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<p>The big deal (which has been asked / answered multiple times) is that there is then not a critical mass of some sort, which leaves the school being unappealing / not welcoming to smart students of that background. And it leaves all the students ill-prepared for the real world in which there is a diversity of people / backgrounds.</p>
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<p>But obviously you believe Asian students ARE “better” than what’s currently being admitted - otherwise, where’s the injustice? You believe that if racial preferences for URM’s were done away with, Asian presence at top universities must rise - which means that you think there indeed is a “better” Asian group that right now is being penalized in some way.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl,</p>
<p>I have no doubt you sincerely believe in what you are posting. But please understand that posts like the following:</p>
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<p>Strike some people as intrinsically “racist” (I put this in quotes because I don’t mean this in the bad way). It is just a huge crude assumption to hold that black or Latino or white or Asian kids come from any particular “background”. That, in itself, is racial stereotyping and not justified. It makes me wince.</p>
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<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.soc.duke.edu/undergraduate/cll/final_report.pdf]Link[/url”>http://www.soc.duke.edu/undergraduate/cll/final_report.pdf]Link[/url</a>]</p>
<p>And yet at Duke, just under a fifth of the black students admitted in the year of the study came from high schools that were “all or nearly all white.” (More than a fifth of the Latino students went to “all or nearly all white” high schools.)</p>
<p>In fact, more than a fifth of all blacks lived in neighborhoods that were “all or nearly all white.” Moreover, more blacks lived in “all or nearly all white” neighborhoods than “all or nearly all non-white” neighborhoods. The same was true for Latinos, except it was even stronger.</p>
<p>So you’re telling me that at the NEIGHBORHOOD level, “URM” parents don’t really care that they might be the only "URM"s in “the 'Hood,” but at the university level, gosh, if there isn’t that fabled “critical mass,” the "URM"s don’t want to go there? Really?</p>
<p>Again, to be fair, maybe Duke isn’t representative of other elite schools. Maybe their peers do a better job of selecting blacks/Latinos that went to “all or nearly all non-white” high schools. I gave you that, although you did not reciprocate.</p>
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<p>Because if you don’t have that fabled “critical mass,” it’s as if there are no "URM"s period? Right.</p>
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<p>I believe that it would likely rise. As for “must rise,” I have consistently stated that I would oppose racial preferences even if it meant fewer Asians were admitted. That is not something you can say for “your” group(s) or "URM"s; that’s another difference between us.</p>
<p>Pages ago, epiphany stated that if Asians were ever to be “underrepresented,” they would be sought after. That doesn’t “placate” me in the slightest; in fact, I would be AGAINST such a practice.</p>
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<p>I don’t know why, fab, you believe that all replies are addressed to you personally, or to your posts, but they are not. I did not quote you, so why should you assume that? I don’t recall your particularly arguing that Asians should be admitted because they (uniquely? comparatively?) “work hard,” but at least two posters here have asserted or implied that Asians work hard in contradistinction to other groups, and that “therefore” they should be admitted, and/or that any particular Asian’s rejection to X university is supposedly a punishment (negative action) for working hard. Absurd.</p>
<p>It’s racist and myopic. There is no such thing as an absolute standard of admission. It may seem like it to some people (that donors, or URM’s, “always” get in by virtue of their category), but even that is not true. If two equally rich donor families have differently achieving students, and the college has plenty of other past/current/future donors are on its likely admit list, guess which one of said 2 families is getting in? </p>
<p>Those who continue to look at the horizon line from the vantage point of the student (regardless of that student’s personal origins) fail to see how things operate in college admissions. Again, the college is the buyer, with an oversupply of talent from multiple racial, ethnic, geographic, economic, field-of-study groups. So the universities are going to choose the smorgasbord which they believe this particular year works best for that institution’s priorities this year, including enrollment objectives for particular departments, admission objectives for socioeconomic & geographic factors, etc. It’s a significant power imbalance. But what makes it more complex, and intensifies the self-interest component on the university’s part, is that it is competitive with peer universities. You have no idea how they don’t want brilliant student X going to competing U across the river, next state over. So they have to gamble just like a truly smart student does. They have to consider who might go to that competitor, and make offers of admission accordingly. They’re not so stupid as to ignore talent, regardless of personal origins, merely for the sake of a balanced class. </p>
<p>Anyone can continue to believe that there’s not an oversupply of fine students (especially those applying to a small subset of fine universities), but it’s your own problem if you’re going to continue to argue from a model that does not exist, as opposed to the model that does exist.</p>
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<p>Please allow me to direct your attention to my post #1100, where I wrote</p>
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<p>It would appear that you have done exactly as I claimed: you pretend I disagree with you here when I do not.</p>
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Half of admissions is based at least in part on inborn traits we cannot alter. To be consistent we’d have to normalize SAT scores and GPA based on innate intelligence.</p>
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<p>I think it’s easy to say that, now, from the perspective of sixty years of active civil rights activity. But, believe me, forty years ago, when AA (or, “preferential treatment” as it was called in its first incarnation) was first introduced “black” was an objectively verifiable “background” and everybody knew it.</p>
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<p>Is there evidence that a university president is instructing his adcom (or the adcom is taking it upon themselves) to explicitly lower the % of Asians because the institute “cannot survive” unless it remains lily-white-WASP? Odd, you’d think that the same people who are allegedly prejudiced against Asians wouldn’t exactly be clamoring to increase black and Hispanic representation either. </p>
<p>Is there evidence that a university is saying that they desire to cut the % of Asians because there is anti-Asian sentiment on campus and more Asians = more anti-Asian sentiment? Or would today’s university president seek to address / root out an anti-Asian (or anti-anybody) sentiment on campus? </p>
<p>The fact that you repeatedly draw parallels between two non-parallel situations, and that you fail to understand the distinction between “let’s try to add even more diversity” (today) and “let’s target one group and limit them” (the olden days) is amazing. </p>
<p>Yes, there is likely a thumb on the scale towards URM"s, and yes, maybe it should be more finely directed to lower socioeconomic status URM’s than to rewarding the son-of-two-black-physicians. But this has not come at any major cost to Asian presence at elite universities, where they are already well represented both relative to applicants and to overall presence in the population. There is zero evidence that any elite university engages in the overt quota-ing that describes the Lowell / Harvard era. </p>
<p>It is not an elite u’s fault that far more qualified applicants than they can handle apply and they have the luxury of choosing from a lot more diversity than in years past. And it’s not a good reflection of a culture not to value the benefits of offering a helping hand to underrepresented groups on campus.</p>
<p>Fabrizio, you did not answer my question. Never in this thread have you, or anyone else, given statistics that show that the acceptance rate of Asians is less than, greater than or equal to that of whites, Hispanics or any other group. (except for legacies; there are published stats to show that the legacy acceptance rate is higher)</p>
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<p>I have consistently sought to point out posts that would not have been made had the “group” in question been Jews and not Asians. xiggi’s was but one of many.</p>
<p>As for “fail[ing] to understand,” again, you do not extend me a courtesy I have extended you. You draw a distinction between “positive” and “negative” discrimination; I do not. I do not call your position “wrong,” as I instead call our divide a fundamental disagreement. You, on the other hand, have called my position a “straw man” and have castigated me for “fail[ing] to understand the distinction.” In other words, you do not respect that we have a fundamental disagreement; you are right, and if I don’t see it that way, I am wrong.</p>
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<p>Likely? How about just plain “is”?</p>
<p>As for “offering a helping hand,” my my my, how patronizing.</p>
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<p>The one piece of data - the MIT data - DOES show that the acceptance rate, for that given year, for Asians was HIGHER than the overall acceptance rate. It doesn’t show WHAT the rate was, but it’s irrelevant whether the base rate was 5%, 10%, 15% or 20% … the bottom line is, if Asians are 26% of an app pool and 30% of an admitted pool, their acceptance rate is above average compared to the whole. This is about as uncontroversial as concluding that if x+y=z, then z-y=x.</p>
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<p>Let’s use the logic of several posters here:</p>
<p>Observation - In 2010-2011, Asians made up 26% of the applicants but 30% of the admits. </p>
<p>Conclusion - Asians were not discriminated against in admission.</p>
<p>According to MITChris, "URM"s made up 19% of the applicants but 24% of the admits. Let’s re-apply that logic to conclude that "URM"s were not discriminated against in admission.</p>
<p>Well, gee, isn’t that what we want? We don’t want discrimination against "URM"s in the process, and it looks like we don’t have it (at MIT for that year).</p>
<p>Why do racial preferences continue to exist then? Oh, because without it, "URM"s might make up less than 19% of the admits? Well, why would it be possible for them to make up less than 19% of the admits? How about…because there are too many qualified applicants!</p>
<p>Oh, but that would make too much sense, and plus it would take the thunder away from Pizzagirl and epiphany, who love to be the only people who can say “oversupply.”</p>
<p>Couldn’t stay away :)</p>
<p>Just being devil’s advocate here…PG</p>
<p>What if…that 26% Asian applicant pool IS more qualified than the rest. Then they SHOULD be accepted at a higher rate. This statistic doesn’t prove anything. Perhaps the actual rate would have been 35% if they hadn’t had to compete against other Asians.</p>
<p>“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>And this is where I always end up crawling out from under my rock. I am not going to deny there are “clearly less stellar, and maybe even affluent blacks” getting into A pick (not sure about THEIR pick), I think the anectdotal nature of such reports GREATLY exagerate how often this is really happening. Yes, I know Fab, that you believe even one such student is too many, and that even one such student does a serious disservice to all memebrs of that race. But in MY mind ( granted, a mind that filters for information important to me), this is such a rare event, it behooves me to think we can all benefit from learning more about these kids, because I don’t think we know enough about them.</p>
<p>Excuse any typos, etc…I have to get back to helping folks in REAL life!</p>
<p>Yes, you’re right, soomoo. What if. So if that’s your hypothesis — which is a reasonable one – prove it. Give me something to suggest that the “real” rate of qualification should have been higher but was artificially dampened. How, precisely, do you know that the unadmitted Asians were indeed “more qualified” than the unadmitted whites, etc.? Or is that just a common belief, that you want to believe it to be so?</p>
<p>How are you defining qualified? Psst … if you try to do it using SAT scores, that isn’t going to work, because the colleges themselves tell you they don’t much care if you’re a 2400 or a 2300. You may wish they cared, because doing so might (might) increase Asian representation, but point of fact is right now it’s not dispositive.</p>
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<p>Fabrizio, I knew this would happen, which is why I never bothered to pay too much attention to this thread until now and that’s because, you could have made this thread a lot shorter and a lot less complicated if you would have said from the beginning that you thought ANY consideration of race in admissions was immoral and left it at that. If that’s your position then no amount of data from MIT or Yale or any other adcom is going to persuade you. Nor should it.</p>
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<p>I did think I was accurately parsing your position. Which part of what I wrote does not reflect your position? And could you please state your position in a sentence or two so I can understand it better. Thank you.</p>
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<p>You know, it’s funny. Reading xiggi’s posts left me the impression that he believes that if the elites cared more about the SAT than they already do, WHITES would benefit the most, not Asians, since according to him, far more whites score >= 700 on the verbal section than do Asians, and somehow, highly selective institutions place a lot of weight on the verbal section.</p>
<p>I don’t see you going after him. Do I interpret your silence as agreeing with him?</p>