<p>Came across this article by chance, and am quite amazed by the statistics, especially in the middle sections of the article.</p>
<p>Has anyone seen this before?</p>
<p>It is a very long article and took a long time to read, but many of the facts and figures are quite new to me. Not sure what to make of them ...</p>
<p>Sorry, no. The current day analysis which uses lists of names (California vs. NY NMS winners, for example) is entirely bogus. All my kids were NMS finalists- all Jewish (both mother and father) with a generic, WASP type last name (something got mis-pelled at Ellis Island and it stuck). Several of my nieces, nephews, cousins, same situation. There are several families in my synagogue named Smith, Brown,Carter, and one Lee (nobody is Asian in the equation). The idea that every Jewish kid in America is or should be named Cohen or Levine is hardly the basis of a rigorous statistical analysis.</p>
<p>Some interesting ideas, but I wouldn’t call this data- and certainly disagree with drawing conclusions from a bogus statistical exercise.</p>
<p>This “research” has been roundly discredited. As blossom points out, the methodology used to calculate Jewish enrollment is deeply flawed.</p>
<p>My kids have a typical Jewish last name because their grandfather was Jewish, but they were not brought up Jewish.</p>
<p>My kid is Asian, Jewish and has an Italian last name. I wonder which group the author would lump him into. 
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<p>Half my family’s last names are Italian in origin but all the kids have been raised Jewish. </p>
<p>fondmemories, could you give references where this paper was disputed, especially as it pertains to the identification of Jewish students by last names? Thanks.</p>
<p>I’m curious as to why you are so interested in this idea? </p>
<p>I don’t know about studies, but consider the information on a college application. There is no place where anyone can indicate what religion they are. If you consider the choices of boxes to check for race, there isn’t a Jewish box. All applicants of middle eastern or eastern Europe are instructed to check “Caucasian”. This only leaves a few places where an applicant might disclose that he or she is Jewish, such as through religious related activities but that would be voluntary, and not every student is active in a religious based activity. Names are unreliable. Hillel makes a note of Jewish students on campus, but this is from self identification after admission. </p>
<p>So, if there is no definite way to consistently identify a Jewish student on an application, how can the claim that admissions favors Jewish students be accurate? </p>
<p>Also, one can be of any race and also be Jewish, so an applicant could check the box for any race, and also be Jewish. I’ve known Jewish couples who have adopted children of different races as well. </p>
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<p>Perhaps the American Conservative was running behind in its apparent quest to offend every minority group in America. </p>
<p>@SomeOldGuy I agree. I didn’t realize the article was on the American conservative website. I guess we have to consider the source. </p>
<p>This opinion piece again! It’s not a paper. It’s an op-ed, done sloppily.</p>
<p>Perhaps I live in an unusual town, but I can think of many mixed marriages, in which the children could be assigned to multiple ethnic and/or religious groups, depending on which parent one assigns priority. So trying to debate ethicity-associated intellectual habits on the basis of last names strikes me as an exercise in futility. </p>
<p>I mean, I think there’s a couple in town which made up their own, new, family name, rather than settle for either the mother’s, the father’s, or everyone-keep-their-own-and-the-kids-get-hyphens. </p>
<p>He began to lose me by the time he referred to "the hundred thousand or so undergraduates at Ivy League schools ". The 8 Ivy League schools enroll less than half that number (about 46,000). Am I nit-picking? I don’t think so, not when we’re talking about a statistical analysis of Ivy League admissions, and he’s off on their enrollment numbers by over 100%.</p>
<p>An anecdote or two about development admits does not add up to “corruption” in elite admissions. A misguided policy is not necessarily the same as rampant venality. And he needs to account for the fact that, despite the alleged preferences toward under-qualified applicants, the average qualifications of admitted students remain quite high at the 8 Ivies and other “elite” schools. 75th percentile SAT CR+M scores are the same at Yale, Princeton and Harvard (1590, according to stateuniversity.com) as they are at his model for meritocratic admissions, Caltech. </p>
<p>I don’t think there’s a conspiracy or favortism for Jewish applicants. I do think Jewish and Asian families are generally obsessed with brand name colleges. Because of that, they’re on average savvier about the process of preparing for and applying to highly selective schools. Just as wealthy Catholic families are more likely to know a thing or two about getting into Notre Dame or Gtown…</p>
<p>Hillel lists the colleges that have the largest number of Jewish students, and the majority of them are state colleges in states that have a higher number of Jewish residents. Since in-state colleges reflect the population of that state, it would stand to reason that a large number of Jewish students are attending their state college. In the top 60 are: University of Florida, Rutgers, UMDCP, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan State. These are good colleges, but they are not elite. So regardless of any possible obsession, many Jewish students are attending their in state colleges, just like many other students in their state. </p>
<p>I agree with SomeOldGuy that perhaps there wasn’t much to write about when they published that article. Holistic admissions is exactly that: based on a lot of factors. For any applicant who gets one of the few spots that many more apply to, it isn’t possible to decide that admission was decided on one factor, and doing so would be speculation at best. One can say, looking at the statistics of admitted students to elite colleges, that they are qualified. </p>
<p>But wait, I thought holistic admissions disproportionally favors URMs? Didn’t someone post a link to an American Conservative OP-ed piece about that very subject a few months back? For the love of Pete!!! They should make up their minds! 8-} </p>
<p>“I do think Jewish and Asian families are generally obsessed with brand name colleges.”</p>
<p>OMG</p>
<p>Let’s see- of the crop of 12th graders at my synagogue, the colleges they are attending include:
Hofstra, Adelphi, CUNY, Queens college, NYU, BU, Muhlenberg, Binghamton, U Mass, U Conn, Rutgers, U Maryland, Farleigh Dickinson, Brandeis, Hampshire and Lawrence. Stop me when I hit a kid who has a parent with an obsession with brand name colleges. Most of the parents seem to want what everyone else wants-a “fit” for their kid, whether academic or vocational (NYU is for the nursing school), at a price they can afford.</p>
<p>What on earth is this thread? Jeez. I wonder which schools favor blondes? That would have been useful information for us when my kids were applying. B-) </p>
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<p>Stereotype much?</p>
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While their stats are all high for HYP as well as for Caltech, I heard the profile of their students are quite different between any of HYP and Caltech.</p>
<p>Maybe the emphasis of the former 3 schools and the latter school are still quite different (well-rounded vs lope-sided.)</p>
<p>I think it is only when as many students (in percentage) in Caltech or MIT start to head to finance rather than any STEM-related career as those from, say, Princeton, I would agree that their incoming classes are similar. Last time I heard of it, more and more engineering graduates from MIT abandon the engineering career even though they were trained as engineers. So the day when the career goals of Caltech or MIT graduates are similar to the goals of HYP graduates may come.</p>