<p>poetgrl, you lose all credibility when you ask people to cite sources but then when they do, you dismiss it with “eh. There’s data all over the place. You can cherry pick where you will. A lot of us have already read that stuff.”</p>
<p>Zekesima, I did my undergrad at Cornell and I think you are underestimating the intelligence of the student body. Engineering undergrads work in small groups to get problem sets done all the time. If your son can hang doing the absolute minimum standard, no one will question his seat. Conversely, if your son can’t do the problems that everyone else is able to do, then everyone will suspect AA. Essentially, let your son be judged by the quality of his work. I</p>
<p>@mavant, I have read that data. I have been pointed to that data in conversations like this on CC before. I expect to be pointed to it again. I don’t consider it definitive or even really indicative of much at all.</p>
<p>There is no data on what any of us think we are talking about. What there is is a hope that maybe H,Y,P,S, et al, would actually open their admissions process to an objective outside panel.</p>
<p>Nobody on this thread knows a thing, except what we have been told by Harvard.</p>
<p>Guys I have to work. So as fun as it has been I have to bow out. One last point to Pizzagirl, who cares what I get or don’t get, it’s the law that matters. If Harvard has racial quotas, to achieve diversity, to beat Yale, to make the Charles river squeaky clean, or to put a man on the sun, a goat in every bedroom, or solve P=NP or the Riemann Hypothesis, fact would remain that such quotas are illegal as long as Harvard receives Federal funds. </p>
<p>Unless of course Harvard argues that there is an overriding social benefit like AA, which is where Xiggi was going. It’s really as simple as that. Statistically and anecdotally speaking I now have very little doubt that Harvard has an Asian cap. I see no point in debating whether that’s justified. It doesn’t matter. What matters is if it is legal.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl 1. to protect their yield, 2. because some of those are not so good in the class room 3. there essay reads arrogance 4. because they can 5. they think they have too many Asians already with perfect scores. I</p>
<p>I can go on.</p>
<p>Why do you think these perfect score applicants are not accepted?</p>
<p>The SAT isn’t really a very hard test. It’s just a particular type of test. If your biggest offering is a perfect SAT score, and you bring nothing else they need or want that year to the table? You won’t be taken there.</p>
<p>Of course, lucky for you, there are other schools all over the place, and some one of excellent caliber will likely admit you with your 2400. </p>
<p>298 of the filing: “Over the period between 2003 and 2012, the percentage of Asian
Americans at Harvard wavered only slightly above and below approximately 17 percent.
As noted earlier, this is despite the fact that, by 2008, Asian Americans made up over 27
percent of Harvard’s applicant pool, and approximately 46 percent of applicants with
academic credentials in the range from which Harvard admits the overwhelming majority
of students.”</p>
<p>How do people read this statement? I suspect some will see it as 46% of the qualified applicant pool is Asian while others will try to sidestep the importance of grades and test scores entirely in favor of something subjective…</p>
<p>And here we go again! Is it really worth debating that “46 percent of applicants with academic credentials in the range” is hardly the same as “46% of the qualified applicant pool.” </p>
<p>But in the end, does it matter? This case will not be decided on flimsy statistics and games of semantics. In the meantime, this discussion will continue in the same futile circular motions as all its predecessors. </p>
<p>Hence, why the filing of the lawsuit might bring an end to the perennial dialogues of deaf people. </p>
<p>A couple of people have mentioned shifting the emphasis of AA from race to race-blind SES. Apparently UCLA Law tried this: </p>
<p>From the CSMonitor 10/09/12: “One experiment at UCLA School of Law indicated it could be possible to achieve racial diversity at the professional-school level without explicitly looking at race, Mr. Kahlenberg notes in his report. By taking into account family wealth and single-parent status alongside more traditional socioeconomic factors, African-Americans were admitted at a rate 11.3 times higher than they were under race-conscious affirmative action, and Latinos were admitted at a rate 2.3 times higher.” </p>
<p>If I remember correctly, the Cal States give extra weight to applicants whose parents had no college degree, and, because of this, the numbers of Hispanics admitted increased post prop 209.</p>
<p>@ those who are angered by what seems to be current Asian caps at Harvard, would it still bother you as much if H shifted to such a scheme and the # of URM admits vs Asians stayed roughly the same or even increased?</p>