SUSPICIOUS STANDARDS
A San Francisco Chronicle investigation finds suspicious results in UC-Berkley admissions:
More than 400 students -- nearly 90 percent of them minorities -- were admitted to UC Berkeley in 2001 with below average SAT scores under an admissions policy that was to have ended racial preferences at state universities, The Chronicle found in an analysis of admissions data.
UC Berkeley officials developed the policy, which considers grades and SAT scores but includes other factors, such as socioeconomic status, after voters approved Proposition 209 in 1996 to ban affirmative action in admissions.
But the analysis of the data shows that of the 422 among the bottom tier of admitted students, 378 were minorities. Seventeen were of unknown race and 27 were white.
Read the whole thing.
Growing up in South Carolina, I knew some brilliant students who posted relatively low SAT scores because they came from uneducated families. But those scores tended to be massively lopsided--350 verbal, 700 math (you learn math in school, language intuition from your family)--and even then they were well over what passes for qualified at Berkeley. Plus that was 25 years ago, long before the SATs were renormed.