NPR story on Harvard's Asian bias

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
101

“do think geographic diversity has SOME place but it should be very low on the scale. The only time it would really be applicable is when talking about state schools. For example UNC-Chapel Hill must admit a large majority of its class from NC.”

Personally, I completely disagree. I think what makes a private university special is precisely that which distinguishes it from a state school - the ability to draw from all over.

All schools, including the most elite, disproportionately draw their applicant pools from nearby. I think private schools SHOULD “cleanse the palate” and strive for geo diversity.

102

@GMTplus7

@GMTplus7

You seem flexible on that point.

103

@circuitrider
I’m not sure what your point is.

104

.Well, unwittingly or not, you’ve opened up a can of worms by adding the concept of authenticity to the mix. Race is a political construct and you’ve just given us a prime example.

105

Are you suggesting rich black kids are “less authentically black” than poor black kids? Is the black kid who likes classical music and Mozart less black than the black kid who likes Kanye and hip hop? How does this work?

106

I’m saying that’s the implicit message behind every invocation of “middle-class blacks” or “rich blacks” or, “blacks who hang out with whites” in these these AA debates. Funny, how no one ever applies that test to Asians or to Asian Americans.

107

I think we need to move away from recognizing race as a major admissions factor and replacing it with socioeconomic level. Rich districts are rich districts and poor districts are poor districts.

108

@theanaconda “Imagine if people had said they’d dislike a school being 72% black …”

More accurately, “imagine if people said they dislike a school being 72% white…”

This issue is not that White Americans hate Asians (or themselves), its that a lot of Americans do not want schools filled with those at an academic advantage in life. Its hard to argue that Asian students are disadvantaged when it comes to education or SES, even if they are a minority. There is a clear historical and recent bias, prejudice, and continuing SES hardships that black students encounter. There is a deep historical legacy. It seems like this is being disrespected in the current debate.

109

@NoVADad99 “#41 - Substitute “Jews” for “Asians” and see how that reads. Harvard said the same things about Jewish enrollment in the last century.”

First of all, people who choose to follow the Jewish religion (or Christian religion) or any other religion are not a race. Its a belief system which you can choose. Its very reminiscent of the Nazis to group it as its own ‘race’ and as a Jew, I’m a little uncomfortable with that.

With Jewish students, there wasn’t any specific reason…they just didn’t want Jews and it was part of exclusion happening everywhere else at that time as well and death happening in Europe…so please stop with this comparison.

We need to see the admissions decisions for admitted and non-admitted students. The only statistic we are being given to prove discrimination is the overall SAT score (not even broken down by subject). Given the focus on that, it already seems like many are missing the point on what these schools want. But, hopefully this lawsuit will reveal something or maybe students (admitted and rejected, could start sharing their application packages some where- if they are right and enough share, it could make a strong case to the general public and force Harvard to respond and explain. That said, they don’t want to share their secret sauce b/c then kids with overly involved parents just push them to follow it exactly, leading to an unauthentic seeming, non-unique application. Sorry if this is incoherent, working late in the lab!

110

Asians have an “academic advantage in life”?

I’d say the “advantage” is a strong work ethic in general. That isn’t handed to them on a silver platter.

111

Or if it is because of asian parents raising their children to be high-achievers; is this a parenting behavior to criticize?

Nor do all asians have such parenting, and most of the successful white and URN applicants have such parenting.

112

@thinking490, the comparison of Asian admissions to Jewish admissions in the past is a fair comparison. Bias in admissions is unfair whether it is towards a religion or a race. “With Jewish students, there wasn’t any specific reason”, what is that supposed to mean? Your arguments are weak and illogical.

113

Has anyone posted this recent article yet? http://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyhensleyclancy/college-admissions-and-the-business-of-making-asian-kids-les?utm_term=.mcKKDGQ7OX#.gjnWZEYqA0

114

Sorry for the confusion, was trying to respond between experiments, tired and not happy to be working on Saturday.

@starfish2 Not making an argument, just having a conversation based on my feelings as a Jewish American. What I meant for Jewish students was that it was a policy meant to exclude Jewish students because they were Jewish, reversing their previously high enrollment numbers. So basically they were being admitted in high numbers (~20%) using Harvard’s standard admissions process, then some change was made to that process to reduce the number of Jewish students. This change was made probably because the president was anti-Semitic, consistent with the US and international feelings towards Jews that preceded the Holocaust. After the change, admission of Jewish students dropped (~ < 10%). I don’t think we have evidence that the same thing is happening with Asian students. That is not to say there is no racism, but I don’t think there has been a change in admissions policy solely for the purpose of reducing previously high numbers of Asian students at Harvard.

@HappyAlumnus and @theanaconda: Asian Americans have the highest average income of any group, which is associated with a higher SAT score of admitted students, regardless of race (we need to see if this applies to the individuals in this lawsuit). According to Steinberg et al. (1996), “of all the demographic factors we studied in relation to school performance, ethnicity was the most important. . . . In terms of school achievement, it is more advantageous to be Asian than to be wealthy, to have non-divorced parents, or to have a mother who is able to stay at home full time.”

If we assume that no race is inherently superior (and saying one race works harder is making a superiority statement), then discrepancies must be due to some inequality in society as a whole. I am not saying that Asian Americans or 1%ers or anyone else doesn’t work hard. But, do you think African American kids are lazy? Don’t have a strong work ethic? Lets say a kid has the bad luck to be born to a horrible parent that not only fails to foster high-achievement, but also fails to provide for their basic needs? Or maybe they are born to just an average parent? Or maybe they have great parents who emphasize high achievement and plenty of money, but live in a society that assumes they are stupid, dangerous, bad at math, etc. (see implicit bias research)? Because of implicit bias, certain races and genders are not given the benefit of the doubt that they are good students, hard workers, good at math. These kids starting point is already so much further back. What they achieve is in spite of everything working against them. For a University trying to predict adult success based on 18 years of childhood, they are trying to figure out how much is the kid and how much is the parents. In that sense, the kid who has already had the chance to prove themselves, show they can succeed despite disadvantageous, is a safer bet. I don’t think admissions does a perfect job of this, but considering SAT scores in context and not ‘blindly’ seems logical.

All of that aside, I think the admissions process needs to be revised- regardless of this lawsuit. These are just my opinions, but I think they would help: 1) There should not be legacy preferences (and I say this as a beneficiary of this policy). 2) Race should only be considered for URM. White and Asian students should not have the option to indicate race (in the meantime, I encourage all those identifying as white to check ‘no response’ so that admissions can’t use this as a ‘proxy’ for Asian). 3) No names or information allowing Asian students to be singled out should be given in the application (I admit this one is tricky and I’m not sure what to say about the essay issue, since Asian students should not be limited in what they can write about under the auspices of ‘preventing discrimination’). 4) Students should have to disclose the use of paid consultants and paid test prep (admissions people don’t like this and perhaps are unfairly guessing which students use it). 5) Schools should be more explicit about how much they consider or don’t consider scores. They say its only one factor, but SAT scores seem to be the main argument here, so schools should be more clear, provide data to prove they reject students with higher scores, explain how they weight scores, etc. What is certain is that there are so many incredibly talented kids out there- if top schools could expand and take more of these incredible students, I think it would be a win-win.

I am looking forward to seeing more information come out as a result of this lawsuit. Hopefully, things like essays, recommendations, data on SAT scores, GPAs, SES, etc. of rejected as well as admitted students, and admissions officers notes on how the came to the decision will become public. The SAT number keeps getting brought up, but it isn’t clear that rejected Asian students had lower SAT scores than admitted Asian students.

115

Sorry, but I’m more than a little tired of hs kids proclaiming what is or isn’t going on in admissions depts.

In a holistic process, you cannot state that X with this SAT score deserves anything more than Y, with his/her scores. You cannot claim that you, as an outsider, know any particular kid was really more deserving, based on your opinion. And you likely didn’t read his app or that of others.

Yes, SAT is important. One’s academic qualifications are important and rigor, GPA and scores matter. But try to grasp that they are not the sole determinant. Once a kid has stats past the bar, ALL the rest of the story he/she presents matters more.

And when you find some report or newspaper article, try to vet. Don’t take everything at face value.

116

"the comparison of Asian admissions to Jewish admissions in the past is a fair comparison. "

No, it is not a fair comparison. There is a difference between saying “We want to deliberately limit the number of X because we believe too many of them are undesirable” and saying “We want to promote / seek out increasing the number of Y because we believe doing so adds to campus diversity.”

There is a difference between saying “We want to limit the number of New Yorkers” and “We want to ensure we have kids from typically underrepresented states such as Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.” Yes, the latter winds up meaning a few New Yorkers get displaced, but it’s not “prejudice” against New Yorkers.

117

The Gatekeepers was published in 2002, about 13 admissions cycles ago, by a reporter, not an adcom. As an example, back then, Harvard had half the number of applicant for the same number of seats available today. The book likely made a good sum for the author, informed of something, at that moment. May even have been purposely slanted, to sell. That’s all.

As for the Cornell Law related link, David French admits he did his (law school) admissions stint “years ago.” He’s also past president of FIRE, which is generally critical of universities. I suppose they may consider themselves a watchdog organization. But as ever, it behooves us to understand the source. Same goes for Ron Unz.

The NPR article is what I’d call human interest, a presentation that some feel this and someone said that. It is by no means authoritative. But, this sort of thing always riles up folks who are so all-fired certain something sneaky is going on. Did you catch the early quote that one mom “worries her sons will be discriminated against?” But just what is that based on? She heard something or other? Or she was on CC and some people asserted this or that? Yes, this is a group of groups- but that doesn’t lend credence. It just says a group is pressing, not an individual.

And why does this current talk always seem to be justified by Harvard’s approach to Jewish applicants, decades ago? Does it show adcoms have control over your app? Sure. Does it prove anti-Asian American bias? Nope.

118

@Pizzagirl , the problem with your argument is that why are only the number of X (Asians) displaced to make room for Y and not the same number of W (Whites) displaced to make room for Y. According to Ron Unz’s research, only Asian admissions are affected (not white admissions). It does appear that the purpose is indeed to “limit” the number of Asians only to make room for other minorities. Last month, sixty Asian American groups have filed complaints with the Department of Justice and Department of Education alleging systemic racial discrimination in college admissions. I am waiting to see the outcomes of those complaints (maybe something new will be revealed as a result of those complaints - I hope that there is a better explanation than the existence Asian quotas. The answer could possibly lie in the college majors Asian students are selecting as opposed to the majors selected by other racial groups). In any case, I will await for the outcomes of these complaints to decide.

119

The use of the broad Asian American racial group covers the many segments of the group with lower than average income and education levels. Should Filipino, Hmong, Cambodian, Lao, or other groups be lumped in with Chines, Korean and Japanese when discussing this?

120

"the problem with your argument is that why are only the number of X (Asians) displaced to make room for Y and not the same number of W (Whites) displaced to make room for Y. "

But you don’t seem to get what I’m saying at all. You seem to think that there were X number of “Asian spots” that were “entitled” - and that were unfairly “stolen” by minorities. You don’t get that no one is owed a spot at an elite school, no matter what their GPA, SAT’s, etc.

In my above example, if an elite school decides it wants to ensure that they have at least 1 person from Nebraska, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, that doesn’t mean that they displaced “4 New Yorkers” because that implies that 4 New Yorkers were “owed” those seats and somehow got them taken away. They displaced 4 people. Those weren’t “New Yorker” seats.