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Comment by onetimeusename | Hacker News Reader

We don't know the specifics of the Caltech students unless they publish all the data. I am not aware of any school that does that or breaks down data by gender even. (I could be wrong).

But here[1] there is a gender gap in SAT scores on average across all test takers, especially for mathematics. If that holds for Caltech applicants, which is reasonable to assume, then male students were more qualified. The article mentions that men are not better at math than women are and talks about a long quest for gender parity but doesn't seem concerned at all when men are accepted less than women so I am curious how that is consistent.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/u8ok2w/oc_...

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They did publish all (or a sufficient subset of) the data, most schools do publish that and break it down by gender, and you’re wrong.

I recognize the hurry to get a comment in, but an appeal to ignorance instead of googling it and using what you find to shape your opinion really sells yourself short, and diminishes the discussion to follow.

By data I meant, applicant data not enrollment data. I haven't seen schools publish admissions data broken down by gender. I can find the number of male and female applicants for a year but AFAIK they do not publish things like GPA and SAT or other performance measure of applicants broken down by gender. That's the only way to compare these two. I have googled for it and I don't see it. (https://www.google.com/search?q=caltech+SAT+by+gender)

AFAIK schools don't generally publish detailed statistics of applicants like that. They do publish enrolled student data. So is it possible that women outperformed men at Caltech? Yes. Is that more likely that what I implied? No, I think using the average SAT scores by gender, it's more likely men outperformed women at Caltech. But there is a degree of uncertainty.

Also I think you are making assumptions about what my motives were and why I posted. Guidelines:

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

I submit you're looking for the wrong thing. We can assume every person at the top of both piles has a perfect GPA and a near-perfect SAT score, so this is not likely to help us figure anything out.

The real figure of merit in this discussion is simply the thickness of both piles.

With regard to the rest, I interpreted what you wrote differently than how you meant it, I appreciate the explanation, and I apologize for the confusion.

> We can assume every person at the top of both piles has a perfect GPA and a near-perfect SAT score

actually that's a very fair point and you're right. We do know how many are in each pile. thanks and sorry for the confusion.

> If that holds for Caltech applicants, which is reasonable to assume

Caltech is an outlier if there ever was one, so why would it be reasonable to assume Caltech’s applicant statistics reflect broad population SAT statistics?

Precisely. I think almost everyone who applies has a 1500+ SAT score and ~3.8-4.0 GPA

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