How corrupt are Ivy League admissions?

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

If Harvard felt the need for more non-Jewish White students, it could do that too. Obviously, it doesn’t want any more.

</p>

<p>Right. But there is a difference between – “I don’t want more non-Jewish white students because I don’t like non-Jewish whites hanging around” and “I want more diversity in my student body,” which has the effect of lowering the non-Jewish whites because at the end of the day there are only so many seats. </p>

<p>In the Lowell era at Harvard and so forth, there was a deliberate attempt to keep out Jewish students. It was explicitly – if you allow too many of them, you change the character of the school, and we don’t want that. That is so completely different from today’s world, in which colleges aren’t “discriminating against” Asians, it is just that they look for all types of diversity in a highly qualified pool, which is going to have the effect of ensuring that not all top-scorers get into a certain elite college. That’s why I can’t possibly equate Asians as the new Jews. The level of systematic discrimination today against Asians isn’t even remotely similar to the discrimination against Jews years ago. And it makes people look ignorant of history to pretend that the two things were equivalent.</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>If there were equal numbers of Jews and non-Jewish whites applying, I might believe that 2/3 of the accepted (and matriculating) would be Jewish. As people have said, intellectualism seems to be more pervasive in Jewish culture to their credit. However, given the large number of non-Jewish whites in the population relative to Jews, it is hard for me to believe that the Jewish pool of applicants is more talented than the very top of the white pool. </p>

<p>I don’t have an answer for the numbers. People’s explanation for this phenomenon that I’ve read on this thread may skew the numbers somewhat, but not to that degree IMO.</p>

[Bay]

<p>

“I want more diversity in my student body,” which has the effect of lowering the non-Jewish whites because at the end of the day there are only so many seats.

</p>

<p>Yes, this would be the natural conclusion of what is happening to non-Jewish Whites, as well as Asians. It doesn’t look like there has been any change to the Jewish White population since at least 1959 (the article I posted), though. This is what tends to get people a little riled up. If they have to be the fall out or be discriminated against in favor of a more diverse student population, they would prefer that the <em>hurt</em> is spread around to all of the non-disadvantaged groups. Otherwise it feels like more discrimination, I suppose.</p>

[Sue22]

<p>Amy Chua’s daughter, now at Harvard, is the child of two Yale law school professors and was near the top of her class at an elite private school that sends around 22 percent of the class to Ivies. My guess is that the ECs were not what got her into Harvard and Yale.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>

I am guessing that about 25% of seats are reserved for people of influence.

If that was really true, there wouldn’t be a shortage of non-Jewish whites.</p>

<p>The reason Harvard doesn’t “want” any more non-Jewish whites, in my opinion, is that it makes no distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish whites. Does Harvard have too many or too few Swedes? Nobody knows, because nobody cares.</p>

[muckdogs07]

<p>Via the common data set (below), here are the range of Harvard numbers for incoming first years from 2006-07 to 2011-12:</p>

<p>White 40.1% to 44.6%, AA 5.9 to 8.8%, Hispanic 8.2 to 10.2%, Asian 15.0 to 18.6%, Unknown/mixed 9 to 16%, International 6 to 11.6%</p>

<p>If you ignore the internationals and unknown/mixeds, the Asian band looks very tight and probably underrepresented. But if you assume many Asians do not report (or unknown), consider themselves of mixed race, or are international (ala the princelings)then the numbers re Asian representation look much better and I probably was hasty in calling Asians the new Jews. </p>

<p>Nevertheless, the bands are very tight for all groups and much tigher than the URM bands – between 12.3% and 20.1%, with the last four years between 13.5% and 13.8% – for Michigan law school that raised in Justice Kennedy’s mind (the swing vote in Grutter) an inference of targets (ie soft quotas). </p>

<p>[The</a> Office of the Provost | Common Data Set](<a href=“http://www.provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/common_data_set.php]The”>http://www.provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/common_data_set.php)</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@Sue22

Amy Chua’s daughter, now at Harvard, is the child of two Yale law school professors and was near the top of her class at an elite private school that sends around 22 percent of the class to Ivies. My guess is that the ECs were not what got her into Harvard and Yale.

</p>

<p>Note that Amy Chua’s daughters also get double-legacy advantage at Harvard. The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother book was also perfectly timed to make Sophia a celebrity while colleges were reading her applications. Presumably, having multiple hooks and graduating as valedictorian from high school made her irresistable to colleges.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>For those particular kids, all the crazy tiger mother stuff was probably unnecessary overkill. That’s what makes it particularly sad.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

Via the common data set (below), here are the range of Harvard numbers for incoming first years from 2006-07 to 2011-12:</p>

<p>White 40.1% to 44.6%, AA 5.9 to 8.8%, Hispanic 8.2 to 10.2%, Asian 15.0 to 18.6%, Unknown/mixed 9 to 16%, International 6 to 11.6%</p>

<p>If you ignore the internationals and unknown/mixeds, the Asian band looks very tight and probably underrepresented.

</p>

<p>Why do you say “probably underrepresented”? What “should” it be, and what is the basis for your assumption? </p>

<p>Does the make-up of the applicant pool factor into any of this at all?<br>
For example, “should” Harvard’s Asian population look similar to that of Stanford? What if the % of their applicant pools that is Asian differs between the two?</p>

<p>Also, does a particular race / ethnicity “crowding the applicant pool” mean that the college “ought” to increase their representation? To use a hypothetical extreme, suppose every single Asian student with good scores in the country decided to apply to Harvard, and nowhere else. Let’s say they are now making up, oh, I don’t know, 60% of the applicant pool. Let’s assume 100% yield just to make it easy. Does that mean that Harvard “ought” to admit such that 60% of the admitted pool is Asian?</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

As people have said, intellectualism seems to be more pervasive in Jewish culture to their credit. However, given the large number of non-Jewish whites in the population relative to Jews, it is hard for me to believe that the Jewish pool of applicants is more talented than the very top of the white pool.

</p>

<p>Ah – but there is a distinction between IN THE POPULATION and IN THE POPULATION OF STUDENTS APPLYING TO ELITE SCHOOLS (who have a respectable chance; that is, not just a toss-away whim app). Let’s get real - the makeup of the pool of those applying to Harvard (etc) cannot resemble the overall demographics of the US. It’s likely far more northeast and west coast, more upscale, more Jewish and more Asian.</p>

[lookingforward]

<p>JHS, no they don’t generally reveal religion in their CA. Ime. The % of kids who reveal temple or church responsibilities or religious directions is insufficient to do any predicting. </p>

<p>This raises a point I’ve hesitated to make.<br>
PG has been advocating, in a few threads, that kids need to stand out, in some appropriate way. Her take is one on something I find true: simply put, most kids don’t stand out. Unfortunately, that includes vals, math wizzes, varsity captains, etc.</p>

<p>Arg- you don’t know. The Justice dept, so far, is fine with all this. You can read about it; Bel and Muckdogs and others can provide some links. </p>

<p>Freaking 25% of the seats are not reserved for influence. All kids are admitted on a core ability to do the work. The goal of adcoms, in a sense, is to get people through the gate, the right composition of assets and ablities and interests and determination. A kid’s “vision” matters very much- and his follow-through. If you don’t show that through more than stats, your chance is a bit tougher. Why shouldn’t it be?</p>

<p>I’m afraid the same hand wringing some Asian Americans have been doing on CC is now happening for WnJ kids. The effort should go into the CA (and acquiring the sorts of varied experiences and etc that belong there.)</p>

<p>Have any of you read any of Sophia’s writing? Any of you dig a lil deeper than “Chua’s daughter?”</p>

[lookingforward]

<p>ps. Harvard’s currently showing 21% Asian American in 2016. Any proportion they feel is right for them is not the same as “arbitrary.”</p>

<p>Asian-Am 21%, Afr-Am 10%, Hisp/Lat 11%, AI/PI 2%.</p>

<p>We don’t know how many of any group were admitted and chose to go elsewhere.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

I am guessing that about 25% of seats are reserved for people of influence. Probably 45% are awarded on merit, resulting in the suspicious 15-17% rate for asians. After all they need someone to base the universities’ reputations on. 30% are awarded to feel good minorities so that alumni can, well, feel good. That way there is a spot for a homeless LA girl with mediocre test scores but with a high Q-score.

</p>

<p>Your statement unwittingly speaks to a character trait of your own.</p>

<p>The kind of institution Harvard (et al) prides itself on being (and the kinds of people that they want making up their class) is the kind of place where people would not begrudge giving a hand up to a homeless girl who might have mediocre test scores but who has other qualities that make her a diamond in the rough and worth developing and worth learning from, because she may have things worth teaching that aren’t found in books. </p>

<p>And don’t kid yourself - I am sure there are many applicants whose app-totality conveys, in between the lines, that they don’t think they can learn from others’ life stories, but only by people-at-the-very-tippy-top-of-the-score-chain-such-as-themselves. And here’s the great thing about Harvard. There are enough people at the tippy top of the score chain that they have the luxury of picking those people whom they think will make a reasonably comfortable atmosphere for our diamond-in-the-rough and excluding those people who will look down on her for not having 2400 SAT’s and winning Intel while playing at Carnegie Hall.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

I am guessing that about 25% of seats are reserved for people of influence. Probably 45% are awarded on merit, resulting in the suspicious 15-17% rate for asians. After all they need someone to base the universities’ reputations on. 30% are awarded to feel good minorities so that alumni can, well, feel good.

</p>

<p>Of course, if their practices disgust you so much, and their student body is so very inferior with all those undeserving people, you needn’t apply (or have your kid apply).<br>
Funny how that never seems to be an option for the whiners. I mean, it’s not as though one needs a Harvard degree to get a job other than flipping burgers.</p>

[mathmom]

<p>

Why do you say “probably underrepresented”? What “should” it be, and what is the basis for your assumption?

Really, given the percentage of Asians in the US population pretty easy to argue otherwise! But I won’t since I think it’s reasonable for Asians to be over represented. As for Stanford, I believe it has a mandate to take a significant portion of its students from CA, it’s not surprising if it has a larger percentage of Asians than east coast schools.</p>

[lookingforward]

<p>Don’t knock the test scores among non-Asian minorities, either. You have no idea.<br>
This is one of the reasons I protest the stereotyping- there are admirably qualified kids across all categories. Kids from miserable conditions who prove out. Let me put it this way: they leave my kids in the dust. Sub-dust.</p>

<p>Btw, Stanford is looking for something a bit different from Harvard or the Ivies- their own unique strengths and offerings are different, in some key respects.</p>

[Hanna]

<p>“the Justice Department would be suing them to disclose their methodologies, which obviously exist in some codified form.”</p>

<p>I think it is obvious that they do NOT exist in any codified form. The Harvard admissions office is not filled with stupid people, and even if it were, they have good lawyers who tell them how to avoid liability. Anyone dumb enough to write “We’re aiming for 25% Jews” in an internal email would not continue to have a job. If the boss knows what his own goals are, the committee will make decisions that are consistent with those goals – he’s in the room with them! Virtually every decision is a close one, so you only need the merest hint of a thumb on the scale to push it one way or another.</p>

[argbargy]

<p>

In the Lowell era at Harvard and so forth, there was a deliberate attempt to keep out Jewish students. It was explicitly – if you allow too many of them, you change the character of the school, and we don’t want that. That is so completely different from today’s world, in which colleges aren’t “discriminating against” Asians, it is just that they look for all types of diversity in a highly qualified pool which is going to have the effect of ensuring that not all top-scorers get into a certain elite college.

</p>

<p>Look up “begging the question”.</p>

<p>The metrics that HYP claim to be using arent the whole story. How many asians would get credit for speaking a language other than English at home? For being the first in the family to go to college? For being low SES? I am betting a disproportional number. And yet it looks like their population’s representation is pretty much entirely explained by the academic performance metric. Why cant they simply divulge what their ‘holistic’ metric actually is? Because the ‘holistic’ metric would simply be reveled to be quotas and set asides for legacies and scions of important foreign officials. </p>

<p>There is always plenty of space at the Ivy’s for the children of Steve Spielberg and Brook Shields. Or a random Kennedy because you never know when they might have the bon chic to get themselves a senate seat, which increases the prestige of the old pile of bricks. One of the useful functions that an institution can do is make the alums feel good. Where is the glamor in having your school full of near sighted asian strivers? Or the offspring of bourgeois salary men. Apple Paltrow is out there people!</p>

<p>

Your statement unwittingly speaks to a character trait of your own.

</p>

<p>Yes, a dislike of publicity stunts.</p>

[justmytwocents]

<p>I didn’t read even half of this stuff, but I’ll tell you part of the article that I saw (just skimmed) that really annoyed me was this:</p>

<p>

Near the beginning of her book, Hernandez explains that over half of Ivy League admissions officers are individuals who had not attended such academically challenging universities, nor probably had the intellectual capability to do so, and were sometimes confused about the relative ranking of SAT scores and other basic academic credentials. She also cautions students to avoid any subtlety in their essays, lest their words be misunderstood by their readers in the admissions office, whose degrees are more likely to have been in education than in any serious academic discipline.102

</p>

<p>Does Hernandez really say that? If so, she has some severe personal problems.</p>

<p>Not that it matters because it’s not worth responding to this garbage, but working in admissions and knowing a large group of people working in admissions, these are the institutions where my admissions colleagues/friends/associates earned their degrees:</p>

<p>Harvard (many times over), Northwestern, Princeton, Claremont McKenna, Wellesley, Duke, MIT, Smith, Stanford, Barnard, Columbia, Bryn Mawr, Amherst, Middlebury, Conn College, Yale, Brown, Williams, WUSTL, UPenn, Boston College, and the University of Chicago.</p>

<p>Yes, clearly we all went to “less challenging institutions” where we studied “stupid” subjects.</p>

<p>(IMHO, btw, colleges tend to be pretty prestige oriented when hiring admissions people. That is, other than their own institution, they tend to hire graduates of higher-ranked institutions…)</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>

Ah – but there is a distinction between IN THE POPULATION and IN THE POPULATION OF STUDENTS APPLYING TO ELITE SCHOOLS (who have a respectable chance; that is, not just a toss-away whim app). Let’s get real - the makeup of the pool of those applying to Harvard (etc) cannot resemble the overall demographics of the US. It’s likely far more northeast and west coast, more upscale, more Jewish and more Asian.

</p>

<p>I do agree with you, but I wouldn’t expect it to have that huge of an effect to account for the numbers we see here.</p>

<p>We need more information I think.</p>