Berkeley Defends Admitting the Stupid

NewsMax ^ | 10/17/03 | Limbacher

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Berkeley Defends Admitting the Stupid

We figured that an SAT score of only 600 couldn't get you into the worst community college in the nation, but now we read that it will get you into the almighty University of California at Berkeley (if, of course, you have the right color of skin).

Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl is furious that the UC Board of Regents has blown the whistle on the notoriously left-wing university's ludicrously biased admissions policies.

"You have done the university a great disservice and shown open contempt for reasoned discourse about complex issues," Berdahl claimed in a letter to regents chairman John Moores, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

Moores wrote a confidential report to fellow board members revealing that Berkeley (aka Berserkley) last year let in nearly 400 students with SAT scores of only 600 to 1,000, far below the 1,337 average for the class.

Meanwhile, Berserkley refused entry to about 3,200 intelligent students with SAT scores above 1400, including more than 600 students with scores above 1500 out of the maximum 1600. Their crime, of course, is having the wrong color of skin (i.e., white or yellow or that politically incorrect shade of South Asian brown).

The lowest possible score on the SAT is 400, so a monkey picking answers at random should do better than 600.

Berdahl says he admitted the stupid students because they overcame "disadvantages" (one of those disadvantages apparently being low intelligence).

"They deserve more than derision from the chair of the Board of Regents," he wrote.

Moores responded by observing: "A little transparency is a wonderful thing - and it would be good for this university."

Moores said, "Whatever his personal agenda is for writing such a letter ... my concern always has been and continues to be that the admissions policy of the University of California be legal and fair."

Berdahl whined that the report has undermined the public's trust in Berserkley. Note to Berdahl: The truth should undermine the public's trust in Berserkley.

[conservativeinbflo.]

600????
Are they serious??
Isn't that how much you're awarded for just signing your name, for pity's sake?!!

[GunsareOK]

...so a monkey picking answers at random should do better than 600...

Homeschooled twelve year olds would probably do much better too.

[GunsareOK]

You get 400 for signing your name.

[anobjectivist]

Um...so how are those students going to do in their classes?

I guess they'll just be endless source of funding towards the bad classes that they fail.

[devnull]

< rant > This has to be the stupidest headline I have seen all day. < /rant >

Also my stupidest post all day

[Chummy]

..."You have done the university a great disservice and shown open contempt for reasoned discourse about complex issues," Berdahl claimed in a letter...."

Duhhh, codnt' he have wrote this so perspetvick stoodents cod reed it?

[EsclavoDeCristo]

Why would anyone intelligent want to go to Berkley anyway?

[krb]

The lowest possible score on the SAT is 400,

I think that the lowest possible score is 0 (before the normalization of 1995)...you get 400 if you sign your name and then leave every question blank.

If you put an answer down and miss every single question, then you get zero.

[GSWarrior]

Well, none will probably fail. If Admissions let them in, you can bet there are safeguards in place to prevent them from failing.

[lady lawyer]

"reasoned discourse"

Spare me. You can't reason intelligently unless you reason from accurate facts. If your "reasoned discourse" falls apart when confronted with the true facts, it isn't worth much.

[4mycountry]

Or 13 year olds. Not that I'm implying anyone in particular *cough*

[Fee]

Liberals are very sensitive when SAT data is used against them because they can not effectively defend against it. If a majority of the black/hispanic affirmative action students with low SAT scores entered the university and graduate with good grades, then one can argue that SAT scores is not a good indicator. This is not true. SAT scores and the probability that the student will graduate from college are linked. Most students who fail college entered with low SAT scores. Very rarely does students with high SAT scores fail college. That is why the SAT was developed for pre-college testing. College is not cheap for families and taxpayers. It should not be squandered in a PC experiment, it should be givened to students who are qualified.

[demlosers]

Anybody can score 600 by using the coin-flip and clock methods of answering.

[BrooklynGOP]

Also my stupidest post all day

Dont' worry. You can still get into Berkeley :)

[TC Rider]

Well, none will probably fail. If Admissions let them in, you can bet there are safeguards in place to prevent them from failing.

Kalifornia cood all waz use more teechers.

[Political Junkie Too]

That explains why they've had such an increase in Freshmen taking remedial English and math before taking their foundation classes.

-PJ

[DeFault User]

This is a tragedy on two counts, one for those admitted who will experience failure and derision and another for those whose classes will be turned into remedial pablum.

We must again congratulate Berkeley for being in the forefront of the collapse of the American educational system.

[wayoverontheright]

Instead of dwelling on the harm done to the white kids that don't get in, our arguments should focus on the drop-dead certain obliteration of the self esteem of those unfortunate black kids who are totally unprepared to deal with the academic demands placed on them, or worse yet, the harm done to ALL students resulting from the lowering of standards.

Either way, it's the CHILDREN who are harmed by this feel-good idiocy.

[radiohead]

I agree that no student w/a 600 SAT should be admitted to Berkeley. This is where the PC crowd shows its true colors, because if they were really thinking about the student and not patting themselves on the back for being so understanding, they'd see the truth of what this does to the underprepared student.

Walter Williams is right on when he says that admitting marginal minority students to these schools is a disservice to them. They often flunk out, when they might have done well, or at least adequately, at a less rigorous school.

Imagine the student w/these scores who gets accepted to Berkeley, Michigan or MIT. Their parents are proud of them. In many cases their school, community and church is proud and supportive of them. They go off to school with great hopes, and a great burden, only to be crushed by their inadequate preparation for such rigorous schools. You can blame whomever you want here - the poor school systems, the student's lack of effort, whatever. Many of these black students (the only ones I can speak of with knowledge) are in the top of their class. But that doesn't mean much when the rest of the class is full of people who don't try, or your school is basically a warehouse for kids.

The colleges, in their concern for diversity and the whole student, should consider the ramifications of failure of these kids w/the low SATs and advise them to go where they might actually have a chance for success.