History of Admission at HYP - New Yorker Article

<p>UChicago undergrad has about a 30% Jewish population, and makes a picture voluntary after students make their attendance decisions.</p>

<p>Curious ... why is that quote your favorite?</p>

<p>My sense is that Asian students are the new Jews in the sense that stereotypes in the thirties and forties about how Jews with their perceived lack of social graces would bring down the tone of campus have been replaced with stereotypes that Asians do nothing but study, don't speak up in class, or, when socializing, stick together and don't contribute to the wider campus life. (Please be clear, I'm not saying these are true.) Though I don't believe there are quotas as there were for Jews, I do believe these stereotypes operate at some level when adcoms put together a first year class. If they only went by the numbers, Asians would be even more highly represented than they are. (For example, when the UCs abolished affirmative action and based admissions much more on numbers, Asian admission rose more than non-Asian.) </p>

<p>I think Malcolm Gladwell's great, but I did object to him talking about "Ivies" when he was only talking about Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.</p>

<p>I think this quote's a hoot, too. Any Straussian out there? Chicago economics? Chicago law?</p>

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I think Malcolm Gladwell's great, but I did object to him talking about "Ivies" when he was only talking about Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.

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<p>Here's a link to an article by Dartmouth President Emeritus James Freedman which discusses Jewish quotas and discriminatino in the first half of the 20th century (and a bit beyond) at Dartmouth and Columbia (as well as Harvard and Yale.)</p>

<p><a href="http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:FAzN4UfkdN8J:chronicle.com/weekly/v47/i14/14b00701.htm+freedman+dartmouth+antisemitism&hl=en&client=firefox-a%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:FAzN4UfkdN8J:chronicle.com/weekly/v47/i14/14b00701.htm+freedman+dartmouth+antisemitism&hl=en&client=firefox-a&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Isaac Asimov's autobiography gives a poignant personal account of his experiences with Jewish quotas at Columbia.</p>

<p>In retrospect, it is clear that institutions lost out on some great scholars because of their discrimination. In many cases, one university's loss was another's gain. Englightened colleges that did not discriminate were able to attract some highly talented scholars. MIT's acquisition of economist Paul Samuelson is a noteworthy example. A bit later, MIT acquired two more Jewish economists, Bob Solow and Franco Modigliani. All three won Nobel Prizes. Together they formed the critical mass that launched MIT's economics department into the #1 economics department in the country.</p>

<p>Other Jewish scholars felt the need to change their name--at least temporarily. Harvard's Abram Bergson published at least one scholarly article as "A. Berg." Paul Samuelson's brother Robert, a professor at Penn, apparently found the last name "Summers" was a useful way to defuse overt prejudice when he was starting out in his career. </p>

<p>Now, of course, Robert's son, Larry, is the first Jewish president of Harvard. Cornell administrator and economist Ronald Ehrenburg points out that all the Ivy League universities except one are headed and/or have been headed by Jewish presidents. (And he notes that the only exception, Brown, is headed by an African-American woman, something that would have been even more unthinkable than a Jewish president fifty years ago!)</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/wp/cheri_wp49.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/wp/cheri_wp49.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Another interesting quote from Ehrenburg's article:</p>

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Brandeis University was founded in 1948 as the first nonsectarian Jewish-sponsored academic institution in the United States, at least partially to provide educational opportunities for bright Jewish high school graduates. Within 15 years, and virtually without any endowment, its student body grew to be among the very most selective in the nation, with test scores higher than many Ivy League institutions’ students’ test scores, because of the large number of highly qualified Jewish applicants that were being denied admission to the Ivy League institutions. When religious barriers to college entry broke down in the 1970s, stimulated by Federal financial aid programs that led to need blind admissions and need based financial aid at the Ivy institutions, Jewish students flocked to the Ivy League and the quality of the students at Brandeis plummeted and has never fully recovered.

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<p>source: <a href="http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/wp/cheri_wp49.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/wp/cheri_wp49.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>By "quality" one presumes Ehrenburg means quantifiable stats (SATs and class ranks, e.g.) </p>

<p>The same phenomenon happened to women's colleges. In the old days,when most Ivies and many top LACs did not admit women, students at the top women's colleges had stats that were more impressive than those of their counterparts at the top men's schools. (Partly because the women's schools tended to be smaller than their male counterparts and partly because the women's college admissions policies tended to be more narrowly focused on academics, as opposed to say, sports or family connections.) Once the elite men's colleges finally opened their doors to women, the statistics at the top women's colleges fell a good deal from their previously stratospheric levels (though they are still eminently respectable, as is Brandeis! and of course, there's a lot to be said for the notion that there's far more to a student body than SAT scores and class ranks!)</p>

<p>I don't think things happened at Brandeis quite the way Ehrenburg suggests. Up to 1967, Jews gave to Brandeis in very substantial amounts and famous figures supported the university. Leonard Bernstein, for example, used to teach music there. With the Six-Days War, a lot of Jewish philanthropy got diverted to supporting Israel. There was a very noticeable effect on Brandeis' financial situation. Brandeis also underwent a bit of an identity crisis as presidents who succeeded Abraham Sachar tried to make it more appealing to non-Jews, thereby angering some long-time Jewish donors.</p>

<p>Interesting observation about the diversion of Jewish philanthropy from support of Brandeis to support of Israel.</p>

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Brandeis also underwent a bit of an identity crisis as presidents who succeeded Abraham Sachar tried to make it more appealing to non-Jews, thereby angering some long-time Jewish donors.

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<p>I imagine that a somewhat similar phenomenon may have happened at some of the women's colleges that went coed (Vassar and Skidmore,e.g.) with some alumnae becoming disenchanted with the change in the character of their alma maters after they went coed. and cutting back on their donations.</p>

<p>When we attended the reception for parents of freshmen at Princeton, I, who am typically oblivious to my surroundings, was struck by how few of the parents were overweight. In fact, I saw more large students than parents. I joked afterward that I now know that the secret to admission to the selective colleges is to have skinny parents. If someone wanted to do the study, I suspect parents’ body mass would correlate as well as a lot of other student characteristics in terms of predicting acceptance to HYP. In truth, given that obesity in America is concentrated among low-income families, it suggests that Princeton, and I am sure similar schools, still skews heavily to families where parents have sufficient income to eat well , have good health care, and stay in shape.</p>

<p>Wisteria -- Thanks for the link. I was curious not just because my son goes to Columbia but because of a family story about my father, who graduated from Harvard in the 1920s, got his PhD there in the 1930s, and received a prestigious fellowship which my mother always said was meant as compensation for the fact that, unlike other top PhD students, he couldn't be hired to the faculty because he was Jewish. His only academic offer came, interestingly enough, from the University of Kentucky. He declined it and worked outside of academia for almost a decade, then was hired with tenure and a full professorship at age 32 by Columbia in the 1940s. It sounds as if Columbia's period of anti-Semitism might have come earlier and ended sooner. I know that it was known for decades as the "working man's Ivy," especially when there were fewer dorms and more commuters, and was not perceived to be as blue-blood as HYP.</p>

<p>Princeton's low percentage of Jewish students compared to the other Ivies was the subject of a series of articles in the student newspaper there some time in the nineties. Perhaps someone else has the link.</p>

<p>I do not know the statistics for Jewish students but according to Princeton, "Reflecting the University's efforts to attract a broader pool of applicants, the number of minority students in the class of 2009 rose to a record 433, or 35 percent of the class, from 321, or 27 percent, in the class of 2008."</p>

<p>I'm sure Princeton doesn't count Jewish students as minorities, but I have no doubt that Princeton is seeking more diversity.</p>

<p>
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family story about my father, who graduated from Harvard in the 1920s, got his PhD there in the 1930s, and received a prestigious fellowship which my mother always said was meant as compensation for the fact that, unlike other top PhD students, he couldn't be hired to the faculty because he was Jewish.

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<p>Hmm, interesting, Sac. I'm guessing this prestigious fellowship was a Harvard Junior Fellowship, which is indeed an extremely prestigious honor. Samuelson was a Harvard junior felllow as was his fellow Nobel Laureate James Tobin. Biologist E.O. Wilson, historian of science Thomas Kuhn, chemistry Nobel Laureate Dudley Hischbach, in linguistics there's Noam Chomsky, psychologist B.F. Skinner, and many more household names in distinguished academic circles are on the list.</p>

<p>Complete list is here:
<a href="http://www.socfell.fas.harvard.edu/current%20and%20former%20jf%20term.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.socfell.fas.harvard.edu/current%20and%20former%20jf%20term.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The annual stipend for a junior fellow is $56,500 currently and there are minimal obligations. Basically, they are required to "be in residence" somewhere in the vicinity of Cambridge and they must attend two lunches per week with their fellow junior fellows and one dinner per week with the senior fellows (another very distinguished group.) Eminent visiting scholars grace these dinners as well from time to time. </p>

<p>Aside from attending two lunches and one dinner a week, they may do whatever they please--no teaching duties, no specific research agenda. Most but not all have completed their Ph.D. (at Harvard or elsewhere) before they begin their 3-year term as fellows, but they are free, if they like, to take any classes they please anywhere in the university, regardless of discipline, during their term as fellows. They have the freedom to pursue whatever research they like, to do interdisciplinary work, to explore new areas, etc.</p>

<p>Anyway, it is indeed a huge big honor. And it is notable that many of the junior fellows have been Jewish, including some of the early ones like Paul Samuelson (who was later offered only a lectureship at Harvard, which he declined when MIT offered him a full professorship) and perhaps your father as well. Perhaps the junior fellowship was also meant to be a "consolation prize" for Samuelson?</p>

<p>It is ironic that there have been so many eminent Jewish Harvard junior fellows, given that the Society of Fellows was launched in the mid 1930s by a sizable gift of then-President Emeritus Lowell, whose anti-Jewish policies had been especially notorious. </p>

<p>Anyway, it's clear that the Society of Junior Fellows is no longer a consolation prize for exceptionally promising Jewish scholars to compensate for the fact that Ivy League professorships are closed to them. Mathematician Noam Elkies, a Harvard junior fellow in the late 80s became Harvard's youngest full professor in the university's history at age 26.</p>

<p>Thanks for sharing your story, Sac. Anti-semitism persisted at other schools well after WWII. The first Jewish professor at Wellesley (a Harvard Ph.D.) began teaching there in the 1960s. He only recently retired.</p>

<p>sac, the questions you raise about Columbia being more open to Jews earlier than other Ivy colleges intrigued me, so I did some more checking.</p>

<p>Here's an interesting piece of data:</p>

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Nativism and intolerance among segments of the white Protestant population were aimed at both Eastern European Jews and Southern European Catholics. In higher education, Jews were particularly resented. By 1919, about 80% of the students at New York's Hunter and City colleges were Jews, and 40% at Columbia. Jews at Harvard tripled to 21% of the freshman class in 1922 from about 7% in 1900. Ivy League Jews won a disproportionate share of academic prizes and election to Phi Beta Kappa but were widely regarded as competitive, eager to excel academically and less interested in extra-curricular activities such as organized sports. Non-Jews accused them of being clannish, socially unskilled and either unwilling or unable to“fit in.”

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<p>source for above: <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/harvard.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/harvard.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It's clear from this that Columbia had a much larger proportion of Jewish students in the 1920s than Harvard. Yet the fact that Columbia's Jewish population was still less than NYC's public colleges suggests to me that Jews faced barriers even at Columbia. Some of these might have been financial barriers, since many Jews at that time were relatively recent immigrants and Columbia's tuition was surely higher than Hunter et al. But Asimov also gave a personal account of the anti-Jewish discrimination he faced at Columbia in the 30s and 40s.</p>

<p>sac, here's another interesting piece of data on Columbia's relatively greater receptiveness to Jewish students. According the "Celebrating 350 Years of Jewish Life in America," a Jewish woman, Annie Nathan Meyer, founded Barnard College, Columbia's affiliated women's college (and one of the "Seven Sisters") in 1888.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.celebrate350.org/dan/news.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.celebrate350.org/dan/news.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>And yet another interesting archived piece from the Yale Daily News citing reports that Yale alumni in the 1920 were concerned about letting so many Jews enroll that a strict 10% quota was enforced because" fear mounted quickly among conservative Yale alumni that Yale might turn into Columbia University, where about half of the students were Jewish at this time."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.asianam.org/yale's_quotas_against_jews.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.asianam.org/yale's_quotas_against_jews.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>sac, you've launched me on a fascinating search. I really hadn't realized that Columbia was, at one time, considered the most receptive elite private college for Jews, with the possible exception of U of Chicago.</p>

<p>However, it appears that even Columbia did take a number of deliberate steps to reduce their Jewish population, which was rising rapidly towards 50% in the 1920s, so that it was well below 20% in the 1930s. </p>

<p>One interesting problem: in those days, retention ratios were low as many students flunked out. So a policy that restricted admission of Jews was somewhat offset by the fact the Jews admitted (who were presumably an extremely select group, given the barriers they had to overcome to be admitted) were disproportionately successful and more likely to stay enrolled!</p>

<p>There is lots of fascinating reading about Columbia's history in the on-line course website for a history class at Columbia called: "Columbia University: A Social History," offered by Prof. McCaughey. </p>

<p>The course website is here:
<a href="http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/cuhis3057/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/cuhis3057/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Click on "Readings" and there's lots of food for thought, notably including "Harold S. Wechsler, "The Rise and Fall of Discrimination at Columbia," A Talk to the University Seminar on the History of Columbia University, November 10, 1998."</p>

<p>Marite, no question that Chicago is one of the centers of the universe intellectually. The dis is on "social" relevance. Any comments on that?</p>

<p>the term "social relevance" is not being used in the sense of actually contributing to society, but in the sense of being an icon. That's what the author is referring to when he talks about H. as a luxury brand. That's why there are so many more kids and their parents clammoring to get into H than there are trying to get into the U. of Chicago, even though it is likely that the undergraduate academic and intellectual experience would be better at Chicago.</p>

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To him, the answer was obvious. If you let in only the brilliant, then you produced bookworms and bench scientists: you ended up as socially irrelevant as the University of Chicago (an institution Harvard officials looked upon and shuddered). “Above a reasonably good level of mental ability, above that indicated by a 550-600 level of S.A.T. score,” Bender went on, “the only thing that matters in terms of future impact on, or contribution to, society is the degree of personal inner force an individual has.”

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<p>I don't think the quote refers to the luxury brand issue. Leo Strauss, who has been claimed as an intellectual influence by many highly influential conservative thinkers, can be said to have "personal inner force as an individual." The Chicago economists had a huge impact (for good their supporters would say, for ill, their detractors would claim) on the economies of many countries, especially in Latin America. They have also had a highly significant impact on Americans. The Chicago School of Law has a very distinctive feel, and we, as Americans, are affected by the legal decisions and interpretations of its products.</p>