<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t understand the personal attack. I did start a thread last week and it was deleted because I did not follow TOS. Since others on that thread mentioned that the article warrants its own thread, I started one. </p>
<p>I am always surprised by posters who are exasperated by certain debate topics/threads. If I am not interested, I do not bother opening the thread. Why criticize those who want to participate?</p>
<p>
I don’t understand posters who find statement of a fact to be a personal attack. But I’ll be more careful because I’m currently “on a distinguished road” with my reputation and I really want to improve that.</p>
<p>
Did I say I was exasperated? In fact, I commented on the content of the article, which I’ll admit is not a pure rehash because it does in fact contain an additional level of absurdity with its “last name” analysis.</p>
<p>I could not get through the article either, but I do think it is noteworthy when colleges are over-represented by students of any particular race/ethnicity/religious background. It may be indicative of discrimination, but it also may be a cluster effect that has nothing to do with discrimination. I think looking at what is going on with Jewish applicants <em>would</em> be relevant to what is happening with Asian applicants, if we had hard data and not just last names or Hillel figures. My D had several friends at H who had very waspy sounding last names, but were practicing Jews. Either they had one Jewish parent, or a name that simply did not “sound” Jewish. One of her best friends has a very ethnic Jewish sounding last name, but does not self-identify as Jewish in a religious sense, as her mother is not Jewish and she was not raised in the Jewish faith.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, it is easy to TL;DR that piece (especially since many people here already have set opinions about discrimination against Asian or Jewish applicants) until one gets to about the halfway point where something other than Asian or Jewish representation in the elite colleges is being discussed.</p>
<p>Unz seems highly enamored of admissions based on taking one test. No stress! No corruption! Pure merit! Good heavens, what is the man SMOKING??? Does he have any idea about the amount of money and effort that families in China and India put into having their most academically promising children cram for years in order to do well on those tests??? Families take out mortgages on their homes, farms and businesses to finance preparing their kid for a shot at the golden ring. Ugh.</p>
<p>Here’s the point where I gave up:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Unz never defines “meritocratic” admissions; I’ll assume he means GPA, test scores, and rigorous courseload, with applicants ranked by these criteria and then admitted or not based on that rank. But that’s not how Caltech admissions works. The school is looking holistically at the entire application. They want to see people demonstrating a love of STEM type fields. Building a robot, rather than being a robot ;), counts for more. </p>
<p>Leaving aside the validity of determining ethnic population by last name (Jewish intermarriage rates are around 50%. Are intermarriage rates out of the Asian community that high?), Unz doesn’t consider what attracts Jews to various schools. A hint, Mr. Unz: it’s having a Jewish community in place. Caltech’s Jewish community ain’t much at the undergrad level, though the school’s caterers started a kosher (and then halal) program to attract one highly-desired Orthodox grad student. Compounding the problem, there isn’t much Jewish community in Pasadena. STEM-minded Jewishly committed high schoolers aren’t as attracted to Caltech as to other possibilities.</p>
<p>I am still surprised that there has not yet been a point-by-point statistical rebuttal to the Unz article. I assume it is coming, but have not seen it yet in the popular literature/blogs.</p>
<p>I agree Unz’s methodology defintely has some issues (his last name method is very rough and the proxies he uses for acadmic merit may be biased/not that illuminating, and given these issues Unz should have been much more cautious in making a widespread accusation about academic decline). </p>
<p>But in my view, Unz’s basic point is deserving of discussion – Jewish students have made up 25% of the student body at Harvard for several decades while at the same time over the same period the Asian percentages at Harvard have declined from about 20-21% to 17% during a time of skyrocketing Asian academic performance. </p>
<p>Even putting aside the relative percentages, what is the deal with the 25% figure remaining so constant for many years. The relative percentages re ethnicities at harvard has also remained statiC over time with AA’s being 11-12% and Hispanics 9-11%. </p>
<p>At a minimum if Harvard really used holistic admissions as opposed to soft quotas, you would expect some variations over time based on the relative strength of the applicant pool each year.</p>
<p>“Maybe Jewish families are willing to send their kids to Ivies full-pay even if it’s painful to meet the EFC. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s true.”</p>
<p>Yes. Something Jews and many Asians have in common. In my immigrant Jewish worldview, educating children is the whole reason for American life and perhaps even the purpose of human existence. Unless it is actually going to cost them their business, they will pay.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Isn’t last name guessing particularly problematic for finding Jewish people, due to the tradition of passing “being Jewish” matrilineally, versus last names patrilineally?</p>
<p>Asian intermarriage rates in the US are said to be 28%.
[The</a> Rise of Intermarriage | Pew Social & Demographic Trends](<a href=“http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/02/16/the-rise-of-intermarriage/]The”>The Rise of Intermarriage | Pew Research Center)</p>
<p>
Remember that Harvard’s admissions consider a lot of factors that can impact ethnic makeup: these include affirmative action, legacy preference, geographic diversity, admitting a mix of students interested in different majors, athletic recruiting, and more. (It’s my theory, for example, that Asian admissions may be somewhat depressed at selective schools by an over-identification of prospective STEM majors among Asian applicants.)</p>
<p>“if Harvard really used holistic admissions as opposed to soft quotas”</p>
<p>These two concepts are not mutually exclusive. You can have a soft demographic quota and fill it holistically.</p>
<p>
Why? People lack enough actual controlled statistical data to mount a legitimate rebuttal, or to express a concurrence for that matter. So does Unz, but that doesn’t seem to deter him.</p>
<p>You win Bovertine, because your level of debating clearly surpasses mine. As a matter of fact, I really do learn a lot from your posts.</p>
<p>As far as this article, this is one of the few pieces that supports the so called “discrimination” against Asians. But I see that the takeaway for some of you is that his (alleged) bias against Jews, makes Unz’s arguments not credible.</p>
<p>
Actually, you win. Because I complained about this thread and now I have several posts in it :)</p>
<p>But I think I’ll get out while the gettings good. I guarantee this will be a long-lasting thread if it doesn’t get shut down along the way. It may supplant the “Angry about …” thread’s position.</p>
<p>Sorry if I came across nasty. Really. I learn a lot from many posters, including those I vehemently disagree with. Especially about punctuation.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Short answer: depends on if you are looking for religious or cultural affiliation. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Significantly lower than Jewish intermarriage rates, which is going to muck up Unz’s assumptions about name-counting.</p>
<p>
It’s more his obvious bias against Jews, but yeah.</p>
<p>Hanna is right that colleges clearly do have “soft” quotas that they fill holistically. The most obvious one is that many of them maintain gender balance.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with your assessment.
And I don’t see any one criticizing the “diversity” issue with the high numbers of Jews within the Ivy League as they did with Asians.</p>
<p>Bovertine, tried to give you some happy points but CC says I have exceded my limit. FWIW, CC, I have many more happy points to give. </p>
<p>I actually think the whole green square thing is silly, but I’ll play the game. :)</p>
<p>To further complicate the situation, we need to recognize that a substantial number of today’s Jewish Ivy League students can benefit from the legacy preference, since there were lots of Jewish students in the Ivy League a generation ago. The same is not true of today’s Asian students.</p>
<p>Ignoring all the analysis and discussion regarding Jewish students, I do find that hateful and ignorant comments regarding Asian students are as ubiquitous on CC as on any website I have encountered.</p>
<p>
Thanks! I’ll send some back at ya. 'Tis the season and all that.</p>