<p>I’m just wondering what will happen to Harvard or any other school if the only basis for admissions becomes test scores and gpa. What makes these schools so remarkable is that the best student, including in the liberal arts, will be accepted, and “best” may mean best writer, best actor, best flautist, best… dancer… they can get. I think, also, if you are going for the “network” it would provide after graduation, you also want “best legacies.” Etc…</p>
<p>Those fighting to make Harvard into something else might be disappointed by what that makes Harvard. Its not like it will be the same school they are fighting to get into if it becomes this other Harvard. I mean, it’s not like the school will maintain it’s power if those in power stop thinking of it as the place they once went themselves. Just saying.</p>
<p>ETA: I’m not saying it ought not be changed if they are breaking the law, just that if they change it, it won’t be what they want it to be anymore anyway.</p>
<p>The plaintiffs always have the burden of proof. Always. They have to prove that there is improper discrimination going based on the policies being used. If you are in a strict scrutiny vs. rational basis situation, then that affects the burden of proving justification by the defendant. After the plaintiff has proved what they need to prove. </p>
<p>Is the policy rationally related to the goal? Meaning the policy may not be the best most narrow way to accomplish the goal, but it is related to the goal. Meaning it is not arbitrary or done with bad motive, even though there might be a lot of better ways to do it.</p>
<p>In strict scrutiny, the defendant has to show that there is not a narrower/better way to accomplish the goal. Because you are dealing with something very sensitive – like race.</p>
<p>The diversity goal, especially for a private college that has tons of very qualified applicants, gives lots of leeway. Schools generally can craft their classes so they have lots of different kinds of students – male, female, rich, poor, north south east west, domestic, international, athletes, musicians, poets, kids who speak Portuguese, kids who want to study Greek, first generation students, kids from inner cities, rural kids, disabled kids, African american kids, etc. etc. etc.</p>
<p>If you happen to come from a demographic that tends to produce gobs of highly qualified applicants (well-to-do girls who come from private high schools in the northeast and ride horses and play the piano) the diversity objectives mean you may get accepted at lower rates than if the diversity goals were not applied.</p>
<p>Tough case to win even with strict scrutiny.</p>
<p>OHMomof2 Although I agree with you that the opportunities are similar for the institutions that you mentioned, colleges are like real estate. There may be similar real estate, but no two parcels of real estate are the same. For the purposes of the lawsuit, a harm must be shown.</p>
<p>I mean, kids from the Northeast could bring a lawsuit, frankly. Young women could bring a lawsuit against the top LACs. Young men could bring a lawsuit against the top tech schools. URMs continue to have a very valid claim, particularly the more we know about the impact of poverty on the education system in this country, and the impact of test prep… It should be interesting to see what happens with the new SATs. </p>
<p>Without denying the undying mystique of attending Harvard or its peers, a real contributor to the malaise that pits obvious entitlement and high expectations against the hard reality of single digits admission rates is the excessive and overly narrow focus on a small number of schools. Like it or not, the Harvard et al or bust is alive and well on many shores. </p>
<p>In a cynical vicious circle, the more students are rejected, the more students perceive Harvard as the Shangri-La of education and the door to a gilded path of social and economical well-being. Along the way, thousands and thousands are attracted to this proposal, and not always with their best interest in mind. Harvard’s adcoms probably --through experience-- are eminently qualified to make a different determination from a 17 years who is blinded (or coerced to be blind) by the prestige associated with the Ivy League. Is Harvard really the answer to the “best fit” of more than 30,000 students who aspire to be engineers or bankers?</p>
<p>As we know, the admission process through the lens of applicants is reactive. The problem for some is that reacting to the vagaries of admission has been a lot harder than the days of excelling in the confines of a Suzuki Academy or in the halls of a hagwon or a SAT cram masquerading as a Bible school, and focusing almost exclusively on invidual and measurable accomplishments. </p>
<p>While it still work for many --as the numbers of Asians in our tippy-top schools indicate-- the process has become more nebulous to the ones anchored in yesterday’s mousetrap. And clearer to the ones who do not find it that hard to understand that not all angular applications are created equal. </p>
<p>northwesty Plaintiff’s only need to provide a prima facie case. In this case the following:
plaintiff is a member of a protected class
plaintiff was qualified applicant to Harvard
plaintiff was rejected despite being qualified
After rejection Harvard sought some other applicant.</p>
<p>I think the subject kid of the lawsuit satisfies the prima facie requirements for a discrimination lawsuit which is why the complaint is a mile long. Please be aware that discrimination lawsuits are a bit different than the standard civil lawsuits which are based upon preponderance of the evidence.</p>
<p>poetgrl This lawsuit isn’t about making GPA and test scores the only basis for admission, it’s about racial discrimination. Schools are still welcome to use ECs, LOR etc in the admission process.</p>
<p>xiggi I actually agree with much of what you stated. I guess there is common ground.</p>
<p>Harvard needs to show that they aren’t denying kids because they are Asian or female. Because ethnicity and gender are suspect classifications.</p>
<p>They are denying them because they have too many kids who are [DESCRIBE NON-SUSPECT CHARACTERISTICS]. And because for diversity purposes, they are admitting other kinds of characteristics. That story has to pass strict scrutiny review. Because riding horses or tennis/violin could be proxies for nefarious motives.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the plaintiff will have a hard time overcoming the prima facie observation that 4.4% of the general population is of Asian descent, while 20% of Harvard’s 2018 class is of Asian descent. I’m not saying it’s an impossible case or that quotas do not in fact exist. But the burden of proof seems huge.</p>
<p>I think the case will really focus on the fact that despite the doubling of asians as a percentage of the US population, their percentage representation at harvard has actually declined since 1990, in contrast to their commensurate percentage increase at Caltech and small percentage increase at dartmouth & princeton</p>
<p>Will be interesting to watch how harvard explains this trend. Are they going to argue that nowadays the dumber, clumsier asian kids tend to apply more to them than to princeton or dartmouth? </p>
<p>Read paragraphs 276-279 of the Complaint, which tell the sad tale of Henry Park, a student at the super elite prep school Groton. Despite his high test scores, he didn’t get into Harvard, Yale, Brown or Columbia even though 34 of his Groton classmates did. Henry and his entire family were shamed and devastated. His mom said: “He just failed like a falling leaf.” Boo hoo. According to the Wall Street Journal, he had to settle for acceptances from Carnegie-Mellon and Johns Hopkins. <a href=“WSJ.com - For Groton Grads, Academics Aren't Only Keys to Ivy Schools”>http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Polk_Groton_Grads.htm</a> Brought a tear to my eye…</p>
Yes, but what percentage of the applicants are asian? And what is the admit rate of asian applicants v the admit rate of other groups?</p>
<p>If harvard is not imposing illegal quotas, then why not simply disclose the number of applicants by race and the number of admitted students by race? What’s unreasonable about that? Since they are receiving federal money, seems like the least they should disclose.</p>
<p>The only sad part of that story is that it has beaten to death. It has been debated ad nauseam on CC when it was actually a bit of news. It brought attention to Marilee’s famous “textureless math drone” and to the fact that admissions were indeed extremely competitive and that entitlement was not an illusion. </p>
<p>@voiceofreason66, I am just responding to the article, if you read it? </p>
<p>"“I complain, but my mom says I have to go,” said Jerry, a Stuyvesant High School student from Sunnyside, Queens, who has already scored a 1520 on the Scholastic Assessment Test for college, but is shooting for a perfect 1600. “It’s like a habit now.”"…That student is a junior. What advice do you think he would have received if he had posted on this site, “I have a 1520 on the SAT, should I be spending my Saturdays in test prep trying for a 1600, or should I do an interesting EC?”</p>
<p>" Today, the Korean-language yellow pages list about three dozen Asian cram schools in the New York area. In Los Angeles, the Chinese yellow pages list about 40." </p>
<p>If you read the legal complaint which is the subject of this thread, you will see that professional college counselors are saying that colleges have too many applicants who fit the profile I mentioned in my previous post. I did not quote because I can’t easily cut and paste from that PDF, but I refer you to pages 58-60 where these professionals are detailing the stereotypes and advising applicants that their chances are better if their achievements fall outside that profile.</p>
<p>@Corinthian,
From that same WSJ article u linked, u forgot to mention another kid who graduated in the bottom quartile in Henry Parks’ s graduating class of 79 kids at Groton:
<p>What difference does it make what percentage of the applicants are asian? What if every Asian and every African American in the United States applied to Harvard? What would that actually tell us?</p>
<p>I mean, once you get what the applicant pool is made up of, then you have to put them all into piles of ECs and LORs and rigor and SES and part of the country, part of the world, sex of applicant.</p>
<p>There are only 2,000 spots at Harvard every year and there are more than 30,000 validictorians. I just think it’s going to be an impossible case to prove.</p>
<p>I believe that our common ground will be solidified by fuller disclosure by the schools targeted by the lawsuits. I think that ALL applicants and their families are helped when schools accept to lift the veil on their practices, and most importantly share numbers that should be disclosed. Someone asked what was wrong with having Harvard presenting the variables in greater details. I agree that this should be close to mandatory. Over the years, I have been a steadfast advocate for more disclosure and a lot less hiding behind smokescreens.</p>
<p>The issue of discrimination against Asians has been tossed around so many times that the arguments have become circular. Someone above used the example of Harry Park and this highlights the great difficulties of the plight of Asians: the dearth of really compelling AND timely cases. If the problem was as vast as some like to claim, should all the resources of Blum not uncover more discontent and discriminated students? This is an issue that has plagued the Texas lawsuit of Fisher as well. The smoking guns are loaded with dry bullets in the form of unappealing claimants. </p>
<p>In the end, the chips should fall where they ought to fall. The interesting part of this new twist is that it might force the schools to err on the side of full disclosure and elevate the debate well beyond the game theories and other voodoo a la Espenshade’s research. </p>
<p>This is an issue that deserve attention, but it requires a much higher level of correct data analysis than has been presented to date. </p>
<p>Do you think there will be issues of privacy if they release all the applications? I mean, short of releasing all the applications, what will satisfy?</p>
<p>Harvard isn’t going to have to release individual applications. But they could easily release aggregated data like a Naviance scatterplot, by race; they have the data. </p>
<p>"northwesty Plaintiff’s only need to provide a prima facie case. In this case the following:
plaintiff is a member of a protected class
plaintiff was qualified applicant to Harvard
plaintiff was rejected despite being qualified
After rejection Harvard sought some other applicant."</p>
<p>You aren’t getting “despite being qualified.” THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF STUDENTS WHO ARE QUALIFIED WHO DON"T GET IN, BECAUSE HARVARD DOESN"T HAVE 20,000 BEDS. Qualifications are NOT based on SAT/GPA. They are based on Harvard’s subjective evaluation of who would add the most to their community. You really don’t get in. A campus full of 2400/4.0’s who don’t interact with one another, who don’t produce music, art, theater, work on political causes, etc. is NOT a campus full of “more qualified people” who have lower SAT/GPAs.</p>
