<p>"I propose this challenge to any Ivy League school that denies it has a de facto quota for Asian admissions. Let a third partyany number of highly respected research organizations could handle this taskrandomly select a large sample of applications from which the 2012 entering class was selected. Delete all material identifying race or ethnicity. Then, applying the criteria and the weighting system that the university claims to be using, have expert judges make simulated admissions decisions. Lets see what percentage of Asians get in under race-blind conditions. Im betting 25% at least, with 3040% as more probable.</p>
<p>None of the Ivies will take me up on it, of course. The people in their admissions offices know that their incoming classes are not supposed to have too many Asian faces, and part of their job is to make sure that they dont."</p>
<p>The problem is that some people WANT the Ivies etc to care about scores more and put more / most weight on them. So rather than swallow the unpleasant truth that Ivies don’t care about them as much as these people want, these people will cry discrimination and claim that the not-caring is due to not-wanting-Asians-around. It’s very transparent.</p>
<p>And Jian Li was not the world’s greatest poster child for the discrimination claim, because although he was rejected by Princeton and Harvard, he was accepted by Yale. He only brought discrimination claims against Princeton–and transferred from Yale to Harvard. This is another aspect of this that often comes up–often, the kid who “should” have gotten in to Harvard ends up at another super-selective school. Maybe there’s a domino effect, but when all the super-selective schools have Asians present at levels substantially higher than their proportion in the population, you have to ask–how may are there who are being substantially disadvantaged even if there is some form of discrimination?</p>
<p>I feel the need to sigh. It is not that Harvard adds X number of points for MA residents. It is that they have a special need to serve their home base as part of positioning themselves as good stewards of the community, just like every other elite school. Of course, that’s commingled with the fact that home-base folks are more likely to apply in the first place and that home-base folks will include a thicker layer of alums and faculty kids.</p>
<p>If a class action were possible, I’d think we would have seen one, by now. And just any committee can’t come in and asses- there has to be an understanding of the U, it’s IR, patterns of what makes a successful student, the considerations of which depts have how many seats or resources, and on and on. One advantage to OCR taking a look could be that they understand the contexts and variables. I suppose a few sister schools could examine each other- but where would that get you?</p>
This can’t be done. The decisions are made by human beings applying a lot of subjective criteria. They can’t give these so-called “experts” a “weighting system.” I suppose you could ask the actual admissions officers at a college to review a big mass of applications with the race info removed, and see how it comes out. Personally, I think it would come out about the same. But why on earth would one of these colleges do this? To prove that they’re not lying?</p>
<p>Politicians often justify spending more on higher education by saying we need more STEM majors, but they never say we need more English or sociology majors. It would be strange for institutions that are heavily subsidized by the government to disproportionately reject applicants who will study what the government says is most important. Of course, maybe the way to resolve this contradiction is for politicians to stop touting the need for more STEM majors.</p>
<p>If politicians want to subsidize more STEM majors, there are plenty of public institutions where they can do that. Harvard–at least for now–gets to decide how many STEM majors it would like to have. By the way, I have yet to see any good counterargument to my opinion that Asian kids disproportionately identify as STEM majors–does anybody think this isn’t true?</p>
<p>I cant imagine why you think this is a reductio ad absurdum.</p>
<p>Harvard has a criteria. It ranks the applicants by the criteria. If they violate the criteria to give preference to a racial group then you are able to examine the data set and determine that the 6% admitted were entirely justified by the criteria. If their criteria included race, then they are clearly racially discriminating. </p>
<p>I dont know why you are even arguing this. The Ivies practically stipulate to it in the amicus filing in Fisher.</p>
<p>Who says H ranks applicants by criteria? Why argbargy does. I work for a sister school and they do not rank by criteria. Period. A “very important” is not worth more than a “considered.” The sum total holistic matters. It’s much like (but not identical to) the Bates article. Race, like it or not, does not trump. USAMO doesn’t. 2400 is nice but gets no special homage.<br>
This is why I encourage kids to mind their apps.</p>
<p>This is an interesting representation at Columbia. The numbers are totally off the charts compared to other schools.</p>
<p>They have merged Asians and Asian Americans into a single category. Then they list 19% internationals which is unheard of for an American school with Korea, China and India as the top countries.</p>
<p>Whites at 34%.</p>
<p>Since engineering shows only 23% overall, it can’t be a big contributor for this disparity.</p>
<p>poetgirl - I am saying getting to 25% from 22% is not as hard as 20 to 25 if 25% is the base goal. If they admit 22% next year, it might be 25% after the high yield anyway!</p>