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Comment by quxbar | Hacker News Reader

This is far more damning than any puff piece I have seen in years.

I care a lot about these issues. I tend to give people speaking out the benefit of the doubt -- not everyone is as brilliant in documenting their cases lock-tight as Susan Fowler.

After reading this article, I have to reserve judgement. There aren't specifics yet, just people who I am interested in listening to and wish to hear more from. We may come to know eventually, but we don't know yet.

Yep. Combined with the earlier news that they removed demonstrated interest as an admissions criteria (too far in the other direction IMO), CMU is starting to look like a warzone.

What was removed??

Edit2: See nv-vn's comment below.

They won't consider how much you "demonstrated interest" in CS to get into the program. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17446996 [Edit: this isn't only for the CS program, and it's not only about women, but you can fill in the blanks I guess]

I think it makes sense if you think women (IIRC this was about the gender gap in CS) tend not to be directed toward CS as much as men are in middle/high school, or if you think their accomplishments might have been downplayed or not played up as much due to someone else's sexism. After all when you're recruiting for college you don't care so much about a person's past accomplishments so much as future potential.

I don't know why that article is written in the way that it is, but generally "demonstrated interest" in college admissions is a way of evaluating a student's preference for the school. Most top schools don't use this, but a lot of other schools try to look for students who are more interested in their school in order to increase yield for admitted students. Generally this would take the form of visiting a school, going to information sessions, etc. Here's an article about it [1]. In this context, it doesn't have much to do with the major you're applying for or your interest in that specific major. While removing demonstrated interest increases diversity in terms of economic backgrounds, it shouldn't have much effect on gender ratios.

[1] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2018...

Thanks, that probably caused a lot of confusion.

How can you possibly judge future potential without looking at past accomplishments?

"Demonstrated interest" in college admissions means that they attended an information session or visited the campus or something else like that. Maybe a reasonable thing to consider in admissions decisions, but hardly what I would call an "accomplishment".

more damning? We don't even know what was stated in the email. Other pieces will give examples of what happened and sometimes even evidence.

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