"Harvard [and Princeton] Targeted in U.S. Asian-American Discrimination Probe"

[sakky]

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[quote]
If all other credentials are equal, Asian-Americans need to score 140 points more than whites, 270 points higher than Hispanics, and 450 points above African-Americans out of a maximum 1600 on the math and reading SAT to have the same chance of admission to a private college, according to “No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal,” a 2009 book co-written by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade.

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<p>Harvard</a> Targeted in U.S. Asian-American Discrimination Probe - Bloomberg</p>

[Philovitist]

<p>Nice study. Seems like the diversity imperative of elite colleges equates to racial groups competing not with the entire application pool, but with each other.</p>

<p>Owait. The article ends up saying that.
In the end, though, is this unfair? It ensures that the cream of the crop from a variety of different groups has a chance at a great education. The alternative is a university system where the elite colleges are full of ‘the affluent races’, ultimately widening the socionomic gap between the different races.</p>

<p>Sure, on a microsocial level, this might lead to something that seems like unfairness, but on a macrosocial scale, the ugly system still seems to work for the best.</p>

[dfree124]

<p>Old topic is old.</p>

[momsquad]

<p>Interesting article and even more interesting comments at the end of the article. Intriguing theory that Asians tend to “self-sort” into STEM majors in which applicants have higher average GPA’s & scores. </p>

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Danielle Burhop in reply to Anonymous18 5 hours ago
What I find interesting is that everyone is talking extracurriculars, and no one is talking majors. Schools such as Harvard are trying to populate all of their departments on campus; if a certain subset of applications look to be all-math, all-engineering, at CIT or MIT that may not be an issue, but at Harvard, it certainly is. I hypothesize if there was a breakdown of test scores-by-intended-major, and then this was compared to a sort-by-race, we’d likely see why Asians “need” higher scores to get into Harvard: because they are self-sorting into majors that require higher scores.

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[Bay]

<p>It would be helpful if the complainant would go public with his stats and circumstances and the progress of the investigation. Jian Li was not forthcoming and didn’t help the cause in any discernible way, but he helped himself get into Harvard.</p>

[charlieschm]

<p>NPR’s Fresh Air program had an interview on this subject today. A transcript and audio may be available soon on the web.</p>

[tokenadult]

<p>The current action by the Office of Civil Rights of the federal Department of Education is already under discussion in the FAQ thread, </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1228264-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-9-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1228264-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-9-a.html&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>and to encourage further discussion there, this thread will be closed.</p>