There is only one Hispanic poster in the stickied Harvard decisions thread of this site. He has the following stats/info and was not accepted in SCEA.
1590 SAT, 800 Math II, 790 Chem
All 5s on APs
Rigorous heavy AP senior course load
Good grades (doesn’t specify UW GPA)
National Merit Semifinalist, National Hispanic Scholar, New Jersey Science League Top 10% for Chemistry I and Chemistry II, AP Scholar
There is not enough information to know whether your daughter will be accepted or would have been accepted, if her race changed. What is known more analytically is the benefit to being a URM as evaluated in the lawsuit analysis. A comparison of regression coefficients for different characteristics is below, after full controls. It found that being Hispanic was very crudely similar to having the rating in any one category increasing from 3 to 2 (3 is average, 1 is best). I wouldn’t assume a highly qualified Hispanic applicant is a “lock” any more than I would assume that a highly qualified applicant who receives a 2 personal rating is a “lock.”
Being Hispanic --: +1.96
Personal rating increase from 3 to 2 – +2.08
EC rating increase from 3 to 2 – +1.41
Academic rating increase from 3 to 2 – +1.36
@tpike12 you seem to be missing the point. Your daughter is very accomplished and you have a lot to be proud of. You should be! She has had access to much that has allowed her to flourish and you should be as proud of the opportunity you provided her.
The “hooks” you speak of still make up a very small percentage of total admissions. Why? Because access to those opportunities vary greatly depending on your zip code, parents time at home, having to work, first generation college, etc. I am in the middle class boat, worse yet, newly middle class in a very high cost of living area so savings were not an option and our in state school is by no means financially within reach… but many other schools, including private, are and have recognized her talent and made it far more affordable. She doesn’t have your daughter’s stats, but I promise, she worked just as hard and has many good options. No one took your daughter’s spot.
@AriBenSion That comparison is ridiculous. There were hard quotas for Jews, “only X number of Jews”, despite the fact that, based on academics, their acceptance rates would have been more than triple that of the quota. White people are being accepted at the Ivies at a higher rate than is justified by their academics. Both legacies and athletes are white by a large majority, and legacies have an acceptance rate which is about 5 times that of everybody else, and for athletes it’s even higher - athletes with OK academics had a 70% admission rate, while fewer than 0.1% of non-athletes with the same academics were accepted. For athletes with top academic scores, acceptance rates were still five times those of kids with excellent score who weren’t athletes. At the same time, URMS are accepted at about twice to three times the rate of White kids.
About 20% of admitted students are legacies (that’s what Ivies admit, but it may be as high as 30%, since there are also quite a few legacies who aren’t included in their reports), and about 20% are athletes, while URMs make up about 18%-19%, except in Columbia University.
So the biggest “hooks” aren’t URM status at all, they’re legacy status and being an athlete. The large majority of people benefiting from these are White (at a rate which is much higher than their number of the population).
However, that would not help much, since the acceptance rate would still be less than 10%, and top notch candidates would still be rejected. So, for somebody without a hook, the admissions chance would likely be a few percent more. So instead of the regular 14% acceptance rate or so, for top candidates, it would be maybe 18% or 19%. Not really good odds, I would say.
@tpike12 instead of saying “if only she were black or Latina, she would have been a lock” you might just as easily say “if only she had won XYZ award in addition to her other accomplishments” or “if only she had been born disabled” or “if only she had also had some unusual skill like maybe juggling.” You can cherry-pick whatever magical quality you think would have put your kid over the top into “accepted” territory; you can focus on that and wallow in your resentment.
But what is the statistical likelihood that your kid would have turned out exactly as she did – same terrific grades and scores, same great extracurriculars, same drive to excel, same luck of the draw that didn’t cause her to experience any of the various disadvantages (mental, physical, emotional) that many teens suffer from?
Most likely, if your kid had been born black or Latina, she would not have had the same socioeconomic advantages your kid has had. Sure, maybe she would have been born into a family with your same financial resources; maybe she would have been lucky enough to live in a community that would accept her and not put burdens on her due to her skin color. Of course those kids exist. But there’s also the chance that if she had been born a racial minority, she wouldn’t have had the same advantages she’s had. Her grades might have suffered if her family couldn’t afford internet service so she could do her online homework at home; her extracurriculars might have been less exciting if her parents couldn’t pay for sports equipment or if she had to be home right after school every day to watch her younger siblings so her mom could go to her part-time job. Then how likely would her admission to an Ivy be?
Just please, stop comparing your kid to a hypothetical version of her that’s exactly the same except her last name is Garcia or her skin is dark. That doesn’t do either you or her any good.
Once again, we are being inundated with the theme, black or Hispanic = disadvantaged. People need to get out more.
No one begrudges any student who achieves in the face of true adversity. That - for the most part - is not what is happening with admits to elite schools. But the schools sure would like you to believe it.
I went to HS in one of the wealthiest zip codes in the US. My African American classmates (all 7 of them) had an admissions advantage over Caucasian kids from West Virginia. A poster above stated that admissions decisions should only grant preference in the case of income, this is why. Affirmative action is inherently discriminatory which is why the UC system has supposedly abandoned this practice since the time I applied.
What @tpike12 is talking about is a valid issue (I won’t question the perception of someone who has lived a life in different shoes from my own). But disadvantages that my kids can not control don’t matter. My 1# goal as a parent is to teach my kids to overcome any and all obstacles that happen in life. There are many types of advantages (wealth, race, being athletic, legacy, knowing the right person in the administration, being famous etc.) that can play a part in getting into an Ivy and some of us may have all of those advantages while others have none of them, but helping my kids to get where they are trying to go is all that matters. No sob stories or whining allowed, but when you don’t reach a goal, adjust, adapt, and know that you need to generate “prestige” out of your own talents and gifts, not count on the prestige of any school. The world is definitely not fair, but one of the best parts about living it is succeeding when others say you can not, and overcoming obstacles that seem insurmountable.
@Data10 - A +2.0 bump won’t make a difference for an average kids with threes across the board, but it will be significant for the kids with ratings of two across the board.
@tpike12 I think you are missing the point about elite schools. Your kid sounds great, but not outstanding in the pool. My kid with similar, maybe even higher, numbers also had 2 major National awards and a complex social history. . She was waitlisted at 2 ivies, denied at MIT, and fortunately, given all the crazy work, accepted at a HYPS.
No one is guaranteed anything at this level of competition. One can blame Hispanics, legacies, Asians, aliens, whatever, but I think that just demonstrates how far out of the game one is.
@tpike12 Some of your prior posts exemplify the challenges and obstacles minorities face in the US and why a holistic admissions approach is justified.
You previously stated:
“The last numbers I saw for the Black poverty rate was that they made up 25% of those living in poverty, while only contributing 8% of Federal taxes. So that would be in the ballpark of $150 billion per year that is going to Black people from non-black taxpayers”.
“For those black Americans that remain at the poverty level, like I estimated earlier, we transfer $150 billion per year to them.”
On one hand you point out that the African American community has a poverty rate 3X that of their population size. These economic disparities that you highlight do place a significant portion of African American youth at an educational disadvantage in terms of both quality and quantity of educational opportunities.
Perhaps more subtle but more detrimental to minorities is the latent racism of saying things like “we transfer”. The fact that large portions of our country define race in “them” and “us” terms confirms that people of color have faced negative bias throughout their lives whether intentional or not.
Your words suggest what most of us already know…ingrained bias and racism persists. Many people regrettably don’t view one another as Americans or people but along racial divides. Holistic admissions are an attempt to ensure the playing field is flattened and that our college communities reflect our society as a whole. While not perfect, (and yes it may not work out for your daughter who sounds very impressive) it is largely fair. She likely has never had anyone refer to her as “those people”, or was followed around a store. Her hard work will be rewarded I am sure, but if she falls short of an Ivy it isn’t the end of the world or proof of a broken or unfair system.
You started by questioning whether your daughter will…" I wonder, will she harbor any resentment?"
A starting point would be for you to avoid using “we” when referencing white people, and “them” when referring to people of color. The inclusive term “us” and mind set that comes with it can go a long way in preventing your daughters resentment of her fellow students and Americans.
I hope I didn’t conflate being a person of color and being disadvantaged economically, @JBSeattle as that was not my intention. I am curious however, you mention 7 students - out of how many? That is where the data matters. Have you ever sat down and spoken to any of those 7 students about what it is like from their perspective?
I kind of hate that the acronym URM is used as people tend to forget the U stands for Underrepresented. Generational wealth is less likely statistically, first gen to college is higher statistically, the list goes on as to why the under representation is present and I applaud any school that is working to dismantle the cycle of they are doing it truly and holistically. I’m not naive, however and as was mentioned above, the acceptance rate is low no matter your hook. One young woman that worked for me, had many awards, accolades and high stats as well as being first generation American from Central America. She received full scholarships to a number of programs and said she bought her lottery tickets, as well; her Harvard and Brown applications. She knows that is precisely what they are and made sure she had strong backups. She is going to break her family into a different socioeconomic tier, I have full faith, and it won’t take Harvard or Brown to do it.
Gray- your story is wonderful and I am rooting for the young woman you know.
On the other hand- you do realize that there are 50 students like this young woman, with all the energy/ambition and hard work you describe- who ends up getting sidelined. Mom’s cough is TB and not a lingering winter cold. Grandma, who has been living with the family and contributing $200/month towards the rent breaks a hip.
It doesn’t take much to sideline these kids. There may be TONS of emotional support at home (or not) but if the family has been skating on the edge, even a full ride with a stipend for a laptop and winter coat ain’t going to cut it if the family’s circumstances change.
I was on a scholarship committee which had as its mission “last dollar grants”, i.e. once the school’s fin aid, Pell, any state grants, work study, self help. and family support was counted, we tried to bridge the gap. Maybe it was an Amtrak ticket in August; maybe it was $750 in lab fees that showed up on the bill once the registrar logged in the course selections, maybe it was $1200 for MCAT prep materials. But last dollar.
Your heart would break over some of these kids’ circumstances. A kid is going to turn down Yale because getting to New Haven from rural Kentucky is one of those “who is coming up with bus fare” situations? And of course- the family lacks the “social capital” to understand that one phone call to the Master of the kid’s college at Yale is enough to get the wallet opened from Yale. So if plan B was the local community college to become a Pharm Tech instead of Yale to become a surgeon… well, kid would likely be the first in the family to complete HS, let alone community college, so it’s still a win.
The organization’s philosophy was “you can’t save everyone” so they tried to salvage the kids who had ALREADY won a lottery ticket of sorts (although many, many of these kids ended up living at home and commuting to the local state U, which is still a wonderful outcome). But it is easy from the perch of “I’ll put in on the credit card and worry about it next month” to dismiss just how tough it is when you’re 18 and your job as night assistant manager at the local pizza joint has been the difference between mom paying the electric bill that month or not. And that the damaged pizzas your boss let’s you take home have been your younger siblings breakfast meal for the last two years.
Blossom, that is a compelling reason for low income based advantages in the admissions process, absolutely. That is not what we have now, however, and therein is the problem.
@blossom I can’t imagine and you are 100% right. I worry about those things, the reality her family faces when she is no longer contributing to her household, the childcare expense while she is away (she often brought her siblings to practices), etc. And that crosses racial diversity lines.
We talk alot about the wealth inequality where we live, especially living in a high cost of living state with a higher minimum wage than most of the country. It creates a financial imbalance when seeking federal assistance for school and often privates are the only ones who take into account regional differences. I can’t tell you how many students don’t even apply because they see the sticker price and have overburdened guidance counselors or parents that don’t guide them.
It’s a conversation worth having and I’m glad it was posted. Hopefully, we all gained some perspective and consideration for the shoes others walk in. ?