<p>What makes you think that they would be 50% white or 50% Asian in the absence of racial preferences? epiphany whipped out a 46% straw man, but a quick search revealed that Asians do not make up 46% of the student bodies of Berkeley, Caltech, and UCLA, which among “top schools” have the highest percentages of Asians. It tops out at 40%.</p>
<p>Perhaps you meant to say “…the elite schools don’t want to be 40% ANYTHING”? But that can’t be true, seeing as how</p>
<p>Ah, but perhaps you really meant to say that colleges should at least try to “look like America,” in which case since Asians only make up ~5% of the national population, 40% is too high and forget about 50%. (Even though 50% would never happen and is just a scare tactic.) Is that what you meant?</p>
<p>Exactly. I often read defenses of using racial classification in admissions that go, “Holistic is about considering the whole individual, and to do that, you have to consider race.”</p>
<p>Uh, if we’re going to consider the “whole individual,” why not blood type? Eye color? Percentage of body fat? And why be facetious? How about political association? Religious affiliation? The list goes on.</p>
<p>I am totally fine with subjective criteria, a point that Pizzagirl will never accept. I am fine with extracurriculars, essays, and recommendations. I simply don’t see why you HAVE to consider racial classification, since many of the examples used by the pro-racial preferences side of how colleges do things DO NOT even use race. Are they trying to tell me that without race, simply “cleans[ing] the palate with a student who has a different set of interests” isn’t going to produce diversity?</p>
<p>Furthermore, Hunt mentioned the experiences of the Poles, Irish, and Italians as “assimilated” minorities. But their histories, as I’ve said, provide powerful evidence that race is an artificial construct with no meaning. By all means, they were whites, yet other whites did not see them to be “the same.” That ought to show you how ridiculous “race” is and why we should be trying to STOP using it.</p>
<p>It is race-obsessed when I read posts by parents that encourage Asians who are thinking about declining to self-identify to “check the box.” But to be fair, you’re talking about adcoms, not parents here.</p>
<p>““It has been posted here that people will believe what they want to believe.””</p>
<p>…and what we believe in is heavily influenced by personal self-interest, I may add.</p>
<p>To answer the OP, I would say that elite colleges are not so much racist as they are classist, and holistic admission is a tell-tale sign pointing toward a plutocracy.</p>
<p>For historical reasons that we need not go into, these schools are in the enviable position of having the first pick and they tried to fill as much of the seats with scions of our ruling elite as possible. Once that is accomplished, they know the proletariats and the poor will be clamouring for admission; those who are rejected will be complaining bitterly about the unfairness of it all, and those lucky sperms who are admitted will pledge eternal loyalty to the status quo. </p>
<p>As you can probably guess, I find much of the arguments here unconvincing. Much of the difference in admission standards is a simple reflection on the asymmetrical power relationship among groups. When folks look for a convoluted explanation where a simple one would do, I know we are in denial.</p>
<p>To me, what is truly delicious is this: on one hand we complain about scions having an advantage in admission, on the other hand we want to be there precisely because they are there.</p>
<p>UCSD is not a bad school, and in fact their graduate economics program is still excellent. But epiphany was talking about “elite schools.” I don’t want to diss UCSD, especially since I feel that many anti-Prop. 209 folks inadvertently did so when they argued that "URM"s had to be at UCB and UCLA and not UCSD. But for what it’s worth, UCB and UCLA (and Caltech) are part of CC’s “Top Universities” whereas UCSD is not.</p>
<p>^I see. So you are saying we should expect different results in the racial make-up of the 35th ranked university versus the 30th ranked university. And that the Asian populations of the 31st+ universities may exceed 50%, but this would never happen in the 1st through 30th ranked colleges, and to say so is just a scare tactic. Right?</p>
<p>Civil Rights – and especially Black Civil Rights – is a defining achievement for the Baby Boom generation. A lot of Boomers, especially politically liberal ones, have dug in their heels and want to go on pretending that it’s still 1971 instead of 2011. It is a dramatically different society now. The simplistic and, quite frankly, crude use of race in elite school admissions not only strikes many as unfair, it also feels very much out of synch with our current highly racially diverse society.</p>
<p>Sewhappy, you’re right, society has changed for the better since the civil rights movement. But that was only about 50 years ago. It bothers me when people think everything is ok now. Remnants of the past still remain. </p>
<p>Funny. As I’ve said more than once on this forum, my husband is 100% Latino. I really don’t believe these statements describe me at all. I have mixed feelings about this whole topic actually.</p>
<p>^^^
I live in Palos Verdes. I’d say it’s an upper middle class to upper class suburb of Los Angeles. The local high schools probably send more kids to elite schools than average. THere are probably around 10 black kids out of any graduating class of 600. Yeah, the goal has been achieved.</p>
<p>Your point is well taken that on paper, it’s possible that in the absence of racial preferences, Asians will make up 50% of the elite colleges’ student bodies. Sure. But it hasn’t happened, and I don’t think it will happen. As mentioned, Berkeley, UCLA, and Caltech top out at 40% Asian. I have no reason a priori to expect that “HYPSM et al.” would be more than 40% Asian if there were no racial preferences. (While we’re at it, I don’t think 40% is what “should” happen without racial preferences.)</p>
<p>And I think that to suggest that 50% Asian would happen is, dare I say it, a scare tactic.</p>
<p>Yes it was. I’m just trying to keep you honest, fab.</p>
<p>I don’t really care what the percentages are. I don’t find them “scary” in the least. In twenty years or so, Harvard et al., may discover that they would be even more highly regarded by the world if their student bodies were 70% Asian and that will be their new goal. They don’t care what I think.</p>
<p>“Well, shame on me for not Googling more. Thanks, vonlost.”</p>
<p>Did not see the apology to the ADL which was your point. Both papers apologized so thought your point was one was less apologetic since related to Asians? Not sure why this was so important to you in splitting hair. Unless your trying to prove a point that does not exist. Which is what started this thread (Colleges are racist).</p>
<p>But the university undergrad population overall, as of the last academic year, was 43.55%. Not 46%. Not 50%. And I acknowledged the POSSIBILITY “that in the absence of racial preferences, Asians will make up 50% of the elite colleges’ student bodies,” though I expressed my skepticism that it would occur.</p>
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<p>You are not epiphany or Pizzagirl. If what bothers them doesn’t bother you, well, thanks.</p>
<p>Marian wrote, “Funny how we find that to be outdated and offensive thinking when applied to Jews in past decades (and possibly to Asians today), but many of us accept it when it comes to women.” I then expressed my belief that “many comments [in this thread] wouldn’t have been made had the ‘group’ in question been Jews and not Asians.”</p>
<p>I then stated that back in 2006-2007, outrage to the Daily Princetonian’s mocking of Jian Li (and by extension, all East Asians) was far from unanimous. You replied, “Not sure if you made your victimization point with [this example].”</p>
<p>I asked you to give me an an “example of a college newspaper that ran a ‘joke’ on Jews at a sustained level like the DP did for Jian Li and didn’t have to apologize to the ADL for it.” You listed Reed as an example, except the ADL did ask for an apology and the newspapers’ editors did apologize to everyone in the Reed community. Now if you want me to let you off the hook because the editors may not necessarily have apologized directly to the ADL, feel free.</p>
<p>But you’re right; we’re splitting hairs here. Let’s get back to more germane points, like your straw manning people who don’t agree with you as believing that “the highest test score is the best student for the University.”</p>
This is an interesting post. The classist theory has some Maxist flavor in it. This theory fails to recoganize the dynamic nature of the classes. Bill Clinton was born to a working class, but now he is in the elite class. Similarly, the Chinese Communist revolution was by the proletariats, but when they come to power, they become the elite and are not protelariats anymore. This is one of the points Chairman Mao failed to recoganize and hence he wanted to keep the revoluation going forever.</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong wanting to be in the elite class. As you mentioned, that makes life interesting.</p>
<p>so many posts here… nothing is really going to change until the asian population in US participate more in politics and demand equality. forget about naacp and aclu because they only care about african americans and hispanics/latino. asians need to get a group that screams and shout as loud as those 2.</p>
<p>Fabrizio - it is The GFG who states that a setting with many Asian Americans (with different dishes, languages, etc.) feels “foreign” to her – Not me or epiphany.</p>