<p>Thanks for being patient, I think I have you. Are you saying that you can have all of the applicants in one big pool and then use as an admissions guide the past test scores/gpas/feeder school numbers etc for each racial group from past classes to admit the new students from each racial group with similar profiles, then see how close you come to your soft quotas, and if you are a bit off adjust? </p>
<p>While mechanically different, effectively the different groups are competing against their peers in the same group (whether pooled or not) and not the pool as a whole at least until the adjustment phase. I doubt this would pass muster legally.</p>
<p>I think that is correct. In “Gatekeepers” by Steinberg, he notes that Wesleyan’s committee got periodic updates on the statistics of the accepted class, including racial makeup, as they were reading applications. If there were too few URMs, admissions officers could adjust their standards to correct that.</p>
<p>If Italian surnames or Swedish surnames began popping up at Harvard in high numbers, like 25% of the student body, I’d be interested to know why, wouldn’t you?</p>
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<p>muckdog,
The estimates I came up with were based on a Crimson article I read sometime in the last year or so, reporting that currently, 3 out of 4 White students at Harvard are Jewish. I can’t seem to find that article. If 45% are White, then 11-12% would be non-Jewish White.</p>
<p>The last names analysis is so silly. I know any number of people with 100% Jewish-sounding last names who are not Jewish. They include a set of siblings who are fourth-generation Christian Scientists with one Jewish great-grandfather (who became a Christian Science follower when he married another), one set of my first cousins whose father was Jewish but who were raised completely as Episcopalians, and another set of cousins who are hard-core Evangelicals. Amy Chua’s tiger daughters are named Rubenfeld. One of my college friends has relatives up and down the government ladders in both Taiwan and Beijing, but her children have their father’s Jewish last name. Meanwhile, a few years ago the president of my synagogue was named Macleish.</p>
<p>I’m with Bay on this one-if any group is suffering now it is WASPS. Confirms what I’ve told those interested in Harvard or Yale-if you are a wasp and not a recruited athelete don’t even bother. Seems like wasp is a dirty word nowadays.</p>
<p>Perhaps I’m being simplistic, but wasn’t a diverse student body the mission (of the university). And wasn’t diversity described by Hunt in post #29? If so, the only way to achieve this diversity is to have a swath of students that cut across many groups. That simple initiative would prohibitively force out large groups of students to get not too many tennis players, not too many English majors, not too many celloists, not too many NE Caucasians, not to many Californians, not too many etc. etc. If a large percentage of any one group applies in mass, that in itself would lead to a “soft quota (for lack of a better word.”) It’s the university’s mission first and foremost that governs who is admitted and who isn’t. If “we” happen to think it’s wrong then the question is not whether or not it’s happening, because it most likely is to get a diverse group of students across cultural, religious, geographic educational interest lines etc., but more how best to influence the university into changing their mission. And for that to happen, short of the university doing something that would stand a legal test, the reason would have to be compelling. </p>
<p>At times the only possibility that I can envision that would satisfy everyone that wants acceptances to be quantitatively qualified would be some sort of match system and even then how do you administer that fairly (to make everyone happy)…do you have a list of opening a’la 'we need an Asian from Wyoming with a 4.0 GPA and 2280 on his or her SATs who plays trombone and wants to major in psychology?" That actually feels to close to the way it really happens. The flip side of that is they accept everyone who reaches a threshold regardless of their interests, geographic domain, family income and that is simply not realistic for really any college or uni administratively. What happens if you have zero freshman classics majors, or what happens if you can’t field your tennis team, or you can’t fit everyone in the dorms (because they all reached some predescribed academic bar.) </p>
<p>Being “just” as long as it meets the legal smell test is often a messy process. Someone will always feel they have been treated unfairly.</p>
<p>The article is clearly inflammatory and look how many here it has inflamed. Too many are covinced, imho, that there is some conspiracy going on. C’mon. </p>
<p>*I saw it as an objective numerical comparison of Jews and Asians in college admissions. * Think about that. In certain pools of thought, there is no “objective.” It is about convincing. It behooves us to not simply accept what is impassioned and well-written, as being truth.</p>
<p>The % of Asians at H, btw, far exceeds their proportion in the population. Religious id is not a question on the CA. Are some seriously suggesting name discrimination?</p>
<p>ps. Gatekeepers is now many admissions cycles old- and you wouldn’t be quoting it…if it had not been written to sell. Same for Hernandez and every other looney common media article.</p>
<p>This utter fear of admissions recycles all the time, posed as a fairness issue. So, I don’t know if Espenshade was quoted here or on one of the other breathing threads-- but note his own comments that his limited study should not be taken as anything more than a limited study.</p>
<p>The Q is, how would you know based on reading the article? Or others from the pov?
Texas, it’s how one constructs an article that purports to be definitive. I don’t see x and you are convinced it exists. Someone finds an article supporting his/her viewpoint. At what point is something “reality?”</p>
<p>My husband is the product of a Jewish Christian Science union too. None of the kids are either Jewish or Christian, but the name is “obviously Jewish”. Still I thought it was kind of interesting that people with Jewish sounding last names, whether or not they are Jewish, are a smaller part of the NMS pool than they used to be. </p>
<p>It seems to me if people want universities that are strictly meritocracies they should apply to them, but Harvard seems to have convinced everyone they are wonderful by only accepting 10% or so of its class on purely academic merits. Surely the class would be quite different if they changed their system. I think they feel they have a pretty good mix now and are reluctant to tweak it much. That doesn’t mean if I were in charge I wouldn’t change the percentages, but I do think there is much to be said for a diversity of race, religion, extra-curricular interests and talents, region and economic class. (And the latter is where the elite colleges could be doing a lot better than they do.)</p>
<p>I go with numbers. I did not read the whole article (I know it is long and laborious) but I came to same conclusion about the Asian barrier at the ivies when I did an analysis of my kid’s chances based on historical data at the Ivies last year. I was discussing this point with the luminaries at CC last year. I postulated that my Asian kid was fighting for a seat among 200 or so slots at HYP and probably limited to 100 based on the gender. People insisted there was no such quota but as far as I could see, the number was stuck between 17-20% every year and there was no way this was possible unless it was a limitation of the “holistic” process. </p>
<p>I don’t see anything wrong with it but why the resitance to pretend otherwise - i.e., an Asian kid at an Ivy has a shot to compete for more than 20% of the seats?</p>
<p>OTOH, they can give all of their seats to one religious group under one racial group! It is not a problem I have yet!</p>
<p>According to Hillel, there are 1675 Jewish undergraduate students in Harvard, out of 6648. We can then calculate the non-Jewish whites currently studying there. </p>
<p>When you delved to the “Asian barrier,” did you let your kid know 4-5x the pop of Asians, per the Census, are freshmen? </p>
<p>Any kid has a less than 10% chance. Kids with low scores have no chance. The umpteenth kid from NVa is in trouble. 2000 admits, 35,000 apps. The mantra should be that the competition is mindbogglingly fierce. What makes a kid stand out in his own hs may not be enough. You assume all Common Apps are created equal.</p>
<p>And how do you think Hillel knows that? Maybe that’s how many people identified themselves to Hillel, but I seriously doubt it. It’s more likely some kind of estimate. (And remember that Harvard Hillel has every incentive to inflate the number of people it serves.)</p>
<p>I used to attend Yale Hillel occasionally back in the day, and an event that drew 40 people, including graduate students, was a big event. More people showed up for High Holiday services, but not all of them were students, or undergraduate students. I don’t think there was anything official that identified me to them, and I don’t think I ever officially joined anything. It was anything but easy to identify Jewish students who did not do official Jewish activities – I know because I made several mistakes.</p>
<p>Looking back at the Unz article, it’s clear he is relying on Hillel reports, as (it turns out) was Karabel. How they determined the validity of the Hillel numbers is beyond me.</p>