My Story (Rant). Am I wrong to be bitter?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
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<p>For many months I have been reading posts on this forum, and having just read the thread entitled "Stanford Deferral Numbers Don't Add Up," I have concluded that the Stanford admissions office is far from transparent, and is sometimes misleading. I know that life is not fair, but I expect honesty from an institution like Stanford.</p>

<p>Two years ago my daughter applied SCEA. My H and I are both legacies, and she was far more qualified than either of us had been. D's GPA was 4.5, top 3 percent of her large class. SAT single sitting 2240, superscore 2330. SAT II: math 2 - 800, physics -760, Spanish - 740. She was a 12 letter, 3 sport athlete, with all-league honors in all three sports, and was captain of all her teams senior year. She had a sectional rating in tennis and played on an elite travel soccer team. She also had 800 service hours, was president of a major school-community organization, was involved in several other school clubs, and played the piano and cello at a very high level. She had jobs in retail and tutoring, and spent her summers in meaningful ways (including Stanford's EPGY summer program). We thought she was a strong candidate for Stanford, especially with a legacy boost. Once I discovered CC, I knew that she was an average candidate at best, but her SAT scores and EC's were still above average. We had been told that if other things were equal, a legacy candidate would be selected; and we had received the form letter from admissions advising us that legacy candidates were admitted at twice the rate of all applicants.</p>

<p>Initially, D was deferred, and invited to submit supplemental information. She carefully submitted additional information: NMS finalist, winner of two essay contests ($5000 and $1000 prizes), many sports awards and honors, distinction in piano competitions, etc. Also perfect grades in all AP classes. D was rejected in the RD round. She was very sad.</p>

<p>Then she learned that a classmate (5 percent lower class rank, 300+ points lower SAT, weak EC's) had been admitted. Although this young woman is African-American, my D has much darker skin (H is mostly Greek and I am half Chinese). D knew and liked the girl, and understands the importance of diversity. She was happy her classmate had been admitted.</p>

<p>Then a girl (white) we know from a neighboring town was admitted from the waiting list. This student had a lower GPA, significantly lower SAT scores, and almost no EC's. Her mother told me that the admissions representative for our area is Jewish, and that probably gave her child a boost. I have never heard that from anyone else. Before this student was offered a spot at Stanford, her best alternative was our state flagship university -- where she hadn't even been admitted to the honors college. D had been admitted to the honors college of this state school, as well as to Cornell, Duke, Cal, UCLA, UCSD, Northwestern, Chicago, and UVA. She was wait-listed by Harvard and rejected by Princeton.</p>

<p>For the first time in the process, we felt screwed. Why hadn't D at least been wait-listed like the other girl from our geographic reason? Not one to sit around and stew (like me), my H called Stanford to ask why our D hadn't been wait-listed. He was told that Stanford has a long-standing policy of never evaluating an application more than twice. No candidate is ever deferred and then wait-listed. H asked why this policy existed, since a student would obviously rather be wait-listed than rejected, and he was told that it was a long-standing policy. He asked where that policy was published, and of course the "alumni liaison" had no answer. This is when I became bitter.</p>

<p>I scoured CC pages in an attempt to understand where D was lacking. I saw that Stanford, unlike its peers, accepts more men than women. Unlike its peers in their respective states, Stanford accepts a disproportionate number of California residents (we are OOS). Unlike Cal, UCLA, MIT, and Cal Tech, Stanford seems to actively discriminate against Asians. Like all of these schools, Stanford has far more qualified applicants than spaces to fill.</p>

<p>I am a very good loser. My problem with Stanford is that admissions is not completely honest. For example, saying that legacies are admitted at "roughly" twice the rate of all applicants is a misleading statistic. How Stanford legacies compare with Cal or Harvard legacies would be a more meaningful measurement. Many candidates aren't serious -- they are just throwing up hail mary passes. It is not true that if other things are equal the legacy will be admitted -- this is obvious from published statistics. It is misleading to act as if deferred candidates are considered equally with the regular decision pool, when in fact they are segregated and treated differently -- with no chance of being wait-listed. It is wrong to fail to tell candidates that if they apply SCEA, and are borderline candidates, they are forfeiting their chance to be admitted from the wait-list -- which is used every year. Finally, it's wrong to actively discriminate against Asians, using "holistic" review as an excuse for racial discrimination.</p>

<p>I wish my neighbor hadn't been admitted. I still loved Stanford until that happened and I was forced to take a closer look at Stanford's admissions practices. Without consulting me, H recently wrote a $2000 check to Stanford. I would not have agreed with this expenditure, even though our S intends to apply next year. I hope some students will learn from our mistakes. If I am wrong to be bitter, please tell me why. I hope I am wrong. By the way, D is very happy and doing well at her school. Thanks to everyone who shares their information on this forum.</p>

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<p>You have no idea what the essays were like, for the two admitted students you alluded to. You also said that Stanford told you, that they “admit legacies at twice the rate” just because your D was not admitted doesn’t make that statistic false. And, for future reference it’s not called racial discrimination, it’s called Affirmitive Action.</p>

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<p>Just like StanfordCS explained, you don’t know the background at all for either of the students mentioned. I understand that there was disappointment, especially since you and your Husband are both legacies. However, I strongly believe that it’s wrong to pass judgement based on “telephone” communication. You have no way of knowing the actual details related to those mentioned students. You don’t know if they were on the lower end of the economy. You don’t know if they had some issues that held them back. Or if they had one or two special interests that they pursued more than just “a little taste of everything”. I don’t mean to put down the effort that your child put into his/her activities. It’s at a time like this that I’ll use the word passion (though I hate it exactly for this reason).</p>

<p>I really think that this situation should just be let go. You said it’s already been a couple years. Have your next child focus on more specific activities and skills, etc. Have them try their best with the application.</p>

<p>I just think it’s wrong a couple years down the road to point out other applicants and accuse them of stealing your child’s spot. Just my 2 cents
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I feel like this is the biggest issue; they should tell everyone that.</p>

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<p>I don’t blame you for feeling bitter. I’m a parent going through my third and last college admissions cycle with my youngest. I’m sick to death of this process; it has turned me into a cynic. You’re either the wrong ethnicity, live in the wrong part of the country - god forbid you live in the midwest - or just aren’t disadvantaged enough.</p>

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<p>Sounds pretty wrong to me
 But your daughter sounds like the type of person who can excel wherever she goes and that’s all that matters. Maybe she should have focused more deeply on a few ECs rather than overloading with a million (idk how she had the time for all of the things you mentioned
). That would’ve probably distinguished her from the stereotype of an over-working Asian who is only doing something to get into a top-school (no offense to your daughter).</p>

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<p>Warning: very long post.</p>

<p>There are a few problems, mainly in assumptions, with your explanations. It seems that you were not misled by Stanford admissions at all; you were misled by the vast pool of rumors present on this site.</p>

<p>Stanford has continually said that legacy status matters very little. The wisdom (or lack thereof) on this site is that legacy will get you in. You now see which is more accurate.</p>

<p>As others said, you did not see the other applications–their essays, ECs, awards, recommendations–so you have a very superficial view of them. Often students underestimate how many accomplishments a student has on their application. And yet again, CC seems to have misled you: here people believe that Stanford emphasizes race, but it does not. It’s actually barely a consideration and probably in most cases irrelevant. What matters much more is background, especially socioeconomic status, adversities that a student has faced. This is supported by the FAQ from Stanford’s admissions on affirmative action:</p>

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<p>[FAQ</a> : Stanford University](<a href=“Page Not Found : Stanford University”>Page Not Found : Stanford University)</p>

<p>Notice that there is no mention of race, ethnicity, or skin color. Stanford is not lying about its policies in affirmative action and has no incentive to cover up the realities of its admissions. Rather, the controversy over the realities stems from the divide in perspectives on what affirmative action means. Originally its intent was to give a boost to those minorities who faced significant disadvantages, but in many instances (across the country), it came down to race and quotas. Times have changed at places like Stanford, which gets enough “colored applicants” that it doesn’t need to worry much about filling some quota. Rather, like other top colleges, Stanford has increasingly moved toward emphasizing background: thus a student from a low-income background will have their accomplishments evaluated in the context of what they were afforded–very little or nothing. This is not to say that upper-income students are at a disadvantage in admissions. And of course, we all know that they naturally have a very strong advantage (leading to their over-representation at colleges, especially top ones).</p>

<p>The person who said that being Jewish helped has no idea how it works. Jewish applicants are, if anything, over-represented in colleges. I think the Hillel site lists Jewish enrollment by college; it’s very high (20%+) at all the elite schools. There isn’t even a place on the application to put one’s religion. Even though a student could put it somewhere on the app, it wouldn’t matter. Stanford’s common data set says that religious affiliation/commitment is “not considered.”</p>

<p>[Stanford</a> University: Common Data Set 2010-2011](<a href=“http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2010.html]Stanford”>http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2010.html)</p>

<p>Regarding gender, roughly equal numbers of men and women apply to Stanford (about 1000 more men applied to Stanford in 2010 though); it admits roughly equal numbers; and the student body is split 50-50. (See common data set above.)</p>

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<p>It most certainly is a misleading statistic–but Stanford can’t control that here. It tempts people to think that legacies have a big advantage, when they don’t. This goes back to the socioeconomic point. Consider that at the top 140 or so colleges, 74% of the students are from the top economic quartile (only 9% come from the bottom two economic quartiles, only 3% from the bottom one). </p>

<p>Why do you think this is? It’s because those who are more wealthy inherently have immense advantages. For one, their parents likely attended college, so growing up, they were in a very intellectually stimulating environment. These students have the money to pay for music lessons, ballet, travel to chess tournaments, and so on. They can pay for SAT prep classes or SAT prep books, AP exams and AP prep books, tutors when they struggle, expensive tuition to a private school that affords them advanced classes that challenge them and extracurricular activities that give them the opportunity to test and show their passions and school counselors that aren’t inundated by students and can actually help them. They often will pay college consultants to help them write their college essays, polish their applications, putting them in the best light possible.</p>

<p>Now consider that Stanford, being an elite school, prepares its graduates to be even more successful than the average college graduate. Much of the above tends to be even more true for students who are legacies–simply because they are the sons and daughters of very successful people who graduated from a prestigious university. In addition to that, legacy students are likely to have heard of Stanford from a young age and to develop a desire to attend early on; they have their sights set and they know early on generally what’s required in order to get in. They show a passion for Stanford, and while applicant interest is not a consideration for admission, they probably write strong “why Stanford” essays. </p>

<p>Do you see why legacies would get in at higher rates and why it would appear that Stanford gives them an advantage? Again, this is not to say that being a legacy or being wealthy is a disadvantage, or that Stanford knocks them a few points for being privileged, because upper-income students are still overrepresented at Stanford–roughly 20% pay full freight, and that’s with Stanford’s very generous financial aid policies that offer aid to families making up to $200,000 (only 50-60% of Stanford’s students qualify for need-based aid). But these students naturally will be amazingly qualified that they get in at high rates. The truth is, given the absurd selectivity that Stanford and others are forced to have (there’s a constant set of 1700 spots, and the applications just keep going up), they have to reject the overwhelming majority of applicants, including the majority of upper-income and legacy applicants. They just don’t have the space: when the Stanford president suggested increasing the incoming class to 1,900 students, it was met with widespread disapproval. </p>

<p>Some say that the admissions offices at elite colleges accept legacy applicants at higher rates because they don’t want to burn bridges with their alumni. But this makes no sense. Since most legacy applicants are rejected anyway, the admissions office isn’t afraid that rejecting another legacy applicant will make a difference. At least, they hope that it will not and that their alumni will understand that they just can’t accept all the children of alumni, they just don’t have the space. And they hope, further, that it won’t change your allegiance to your alma mater. Not just for donation reasons, but for the general reason that the university wants to maintain that love for the school that you likely had when you were here. Don’t forget that. If you didn’t like your time here, that’s fine too; Stanford’s not for everyone.</p>

<p>Finally, Stanford admits high numbers, on an absolute scale, of applicants from California, but not disproportionate numbers, as you say. A certain proportion is expected to come from a college’s state, and California is huge, so to determine whether Stanford disproportionately has a number of people from its own state, we compare it to other elite schools’ representation of their own state. Consider that about 37% of the class last year was from California, or about 630 students. The state of California has 37 million people. Roughly 15% of Harvard’s class, if I remember correctly, is from Massachusetts, which has a population of 6.5 million. If you do the proportion, the representation of students from MA at Harvard is greater than the representation of students from CA at Stanford (more than 2x the proportion that Stanford has from its own state). I don’t remember the exact numbers, but the calculations have been done by others and prove that when you take population into account, students from CA at Stanford are actually underrepresented relative to students from home states at other colleges. It just seems like a lot, since California is the most populous state.</p>

<p>The takeaway point is that Stanford admissions has not been disingenuous with you. Rather, because admission is so competitive and seemingly unpredictable, people on this site are often tempted to make illogical conclusions, and sometimes the result encourages too much confidence on the part of students or their parents. I’m not an adcom, but I can tell you that it’s also because of this immense competition that your daughter didn’t get in; it was not because she was “lacking” at all (especially given the schools she did get into!).</p>

<p>I hope this helped.</p>

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<p>^ Wow nice novel.</p>

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<p>^edit oh but there’s more :p</p>

<p>Oops, missed these:</p>

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<p>Ask yourself, why would Stanford defer these candidates if they did not have a legitimate chance at admission? Stanford already rejects 80% of SCEA applicants (<10% are deferred). Why not just reject them?</p>

<p>But in fact, they do have a pretty good shot RD. Stanford has said before that 10% of the deferred applicants are accepted in the RD round. When you do the math, the overall RD acceptance rate is about 5%. So they apparently do well in the RD round.</p>

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<p>I don’t think it’s necessary to tell them that. Consider that when Stanford evaluates an applicant in a given round, the application will be read by more than one person and often more than once. I read an article before in which Stanford said they do a few reads each time: once, to sort students into “not competitive,” “definitely accept” (like 5% of the pool), or “we’ll read this one again” (most applicants). They do this for the RD round too. If an applicant has been deferred, they will likely have been read many times by the time the RD round is over. When Stanford is evaluating students to take off its waitlist, it probably has realized, from experience, that any deferred applicant that they waitlisted pretty much had no chance of getting off the waitlist. So they instituted the policy of not waitlisting deferred applicants. You don’t think that Stanford would institute that policy for no reason, do you? It’s not going to pass up the opportunity to get a great student just because of some illogical policy. Rather, they started the policy probably because they found that, historically, they never took such waitlisted students (who were deferred) off the waitlist.</p>

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<p>I think the better explanation of what happens with Asians, again, goes back to the socioeconomic point. Many Asian applicants are the sons and daughters of successful, well-educated parents. When evaluated in context, their accomplishments are not unexpected–not because of their race, but because of their background. The same logic is applied to every race. On this site alone you’ll find plenty of well-qualified, upper-income minority students who are rejected at the most elite colleges. Here’s one example of a disadvantaged Asian student who, despite not having an extremely high SAT score, got into Stanford:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/955112-disregard-affirmative-action-accepted-stanford-1840-sat-asian.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/955112-disregard-affirmative-action-accepted-stanford-1840-sat-asian.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Again, Stanford looks at your accomplishments in the context of what opportunities you were given. Students from privileged families get into elite colleges like Stanford in droves; they simply can’t deny that they’re extremely well qualified. But when Stanford sees a disadvantaged student who, despite immense adversities, managed to get a perfect GPA in difficult courses, lead various clubs, garner lots of awards, etc. all the while working 40 hours a week so that their family can have electricity and food, it speaks volumes to their character, their determination, their drive–aspects which will make them successful at Stanford and in life.</p>

<p>All considered, students from privileged backgrounds still have a huge advantage over students from disadvantaged backgrounds. But viewing applicants in context–this is what “holistic” means–helps to level the playing field a little. (UCs also do what they call “holistic admissions,” which means they don’t look at race, since they aren’t allowed to, but they will consider your background–they even have an essay designed specifically to allow disadvantaged students space to elaborate on their situation. This “holistic review” is the general trend in top college admissions.)</p>

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<p>I would argue to the contrary.
First of all, Stanford does mention ethnicity being considered as a part of the admissions process.
[Stanford</a> University: Common Data Set 2010-2011](<a href=“http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2010.html]Stanford”>http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2010.html)
refer to chart C.7 and you’ll see that
“Racial/ethnic status” is “considered”</p>

<p>Now what “considered” means is highly subjective, and due to the utter lack of transparency surrounding the admissions process, we can only speculate how much emphasis Stanford places on race. </p>

<p>However, what we can look at the possible motivations (or the lack of, as phantasmagoric suggested) for hiding how the admissions process works. First of all, it’s unconstitutional to have racial quotas as a part of the undergraduate admissions process (Gratz vs Boillinger 2003).
[GRATZ</a> V. BOLLINGER](<a href=“http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-516.ZS.html]GRATZ”>GRATZ V. BOLLINGER)
The decision basically meant that a “point system” for AA was against the 14th amendment. However more “individually” based decisions were OK. (to say it in everyday language, it basically means that you can have racial discrimination in the admissions process as long as its not a point based system or a publicized racial quota)</p>

<p>So does Stanford (And the rest of the elite privates) have some incentives to hide exactly how racial preferences work? I’ll let you be the judge of that.</p>

<p>On the last note about the necessity of boosting admissions among under-represented students, I would disagree about the elite school having enough colored applicants to fill the racial quota.
Just look at it mathematically, and you’ll see why they must go after colored applicants to fill a “diverse” class. Racial break downs in the U.S is about W:65% H:16%, B:13% A:5%. Now the reason that Hispanics and African Americans are classified as URMs is because they statistically underachieve compared to Asians and Whites (due to social economic, cultural, or whatever reasons)
Lets first divide up the applicants into tiers, based on achievement and stats alone, ignoring race. Its quite reasonable to say that the top tier is highly disproportional, comprised of mainly Asians and Caucasians.
Now in order for a university to fill a racial breakdown of B:11%, and H:10%, they would have to take on students of color who are of a weaker tier. (Now you can argue that this is purely caused by social-economic status, but i’ll get to that later).</p>

<p>This is supported by the observation of a dearth of URM populations in the top public schools who are banned from racial AA (keep in mind they are allowed to do social economic AA). Simply put, many of the URMs who, by achievement standards, fit into the top public schools are snatched up by the private elite.
Basically I am willing to bet that an African American with 2250 and a 4.0 GPA and decent ECs will get into one of the HYPMS schools even if he is from a 200k+ bracket, while an Asian or Caucasian student in the exact same situation might very well end up getting rejected by all of the HYPMS schools. </p>

<p>So why is social economic status not the explanation to this disproportionate admission rates among differing ethnicities given the same stats on paper?
How many truly disadvantaged kids get into the elite privates? How many kids who grew up in the ghettos surrounded by gang violence can even come close to achieving the stats necessary, even under AA standards, to gain admissions into the private elites?</p>

<p>I would like to see a family income breakdown of students of color at the top elite universities. If the income breakdown is very much skewed towards low-income, then the argument of social economic status might have SOME merit. (Though i’ll be willing to bet, that the percentage of URM applicants who are from upper income brackets will be just the same as the percentage of Asians and Caucasians who are from the upper brackets.)
The current observation from the lack of URM students at publics that have banned racial AA is highly indicative of admission advantages based heavily on race.</p>

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<p>“it’s not called racial discrimination, it’s called Affirmitive Action.”</p>

<p>You can call it anything you want, but it still puts some people ahead of other people for no reason other than race.</p>

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<p>freezingbeast, I could reply in full to your objections, but I have neither the interest nor the energy to debate affirmative action right now. Here’s just a few notes.</p>

<p>I’m aware that Stanford says race is “considered.” I don’t think that Stanford has an incentive to lie about its policies, since it, and others, are well-known for taking race into consideration. The explanation of affirmative action on Stanford’s admissions FAQ heavily emphasizes background and socioeconomic status. I do think that race is a consideration (which I said above), but not nearly as much as socioeconomic status.</p>

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<p>All of the analysis that follows this is guesswork and makes too many leaps in logic (for example, relying on general US population data; assuming that Stanford has to go for a “weaker tier” to fill its class). None of it shows that Stanford doesn’t receive enough qualified applicants from underrepresented minorities. </p>

<p>Public schools’ URM populations are very different and given how different private schools recruitment and admissions are from public schools, you can’t draw the (hop-skip-jump) conclusion that it is “highly indicative of admission advantages based heavily on race.” As you said, their lower representation is probably because many of the most qualified minorities are being ‘snatched up’ by the top privates. This has also been stated by many people at universities such as Berkeley who deplore its lack of diversity. It’s something that has come up in Berkeley’s news stories a lot–that top privates are taking the highly qualified minority students.</p>

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<p>I’ve never seen such admission rates. You seem to be making another assumption.</p>

<p>None of what you or I have said is certain, because Stanford does not release data breaking down by race and income. Instead, we have to rely on other data; Stanford admissions states it emphasizes socioeconomic status over race, so I’m inclined to believe them, rather than assume they’re lying, based on a considerably more complex argument that has no statistical or logical significance (occam’s razor, you might say). Stanford’s participation in programs like QuestBridge support this. Finally, it’s supported by other statistics; for example, Stanford enrolls the highest proportion of low-income students of any private university, third highest overall (behind UCLA and Berkeley).</p>

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<p>Now that’s not anything to wish for.</p>

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<p>Cholla: at Princeton or Yale your child’s admission (as a double legacy with the described record) would have been a slam-dunk. For better or worse, Stanford evidently doesn’t use their play-book (CalTech even less so: they specifically state no legacy consideration). To put a positive spin, your family is branching out (too much academic in-breeding may be a bit narrowing).</p>

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Well, she had some great choices that most people would love to have.</p>

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Then maybe it was for the best. Seems like everything worked out for her; plus, she sounds like she’s smart enough to succeed wherever she goes.</p>

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What you said there was essentially my argument. The lack of URMs at the top privates indicates that the private elites do weigh race as a significant factor as they snatch up high achieving URMs, while leaving behind many high achieving non-URMs (even low-income ones) at their state’s flagship schools. </p>

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<p>Because of the lack of transparency of the admissions process, both of us can only offer up speculation.
My hypothesis rests on the legal incentive of non-disclosure and the observation of URM population on top public schools, while your hypothesis rests on the “official statement”. </p>

<p>I don’t see your logic as Occam’s razor, because it cannot explain the observation of the lack of URM population in top public schools. </p>

<p>I’m not debating you on the merits of AA, I was only responding to your incorrect statement that “Stanford doesn’t mention race in their admission policies nor do they have any incentives to hide their policy of racial preferences.” </p>

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<p>Ahh, my bad, here they are:
<a href=“http://gsppi.berkeley.edu/faculty/jrothstein/published/krueger_rothstein_turner.pdf[/url]”>http://gsppi.berkeley.edu/faculty/jrothstein/published/krueger_rothstein_turner.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
Refer to table 2</p>

<p>[The</a> State of Black Student First-Year Enrollments at the Nation’s Highest-Ranked Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.jbhe.com/features/57_freshmen.html]The”>The State of Black Student First-Year Enrollments at the Nation’s Highest-Ranked Colleges and Universities)
**Note how HYPS all hid their percentages. To why they would refuse to disclose that information, we can only speculate.
Ignoring the state schools, schools like Brown, MIT, and UChicago should give a good projection of the acceptance rates in HYPS since they are closer in academic reputation. </p>

<p>I realize that the argument of social economic status might come up, but then, you’ll only need to look at the “race-blind” schools such as UCLA and Berkeley to establish a base level, a “control” if you will, of the quality of applicants after taking social economic status into account. (UCLA and UCB, Which btw, like you said, have the two HIGHEST percentage of low-income students enrolling)</p>

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<p>freezingbeast, the decision in Gratz v. Bollinger that you cited doesn’t apply to private universities like Stanford–it only applies to public institutions. It was decided under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that no <em>state</em> shall deny to citizens within its jurisdiction the equal protection of laws. Public colleges and universities are entities of the state; privates are not. Private school policies may be influenced by these considerations, but it’s not a matter of constitutional law.</p>

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<p>Another leap in logic. The point is that even if they did not consider race, private schools would still take all of the high-achieving URMs. (This is still speculation, but if you’re going to use “common sense logic”–inappropriate here–for making conclusions, this is the more logical conclusion.)</p>

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<p>I don’t see any statistics for Stanford. We are not talking about every other highly selective school; every school varies significantly in the demographic they draw on, their admissions policies, and so on. Again, big leaps in logic.</p>

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<p>Again, they do not provide a good control. They have very different demographics that they draw on; they have very different applicants; they have different admissions policies and standards; and so on.</p>

<p>Really, basic statistics and elementary logic will tell you that you can’t make any conclusions based on what you’ve said. There are too many variables unaccounted for.</p>

<p>The alternative is to look at what Stanford’s policies are and what statistics are available about Stanford. Since we already know what all that is, we can agree to disagree about the conclusions. You can continue to believe that Stanford cares little about socioeconomic status and that race is heavily important–like most of the uninformed posters on CC. That’s fine, but until you have concrete data about Stanford, breaking down acceptance rates and statistics by income level and race, it’s disingenuous to mislead others based on shaky logic, inappropriate data, and leaping conclusions, just to prove that the current evidence about Stanford is not evidence.</p>

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<p>@Zenkoan
Actually, that decision applies to any schools receiving federal funds by the extension of Title VI of the civil rights act. So any school part of the FAFSA program, or receiving any other type of federal grants, are subject to the court decision.<br>
So it applies to the private schools as well.
[Title</a> VI](<a href=“http://lawhighereducation.com/128-title-vi.html]Title”>http://lawhighereducation.com/128-title-vi.html)</p>

<p>@Phantasmagoric
Sure alright, i’ll give you that, my argument was shaky at best due to the lack of availability of data. </p>

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So by your logic, the default is that any school does not discriminate, unless there is compelling data to show that they do discriminate, yet HYPS seems unwilling to release such data? (other than an “official statement” whose validity is not backed up by official statistics) So we must conclude that they do not discriminate?</p>

<p>Isn’t that a bit of a catch-22?</p>

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<p>Thank you for reading my post, and for taking the time to reply.</p>

<p>BillyMc: You are absolutely right and very insightful (in both of your posts).</p>

<p>marcher: Thank you for the support. I hope your youngest child gets a lot of good news in the coming weeks. Good luck!</p>

<p>phantasmagoric: You put a great deal of effort into your posts. I’m not sure you read the words of others carefully. Also, you often declare that others have made unfounded assumptions. May I suggest that you objectively read your own posts and count the number of assumptions which you have made?</p>

<p>freezingbeast: Thank you. You have added to my understanding of several issues.</p>

<p>MegasXLR: Of course, you are right and I am wrong. I know the students mentioned in my post, and their parents, quite well. I wish them the very best, and fully acknowledge that their good fortune has nothing to do with my feelings of resentment. BillyMc hit it on the head when he pointed out that the crux of my problem is that I did not know, and could not have known, that my D’s SCEA application would put her at a competitive disadvantage with similar (and even lesser) RD candidates.</p>

<p>Dad2: I found your post affirming, reassuring and helpful. Thank you.</p>

<p>Finally, with all of the attention that the “Asians in the Library” video rant is getting, I feel compelled to say a little about Asian stereotyping. When an Asian student loves math and science, and works tirelessly to learn and excel in these areas, he is called a “robot” or a “soulless drone.” No one gives him credit for “passion.” On the other hand, when an Asian student plays sports, excels in music, and participates at a high level in many activities, he is accused of lacking passion and doing these things merely to get into college; and is not credited with tireless enthusiasm, curiosity, and adventurousness. Moreover, these two types of students are very different, but are lumped together as “stereotypical Asian applicants.” Many good, bright students of many races choose math, science, tennis, golf, piano, violin, etc. These are good, meaningful activities that make an individual a better and more interesting person, and are interests that may last a lifetime. Suggesting that Asians deliberately choose these activities to get into college is absurd – they are great interests for anyone to cultivate. Asians also choose drama and dance and chorus. They work at ordinary jobs. Just like everybody else. The “stereotypical Asian applicant” is a myth, a racist myth. I believe this myth is sometimes used to justify discrimination. Highly qualified white candidates also often look alike – but nobody denigrates the “stereotypical white candidate.” Within an Asian community, or even a single Asian family, there is great variation – some individuals are quiet, some are loud, some are hilarious, others are serious, some work hard, some procrastinate, etc. Of course people who live together or share a culture also share interests and characteristics. Just as certain girls from Brooklyn, the Valley, Dallas, and NE Philadelphia may be very identifiable but distinct “types,” Asians come in all shapes and sizes. I hope I never see the phrase “stereotypical Asian” again.</p>