<p>cahsparent
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<p>Are you arguing that Harvard does not have excellence in academics? To use DwightEisenhower’s word, jeesh.</p>
<p>I believe it is useful to understand the idea of normalization in this context. One of my neighbor kids in high school asked his college friends why it mattered that you did extra-curricular activities when top colleges were considering admissions. I happened to be hear the discussion. To my surprise, the answer the college kids gave was not the usual one that they want well rounded kids, etc. The answer they gave was along these lines. If two applicants did the same AP classes, got the same scores, and also got the same SAT scores, but one of them also excelled in extracurriculars, then it meant that the kid found all the time to do the extracurriculars and used the remaining time effectively to achieve the same level in scores. So if you normalize the scores, say based on effort spent in securing those scores, the ones with extracurriculars were superior in some sense, even though the scores might be identical. </p>
<p>This same general idea can be extended. If one applicant had to figure out where his next meal was going to come from, among other things, then under normalization, their scores would be much better than the actual raw numbers. If one applicant had a college-educated professor tiger parents guiding him through school and another had to make do with an uneducated mother, under normalization (amount of help and guidance received), the apparently inferior applicant may not be all that inferior. </p>
<p>It is difficult to account for various such factors, so colleges have the difficult task of doing such normalization and they do their best. They do their best to figure out if the playing field had been level, how the different applicants would have measured up.</p>
<p>In sports and entertainment, the audience (us) simply want to see the most entertaining, and money is the driving force. NBA has few Lins. Golf has few Tigers. There is no meaningful extrapolation from there to college admissions.</p>
<p>I thought “Asians” were sub “white” with all their anime glorifying the white man.</p>
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<p>No, we shouldn’t limit African Americans in the NBA any more than we should limit the number of Asians at Harvard. The fact that Asians are overrepresented at Harvard compared to their numbers in the general population is not justification to implement some arbitrary quota system limiting the number of Asian admits.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure if you’re being snarky [gonna invoke Poe’s Law here], but if not, that’s a pretty ignorant comment. Anime, for all its popularity in West and for its genuine artist merits, is only a small sliver of Asian culture/pop culture for that matter. Hardly representative.</p>
<p>Guess I’ve been wrong again and have to withdraw my earlier comment - the NBA has become more interesting recently - just because of an Asian boy graduated from the big H (!)…</p>
<p>It’s about time.</p>
<p>I am not an asian, but they have been getting screwed in the college admissions process.</p>
<p>The typical asian must have much higher stats than other racial groups.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that some colleges basically put the applications of asian applicants in a separate pile, where they are forced to compete among themselves.</p>
<p>It is very surprising about Lin. Houston Rockets GM is being asked how he was let go and he said essentially, if we kept him no would have seen him play for at least 2 years. He was on the bench in NY except for several people getting hurt. He reminds me of quarterback Warner who was essentially bagging groceries at one point but with a confluence of factors wiping out the depth chart, he became the man for Rams.</p>
<p>Now NBA is saying they got the Yao factor back in China.</p>
<p>From my personal experience, the Asian Americans I know who get into Harvard, Yale, Princeton etc., are the qualified ones. I live in a university town with a large population of Asians. This being said, most Asians where I live have parents that generally care about education. The effect of this is that almost all Asians I know are ahead in math, taking many AP courses, have internships/volunteer hours etc. However, the Asians that I know who do this (not all, obviously) tend to do these things because they think that it will get them into top schools. The people I know who get rejected are not genuinely interested in the extracurricular activities that they do. One Asian person I know who got into Harvard did not have a perfect SAT or ACT score, nor did he have a 4.0 or thirteen AP classes. He was, however, known throughout the school for being a wonderfully kind and nice person. </p>
<p>Obviously, there is the other end of the spectrum. My sister was genuinely interested in math and science and did what she liked. She didn’t have the community service hours and wasn’t the president of many clubs. She was admitted to her top choice early admission.<br>
Of course, I do believe that there are better chances for people of non-Asian races. One of my friends (he’s Nigerian, comes from a royal family there) does have a better chance than I do in getting in. This partially based on his race, but he is also smart.<br>
All in all, the best advice I have is to do what you want to, take classes you want to take (not just APs).</p>
<p>The case has been dropped: [U.S</a>. Department of Education Ends Inquiry into Harvard Admissions | News | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/2/17/admissions-department-education-withdrawn/]U.S”>U.S. Department of Education Ends Inquiry into Harvard Admissions | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>
<p>I’ve been following this myself and am not surprised that it’s been dropped.</p>
<p>I am not an Asian, but I am always amazed and dismayed at how many kids on CC seem to have no problem with Asians being subjected to different admission standards that other racial groups. </p>
<p>I for one don’t care what color or race my heart surgeon is. We should be accepting the most qualified persons.</p>
<p>Recently, I saw a post where some kid said he got into the University of Florida with a 1500 SAT (on a 2400 scale), while Asian kids might need a 1900 or even 2000.</p>
<p>It is easy to be in favor of affirmative action when SOMEONE ELSE’s admission spot, and not YOURS, is the one being sacrificed.</p>
<p>Why should Asians bear the brunt of this policy?</p>
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<p>Agreed. But what does it mean to be the most qualified? I don’t really care what my heart surgeon scored on his SATs. Building a class at Harvard is far more involved than just picking the kids with the highest test scores.</p>
<p>[In</a> Jeremy Lin, a stereotype that should be celebrated - The Washington Post](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-jeremy-lin-a-stereotype-that-should-be-celebrated/2012/02/15/gIQAEynYHR_story.html]In”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-jeremy-lin-a-stereotype-that-should-be-celebrated/2012/02/15/gIQAEynYHR_story.html)</p>
<p>From the Washington Post:
The Education Department also investigated Harvards admission of Asian American applicants in 1990. It found then that university officials routinely described these applicants as quiet/shy, science/math oriented, and hard workers. Admissions officials also had a hard time ranking one Asian American over another. One complained that an applicants credentials seem so typical of other Asian applications Ive read: extraordinarily gifted in math with the opposite extreme in English. A second Harvard admissions officer sounded equally frustrated. Hes quiet and, of course, wants to be a doctor, the officer wrote of one Asian American applicant.</p>
<p>You can find the primary sources for some of the above quotes by going to the link above.</p>
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<p>Would you sacrifice acumen as a surgeon (diagnosis, performing the surgery) for bedside manner? Most people wouldn’t.</p>
<p>Wait, 22 years ago a Harvard admissions officer described Asian applicants as "quiet/shy, science/math oriented, and hard workers.”???
Scandalous! Had the Dept. of Ed. uncovered that little morsel I’m sure they wouldn’t have dropped the investigation.</p>
<p>^On previous threads, people were doubtful that there ever was discrimination in admissions against Asians. My post seems to suggest that there was at one point, at least. Similar or worse language was used in the past 5 years by the head of admissions at MIT, so it’s not inconceivable to imagine it might still be happening.</p>
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<p>You have not only forsaken logic with this analogy but you’ve spat and trampled upon it.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure who this is directed towards, but I haven’t used any analogies. The poster I responded to specifically cited being a heart surgeon, but he/she made so many leaps in logic I’m not sure what he/she was even trying to say.</p>
<p>Are they saying ability as a heart surgeon isn’t dependent on standardized test scores? That only a certain part of being heart surgeon is dependent on standardized test scores; if this was the case, I assumed that bedside manner would be the component not dependent on test scores. Or perhaps they were saying that the SAT wasn’t particularly telling because it was 4 years before selection to medical school. It’s odd that they would choose to talk about only the SAT–are they trying to make the case that this group has high SAT’s but not similarly excellent performance in the classroom. That’s obviously false.</p>
<p>I tried to ascertain what point they were trying to make, and then responded to that point alone–what it takes to be a good doctor. I haven’t addressed the race part at all. What I’ve found in these arguments is that anything goes in terms of supporting the “right side,” and that anti-intellectual arguments seem to gain traction (e.g., high test scores/grades aren’t very useful in predicting who will be a good doctor). Once these gain traction in the AA argument, you seem them introduced in other contexts.</p>
<p>Oh my. Let me try to elucidate a bit. </p>
<p>Post#113 Lamenting the fact that Asians at U of Florida might need an SAT of 1900 when “some kid” (presumably non-Asian) was admitted with an SAT of 1500. Poster went on to say, “I for one don’t care what color or race my heart surgeon is. We should be accepting the most qualified persons.”</p>
<p>To which I replied in post 114, “Agreed, but what does it mean to be the most qualified? I don’t really care what my heart surgeon scored on his SATs.” My point being that competence as a surgeon, in my opinion, bore little correlation to standardized test performance. A little extrapolation on that point might lead the astute reader to realize that I was also inferring standardized test performance was not the ultimate measure of a potential Harvard applicant, either.</p>
<p>I found your post 116 a little confusing. "Would you sacrifice acumen as a surgeon (diagnosis, performing the surgery) for bedside manner? Most people wouldn’t. " Perhaps I misread your intent, but seems like you are equating diagnostic and surgical skill with standardized test performance. Therein lies the logical spitting and trampling to which Mr. Eisenhower alluded, I believe.</p>