How corrupt are Ivy League admissions?

<p><a href="http://theamericanconservative.com/pdf/The%20Myth%20of%20American%20Meritocracy-Unz.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://theamericanconservative.com/pdf/The%20Myth%20of%20American%20Meritocracy-Unz.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Cheers.</p>

<p>AH: do us a favor darling. Summarize it for us. I’m not going to go thru 38 pages of likely rehashed adages.</p>

<p>The fact that one of the opening lines attacks the “meritocracy” means it’s already off to the wrong foot. One would have to be one grand fool to think that the Ivies are sole meritocracies.</p>

<p>For that, go to Beijing or Seoul University or IIT or your local community college.</p>

<p>T26E4,</p>

<p>Here’s a summary.</p>

<p>Summary: Unz claims that Asians are substantially disadvantaged at Ivies and other top schools as are non-Jewish whites (“Gentiles” he terms them). According to his statistics, at the Ivies save for Princeton and Dartmouth, Jewish students make up about a quarter of the student body, Gentiles a quarter, and Asians around 20% to 30%. </p>

<p>Unz also claims that factoring in intelligence (which he tries to proxy via results of NMS/Math Contests), Jewish students are disproportunately represented at Harvard by a factor of 5:1 to 7:1 (and similar magnitudes at other Ivies, save for P & D). Unz believes Asians are substantially under represented at Ivies as are Gentiles (save for P and D) by a factor of at least 2:1. </p>

<p>He cites admissions statistics at the UC system (where limited re AA) and Cal Tech (purported meritocracy) to bolster his analysis. At these schools, he says Asians/Gentiles are each around 40% and Jewish students about 5 - 6%. Unz (who is Jewish) cites statistics noting that Jewish relative achievement has decline din the last decade or more and posits that a factor in their disproportionate admissions at most Ivies is that the presidents and deans there are largely Jewish. Unz does not come out and directly question their good faith or that of admissions officers, but instead talks about the potential of unconscious bias. </p>

<p>Caveats: Unz acknowledges that Jewish students are concentrated in the NE and that he lacks statistics on applications and so does not know how many Jewish students apply to these schools compared to Gentiles/Asians.</p>

<p>Beyond the counterintuitive idea (at least to me) that Gentiles are now the most d/a group in America re admissions to most Ivies, what interested me is that the percentage of Jewish students at Harvard has remained relatively constant since around 1993 at 25%. As I have posted elsewhere, for the last decade Harvard also has tight bands for AA’s (11 to 12%), Hispanics (9 to 11%), and Asians (16 to 21%). If Unz’s numbers are right, this further suggests the use of soft quotas at Harvard.</p>

<p>A snapshot: The percentage of Jewish students at Dartmouth & Princeton is far below that of the other Ivies.</p>

<p>Closing per CCs Terms of Agreement about AA threads. Please visit the Race FAQ sticky thread if you want to discuss AA.</p>