Harvard, you have been served

Parent Cafe
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<p>“Lizardly If graduating leaders than geniuses is what HYPS is all about then what the heck is SAT and GPA so important to those institutions and why are those two factors sky high at those institutions?”</p>

<p>Because they are both academic institutions and (in their own minds) developers of future leaders. And of course leadership has a wide range within - leaders in academia, the arts & letters, government, social justice, etc.</p>

<p>Why is this a surprise?</p>

<p>They don’t claim that they take Only The Very Smartest People as if they rank all 30,000 apps on pure smartest and take the top 2,000 from the top. They all, in different ways, want to identify an interesting “stew” of people who, when put together, can accomplish great things. That involves some of all types. It means some math geeks who burn the midnight oil, and some class-president push-the-flesh types. It involves some classical pianists and violinists, and others who start quirky alternative music groups. It includes all types. </p>

<p>You may think that they “should” take Only The Very Smartest, and rack-and-stack SAT scores, but they don’t want to. </p>

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<p>@mathyone, the Putnam is an ineffective measure of a school’s depth of physics genius. Colleges routinely recruit for the sole purpose of cranking on that competition. Putnam is Harvard’s baby, so it is in their best interest to get a handful of the math superstars to win that competition. You only need 3 of the best to make up the team, so Harvard probably doesn’t accept many more math geniuses than they need. I believe Caltech used to offer scholarships for math superstars and, during those times, they probably placed well. I don’t think they offer those scholarships anymore.</p>

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Yeah, but are these non-academic contributions to the school community evenly regarded according to race? I somehow sense that a hispanic applicant playing the violin will get a pat on the back, while the same instrument in the hands of an asian kid will elicit a derisive eyeroll.</p>

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<p>"I somehow sense that a hispanic applicant playing the violin will get a pat on the back, while the same instrument in the hands of an asian kid will elicit a derisive eyeroll. " The hispanic kid brings not only violin skills but adds to the desired campus URM diversity. I have no idea how popular violin is in the hispanic applicant pool, but if it’s so unusual, the hispanic kid might get that pat on the back for showing a little independent initiative to pursue interests beyond their cultural norms. </p>

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<p>" 1. Not sure what a favored EC might be but if Harvard is going to denying otherwise worthy applicants it should just state the diverse ECs that it wants so those Asians will take up the trombone vs the violin, get killed playing football vs tennis."</p>

<p>This is precisely the heart of the cultural divide that is difficult for you.
You believe admission into Harvard is “earned” due to checking boxes. If there are 10 boxes, and you can check all 10 at high levels, you “should” get in. You want them to tell you Exactly What’s in Those Boxes. </p>

<p>In the EC boxes, you want them to tell you that newspaper editor rates a 10, student body president rates a 9, and debate team leader rates an 8. You want them to tell you that viola is a 10, the oboe is a 9, and the piano is an 8. </p>

<p>If they would only TELL you - why you’d certainly steer your child from piano-playing debater to viola-playing newspaper editor! In a heartbeat! Tell me what you want, Harvard, and I will check all your boxes and show you that I belong!</p>

<p>This is a certain cultural approach / mindset behind this. This is not the cultural approach / mindset of the world that Harvard (et al) inhabit. </p>

<p>They inhabit a world in which they want you to develop the best <em>you</em> you can be. For this person, that’s the piano-playing debater. For that person, it’s the oboe-playing student body president. For that person, there may be no instrument at all - but boy, do they show leadership at Boys State and working on political campaigns. And on that person, it IS staying in the science lab til 3 am because they just can’t envision doing anything else.</p>

<p>Harvard (et al)'s belief is that you create the best, most interesting “stew” by mixing all these people together, giving them great resources, and off they go. But it’s not predicated by giving a list of specific EC’s and valuing them from top to bottom, newspaper over debate, viola over piano, tennis over lacrosse.</p>

<p>And the desperation of “I sooo want to get into Harvard, I will twist myself in a pretzel to please you” is exactly the mindset that is unappealing to Harvard. </p>

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<p>“Yeah, but are these non-academic contributions to the school community evenly regarded according to race? I somehow sense that a hispanic applicant playing the violin will get a pat on the back, while the same instrument in the hands of an asian kid will elicit a derisive eyeroll.”</p>

<p>Check out the website of any top school elite orchestra. You’ll find plenty of Asian violinists in the orchestra!</p>

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Way to go!!! Nice way to perpetuate racial stereotypes that a hispanic kid playing a violin is like a fish riding a bicycle. </p>

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<p>mathyone have you heard of relative deprivation theory? It is not a problem if a student is Hispanic, Black or any other ethnicity as long as they are at or near their peers in academic ability. So being able to play a violin should not be an issue but being able to do Calculus should. When Harvard and others lower the bar for students for the purpose of diversity, it results in the unintended consequence of driving otherwise bright kids from their desired majors.</p>

<p>Read this study on Dartmouth mismatch effect on URM students who desire to be STEM majors who fail to achieve their goal even though Dartmouth accepts essentially the best and the brightest of URMs. Start reading at Chapter 3.</p>

<p><a href=“Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It S Intended to Help, and ... - Richard Sander, Stuart Taylor Jr. - Google Books”>Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It S Intended to Help, and ... - Richard Sander, Stuart Taylor Jr. - Google Books;

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<p>I think this entitlement and resentment might have something to do with this. The posters on this thread who are whining about this might consider a better way to talk about it. I know you think you have “right” on your side, but until you consider other paradigms and other ways of measuring things, and stop whining about URMs, your argument lacks both grace and persuasion. Have you considered this at all? </p>

<p>20% of Harvard is Asian. Nobody is keeping Asians out of Harvard. What they are doing, however, is getting URMs INTO Harvard, for a very good reason. Consider that it is a part of Harvard’s mission, in fact, to educate and find the most academically talented URMs and SES disadvantaged in the country. Whether you like this or not, whether you agree with this or not, this is one of their MAIN missions. </p>

<p>It’s really not their mission to find and educate all the best SAT takers in the country with the highest GPAs. Believe it or not, and you ought to realize how patently obvious this is, they do not believe those kids will benefit nearly as much from what they have to offer as the other kids will. </p>

<p>Again, it’s just not up to you to choose the mission, and speaking disparagingly about other races, based on test scores, is so close to the idea of Nazis, you run into a brick wall , in terms of understanding or interest in this country, and certainly at Harvard or any other school which still values the humanities as highly as they do there.</p>

<p>Learn a better way to talk about this.</p>

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<p><a href=“https://www.boston.com/news/education/2014/11/17/harvard-and-unc-sued-over-their-admission-policies/Yn4qC62cQMpB5lJXkgwDLJ/story.html?p1=Topopage:Test_B:Main_headline”>https://www.boston.com/news/education/2014/11/17/harvard-and-unc-sued-over-their-admission-policies/Yn4qC62cQMpB5lJXkgwDLJ/story.html?p1=Topopage:Test_B:Main_headline&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Not at all. I really don’t care which of these is more important to H. What i find troubling is that student body prez is worth a 10 if the applicant is black, but worth only a 6 if the applicant is white.</p>

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<p>Also, I’d like to add, I do not believe the courts can TELL Harvard they cannot have this mission to educate URMs and low SES. I’d be very surprised to hear that they could. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.</p>

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<p>I think it boils down to being interesting. Is there anything interesting about an AA basketball player? Or is the Asian bball player? Is the poor inner city AA student who does medical research or the Asian student doing the same research? </p>

<p>If you read Cal Newports books about being a high school superstar, he spells it all out. We read the book in DDs freshman year. A great read.</p>

<p>Some kids are far more interesting than others. Interesting people get noticed. People with interesting stories get noticed. As do those who show true grit and perseverance. </p>

<p>The kid who had was born to a 13yo mom, lost his dad to gun violence at 4years old and had his home destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, (slept on the bridge that we all remember seeing pictures of in the news because he and his family had no other options), living pillar to post most of his life and still was able to excel at school despite living in abject poverty. Bouncing from failing school to failing school and scored a 30 on his ACT and has had his artwork shown in art galleries.</p>

<p>How about the immigrant who came to the USA at age 11, not speaking English and lived with his aunt/uncle. This orphan helped out in their bodega after school. He learned how to speak English by watching Scooby Doo. He graduated at the top of this class 6 years later. </p>

<p>Now let’s compare that to the kid who has a dual parent family, both are doctors, maybe college professors, he has had a life filled with expensive music, horse back & art lessons, comfortable, palatial jaw dropping home, fancy private schools, amazing family vacations, vacation homes, never a day without food, heat, electricity, extensive SAT PREP. </p>

<p>My question is this, who has a story that will make him memorable? </p>

<p>Pls note-typing on my phone which is a bit difficult. </p>

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<p>Pizzagirl Your logic defies logic.</p>

<p>poetgrl Harvard is keeping many better qualified Asians out by its discriminatory admission policies. I understand it is a net sum game where some has to be denied entry for someone else to be accepted. Read the article in post 268.</p>

<p>As I have stated in numerous other post, if the range of ability is similar then by all means give the nod to the URM, but allowing much lesser qualified URM or Whites over more qualified Asians or Whites is doing no one any good, especially STEM wanna be. </p>

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<p>But you keep defining qualified as SAT/GPA, because that’s all you know. You really have a hard time breaking out of your cultural mindset. We all do, no shame in that.</p>

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<p>VOR, I guess we could go round and round forever and I’ve grown bored. </p>

<p>I hope you eventually get the information you are seeking. As I said, I’d actually really like to see Harvard, or Yale, or Northwestern, or Vanderbilt, open up their whole admissions procedure to some outside objective group. I suspect, for you, it is Harvard or nobody on that one… sigh.</p>

<p>Either way, I’m not sure you fully grasp the mission Harvard has tasked itself with. I don’t think it’s exactly what you think it is.</p>

<p>That said, and as I said already, I think the UNC case might go better for you, since it is a state school and needs to be way more transparently stats based.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

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<p>Pizzgirl it isn’t cultural mindset but that those are the only quantifiable data that is provided. Check any ranking entity such as USNWR, Forbes, etc. Everything else is unquantifiable. As others have stated here the greatest factors for admission to any school, Harvard or otherwise are GPA and SAT! Everything else is a small portion of the admission decision except for racial discrimination.</p>

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<p>Adding to my previous post.</p>

<p>Students who are able to stand out without their parents money & connections are becoming far more appealing to adcoms. These kids work twice as hard(10 times harder) and still are able to rise above life’s tragedies & excel. I’m not trying to take anything away from the children of the middle class/wealthy, but I think colleges respect & want kids who have had to overcome huge obstacles. SAT & ACT scores can be coaxed by mommy & daddy’s check book. As are many of the ECs. Adcoms are no dummies. They know how the game is being played by applicants. They also know that those with better financial resources are able to play the game in a better fashion. It’s not rocket science here folks. </p>

<p>The same friend whose dd goes to the test in NYC public school…many of her classmates attend the hagwons as I mentioned. They also are able to pay upwards of $250/hr for SAT prep. My friend can’t afford those fees. She is very frustrated. Her dd self studies and is moving her scores up on her own. </p>

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<p>poetgrl I really give a darn about Harvard or any other particular school. My concern is about fairness and what is right. My belief is that discrimination is wrong and I am outspoken about it. I try to be logical and provide data, but logic and does not seem to work with those who believe in the well intentions of AdComs on faith. </p>

<p>NewHaven How do the kids you mention work twice as hard or harder? Do they have a time machine like Hermione did in Potter? We have heard over and over again how Asians do nothing but study for their classes and their SATs to get high scores but working twice as hard at that is punished and dismissed as a cultural thing where Asians don’t do anything else but perhaps play tennis and violin. Unbelievable!!!</p>

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I don’t know where u get the idea that the plaintiffs want to shut out poor kids. The lawsuit explicitly advocates for greater consideration of socioeconomic background and granting more FA to enroll poor & minority kids.</p>