Funny, because I’ve noticed Asians at MIT. I guess this hypothetical is just fucking garbage threadshitting, then?
Uh. High GPAs and Test Scores means that you are the-best-of-the-best at succeeding academically at your high school and the best-of-the-best at taking the SAT. But it tells nothing-- absolutely nothing— about if you are the best of the best at contributing to a learning community.
Harvard has next no use for the really smart guy who sits in the back of the class and says nothing. He brings nothing that they need. He might as well not be there. They need people for what they bring into the classroom with them, and how they contribute to the learning process.
As I mentioned before, universities hate SATs. They are a shitty predictor of university performance, are extremely coachable, and show race bias that is above and beyond anything that is shown in any other indicator and not corroborated by university performance.
Indeed, the only indicator that really show useful results is grades in college-prep high school courses, and even that isn’t great. The truth is that a lot of not-obviously-bright people will quickly step up when put in a rigorous academic environment and will achieve on par with their new peers, and a lot of high-school superstars crash a burn or simply fail to excel in university. Admissions is an art, not a science.
No, it doesn’t. I am not sure why you think that is the meaning, or why you think a score of 2000 on the SAT means you are less “bright” than someone with a 2350. Schools are not trying to differentiate between the competent and the incompetent, it’s mostly splitting hairs.
My point was that one GPA is not necessarily comparable to another given that the individual took difference classes, and had different teachers at a different schools.
Nobody is rejected solely because they are Asian. This is obvious given that the Ivies have plenty of Asian students. I suppose you could say that they may have gotten in because if they had been White, for example, but if they were White all sorts of others things might be different. Regardless, colleges don’t shouldn’t be compelled t accept someone just because that person did well in school. You are not entitled to a spot a Harvard. Here is there mission statement. Does it say anything about identifying and training the “best and brightest”? I don’t know why you think that’s their mandate or their goal.
Depends. If you stop considering race, but consider finances, the picture may not change that much. If you considered athletics or geographic area more, the picture may change as well. What if Harvard looked at stats that say taller people earn more money, and are more successful, should they admit only tall people? What about if they only accepted good looking people because they do better than ugly people? Given that the future NBA athlete makes far more than the average person, why shouldn’t Harvard admit anybody with that potential given that they will presumably have an easier time donating in the future?
And how they will represent the school, and so on.
Score one for not clicking on links and refusing to read. Again I say, the name of this board is a lie (fighting ignorance my foot).
Can someone explain to me the purpose in posting links if people are just going to callously disregard them? Anyway, let’s try this again.
(1) Let’s say you have two-individuals; one with a 4.5 GPA and a perfect SAT score and the other with a 3.5 and an SAT score of 2250. Those are the only two things you’re looking at. Adopting a race blind approach, the first is more likely to get into the school to which (s)he is applying than is the second. However, if it is revealed that the first individual Asian and the second is Black, then the second individual becomes more likely to be accepted while the first becomes less likely to be accepted. That, any way you slice it, shows that colleges do discriminate based on race, and it’s to the detriment of Asians.
(2) I’m really not understanding your spiel about university performance, especially since Asians tend to have the highest college graduation rates while Blacks have the lowest. So even assuming that colleges base their admissions criteria on likelihood to succeed at the college level, they should be admitting Asians at a greater percentage than what they are and Blacks and Hispanics at a lower percentage than they are.
(3) High school grades are a pretty good predictor at predicting how well you do in college. Even then Asians suffer, as Asians have to have higher GPA’s to even be considered on equal footing as other races.
Colleges should reward academic achievement. However, it’s increasingly true that they do not, as persons who would normally not get into a certain school or program get in over individuals would otherwise be there thanks in large part due to schools looking at race. It seems you’re advocating for a system in which you only need to meet the minimum requirements, and then be given preferential treatment because of your race.
The classes one takes matters, but what teachers one has, does not. Though it bears worth pointing out (again) that if you’re Asian you have to have a higher GPA than any other race to even stand on equal footing.
No one? So explain to me again why (1) an Asian is more likely to be accepted to a school if they do not state their race rather than if they do and (2) why if an Asian, a Caucasian (I can call them that, right?), a Hispanic and a Black person were to all apply to a school with the exact same qualification, the Asian would be the least likely to get accepted?
And who said anything about there not being any Asian students at Ivy League campuses?
Read the given study above.
Who mention anything about the being entitled? What I said is that Asians do face discrimination when it comes to getting into college and that colleges should accept a “race-blind” approach to admissions, where being of a certain race of ethnicity does not harm one’s chances at getting into a certain college.
Is this your version of a reasonably hypothetical?
Nobody recruits like that. This never happens. The only places that look at scores through that lens are non-selective universities that will admit anyone who fulfills the minimum requirements.
Think about hiring for a job. Would you just pull out the five most experienced resumes and call it a day, figuring you have the best of the best?
No. You’d want to make sure they fit into your corporate culture. Likewise, each university is different. They are not just “generic places smart people go.” Some students are a better fit for a university than others, and this is documented to make a HUGE difference in student outcomes. Schools pick students that they think will thrive in their unique culture. And that means that not every high-achieving student is a good fit for every selective university.
Likewise, you’d want to make sure the new hire balances your department. You need a good mix of innovative people and experts at core competencies, gregarious team players and independent thinkers, big picture people and small picture people. If your department is getting heavy toward one type, you will probably start hiring outside of that type.
Finally, you may well just need a specific skill. People sometimes get admitted because they happen to play oboe and the university is short an oboe player. And sometimes people don’t make the cut because they just have too many future nuclear physics majors to choose from and a few need to go.
Says who? If you are in the business of rewarding academic achievements, go ahead and start an award or a trophy or a fellowship or something.
Universities are in the business of supplying the best education they can to their students, Your proposed scheme would inhibit their ability to provide the best education possible to the students who pay them to do that.
This is your fundamental error–you think that Universities should make their decisions based on a function to reward “really really hard work.” That’s not true at all. This is what Even Sven is trying to explain to you. Not only do they not have that function, they don’t think of themselves as having that function either. It’s just not a relevant consideration.
Why would any school at an elite level only look at those two things?
You are missing the point. Yes, many schools discriminate based on race, but that doesn’t mean any one individual will be rejected based on that alone. For example, it’s clear the NBA discriminates based on height. Would it be fair for someone to conclude based on their being cut from a roster that it was due to their short stature?
Why? Do you think that is their goal or desire?
The minimum requirements are all that objectively matter. It’s all about whether you CAN do the job, not trying to project who is best based on often irrelevant data. To that end, if a university feels they can have a greater impact having a diverse class, more power to them.
A relative likelihood does not allude to a specific act of discrimination. My point wrt the prevalence of Asians at elite schools is that there is little about their ethnicity that would prevent them from getting into these schools. Again, to use a basketball analogy. Say some guy who is 5’10" gets cut. Could he say with any confidence that he was cut for that reason? Is it some great injustice that a similarly skilled player that is 5 inches taller might have made it? Why or why not?
But again, lots of things hurt and harm one’s chances. Since the “best” in our society are often tall, good looking people, would be fair to discriminate based on those criteria? Why or why not?
Bollocks.
Few if any colleges make equal effort to get religious diversity as they do for race, e.g. tracking the precise numbers of Sikhs, Hindus, and Presbyterians. (Private schools may certainly do so if they wished to)
Few if any colleges make equal effort to get sexual diversity as they do for race, e.g. openly tracking the precise numbers of gays and lesbians. (Yes, most do note if the application mentions it … but why not just ask applicants to check a box as they do for race?)
Few if any colleges make equal effort to get urban/suburban/rural diversity as they do for race. It’s easy enough to use zip codes.
Really, if you wanted to be creative about it, there are all kinds of things you could do. Have applicants answer a ten-question multiple-choice personality quiz and use that to get temperment diversity. Another ten-question quiz would help the cause of “values diversity.” Ask them to list favorite music or movies and use that to get some aesthetic diversity. Etc.
Is any of this done at most colleges? Of course not. They may make some nods in these direction, just as they make somewhat larger nods in the direction of getting kids from different socioeconomic backgrounds, with different extracurricular profiles, with military records, with criminal records, with drug problems, who were homeschooled, etc. (the elite schools are better than most here). Some kinds of diversity are completely off the radar (if you’re rolling your eyes at the idea of “temperment diversity,” you’re making my point), and others are actively screened out. I mean, intelligence is a human variable, but nobody says “we want to make sure students are exposed to all points of view, including those of idiots.”
But rightly or wrongly race is what the feds, the media and the public talk about, and so its the “diversity” admissions spends the most energy on. (When they’re not busy kissing the ass of US News.)
Again, idk why the point keeps getting ignored.
Top universities absolutely look for diversity. They are not in the business of admitting number-grinders. You still need strong numbers, of course, but you need more than that. Having, say, a 2250 plus a really interesting profile will get you ahead of a 2400 do-nothing.
And there’s good reason for this. A 2250 student and a 2400 student aren’t as different as you think. It’s about the equivalent of an old SAT 1500 vs. a 1600. When you’re looking at scores in the upper percentiles, they’re different by a couple of questions.
Who would you rather admit into your school: Someone who got a couple extra questions right on a test, or the other guy who has excellent essays/recs/activities and would clearly contribute something great to your environment of ideas?
I mean, think of it in terms of statistics. When you have a great base of diversity, you increase the chances that really cool things happen. If you admit nothing but number-grinders, you’re going to have a class full of people who do nothing other than study in their rooms all day.
Colleges don’t reward hard work, because hard work alone doesn’t manifest itself in test scores and good grades. A kid can work their ass off studying in high school and only pull in a 3.0 GPA and average SAT scores. Another student can not study at all and still manage to pull in a 4.0 GPA and bring home top-shelf SAT scores. An admissions officer looking solely at these metrics can’t predict who is the harder worker.
Also, all this talk about “qualification” is crazy. As more and more kids apply for colleges, the standards for admissions have crept up. But college curricula haven’t increased in difficulty. If anything, grade inflation has made it easier. If you compare the credentials of in-coming students at your average state university in the 80s, they would look like flunkies compared to their contemporaries today. Does that mean they weren’t qualified? No. Just like your Starbucks barista with the Ph.D in 19th century Russian literature is not more qualified to pour coffee than the one with only the high school diploma.
That said, I have no problem imagining Asians being rejected from schools because of the perception that there are “too many of them”. I am not naive enough to think that admissions don’t do this to other groups either, including black Americans (Okay, if we accept any more black and brown students, we may look “too” diverse. LOL! So let’s throw in some more whites, shall we?). None of it is fair, but I don’t know how you would fight it without impinging on a school’s rights to select for intangible credentials. What if it does come down to performance in interviews, and for whatever reason, a larger proportion of Asian students don’t do as well in this area? Or they don’t have as interesting essays? Or they often go for the same kinds of extracurricular activities? Schools should have some freedom to say, “Hey, we don’t need any more concert masters and chess club presidents! We need some more disaffected drama geeks and kids who’ll paint their bodies with the school colors during football games!” These kinds of students probably won’t be top-scorers on the SAT.
Schools don’t want to fill their ranks with class valedictorians and perfect SAT scorers. Because while they want students who see themselves as future leaders, they also need students who will be good followers (society needs both). And they also want students who will not jump out of second story windows just because they made a B in calculus. They need students who are fine with a B and others who are relieved when they get a C. Professors need this too.
Do you think this sort of process should be applied universally?
Imagine a large employer with a longstanding pattern of rejecting minorities with objectively better resumes, whose defense is simply that “Well, African-Americans just don’t seem to do as well in the interviews, or in our other subjective metrics.”
You wouldn’t buy that for a minute. Courts certainly haven’t. I don’t see why a Korean kid should either.
Don’t tell me what I would and wouldn’t buy, dude.
What if a school said, “You know, we would love to enroll more black students, but they tend not to do well in the interview process. Perhaps they are not as prepared–since their parents are more likely never to have been subjected to a college interview. Or perhaps there is some cultural misunderstanding going on. Our interviewers often comment that black applicants give more terse responses and seem less friendly than our white applicants.” If I read such an explanation, my reaction wouldn’t be “BULLSHIT!” It would be, “Hm. I wonder if this is true.” I would wonder how many interviewers were black–which could explain the “cultural misunderstanding” hypothesis. And I would wonder if there was a strong correlation between interview ratings and parental college attendance.
What I wouldn’t do is assume blatant racial discrimination. Would you?
No. But then I’m opposed to many forms of affirmative action and think an argument can be made that if a private school/employer wants to say “We don’t admit/hire blacks,” that’s their right.
The courts do not agree, and have held for 40 years that when there is a disparate impact to supposedly race-neutral hiring practices, the burden of proof is on the employers to justify their hiring practices. And “they seem less freindly than our white applicants” wouldn’t come close to passing muster. Now, if you’re opposed to the disparate impact doctrine, I apologize for my assumption.
ISTM there’s a double standard here:
When employers are accused of discrimination against of blacks/hispanics and against whites/asians, it is not acceptable for them to simply say they have subjective criteria that are more important.
When colleges are accused of discrimination in favor of blacks/hispanics and against whites/asians, their defense is that it’s acceptable for them to have subjective criteria that are more important.
You are wrong.
What do you think all those fellowship groups and GLBT centers are about? My university has a gorgeous “spiritual life center” with a full roster of activities. Universities don’t fund them because they really enjoy spending money on amenities- they are important tools for recruiting and diverse groups. Universities are working hard to actively recruit religious and GLBT students.
The key difference, of course, is that there is no statistical evidence that identifying as GLBT decreases your likelihood of entering university. So there isn’t a lot of need to “create balance,” because GLBT and various religions are basically being admitted proportionally. If a university suddenly found that 50% of it’s student population was gay or that they didn’t have a single Muslim, they probably would take concerted efforts to change that.
Again, it is not “the media” or “the feds” that is driving this. The media doesn’t give a single fig- when was the last time you saw a major ranking universities by diversity? Publications are overwhelmingly interested in test scores and “selectivity,” (which has it’s own set of problems, but that is for another day), and they are not at all driving some big demand among students and parents for diversity. In short, everyone wants selective schools, not diverse ones.
Likewise, the feds are passing law after law that ties the hands of universities when it coes to building their classes. The feds are the ones who universities are trying to circumvent! For example, there is a push toward “holistic admissions,” which considers scores and GPA in context (noting, for example, that someone who take 2 AP classes in a school that only offers 2 AP classes is different from someone who takes 2 AP classes in a school that offers 10). The reason is that it has the same predictive value for college outcomes (usually defined as 1st year retention rate and 1st year GPA) as test scores but none of the racial bias.
I spend all day reading admissions officer’s blogs, industry journals and internal admissions document. The drive for diversity is real, and it’s internal, and it’s actually AGAINST the forces of the media and the feds.
No, I am not.
Putting up a nice GLBT center in hopes some gay kids apply is not the same thing as making it a category that students can claim and see their admissions odds increase.
You seem unclear on the word “equal.” I did not say there is “no” effort made to attract students with any other kinds of diversity, just that there is not *as much *effort put into, say, getting kids from rural zip codes in. If you’re familiar with admissions, you know darn well this is true.
Though with some of the kinds of diversity I mentioned, there is indeed no effort being made; find me the school that says “We don’t just want driven, ambitious high-achiever types. We want to make sure to also admit those with low-energy type-B personalities, and we direct our admissions office to make sure to do so.” Mind you, I’m not saying that they should; but then I’m not of the belief that “diversity” is some kind of magic word.
Possibly. If they had 20% gay, would they be concerned that heterosexuals are underrepresented, or would they celebrate their diversity?
If a university found that only 50% believed in God, or only 15% of students were Democrats, or that only 3% were military veterans, or only 10% came from rural backgrounds, would there be concerted efforts to change those underrepresentations? More to the point, what does it tell us that nobody is looking?
Of course; it is the universities that prioritize diversity, often against the wishes of their customers.
My point was not that outside forces are pushing diversity more than the schools, but that racial diversity is on the radar of the outside world in a way that others are not. If Bumfuck State U has relatively few blacks in their freshman class, that data is freely available it would make news and prompt a federal investigation. If BSU was discriminating against Catholics or Jews or homosexuals or military veterans or ex-felons or all kinds of other categories, nobody outside of admissions would know, because nobody is keeping track with anything like the level of attention.
BTW, I should mention that I also am a higher-ed researcher, at a non-profit. So I read a lot of the same stuff. I just don’t believe all of it.
Glad to see that you agree that white includes hispanic whites and international whites.
I don’t know about this particular case. Noone does. So if the debate is about whether or not this particular kid was rejected due to race then there really isn’t a point to even having a debate. The debate is whether or not top universities discriminate against Asians and I think the evidence is irrefutable.
I happen to be OK with the discrimination against Asians in favor of poor kids and especially poor black kids but I am not particularly eager to see high achieving kids of ANY race or religion get pushed aside for legacies.
Legacies are part of the way the wealthy have rigged the game in their favor. We KNOW that attending these schools correlates highly with higher incomes.
admission=money
money=speech
speech=political power
therefore admission=political power
So for me, legacies are similar to the grandfather clauses that they used to have in Jim Crow south. It undeservedly perpetuates the status quo.
Frankly I think the children of Harvard grads have enough of an advantage growing up with Harvard grad parents to to justify giving them an even greater advantage.
Like I said, there is almost no point in trying to have a debate about a single student. The question is whether or not there is systematic discrimination against Asians and I am sure that there is.
But here is a little bit more info about this guy:
“Mr. Li, a freshman at Yale, had a perfect 2400 on the SATs, top grades at his high school in Livingston, N.J., numerous Advanced Placement courses, community service in Costa Rica, and high rankings in New Jersey’s math and physics leagues.”
I also had one of the the highest LSAT in my law school (I got 3 questions wrong) and I suspect that if I had applied to schools with smaller Asian populations, my acceptance ratio would have more closely aligned with what you would have expected with my combination of grades and LSAT scores. As it happens, top law schools reject a lot of people and at some point, being Asian becomes a reason to reject you over a similar white males because there are simply too many Asians attending that school. I don’t mind that a poor black kid gets into Columbia instead of Fordham on the basis of race, I do mind that a rich white kid gets into Columbia instead of Fordham on the basis of his Columbia alumni parents.
I’m fine with it too for the most part but why do you say that Asians are not the most numerous in absolute terms? Would your answer change is I could show you that whites lose very few spots on an absolute basis compared to Asians as a result of affirmative action and that those spots are more than made up for by legacy admissions (athletic scholarships don’t bother me nearly as much even though they tend to favor kids who can afford to participate in sports like lacrosse and swimming).
Thats not how admissions committees look at it. For them diversity means admitting more black kids and underpriveleged kids but at the expense of Asian kids and not the white kids.
Because we presumably have a merit based system.
Then why do we let these private universities enjoy tax free status. If they are for profit organizations whose mission is to increase their gross income then why not tax them as such?
I think any school benefits form admitting high achieving students. You could make an argument about the difference between a 2400 student and a 2350 student but the difference between a 2400 student and a 1850 student is the difference between really smart and kinda bright (all other things being equal). You really think that Harvard would still be Harvard if they dropped their average SAT score by 550 points?
WTF? So, top schools are interested in putting together really interesting group of people? WTF is this, a reality show? I keep hearing these excuses and they always end up becoming a reason for maintaining a large white population and a smaller Asian population.
Are you under the impression that a bunch of 2400 Asian students would be very different than a bunch of white 2400 students? Then why doesn’t the 2400 (or near 2400) white student get rejected nearly as frequently as the 2400 (or near 2400) Asian student?
WTF are you talking about? Are we now going to make assumption about class participation based on race or are you saying that the interview process reveals that 2400 white students are personable and the Asian ones are not?
If I said something like this but replaced Asian with black, you wouldn’t stand for it.
I think the point is that MIT would have an even higher Asian population. They are already struggling with a nearly 25% Asian population.
Really and what in your estimation is a better indicator that would explain the apparent racial skew in admissions?
So what are you trying to say about Asians or are you making a pointless remark?
Its funny how this art always tends to come out in favor of white applicants and against Asian applicants. Perhaps there is something wrong with the art.
the difference between 2000 and 2350 is not splitting hairs. The difference between 2350 and 2300 might be splitting hairs but not 2350 versus 2000.
So let me get this straight. Asian kids generally attend easier high schools and and take easier classes with really easy teachers while white kids generally go to tougher high schools and generally take tougher classes so that explains the racial disparity between them? So explain to me why people are always complaining that Asians are taking all the slots at the magnet schools in the area or taking up too many of the GT slots. It doesn’t seem like these kids trying to be big fish in small ponds. In fact I am pretty sure that Asians are just as driven to get into the Stuyvesants of the world as they are to get into the Harvards of the world.
Other than being white, what else would have been different? I think we are saying that ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL Asian students have a tougher time getting into top universities than white students.
Everyone seems to want to point to these intangibles that whites excel at that Asians are bad at without actually saying what these intangibles are. So let the cat out of the bag. What characteristic is it that objectively comparable white students tend to have more of that make them more attractive applicants than objectively comparable Asian students?
I would suggest that if top universities had Asian populations in line with their representation in the general population, we wouldn’t see this sort of disparity between average scores for Asian students versus white students. And I’m OK with that to some extent but I’m not going to let white folks get away with denying that they are the beneficiaries of discrimination in the admissions process after decades of white folks making black kids feel that they are the beneficiaries of discrimination in the admissions process.
Lots of ifs there. Make a statement and try to defend it. Right now you are saying "well, it may LOOK like there is discrimination based on race going on but maybe there is something we can’t see. Tell me what you think it is and provide some proof that can explain away this disparity in acceptance between two populations that seem to be identical in all objective measures other than race.
At the individual level sure but we are seeing significant skews between objective critieria of Asian admissions and white admissions.
At the macro level I am pretty sure that jobs will tend to go to those with the best resumes, Why is it that grades and SAT scores tend to be such a good indicator within the pool of white applicants of how well they will do in the admissions process and that Asian grades and test scores tend to be a good indicator of how they will do within the admissions process but when you mix the two groups, there seems to be a skew towards white kids.
And in this case, blacks are the oboe players becuase they are black, Asians are the nuclear scientists because they are Asians and white kids are the gregarious, independent thinking, creative thinkers (shit you can’t actually measure but we’re sure its more common among white kids). It seems like the balance that they are trying to achieve is racial balance not balance in thinking or personality types (I don’t recall personality tests being part of the admissions process when I was a kid but maybe things have changed).
Aside from giving us notions of vague intangible factors that admissions committees take into account why the gap?
We are talking about who those students will be and you are saying that the Harvard educational experience will suffer because there are too many Asian kids because noone has identified anything other than race that distinguishes the average 2400 SAT white applicant from the average 2400 Asian applicant.
If they were getting triple doubles and dunking the ball every game in college then yeah maybe they could conclude that. But at least you are admitting that the discrimination exists and as long as you realize that then I don’t see what more we can do. Its not like the discrimination is going to stop but at least we can stop pretending like it doesn’t exist.
And in what way would it be OK for colleges to discriminate based on race?
Could a law firm discriminate based on race and creed because most of their clients are WASPs?
Wait a second, are you saying that colleges shouldn’t discriminate based on academic achievement and SAT scores? Because I think those are valid admissions criteria while race is not.
There is no evidence that the white 2400 students are any different in any way other than race than the Asian 2400 students. You are implying that Asian students don’t do anything all day long other than study for the SATs while similarly credentialed white students are doing more than them in some way or another. I’d like a cite please.
Obviously you have never gotten a 1500 or 1600 on the old SATs. When I took the SATs there were fewer than 10 perfect scores per test administration (now there are over a hundred). The difference between a1500 and a 1600 was whether you were a top ten score or a top 100 score. I suppose that might not make much of a difference from the perspective of someone who is sitting at the 90th percentile but that gap between 1500 and 1600 is huge.
cite for the fact that white kids have excellent essays/recs/activities and would contribute more to the environment of ideas than Asian kids. Because that is what you are saying when you try to explain away the gap this way.
Then explain why white students with perfect SATs get in with far more frequency than Asian students with perfect SATs?
I suspect they will come up with some corner case where this would be OK.
You are changing the hypothetical. Black guy with better resume gets passed over for a white guy with a weaker resume. Company chalks it up to intangibles.
You are effectively saying that there is something about Asian students that is prevalent enough that it creates this measurable gap in admissions based on objective criteria. So what is it and can you provide a cite that Asian nerds are any less nerdy that white nerds?
That’s exactly right. All these arguments that the Asians get rejected with higher test scores because of “other criteria”. Can anyone point out exactly what “other criteria” is that makes it less likely for an average Asian high scorer to be accepted than a White or a Black high scorer? That is, unless the “other criteria” is “we don’t want more Asians here”?