So it’s a thread based on Affirmative Action… annoying. I’m completely against it, even as a hispanic male in poverty. But name and race blinding is absurd, don’t see the problem with Asians being the majority in elite schools either, admissions go through a holistic process in decisions. Achievement is accomplishing something, not being born of different color, religion or background altogether. I’m aware that it exists but like I said I don’t support it, but who cares what I think 
I don’t see anything wrong if Harvard just would come out and says it seeks the most talented students, wants some diversity, and seeks to attain some sort of balance in their class. All racial groups except Asians are under represented (except NA maybe) in acceptance rates. Why is this so complicated to assert they want different types of students because they can afford to have it. Sure back then there was a time where Harvard was mostly white students, and they’ve done work to increase admissions of minorities including Asian Americans. When you have almost 40,000 people applying at this point, not everybody will get in.
It’s just like unrequited love. You could find an attractive person, and do everything in your control to make yourself more desirable. Heck they may even court your thoroughly. But maybe in the end they choose someone else for some other reason outside your control–maybe they like brunettes better. Yeah it hurts, but you have to move on. Look as a minority woman, I have some understanding at this personal business where most of the workers are pretty, blonde, and white I don’t have the strongest chance. But in the end what can I do.
“All racial groups except Asians are under represented,” @dancelance? What about Caucasians? Or are they not a “racial group”?
@LucieTheLakie What don’t you understand about my statement? Caucasians are underrepresented as well.
@dancelance - what are the current Harvard acceptance rates per ethnicity? Are Caucasians accepted at rates higher than the average for the applicant pool as a whole? I’m curious - I haven’t seen this numbers published.
@BldrDad That data isn’t published to my knowledge and probably would never be. I was referring to the admitted students profiles–as in compared to the US Census, what is the breakdown of Harvard students? And my point is, while I don’t believe its fair or necessary to make the breakdown equal to the US racial distribution, I don’t understand while striking some balance is so negative.
It seems ironic that many will find the idea that at their schools they want to have students from everywhere and of every sort so appealing (as in I’d love to meet someone from x, y, z who did a, b,c), then be so against schools using tools to ensure this happens or whatever they call it. If you want different minds and unique ideas that is found in different individuals and across different races.
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/04/harvard-college-admits-1990/
This may not be wholly accurate, but one way to ballpark the figure for caucasian students is to add up all the racial data that Harvard does make available and subtract the total from 100. So 21 + 13.3 + 12.1 + 2 = 48.4 racially identified admitted students. 100 - 48.4 = 51.6% caucasian or thereabouts. Having walked around Harvard’s campus for 4 years, that seems about right, give or take 10%. This doesn’t account for mixed-race students, but caucasians are definitely in the majority at Harvard (and at Yale and Princeton).
Thanks but I focusing on the second part of the question more than the first-- “Are Caucasians accepted at rates higher than the average for the applicant pool as a whole?” And I don’t think it can be answered.
Until these lawsuits calm down this type of data isn’t likely to be published (unless the case is favorable for the plaintiffs and it gets released). I doubt even for blacks, new data would be very hard to come by.
Harvard could answer that question, but they elect not to.
@gibby - The Harvard Gazette article also indicate 10.8% are international, so you need to divide those numbers by .892 to calculate the relative percentages of American admits.
Thus 23.5% of American admitted students identify as Asian, 14.9% as Latino, 13.5% as African-American, 2.2% as Native American/Native Hawaiian. This would mean, of American admits, 45.6% do not belong to any of these groups - and they are not necessarily Caucasian, this would also include bi-racial students and students of unknown ethnicity.
If you look at the Harvard Common Data Set (http://oir.harvard.edu/files/huoir/files/harvard_cds_2013-14.pdf, line 82) the attending percentages do not mirror the accepted percentages, which makes me conclude that yield varies greatly between ethnic groups. Most obvious; African-Americans - only 7% of the entering class of 2016 was African American. Caucasian Americans were 43% of the freshman class, Asian-American were 18.5%, (these numbers are relative to the entire class, not just American students).
All of this says nothing about the applicant pool, but one thing is clear - the percentage of attending URMs is much lower than accepted URMs, and therefore the URM yield must be significantly lower.
If this is really the reason for the discrimination, I guess you can forget about getting any relief. Why should the ruling establishment make changes? If it’s all a big conspiracy, then you’re really out of luck. Actually, if you were right about this, there would be fewer Asians in elite schools right now–maybe at about their percentage of the population.
Here’s what I think: there is no conspiracy. There is no secret protocol at Harvard, or at any other school, telling adcoms how many Asians to admit. There are number of factors that give us the current rate of admission for Asians–unstated bias may be one of them, but it’s not the only one. Others are some of the things we’ve mentioned, like geographical distribution, concentration of major preferences, and less diversity in ECs.
And finally, just an observation, based on my own anecdotal experience. I think some Asian families, for cultural reasons, do not follow the best strategy for achieving admission to the most selective American schools. I can’t say they are wrong to make the choices they do, but those choices have consequences.
Let’s not forget that historically holistic admission was started by Harvard to discriminate against Jews. With its opacity, it will always face claims of bias. If the intent is really to achieve diversity, there are many ways to achieve the same end via means that are much fairer and more transparent. For example:
- Admit by major. Applicants have to commit to a major at the time of application, and are accepted directly into their major strictly based on merit. Once enrolled they cannot change major. If they are failing they have to drop out and their places taken by transfers. This will ensure students of varied interests are accepted. Today roughly 17% of Harvard’s graduating seniors apply to med school. If they make pre-med a major, this will also restrict the number of pre-meds and prevent overcrowding in certain classrooms. This is how Oxbridge does it, it’s much fairer, more transparent and straight forward.
or
- Admit based on specific talent. For example:
10% athletic talent
10% musical talent
10% math talent
10% science talent
10% linguistic talent
10% foreign language talent
20% social science talent
10% computer programming talent
10% art and design talent
Applicants specify which talent pool they would like to compete in. Their application is then compared against all other applicants in that specific talent pool. Each talent pool sets its own criteria in terms of how many points to assign to specific talent vs. academic merit. Faculty members should be heavily involved in selecting talents in each area.
All those who claim that a pure merit based admission would result in a class of uncultured, unsociable nerds and geeks with no personality are completely off base. All UK, European, Canadian and Australian universities have been accepting students completely based on merit since their inception, and clearly do not have this problem. In any case admitting by major or talent will also go a long way to ensure diversity.
Why would Harvard want to make those changes? Harvard sees nothing wrong with the way it does things now, and it’s highly likely that anybody will be able to show that there is anything wrong with it.
Whoever penned this thread must not have had journalism training. Wouldn’t “…Harvard’s alleged Asian bias” have been a more fair and accurate title?
The large point is people can claim what they want, but that doesn’t make it so.
Harvard doesn’t want to select top down based on stats. But no matter how often you say that, some can’t fathom it. That’s their issue, not Harvard’s.
Admitting by major would not simply change admission practices; it would change the spirit of Harvard. Over and over the frosh get signals that they should explore a range of classes so that they have an opportunity to change their major plans. The Gen Ed model is designed with this premise in mind.
Bathwater. Baby.
^^ Not only that: http://www.act.org/newsroom/half-of-high-school-graduates-switch-from-their-intended-major-by-second-year-of-college/
The reason Harvard, and other colleges, ask you about your “intended major” is to gauge your interests. However, as more than half of all college students change their major at least once during their 4 years of college, Harvard Admissions – or any Admissions office – cannot use your “intended major” as a recruiting tool because the data doesn’t directly translate into what major a student will graduate with.
I agree with those who maintain Harvard shouldn’t have to change its mission or admissions requirements to appease those who don’t agree with them. But I still don’t understand why they don’t release the acceptance rates for the various racial/ethnic categories they collect data on. Can anybody explain why that is?
My guess is that Harvard doesn’t release that data because it’s not going to be the same across the board for every race/ethnicity/gender group. For example: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/04/harvard-college-admits-1990/
The unspoken question I have in that comment: 1) As more men apply to Harvard than women, are the odds about the same no matter your gender? or 2) Are the odds better if you are a woman because fewer women apply, and worse if you’re a man because more men apply?
If Harvard were to release that information, and if the odds were indeed better as a woman, how would you feel knowing that information?
When people can understand holistic, maybe they will release more detail. Right now, suspect they have better things to do than parse this into bite sized pieces for folks who still won’t get it and will still complain. 