In the early 1990s, the federal government conducted a large study to measure people's work-related cognitive abilities, such as everyday math skills, writing skills and the ability to effectively use information from a document. In all three areas, African-Americans who were postgraduate students or held academic degrees scored worse than white Americans with the same level of education, as well as white Americans with only a bachelor's degree. At the same time, white Americans with associate degrees scored higher in all three areas than African Americans with bachelor's degrees. Thus, if employers pay attention to job-related cognitive ability, it is rational for them to prefer white candidates over black candidates if those candidates are equally qualified, and even if black candidates are marginally better qualified. Most black candidates get into medical schools with grades that would give white candidates only an 8% chance of admission. Similarly, in the admissions offices of elite universities, African-Americans receive a bonus equivalent to an approximate 230-point increase in their SAT score and are several times more likely to be admitted to the same college than whites meeting the same requirements (Espenshade et al., 2004). At elite U.S. law schools, black students score 2.3 standard deviations lower than white students, meaning that the average black student is comparable to the 10.7th percentile of white students (Sander, 2004). Black students at elite schools score even lower than white students at middle-class private schools. Similarly, in the admissions offices of elite universities, African-Americans receive a bonus equivalent to approximately a 230-point increase in their SAT score and are several times more likely to be admitted to the same college than whites meeting the same requirements (Espenshade et al., 2004).