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kennend3

Socioeconomic status is a much better goal if you want to "even the playing field" but it has serious flaws.

The most obvious is it is incredibly easy to game:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/income...

Any ideas on how students with no income managed to own $57 million in houses?

Would these people qualify for a socio-economic advantage when applying for school?

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Race is easy to game too, in fact far easier. I know people who were around 5% Hispanic who would then write Hispanic on college applications. They're technically not lying.

There's also just plenty of people that just straight up lie about their race on college applications. It's not like its being verified at all.

I went to high school with a lot of White - Asian mixed kids. None of them wrote Asian on their college applications. I also knew a lot of Indians (like me) who'd select Other in order to avoid being denied opportunities due to being Asian.

> Race is easy to game too, in fact far easier.

Strongly agree.

Here (Canada) we have a pandemic of "pretendians"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretendian

People who make fake claims to gain an advantage.

There was even a United States senator who claimed to be Native American, was awarded academic positions based on that, but a DNA test proved her native ancestry to be so minuscule as to not even be measurable.

Elizabeth Warren

The part about 'was awarded academic positions based on that' is debatable, e.g. this claim was investigated by a newspaper (article below is titled 'Ethnicity not a factor in Elizabeth Warren's rise in law'):

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/09/01/did-claim...

I think it is pretty hard to investigate this and prove it false, as such decisions are often very opaque.

My guess is if she marked Native American on any application form or was considered by the insitution to be Native American, it had an impact.

How do American colleges police the statement of race?

Realistically, we should eliminate the category of hispanic entirely. It is orthogonal to race and the easiest one to game.

My college counselor told me to mark Hispanic because my parents are portuguese. I did not out of principle because I consider myself pretty standard white.

This is pretty easy to bypass by looking at parents' tax returns from the past 20 years, plus their assets.

Because no one has ever worked for cash and lied about it?

Do you suspect that someone who launders dirty money for a living did their taxes and listed "money launderer" as occupation and reported their income?

Assets like this are often hidden behind shell companies to prevent law enforcement from taking them under "proceeds of crime" charges.

There are so few people this would apply to (wealthy individuals with large amounts of unreported cash income who are applying to college) that its not even worth considering as an edge case for college admissions.

The point isn't to eliminate every possible way college admissions can be gamed but to get the best method that works for the majority of applicants.

> There are so few people this would apply to (wealthy individuals with large amounts of unreported cash income who are applying to college) that its not even worth considering as an edge case for college admissions.

You would be mistaken.. This is actually a rather serious problem.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/income...

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-van...

https://torontosun.com/2016/05/12/311-million-vancouver-mans...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wd7wz4/student-owns-this-31-...

This seems like multiple reports on a single batch of incidents connected to sketchy accounting of foreign capital (and in Canada). What about this doesn't scream "edge case" and needs to be handled as a general case of college admissions and not by anti-money-laundering?

There are enough disadvantages to having your money be "dirty" in this way that I'm not sure it really moves the needle?

There's no way this is an easier way to game admissions than throwing around "clean" money, right?

Then it's no longer an issue for college admissions officers to police, but the IRS.

The term "socioeconomic" is really malleable, when in actuality you probably meant "low income" or "poor". This might be a better measure, but can be gamed also as you point out. This however doesn't necessarily mean the measure is bad.

No, i meant socioeconomic factors...

"What are socioeconomic examples? Social and economic factors, such as income, education, employment, community safety, and social supports can significantly affect how well and how long we live. These factors affect our ability to make healthy choices, afford medical care and housing, manage stress, and more."

Notice it includes "Income"? it includes other factors as well such as poor safety nets, etc.

> "What are socioeconomic examples? Social and economic factors, such as income, education, employment, community safety, and social supports can significantly affect how well and how long we live. These factors affect our ability to make healthy choices, afford medical care and housing, manage stress, and more."

This is a bit non-sensical. If you take education as an example for college admission, you need to support the ones that are the least suitable for exactly that.

I know you certainly don't mean that, but you said it. Make it concrete and you notice the error. Socio-economic is a handwavy term.

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