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Certain people have trouble believing that people can overachieve in areas other than GPA or test scores. No comment.
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<p>Then why was the group that ended up seeing a decrease in admissions Asian students from lower socio-economic backgrounds who tend to have lower scores than Asian (or white) students from more affluent backgrounds?</p>
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In any event, I'm not sure whether or not I'd characterize this as discrimination against Asian Americans since they are already grossly overrepresented in the UC system. Asian Americans only make up 12% of the California state population. However, they make up 42% of the undergrad student body at Berkeley and 38% of the body at UCLA. All of the UC campuses -- Davis, Irvine, Riverside, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Merced -- have overrepresentation where Asian Americans make up at least 25% of the student body. At Irvine, Asian American students make up 54% of the student body.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, white students are underrepresented, and other minority groups are even more disadvantaged. UC-Berkeley is only 3% black, which is much worse than the 7-9% average at other elite private schools across the nation. UCLA is 5% black. Note that the California state population is 6% black, so UCLA is about on par with that. Moreover, although Latinos make up 36% of the CA state population, Berkeley is only 11% Latino and UCLA is only 16% Latino.
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<p>It doesn't matter that Asians are "overrepresented" - what matters is whether Asian applicants are judged upon the same criteria (and it appears that Asian students of lower socio-economic backgrounds are not).</p>
<p>I really have no problem w/ the UC system trying to get more black students into its student body as long as it does so on a fair basis.</p>
<p>If the UC system deems socio-economic background a key criteria (making up for lesser grades/scores) - that's all fine if they apply such a standard across the board.</p>
<p>But they don't. </p>
<p>Asian applicants from lower socio-economic backgrounds (mind you, these students tend to come from ethnic enclaves/ghettos and thus have much more ties w/ their cultural background - so much for "diversity") are the ones who have paid the price.</p>
<p>It's one thing if the UC system offset the increased no. of black students by reducing the no. of Asian and white students from more prosperous socio-economic backgrounds, but they didn't since they are the groups w/ the highest test scores/grades and they can't "damage" the overall academic standing of the schools.</p>
<p>Really, this is no diff. from Ivy League schools trying to defend the high nos. of black students who are immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean in comparison to black American students whose families have lived in the US for generations.</p>
<p>The term "diversity" is used as an easy "justification", but in reality, it's just the admissions boards trying to ensure a certain amount of "diversity" while trying to ensure a class w/ the highest gpas and scores.</p>
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I'm not trying to protect a white "minority" -- I was simply pointing out that white students are underrepresented at University of California system schools, which they are.
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<p>So?</p>
<p>Non-Jewish white students are underrepresented at most of the Ivies (particularly, Harvard, Yale, Penn and Columbia).</p>
<p>Otoh, Princeton is reputed to have the most "holistic" admissions standard of the Ivy schools and the % of Jewish students is significantly lower than that of the other Ivies (other than maybe Dartmouth).</p>