I’m saying that test scores and grades don’t not automatically mean “OMG, teh awesome!” They are impressive, sure, but those aren’t the only things universities care about. If they were, they wouldn’t bother with holding interviews and requiring personal essays/letters of recommendation.
I’m not saying Asian kids are worse in interviews and essay-writing. If you go back, you’ll actually see where I wrote that I wouldn’t be surprised if they are actually being intentionally discriminated against.
I just do not agree with the argument that test scores and grades should equate to automatic admission. I also do not agree that disproportionate rejection of a demographic is prima facie evidence of racial discrimination. It could be, but not necessarily.
If most Asian applicants are first-generation Americans AND first-generation college applicants, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that this group may not be as successful achieving “softer” criteria. It may seem unfair to weigh interview skills more heavily than SAT scores…but if all your applicants have astronomical SAT scores, then why SHOULDN’T interview skills be scrutinized? Why shouldn’t it come down to softer criteria, when all the hard criteria are relatively even?
Note that I’m NOT saying Asian kids are lousy in interviewing. Or essay-writing. Or charming their teachers. I’m just throwing it out there as a possibility that deserves to be considered before jumping to conclusions.
I’m kind of scratching my head because I have a feeling if we were talking about black kids not getting into schools, few would shrug off the possibility that this group could simply be underperforming in key areas compared to other groups, and that no systemic racial discrimination was occurring. People are finding it hard to fathom that this could happen to the “model minority” group. Please explain this to me.
Then I think you might be arguing against a proposition that noone has advanced. I don’t recall ever saying that high test scores should be dispositive.
I think it creates a rebuttable presumption when there is no evidence that it is the result of any other factor despite years of looking for one. That is prima facie as far as I’m concerned.
And if anyone could provide cites for these “possibilities” I might think they were something other than excuse making. Fact of the matter is that that the acceptance rate of Asian students is so much lower than white students with similar SATs and grades that you would need to show a pretty pronounced and fairly consistent difference in the “soft factors” between high achieving Asian nerds and high achieving white nerds.
If we saw high scoring black students with lower acceptance rates than similar scoring white students, I think my reaction would be exactly the same. I don’t think I have seen anyone on this board ever say otherwise. The controversy with black students has always gone the other way. That standardized tests and grades somehow don’t fully capture a black student’s ability because the tests are somehow flawed so we should permit black students into schools that they would not be admitted to based on grades and scores alone.
If someone came along as said, well they just don’t seem to interview as well a the white students, I am pretty sure I would say bullshit to that too.
The SAT is not “somehow” flawed. It is flawed. It is designed to predict university performance. However, for black people, it is not as accurate at predicting university performance. You can take two groups of people who have the same GPAs, and the same college outcomes (retention and grades), and the white people will have better SATs. The SAT is not an accurate predictor of university outcomes in this specific way.
Finally this has been done, by Christopher Berry of Wayne State University and Paul Sackett of the University of Minnesota. They pulled 5.1 million grades, from 167,000 students, spread out over 41 colleges. They also got the students’ SAT scores from the College Board, as well as the list of schools each student asked the College Board to send their SAT scores to, an indicator of which colleges they applied to. By isolating the overlaps–where students had applied to the same colleges, and taken the same courses at the same time with the same instructor–they extracted a genuine apples-to-apples subset of data.
It turns out that an SAT score is a far better predictor than everyone has said. When properly accounting for the self-selection bias, SAT scores correlate with college GPA around 67%. In the social sciences, that’s considered a great predictor.
We don’t. At least not as an absolute. More importantly, “merit” is not an objective standard.
Because they preform a vital public good.
Yes it would. Even so, they would never have to make such a sacrifice as the are far more competent and able people that want to go to Harvard than there are spots. Harvard is Harvard because great people went there. The brand confers relationships and expectations that even a guy who scored 1850 can generally live up to. Harvard became Harvard completely ignoring Jewish students. To imply that their pedigree has been acheived by solely looking for the most able students is very naive. In short, they became a great institution by recognizing that the success is more about relationships that aptitude. This is why they accepted George Bush. Clearly, not the guy with the most intellect or the best grades or scores, yet he became president. Why? Because he was smart enough, and was able to rely on the relationships he had. Sure, being really smart helps, but above a certain level, there are diminishing returns. That’s why the standard should be competence, not trying to differentiate between great and slightly greater.
It’s funny to me that people even think such precision is possible on a large-scale with human beings. The NFL can’t even predict quarterback performance given filmed and scrutinized performances going back for years, yet people really think some grades and an SAT score are gonna give you enough data to determine the “best and brightest” students on a relatively modest budget.
How do you know they don’t? It’s one thing to look at stats in aggregate, but you have no idea what the rejection stats are for people who have scored 2400 by ethnicity.
Maybe, maybe not.
What the hell are you talking about? The point was that comparison, even between students with similar grades and AP course loads is not a science, it’s an art. Just as two resumes from people in the same field may be similar, and may indicate similar job skills, the skills learned at one job can vary greatly.
And ALL OTHER THINGS are rarely ever equal. That’s the point.
When have I ever said some colleges don’t discriminate on race?
Perhaps because the criteria isn’t objective, nor do colleges imply that it is. It’s like if you said there were objective measurements for the NFL like size, speed and strength. Yes, all those things may correlate well with who makes the cut, but teams don’t intend them to be “objective” criteria. Even if, for instance, I notice that White receivers are smaller and slower on average than Black receivers, I don’t know if you could make an argument that there is racial bias because Blacks fair better in some objective criteria that I’ve unilaterally decided should take precedence.
Because race is often a fairly accurate proxy for a number of things including socio-economic status, culture, background, and perspective. If you want diversity in those areas, using race is a fairly effective way to do it.
The could and do. It’s not legal but it happens. Regardless, I am not sure why you think a college admissions process should be analogous to a business hiring process.
When did I say that? My point was that all of those people taking some statistical approach along the lines of good SAT scores= smart should also recognize that being taller, good-looking, or having rich parents also correlates with success as well. Again, if we are attempting to find “the best and brightest”, we need to recognize that many people who end up doing the best are often just those who won the genetic lottery. If you want Harvard to take on the mission of educating those people, then height and looks would be just as telling criteria as SAT scores.
I took the old test and got that type of score. I can tell you as someone who currently works in this field that no matter how many people get perfect scores on the SAT, it is harder than it was when either you or I took it. The math now includes things learned second year Algebra, there is an entire writing section, and an essay that, in aggregate, have made the test harder. Also keep in mind that the test is now almost 50% longer as well.
Second, your number are off by a lot. In 2011, 384 people out of 1.65 million test takers got perfect scores. It’s given 7 times a year which means you have about 55 perfect scores per administration, not “over a hundred”.
Third, according to wiki, “the percentile of the perfect score was 99.98 on the 2400 scale and 99.93 on the 1600 scale”. So although data by year is hard to come by, I sincerely doubt perfect scores are far more common than they were when you took it. What’s more impressive is that students to today must demonstrate proficiency in a much broader space. That said, even if you see more really high scores in total today, it’s largely a function of more people taking the test, and test prep has becoming a multi-billion dollar, high-stakes business.
Lastly, your statement that a 1600 is far different that a 1500 is also not borne out by the facts. Junior to senior year score changes in the cohort scoring in the 680-720 range indicate that a full 19% score 50+ more points on the critical reading section. That same cohort has 16% gains in math. While the groups may not overlap exactly, it’s reasonable to assume there is decent amount of variance between tests that is due to factors other than talent and skill. There are clearly people, even in that score range, whose individual score can deviate that much between administrations of the test, which indicates to me that there is not much of qualitative different between different students who have that score differential.
And I’d have to ask why. I mean, if all they said was “they don’t seem to interview well”, then yeah, I’d be suspicious too. But if they came back with, “White students often display aloofness and nervousness that other groups do not show to the same extent in an interview”, I’d at least pause and consider the possibility. I wouldn’t say “BULLSHIT” because I recognize that 1) there are such things as cultural differences and 2) such differences can be viewed negatively, depending on who’s doing the viewing.
If we can envision a subpopulation not scoring well on standardized tests (for whatever reason), why shouldn’t we envision another subpopulation not scoring well on rated interviews or essays? They are all metrics. Test scores are objective measures while interviews and essays are subjective. But that’s the only difference that I can see. They can be used to corroborate each other (a person who’s dumb will probably score poorly on a test and on an interview), but they aren’t testing the same things at all. And if culture can skew so-called objective measures, why in the hell wouldn’t it be a factor in subjective ones?
I have no reason to believe that a person who makes a perfect SAT score and is class valedictorian should give an excellent interview or write a compelling essay. I know plenty of smart people who can’t write for squat and have the interpersonal skills of a rock. So I don’t see why I should give a perfect SAT-er the benefit of the doubt --just like I don’t see why I should give a low scorer on the SAT the benefit of the doubt. In both cases, there isn’t enough information to judge.
I don’t have evidence that Asians do poorly on softer criteria and since I’m not arguing that they do, I’m not looking for it. But you don’t have evidence that Asians are superior in all metrics used by university admissions. Until we get some meat to chomp on, all we can say is that there seems to be discrimination going on. What is being discriminated against, we can’t know for certain. I’m not going to start marching in the streets until I know exactly what’s going on.
Its not entirely subjective either, especially when you have onjective criteria to go by.
Yeah, so does the electric company and we tax THEM.
I fucking doubt it. If Harvard’s average SAT score was 1850, it wouldn’t take that many years for them to be NYU.
Hey I’m not the one that was pretending like SAT scores were so inconsequential that there was no real difference between 2400 and 1850.
So what are you saying? Harvard should admit people based on the tax returns of their parents as long as they can meet some threshhold grade/SAT score? This is clearly not the case. Sure there once was a time when the graduating class of harvard law school was not ranked based on grades but on familial wealth but these days that is not the case. And BTW I know a lot of Harvard grads (I am one one but I have plenty of family that is) and their “connections” go about as far as their classmates and the cachet that goes with a Harvard diploma, I don’t think that there is very much going on in the way intergenerational alumni connections. Its a bunch of really smart people having connections with each other, usually pretty tenuous connections.
Yeah, they’re a pretty good predictor of academic performance better than an interview anyways.
This was done with Berkeley admissions data during the litigation that made Berkeley race blind. It has been done with other schools. You can believe that Berkeley was the only institution engaging in this sort of thing but now who is being naive?
Are you fucking serious? You think the difference between 200 and 2350 is splitting hairs?:smack:
Try to follow the conversation. This thread has been a series of people throwing up some bullshit excuses that could possibly explain the gap between similarly credentialed applicants who differ in one objective criteria, race. Then someone said, maybe the Asians are taking easier classes or some shit like that and I was pointing out how Asians were falling over themselves to get into places like Stuyvesant HS. SO I doubt its because Asians are trying to be big fish in little ponds and taking less challenging coursework.
In individual situations all these excuses might be valid not on a macro scale, as big as these differences are, you need something more than the weak ass sauce you guys are bringing.
Bullshit, things are equal enough all the time. Everyone might be a fucking unique snowflake but these institutions don’t have the time or resources to feel out the contours of these snowflakes, they are admitting white students at higher rates than equally credentialed Asian students and the only plausible explanation is that they are trying to keep a cap on their Asian population. They have to make thousands of decisions every year and if you think that these soft factors are enough to account for the dramatic gap in acceptance rates between similarly credentialed applicants then please don’t keep us in the dark, provide a cite.
Then WTF are you arguing about? If you agree that these colleges discriminate against Asians based on race then we are in agreement and you left with arguing about the degree of the discrimination and not the fact of it.
But if you agree that top universities are discriminating against Asians based on race then I don’t see what we are debating.
Of course they are objective critieria, you seem to be arguing that they are not particularly relevant or important that they just happen to correlate with other characteristics that schools are looking for and so it just appears that these schools are discriminating against Asians. Bullshit.
So wait, are you saying that whites provide an avenue for a more diverse socioeconomic or cultural background than Asians? For underrepresented minorities, sure I see the argument but I don’t see how you use that argument to preference whites over Asians.
Somebody else brought up the business hiring analogy and frankly once you admit its not legal then the conversation is over. You agree with me and you are simply trying to argue that the discrimination doesn’t exist when it clearly does.
What the fuck are you even talking about? I don’t disagree that getting good SAT scores is often a matter of having the right parents who will pass on good genes and good habits and a good environment but I don’t see where height (for example) plays into this debate. It sounds like you are just trying to introduce random factors that might affect or correlate to success and somehow arguing that height is as valid an admissions criteria as SAT scores. Is that what you are saying?
Bullshit. Its a curve. The competition may have heated up but human intelligence has not increased to the point where you get more than ten times as many perfect scores today as 30 years ago without perfect scores being easier to achieve.
Ah sorry you are right. I had that number in my head because I a few years ago I had done a comparison of the math and critical reading elements of the current test to the math and critical reading portion of the test when I took it.
From the wiki article:“The older SAT (before 1995) had a very high ceiling. In any given year, only seven of the million test-takers scored above 1580. A score above 1580 was equivalent to the 99.9995 percentile.” So my memory failed me it wasn’t 7 per administration, it was 7 per year.
I guarantee you that if you take a kid that got a 1600 in the year I took the test, there was not a surprise in the bunch and if they took the test a dozen times they would never score as low as 1500. The folks at the 1400 level might move around quite a bit because there is still a lot of room for improvement but the kids that got 1600 didn’t make mistakes (and they consistently didn’t make mistakes).
“Whites were three times, Hispanics six times, and blacks more than 15 times as likely to be accepted at a US university as Asian-Americans. These results were after controlling for grades, scores, family background (legacy status) and athletic status (whether or not the student was a recruited athlete).”
I realize that this doesn’t address the microuniverse of perfect SAT scores but I can’t find the cite to that factoid from the Berkeley litigation.
Listen, the bottom line is that if schools want to discriminate against Asians, then thats fine. But be upfront about it. Tell the world that you have an affirmative action program that favors underrepresented minorities (blacks hispanics) and underrepresented majorities (whites) too. No applicant has a “right” to attend any given school no matter HOW well qualified they are but if there is a bias against Asians then make it public so that my kids will know what they are up against. So they will know they aren’t competing with their classmates, they are competing with their Asian classmates.
cite for any such factor for being the cause of the disparity in admissions a white applicant and a similarly qualified Asian applicant.
I doubt you’d march the streets in any event but you seem to be saying “sure it seems to be racism but until you can prove it I’m not going to jump to the conclusion that it is in fact racism just because a white student is three times as likely to be admitted as a similarly credentialed Asian student” That about right?
Holy shit, this is somewhere between trying to debate folks who deny global warming and trying to debate Orly Taitz. The level of proof being requested from me is almost insurmountable while the proof being offered is hypothetical.
Again, you miss the point. The criteria is set by the university, not by bystanders who think scores should be the end all be all.
Which why they are also often given tax breaks, subsidies, monopolies, etc. Is this really such a foreign concept to you?
Do ever read about the history of higher education and the formation of standardized testing? These metrics haven’t been used for that many generations, and before we had a testing culture, schools like Harvard most assuredly did not make too strong an effort to find the “best and brightest” if they were not WASPs. When Jews were being actively discriminated against, Harvard was still a big deal. Despite what you think, the brand has so much inertia that a drop in SAT scores would mean very little in the long run so long as they kept churning out kids who are successful in the world. Just as they did before when they excluded high performing Jewish students in the day. Schools like Harvard were hardly built on rigorous academic achievement, and if they stumbled a bit in that regard now, it would be a long time before it became a problem.
There is a quantitative difference of 550 points. What I object to is you supposition that that difference has much meaning in the real world. As if a 2400 means you are some towering intellect whereas an 1850 means you are some dumbfuck who can barely tie his shoes. Would we likely find that the former was a better student and/or smarter? Probably, but that in the grand scheme of things, it is not that consequential in my estimation. It reminds me of an old Warren Buffet quote. He said, “if you are in the investment business and have an IQ of 150, sell 30 points to someone else.” His point begin that beyond a certain ability, there is little that extra intellect is gonna get you. That is in essence my point. All this whining about temerity of a university to reject someone whose scores were so great just makes me think they probably did the right thing.
I am saying if we are to buy this notion that Harvard, and other elite universities, should be tasked with educating those who can, by use of reliable metrics, be identified as “best and brightest”, then family income and height would often be as utile as SAT scores. This is why your car insurance company looks at things like your zip code, credit score, occupation, grades (if you are student), and car color. Those things, in and of themselves, have little to do with your driving ability. Rather, their models tell them they are highly correlated with insurance risk. My point is that if you really want to university admissions to become a cold science, you are gonna have all sorts of things that will become bases for discrimination that may or may not break for the high scoring Asians. As it is now, it’s a art. One that we constantly try to tweak based on society’s and the university’s interests. To me there is nothing wrong with that, even if it means fewer Asian students get to go to the school they want.
I never said it was currently the case.
Of course going to a Ivy doesn’t mean you get to hob knob with the rich and famous, but it does open doors that many others don’t have opened to them.
You don’t know that. Feel free to cite that claim if you’d like to prove me wrong.
More nonsense. Try to stick to arguing what I have actually said. You asked,
“why doesn’t the 2400 (or near 2400) white student get rejected nearly as frequently as the 2400 (or near 2400) Asian student?”
I asked you to cite that claim. Given that we are talking about a pool of maybe 1000 people, I would love to see a study detailing how often they were rejected by their school choices after other factors are controlled for. I await your cite.
Yes, I know it’s often is the result of test preparation, study (or lack thereof), and access to materials and teachers. I think it’s splitting hairs in the sense there are likely no intellectual barriers that would impede the lower scoring student that wouldn’t also hinder the higher scoring one.
You try following the conversation. None of that was said by ME. So when you quote ME, try to make your argument about things I actually said.
You are correct, they don’t have the time. Which is why they often use things like race, athleticism, or geography as criteria.
I have no idea why you are arguing considering I have seen very few people deny the basic claim that race is often a factor in admissions. I figured you just missed the numerous times people have ceded that point, or that you just like to see your rants on a computer screen. Since you may have missed them, allow me to post some for you:
In fact, I don’t see anyone arguing that Asians don’t have a harder time (all things being relatively equal) than other people. Nobody here has denied affirmative action exists. What you seem to be conflating is a denial of race preference with the opinion of many in this thread that even given said racial discrimination, an individual making the assumption that his rejection was because of his race is presumptuous. Doesn’t strike you a fishy that a kid who has scores that were only matched by a few hundred students in the country was independently rejected by several schools? Most Ivies most assuredly accepted Asian students who had worse scores than him, yet we are to believe that his rejection was based on him being Asian? Again, the NBA discriminates based on height, but that doesn’t mean an talented man of short stature can correctly surmise his being cut was due to his height. That’s what the debate is about.
We are arguing because you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how and why universities operate this way.
Well it’s not bullshit. That’s what you are missing. Most of the stuff you bring up is not their criteria, it’s yours. Something you, and others, decided to try to impose on schools. They never promised to accept the kids with the highest scores, or the best grades. You are the one who seems to think they should be tasked with creating some elite test taking army rather than the class of the people they feel comfortable investing in.
Where did I limit my comments to Whites and Asians? The point was that race is often a useful proxy for a number of other things. If I want to find a Democrat who grew up in a single parent household, is Baptist, and likes rap music, race would be a good filter.
Talk about schizophrenic. You have already acknowledged that I have admitted discrimination exists. I said it several times, you acknowledge you heard it. Now you come back with this? I thought it was clear when I said:
[QUOTE=ME]
Yes, many schools discriminate based on race…
[/QUOTE]
Was it not clear that I was admitting many schools discriminate based on race? I guess I will have to work on that.
Which has fuck all to do with the test being more difficult, and testing more things. I am not really sure why you would even bother debating this. As I said before:
Are you honestly not convinced of this?
As you stated, it’s a scaled score. The scale does not directly reflect the difficulty of the test relative to previous iterations. Mostly, because a “perfect score” does not mean every question answered correctly.
So then can I assume that you will retract your claim?
What is not upfront? You are the only one making these assumptions. Harvard never said their admissions were fair, or that Asians have an equal likelihood of getting in as everyone else. That race is a criteria is hardly a secret to anyone with a google search and a brain. I am not sure what they need to be upfront about given that they are not exactly hiding this fact.
What I can’t understand is how so many Dopers can casually dismiss the glaring evidence (no matter how circumstantial it looks right now) that Asian American students are discriminated against in college admissions. Do we just not care? For whatever reason, being Latino or black with an not-perfect but decent enough SAT score apparently can put you at an advantage over an Asian American with a perfect SAT score and GPA.
And if you want to keep throwing around stereotypes - that Asian kids are boring, geeky chess club presidents and valedictorians - let’s not forget the other half of the Asian stereotype. Maybe if Ivy League colleges admitted people based on skill and smarts, they wouldn’t have to inflate grades so much, eh?
There are people who really want to go to an Ivy League school. For most, it opens up doors. It can pay for itself. It’s a club that parents want their kids to join. It’s a big thing. So to work your ass off your whole life, score perfectly on the SAT and get rejected by three schools - some with aggressive affirmative action campaigns - must really, really suck. Again, when figuring out who benefits the least (or sees negative impact) from affirmative action campaigns, it seems to be Asian Americans (as a group - like I mentioned upthread, the term encompasses diverse sets of people).
I see no evidence that being Asian is always a disadvantage. Currently, evidence indicates that they are overrepresented in college compared to their representation in the greater population.
We don’t know if being Asian actually makes it easier to get into certain programs. If a particular department felt that having more Asians would boost its profile, it could select for these applicants preferentially, while the overall admission rate in the school wouldn’t indicate this. Hell, an entire school could do this too and we wouldn’t know. Not without knowing how many Asian applicants it received and what caliber of students they are. The investigation will uncover things like this.
In this discussion, we are focused on the most competitive universities in the country, where tons of people get rejected “just because”. I’m wondering what would happen if you looked at the numbers for a good state school–like both of my alma maters. If I remember correctly, there were almost as many Asians (including East Asians) at my graduate institution as there were white students, which definitely did not reflect the state’s population. (It happened to be ranked as the most diverse university in the country during the years I was there. So even sven, such ranking does exist.)
I don’t see Asians hanging out on street corners, destitute because they cannot catch a break. The truth is that this is really an issue about folks not being able to get into schools that they perceive as the “very best”…not the case of folks not getting into any schools.* I seriously doubt that the plaintiffs were rejected from all the schools they applied to. If they had named Very Good State Schools in their list of schools they had been rejected from, that would make a more compelling argument for systemic discrimination. Because if MIT really doesn’t want Asians, why would Virginia Tech?
As for not “marching in the streets”, I don’t know why you think other people don’t care, Damuri. I don’t know why you’re being such a poor debater, either. What do you want us to say? “'Tis a pity that no one likes Asian kids”? But this is not true at all. If I felt this was the case, I sure would be het up. But from where I stand, Asians still have an advantage over other groups in the vast majority of cases–because the vast majority of colleges and universities are not packed to the rafters with Asians and would no doubt love to have more of them, whether they had a perfect SAT score or not. Do you agree or disagree?
Are you equally as bothered by the idea that some schools select for Asians preferentially, for reasons other than merit?
If we drill down on the statistics and find that Harvard and Princeton actually tend to select Asians with lower SAT scores than the average score of Asian applicants, would this bother you? This would be interesting to me, as it would indicate that these schools are screening for something other than high SAT scores. It could also suggest that high SAT scores work against Asian students while helping other groups. But again, until we peel back all the layers to figure out what qualities they ARE selecting for, screaming “UNFAIR” is premature.**
*The other day on the radio show I was listening to, the talking voice that took the “Asians are not being discriminated against” stand (a researcher in education, an Asian herself) said that Asians tend to apply to certain types of universities rather than lesser-known, but well-respected liberal arts schools. What are the Asian rejection rates at institutions like these?
**I have no doubt racism could play a part in the “other layers” as well. If you are the only Asian in your school, the perception that you are “superior” to the other students could negatively influence how teachers view you, which could show in their letters of recommendation. If the last five applicants that the interviewer saw before you were Asian, and here you are another Asian, and the interviewer subconsciously feels intimidated by Asians, this could also work against you. So I’m not saying that softer criteria are free from racism. Just that it is not wise to make a conclusion about systemic racial discrimination without evaluating the other lines of evidence that schools use.
I agree it sucks. I remember the day I realized that I wasn’t cut out for acting, because my fate would always be in someone else’s hands. So, I learned how to direct. If you build your whole life around one rather arbitrary decision that is not really under your control, you are really ramping up your chances of being disappointed. The reality is that there are thousands of very good universities where any given student can get an excellent education, build good connections, and begin a successful life with. Indeed, a lot of those may be a much better fit than any given Ivy, and the student will end up getting a lot more out of their experience.
But really, what you are illustrating is something important. Notice how you have a lot to say about what the student hopes to get out of the Ivy? Open doors, job opportunities, please the 'rents, etc?
You said nothing about what the kid wants to CONTRIBUTE to the school, and that is the key that schools are looking for. They don’t care if you really want to take classes from “famous experts.” But they do care if you want to do physics research with Professor X on problem Y. They don’t care if you are attracted to their “high standards,” but they do care if you know that classes X, Y and Z will contribute to your ongoing investigation into topics A and B.
They don’t care that you have something to check off on the “volunteer work” section of the application- especially if it looks like your volunteer work is a short, shallow “volunteer vacation” that your parents paid for in some scenic part of the world where you got to take lots of pictures with cute orphans for two weeks. Four years in the neighborhood soup kitchen is more impressive than a week packed experience in Haiti. They want to see that you have a sustained, deep, passionate commitment to what you are doing. They know exactly what it looks like when you have been building your life around your college application, and they don’t think that’s cute. They want real passion.
Good schools are not good schools because they have good professors and nice classrooms. They are good schools because they have engaged, interesting student bodies who- every day- create the experience of being in a good school. And while a high SAT and GPA is a good sign that you are academically prepared for the work, there is a lot more to being a real contributor than that.
But now you’re taking the position that it “must be something else” that’s going on here. Namely, that Asian kids must be lacking in another department. Come on.
I guess if you have too many black haired yellow folk on your brochure, it looks bad. :rolleyes:
Blacks and Latinos graduate less than whites in colleges. They’re also more likely to need remedial classes. What if someone had taken all the negative stereotypes about monstro being black and said,* Well, she was probably the product of an inflated grading system, had a rough home life, may be smart, but her cultural background just won’t fit in here. All that rap and sex and stuff. Maybe she can’t afford tuition in a couple of years. Look at the statistics.*
How is that any worse or better than you insinuating that the Asian kids are all alike?
As others have pointed out, college admissions are far too subjective these days. You can do everything right and still come out wrong. But there’s been data cited here that shows being an Asian American is subtractive when applying to Ivy League schools.
I’m also increasingly uncomfortable with the idea that because you’re black, brown, white, whatever, you are probably _______, and therefore _______.
But academic institutions - even Harvard - aren’t just about academics anymore. They won’t always attract the best and the brightest and don’t want to. They’re businesses and run as such. But maybe that’s for another thread.
This is also true for:
[ul]
[li]Getting a job[/li][li]Finding a mate[/li][li]Raising a kid[/li][li]Becoming famous[/li][li]Becoming rich[/li][li]Not getting cancer[/li][/ul]
In no realm of life do you get any meaningful benefit automatically for “doing everything right.” That’s not how the world works. In a handful of cases, like getting boyscout badges and getting into non-selective colleges, you can indeed just check off a series of checkboxes and get your rightfully deserved reward. But these rewards don’t really hold much weight, do they? There is a reason for that- setting a “minimum standard” is a piss-poor way of identifying a group of really dynamic and amazing people.
Colleges are not in the business of rewarding hard work. I’ll repeat that. Colleges are not in the business of rewarding smarts, hard work, or anything else. That is nowhere in their mission.
Colleges are in the business of teaching students. As long as they have a free hand, they will pick their students according to what makes for the best classrooms, and the colleges that manage to consistently create an optimal learning experience will rise to the top. They do this by accepting dynamic, interesting, passionate people- not by recruiting test scores.
I don’t see even sven saying that there “must” be something lacking. Just that there could be.
Ya’ll are getting on my nerves here. If we were talking about black kids being rejected from schools, there would be absolutely no doubt that black kids were failing at something disproportionately. It would just be understood that systemic racial discrimination–while possible–would be unlikely.
Those of us who are trying to view this thing less hysterically are trying to approach the topic with the same objectivity. If it’s foreseeable that blacks are less prepared in certain metrics due to background, why can’t the same be said for Asian students? Many of whom are first-generation Americans. And many of whom, like blacks and Latinos, are also first-generation college kids. These two factors alone put them at a disproportionate disadvantage compared to white Americans.
It’s like ya’ll are saying that it is inconceivable that there could be cracks in the “model minority”, and that simply bringing this up as an as an explanation is racist or ludicrous. I argue that it is racist and ludicrous to believe that Asian Americans are infallible and that they don’t deserve the same level of scrutinity that’s applied to other non-whites all the freakin’ time.
I’m more willing to believe a university has this view about blacks or Hispanics than they do about Asians. Because the first two groups are seen as inferior in the educational system, while the last is not. If I were a university that had no qualms about playing into racial stereotypes, I’d be filling my brochures with plenty of Asians and whites. With only a sprinkling of pictures of “non-threatening” black and Hispanic students.
Of course that would be wrong. If you think even sven or anyone else who has weighed in on this thread would disagree with this, you’ve been reading a different thread than I have.
No one in this thread is arguing that universities should use statistics when screening applicants. I know I personally believe they should view each applicant as an individual. Which would mean schools should have discretion to pick and choose which individuals they want, based on the metrics they decide are more meaningful for that individual. There’s no rule that they have to be consistent or fair. A student may have so-so grades and a so-so SAT score, but strike an interviewer as being extremely likable, full of leadership qualities that aren’t reflected in grades or SAT scores. They may find another kid who has so-so grades and scores very well on the SAT, and writes a hilarious essay that has the the admissions officers cracking up for days. What gives an outsider the right to say, “Hey, the one with the high SAT score would make a better student than that other other one.” What if the admissions officer feels like he’s tired of trying to distinguish a 99th percentiler from a 95th percentiler, and he’s ready to start weighing softer criteria more heavily? Ya’ll want to tell him he’s wrong to do this?
It is not simple and everyone who is saying it is has obviously never had to evaluate candidates before, let alone college applicants.
And yet Harvard will always continue to be seen as the school for the “best and brightest”. As will Princeton. As will Yale and MIT. And the types of kids who make all As and score perfect SATs will continue to go to college, professional schools, graduate schools, and go on to lead successful lives.
Perhaps our ultra-competitive work ethic and the sense of entitlement that flows from this need to be addressed, in addition to any unfair discriminatory practices that may be going on. Because I see them being all interrelated.
"*Asian-Americans admitted to the University of Wisconsin’s flagship Madison campus in 2008 had a median math and reading SAT score of 1370 out of 1600, compared to 1340 for whites, 1250 for Hispanics, and 1190 for blacks, according to a 2011 study by the Center for Equal Opportunity, a Falls Church, Virginia-based nonprofit group that opposes racial preferences in college admissions.
Asian-American students who enrolled at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina in 2001 and 2002 scored 1457 out of 1600 on the math and reading portion of the SAT, compared to 1416 for whites, 1347 for Hispanics and 1275 for blacks, according to a 2011 study co-authored by Duke economist Peter Arcidiacono. *"
So - somehow weighing that “softer criteria” leads to the overall significant discrepancy in SAT scores for the admitted students based on race. There could be two conclusions (if you think there is a third one, please tell me):
Asian students are generally and on the average lacking in the “softer criteria” department.
The positive “softer criteria” include being non-Asian.
Really? If African American students had just as good or better test scores than other students and were being rejected, I’d definitely think racism. Sometimes there will be ‘something lacking’ in an applicant. But there’s data, monstro, and you’re a data person.
Some colleges are diploma mills that don’t care about creating a dynamic or interesting anything. Other colleges do actually care about this.
But here’s the thing about the marketplace. You can do your research and decide what kind of school you want to go to. If you disagree with Harvard’s approach to selecting a student body, do not send your application there. Because they may just select you and you’ll have to be lumped in with the riff-raff of society! If you only want to rub shoulders with top SAT scorers, find a university that does not require essays or interviews and has a reputation for selecting top SAT scorers.
There are some schools like this, but not a lot. This should tell you something about the kinds of schools people gravitate towards and the kinds of places colleges like to create.
I created a thread in IMHO where I pretty much stated that I think I got in because of AA. Because my SAT score was not off the charts, and I didn’t have a very impressive transcript (though I wasn’t a mediocre anything). But I functioned well in college, and I never felt like I was a burden in the learning environment. I actually engaged professors more than usual because I wasn’t a know-it-all and I was full of questions. Because almost everything was challenging, I wasn’t blase enough not to attend classes or study sessions. It meant I didn’t try to commit suicide whenever I didn’t get an A (though I did experience emotional disturbances in response to stress…I won’t deny that). I didn’t “grade grub” or try to sue the school when I was denied “high honors” by a tenth of a point. And because I came into the school without having a clear career path in mind, that made me great fodder for mentoring. Some professors actually love to mentor. (And sometimes they just need to mentor to get tenure!) A university doesn’t want everyone to know what they want to do when they graduate, especially if they all want to be the same exact thing. That is ultra boring.
Was I unqualified to go to my brainiac school? Should I have given up my spot to a kid who had twelve AP credits (my school only offered three) and a perfect SAT score? Why? Why should I have done this, since I was fully capable of matriculating and so many kids who fit the “genius” profile did not? There were a handful of young white men from my high school who were also accepted to my university, most likely based on their SAT scores since they had mediocre grades. With no exaggeration, NONE of them lasted to the end. And a few of them had the balls to tease me about being an “AA baby”.
So forgive me if I don’t think all this talk about “merit” and “qualification” is just a bunch of crybaby shit.