<p>
</p>
<p>But affirmative action for oboes and tubas means there are fewer spots for violinists!</p>
<p>lookingforward #1138, my school is a large, public research university. The admissions office doesn’t need help with evaluation of STEM applicants, really. We admit lots and lots of students. I have served on scholarship selection committees for the university, though.</p>
<p>Some of my comments are frankly stated as guesses. The main comment is a suggestion for an empirical test that might be run with the information that is made available.</p>
<p>I agree that there is probably not a paper trail.</p>
<p>Oh, the oboe–that’s sooo 2002!</p>
<p>
Do you mean this?
</p>
<p>That’s the only thing I see in that article that even pretends to be based on anything other than statistics. And that statement is pretty threadbare. It concludes with what the person thinks Yale would “probably not” do. Not much smoke in that smoking gun.</p>
<p>No, it’s really all in the statistics, which are susceptible of other interpretations. So anybody who wants to claim discrimination really has to come up with something more to get anywhere. So far they haven’t come up with anything at all.</p>
<p>I still do not understand how you expect those who think there is discrimination to obtain any evidence of it, Hunt. If there is evidence, it is walled off from people outside the universities in question, and from many of those inside the universities as well.</p>
<p>
In general, you’re not entitled to collect evidence from a private party just because you suspect they might be wronging you in some way. There has to be enough evidence of wrong to cause legal authorities to seek the evidence. Now, the Jian Li case presumably did that with respect to Princeton–presumably the Justice Department sought and reviewed information from Princeton. And it has done nothing, which says to me that it’s unlikely that it found a smoking gun. I’m not aware of any way a private citizen could sue one of these schools to get this kind of evidence. So it may just be tough luck for those who suspect discrimination that they have no way to get into the files (or minds) of these private schools. There doesn’t seem to be much interest in a boycott to bring economic pressure on them to change their ways.</p>
<p>Remember, these schools deny that they are discriminating against Asians. So if they are, they are either (1) doing it unconsciously, in which case there will be no smoking gun in the first place, or (2) doing it deliberately, and lying about it, in which case there will probably not be a smoking gun in writing either. But to believe the second, you’d also have to believe that nobody at any of these schools who was in on the conspiracy has chosen to blow the whistle in all the years this has been an issue. Not one. Not one former adcom has decided to write a tell-all book about this.</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s intentional discrimination against Asian-Americans in Ivy admissions, but there are several factors that tend to work against them:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Affirmative action for URMs. This is the one everyone wants to scream about, but I’m not convince it’s the most important one, and it’s certainly not the only one.</p></li>
<li><p>Legacy preferences. To the extent Asian-Americans were not heavily represented in the past, legacy preferences tend to hurt them in the present. Think of this as (mainly, but not entirely) affirmative action for the sons and daughters of past generations of white privilege. (This also disadvantages URMs, who unlike Asian-Americans have a compensatory mechanism).</p></li>
<li><p>Admissions preferences for recruited athletes. This doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves. Take a look at the rosters of Harvard’s varsity sports teams. Just a smattering of Asian-American faces there. The sports Ivies elect to compete in are heavily tilted toward New England prep school sports–lacrosse, crew, squash, skiing, tennis, ice hockey, field hockey-- and except perhaps in football and basketball, the recruited athletes are largely drawn from the ranks of elite New England prep schools. Think of this as affirmative action for New England preppy jocks. (This also tends to hurt URMs).</p></li>
<li><p>The quest for geographic diversity. This is rarely discussed, but the nation’s Asian-American population is heavily concentrated in a small handful of states. Just two states, California and New York, account for more than half of all Chinese-Americans. Two states, California and Hawaii, account for nearly 60% of Japanese-Americans. Just 3 states, California, New York, and New Jersey, account for just under half (about 45%) of all Korean-Americans. And five states, California, New York, New Jersey, Texas, and Illinois, account for well over half (55%) of Indian-Americans. Some of these states–CA, NY, and NJ, for sure–tend to be “overrepresented” in the Ivies relatively to their populations. I don’t think adcoms put a hard cap on any state’s representation, but at the margins it’s a factor; if there are only so many New Yorkers and Californians Harvard is going to admit, then there also only so many high-stats Chinese-American applicants from NY and CA Harvard is going to admit, and Chinese-Americans from those two states probably represent a majority of Chinese-Americans in the applicant pool.</p></li>
<li><p>Heavy tilt toward STEM majors in the Asian-American applicant pool. I know all Asian-American applicants are not alike, but in the aggregate Asian-American applicants do tilt quite heavily toward STEM majors; someone laid out some pretty convincing stats on this upthread. Predictably, this is not a problem at STEM-heavy schools: Caltech is 39% Asian-American, MIT is 24%, Carnegie Mellon 22%. The Ivies are a bit lower: Penn 19%, Columbia 18%, Harvard 18%, Princeton 17%, Cornell 16%, Yale 14%, Dartmouth 14%, Brown 14%. But even those levels are higher than many other elite privates: WUSTL 15%, Duke 12%, Georgetown 9%, Vanderbilt 8%, Notre Dame 6%. Some of that may reflect applicants’ preferences; Chinese-Americans from New York and California may not be drawn toward colleges in the South (Duke, Vanderbilt), or those with a religious affiliation (Georgetown, Notre Dame). But I also think the preference for STEM over non-STEM majors might be a limiting factor in Ivy admissions for Asian-American applicants. Typically at Ivies, STEM majors will account for half or less of all undergrads. These schools don’t admit for particular “slots” by subject matter, but they do want a critical mass of non-STEM majors in their entering class; they don’t want an “unbalanced” class, and that’s going to put some kind of upper bound on how many STEM majors they admit, to the disadvantage of groups (like Asian-Americans) that tend to heavilt favor STEM majors.</p></li>
<li><p>Consider #4 and #5 in combination. I know many Asian-American students resent the stereotype that they’re all alike: quant-heavy, high-stats, STEM-oriented, etc. Yet a large fraction of Asian-American applicants are from a small handful of states, and a higher proportion of them are STEM-oriented than is the case for the general applicant pool. This means high-stats Chinese-American math/physics geeks from California are competing against lots of other high-stats Chinese-American math/physics geeks from California for a limited number of places in the admit pool, not because anyone wants to limit the number of Asian-Americanswho are admitted, but because Harvard is going to admit only so many math/physics geeks from California. And when push comes to shove, two high-stats Chinese-American math/physics geeks from California, while not interchangeable, are certainly more alike than one high stats Chinese-American math/physics geek from California and one African-American poet from South Carolina. SAT scores may not dominate that choice.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>
bclintock, you lay these points out nicely. With respect to the one quoted above, it’s also my suspicion (but without more than anecdotal evidence) that white students identifying STEM majors may tend to be among the highest-stats white students. This may mean, for example that the Asian applicant isn’t really competing with the white would-be classics major with a 2240, but with a white premed with a 2370.</p>
<p>I was going to write something along the lines of what Hunt said in post #1146, only I would have done it with much less authority. </p>
<p>Wondering, though: Could (or would) a federal agency with jurisdiction in such matters (such as the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights) mount an investigation even if there wasn’t a complainant because they had credible suspicions of their own?</p>
<p>I know stats of three jewish kids (not counting Hunt’s kids of course because that would be cheating) - 2370, 2400, 2300+. First two are at HYP and the last one at MIT. One of HYP ones is a lib arts major and the other two got into both HYP and MIT.</p>
<p>Bovertine - have you seen that ATT commercial that says kids have it easy these days? Thats what superscoring is! :p</p>
<p>I love bclintonk’s post, but a couple of statements need correction:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The point here is that the admission rate for non-Asian math/physics geeks from California may be every bit as bad as the admission rate for Asian math/physics geeks from California. We have no information whatsoever that Asian math/physics geeks are not admitted in the same proportion as any other non-URM math/physics geeks (except for the geographical factor).</p>
<p>People can argue that maintaining a humanities faculty and trying to admit some kids from Montana are pretexts for keeping Asian numbers down, but no court is ever going to buy that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Those numbers are seriously out-of-date. Current figures are discussed way upthread, but Asian-American representation in the current freshman class is above 20% everywhere but Dartmouth and maybe Cornell, and the number is probably more like 25-30% everywhere but Dartmouth if you take into account Asian-Americans who refused to identify their race and ethnic Asian internationals.</p>
<p>While there was certainly some evidence of a ceiling on Asian-American admissions (albeit not decisive evidence), it looks like there has been a meaningful effort to squeeze out any practices that were limiting the percentage of admitted students who were ethnic Asians.</p>
<p>And on top of all of that, how many people are involved in admissions at these schools? The staffs are 40-50 people, they turn over all the time, they include lots of idealistic young people and lots of ethnic Asians, and many of them plan on careers outside college admissions. If there really has been a broad conspiracy to hold down Asian admissions, don’t you think at least a couple of them would be screaming bloody murder? </p>
<p>The silence is really pretty eloquent. It’s definitely possible to keep some unpleasant fact secret within a defined group of people, but not for decades. Here, you are talking about straight-out invidious race discrimination, something that’s anathema to almost everyone, absolutely including people who believe strongly that affirmative action for URMs is appropriate. How the heck do you imagine that system was being maintained universally without any of scores of people whose acquiescence would have been necessary blowing a whistle?</p>
<p>Re Hunt’s post #1148: Some years back, I had the opportunity to look at GRE general test data separated by undergraduate major. The classics majors had the highest scores overall, followed by the physicists. I am not sure whether this is still true now, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to hear of prospective classics majors with 2400 SAT scores.</p>
<p>At the Princeton days for admitted students, I think we were introduced to everyone who worked in the admissions office as a “decider.” My recollection is that there were about 8 people, not 40-50. I have no other source of information on this–where do you get the 40-50, JHS?</p>
<p>Also, JHS, in the era when Jewish students were clearly being discriminated against, in terms of Ivy admissions, is there a record of people speaking out contemporaneously?</p>
<p>In the era when Jewish students were clearly being discriminated against, it was discussed openly all the time. People tended not to be ashamed of it until after WWII. But even after the war – my father’s high school was about 98% Jewish (Philip Roth was two years behind him, in my uncle’s class, and lived across the street), and it was clear that the school felt it could get one kid admitted to Penn and one kid admitted to Wesleyan every year, and that was it for “elite” colleges. (The fact that Roth was accepted at Bucknell, and my uncle went to Amherst, was an indication that things were starting to change.) My dad was president of DKE at Wesleyan at a time when DKE’s national charter still explicitly disqualified Jews for membership. My grandmother and all three of her brothers went to Harvard/Radcliffe between 1915 and 1931, and they were enormously grateful that Harvard would accept any Russian Jews at all, because Yale and many similar colleges wouldn’t.</p>
<p>As for the number of people – some schools list their regional rep assignments, and that tends to be ~30 people, plus some above them of course. Since the regional reps are responsible for knowing the schools and read all applications from their region (along with a second reader, who may not always be a full-time admissions person), I assume they have meaningful input into the process, at the very least. And most accounts I have seen of admissions have them at the table when decisions are made, not just 8 people. But I don’t know anything about Princeton.</p>
<p>Not a challenge, though it might sound like one: Can you find a printed source in which non-Jewish people admitted that the Ivies discriminated against Jewish people, at the time that it happened? Perhaps they were totally open about it, and it was only in the aftermath of WWII that people became ashamed of the behavior. Certainly apologies were being made for Fenyman’s Judaism when he was being considered for a faculty position–but the letter(s) with the evidence weren’t released until relatively recently.</p>
<p>There is also the issue of whether an admissions representative who has bought into the “textureless Korean math grind” stereotype would even be aware of discriminating against Asian-Americans, or whether the person would think that he/she was just searching for applicants who would help to make up a well-rounded class and bring something distinctive to the university (and not stay in a dorm room, lab, or library working). It seems to me that there is a continuum running from completely legitimate holistic evaluation to clear-cut illegitimate discrimination, and where one places the boundary of discrimination along the continuum might differ from person to person.</p>
<p>As mentioned above, I am not Asian-American (nor Asian, of any variety). And where is mini to remind us that Asian-Americans come in many different types?</p>
<p>For percentages, you would need to know if any assumptions are made about the kids who do not declare their ethnicity- eg, in the case of applicants reporting hs rank, only those who report are included in the percentages.</p>
<p>Agree, nice post bc. </p>
<p>My own experience is that the ongoing professional AO’s may include some juniors, but are predominantly experienced in these positions, the ultimate decision makers. Not a “passing through” job. Understand that this is a major responsibility to the elite U. A set of profssionals with regional responsibilities (separate from interviewers) and increasingly, some specific recruiters or advisors. Noting a reg rep and 2nd reader understates the number of actual reads. I think we generally see at least 4 run throughs for all kids who make it thru first cut, depending. (Can be an addl if it runs through STEM or, some dept liaison.) Not 30 people at a table- a manageable number that can make fast decisions. But that’s ime.</p>
<p>And even if the feds came to take a look, the adcoms I know are savvy to what’s going on in their larger worlds, not naively blindsided. </p>
<p>QM, I thought I saw, last week or so, specific comments from Lowell himself. My father and one brother got in pre-war- Jewish heritage and surname, from the Boston area. Othr was post-war (and never left.)</p>
<p>Here’s what 30 seconds of googling produces. It’s a secondary source, sure, but it refers to contemporary press and official bodies.</p>
<p>
<a href=“http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/harvard.html[/url]”>http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/harvard.html</a></p>
<p>I don’t have a copy of the Karabell book at hand, but I believe this stuff is hashed over to a fare-thee-well there.</p>
<p>For some perspective – </p>
<p>Yale College did not have a single Jew in a faculty ladder appointment until 1947. The first one was still around in the mid-70s when I was an undergraduate. Harold Bloom, who is still active, was the first Jew to receive tenure in the Yale English Department. The point being that it wasn’t hard to tell at all that there was pervasive antisemitism at Yale before the 1950s-1960s. No one had to do statistical analysis. There was a known hard cap on admissions, and a virtual ban on faculty appointments.</p>
<p>The other point being that it’s hard to do stuff like this without people noticing, and if there isn’t social consensus on it, it falls apart.</p>
<p>Interesting, JHS. Here is a link to the current Physics faculty at Yale, with photos:
[Faculty</a> | Department of Physics](<a href=“http://physics.yale.edu/faculty]Faculty”>http://physics.yale.edu/faculty)</p>
<p>I do see H has a number of younger admissions folks.
The Jewish issue at H- roughly 80 years ago- another era. How many feel the concerns Asian Am kids have today really relates to that? We had McCarthy hearings in the mid-50’s. Does that explain things today? Or a desire not to repeat errors of the past? (Not that things are perfect, no.)</p>