Asserting that no one knows (except of course, admissions officers for schools and even their knowledge would only extend to the "boost" for that year at that particular school) what the boost is (not even the Great Absy) is the only correct answer. Predictions and assertions to the contrary are absurd and miss the particularities and complexities of what makes admissions an art - decisions about candidates on their qualifications holistically. If this position were incorrect, then what do you make of some African Americans of the same numbers getting into elite schools and others being rejected?
This is not to say that affirmative action doesn't exist, as your quote would indicate I was suggesting. Only that any rigid application of a boost is not discernable to us and your definition was pitiful in trying to define said boost.
I care not to get into the broader debate. I will agree that the bolded statement was, at best, poorly worded.
I would decline to mystify the admissions process into an art. certainly a lot of factors go into admissions decisions, but an overall study shows a very strong emphasis on numbers.
I chose HCN because they are well represented and larger schools, meaning that there should be a good amount of data for them. a cursory glance shows that approximately 20% (172 / 800) of HLS's admit class is represented on LSN.
I erased the pending, not applied, deferred (if no further action is indicated), and those with incomplete data. I then split out the self-identified URMs. this process isn't exact, since not all URMs will choose to identify. however, I found 29 for HLS, and the enrollment is around 93 (not admission); this jives with the above percentage.
I then sorted the two groups based on an equation of 20*GPA + LSAT for HLS (which other sources use). this didn't seem quite right for CLS (based on acceptances and based on the given index numbers; I didn't bother looking up the exact formula), so I changed it until it comported with the index numbers. that formula is 13*GPA + LSAT. I used 15*GPA + LSAT for NYU. that seems about right.
I then looked at the point at which the first rejection occurred, when waitlists were prevalent, when odds first dipped below 50%, the point beyond which they never rose above 50%, and never above 30%. there results are as follows (non-URM / URM):
HLS CLS NYU
255 / 245.6 221.5 / 216.18 234.15 / 218.5
249.5 / 239 218.06 / 216.13 225.35 / *
249.5 / 239 218.7 / 212.44 225.35 / 216.95
249 / 239 218.43 / 206.49 224.5 / 213.5
246.4 / 235.4 216.63 / 205.3 223.25 / 211.1
* NYU only WLed 8 of 56 URMs, so this was N/A
this comes to:
9.4 4.32 15.65
10.5 1.07 N/A
10.5 6.26 8.4
10 11.94 11
11 11.33 12.15
any one of these might be skewed by peculiarities, but let's take an average:
10.28, 6.984, 11.8
or, if you prefer not to go through those machinations, you can simply compare the average between URM and non-URM accepted numbers on LSN:
HLS: 3.89 / 174.4, 3.76 / 169.8 (.13 / 4.6)
CLS: 3.79 / 173.3, 3.70 / 168 (.09 / 5.3)
NYU: 3.79 / 172.6, 3.67 / 167.4 (.12 / 5.2)
if you plug those into the above formulas, you get:
7.2, 6.47, 7.0
this comports with my earlier estimation that the "boost" (since this is the term used above) is between 6 and 9 points.
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