"Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to [19th-century British Prime Minister Benjamin] Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'"
Samuel Clemmons/Mark Twain, "Chapters from My Autobiography"
...Our analysis finds that the QGRE correlates with only one metric, the graduate GPA (but it is such a weak correlation the scientist in me rebels when fitting it to a line). That said, we find undergraduate GPA to be a better predictor of graduate GPA. We also find that undergraduate GPA is correlated with all three sections of the General GRE.
So why use the GRE at all? One certain answer: national rankings. Consider US News, whose rankings of graduate programs are widely influential among both prospective graduate students and administrators....
Justifying using the GRE becomes significantly more complicated, however, when the test results are dissected by race and gender. The figure plots QGRE scores by race/ethnicity and gender for US citizens whose intended graduate major was "physical sciences". The top and bottom of the lines are the 75th and 25th percentiles of the score distributions, respectively; the tick is the mean. This pattern is qualitatively unchanged when controlling for undergraduate GPA. Note the implications for diversity of using 700 as a minimum acceptable score: nearly three quarters of Hispanics would be rejected, and significantly more than this for American Indians, African Americans, and Puerto Ricans; similarly, women are filtered out at a higher rate than men. Mixing cut-off scores with these racial and gender disparities sets the foundation of a glass ceiling erected by the lopsided treatment of minorities and women before they even set foot in grad school.
The Asian > White > Hispanic > Black pattern permeates standardized testing: it is the same for the SAT, and is reflected in the recent race-based levels set by Florida and Virginia for grade schoolers' performance on state-wide standardized tests.
To be fair: there's more data and insight at the link below. The statistics (I feel), is a measure of where we've allowed ourselves as a society to get "comfortable." I have mused on this at length in the posts: "A Matter of Marketing" and "Dark Matters." Einstein is the source of the following quotes:
1. "It seems to be a universal fact that minorities--especially when the individuals composing them can be recognized by physical characteristics--are treated by the majorities among whom they live as an inferior order of beings. The tragedy of such a fate lies not merely in the unfair treatment to which these minorities are automatically subjected in social and economic matters, but also in the fact that under the suggestive influence of the majority most of the victims themselves succumb to the same prejudice and regard their kind as inferior beings. This second and greater part of the evil can be overcome by closer association and by the deliberate education of the minority, whose spiritual liberation can thus be accomplished.
"The resolute efforts of the American Negro in this direction deserve approval and assistance."
Mein Weltbild, Amsterdam: Querido Verilog, 1934, pp 117-118.
2. "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Bear with me...
APS Back Page: Admissions Criteria and Diversity in Graduate School, Casey W. Miller
Comments