<p>Unlike NSM, I happen to believe that the student suing is both misinformed & arrogant. But certainly many posters, here, given the overblown rhetoric, the inappropriate comparisons, & the appalling misunderstanding of American principles of opportunity, of legality, and of "rights," are more than a little misinformed themselves. There is no "Wall" -- in case this is an implied metaphor. The previous <em>consistent</em> exclusion of Jews AS A GROUP from places like the Ivy League was an example of ethnic discrimination. Nothing similar is even vaguely happening now, with Asians.</p>
<p>And yes, as NSM, & as I've said, the colleges, not the students, not the students' parents, have every legal & moral right to choose a class reflecting a broad spectrum of the nation's landscape. In fact, the complaining Asians on CC are arguing for less diversity in the nation's top colleges, not more.</p>
<p>Some of you should think very carefully about whether you are importing attitudes, practices, expectations from your own cultures (projected through your parents), and expecting universities in this country to adopt your world view. Ain't goin' to happen. The admissions process reflects American principles, not Chinese, Korean, Indian, Japanese.</p>
<p>He got rejected from Harvard, Stanford, Penn. and Princeton. Why isn't he suing Harvard, Stanford, Penn and PRinceton? Someone with a lower stat must have got in.. Maybe he wrote pretty crappy essays or made some stupid mistakes in the admission process.</p>
<p>"He ultimately focused his complaint against Princeton after reading a 2004 study by three Princeton researchers concluding that an Asian-American applicant needed to score 50 points higher on the SAT than other applicants to have the same change of admission to an elite university."</p>
<p>Sorry about my previous post- i didn't think about possible copyright infringement.</p>
<p>maybe he was lucky he got into the other schools...."misinformed" did someone tell him, oh yo will get in everywhere? sue that person</p>
<p>and if someone with a lower SAT did get it, who cares? maybe that person wrote amazing essays and had a decent personallity....</p>
<p>I still say this kid is arrogant and thinks he deserves it all because he #s are good....those people I find particularly annoying-not for the numbers, but if that attitude goes along with it</p>
<p>jsut wish Yale had rejected him too, as he is only suing one school, yet he was rejecccted at many other place, Princeton has a good chance of winning this one, they weren't the only ones to see fault</p>
<p>"The admissions process reflects American principles, not Chinese, Korean, Indian, Japanese."</p>
<p>Very true. It's hard, though, for people who are brought up in a different system to realize that the way that they got ahead at home -- by doing very well on tests -- isn't what will allow their kids to be guaranteed entrance into the best U.S. colleges.</p>
<p>The student's law suit makes the student seem unsophisticated, arrogant and silly. Unfortunately for the student, that law suit probably will follow him around for years, making it difficult for him to gain entrance into grad or professional schools because he'll seem like an arrogant malcontent who's not a team player even though what he really is is uninformed.</p>
<p>I agree with the gist of your post but saying:</p>
<p>"Embarrassing yourself, not to mention knowingly, willingly, and intentionally, acting solely to defame and indemnify the name and ethics of a well-respected top-ranked college in the United States of America, Princeton, is not only immature, its firsthand evidence that the kid did not belong there and probably would not have done well with an attitude and immaturity."</p>
<p>is going a little too far. You don't know if he did want to "defame and indemnify" Princeton or not. Just because a college is well respected now, doesn't mean it SHOULD be.</p>
<p>
[quote]
jsut wish Yale had rejected him too, as he is only suing one school, yet he was rejecccted at many other place, Princeton has a good chance of winning this one, they weren't the only ones to see fault
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Did you read the excerpt? </p>
<p>
[quote]
"He ultimately focused his complaint against Princeton after reading a 2004 study by three Princeton researchers concluding that an Asian-American applicant needed to score 50 points higher on the SAT than other applicants to have the same change of admission to an elite university."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
** The study, by the Center for Equal Opportunity, in Virginia, found that Asian applicants admitted to the University of Michigan in 2005 had a median SAT score of 1400 on the 400-1600 scale then in use. That was 50 points higher than the median score of white students who were accepted, 140 points higher than that of Hispanics and 240 points higher than that of blacks.**
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</p>
<p>
[quote]
Asian-American enrollment at Berkeley has increased since California voters banned affirmative action in college admissions. Berkeley accepted 4,122 Asian-American applicants for this fall's freshman class -- nearly 42% of the total admitted. That is up from 2,925 in 1997, or 34.6%, the last year before the ban took effect. Similarly, Asian-American undergraduate enrollment at the University of Washington rose to 25.4% in 2004 from 22.1% in 1998, when voters in that state prohibited affirmative action in college admissions.</p>
<p>The University of Michigan may be poised for a similar leap in Asian-American enrollment, now that voters in that state have banned affirmative action.** The Center for Equal Opportunity study found that, among applicants with a 1240 SAT score and 3.2 grade point average in 2005, the university admitted 10% of Asian-Americans, 14% of whites, 88% of Hispanics and 92% of blacks. Asian applicants to the university's medical school also faced a higher admissions bar than any other group.**
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</p>
<p>He is NOT being arrogant if other groups are alleging the same thing and have the data to back it up.</p>
<p>The problem is, though, that one can make a stats-based case at public universities because such universities overwhelmingly make admissions decisions based on stats -- gpa, scores, class rank and perhaps courseload.</p>
<p>One can't make that case at top private universities -- which have an overabundance of high stat applicants, so are able to choose applicants based on creating a well rounded class reflecting all kinds of diversity. Also, a big part of the appeal of places like Harvard is the fact that there are student-run organizations reflecting all sorts of interests. Similarly, the college has strong students in a variety of majors including very obscure ones.</p>
<p>Places like Harvard have an overabundance of applicants who want to be doctors, who have 800s in math, and who were very active in organizations like NHS and Mu Alpha Theta, and who are classical musicians. Asians also are overrepresented in such applicants. Asians also are at a disadvantage because often they pick their majors and voacations not out of personal interests, but because of pressure from their parents. That also hurts them in admissions because they present differently than do students who are, for instance, planning to be premed because of a passion about medicine. </p>
<p>Consequently, the applicants with lower scores who are artists, punk rock musicians, want to major in the humanities, are interested in careers like secondary school teachers, the ministry, and social work or who did major community service (referring here to impact, not lots of hours doing random activities with no leadership) are at a premium and will be highly desired. Asians with such backgrounds would be very desired, but, unfortunately for them, most Asians are in the most abundant categories of applicants when it comes to ECs and vocational interests.</p>
<p>Places like Harvard and Princeton are not going to select classes that are 90% students who are classical msician/ biochem majors with sky high scores who plan to be doctors.</p>
<p>Caucasians and Asians have paid a high penalty for "diversity" programs, it's just that Asians have paid a bit higher price - therefore there is some substance to these concerns</p>
<p>"Caucasians and Asians have paid a high penalty for "diversity" programs,"</p>
<p>Whatever the price, it pales before the price that African Americans in particular have paid from being legally excluded for hundreds of years from probably most of the colleges in the country, including Princeton, which didn't admit blacks until about 1945.</p>
<p>The impact of this still affects African Americans in terms of their having an insiders' knowledge about such colleges (including their admissions practices), having legacy tips, etc.</p>
<p>Add to that the negative impact of the fact that by law probably most African Americans were in inferior secondary/elementary schools until at least 1965. They even had shortened school years in Fla. until the 1940s when black parents successfully sued to get their kids' school years extended from 6 months to the about 10 months a year that white students attended.</p>
<p>No, they have not "paid a higher price." They simply have more unrealisitic expectations: they have invested more without calculating the likely outcomes. Overall, Caucasians with the same level of qualifications are more willing to diversify their college lists to include realistic matches & safeties & in a broader geographical range. (Overall)</p>
<p>dcfca:
I appreciate your inclusion of these excerpts. However, the problem with the "study" is that correlations do not equal causation. Thus, the study was, from a scientific viewpoint, flawed. To conclude that Asians "needed" a 200+ point test score cannot be determined from the fact that those accepted possessed such a test score. (Same for Caucasians) And it's been shown in recent admissions cycles that Asians without "top" scores but with something unusual/different in their profile, are also often favored for admission -- vs. an Asian possibly from the same school or region without such unusual aspects. Again, admissions is partly, though not wholly, about diversity in many areas -- culturally, racially, geographically, specialty e.c.'s, academic emphases, content of essays, content of personal statements, etc.</p>
<p>The student suing has no legal leg to stand on. He will get nowhere with this.</p>
<p>"The student suing has no legal leg to stand on. "</p>
<p>Agreed.</p>
<p>"He will get nowhere with this."</p>
<p>Oh, he'll get somewhere. Unfortunately, due to the attention that he's getting now, where he'll get is to a less highly ranked grad or professional school than his grades, scores might be expected to help him attain.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, perhaps your sentence saying "He will get nowhere with this" is true. Just matters how one looks at "nowhere."</p>
<p>NSM, your last post is spot on, as they say. Pales in comparison, indeed. And Asians within a strong middle class background (as opposed to a recent impoverished immigrant from Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.) enjoy rich elementary & secondary education options, overall, compared to African Americans, overall. The poorer public schools are overwhelmingly made up of 2 groups: Latinos (esp. 1st generation) & African Americans. In the larger urban metro regions such as SF, LA, etc., you will see some recent Asian immigrants not yet well-established in business, etc. But even then, they tend to be the minority. And those majority A'An's & Latinos exist even in the charter schools, btw.</p>
<p>I think the poster that says that a non stereotypical Asian applicant with lower stats will get into top colleges before the 2400 guy is correct. Asians are making a lot of mistakes in the US admission process because many of their parents don't understand it and push them to do the things that would get them into top colleges in Asia. Just read these boards to see how the adcoms must feel reading application after application that look almost identical.</p>
<p>Also, as an adcom, I would immediately throw away any application where the candidate took an SATII in his native language! Why is this insultingly silly practice so common?</p>
<p>Asians are as wll represented at non state schools as we can ever expect to be. I'm actually surprised the percentage is as high as it is given the percentage in the overall population. Schools have a right and a need to maintain diversity in the interest of all. </p>
<p>As the global perspective continues to grow and more and more internationals apply to top schools, it will get even harder for Asian Americans at them and the list of acceptable schools will grow.</p>
<p>If top schools became overwhelmingly Asian, they would lose prestige and be seen as Asian schools like some of the UCs now are, making others lose interest. America would have a whole new set of "in" colleges.</p>
<p>I'm also wondering what his essays and interviews were like. If he blew off essays and interviews because he assumed that his high scores made him a lock on admissions, that would have been reason enough to reject him.</p>
<p>A Harvard alumna who handles the alum interviews for a region in a major state told me about a 1600 (old) SAT scorer who also was a state beauty queen who was rejected by Harvard. Why? A big reason was probably that she blew her interview by acting like because of her scores and title, she'd be God's gift to the university. People who blow off interviews aren't likely to get in no matter how great their scores are. There are plenty of other outstanding students who have more to offer than an attitude problem and great scores and grades.</p>
<p>"Whatever the price, it pales before the price that African Americans in particular have paid from being legally excluded for hundreds of years from probably most of the colleges in the country"</p>
<p>Ok so blacks applying from outside the United States, recent black immigrants from other countries, or those with family histories in the United States of less than (let us say) 30 years - will not be covered by affirmative action?</p>
<p>"Ok so blacks applying from outside the United States, recent black immigrants from other countries, or those with family histories in the United States of less than (let us say) 30 years - will not be covered by affirmative action?"</p>
<p>Many colleges are trying to avoid giving undeserved race-based admission tips to the above students, who were not impacted by the U.S.'s segregation policies. This has been mentioned in posts on CC that cite articles that have appeared in newspapers like the NY Times.</p>
<p>^^^ Is that a good idea? Isn't it important to have black students (no matter the country of origin) on the campus from a diversity point of view? They could be catalysts/inspiration for local blacks to aspire for good college education.</p>
<p>Yes, NSM (post #36, I think). And it's also just as applicable to the UC's. I'll repeat my example I've given elsewhere from 2 admissions cycles ago, of an applicant who blew off his essay to Berkeley because he believed his high scores/grades would make him an auto-admit. His essay was posted on the internet. It was smug & showed a boredom with the process. U.C. hated his attitude. He was rejected, but others with somewhat lower scores & a thoughtful sincere essay were accepted; those applicants also had some unusual e.c.'s, & several had overcome significant personal/economic challenges. It's not just HYP that wants character, as you know. The publics want character, too, & they will use the application materials to look for such depth of character. You know, concepts like humility, and (as another poster correctly noted), being a team player vs. an egomaniac; concepts like understanding what a University's mission is -- which is way beyond any student's individual goals.</p>
<p>I called no one on this board an egomaniac. Just note that. But a student can appear quite self-centered by virtue of a lack of interest in an essay, etc.</p>