<p>“I’m not understanding the attacks on Fabrizio. His posts have seemed to be a model of civility and logic. Those disagreeing with him can disagree but to try to impute other things makes those posters look . . . weak and wrong.”</p>
<p>Thank you sewhappy!</p>
<p>Pizzagirl,</p>
<p>Your data and argument don’t work for me. So what if the percent of the applicant pool of a racial group at MIT was less than the percent of that racial group admitted. You’re counting heads of sheep, for goodness sake. So many blacks, so many Asian, etc. This means absolutely nothing until you carefully examine the qualifications of the applicants, beyond whether or not they are in one of the advantaged racial groups. And I DON’T mean just SAT scores. I mean gpa, course rigor, teacher recs, ECs, readability of the application and scores.</p>
<p>We pretty much have to rely on anecdote because the Bird’s Eye view of the applicant pool is not available to anyone except those on the committees. But after enough cases of the stellar Asian kid going to the honors college at state U where clearly a less stellar applicant (usually affluent!) but from the preferred race goes to their pick of the tip top schools . . . the situation reaches a point where most objective people question it.</p>
<p>Hunt readily admits the bias exists. He’s just honest and says he thinks the bias is a necessary evil to achieve a societal “good.” I think that is a perfectly defensible stance here. The insistence that the bias is not there and that mean-sprited Asian kids are just imagining it . . . No, not working for me. Not at all.</p>
<p>^^What makes you think that adding more data (gpa, course rigor – now there’s an objective criterion --, teacher recs, ECs, “readability of the application” (!!!)) is going to settle the question? If the skepticism quotient is already that high among Asian Americans, it’s only going to skyrocket with more subjective data.</p>
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<p>…of which my own favorite example is this one:</p>
<p>[can’t find original post]:
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<p>And the response to it:
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<p>Just as there was the prevailing racist myth some time ago that American blacks are “lazy” – and then later, Mexican-Americans are “lazy,” now we get the triumphalism of the supposedly superior continental race/ethnicity(ies) who is/are hardworking in mythical contradistinction to others, including white Anglos (of course!). Only Asians work hard. (Or, there’s some kind of quantifiable measure of just how “hard” they work versus others.) This should of course be ‘common knowledge’ and assumed. </p>
<p>Except that unless you work in education, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Let me introduce you to my non-mythical set of Indian-American, Pakistani-American, Chinese-American, Burmese-American, Korean-American, and Japanese-American students whose parents are tearing their hair out complaining to me, not because their children are getting A-'s or B+'s in non-gym classes, but because they’re running for #1 Slacker of the Year against some of their underperforming white classmates. (B-'s, C’s, exerting as little effort as possible, dropping out of difficult classes such as AP’s, refusing to read, and infected with the recreational culture of the 21st century.)</p>
<h1>2: In some countries, school achievement (tests, grades) “earns” you something. You’re “rewarded” with a place at not just “a” university, but a particular university or level of university. Here, a specific college is not a “reward” for a job well done. Because according to all the top college reps, there are four times as many students as you who have “earned” university admission than there are seats in those freshman classes, students who have earned it through hard work of at least the level of diligence as yourself. And yes, that means people you have never met, because you won’t necessarily see them at your high school or your son’s or daughter’s high school. They will be from a different area of the state, a different area of the country. You will never see their transcripts, test scores, and other achivements. You won’t read a single letter of recommendation.</h1>
<p>If some of you had the experience of competing in single-candidate contests in athletics or performing arts, you would know what I’m talking about, but it seems some of you have not experienced the situation of a real-time competition against entrants you have never competed against before. It doesn’t matter what you ‘earned’ locally (previously). You could have been always 'the champ" (the Val, etc.); but when it comes to the regionals (let alone the nationals, and then the internationals), it’s a whole different ball game. Instead of the presumptive #1, you are now #5 or #15, because the competition is comparative and relative, not ‘absolute.’ Your credentials coming in just ‘qualify’ you to compete; then it’s a matter of how you have “performed” versus who’s on stage or running the track right now, in the same round of competitions you’re in. For example, in the performing arts, there are multiple elements (just as in college admissions). You may have the steps down, or the notes down, perfectly in time, but have not enough points in another area of selectivity. (Such as dynamics, expression, style) And in the really intense competitions (i.e., H, Y, P, Stanford, etc.) the differences between the “performers” are sometimes minuscule, because they are all “tops.” They all “earned” a review, based on some essential basic qualifications to compete, such as grades & test scores. And when the spots are few, lots and lots of beautifully qualified performers will not be getting those first 3 prizes; they will not be left standing on the podium for the official photos.</p>
<p>You will be punished (deprived) for demonstrated absence of hard work (vs. demonstrated ability) – such as high test scores with low grades, and students are deprived of university admissions all the time because of this. But the converse is not true: that “therefore” hard work has some kind of one-to-one payout. It doesn’t. Not when the supply of talent exceeds capacity by a factor of 4, and when that supply includes all the regions of the country, all etnic/racial/national subgroups, all socioeconomic groups.</p>
<p>During an admission year which I won’t say, there were exactly 12 admits to Yale’s Early Round from the 9 Bay area counties combined (current population total over 7 million, h.s. senior student population I don’t know). Do the math, folks. That doesn’t give any particular terrific student great odds. And the math makes perfect sense when proportioned for the entire country and the ultimate size of Yale’s freshman class (including the Earlies) that year, given that Yale, like Stanford, is a national university and seeks representation from all 50 States with a focus first on quality.</p>
<p>Finally, what really gets to me is the embarrassing narcissim here: the lack of imagination that assumes that others (including those of non-Asian backgrounds) could not possibly be as accomplished, as hard-working, as “deserving,” as intelligent, etc. as students “I” know in my high school, my family, my community, my affinity group. Think about it.</p>
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<p>Private colleges need their full-pay students. Do you think it racist to assume a student got into a college because of his race and not for some other reason, like his bank account?</p>
<p>^ Or because they needed a tenor sax for the marching band and not another second violin? Or because the pre-med program was full but they needed students who want to major in philosophy?</p>
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<p>sewhappy,
Are you aware that there are two separate arguments about race and discrimination going on in this thread? Fab refers to them as “positive” and “negative.” Your response would help me understand your posts better. Thank you.</p>
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<p>And I can point to plenty of cases of stellar white students – even Jews! – who are attending the honors college of their state university. Sometimes by choice, and sometimes because they didn’t get into their reach schools. </p>
<p>There are also thousands of stellar white students attending top schools that are not Ivies. And plenty of stellar white students attending lower-ranked schools because they are getting merit aid. And many stellar Hispanic and black kids who are not at Ivies. Because for every subgroup that applies to these schools, the vast majority are rejected.</p>
<p>The problem with only using anecdotes is that for every anecdote of a high scoring Asian not getting into the top schools, someone can come up with an anecdote of a high scoring white kid who experienced the same thing.</p>
<p>Look, I have no idea if there is discrimination. If there is, if admissions officers really sit around the table and say things like “only 500 high scoring Asians this year, because Asians are boring, so let’s take this low-scoring black kid instead,” I’d have a problem with that. But after reading countless threads on CC, no one has convinced me that that is what happens.</p>
<p>^ No, I’m being sloppy here in that I’m not following the thread closely enough and probably shouldn’t weigh in until I read the backlog of posts. </p>
<p>I really do think my kids are “lucky” not to be Asian in the admissions fray. And I don’t like that feeling. </p>
<p>I’m not sure what the positive/negative debate is about.</p>
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<p>I think you’ve articulated very nicely the culture clash that’s often in play here - the distinction between realizing that intelligence plus diligence qualifies you only to be in the running, but you are not “owed” a spot anywhere. That is frankly what is the most galling. The cries that “look at my scores, I had blah blah blah and I didn’t get into HYPSM.” Well, yes, you didn’t. And that has nothing to do with whether the URM down the street did. Nothing. Plenty of perfectly qualified people aren’t going to get in; if you’re so smart as to get a 2400 on your SAT’s you should UNDERSTAND that, and maybe let’s stop being so stupid as to assume that a no from an elite school is a referendum on your hard work.</p>
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<p>Or because they need more black students?</p>
<p>I may get in trouble for posting this, but it’s a view from Harvard students (comedic) on admissions:</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - Inside a Harvard Admissions Decision (On Harvard Time)](<a href=“Inside a Harvard Admissions Decision (On Harvard Time) - YouTube”>Inside a Harvard Admissions Decision (On Harvard Time) - YouTube)</p>
<p>The positive/negative has to do with whether the idea that we will give a thumb on the scale to (let’s say) black or Hispanic students in the spirit of inclusiveness and getting a critical mass in the door is “discrimination” against Asian students. Because apparently saying “Yes, let’s make special efforts to ensure that we do give consideration to URM students” is EXACTLY the same thing as “Let’s limit the Asians to x% because we hate Asians, they are undesirable and icky.” @@</p>
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<p>You would have a point if Asian kids were UNDERREPRESENTED relative to the size of the population and / or the size of the applicant pool that they form. But if anything they are overrepresented. Asians are 5% of the population and 30% of the pop at MIT … and at the other elite colleges, generally between 20% - 30%. What’s to feel “sorry” for? Likewise with Jewish students, who are 2 - 3% of the population and at similar relatively high levels at elite colleges. The ones to feel “sorry” for are those groups who aren’t even represented at elite colleges at their level in the overall population.</p>
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<p>I don’t know where you live, or what kind of local talent there is there, but the lucky students are not the students who are or are not from a particular ethnic group. The lucky students are the ones not from a densely populated region which is obscenely high in the talent quotient, all applying to the same/similar universities. It will be extremely hard to stand out there, vs. similar others in that same region. (Refer back to my Yale example in post 1084.) There may be 5 “deserving” students at X high-performing high school in Y densely talented region. I have news for you: whether they are all black, all white, or all Hispanic, they are not all getting in to the same elite school, if all applied there. If they are all to-die-for candidates on multiple measures of talent, maybe 2 get in to the same school. Maybe. If that’s a smaller high school, one gets in. The “lucky” student is the high-performing student of any ethnicity from Alaska, Wyoming, Montana. (etc.)</p>
<p>Supply. Demand. Basic economics.</p>
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<p>To the extent that your numbers are accurate–I don’t know since you provided no sources–doesn’t your conclusion rest on a premise SAT scores matter the most in admissions to selective institutions?</p>
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<p>Ah, I guess Jews should’ve been happy with their de facto 15% quota at Harvard in the 1930s, right xiggi? Their number and percentages were several times their religious distribution in the United States, yes?</p>
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<p>If you don’t respect when I have addressed your questions, why should I continue to heed your requests/demands?</p>
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<p>Oh please. You wrote, “Fab doesn’t want anyone with “lesser” holistic credentials admitted to a college because they have a different color skin than he does. He does not care that this practice benefits the students or society. He thinks its not fair.”</p>
<p>If you think that is an accurate representation of my position, then you have no idea what my position is.</p>
<p>^^I actually thought he was trying to agree with you, Fab. But, it really depends on whether you impute sarcasm to the remark.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl and Epiphany, I understand your point that factors such as geography play a role and help kids or hurt kids in the selection process. I don’t think that’s a valid argument though to defend race as a factor. I would hold that race is an inborn trait, a factor no one can alter and I also would argue that simply being from a particular race does not at all mean that person will bring anything different in terms of perspective to the class composition, besides how the smiling faces on the class photos look. I just don’t think race means that much. Not at this point. There are affluent Latino and black kids who have grown up in much more privileged environments than my kids. There are white kids who have grown up in much more dire circumstances than my own white kids. I would support geography as a factor. I would support family wealth as a factor (as in give a break to the economically disadvantaged). I don’t think race works, not at this point.</p>
<p>And I think that a large swathe of our society is just deeply uneasy with any attempt to use a biological trait, such as race, as a marker in making decisions that affect peoples’ lives.</p>
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<p>I am getting to the point where I cannot tolerate this. epiphany’s recent posts are based almost entirely on straw men. I find this entire spectacle to be unbelievable.</p>
<p>epiphany and crew prefer to argue against these straw men because they know that if they were to argue against the real individuals on this thread who oppose racial preferences, they cannot use many of their favorite lines.</p>
<p>epiphany, for example, LOVES to speak of “oversupply” (i.e. there are more qualified applicants than slots). I accept and agree with that, but by doing so, I take the fun away for then she can’t use that line anymore. So what does she do? Pretend that I disagree! Moreover, epiphany doesn’t realize that her “oversupply” line weakens the rationale for racial preferences. If so many qualified applicants cannot get in due to scarcity, what is the big deal that “not enough” "URM"s may be accepted?</p>
<p>But that’s minor compared to the “Asians must be superior” straw man. That is so blatantly intellectually dishonest that I don’t even know how to respond to it other than shake my head and say, “Shame on you.”</p>