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Originally Posted by Sidd Finch
Huh? The whole point of the studies discussed in the article was that there were no differences attributable to "big data" or "algorithm," but only differences in race (based on skin color or names).
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For college admissions patterns, its been found that interviewers generally prefer people like them - not just by race but also by economic background. To some extent big data is a solution to that problem, because you should be able to program to eliminate that personal bias.
But, the downside is, programmed admissions tend to be less diverse and not as prone to pick out the intellectual. Your quota of white suburbanites don't tend to be the ones who are interesting and quirky, but instead ones who know how to game the system to deliver numbers without having real intrinsic interest. They all play a varsity sport, but one without as much competition from the real jocks (e.g., sailing team or fencing club), they have great grades in easy classes, they have enough extracurriculars but not too many...
I think the only real solution is to carefully hire weirdos as admissions officers, but I'm not anticipating that any time soon. The Dangerfields don't want to have their little snookums go back to their alma mater and discover that its being represented by Zeebo and Wiploc.
