Do Elite Colleges Discriminate Against Asian Students?

Applying to College
881

<p>Re 879</p>

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<p>The fourth largest state university in Georgia - Georgia Southern - admits [solely[/url</a>] on the basis of GPA/SAT scores. [url=<a href=“http://admissions.georgiasouthern.edu/AdmissionApplication.pdf]No”>http://admissions.georgiasouthern.edu/AdmissionApplication.pdf]No</a> essay is required.](<a href=“http://admissions.georgiasouthern.edu/freshman.htm]solely[/url”>Freshman Requirements | Georgia Southern University) I wouldn’t be surprised if the schools you’re referring to are all nonselective.</p>

<p>I don’t think there is a single selective institute of higher education in our country that doesn’t have at least some subjective criteria. I reiterate that under my definition, a process needs only one subjective factor in addition to GPA/SAT to be considered “holistic.” Unlike some others, I don’t view racial classification as the factor that determines whether a process is “holistic.”</p>

882

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<p>Why do people think that those who are against affirmative action are against holistic admissions too? They’re not exactly the same thing. I think that essays and ECs or even the applicant’s income have merit in determining their qualification for income, but not race.</p>

<p>I don’t think it’s a matter of “OMG I could’ve gotten into Harvard if I weren’t Asian!” I think that I can probably get into some college that I will enjoy and be able to get a successful career from regardless of my race. It’s just that I think the way of thinking among university officials need to change in this regard. It might be hypocritical of me, but I find that true for thousands of college students.</p>

883

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<p>I don’t think this, just noted that the old discussion resurfaced about holistic admissions having been invented to discriminate against Jews.</p>

<p>At the heart of the argument is whether one believes that racial diversity in the college setting adds value. All of the elites believe that it does. All of you believe that it does not.</p>

<p>As it stands, the law of the land supports the elites’ position, and not yours. No amount of our arguing can change that. Only the U.S. Supreme Court can.</p>

<p>(Btw Kei - discrimination based on gender and national origin are unlawful. College admission practices which give preferences based on those characteristics may eventually be challenged.)</p>

884

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<p>Fabrizio, UGA also admits EA applicants solely on the basis of GPA/SAT scores alone. No essay is required. If you are deferred to RD, you must then submit four short essay’s.</p>

885

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<p>Not everything that elite colleges practice is right the first time and it takes people a great effort to stand up. To some group of people, what the elite colleges do is normal and justifiable. But to some other group of people, it’s unfair. Harvard and Princeton discriminated against women for hundred years and it took women a long time to stand up. Harvard did not officially admit women until 1999. Princeton did not officially admit women until 1967. And UC Berkeley, a less elite college admitted women since it was founded in 1869. [History</a> - 19th-century founding of UC’s flagship campus - UC Berkeley](<a href=“http://berkeley.edu/about/hist/foundations.shtml]History”>History & discoveries - University of California, Berkeley)</p>

886

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You mischaracterize my position. I do believe that racial diversity adds value; however, I believe in the principle of non-discrimination first, and I believe that explicit special consideration policies are discriminatory. I have no problem with, for instance, recruiting focuses in URM-majority inner-city schools (whose students would probably benefit from SES AA).</p>

<p>I am perfectly aware that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the elites. However, I don’t mindlessly think that every law or every court decision is right.</p>

<p>I wasn’t aware that national origin was also a protected characteristic–certainly I also oppose discrimination on those grounds, since I see no reason to protest the legal deterimination of protected attributes.</p>

887

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<p>I’m going to nitpick, but still, good counterexample of a school that’s much more selective than Georgia Southern.</p>

<p>As you said, the essay “waiver” is only for students who apply early; students who apply by the regular decision deadline must submit them. By contrast, Georgia Southern doesn’t require essays, period.</p>

<p>Moreover, the early action round of admissions at UGA still requires students to obtain a counselor recommendation. If they are deferred or if they apply by the regular decision deadline, they will also need a teacher recommendation. Again, Georgia Southern requires neither, period.</p>

<p>I have no evidence, but I believe that most students who apply early action to UGA have higher GPAs and SATs than the students who apply regular decision. The essay and teacher recommendation “waivers” can be thought of as an incentive for high-achieving students to apply. UGA does offer substantial merit-based aid through the Foundation Fellowship, Ramsey Scholars, and so forth.</p>

888

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<p>I also don’t like the terms. While I like the Goldilocks reference, I have to say that I disagree with this other CC member. </p>

<p>For discussion purposes, let’s look at female admits. Based on the prescribed ‘benchmark’ suggested - certainly females represent the lion’s share of this nation’s population. They also are the lion’s share of the student applicant pool. Yet elite colleges routinely discriminate against them on admissions. If you are a female you need to excel over other female applicants AND male applicants with lower scores. For example, Swarthmore College admitted 19 percent of male applicants yet only 14 percent of female applicants. That said, I’d love to know what the average G.P.A. and test scores were for both genders, but that’s not something required on the Common Data Set. </p>

<p>So, what exactly is the ‘defined benchmark?’ Where is fairness? Where is the straight talk (i.e., open and forthright disclosure)? Or are these merely ‘buzzwords’ at elite schools?</p>

889

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<p>Here again, as always with this debate, it’s important to define terms, as well as to come to grips with the oversupply of the ultra-qualified strata in the applicant pool.</p>

<p>On the upper levels of qualification, racial balance is not the same thing as “special consideration policies.” It’s important not to mix the two. </p>

<p>There’s no question that AA is a special consideration policy. So is athletic recruitment. So is a Development Admit who is not within the ultra-qualified strata. So is any Celebrity Admit who is not within that strata (such as a performer who is not a highly accomplished student – i.e., not in the same category as Emily Hughes). All of those admits ‘discriminate’ against all students with superior qualifications; students with clearly superior qualifications are passed over for those with academically inferior qualifications; it’s just that only the first category does so on the basis of race. And that discrimination affects highly qualified whites and highly qualified Asians.</p>

<p>The problems with trying to separate the effects of AA with every other factor of racial diversity, are three:</p>

<p>-not all URM’s have inferior qualifications. There are URM CC students (for example), and URM children of CC parents, who are among the ultra-qualified strata. Obviously many people understand this; but the tendency is to lump all URM’s together as having been admitted under “special consideration.” That’s why studies such as E&C, which cite scores by group averages, are not useful. (There are also a number of ‘decline to state’ URM’s who were & are admitted, but competitively, not under ‘special consideration policies’)</p>

<p>-there are mixtures of racial representation in the other (non-racial) special-consideration groups above. There are white and Asian athletic recruits; large donors increasingly include personal origin other than ‘white.’ Etc. </p>

<p>-At some point in the applicant pool to Elites, the term “qualified” and even “highly qualified” loses significance in itself, because of the volume and variety of qualifications. I’m going beyond even the statement by admissions officers that ‘90% [of the applicant pool] can do the work.’ I’m here discussing the ‘ridiculously qualified’ level, who are rejected each admissions year by the hundreds and even thousands; some of those ‘ridiculously qualified’ even include a handful of white and Asian maximum scorers & maximum gpa’s. </p>

<p>When you get to such a degree of oversupply of the equally overqualified, decisions have to be made on additional and on some cases even ‘arbitrary’ grounds. (It’s obvious that many of you have not read many tell-all books by ex-admissions officers, who describe that very situation and how often it surfaces – no identifiable reason for any particular rejection of certain applicants, who are often in the same economic and racial category as a single competitor or several competitors in the final round, but a ‘gut-level’ decision has to be made for the finite number of freshman spots available.)</p>

<p>I haven’t yet read the newly started ‘gender discrimination’ thread that just popped on this forum; the complaint referenced there may or may not be pertinent to what I’m about to discuss, but I can tell you that gender balance is a factor in private grade school admissions, and has been for years – precisely because of the massive oversupply (vs. demand) of highly capable students. When there are 2200 highly capable girls who apply and 1500 equally capable boys (and that has happened, btw), but 44 kindergarten spots distributed over 2 classes, far more girls will be affected by the volume factor than are boys. Count on the admissions committee selecting 22 girls and 22 boys for those 2 classes. They have done it for years and will continue to do it.</p>

<p>To believe that considering factors in Elite college admissions in addition to academic qualifications is not necessary, is to believe that there is no such thing as an oversupply of equally qualified candidates from more than one racial/nat’l origin group.</p>

890

<p>“To believe that considering factors in Elite college admissions in addition to academic qualifications is not necessary, is to believe that there is no such thing as an oversupply of equally qualified candidates from more than one racial/nat’l origin group.”</p>

<p>As a lab director, I only hire the best, the brightest and the most diligent candidates. I can assure you that many of those elite colleges graduates are not as outstanding as you might think. They can be quite some projects for me. Elite colleges definitely do not do a good job in selecting their students as it should have. They screw up quite a bit.</p>

891

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Also, this is a tautology. Of course these policies are discriminatory, in that they discriminate in favor of certain characteristics. The question is whether they are justifiable.
Let’s take a simple case. Imagine that Harvard has a policy that it wants to at least accept one student from each of the 50 states each year. Let’s imagine it has multiple reasons for doing this, including (a) a genuine desire for geographical diversity and (b) the desire to avoid bad PR and alumni giving problems if no applicants from a particular state are admitted. So if Harvard accepts an applicant from Wyoming who would not otherwise have been admitted, is that discriminatory? Sure. But is it justifiable? You tell me.</p>

892

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<p>I reiterate that “…racial balancing is patently unconstitutional,” as the Court specified in Grutter.</p>

893

<p>Post 890:</p>

<p>I see. And you assume that because those who apply to work in your lab include some graduates from Elite U’s whom you consider not capable, or not outstanding, therefore the admissions process is faulty for the reason that it cannot undeniably ensure that in every case the product 4 years later equals the product 4 years prior.</p>

<p>Thank you for that non-laboratory, non-scientific assessment from a “lab director.” Right.:rolleyes:</p>

894

<p>Post 892:</p>

<p>That is actually a very intellectually dishonest statement on your part, and you know it. I invite others to look at the actual decision, available on many sites, so I’ll just reference one location:</p>

<p><a href=“http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=02-241[/url]”>http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=02-241&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

895

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<p>On the upper levels of qualification, efforts to promote broad diversity, including racial diversity, are not the same as “special consideration policies.”</p>

<p>That takes care of Grutter.</p>

896

<p>Is anyone willing to name the colleges they feel discriminate against asians? From reading this thread I get the impression that it is suspected at Harvard, Duke and Princeton.</p>

897

<p>Post 895:</p>

<p>I know that. :)</p>

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<p>Epiphany: What I means is that there is no over-supply of talents for the elite colleges. The screening standard has been set too low. In addition, I do not detect major differences in quality of graduates from some of the big state universities versus those from the top 10 schools. Foreign graduates are actually performing better.</p>

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<p>Re 894</p>

<p>No, I do not “know” it, for there is nothing intellectually dishonest about it.</p>

<p>It’s right there in the Court’s opinion: “…outright racial balancing…is patently unconstitutional.” Justice O’Connor emphasized that in Bakke, Justice Powell cautioned that “it is not an interest in simple ethnic diversity, in which a specified percentage of the student body is in effect guaranteed to be members of selected ethnic groups” that can justify the use of race. There is only one acceptable rationale for affirmative action: “the attainment of a diverse student body.”</p>

<p>I don’t see why some insist on using the term “racial balance” when there is a much, much better subsitute available (viz. “diversity”). I bolster my claim further by citing the analysis from Chief Justice Roberts in Parents Involved:</p>

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<p>That paragraph was in III-A of the Court’s opinion, which Justice Kennedy joined (ie. 5 of the 9 justices agreed with its analysis).</p>

<p>QED</p>

900

<p>This is an interesting thread although I think the number of applicants possibly “wronged” is probably a lot less than it feels to people.</p>

<p>I’d like to build on epiphany’s example. Still a simple example. 10,000 students apply to 3togoU which is a elite school and only has 1000 spots … a 10% acceptance rate. 6000 women apply and 4000 men (with qualifications equally distributed acorss the sexes). Admissions rates 5,000 of the applicants as “highly qualified” … now if they randomly selected folders form the 5,000 highly qualifies applicants they would draw something close to 600 women and 400 men (same ratio as the applicants). However surveys of the students show that students prefer the population to be closer to 50/50 (ironically in this situation it’s the women who want more men admitted) … so the admissions folks decide to select a class the is 50% women and 50% men … so the admission rate for men is 12.5% (500/4000) … and for the women is 8.3% (500/6000). It is certainly true that the admission rate for men is higher … however all the selected candidates were higly qualified … given a 5,000 way tie for the 1000 slots gender was used as a tie breaker to pick the lucky 1000. Is this cheating the women candidates?</p>

<p>I believe one of the bigger issues in the arguments on CC is that poster believe there is a lot more granularity among the applicants than schools do … the schools tend to think in bands and then use other attributes of the folks in the band to pick their class … and in the process end up with higher admit rates for men and african americans for example. To me many postings read like a school could quantitatively rank order all the applicants #1 through #10,000 and that lots of folks higher on the list are getting screwed. I’m an analytical geek for a living and I call this the perception of precision (schools that pick Vals of 99.98% over the 99.97% GPA … never mind the 20 things that make those numbers foggy to begin with) … poster sees tons of “more highly qualified” applicants getting passed over … and the schools see themselves using a tie-breaker among essentially equally qualified applicants. </p>

<p>Are they using a tie-breaker in all cases of selecting the candidates getting a break … no, some are getting in with slightly lower standards … but my experience at 3 elite schools was I would have had a darn hard time picking out which of my classmates got in on some sort of admissions break (as opposed to a tie-breaker) to fill some admissions goal.</p>