College Campuses Too Asian?

Parents Forum
141

<p>This is an example how using partial data can be misleading:</p>

<p>Golden writes, "In 1990, federal investigators concluded that UCLA's graduate department in mathematics had discriminated against Asian applicants."</p>

<p>Well, that was true in ... 1990. But was it true upon further examination?</p>

<p>
[quote]
University of California at Los Angeles Graduate Schools </p>

<p>In January 1988, OCR regional staff began a compliance review of
admissions practices of all 84 departments with graduate programs at the
UCLA. UCLA was targeted because preliminary information indicated that
although UCLA had a large number of Asian-American applicants, the
overall admission rate for Asian-Americans was lower than the overall rate
for whites in many programs and because the Department of Justice had
received a number of inquiries concerning the University of California
system.</p>

<p>In its LOF of October 1, 1990, OCR found UCLA in violation of title VI of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 because of its admissions practices for the
graduate Mathematics Department. In particular, OCR found that the
department had discriminated against five Asian-American applicants
who, if provided equal treatment under admissions standards articulated
by the department, should have been accepted. OCR deemed UCLA’s three
different explanations of admissions decisions given over more than a year
to be pretext for discrimination.</p>

<p>UCLA disagreed with OCR’s findings. UCLA asserted that OCR (l)
misunderstood the department’s initial evaluation rating system, which
was just a recommendation to the vice-chair, and (2) failed to interview
the vice-chair who actually made the admissions decisions but was on
sabbatical when OCR first visited the Mathematics Department in 1989 and
1990. UCLA expanded the statistical analysis and produced statistics
showing no difference in admission rates for whites and Asian-Americans
for numerical applications when they were grouped with ratings of “3.0
and above” and “below 3.0.” OCR had limited its comparison to a group of
whites who had been admitted and a group of Asian-Americans who had
been denied admission. In UCLA’s expanded group comparison, UCLA
showed that there were 22 white applicants in the same rating range (that
is, ratings of 2.4 and above) as the three OCR-identified Asian-Americans
who were denied admission based on the use of the same criteria. UCLA
maintained that three admitted whites in that group had substantially
higher academic qualifications than the three rejected Asian-Americans
OCR identified.</p>

<p>*The supplemental investigation showed that OCR had not fully understood
the criteria it was given by UCLA officials in September 1990. *
The regional office found at the outset that it had received the wrong
information from university and Mathematics Department officials. In
reexamining files and expanding the examination to files of lower ranked
Asian-Americans admitted, *OCR found that lower ranked Asian-Americans
also benefited from the application of subjective admissions criteria. *</p>

<p>Further review showed only two possible examples of discrimination. Both of these involved students within the range of white applicants
admitted and white applicants rejected. Both cases of possible
discrimination were vulnerable to being rejected, one because the
applicant had a lower quantitative Graduate Record Examination (GRE)
score by a substantial degree than anyone admitted and the other because
the applicant had a combination of low GRE scores, a degree from an
unknown school, and a stated interest in obtaining a certified public
accountant license, a career goal outside mathematics.</p>

<p>The regional office submitted a revised investigative report to
headquarters on July 23, 1991, in which it concluded that UCLA’s
Mathematics Department was not in violation of title VI and recommended
the withdrawal of the violation LOF. On December 26, 1991, the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Policy concurred and suggested revisions of the
draft investigative report to the regional office. The next 20 months were
spent by the regional office and headquarters exchanging drafts of the
revised LOF.</p>

<p>*On August 8, 1993, OCR issued a revised LOF concerning the Mathematics
Department. It stated that because of new evidence, OCR had revised its
original findings and no violation had been found to have occurred. *

[/quote]
</p>

142

<p>Mini, Tolstoy would love your line. It is probably harder to explain away the flaws and failures in college admission than marriage and adultory.</p>

143

<p>I decided to google to see if I could find a blog post somewhere with the text of the message from that winter holiday card MIT sends to EA accepted students with the snowflake on it.</p>

<p>I found it--the message on the card is short and sweet: "No two alike."</p>

<p>The wording is painfully ironic for those rejected applicants dismissively characterized as looking like a thousand other applicants.</p>

<p><a href="http://her-own-eyes.org/archives/2004/12/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://her-own-eyes.org/archives/2004/12/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

144

<p>No two alike? Isn't that message more consistent with their stated reluctance to accept Stepford children than ironical?</p>

145

<p>padad. Guess you think there is bias....That Asian kids are denied spaces because they are Asian and those spaces are given to kids who are just like your kids, give or take, except their ethnicity. If that is true I apologize for that characteristic of America. </p>

<p>Now I ask you - what do you tell your kids? What do you tell them to do about it? What do you ask those of us who are the Anglo majority to say or do? How to think about this? Is it the same as how the blacks and Jews suffered? Do Asians take the paths of either of those groups? Where do Asians who are righteously indignant gather? Where is the manifesto? Or do you leave the prejudice in place and get redress in other ways?</p>

<p>My tongue is not in my cheek. First prejudices have to be found out. Then acknowledged. Then addressed, both in the prejudiced community and the community facing prejudice.</p>

<p>If this is true, now what?</p>

146

<p>adultery not adultory of course</p>

147

<p>Mr. Bandit:</p>

<p>I am not smoking or trying to put any word in your mouth. Let us see: I heard on NPR that in an African country has a population (I believe Swaziland- I could be wrong) about six million people. There are only 130 doctors. Many diseases ravage the poor country. It is not that entire country just produced only 130 doctors. But many physicians left the country to find better opportunity. Similarly, many highly qualified people left under bran drain to look for better opportunity. Everyone knows the people who are still in this great country need help they can have. However, no one can stop anyone from emigrating. I am also a part of the group although from Asia and I can not blame anyone when I am doing same thing. People who have resources or have skills tends to apply to places where they think they have a chance. </p>

<p>So if an Asian kid who has necessary scores tend to think to apply to his or her dream. Now college has their priority and they can not take all the kids. I understand this part. But my problem start with statement when people start paining Asian parents as monsters who beat their children to make sure that they only dream about HYP and everything is beneath it. I feel bad that that most of these statements are coming from people who are educated. I feel many of the people could have (Not all of them) benefited from URM policies that college shower on people who lack resources or whatever thing college claim. For that reason, I did put this comment that if quota system is placed it is wrong. </p>

<p>I feel Asian parents are pictured as soulless people. Asian kids are depicted as prestige whore. I am going to ask you a simple question, if your own kid did have scores, did not you support her decision to try her best. Would you and your kid should be blames that you are prestige monger and soulless and bad parent. Colleges are private institutions and have a right to do whatever they do as long as policies are not openly discriminatory as defined by Alumother.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]
If this is true, who is taking the place of these highly academically qualified Asian students? If it is kids of other ethnicities who exactly match the profile of the highly academically qualified Asian students, that is racism pure and simple. But if the kids who are taking their places are 1) Recruited athletes 2) Kids with more financial resources 3) Kids with different profiles, i.e. other extra-curricular, public service, athletics, then that is more embedded if you will, more due to cultural differences and institutional preferences that favor those of European descent who have been in the US long enough to accumulate resources and follow a pattern of behavior that is valued.

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>Since when in land of dreams it is bad to dream. AT least it is better to try your best then selling drugs or committing crime or killing other people. Since when focusing on education is a problem. Why every parent wants what is best for his or her kids but if an Asian parent dream about it, it is children torture. </p>

<p>Why do I talk to you, [BOLD] never once you did mention the operator that blaming Asian parent is wrong? [/BOLD] And trying to apply and dreaming and working towards the kids goal is right. Instead of that, you start attacking my theories. I would have appreciated if you have put a balanced view. If you have done these thing and I missed, then I apologies in advance. Think about it. Instead of taking one liner try to read whole thread. I am sure you personally do not hold that view that all Asians are monsters. If so, tell an ill-informed person that Asian yellow parents are not monsters whose kids apply to thier dream school. If so then other parents who are black, brown, white or any other color parents are not monsters either just by being dreaming about something. I am not saying even remotely that you are racist. But like so many other parents have oppsed the operator you did not oppose once the operators view. Show me that you did that once you did say in this thread which is mostly racist in balming asian parents.</p>

<p>I feel many people call asian racist if they question admssion prcatice but other can label asian presitge whroes.</p>

148

<p>That's a real gem</p>

<p>"Holistic" based admissions policies </p>

<p>Gee lets take the "whole person" (for certain applicants that is) into account, subjective factors that the AD COM decides matter for each applicant on a case by case basis - the feel of an applicant and how they fit into the university, how they "jump out" at the reader - make sure nothing is in writing so future litigants won't have much of a trail during the discovery process</p>

<p>Sorry this end-around around court limitations on use of race - won't work in the long run</p>

<p>Strange that this whole person analysis seems to primarily benefit certain supposed URM groups and rarely causcasians or asians</p>

<p>The black upper middle class male from Chicago is deemed underrepresented -even thought the elite schools are loaded with similar admittees, yet the Tibetan 1st generation american - well he's just an asian</p>

<p>Holistic-based admissions used primarily for the benefit of select groups - is not a holistic based system - it is a sham</p>

<p>It is simply racial quotas disguised under another name</p>

149

<p>Alumother, Racial stereotype and bias are inevitable byproducts of a country that continues to take in immigrants. I know it is not perfect but heck, I am happy to be here rather than any other place on this planet. </p>

<p>I am unfortunately quite atypical in my background so what I say on this issue don't necessarily reflects the attitude of other asian parents. I speak two European languages better than my native tongue of a country that I spent a total of 9 months of my life. I also raised my daughter, my only child, as a single parent since she was ten. This is what I say to her on this issue:</p>

<p>First, I tried to explain to her that she is sufficiently blessed with her own ability that such bias would have minimal effects on her. What she needs to realize is that not all in her situation are so blessed, be it against bias or other conditions such as poverty. Whereas there is little she can do to change bias, there is much more she could do to improve adversities in other areas. I am glad that she does volunteer tutoring two afternoons each week at Mount Holyoke, a town nearby Amherst that is economically depressed. When I ask whether she can afford that much time in addition to her debate team and newpaper activities, she simply replied that since she does not have to hold down a job, she is not doing much more than other students there.</p>

<p>I also told her there are battles worth fighting. College admission practice is not one of them. I told her about Vincent Chin, and why that is an example of racial prejudice that is worth fighting for. We talked about Rosa Parks and why every small individual effort can count in unexpected ways. But those are instances worth fighting for. Not college admission practice. We talked about Arthur Kornberg, who succeeded because he is who he is, not becuase he was turned down or accepted by Harvard, but because he loves his work and he is good at it.</p>

<p>College Admission is a flawed system not because of human biases but because the system cannot do a good job when the demand far exceeds its capacity. But if she is good, then she won't fail. As many of you pointed out here, being at where she is, no sane person would consider that but a success.</p>

150

<p>I think much of college admissions is doing quite well (though there are lots of places it could be improved), and admissions at HYP and etc. hardly have anything to do with it.</p>

151

<p>redstar's post was not addressed to me, but I feel compelled to comment on a couple of things.<br>
Of course it's not bad to dream. Every normal parent dreams for their children; this is universal across all cultures, certainly. What makes dreams problematic is when "the dream" (or the first, or favorite dream) does not materialize, and a family (could be students, too, for that matter) of any ethnicity has such difficulty dealing with it, that they manufacture flaming charges of discrimination, when possibly no such "group" discrimination is occurring. The reason I say this is that statements such as "the necessary scores" pop up as if those are qualifications for elites. They aren't sufficient, & I refuse to keep repeating myself. Further, colleges for decades -- not just recently -- have mostly maintained that there is no <em>minimum</em> score necessary for admission, and no score which "qualifies" for admission. This is why they accept, & publish, ranges. The U.S. system is not the Indian, the Korean, the Japanese, etc. system.<br>
Secondly, but related to this, is that the charge of discrimination blatantly ignores the numbers of Anglo Caucasians who have "the necessary scores," yet similarly are not accepted for reasons also having nothing to do with ethnicity or race. They are most likely not accepted because they have something not particularly unique in their backgrounds, either, or because they are too similar to candidates from their same region or school, interested in the same academic subjects they are.</p>

<p>The numbers of applicants picked on, rejected, discriminated against (supposedly, then) are legion. They include many ethnic groups, and their numbers equal twice or three times the sizes of the incoming freshman classes at HYP.</p>

152

<p>
[quote]
Interesting math, tsdad!

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Not math, typing.</p>

153

<p>ephiphany :</p>

<p>I do not claim ever that there is discrimination. My kid attendted a prep school on full financial aid. My kid attends an elite IVy after getting accepted to each HYP school on full financial aid. How can I say there is discrimination. many of us did not know the English Languag. We learned here and still have issues with writing or even communicating. We try to compensate it with other skills. We try our best.</p>

<p>My problem is when people write a racist messsage that asian parents are to be balmed for driving their kids. Why are they blaming only asian parents. many asian parents when immigrated or came as us students have no money when we come to this country. Since there was no one to feed us, we have work hard like rest of immigrants who came before us. We tell kids that only way out of poverty is education as many parents can not support them with any family money. Work hard as education is a way to ahive middle class status. Is that a wrong message? Does it make asians bad persons. In the starting of this thread person claim that asian parents are to be blames. Blamed for what trying to make their life better without any depndence on anyone? Just we have to happen yellow or brown color, can we not think? If some parents ask what is wrong why did not their kid get admission well then it may be beacuse kid lack uniqness but do not call all asians as child abusers or people who have something wrong in thier head.</p>

<p>Do not single out asian as immigrants before us has done same hard work to achive sucees. It may not be in education. These immigrants told their kids what they knew. Asians are telling their kids what they have learned that education is important. That is all.</p>

154

<p>redstar, I certainly agree with you that we should not generalize & stereotype negative traits specific to any ethnic group.</p>

<p>Congratulations on those acceptances, which I'm sure are well deserved. </p>

<p>I don't think the issue, though, is that non-Asians assume most or all Asian parents are child-abusers and have one-track expectations about college admissions. However, I do think that in some cases (because I've seen it both on and off CC), there is a certain expectation among many Asians that the hard work of which you speak should result in desired admissions outcomes. Perhaps you don't feel that way; many seem to, nevertheless, according to how they express themselves. Obviously in your family's case it did result in several desired outcomes.</p>

155

<p>redstar, thank you for your eloquence.</p>

156

<p>Kudos to redstar for post #147.</p>

<p>Excellently put. </p>

<p>


</p>

<p>Exactly because it is embedded within the well-meaning majority of our society is why it is so insiduous. Decent, good people, can make remarks that perpetuate stereotypes without realizing that they are doing so and without realizing that those stereotypes are harmful. </p>

<p><a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=669941%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=669941&lt;/a>
This article "Yellow is Yellow" by Elbert Lin is what first got me thinking about the issue of race for asian americans. It's a very interesting read, especially the parts about rationalized racism and perpetual foreigness.</p>

157

<p>PhatAlbert, Excellent article, appreciate the link. Will look up the Wu book as well. Lin makes an excellent point on fundamental differences in the problem of being yellow versus black and white.</p>

158

<p>


</p>

<p>Redstar --</p>

<p>My original post pointed out two FACTS.<br>
1) College see value in diversity.
2) US companies are "encouraged" to hire based on population, in many cases over talent. </p>

<p>Why do you insist on trying to make that a racist statement? Where did I say anything about Asian parents, or about the Asian demographic at all? You obviously have an axe to grind and I will no longer be a part of it. Good bye.</p>

159

<ol>
<li><p>Posters keep saying things like "people think that all Asian parents are monsters." I don't know anyone who thinks that all, or most, or many Asian parents are monsters. I don't know any parents who are monsters, although I know a few who put more pressure on their kids for visible achievement than I think is appropriate, sometimes with good results and sometimes not. All of the ones I know are Caucasian.</p></li>
<li><p>More than half a lifetime ago, I was the top boy at a traditional, elitist private day school. My only real rival for academic dominance was a Polish-American kid on scholarship. Our grades, all of our numbers were quite close; he was stronger in math and science than I, I was stronger in humanities. (He fell in love with humanities, though. He read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and decided that he wanted to be the Polish James Joyce. But then he went to engineering school.) He never got half the credit I did, however, because he didn't know how to play the game -- how to be "manly" in the prep school way, how to drink, how to go out and get your butt kicked on the athletic fields so that the athletes wouldn't resent you too much in class, the importance of acknowledging other people's skills. He was a couple generations behind me on the assimilation ladder.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Of course, he did fine, and the culture to which I was assimilated barely exists anymore, and doesn't have half the importance it once had. This is just a natural progression. It takes awhile for immigrant families -- including Asians -- to learn the ropes of American values, and while that's happening they are changing American values, too, and their cultural characteristics become more "normal" and more respected. Nothing happens overnight. I'm sure there is a disconnect between the values of many ethnic Asian families and those of the Princeton admissions committee. That's what's behind mini's humorous suggestion that Chinese kids bulk up so they can play offensive line. But I'm also sure that disconnect is only partial, and that it is diminishing rapidly over time.</p>

160

<p>This is the first line of the abstract: "Non-Asian Americans continue to deny that Asian Americans suffer from race-based discrimination, despite evidence to the contrary."</p>

<p>Despite evidence to the contrary? What evidence, the same type of evidence that was so shoddily --if not intellectually dishonest-- reported by Golden? Again, let's COUNT and ANALYZE the case. Is all there is to be found are cases such as poor Henry Park's? Ah, the horror! </p>

<p>In the world of admissions, has there ever be a more disingenuous attempt to present unverifiable facts as pure axioms? All we have is sketchy anedoctal "evidence" and gross generalizations! </p>

<p>On the other hand, there are plenty of FACTS that are worth analyzing in order to paint a more truthful image. Can we look at the evolution of the student bodies and faculties in our leading universities since WWII? Can we look at TODAY's student bodies in the same schools and comapre them to the population distributions? Can we look at our leading public universities and compare their stated role of educating ALL of their state's population with the result. </p>

<p>With that analysis on hand, can we now evealuate which racial subset has done well --very well-- for the past 60 years and which groups have stagnated or ... deteriorated. </p>

<p>FWIW, you can't look at the statistics for Asian students without comparing them to the absolute numbers. How many asian students do score more than 700 on both verbal and math portions of the SAT? What is the proportion of the entire graduating class? How many asian students find a spot among our top 25% universities? How many students with 700 verbal do NOT find a spot at a world-class university? </p>

<p>In this thread, we have been talking about discrimination. How about talking about fairness and ... generosity. Is there another country in the world that is making such an effort to accept immigrants and offer them such an education? Is there any other country where PRIVATE schools have made deliberate changes to treat everyone fairly. FWIW, I find the constant criticism of legacies plainly revolting, and probably as stomach-churning as Alumother's reactions. Do we stop to think that the schools have been built by the families that now hope to send their "legacies." Do the number of legacies really threaten the balance at schools in 2006? I'd say they may have MORE reasons to complain than recent immigrants. </p>

<p>Give it a couple more generations, I suspect that the same group group that is so vociferous about discrimination will start complaining about legacies NOT having enough preferences. </p>

<p>At least, they should find plenty of supporting evidence. The question remains if they'll find many unselfidsh advocates to plead the cases.</p>