<p>freezingbeast: The default is indeed that it does not discriminate; however, the general rule of thumb is that private schools do discriminate based on race. But that doesn’t mean that any given college will necessarily discriminate based on race. More importantly, we know that HYPS do, because they all say so in their common data sets – that race/ethnicity is “considered.”</p>
<p>However, in trying to see whether socioeconomic status is *more *important, we have to rely on what statistics are available and what the stated policies are. Stanford used to be explicit with its attention to ethnicity; now, it doesn’t mention it much. That doesn’t mean that race isn’t considered (we know it is, by the CDS), but the policy suggests that socioeconomic background is more important. That’s supported by the fact that Stanford enrolls the highest proportion of Pell Grantees of elite private schools, third-highest overall (no school can even touch Berkeley and UCLA in this respect; about 1/3 of the students at each of these schools). And the fact that Stanford recruits partly through QuestBridge (at least 500 students at Stanford participated in the Match program), and draws in a lot of low-income students in other recruiting efforts.</p>
<p>On top of that, the dialog (e.g. at the Roosevelt Institution) on socioeconomic issues in higher education also stresses that the elite schools have largely shifted to focusing more on socioeconomic background.</p>
<p>While I’m opposed to race-based AA, I’m not going to reject the idea that Stanford engages in it. But I also know that there are more complex issues at work and until Stanford releases breakdowns of stats by income and race, I have to rely on what is known and measured. If Stanford does release that and it turns out that I’m completely wrong (contrary to all the facts and data that indicate otherwise), I’ll freely admit it.</p>
<p>I put all that effort into those posts, since you hoped that you were wrong, and I showed that most of your assumptions were wrong; and this is your reply? Do you have any objections to specific claims I made? Do you not agree with the analysis? What ‘words of others’ are you talking about (when I made those posts, I was replying only to yours–no one else had posted much)?</p>
<p>If you’re referring to my replies to freezingbeast, I stated I did not want to get into an AA debate and that the data he presented was not strong enough to disprove what I was saying. Not to mention, he only replied to one claim I made; you seem to make nothing of the rest of what I said.</p>
<p>It seems you don’t actually “hope you’re wrong,” rather you’d prefer to continue to be bitter toward your alma mater.</p>
<p>Cholla, looking at BillyMC’s posts, which you said were “completely right and insightful”, he had three sentences–“You’re right, Stanford is wrong for doing this” and the other two praising your daughter even though she didn’t get in.</p>
<p>Freezingbeast addressed one issue–that of race–and you said “Thank you. You have added to my understanding of several issues.”</p>
<p>I showed, with statistics and reasoning for each, that SCEA students do 2x better than RD applicants; that the legacy admit rate is expected; that students not from CA are not at a disadvantage (and are not proportionally overrepresented relative to other colleges); and that it makes sense that Stanford doesn’t waitlist deferred students.</p>
<p>But it appears you just don’t want to hear this.</p>
<p>When I first posted, I avoided mentioning what everyone was thinking: that your daughter wasn’t qualified to get into any of the top 5 schools, because she was also rejected at Harvard and Princeton; and that you just seem bitter that she didn’t get a boost for being a legacy. You deplore the unfair admissions over Asians, but you’re okay with students who are the sons/daughters of alumni getting an unfair boost? So you’re okay with unfair admissions, so long as you can benefit? So you try to chalk up your daughter’s results to a bunch of unfair factors, none of which are actually true. When someone says that they aren’t true, you don’t like it, because you’d prefer to think that your daughter didn’t get in because admissions were unfair to her, rather than the simple truth that she wasn’t as qualified as the students who were accepted (hence, why she didn’t get into Harvard or Princeton either).</p>
<p>How very hypocritical and petty. It’s been a few years since your daughter didn’t get in; please, live and let live.</p>
<p>Not to nitpick, freezingbeast, but the Gratz case itself technically isn’t applicable to private institutions. In Gratz the court found that the Title VI violation was derivative of the Equal Protection Clause violation (which requires state action). It’s true that private colleges receiving federal funding face restrictions on their racial policies under Title VI, but that’s a claim stated under the Civil Rights Act, not the U.S. Constitution.</p>
<p>Ya got me there. I miss spoke.
Its not against constitutional law, but it is against the federal law.
But the point of the legal incentives remain valid i believe.</p>
<p>I was lucky enough to live in Toronto during the Voice of Fire fiasco, and recall reading a letter to the editor of a local newspaper saying that the value of a work of art is inversely proportionate to the number of words it takes to explain why it’s good. That also seems to be the same with the long-winded explanations of why it’s great to institutionalize the preference of people of one race over another.</p>
<p>I’m actually really surprised that more people haven’t taken phanta’s side on this. It seems like most people would rather blame their rejection on their race… even though a preference towards those with difficult financial situations makes more sense (and is fair). </p>
<p>To me at least, it was very clear from phanta’s posts that race and legacy status are not /major/ hooks.</p>
<p>Honestly, a lot of this is luck of the draw. Perhaps some admission officer would have admitted Cholla’s daughter. With HYPS, there are always surprises. Sometimes people that seem unqualified are admitted, while sometimes the brightest students are rejected. It’s fine to be bitter about being unlucky. No one’s saying that Cholla shouldn’t feel disappointed about his/her daughter’s rejection. But it is probably unfair to blame race. </p>
<p>From that whole rant Cholla made about the “Asian stereotype,” it seems like Cholla /is/ blaming race for the rejection. Sure there is that stereotype on CC, but do you seriously think a Stanford admissions officer would reject someone because they were ‘stereotypically Asian’? As Cholla said, “the “stereotypical Asian applicant” is a myth, a racist myth.” Does anyone really think that the Stanford AdCom wouldn’t agree to this statement?</p>
<p>So you’re saying that your daughter decided to dedicate every single moment of her life to work, sports, and academia, just for the sake of “passion”? You mentioned THREE sports, two instruments, volunteer work, regular work, ETC… Is it just a coincidence that these sort of overkill schedules are usually (almost only) found within Asian cultures. I have absolutely nothing against people of Asian descent, but to just debunk such a widely seen pattern within a culture as a mere myth seems a little too much to me.</p>
<p>overachiever - Are you kidding me? That busy schedule is something inherent to overachievers, not just to Asians. I know plenty of white and black overachiever’s who are just as busy as Cholla’s daughter.</p>
<p>I find I am a much better “lurker” than contributor on this site, and am anxious to return to my earlier status. Thanks to those who provided sincere and helpful input, both here and in private messages. I consider myself Asian (half Chinese, half Scotch Irish), but D considers herself white. She is a beautiful young woman, with her dad’s Mediterranean coloring. She has an exotic look, and has been an Abercrombie model (I know, such an overachiever). She did not apply to college as an Asian, although one of her essays mentions her Chinese grandmother’s cooking. D was definitely not rejected because of her Asian heritage, but I feel certain that others have been. I am sorry if any of my posts insulted or offended anyone. I wanted applicants to know what I knew about Stanford admissions, especially SCEA, and to do a reality check on my own feelings. I know more now than I did two days ago. Thanks.</p>
<p>I haven’t been able to read through this whole forum (gosh, that would be similar to reading a novel), but I do want to put in a few cents to support Cholla on the comment the person made on the “rant on asians in the library moment”</p>
<p>as a violinist, a lot people are like “violin? asian? psh, typical” and stereotype me to those that do it only for college. But, this is not true, as I remember after a solo performance (with an orchestra) i did. An asian mom went up to me, and told me that I did such a beautiful job, and told me that i enjoyed performing… unlike other asian people she saw do it only for college. i felt a mixed message, and state that this stereotype does prevail.
(As I go to college, I still will hold my dream to become a professional violinist)</p>
<p>Moral of the story: Stanford gets a mountain of applications every year and most of them are from applicants with very good grades, solid test scores, sports, music, blah, blah, blah - however, if you can’t come up with something exceptionally interesting or intriguing about who you are and what you do, you’re not going to get serious consideration. I was bored with OPs write up of her kid’s accomplishments which read like a laundry list of “things I had to do”.</p>
<p>There’s more than one right school for everyone; don’t ruin your life by perseverating on the injustices you think Stanford imposes on the world.</p>
<p>When my double legacy child applied this year, we received a very kind, but explicit letter thanking us as parents for encouraging our child to apply, but reminding us that legacy played only a small role in current admissions. We were told they had a slightly higher admit rate, but still more than 85% of legacy students are rejected. I assume that OP received a similar letter when her child applied.</p>
<p>OP-- you are comparing apples to oranges. You have no real idea what the other students’ WHOLE applications were like. As other posters have noted, I assume that you didn’t read their essays, their recs, their EC lists, not to mention know all their test scores (I wouldn’t even presume to ask my BEST friends how their children scored on tests or their gpa’s). Even students have a skewed view of what other students have done. These other students who were offered admission may have really demonstrated passion (don’t we all hear about this magic quality?). Maybe their writing was amazing, or their short answers were unusually funny, or their biology teacher shared a unique antidote about them that made them come alive. You can really never know. I still remember being humbled and surprised to be the only one from my high school offered admission to Stanford — why did they choose me? What did they see in me and not in the others?</p>
<p>That’s college admissions at elite schools. You just never know, and you have to be prepared to except that.</p>