Daily Princetonian: Investigation into alleged admissions bias expands

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
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<p>I agree with quirkily. Yeah, this young man found himself up against competition in his racial group, but he also was compared to people from his school, state, economic status, projected major, etc. If he didn't want to be part of such a difficult, holistic admissions process, he shouldn't have applied to the most selective colleges. On CC chances threads, I always see people going, "Well, you've got the stats for an Ivy League, but that doesn't mean they'll want you." Princeton looked at his race, sure, but at everything else as well. To say he would have been accepted if he was a URM isn't evidence enough of racial discrimination--first because the point is moot and we'll never know--but rather of racial <em>consideration.</em> If he was white, he likely would have found the same waitlist letter in his mailbox. Princeton, along with its hyper-competitive peers, has the opportunity not to admit every qualified applicant but only those that offer something unique to the institution. What his ECs, recs, and <em>gasp</em> race offered were not enough. If we took race out of the equation entirely, there's no evidence that he was stellar enough outside of his SATs--which are becoming increasingly arbitrary--to be accepted.</p>

<p>It's natural to be a bit sour about any rejection. I think the fact that Yale accepted him proves what I was getting at above: that colleges are looking to create a community. He offered something to Yale that had already been filled at Princeton, Harvard, etc. It's the same thing with gender at places like Brown and Vassar, especially. Yeah, they'll accept slightly higher numbers of men than of women, but that doesn't mean we ladies are being discriminated against. Those institutions don't think women are any less competent than men but rather that they need to feel certain quotas. Those quotas aren't always race or gender, either, but projected major and what organizations (the orchestra may need an oboeist, for example) Such things are considerations, and while it makes things difficult for those in the majority, I'd rather be in a place with a 55/45 or 50/50 gender split than with numbers reflecting the actual proportion of applicants, which is probably more like 70/30 at some places. Maybe that's just me.</p>

<p>And anyway, wouldn't the real discrimination be if race was not considered at all, and URM's, who tend to perform lower on standardized tests, had far less representation than they do now? <em>Consideration</em> of race is totally different from discrimination--everyone's competing first and foremost against those most like them, whether that be racially, geographically, economically, etc. It prevents homogeneity. What I see from that article is a sore loser, someone who outside of one, possibly superscored, standardized test offered little to a highly competitive institution.</p>

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<p>i know him personally so, any questions...</p>

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<p>I'm not going to get involved in this scary thread, but I just wanted to point out these two graphs:</p>

<p>Graph</a> Comparing SAT Scores and Family Income by Race</p>

<p>Graph</a> Comparing SAT Scores and Parental Education by Race</p>

<p>Kind of sad. Note that the difference between SAT scores of Blacks and Asians at incomes OVER $70,000 is STILL around two hundred points.</p>

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<p>^That's really sad</p>

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<p>^ it is</p>

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<p>AA as a race-based program is obviously corrupt. It needs to be changed to a system that operates on a socio-economic basis, so affluent black/hispanic kids (a majority of the beneficiaries of this system; a 1998 system found that 80% of admitted blacks to top 20 schools have a family income of $60k+, which is even more in today's dollars) don't have an advantage they don't deserve, and poor whites and asians are not disadvantaged. This is so obvious to me. I don't know why this is such a polarizing issue between crusading conservatives and touchy-feely social liberals.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
AA as a race-based program is obviously corrupt. It needs to be changed to a system that operates on a socio-economic basis, so affluent black/hispanic kids (a majority of the beneficiaries of this system; a 1998 system found that 80% of admitted blacks to top 20 schools have a family income of $60k+, which is even more in today's dollars) don't have an advantage they don't deserve, and poor whites and asians are not disadvantaged. This is so obvious to me. I don't know why this is such a polarizing issue between crusading conservatives and touchy-feely social liberals.

[/quote]
URM enrollment in top colleges would decline. A cursory knowledge of demographics involved would make that exceedingly clear.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I'm not going to get involved in this scary thread, but I just wanted to point out these two graphs:</p>

<p>Graph Comparing SAT Scores and Family Income by Race</p>

<p>Graph Comparing SAT Scores and Parental Education by Race</p>

<p>Kind of sad. Note that the difference between SAT scores of Blacks and Asians at incomes OVER $70,000 is STILL around two hundred points.

[/quote]
Hmmm. There is a reason that Collegeboard doesn't release this data any more [they only release race & income data separately]. Too politically sensitive.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
URM enrollment in top colleges would decline. A cursory knowledge of demographics involved would make that exceedingly clear.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well this has nothing to do with AA's stated mission to level the playing field.</p>

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<p>Personally, I believe colleges should admit blacks with lower academic records and, as a result, unfortunately reject people with better academics. First of all, they get so many "perfect SATs or GPAs" that there would be no room to fit everyone who applied with these credentials into the class. I also would not want to attend a college that was filled with students with perfect academic records. I like diversity. I want various cultures and backgrounds in my classes. Keep in mind that most black students have overcome a lot to achieve what they have. If a black girl has to care for her family, work a couple jobs, and stills scores a 1400, I think she is easily qualified to attend a top university. She works just as hard if not harder than most of us anyway. If she can balance a schedule like that and still succeed to the extent she has, how much can she achieve without those burdens? That responsibility, motivation, and work ethic is what truly makes a person successful, not inherent ability. If some asian boy who gets perfect scores yet doesn't work to his potential, who knows if he will ever change his habits. I would rather have the former as a classmate rather than the latter. I am asian by the way.</p>

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<p>For the most part, I agree with aminhamenina's post a few above. I just don't think this particular case really embodies racial discrimination. He didn't get the boost of being black or Hispanic...but neither did the other Asians or whites. This really to me just seems the case of a good student who suddenly wasn't used to being mediocre in the realm of college admissions.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Personally, I believe colleges should admit blacks with lower academic records and, as a result, unfortunately reject people with better academics. First of all, they get so many "perfect SATs or GPAs" that there would be no room to fit everyone who applied with these credentials into the class. I also would not want to attend a college that was filled with students with perfect academic records. I like diversity. I want various cultures and backgrounds in my classes. Keep in mind that most black students have overcome a lot to achieve what they have. If a black girl has to care for her family, work a couple jobs, and stills scores a 1400, I think she is easily qualified to attend a top university. She works just as hard if not harder than most of us anyway. If she can balance a schedule like that and still succeed to the extent she has, how much can she achieve without those burdens? That responsibility, motivation, and work ethic is what truly makes a person successful, not inherent ability. If some asian boy who gets perfect scores yet doesn't work to his potential, who knows if he will ever change his habits. I would rather have the former as a classmate rather than the latter. I am asian by the way.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Image:1995-SAT-Education2.png</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>

<p>So you think that a black child with graduate degreed parents has to work harder than a asian/white kid with parents who simply have high school diplomas? Can you please expand further on this topic? On the face of it, I'd say you're dead wrong.</p>

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<p>wow, a black child w/ a graduate degreed parent has about a 30 point average higher SAT than an asian child w/ parents less than HS diplomas</p>

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<p>The argument of this thread has deteriorated away from potentially accomplishing anything.</p>

<p>The point is, should Princeton acknowledge Li's suit? </p>

<p>I think so, but not for the reasons 95% of you do. I support a colleges right to practice AA, but i strongly oppose discriminating against asian students or forcing them to compete against other asian students, though the magnitude to which this occurs i believe is severely overstated on this site. </p>

<p>I believe the school should investigate any bias against Asians. But i do not believe that the fact that he was accepted to Yale mandates he be accepted (as opposed to waitlisted) to princeton. Nor do i think that because if he were black he may or may not have been accepted, entails that he was rejected based on race. If he was black he would be a completely different person, despite the ignorant few who believes race has no impact on who you come to be.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
despite the ignorant few who believes race has no impact on who you come to be.

[/quote]
Has anyone argued that?</p>

<p>I always thought the argument was that, theoretically, URMs have a much lower admissions standard to clear. I believe that averages show that to be the case.</p>

<p>The side effect which is truly disgusting, IMO, is the implication that URMs have better ECs (or maybe it's just personality?) than high scoring Asians (or Whites). That's the truly sickening sort of racism I see. As if scoring a 2400 somehow means you have less of a personality or something.</p>

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<p>I went to high school with Jian (a grade above him), and knew him a bit from math team activity, though not that well. I haven't spoken to him in ages, but he was a nice guy, very involved in the high school community, and very smart.</p>

<p>It should be noted that another student from our high school - the same year as Jian - who was also Asian did get into Princeton that year. She was also very nice, active, and smart. So clearly there were other factors in play.</p>

<p>There's the difficulty of separating this individual decision about admission for Jian Li and the larger issue of affirmative action. Does race affect admission at most top colleges? The answer is clearly yes. Do Asian American students have a lower rate of acceptance at elite colleges than African American students with similar scores? Again, the answer is clearly yes. Is this good? That's a much more complicated question.</p>

<p>There are lots of arguments for and against affirmative action. From the school's perspective, it creates diversity in the student body, which creates a better atmosphere for all students. I can honestly say that I've personally benefited from being in a more diverse environment - where "diverse" is not limited to race, but also academic interests, class, gender, gender identity, etc. If I'd stayed in my hometown these years, I'd have a very different worldview now - and not just because of my academic classes, but also because of the student peers I'm surrounded by.</p>

<p>There's also the equality of opportunity issue. African Americans clearly still face institutionalized racism in the US today. Affirmative action helps compensate for those institutional biases that would cause them, on average, to have lower scores/admissions criteria than their white counterparts, even though they're obviously just as intelligent and motivated. However, this is where the argument for affirmative action starts to break down for Asian American students - it seems that there is, in fact, institutional racism against Asian American students. However, their scores/admissions criteria still tend to be higher than that of most other groups! So what do you do?</p>

<p>I have no good answer. I'm still trying to tease out how I feel about the issue. While I believe in affirmative action broadly, there is clearly a problem with the system here. We're not in a place where we can just move to a "color blind" "class blind" "whatever blind" admissions system - because we're not yet a "color blind" "class blind" "whatever blind" world and compensations need to be made to try to improve equity.</p>

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<p>Madjoy, please tell me what "institutionalized racism" is suffered by black students who live in the same neighborhood as other white students, go to the same schools as white students, and are subject to the same classes, opportunities, and tests, as white students. There are plenty who fit that category from my former high school. Everything, everything, was equal until we got those decision letters.</p>

<p>Racism would exist in a very limited manner today in college admission and employment if not for AA. I don't see what the problem is in maintaining the same percentage of population as America displays. Some schools have over 50% "minority" representation--how is that representative of the real world?</p>

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<p>How can we be so sure that admissions committees don't take economic AND racial status into account? For all the bitter opponents of affirmative-action: take off your rose-colored lenses. Do you honestly believe an African-American whose family makes 300k per year and has low scores would get the nod over a poorer Caucasian student with the same scores from adcoms? I highly doubt colleges would be so absurdly rigid and superficial when considering race. They attempt to bring diversity that transcends the label of just race, contrary to what people may believe here. In other words, a URM doesn't get the nod JUST because he's black/hispanic externally-- it's because he's able to bring rare perspectives and experiences (shown through essays, EC, geographical region, etc) as a minority that a committee may have a dearth of. But keep perpetuating the injustices of AA-- I'm sure some of minority friends who've dropped out could apply to Ivy's next year and get into at least one, as long as they check 'Black' or 'Hispanic', thanks to good ole' AA. Thanks CC!</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I don't see what the problem is in maintaining the same percentage of population as America displays.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>At many top schools, this would require Asian Americans to be held to an even higher standard since they are currently over-represented.</p>

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<p>Please, not another one of these affirmative action debates!</p>

<p>My personal opinion is that race-based affirmative action is wrong, but that the government shouldn't try to prevent private colleges from maintaining it if they want to. Socioeconomically based affirmative action can be effective and outweigh the negatives when used correctly.</p>

<p>I'm also incredibly liberal, which kind of explains my viewpoint (although not completely).</p>

<p>I think Jian Li's case is worth investigating, but probably won't amount to anything.</p>