Asian-Americans Suing Harvard Say Admissions Files Show Discrimination

" I think it’s an issue of fundamental fairness. Asian-Americans shouldn’t have an easier, or a more difficult, time getting into Harvard than anybody else. Neither should any other American, regardless of his or her background."

It is also an issue of fundamental fairness to the schools too. A school has a reason to want to be as diversified as possible. A few analogies could be: Pandas are cute, but if a zoo has only stock of pandas, then it is no longer a zoo, but a panda conservation, and could be a turn off for people want to see animals more than just panda. Another one would even though, Facebook, Google, Amazon are all good stocks, but a wiser investor would want to hold more than just these hot stocks, but some boring stocks, such as oil, utility, unilever kind of stocks to prevent down turn, hedging reasons… So why a well know school want to have high concentration of its student population from any particular background. Even Harvard increases its Asian-Americans student acceptance rate by 20 from current, there would still thousands upon thousands of highly qualified Asians with high states being rejected.

“What was that Martin Luther King said about judging a man based on the content of his character?”
What about majority of colleges and universities would want to say to these Asian-American students and their parents? Probably don’t judge our quality of education by just our ranking. Indeed, the country is made strong by average Americans (& small businesses), not the elite group (or just the S&P 500s).

from an Asian parent.

Who’s talking about releasing essays? Just release the AO’s comments about the essays and how their scores were factored into the overall decision. How would that compromise an applicant’s privacy?

College Admission Officers use a one-page sheet called a “reader card” that summarizes a student’s GPA, test scores, academic Index, ethnicity, zip code, parent education and occupations, along with notes made from AO’s about the student’s essays, teacher and GC recommendations and interview report. For example, in this video from Amherst, the AO’s keep referring to their yellow “reader cards” that contain the pertinent information about each applicant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-OLlJUXwKU

Those “reader cards” are the documents the plaintiffs are referring to and want released.

Any Harvard applicant files you would most want to see made public.

Better get the popcorn!

The link- https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/06/trump-administration-seeks-to-open-harvard-admission-files-470185

@gibby Thank you for the clarification on the document(s) in question for release.

I would still not want that information released publically, in fact, even less so if it contained someone’s (AO) personal opinion of me or my essay/interview results/recommendation. Suppose an AO made a note like…pretentious jerk, or immature or Einstein, but no people skills. It would certainly be easy enough for someone to connect the dots with all the other information on a reader card and pinpoint someones identity. There would habe to be quite a bit of redaction and by the time it had been redacted enough the reader card would be of little use.

@labegg Precisely. You’d have to redact so much personal information from people the entire point of this would become useless.

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How about an agenda of transparency so students know just what they are up against? Don’t they deserve that when sending in their application fee? What criteria are being used to assess them as fitting?

Many colleges already provide that as much as they can and you’ll find it on their websites. It’s an art not a science at schools with holistic admissions. Needs vary from year to year, chances vary depending on that year’s competition and what other applicants have to offer. Providing stats wouldn’t make it more transparent for a given applicant in a given year. Plus, many stats are already available via Common Data Sets.

What’s next? All employers must lay out the info on their hiring decisions as well?

No, for an application and a $75 fee I don’t think one is owed an inside, detailed look into how the sausage is made. One can always choose not to apply to schools that place emphasis on holistic measures if it bothers them.

Why do I get the feeling that the NA URMs are going to get hit in all of this? Hoping for some help with NA Lawyers to help the past and present Harvard students. It’s numbers and NAs are going to get hit again! Please tell me my gut is wrong somebody!

Not talking about stats. It’s time for colleges to come clean, and stop hiding behind the skirt of “holistic” admissions IF they have quotas for certain students. And yeh, whether it’s 75 cents or 75 or 175 dollars, students have the right to know if there are quotas and then they can decide whether they should save their hard earned dollars and look elsewhere for their opportunity.

I think for parents and kids, it is better college tell to kids upfront, ask kids not apply as kids have no chance whatsoevr. However, college wants to drive their selectivity down, they are not truthful and keep sending lottery tickets mail. I think it will be business as usual in the end, nothing is gonna change even after the lawsuits. I am glad this lawsuit is there though.

A thought on the M.L. King phrase discussed in this thread-- ‘judging a man on the content of his character’ is what Harvard is doing already- his/her whole character . It is not judging a man on the content of his SAT scores.

Test scores and GPAs do not reveal the measure of character. They most-often reveal the hours of test-prep classes, private tutoring, and multiple test-taking. Such memorization does not foster creativity, teamwork, grit, courage and resilience, qualities necessary for life success.

@fauve If a kid is devoting 20 hours in extracurricular activities during school year, 40 hours in summer per week for 10 weeks, besides maintaing almost perfect GPA and hardest course load in a damn good high school that has very tough high standards. When Kids have time for SAT test prep and most important money to do so? Then college are saying these types of kids are dime a dozen. If this work load does not show creativity, grit, courage, resilience, then I guess it is a game against kids who are middle class kids who need $$$$$.

I would have no problem judging a man on his whole character and not just on SAT scores, it’s judging a man (or woman) on what they look like that bothers me.

@infinityprep1234 – I think Harvard does indeed prefer the students who do the huge hours of ECs over those that concentrate on test-prep and private tutors. My point is that the ECs, or paying jobs, the middle-class kids undertake do build the character qualities Ivys are looking for.

Unfortunately, there is not space for every such student at the private colleges. UCs, yes-if you’re Californian. But private schools get to choose their own criteria, for now at least.

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/2006/05/15/keys-to-the-kingdom/

Given the above description of how Admissions reads a file AND the fact the plaintiffs say the documents are so compelling that there is no need for a trial, my guess is that the “reader cards” contain specific phrases which might have negative racial and/or ethnic undertones. For example, if a preponderance of “reader cards” for students who checked the Asian box had a dismissive note such as "“AAD” or “Another Asian Drone” on them, and there were no such phrase for white students, that would indicate a preference for perfect white students, but not perfect Asian students. If that were the case, an entire “reader card” could be redacted except for the ethnicity questions, and it would become clear that a pattern of racial preference was occurring. Of course, this is all conjecture on my part, so we’ll have to wait on the judge’s ruling.

If any of the data is ever released, what will be interesting to see beyond the stat’s (don’t think we will see any surprise here with median scores of accepted ORM’s materially higher than URM’s) are possible patterns and correlations related to the more subjective measures that make up holistic admissions. For example, do a preponderance of Asian applicants with high stat’s but who were rejected also have similar backgrounds, EC’s/types of achievements as other Asians that fit the familiar stereotype, e.g. middle to upper income families, academic and individually focused EC’s like math/science teams and awards, piano, violin, tennis, etc… which would support a narrative that these decisions were holistically based. Or, were there high numbers of high stats rejected Asians who come from lower income families, have leadership or play significant roles in group/team/community based EC’s (student government, team sports, charities/service). Further, was there a pattern of different adjectives/assessment applied to candidates with similar EC’s and accomplishments based on race. The latter two examples could be problematical for Harvard, more akin to the Ivy’s historical exclusion of Jews.

“the fact the plaintiffs say the documents are so compelling that there is no need for a trial”

Why would a plaintiff not make such a claim? I wouldn’t put much weight into that.

this goes way beyond one school.

there is systematic institutionalized racism in admissions against Asians.

code words used such as “character” or “holistic” are just rationalizations used to justify this discrimination.

Asians have to score 140 points higher in SATS than white counterparts for the same chances of admission to selective universities. the delta with other minority groups is even higher.

Sounds like they’re merely planning to file a motion for summary judgment. There is nothing unusual or uncommon about that.