When reviewing apps, the different “Asian” sub-groups are NOT lumped as one. You may be assuming.
No, there is no entitlement. Nothing says the NYC kid is a better choice than another kid. Nothing says he has any perspective, experience, resilience, is interesting…just because he went to Stuy or has high stats or even was president of some club.
@Pizzagirl This goes back to the same argument, I feel that Asian quotas very likely exist and you feel that they do not. The process of admissions is not racially blind ( the best “candidate”,despite her/his race, does not always win). No Asian in his right mind feels “entitled” to a spot at a highly selective schools. But to know exactly why a certain candidate was accepted over another, we must compare admissions files of each candidate (@thinking490 is correct about this point). When you say “they displaced 4 people”, unfortunately that is not the case. Only “certain types of people” were displaced.
Starfish, want to tell us how you know what the “best” candidate means? And how you know who was displaced? If anything, the number of white kids accepted is dropping, while others go up. Yes, you’d have to view the files- but not just for a handful.
It is not true that, “Only “certain types of people” were replaced.” You can’t even begin to tell who was rejected and why. Ironically, in a city like NYC, the kids getting displaced are not, say, Asian Americans from Stuy. They are the worthy kids from other hs and yes, many of them URM. And due to the immense competition in NYC, kids from other part of the state are challenged.
One has to forget the context/contest they know from their own one high school. Or some article that says X. Or some lawsuit.
"This goes back to the same argument, I feel that Asian quotas very likely exist and you feel that they do not. "
Starfish. I just returned from my daughter’s graduation at Wellesley, certainly an elite LAC. This class must have been 33% Asian-American – coming up to 40% if you add internationals from Asia. If there’s a “quota” it’s pretty darn high. Remind me again what % of the US population is Asian-American and then stop whining about quotas.
“But to know exactly why a certain candidate was accepted over another, we must compare admissions files of each candidate (@thinking490 is correct about this point). When you say “they displaced 4 people”, unfortunately that is not the case. Only “certain types of people” were displaced.”
But AGAIN, you’re not getting it. It is not as though you “owned” spot #265 and lo and behold, spot #265 was yanked from you and given to someone else. You cannot say that “certain people” were displaced, because there isn’t a “real” class that got spots pulled out from underneath it.
Isn’t it more than a little odd that you think that spot #265 who was given to a black kid with SAT’s of 2200 “must have” been taken from an Asian kid with SAT’s of 2400? Maybe it was taken from a black kid with SAT’s of 2300, or a white kid with SAT’s of 2200.
Face it - you’re just uncomfortable with any system that doesn’t rack and stack by numbers, because you seem to believe higher numbers equals more deserving.
I did write “best candidate” in quotes meaning that the term is mysterious (also very subjective - “best candidate” for a certain school but not for another). I do maintain my assertion that Asian quotas very likely exist. If you have inside information from personal experience, apprise me. I’m always open to new ideas.
And what do you think of the Duke study that decided the Asian American students who were admitted were superior in every objective measure and all the subjective measures aside from one?
@Pizzagirl At this point, you are jumping to all types of unfounded conclusions! I, as an eighteen year old, feel too mature to further correspond with you.
@Pizzagirl “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.”
This makes sense, but for some reason it is really hard for people to understand that GPA and SATs (or some quantitative measure of ECs, personal attributes) do not guarantee admission. My guess is that it might have something to do with how different this is from many other processes in the US (you pass a test, you can drive, etc.) and from education in other countries. An It also is getting treated like some sort of sport where if you score the most points, follow the rules, you win. There is also this entitlement issue with many kids Asian and white, that I think comes from parents. Mine emphasized all the advantages I had and taught me to admire kids who didn’t have those and overcame a lot more. I can’t imagine being told that my place had been ‘stolen’ by a minority (or anyone for that matter) and I never thought this.
@lookingforward Do you (or anyone else) know if there is there any data out there to explain this or reassure people this isn’t whats happening?
I assume this will all come out in the lawsuit, but not sure how that works. This document (http://studentsforfairadmissions.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/SFFA-v.-Harvard-Complaint.pdf) did not help answer any questions and was all over the place. It actually quoted a random Harvard student/alum’s feelings on Asian students and racial issues. The ‘statistics’ arguments were just weak and the law firm needs to hire a statistician. Some of the examples don’t seem to advance their cause. Even the example of an Asian candidate (although I am not sure if this person applied to US ivies for undergrad) who overcame adversity and was admitted to Princeton grad school (so I guess the complaint is only undergrad discrimination? Does this not prove the opposite point otherwise?) seemed random. It was a Canadian citizen who indicates on a website that they had 2 arrests and were expelled from high school. They were successful as an undergraduate in Canada, but would a student visa even have been possible before that? Did they even apply? Their story is really moving and incredible though (http://www.kailchan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/From-poverty-to-Princeton-PhD_The-accidental-academic.pdf). Anyway, this document seems like a collection of anecdotes, quotes from books, newspaper articles, suggestions for what Harvard should do, a detailed history of the Jewish quota timeline, statements that the supreme court was ‘misled’, proof of discrimination based on advice consultants give, etc.
Consultants must be making a ton of money based on these beliefs that there is discrimination.
@Pizzagirl Just looking at the Common Data Set Filings for 2012 and the surrounding years, the number of Asians for the entering freshman class each year was consistently around 21%. It appears that either you are inflating the figure by 50% and then adding an also inflated figure for internationals to bring the number up 40% to bolster your case OR to you it looks like there are way more Asians then there actually are. As an Asian-American HS student, I’m not sure which is worse.
The % of the US population that is Asian-American is not the issue. If, for argument’s sake, the very top applicants (grades, tests, scores, EC’s, recs, essays etc.) to Wellesley were consistently 50% Asian and only 20% of them were accepted, then there is a racial quota at work. This is the issue.
To bring this point home, if your daughter was one of the top applicants to Wellesley but she was denied solely because they were limiting whites or whatever race your daughter is, you would be very upset, I’m sure. All of her hard work ignored simply because of the color of her skin. It screams of injustice if you’re on the wrong side of quotas but is simply deemed “adding diversity” or "holistic "admissions if you’re on the side that benefits from the racial quotas.
Btw, I’ve read that at many of the top Ivies Jews are 25% or more of the class - but they are only about 3% of the US population. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Do you? If they have earned the right to be there, then they belong there as far as I am concerned. The same goes for Asians or any other race.
My daughter is adopted from China, so I guess that technically makes her an Asian american, but is she really? What does that even mean? She doesn’t consider herself any different from her friends who aren’t from China. And for families of Asian heritage who have been in this country for three or four generations, how much of the original culture of their ancestors remains? At that point, they are just being grouped by some shared physical characteristics, so by separating them out from other ethnic groups is like separating out people by hair color.
"Seriously? You think that the posters here DON’T know/understand this??? Clearly you are new around these parts.
*** ETA ah, you’ve been on cc for exactly one day. That explains it."
Yep, I am new! But I guess this must be sarcasm because its really obvious some posters here don’t get it… Although, by ‘people’ I meant those beyond this particular website too.
My daughter is blond and white and no one would mistake her for — and please forgive the term if this offends — a “halfie." Anecdotally, over the past 4 years as I’ve walked around Harvard and Yale’s campuses, I’ve noticed the abundance of student’s who are of mixed-race. Many student’s are half-White, half-Africian American, half-Chinese, half-Indian, half-Vietnamese, half-Korean, half-Spanish, half-Latin, etc. I’m not sure how Admissions quantifies mixed-race students. Is a student who is half-White and half-Indian considered White or Indian or both? Ditto with a student who is half-Spanish and half-Chinese? As the world becomes less homogeneous, It becomes more difficult to identify students by race. Hence, I think the term for college Admissions needs to be retired.
You raise an interesting question: Are “Asians actually competing with other Asians”, as the axiom goes. Or, are they simply competing in the same non-URM pool as whites? Either way, even if they are only being disadvantaged to the degree that whites are, probably makes no difference to the plaintiffs in this lawsuit. But, it’s an important threshold question, IMO. Does anyone know?
But there is no evidence that this is happening. These schools build classes of students. Its not just a stats driven process. They read the essays, the LORs and what makes each applicant interesting and a potential asset to the class. If its was just Grades, standardized tests scores and winning science or math competitions, the class would be a very lopsided., potentially boring group.
@igarett Exactly!!! Should we start grouping people by national ancestry - i.e. German-American, etc. and start monitoring what percentage of the US population these subgroups are so they aren’t “overrepresented” in college as well?
Technically, your daughter IS Asian- American and now subject to needing 450 more SAT points over a URM or 150 more than a Caucasian and that is just for starters. I am pretty much in the same boat as your daughter. I have no Asian friends but I am forced to compete against this faceless pool of Asians I have never met. I don’t have Tiger parents and yet if I play piano, violin, tennis or swim I will be penalized for being too stereotypically Asian even though I don’t know what this means. My high grades and test scores will be discounted as having come from being just another dull grunt which I am most certainly not. I have learned that all of my EC’s and accomplishments have to be far better than my friends to have the same chances as them for top schools. I was blissfully unaware of this growing up until I hit high school and attended my first competitive summer program where I came in contact with other Asians who explained to me the uphill battle I was born into.
Why can’t I (and your daughter) just be evaluated on the basis of my individual merit and not have to deal with comments like @pizzagirl’s that Asians are only 6% of the US population so stop whining if I don’t get in even though my accomplishments warrant that I should have? Frankly, I don’t care what the other 6% of Asians are doing and I shouldn’t have to. I should not have to face a glass ceiling in college admissions. I should just have to worry about trying to be the best version of me that I can be. There are so many things that “should” be but aren’t. I think the saddest part of this is that people seem to acknowledge that Blacks and Hispanics are discriminated against in this country and deserve a helping hand but they don’t seem to realize that Asians are too.
Again, I’m not sure I understand why you presume you would have gotten the seat? Even if ONLY perfect scores were accepted, there are likely enough to fill the ivy’s in the same proportion of race as the population with lots of rejections left over. And since there is no quantitative difference between perfect and nearly perfect, that likely could fill even the top 15!
PS: being Jewish is not a race. It is a religion or culture. Jews are of all races, even Asian…
I am only 17, but with all due respect, I am pretty tired of hearing this.
What you and others are trying to do is find a justification for keeping out a group of very high-achieving students by saying dismissing them as good test takers but lacking in personality or “interestingness”. This is stereotyping. I am curious to hear what your generalizations of Blacks or Hispanics are?
Others cite a Duke study (I confess I haven’t read it) that says Asian applicants not only have higher average test scores but also better EC’s. From what I’ve seen of the Asian kids I have met during my summers, this certainly appears to be true. They were a very diverse group but if i am am forced to stereotype to counter your argument then I would say the shared qualities that allow them to be very accomplished academics (be it science, math or writing competition winners), musicians, or even athletes would be of great value in college and beyond. By this I mean that the common thread among them is a strong work ethic and discipline. My (non-Asian) research mentor has often impressed upon me that a strong work ethic trumps all, even pure intelligence. I don’t think that Asians are smarter as a group but from what I’ve seen, the ability to work hard is impressed upon them at a very early age and this allows them to be high-achieving. Self-discipline, strong work ethic and high achievement are not bad things to be spreading around college campuses as far as I can tell. Oh, and we managed to have load of fun while at these programs playing sports and doing all the things I do with my non-Asian friends at home. Definitely did not experience the “boring group” that you and others so dread.