I think you have to be careful about data sources when you are drawing sweeping conclusions, especially when the data is collected over time.
For example, The Daily Princetonian might have stated some authoritative numbers, but the university officially reported that the racial makeup of 218 members (17.6%) of the class of 2011 was “unknown”. In subsequent years, the number of “unknowns” shrank (for whatever reason) and it’s not too hard to see how other classifications may have consequently grown.
I have no doubt asians get discriminated against by the ivies. the lesson that i wish the hyper competitive asian students and their families(not every asian american family falls into this group) learn is to look at other schools in the united states (3000+) find one where you can learn,have fun and might actually be an awesome fit for you. (and the schools will be happy to have you)
the reduced stress of worrying all those years about acceptance to an elitist school would do wonders for the mind and body.
Do you have a source for the 17.6% “unknown” as it doesn’t appear in the linked article or any that occurs in a search of The Daily Princetonian?
Other sources, like IPEDS and the OCR report list the same pattern of rapidly increasing Asian percentage, although different specific numbers for each year.
The last time I looked, which was a few years ago, I thought the percentage of Asian undergraduates had increased substantially at other peers of Princeton, too, like Harvard and Columbia. Especially if you made realistic, conservative assumptions about the actual race of people who declined to identify their race, and international students, the ethnic Asian students at Harvard were close to, and maybe over 30%.
Less than 6% of this country is Asian, yet 22% of Princeton is Asian; 60% of many CA schools - Asian. Caucasians make up 66% of the population, yet 40% of Princeton is Caucasian, and only 27% are Caucasian at UCLA. This lawsuit actually makes me angry.
From an article by Thomas Espenshade which examined the strength of admission preferences for underrepresented minorities:
Note that these results were based on pooled data from 3 schools which appear to be HYP (based on TE descriptions , the number of admissions, admit percentages, the description of recruited athletes and the GPA and SAT scores of the recruited athletes). This results suggest (but do not prove) discrimination of Asian applicants or a quota system on the number of Asian admitted by those schools.
The analysis by the OCR is inadequate. There is no way that they could have detected an admit cap for a particular ethic class by Princeton with the study they performed. The OCR should have done a statistical analysis of all of the admission data (using pooled multiyear data if necessary) using a logistic regression model. If the result of this analysis was statistically significant then the admission process should have been examined in more detail.
“Less than 6% of this country is Asian, yet 22% of Princeton is Asian; 60% of many CA schools - Asian. Caucasians make up 66% of the population, yet 40% of Princeton is Caucasian, and only 27% are Caucasian at UCLA. This lawsuit actually makes me angry.”
every person is an individual , if 99.99999% of the people who should be accepted are asian so be it! you are a lot more than a box checked off for your background. just because asians are accepted disproportionately higher to their societal % does not make the case null and void.
@zobroward : Every person is an individual, and you are a lot more than a box checked off. But as long as Princeton et al. value diversity – racial, ethnic, gender, talents, academic interests, ambitions – it is literally impossible that 99.99999% of the people who “should” be admitted will belong to one or two ethnic groups.
One of the constant ironies here is that the obsession among Asians with admission to HYP seems at least in part to be about access to the social benefits of their particular mode of education and their connection to the WASP establishment. They don’t want to go to an un-diverse Princeton; they want to go to a Princeton that has fewer Blacks and Hispanics. It’s really offputting.
@Swimkidsdad : When you quote from “an article by Thomas Espinshade,” it’s polite to give a cite. Most of the Espinshade articles I have read on this topic use data that’s 15-20 years old now. Also – 50 SAT points, 25 per test (since I assume he is talking about the 1600 test, not the 2400 version) is not a very interesting difference.
I posit that this a vicious, racist (towards Asian Americans), and completely fact free assertion that should be retracted. WASPs are at best 25% of the HYP student body (excluding internationals). Asians are about 20%, as are URMs, 5% are two or more races, and Jews are 25-30% (again excluding internationals). There’s got to be some Catholics in the remaining group, which puts WASPs at 25% at best (lower than the share in the general population). Given this low share of WASPs, it is inconceivable that Asians want to go to HYP so that they can rub shoulder with WASPs there.
I would like to see any backup or proof that they do. Otherwise, I hope that this statement will get retracted. From my own experience, 90% of the reason why Asians like to go to HYP is because they are ranked high in the USNWR report, which has absolutely nothing to do with WASPs. We can debate whether relying on the USNWR reports is right or wrong (I am personally not interested), but that’s a completely different story.
Are there Asians who are racist towards African Americans and Hispanics? Of course, just as there are many in the general population. To classify a group as universally racist towards African Americans and Hispanics without any proof or backup is just plain wrong and racist.
One of the ‘indications’ of people from some eastern and south Asian countries as part of their tradition value education is that they value the experience and degrees from prestigious universities. In China, they’d pursue Tsinghua U and Peking U etc. In Japan U of Tokyo and Kyoto U etc. In India IIS etc… And in the US, HYP etc. A degree from a university widely considered prestigious and hard to get in shows the degree holder is smart, driven and successful, AND it has better potential leading to great career paths. To associate with WASPs is far from being a common motivation for Asian Americans pursing prestigious universities. Granted, connections and network opportunities do come up sometimes as part of the benefits of attending prestigious schools, but it’s not about connecting with WASPs but rather ALL those who are “connection worthy”. Do you think Asian Americans just want to go to school with people who have fair skin and colorful eyes (how else could they tell who are WASP?)? How shallow.
@Data10 The source is the Common Data set. Apparently, as time went on, either the schools were more diligent at recording race or the students were better at reporting. Or both.
Of course it is. Anyone who thought it would be otherwise is naive.
yeah, but reverse would be true if they had a better jump shot, slapshot, or could run a 4.4-40. Don’t forget that the Ivies have some of the largest (as a % of undergrads) D1 athletic programs, and have to fill those seats.
Nothing related to discrimination or not here: I heard that at some top colleges, Asian Americans (esp. those whose ancestors came from East Asian countries not many decades ago) participate in Christian related activities/clubs more than the overall student population do. African Americans seem to have the same tendency too.
So, they join this kind of on-campus clubs definitely not for the purpose of having more opportunity to connect with WASPs as some CCers seem to imply here. This is because, general speaking, a fewer percentage of the non-Asian-Americans join the same club, as compared to the percentage of Asian Americans who do the same.
I could be wrong here: I thought Ivies do not have a large D1 sport program. They row, and play hockey. They do have football or basket ball teams. They are not tier-1 programs. The students do love the tailgate event though --and sometimes do not care very much about whether their team win or lose.
I could be wrong here also: It seems to me that Asian Americans care more about how well Jeremy Lin does than Harvard students as a whole do. LOL.
Re: “to go to school with people who have fair skin”:
From some pictures that DS shared with us about his club activities, the peers he associated with in his club activities on campus mostly do not have fair skin. (His roommate does have fair skin. But this is by chance – the school assigned them to the same dorm room in the first place.) Their club members once joked that they all got in because of affirmative actions.)
The number of Asian and unknown + multi-races, as listed in the CDS by year are below:
2006 – 177 Asian (14%), 122 unknown
2007 – 186 Asian (15%), 218 unknown
2008 – 206 Asian (16.5%), 95 unknown
2009 – 231 Asian (17.5%), 116 unknown
2010 – 237 Asian (18%), 82 unknown
2011 – 243 Asian (19%), 82 unknown
2012 – 302 Asian (22%), 89 unknown
Something odd happened in 2007 with a much higher number of unknown, but the other years have a relatively steady level of ~100 unknowns. In contrast, the number of Asian students shows a consistent increase that has little correlation with number of unknowns, suggesting that few of the extra unknowns in 2007 were Asian.
I don’t have time for more, but I apologize for my poorly worded statement above. I do not believe Asian applicants, in general or in particular, want to associate with WASPs and want not to associate with Blacks or Hispanics.
I do believe that many Asian applicants (not all) particularly appreciate the prestige of these colleges, whether reflected in USNWR or elsewhere, and I believe that their prestige has a lot to do with their being central institutions of the American Establishment, which until five minutes ago (roughly speaking) was overwhelmingly WASP. I also believe that many Asian applicants and commentators are hostile to affirmative action for so-called underrepresented minorities, and act as though minority students are stealing their places, without much appreciation for the rationales behind affirmative action. And I find that offputting.
I’m sure it also makes u angry that the racial demographics of the pool of qualified players aspiring to play in the NBA is not the same as the general US population.
A single data point: I once asked our son whether he is against the affirmative action. His reply was he is not against it.
Not sure whether the college, the K-12 education in the US, or we (as his parents) could take this credit.
I also know that he has many friends in college who are minorities. (Partly because he joined some pre-orientation program called Cultural Connection. Likely also because his club used the African American House every week. His band consists of students of all ethic groups.)
During his gap year after college, one of his closest coworkers in the research lab is an African American who actually grew up in a very humble family in a large city.
@JHS Re post #36: I know some international students from Asia value the experience on a campus with a majority of the white for legitimate reasons. They want a more “American experience”. Some of them just don’t feel Asian Americans or African Americans are the typical Americans in their minds, which is obviously ignorant and wrong. Do Asian Americans care how many "of their own kind’ are present on campus? I think they want a diversified student body just as most other students do. But is there a threshold where they feel there might be too many Asians around? It’s an interesting idea. I don’t know if the white or the Jewish ever feel that way about their own race. I have no evidence but I don’t think Asian students/families have that concern at this point. If you look at the prestigious CA schools like UCB and CalTech, the increased Asian population on campus doesn’t seem to make them less desirable.
Then, the next question will be - if Asian Americans value diversity, why are they complaining about the colleges’ effort in diversifying their student body? Well, you have to know it’s those who are shut out that complain. So if you are not invited to the dinner party because the host tells you they already have a few too many guests who look like you, you complain about not being invited instead of worrying that if you are invited there would be too many guests who look like you. Is affirmative action the basis of HYP’s using race as part of the holistic review? I thought it’s the diversity. Regardless, fair or not, affirmative action is part of this country’s identity at this point of time in history. Granted, many Asian Americans, new immigrants in particular, don’t understand why they are paying the price for something that had nothing to do with them because they themselves were severely discriminated and disadvantaged.in America not too long ago. There may be some movement out there with the purpose of toppling AA but Asian American is certainly not the driving force of that movement.
Say what? Harvard has 42 varsity programs in D1. That is more than any other d1 college. Sure, they don’t play big time football, but they’re D1 in everything else.
But the real point is that it takes HS varsity athletes to fill those roles. Only 2 of Harvard’s football players walked on last year, according to the Crimson. That’s ~100 boys that are tipped during the admissions process.
They recently added women’s rugby.
Overall, ~1/6th of Harvard’s undergrads are varsity athletes.