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From: timlee@bnrmtv.UUCP (Timothy Lee)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.sci
Subject: Clarification about college admissions
Message-ID: <551@bnrmtv.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-Jul-86 19:59:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: bnrmtv.551
Posted: Tue Jul 29 19:59:58 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Aug-86 07:46:32 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Bell Northern Research, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 27
Keywords: Re: Why aren't there any [female|black] [physicists|whatever] ?
Xref: watmath net.women:11691 net.sci:1400

Cheryl@batcomputer and someone at Stevens Tech seemed to have misinterpreted
one of my postings about female|black physicists.  This is what I mean:

The colleges and universities are more interested in increasing the NUMBER
of female|black|etc students than in helping the female|black|etc students
themselves.  What I was saying applied mainly to public schools which have
various governmental agencies counting female|black|etc students.  These
agencies (such as state legislatures which give out money) measure progress
of female|black|etc students by the NUMBER ENROLLED at the school, NOT by
how well they do there or how they become eligible for admission.  Thus, to
please these powers, the schools must admit and enroll FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE
as many female|black|etc students out of an applicant pool which contains
only a few really qualified female|black|etc students.

As I recall, this discussion about "Why aren't there any [female|black]
physicists?" started out as a discussion about why there were so few
female|black people within the group of people who were interested in
science in general and physics in particular, with the result being that
so few female|black people entering the applicant pool of physics majors.
This is the root of the problem; without improving the female|black|etc's
standing within the applicant pool (for whatever, including college
admissions), one is just trying to conceal the problem rather than solve it.
This means looking at the K-12 schools, at the home environment, and at peer
influences (yes, I know about Cheryl's chemistry AP example).

I think this takes us back to where we started...  what influences are keeping
females|blacks|etcs from being interested|good in physics|college(preperation)?