<p>^Exactly my point. Choosing to admit someone purely based on stats cannot be the answer. It is neither practical for the university nor the student.</p>
<p>As a Hispanic/Latino or whatever we are called these days, I oppose the so-called “diversity quotas”. In the case of the OP, the reasons behind the rejection of the white-skinned student might never be known but it is possible it was for his skin color as it is possible it was due to the other applicants being better prepared. I agree it was a faux pas moment.</p>
<p>As long as universities accept certain students because these students fall under the under-represented minority umbrella or because the universities are trying to increase “diversity”, I will always question the ability and capacity of these URM students.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, if you are surprised by this, I think that things are not said to your face because of your race.
I graduated from college in 1969, and in the majority of cases I was turned down for a job, I was told by the interviewer (unprompted) that if I were an African-American, I would have been hired. Things have become a little more on the low-down since then (people don’t state things quite so baldly). But I think that many whites believe this still to be the case, and maybe even more so in college admissions than in the employment world.
The major difference today, to me, is how open people are in expressing the beliefs that you heard. Here in Hyde Park, Chicago, you don’t say such things. Other places, many people would just nod silently when such opinions are given. But maybe they would not be voiced in front of you.
I am still hoping for the day when these issues are behind us.</p>
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<p>Do you look at the recruited athlete and question their ability and capacity? Are they nothing but a dumb jock? How about the legacy student, nothing but a person with connections?Developmental admit, rich snobby kid that bought their way in? How about children of faculty? Are you questioning all of the above groups, or is your bias towards URM’s alone. I’m not sure if you are a student or a parent, but either way, it must be tough walking around looking at students and making such bold assumptions about people you know nothing about.</p>
<p>How utterly classless, Enginox.</p>
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<p>Pugmad… I think NSM would probably have already known if the kid was going to Harvard – it tends to be volunteered information, and it tends to get around on the grapevine. Since kids who get accepted to Harvard overwhelmingly go there, NSM could also have inferred that the kid, if he had applied, was rejected. So why ask? The odds of the question touching on a sore point were extremely high. So it was provoking, albeit unintentionally or at least unconciously.</p>
<p>As for the racist reply, let’s not be shocked. Admissions is a racist process (in the mild sense of taking race for it’s own sake into account). Like legacy and wealth, the child has no control over this, and it strikes people as unfair. Life is unfair, but it is a fact people tend to protest in moments of pain.</p>
<p>“Northstarmom, if you are surprised by this, I think that things are not said to your face because of your race.
I graduated from college in 1969, and in the majority of cases I was turned down for a job, I was told by the interviewer (unprompted) that if I were an African-American, I would have been hired.”</p>
<p>You do know that often interviewers said things like that because that was an easy way to turn people down that they didn’t want to hire? I’ve worked in H-R, and I encountered some white interviewers who would say things like that for the reasons that I stated.</p>
<p>Have you ever considered the fact that due to being white and usually being interviewed and hired by a person of the same race, you are at an advantage? I didn’t realize what an advantage it is to have someone of your own race in the hiring position until I lived in Detroit, a majority black city where black people are in charge in probably the majority of businesses and places hiring.</p>
<p>I had a job that required me to introduce myself to many executives, so I’d make appointments to see them. I sound white on the phone so people probably assume that I am white. When the executive would come out to meet me, they’d have their business face on, but when they spotted me, it would relax into a genuine smile.</p>
<p>While I was not seeking jobs for myself, I got many job offers and much major assistance with my work. I had never been treated that well. I had never been treated rudely in other cities when I was in similar situations, but I had never experienced such kindness.</p>
<p>I mentioned this to a white friend who was complaining about how unfriendly she found Detroit, and she replied, “That’s probably because you are black.” At first I was taken aback, but then I realized that she probably was right. </p>
<p>I had had similar experiences in the reverse while apartment hunting for a nice place in cities where the apartment managers tended to be white. I repeatedly heard “Sorry, we have no openings.” I thought it was bad luck until one of my friends – a black executive – explained to me that I was more than likely getting polite turn downs due to race. He made a call to one of his friends and got me a nice apartment. </p>
<p>“When D1 was applying to schools, she was rejected by Dartmouth, but a black girl (is that PC?) from her school was admitted with lower stats. I asked her college couselor about it, and she flatly told me that the girl was admitted because she was an URM. How did the counselor know? They had a conference call (between the counselor and the college) to go over each applicant.”</p>
<p>I would be very surprised if a Dartmouth admissions officer would say such a thing. Just because the GC said the admissions officer said that doesn’t mean it was true. I also highly doubt that anyone was admitted to Dartmouth just because of their race. They’d have to have more than their race going for them.</p>
<p>GCs can distort information just as others can. I also don’t know why the GC would pass along such information. I hope that didn’t happen with either of my sons. </p>
<p>Especially with older S, I can imagine some people wondering how he – a student with a 3.0 unweighted got into some top 25 schools. Most people at his school didn’t realize that his scores were 98th-99th percentile, and he had been published in some of the nation’s top newspapers, and had done an out of state paid internship (by 4 years the youngest intern) before senior year.</p>
<p>“Do you look at the recruited athlete and question their ability and capacity? Are they nothing but a dumb jock? How about the legacy student, nothing but a person with connections?Developmental admit, rich snobby kid that bought their way in? How about children of faculty? Are you questioning all of the above groups, or is your bias towards URM’s alone. I’m not sure if you are a student or a parent, but either way, it must be tough walking around looking at students and making such bold assumptions about people you know nothing about.”</p>
<p>The above is worth repeating. Unless you are assuming that all jocks, all legacies, all offspring of celebrities and well off people were not deserving of admissison, then you are a racist if you are making that assumption about all URMs.</p>
<p>“Pugmad… I think NSM would probably have already known if the kid was going to Harvard – it tends to be volunteered information, and it tends to get around on the grapevine.”</p>
<p>I only know the woman through a community theatre production that we currently are in. I asked her whether her son – a rising college junior or senior – had applied to Harvard. It was simple curiosity, though the minute I asked the question, I was sorry that I did. There are people in my area who have turned down Ivies for flagship state school that isn’t one of the nation’s top universities. There are people in my area who are very bright – potentially Ivy students-- who prefer to go to other types of schools.</p>
<p>"Isn’t there something rather profound here? When she implied that her son might have been discriminated against in favor of someone of “your” status, your reaction was to be appalled - to deny that such a thing could be true. "</p>
<p>Harvard accepts 7% of its applicants. I know black legacies who were rejected. I know white males from my area who have been accepted. I know a Native American with a math SAT score of 780 who was rejected. In fact, for most of the years that I followed local Harvard admissions, the one or two students admitted usually were white males. </p>
<p>The idea that this woman’s son was rejected because he was white was ridiculous. The majority of students at Harvard are white. There are plenty of outstanding students of a variety of races from my area who are rejected each year. I also doubt that the two students who were accepted from my area the year her son was rejected had nothing going for them except their race.</p>
<p>The local students whom I’ve seen accepted had (as CC longtime members might expect) outstanding stats AND incredible ECs. This included a white male who was the National Junior Classics (Latin) champion and a male who was the national NHS president. I doubt the mother’s rejected son had incredible ECs because all she has mentioned have been his great stats.</p>
<p>Enginox, as a hispanic foreign student (some years ago) I could do better than mosr of my classmates. I was not accepted because of my ethnic background!</p>
<p>College process is a very painful process for many students and parents. As some posters said it takes sometime for people to get over the sting. I don’t think NSM meant anything by her question, and the woman just said the first thing in her head and probably had no intention of offending NSM. That’s why in my first post I said I would just have let it roll off my back. I pefer to share my thoughts on CC than with family and friends because it is such a touchy subject.</p>
<p>Definitely there is bias in the admissions office based on race, gender, ethnic and geographic location. My D2 guidance counselor called the LAC that rejected her with stats above their mean accepted class to inquire why she was not considered. The director of admissions told her guidance counselor that her gender had alot to do with it. That this LAC had too many overachieving females and their acceptance rate was lower for females than if she had been a male. He admitted to gender bias. We’ve accepted the fact that admissions has every right to build their class as they see fit and feel proud that our children have done their best and could not have presented a better application. So life goes on and they will do great wherever they are.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, I have never heard anyone say that they or their daughter didn’t get into a LAC because the LAC chose a less qualified male, but that happens all of the time. </p>
<p>Has anyone ever heard a female complain that they would have gotten into [insert name of prestigious LAC] if they had been male?</p>
<p>Anyone aware of any males at LACs who lack confidence because they know that the average male at a LAC has lower stats than the average females there have?</p>
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<p>For the sake of accuracy, College Board is reporting that 40% of Harvard’s students are white, with 14% declining to state.</p>
<p>Thank you, Bay, for correcting me. I should have said that whites make up the largest racial group at Harvard. </p>
<p>From College Board:</p>
<p>1% American Indian/Alaskan Native
17% Asian/Pacific Islander
9% Black/Non-Hispanic
9% Hispanic
40% White/Non-Hispanic
10% Non-Resident Alien
14% Race/ethnicity unreported</p>
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Obviously, you want to believe that race has nothing to do with admissions - that it isn’t a “hook”. Either it is, or it isn’t, but from everything I’ve heard, including the study posted by **vig180<a href=“post%2051”>/B</a>, it IS a hook, which means that some people get a boost and others don’t. Is it so hard to believe that there is a position on the line between “they had nothing going for them except their race” and “race had nothing to do with it”?</p>
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The point is that you expect her to accept that he “wasn’t good enough”, which is a personal rejection. Maybe he was “good enough” but there just weren’t enough spots open. Do you really think that everyone who gets rejected is just inferior? I don’t see this as a prejudice, just frustration and resentment that others are ostensibly getting a boost for something which they have zero control over. Sooner or later that practice will have to come to an end.</p>
<p>“The point is that you expect her to accept that he “wasn’t good enough”, which is a personal rejection. Maybe he was “good enough” but there just weren’t enough spots open. Do you really think that everyone who gets rejected is just inferior? I don’t see this as a prejudice, just frustration and resentment that others are ostensibly getting a boost for something which they have zero control over. Sooner or later that practice will have to come to an end.”</p>
<p>When it comes to admissions at places like Harvard, people are going to continue to get boosts for things they have no control over because that’s how the top colleges create student bodies that are diverse in all meanings of the word “diverse.”</p>
<p>Being from a rural area, being very low income or having wealthy donor parents, being a legacy, being from a state or region that sends very few students to Harvard, being of a religion, ethnic group or race that is in short supply on campus – all are tip factors that students have no control over.</p>
<p>The malcontents just focus on race because it’s easier to differentiate people who are of a different race than it is to look around and see who may have gotten tipped in due to legacy, poverty, wealth, religion, or coming from an underrepresented state.</p>
<p>Of course, racism also plays a part in what people choose to focus on and complain about.</p>
<p>“Obviously, you want to believe that race has nothing to do with admissions - that it isn’t a “hook”. Either it is, or it isn’t, but from everything I’ve heard, including the study posted by vig180 (post 51), it IS a hook, which means that some people get a boost and others don’t. Is it so hard to believe that there is a position on the line between “they had nothing going for them except their race” and “race had nothing to do with it”?”</p>
<p>Obviously, you aren’t familar with my background. I’m a black Harvard alum who has been on the national alum interviewing committee and have headed my region’s alum interviewing committee.</p>
<p>Race can be a tip factor, but it’s not likely that the woman’s son was bypassed because he was white or that the students accepted were accepted only because they were people of color (I’m not sure if the “Indian” student the mother referred to was Native American or Asian Indian – which is not a URM).</p>
<p>In my area, I’ve seen white male students get in when outstanding black students didn’t. For instance, once two white men got in while a black female National Merit scholar who had gotten into Yale EA was waitlisted and not accepted off Harvard’s waitlist. A lot of other outstanding students of various races were rejected.</p>
<p>It is highly unlikely that Harvard’s admissions office said, “We will turn down this outstanding white male so we can accept two mediocre URMs from this area.” </p>
<p>I have not seen any students get in whose only claim to fame was high stats and regional excellence for math, which is what the OP’s son seems to have been. My region has plenty of MAO winners even at the national level (No indication the OP’s son was at that level). Many apply to Harvard, and most get rejected unless they have something else going for them like also being an Eagle Scout and an All State musician.</p>
<p>A few years ago, there was a black male accepted from her son’s school. The guy was a MAO national award winner, National Merit scholar, and was student body president. He turned down Harvard for MIT. </p>
<p>Another year from that same school, there was an Asian Indian girl accepted who had high stats along with a remarkable amount of leadership in community service. I was her interviewer, and coincidentally also had interviewed her two years previously for a community leadership program that she was accepted to. She was a remarkable young woman who had stood out because of the leadership that she had exhibited in community service.</p>
<p>This included her being selected to be one of the first high school students in my area to be on a nonprofit’s board. She had gone far above and beyond what was expected of her. It also wasn’t something she did for resume decoration. I know because she told me what she had accomplished on the board only because I asked her. She didn’t think that what she had done was a big deal, but I am very active in community service in my area and I know that what she did was more than what many adults on boards do here.</p>
<p>I suspect that my documenting that information on my interview report helped tip her in.</p>
<p>@ga2012mom:</p>
<p>In the case of the recruited athlete, the reason why the athlete was admitted is obvious, no? If not, why single the individual out as an athlete? In the case of the legacy student or faculty child, it is less obvious but the person remains suspect until said person proves otherwise; this is similar to a situation where the coach’s son is a starter in the basketball team. Was an article not linked earlier that suggested wealthy students are accepted exactly because they are wealthy? How about the threads inquiring about the chances for an Asian male to certain schools? There are also subforums specifically for URMs, is that not proof that certain people are admitted because of their ethnic/cultural background and in some cases, these people are admitted over more qualified candidates?</p>
<p>In an academic setting, individuals are evaluated according to their academic performance. Skin color, socioeconomic background, athletic ability, etc. are poor indicators of academic performance.</p>
<p>@Northstarmom:</p>
<p>Just to point out two things from your post:</p>
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<p>As an immigrant, I did not understand what this phrase meant until it was explained to me. I am saddened to read that you think speaking a language properly is tied to a skin color.</p>
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<p>Your friend made a comment similar in nature to what the lady in the OP expressed, yet in the first instance you reached the “logical” conclusion that your friend may be correct, while in the second case, you reached the ambiguous conclusion that the lady may be biased?</p>
<p>"As an immigrant, I did not understand what this phrase meant until it was explained to me. I am saddened to read that you think speaking a language properly is tied to a skin color.
"</p>
<p>I sound “white” because I have an Upstate NY accent. Husband sounds “white” because he has a CHicago accent. Kids have midwestern accents. All of us have encountered people who had “met” us on the phone and met us in person, and were surprised we were black. This has nothing to do with racism. </p>
<p>" mentioned this to a white friend who was complaining about how unfriendly she found Detroit, and she replied, “That’s probably because you are black.” At first I was taken aback, but then I realized that she probably was right.
Your friend made a comment similar in nature to what the lady in the OP expressed, yet in the first instance you reached the “logical” conclusion that your friend may be correct, while in the second case, you reached the ambiguous conclusion that the lady may be biased?"</p>
<p>My white friend was referring to her negative experiences in Detroit, which is an overwhelmingly black city with black people in power. </p>
<p>The mother was saying that her white son was rejected by Harvard because he is white. In terms of the administration, Harvard is overwhelmingly white. The director of Harvard’s admissions office is a white male. Harvard’s president is white. Harvard didn’t even accept black student until the late 1800s, and wouldn’t allow WEB Du Bois to live on campus.</p>
<p>40% of Harvard’s student body is white. The overwhelming majority of Harvard’s alum are white males. All of Harvard’s presidents have been white.</p>
<p>Do you seriously think that such an institution would turn down a person simply because they were a white male? Do you seriously think that an institution that accepts only 7% of applicants would turn down any applicant only because of the color of their skin or do you think that there may be other factors at play?</p>
<p>I personally think that the mother was ignorant about what it takes to be admitted to such a school, and how simply having high stats isn’t enough.</p>
<p>She also seems to think her son was competing only against people in our region, which wasn’t the case. Sometimes despite our having a lot of outstanding students, Harvard takes no one from our region – which stretches several hundred miles.</p>
<p>“Just a plain regular high-scoring math geek sounds more meritorious than having lived in Idaho.”</p>
<p>Harvard could fill its student body with high-scoring math geeks. That wouldn’t create the type of diverse student body (including having students majoring in the various fields Harvard offers including in the humanities). It has a much harder time finding qualified applicants from places like Idaho, Oregon and Mississippi. For instance, about a dozen years ago, only 1 student applied from Mississippi.</p>