If affirmative action results in minority students at elite schools having much potential but weak preparation, then we may expect minority students to start o§ behind their majority counterparts and then catch up over time. Indeed, at the private university we analyze, the gap between white and black grade point averages falls by half between the studentsífreshmen and senior year. However, this convergence masks two e§ects. First, the variance of grades given falls across time. Hence, shrinkage in the level of the gap may not imply shrinkage in the class rank gap. Second, grading standards di§er across courses in di§erent majors. We show that controlling for these two features virtually eliminates any convergence of black/white grades. In fact, black/white gpa convergence is symptomatic of dramatic shifts by blacks from initial interest in the natural sciences, engineering, and economics to majors in the humanities and social sciences. We show that natural science, engineering, and economics courses are more di¢ cult, associated with higher study times, and have harsher grading standards; all of which translate into students with weaker academic backgrounds being less likely to choose these majors. Indeed, we show that accounting for academic background can fully account for di§erences in switching behaviors across blacks and whites.
This observation hasn’t been lost by those who major in the more difficult programs. Especially when quotas are handed out, denying qualified grad students access to the institutions of higher learning, while the same institutions are unable to even attract any under-qualified black applicants.