paper for the Regents in connection with a briefing on our admissions policies. I have located the original text on an archive disk, and could bring it up to date for you if you were interested in “more than you ever wanted to know about admissions.” Otherwise, I will probably just leave it with this brief rebuttal.
Point #1 is the most glaring fallacy in Professor Hansen’s analysis. Many, if not most, of the minority applicants whose high school ranks are below (say) the 80th percentile have been encouraged to apply based on personal interviews, guidance counselor advice, or other information that makes us believe they can do well here despite their class rank. Thus, they are not a random cross-section of the “low percentile” minority population; they are a prescreened subset of that population. Because we are actively recruiting to improve our diversity, low-scoring minority applicants are more likely to have been pre-screened than are majority applicants in those same percentile bins. It is neither surprising nor is it evidence of “unfair discrimination” that (in this particular semester — the numbers are small, in any case, and fluctuate greatly) we admitted 37% of the minority applicants who are below the 50th percentile, but only 6% of the majority applicants from those ranges. All of the “bottom half” admissions are in the Regent-defined “exception” categories, and the number of majority exceptions usually greatly exceeds the number of minority exceptions.
To points #2 and 3: Regent policy states that we are to admit preferentially (but not exclusively) those applicants deemed “most likely to succeed.” Common sense and Regent policy also dictate that we should pay attention to past academic performance as a predictor of future academic success. So we do. But if we relied solely on numerical indicators, we would make lots more admissions mistakes than we do now. These indicators are simply not as powerful as many people (including Professor Hansen) seem to believe. At best, they enable us to “explain” (predict accurately) only about 25% of the observed variance in the first-year grades of admitted students, and less than 10% of the variances in graduation. Since Professor Hansen has focused on class rank bins, I’ll point out that the “average” entering student who was in the 20th percentile range is predicted to earn a first-year GPA of about 2.5 and the “average” entering student who was in the 80th percentile range should earn about 3.1. Overall, each one percentile increase in class rank “predicts” an increase of about 0.01GPA points in first-year grades. That’s very accurately true for a group of 1000 students in any of these bins. But the standard deviation in those predictions is about 0.5GPA points, and the GPAs of individuals in each rank bin (even the top 10% bin!) will range from 0.0 to 4.0. If all I know about an individual is that her class rank is at the 20th percentile, I can say that the most probable first-year GPA for someone we admit at this level is about 2.5, but that her actual GPA will be somewhere between 0.0 and 4.0. That’s why we look at lots of other things in addition to class rank — things that we hope and believe are relevant to the other 75% of the observed variance in grades.
I also find it interesting that Professor Hansen does not point out that his own table shows we admitted 98% of the majority applicants who were in the top ten percent, but only 93% of the minority applicants in that bin. I wonder how he explains that? It seems to me that if we were practicing (in his usual terminology — a term I find both offensive and intentionally misleading) “race preference,” and if we were admitting based solely on numerical indicators, we would be admitting 100% of the high-scoring minority applicants. I haven’t checked his numbers with original data, but we do turn down both majority and minority applicants who have high grades, ranks, or test scores when our overall review of the application leads us to conclude they would not be likely to succeed here.
Finally, I can tell you that more than two thirds of the students who fail to graduate are in good academic standing when they drop out. That means they have dropped out for nonacademic reasons (financial reasons, health, discouragement over the campus climate, etc.), and minority students experience more of these challenges than do majority students. All the students we admit are, to the very best of our ability to judge, capable of succeeding academically, and most of them do. We have the highest graduation rate in the System, and are far above the national average for both majority and minority students.
— John Wiley
Letter to Board of Regents Commenting on Chancellor Wiley’s Letter
May 4, 2001This response to Chancellor Wiley’s April 6, 2001 memo is quite straightforward.
My March 26 letter to the Regents pointed out what is known as the disparate impact of race-based policies, in this case, as applied to UW-Madison admission decisions. Disparate impact is typically used to identify the effect of race-based policies against minorities. But the concept is equally applicable to race-based policies favoring minorities. I argue that UW-Madison admission policy discriminates in favor of targeted minorities, and the disparate effect of that policy is easily identified.
To recap my letter: UW-Madison enrolls disproportionate numbers of less academically-able minority students. This outcome is attributable to its diversity policy which seeks to increase the presence of minorities in the student body. Because the pool of academically competitive minority applicants is so limited, many minority applicants who would not be admitted based on their academic records are admitted on the basis of their race. The effects of this policy are apparent. Among Fall 2000 freshmen, 34% of targeted minority students (Blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, and SE Asians) ranked below the 70th high school class rank percentile as compared to only 5% of non-targeted (White and Asian) students. Moreover, among applicants ranked below the 70th high school class rank percentile, 46% of all targeted minority applicants were admitted as compared to only 14% of non-targeted applicants.
Chancellor Wiley in his memo dismisses this disparity in admission rates. In so doing, he offers a new and revealing explanation of UW-Madison admission policy. Let me quote: “Many, if not most, of the minority applicants whose high school ranks are below (say) the 80th percentile have been encouraged to apply based on personal interviews, guidance counselor advice, or other information that makes us believe they can do well here despite their class rank…. Because we are actively recruiting to improve our diversity, low-scoring minority applicants are more likely to have been pre-screened than are majority applicants in those same percentile bins.” Thus, “it is neither surprising nor is it evidence of ‘unfair’ discrimination that (in this particular semester-the numbers are small, in any case, and fluctuate greatly) we admitted 37% of the minority applicants who are below the 50th percentile but only 6% of the majority applicants in those ranges.”
Chancellor Wiley, in elaborating this explanation elsewhere, argues that reducing the now-higher minority admission rate so that it would equal the much lower non-minority admission rate is relatively easy. By encouraging many more minority students to apply, aware that these applicants are not among those “most likely to succeed” and hence would not be admitted, UW-Madison could lower substantially the minority admission rate. That rate could even fall to the rate for non-minority applicants. (Note: for that rate to fall from 37% to 6%, there would have to be a more than six-fold increase in the number of minority applicants who would not be found admissible.) Inasmuch as this approach would not make sense, he argues that the current system of pre-screening minority applicants ensures their admission rate will always exceed that for non-minority applicants.
This new explanation of how the admission process works is deeply troubling because of its race-based effects. Here I analyze the key elements of Chancellor Wiley’s explanation.
About the numbers of minorities admitted. To suggest that even if “unfair discrimination” occurs in admission, there is no problem because “the numbers are small” — that is not an adequate defense. Whether it be sexual or racial discrimination, each case of discrimination is one case too many. The same is true of discrimination in admission.
About the prescreening of minority applicants. Pre-screening only minority students and then admitting them does not treat all potential applicants equally. There must be considerable numbers of disadvantaged non-targeted high school students below the 80th percentile who, if similarly prescreened, would also be deemed “most likely to succeed.” Yet, no comparable effort is made to encourage applications from these students. It can be argued that the initial phase of prescreening minorities, namely, making them aware of post-secondary educational opportunities and encouraging them to consider applying, is entirely consistent with the 1964 Civil Rights Act which called for eliminating barriers to advancement by minorities. But, it appears that the current admission process, as described by Chancellor Wiley, goes well beyond that.
About why students drop out before graduating. Chancellor Wiley states that “two thirds of the students who fail to graduate are in good academic standing when they drop out,” that many “nonacademic reasons” contribute to dropping out, and that “minority students experience more of these challenges than do majority students.” Few would dispute these statements. But, knowing what to make of these statements would be helped if UW-Madison provided information about why students drop out and how many drop out for each of the various reasons. For example, what proportions of targeted minority and non-minority students who fail to graduate are in good academic standing when they drop out? What about students who are on the borderline academically? Are students from the bottom half of their high school class more likely to experience academic difficulties than students in the top half of the class? Knowing how targeted minority students progress academically through their college careers to graduation would help us understand the disparities in retention and graduation rates.
About the accuracy of “most likely to succeed” judgments. Available evidence shows that admission decisions based on the “most likely to succeed” criterion associated with pre-screening would be enhanced by giving more attention to the high school class rank of applicants. Consider the 6th-year UW-Madison graduation rates of minority and non-minority freshmen entering UW-Madison in Fall 1994.
A wide gap exists between the 6th-year graduation rates of minority and non-minority students. For the 1994 cohort of entering full-time students, 54% of minority students as compared to 77% of non-minority students graduated in six years. When graduation rates are compared for students below the 75th high school percentile, targeted minorities graduate at a 46% rate as contrasted to a 67% rate for non-targeted students. In other words, the 46% 6th-year graduation rate for pre-screened targeted minority applicants who enroll is well below the 67% percent rate for unscreened, non-targeted students.
If pre-screening is central to diversity recruitment, the predictive power of its procedure for identifying who is “most likely to succeed” is weak. Perhaps UW-Madison administrators are satisfied with an admission process whose accuracy in picking targeted minorities as “most likely to succeed,” is less than the 50-50 flip of a coin. Whether faculty favor such a process is less clear. Yet, faculty-approved UW-Madison admission policy explicitly mentions the “likelihood of success”in admitting (non-minority) applicants, where success presumably refers to the prospect of graduation which motivates undergraduate enrollment at UW-Madison.
About retention programs. The graduation rate data presented above reflect not only prescreening but also the impact of on-going minority retention programs. Because at least 60% of UW System diversity funds go for retention (and presumably about the same percentage at UW-Madison), targeted minority graduation rates are undoubtedly higher than they would be in the absence of retention programs. Put another way, the already wide gap between minority and non-minority graduation rates presented above would be even greater without retention programs. In fact, the gap in 1st-year dropout rates is evident for those in the bottom 75% of their high school class-21% for pre-screened targeted minority students as against 12% for un-screened non-targeted students. The implications of this gap are ominous. They suggest that current retention programs may be considerably less effective than proponents of diversity have indicated.
Because some retention programs do not begin until the sophomore year, 2nd-year dropout rates also bear examination. Of particular importance is the Lawton Minority Retention Grant program, open to second-year targeted minority students. Dropout rates for those students in the bottom 75% of their high school class, measured by those who do not enroll in the third year, are 34% for targeted minority students as against 22% for non-targeted students.
What do we conclude from this analysis? Preferential admission through pre-screening targeted minority applicants does boost the percentage of entering minority students. But, it means that the targeted minority student population is composed disproportionately of students who are not academically competitive with non-targeted students. Despite an array of minority retention programs, the 1st-year and 2nd-dropout rates for pre-screened targeted minority students in the bottom 75% of their high school class are higher than those for unscreened, non-minority students who are also from the bottom 75% of their high school class. The 6th-year graduation rates for these same groups are lower for pre-screened targeted minority students than for unscreened non-minority students. Thus, despite more than three decades of diversity programs, neither pre-screening minority admission nor costly minority retention programs have achieved their long-promised goals. Nor have “we’ll try harder” commitments to each successive diversity program made any difference.A solution is available, waiting to be implemented by UW-Madison. One, apply a single standard in admitting all students, whatever their race or ethnicity. Two, give academic support and financial aid to students who need such help, again without regard to race or ethnicity.
The results? An immediate reduction in the proportion of targeted minority freshmen. A narrowing of the gap in 1st-year and then 2nd-year dropout rates, and later a narrowing of the gap in 6th-year graduation rates. A disappearance of the stigma felt by many targeted minority students who are viewed as being admitted because of their race. A dispelling of the notion that minority students cannot perform as well academically as non-minority students. A signaling to K-12 students, their parents, and the schools that applicants must demonstrate high academic achievement to be admitted and succeed. A reaffirmation of the principle that at UW-Madison everyone should be treated equally, without regard to race or ethnicity.
I look forward to your response.
Cordially,
— W. Lee Hansen
Professor Emeritus, Economics
University of Wisconsin-Madison