Princeton answers to Jian Li claims

Parents Forum
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<p>
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how does a student with a 2.5 GPA and a 1200 SAT (not an athlete or musician) land a spot at a highly ranked state uni

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I don't know, how did my white Jewish daughter with a 1200 SAT end up at Barnard? </p>

<p>Obviously her grades were better, but then no one gets into the UC system with a 2.5 GPA, either. The point is that I think people place way, way too much stock in the value of SAT scores.... and obviously the ad coms at many colleges don't always see it that way.</p>

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I find it almost comical that people who are obsessed with "stats" and who seem to believe that the SAT somehow equates with intelligence find the admissions process mysterious, when obviously so many lower-scoring, less-"stats" conscious applicants who get admitted have had no problem whatsoever figuring out what the Ivies want.</p>

<p>The Ivies want top performing students who are interesting, preferably those who have distinguished themselves in some way so that they stand out from the rest of the pack. By "top performing" I mean they want a record of accomplishments, not test scores -- and they pretty much want the students who rose to the top of the heap in whatever educational environment they were in. </p>

<p>Students don't make themselves interesting by trying to rack up the highest test score, taking all of the same AP classes that everyone else is taking, and participating in the same entire range of EC's that everyone else is taking. They make themselves interesting -- and therefore more attractive to the Ivies -- by taking a road less traveled and separating from the pack, but of course not straying too far from basic academic expectations.


I have never seen or heard of that study, but the comments of the SAT advocates on this thread make me believe that it is probably true. I think that the negative effect of too much focus standardized testing is that it tends to reward a narrowness of thought; a focus on having the "right" answer rather than on exploring many sides of an issue or thinkng about problems in novel ways. What's the answer? Pick A, B, C, D, or E. Of course Einstein wouldn't have scored particularly well -- he's the guy who kept figuring out that A,B, C, D, and E were ALL wrong, and the answer was something else entirely. </p>

<p>I don't think college admissions is all that mysterious to a creative, independent thinker. It's a competitive field in which the odds favor rejection -- so being rejected is not a failure -- but getting in may require some special effort. It's somewhat easier to distinguish oneself if one's application looks a little bit unusual -- and that's hard to pull off if one has spent four years in high school trying to be the best at everything. Hence the preference for the well-lopsided candidates. It isn't that the Ivies don't like well-rounded students -- it's that they see too many of them, and they use them to fill up all the spaces that are left after they've picked the most interesting students to fill whatever niches are available for them. And at Ivies, by the time all of those spaces have been filled... there just aren't that many spaces left.</p>

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<p>Quote "First, women would virtually vanish from places such as MIT or Caltech, not because they may not make as good scientists, but at the elite levels, men will outscore them on pure logic tests."</p>

<p>Actually the two schools are a rather good example of the two approaches. Cal Tech is more numbers driven than MIT. As a result there are far fewer women and URM's at Cal Tech. Don't get me wrong they both have a plan and I respect that choice.</p>

<p>Our D (by GPA and SAT) appeared qualified to have a reasonable shot at both. When the time came she declined to apply to Cal Tech because of the lack of diversity. She is now happily attending MIT and regularly contrary to the belief quoted above, beats me (engineer) on logic tests and can run rings around me in science. </p>

<p>D was well aware of the culture and practices of both institutions and made her decision accordingly. Which school is right? I don't know but I know which one I ( and D) find more appealing. That is one thing many of you ignore. We have personal choice in which schools we apply to.</p>

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[quote]
"2250 plus SAT score (or old score 1500 combined) + URM Status" </p>

<p>If objective formulas do not matter - then can Harvard, Yale, or Princeton name a single case in the last 10 years where such an applicant having the 2 above described criteria was NOT accepted?

[/quote]
Yes. My daughter was one such case. With a 1550 SAT I, 800, 800, 750, 730, SAT IIs, essays, EC and a community service presentation that were not that great. She applied Harvard EA, was rejected. Then she changed the essays, presented a fuller picture of her outside activities, and was accepted into every other school to which she applied. In two cases she was even sent handwritten notes that her essays were some of the best they had ever read.</p>

<p>The experience taught us several things. We think SATs for the colleges mean relatively little. They do two things: 1. They prove that the student’s mind is working on all cylinders, 2. They prove that the student has the guts and intensity to do good work in a challenging environment.</p>

<p>We think the schools have an SAT threshold beneath which no student, URM or otherwise, can enter. I think the threshold is probably around 2100 and that reports of average students with sub 2100 SATs and URM status as their only hook are just fantasy, stories made up by angry whites to dishonorably tarnish these schools.</p>

<p>I think once a student hits the SAT threshold, they enter different groups, perhaps based upon GPA and then ECs and then essays. Here is where the 2400 SAT rejectees meet their demise, as they are compared with other students. No way is Princeton gonna reject a kid with a 1550 who can write fabulously, over some Asian guy who is just an above average writer, just because he has a 1600 and unremarkable ECs. Such a thing makes no sense at all. It is quite possible that Princeton would not even reject a black kid with a 1400 (or whatever the threshold is) and who can write fabulously, over some Asian guy with a 2400 who plays piano and who likes math. After all, just how many Asian mathematician pianists do you really need in any one school? These days we have a great shortage of fabulous writers, and perhaps they ought not be overlooked just because their scores are a few hundred points below someone else’s. </p>

<p>I think the elites are doing a great job, and that they are being honest in how they are treating the students. When my kid was rejected, I didn’t whine that she had been mistreated. I read the application afterward and agreed that she hadn’t really put her best foot forward and that she should have been rejected. I also didn’t think her personality and interests were well suited to a place like Harvard. And we did not think her URM status would get her over – which it obviously didn’t. It is clear to me that probably the only thing it did was cause someone to turn their attention toward her application so that it did not get lost among the tens of thousands of others. But if the kid hadn’t the goods to prevail fairly against other students, she would have been outta there.</p>

<p>My oldest son got the picture. I think he has crossed the threshold, now with a SAT I 2390, and with SAT IIs of 800, 800, 780, 770, 720. He too is a fabulous writer and strong physicist and mathematician. But he is not thinking that URM status gives him much of a leg up. He knows that if he cannot make his own case in his application, especially in his essays, he will not make the cut and that he will not deserve to make it.</p>

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[quote]
e.g. if you are an Asian applicant and you are aiming for an Ivy spot, your stats need to be near perfect - because in reality, you are really competing with the other Asian applicants in that pool for that particular year... but why? Shouldn't each application be treated without considering race?

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The one thing we are constantly overlooking here is that race is a consideration in almost everything we do here in America, and it almost always falls against blacks. The one place where it can help is in college admissions, especially if it causes an admissions committee to pay special attention to an application that is already as strong as other students. There just aren’t a lot of high scoring blacks and Native Americans in this country, due to a history of oppression and discrimination that was most brutal. The relative few high scorers would just get lost in a sea of Asians and whites who are scoring similarly. The odds are quite against there being ANY blacks around anywhere because the numbers are so few.</p>

<p>Because of history, America owes a debt to the people it has crushed. The one thing that can help us overcome this history is education. This country should focus attention on those from the racial groups it has destroyed with its culture and law, and help those who are already showing promise. And it should do this for more than a mere 30 years, which is just nothing at all compared with the centuries of abuse it has heaped on them.</p>

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<p>Agreed, but we should start a lot earlier than college admissions. Better late than never, but we should be working harder on great prescholl and elementary school for everyone.</p>

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<p>I truly do not believe that the adcoms put the Asian apps in one stack, and mark them as such. Never have I heard of an Asian detector method. This was done to Jewish and African American applicant in the past and is considered taboo.
Looking at a top school a given year, there are about the same number of URMs as there are Asians, about 17% which comes to 278 kids. If all evidence of race were removed from consdieration as so many advocate, the application would just have numerical assessments of academic prowress in terms of gpa, rank, difficulty in curriculum, and test scores. They would then have some assessment in level of ECs, recs, essays. There would have to be instructions given to applicants to leave out all reference to race and ethnic background in the essay. (the end of the infamous Asian parent essays would have to reieve the adcoms, heh, heh). Then in the interest of serving the other diversity goals of the school, the apps, now reduced to cards would be stacked as to what each app could contribute to the school. Now the recruited athletes would still be snatched up, and I have a feeling that there are a substantial number URMs in there, and you are not going to gain any Asians from that stack. The choir, band and orchestra will need their participants, and I don't think that number is going to change, nor is the composition of the picks. The legacy and development picks are going to right there too, but without the URM category, some of those legacy kids may make it in there. Because I think if you look at historic info, that is the stack that got hit when the URM special category was abolished. It used to be the biggest stack of accepts of all, and though it still is a factor, particularly development, the legacies are no longer shoo ins with a certain threshhold. The other traditional "in" was the outstanding prepschools that sent kids to the top schools that had the highest chance of being prepared for the school and doing well. Still the case. Everyone agrees that kids with adverse environments and challenges should get extra consideration, so that number would stay the same, and whatever composes that group will be the same. From what I have heard, that group is self defining in that there is an issue about who can make the step up to a school of academic rigor. That is why kids from step up prograams such as Prep for Prep, ABC, Quest who are preselected and screened for readiness do have a higher chance of getting into the top schools. This group is high risk for not making it.<br>
As we increase the geographic diversity, type of activity diversity, type of interest diversity, choice of major diversity, I do not think that you are going to get a whole lot more Asians in the pick. Who thinks that if the URM category is eliminated, it is going to be replaced by the Asian kids anyways? When I just jot down the special traits and stats of the Asian kids from my son's year from the notebook I have that the school keeps, I can't identify who the kids are. They all fit in one stack and the only way I can identify them is with the end result of the college they went to. Not the case with the URM kids and a number of other kids. Of the top academic stat, kids the Asians in this particular example are indistinguishable from each other given the special tags they are given as hooks.<br>
I think the greatest benefactors of eliminating race from the admission pictures are going the traditional bastions of ivy school admissions. They tend to be well rounded kids with lot of interesting experiences and skills. Many of them, because of the money and experiences offered to them have an variety of things they can bring to the college. Maybe not the proficiency in string instruments, or the super high test scores, but once a college as decided that they do not have to consider those factors any more, as they are where they want to be in that area, and once the true super stars of academia and intellectual curiousity are snatched up (I have been told that this is the group that gets the first pick and is again a limited group from the rarity of this trait), who gets those extra spot that are now opened up? They were not taken from the Asian population, so it is not like they are going to be returned to them. There may be a diminishment of numbers of black and Hispanic students on campus, but I doubt unless the school increases the threshhold of academic stats, that they are going to be replaced by the Asian kids. It would require much more than getting rid of a URM category of consideration for a substantial increase in Asian kids. I do not believe that this group is being discriminated against as some previous groups as I mentioned in the beginning of my post, truly were.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Agreed, but we should start a lot earlier than college admissions. Better late than never, but we should be working harder on great prescholl and elementary school for everyone.

[/quote]
Absolutely, but this system seems so broken when it comes to black kids, that I don’t even have any ideas of how to improve it. And, you know, I don’t think the problem is so much with the system. It is with a lot of things, one of which is blacks themselves. I see how our history has really depleted us of hope so that a lot of us are just hobbling along with no real purpose except to pay bills and take care of kids. We don’t really know why we are doing this. We are just doing it. Ultimately, the strain becomes so great that we often end up doing neither. You send enough kids from such homes into a school system and that system is going to suffer. I think that is happening. America has had a great deal to do with it.</p>

<p>I think we need to really focus on some cultural changes, and I don’t know how it can take place at the primary school level. I do know there are plenty of blacks who have great vision and who are moving their kids along very well. We can find these kids in private schools, some are even in public schools. They are trying, despite the odds, despite the racism that presses against them all day long. If colleges are willing to turn a special eye on them, then over time they will help us raise kids who think similarly to their parents. This will gradually give birth to a new culture, as these people supplant folks like me. I think it is now almost impossible for my future grandkids ever to fall into the hopelessness of thug culture. It is almost impossible because it is pretty much impossible for my kids to fall into it. They simply cannot identify with it. And this is the case because I preached against it night and day, even in their sleep. And I preached against it so desperately because the hopelessness of thug culture was a reality that was perilously close to me.</p>

<p>I am not claiming AA is a silver bullet here. I actually wish it had never been started. What America should have done was to enforce its laws against whites who perniciously assaulted black communities and who exploited and harmed blacks when blacks first began to struggle and strive on their own long ago. Had America been faithful even to its own law, we would not be here today. But America failed blacks. It failed itself, and it did it repeatedly. It failed over and over again, and the dreams of blacks, deferred for so long, eventually exploded into the crime, family and educational problems we have today. Affirmative Action came out of this mess, and we are not gonna fix anything by just ending it. We in fact are going to cause additional explosions as the gulf between the haves and havenots widens. Eventually, large numbers of people in America are going to want to see the whole thing come crashing down because they sense the debt this country owes them and they feel it will never be paid. We can pay it over time, as people like my kids replace people like me.</p>

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<p>"I agree with Calmom that California can be considered one of the most diverse places on the planet."</p>

<p>Yes, it is diverse - as diverse as the Middle Atlantic states, although in a different way.</p>

<p>The problem is that some people keep pointing to Berkeley as proof of discrimination against Asians because, once race was taken out of the equation, the percentage of Asians skyrocketed at that university. Berkeley, being a public university, has an obligation to Californians, a group that contains a higher percentage of Asians that does, say, Ohio. The New Jersey/New York area also has a high percentage of Asians. Most of the country, however, does not. To project Princeton's potential race-blind percentage of Asians based on the Berkeley model is wrong.</p>

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<p>"For that matter, why allow an organization that stands to profit from the test also be the wone who designs and evaluates the test?"</p>

<p>Just a clarification: the Educational Testing Service (ETS) designs the tests for The College Board. ETS is under contract, but is a separate (non-profit) business. The people who design the test questions (I've known several of them) are most often than not professors who "moonlight" doing part-time work for ETS. ETS is conscious of the racial and gender inequities in its tests, but has not figured out a way to completely remedy it. One reason that the CR readings are so dry is that they try to remove <em>any</em> ethnic, religious, political, and gender biases.</p>

<p>The College Board buys and administers the tests. ETS creates them.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
A school like Harvard is much more representative of the US population at large...I don't think a college should be in any way obliged to admit students at a rate 10x higher than their prevalence in the country. Likewise, I would not choose to go to a school that was 90% white, etc...And while stereotyping all Asians is of course not a constructive or beneficial practice...

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</p>

<p>I don't think that a college should be obliged to admit anyone, much less one group. So, why are we admitting people based on their race, a factor that no one has control over, again?</p>

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Well, actually, I never used Harvard as an example, I never even mentioned Harvard. But okay.
According to the Harvard Crimson, Hispanics were nearly 10% of the Freshman class last year. <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512466%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512466&lt;/a> Where are you getting your statistics? Are you just making them up?

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<p>Yeah, I get the "making it up" question a lot. Collegeboard.com gave me my numbers. For all I know, the Crimson has more accurate data.</p>

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And it isn't sensical to use their sizes to say that Berkeley is more diverse. If Berkeley, with 20,000 students, had 3 black kids, and Swarthmore, with 1,400, had 2...would Berkeley be a more diverse place?

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</p>

<p>Oh, you bet. 20,000 different people vs. 1,400 different people.</p>

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Are you implying that Harvard (and Princeton) students DIDN'T legitimately earn their spots? How can you determine whether or not the spots were "earned" more at Berkeley? Did you read all the applications? On what basis are you making such a statement? It's ludicrous.

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<p>No. I am saying that the UCs don't use race as a factor. As a natural experiment, we have seen that the campus is anything but 100% Asian. Everyone who is admitted is admitted of his own right. His race was never considered.</p>

<p>By contrast, Harvard, with its "holistic" system, uses race as a factor. Hmm, no race vs. race-used, somehow the latter system is considered not racist, I find that interesting.</p>

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But until we live in a race-blind society, race-blind admissions seems ludicrous.

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</p>

<p>Why not start somewhere? Our society will never be race-blind unless we stop using it.</p>

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The problem is that some people keep pointing to Berkeley as proof of discrimination against Asians because, once race was taken out of the equation, the percentage of Asians skyrocketed at that university. Berkeley, being a public university, has an obligation to Californians, a group that contains a higher percentage of Asians that does, say, Ohio. The New Jersey/New York area also has a high percentage of Asians. Most of the country, however, does not. To project Princeton's potential race-blind percentage of Asians based on the Berkeley model is wrong.

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</p>

<p>What about Texas-Austin? For every Asian student, there is one Hispanic student.</p>

<p>Race is not a factor. The campus is still quite diverse.</p>

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<p>"What about Texas-Austin? For every Asian student, there is one Hispanic student.</p>

<p>Race is not a factor. The campus is still quite diverse."</p>

<p>I thought we were talking about discrimination against Asians? People here - and on related threads - have stated that schools like Princeton would have Berkeley-like Asians percentages because the percentage of Asians shot up after race was removed from the UC system. Saying that UT-Austin has a 1:1 Hispanic/Asian ratio is a non sequitor.</p>

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<p>I'll reiterate some of my points.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Li Jian never wanted to go to Princeton. He expected a rejection. He is fighting against racial preferences (along with legacy and athlete preferences). I am against the use of racial preferences but not legacy and athlete preferences.</p></li>
<li><p>I believe that it is racist to use race as a factor. No one can choose the color of his skin. It is wrong to select for a characteristic that no one has control over.</p></li>
<li><p>If we believe that certain groups are disadvantaged in this nation, then we should directly address those problems with our nation's vast financial resources.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>xiggi disagreed with my use of China's weightlifting team. But, as far as I remember, he made no comment on my use of China's international math team.</p>

<p>China did not participate in the IMO until the 1980s. At this year's competition, all six members earned gold medals. Instead of lobbying for preferential treatment, the Chinese government pumped money into its citizens. End result? Winning teams.</p>

<ol>
<li>Where do terms like "over-representation" and "level-playing field" end?</li>
</ol>

<p>Should coaches deliberately factor in personal histories when selecting athletes, or should they just go for observed performance and potential?</p>

<p>Should Iran and North Korea be allowed entrance into the nuclear club? The "playing field" would be a LOT more level, I can assure you.</p>

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[quote]

I thought we were talking about discrimination against Asians? People here - and on related threads - have stated that schools like Princeton would have Berkeley-like Asians percentages because the percentage of Asians shot up after race was removed from the UC system. Saying that UT-Austin has a 1:1 Hispanic/Asian ratio is a non sequitor.

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</p>

<p>Ah, my mistake. I thought you were talking about diversity. Sorry about that.</p>

<p>Well, I disagree with the belief that if the Ivies dumped race as a factor, then they would look like the UCs.</p>

<p>Since a prevalent question is "Have you seen their applications?", I'm going to ask, "How do you know that would happen?"</p>

<p>Indeed, how do any of us know what would happen if the Ivies dumped racial preferences?</p>

<p>It could look like Berkeley. It could look like Austin. It could look like anything, really.</p>

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<p>momwaitingfornew, There was an story in the NYT by Winnie Hu, dated 12/3, talking about the high Asian population in NY/NJ. Here is a quote from the NYT article:</p>

<p>
[quote]
as the Asian population hovers at 4 percent nationwide, an influx of Asian families in towns across the New York region in the past decade has helped refashion suburban school systems that were once predominantly white. Asian students are the fastest-growing minority in the region, and have even become the majority in the Herricks Union Free School District on the North Shore of Long Island, where more than half of the 4,200 students are Indian, Korean and Chinese. In New Jersey, 46 percent of the 13,682 students in the Edison Township School District were Asian last year, up from 36 percent five years ago.</p>

<p>South Brunswick, Woodbridge and the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District in New Jersey have also seen big increases in the last five years, as have Syosset and Jericho Districts on Long Island.</p>

<p>Of course, New York City continues to be a magnet for many Asian immigrants

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</p>

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Indeed, how do any of us know what would happen if the Ivies dumped racial preferences?

[/quote]
We know they would hardly have blacks, who, due to racism and a devastating history here in America, suffer problems that mean few of them will perform well academically. Without preferences in view of this history, even blacks who score better than most whites and Asians are still likely not to be admitted to the best colleges. It means that for a black to gain admittance, he will have to be so much more stellar than everyone else that he becomes obvious. Not even Asians are put under that sort of standard. Once the cultural defects from which many blacks suffer are corrected over time, these preferences will end with little fanfare. Blacks themselves will end them. It is already beginning. But now is just too soon.</p>

<p>You keep asking why race should be considered in admissions. It should be considered because it is considered everywhere else. I can’t even drive down the street without getting pulled over by a doggone cop. It just happened to me about a week ago, ironically. I was driving with my oldest son and oldest daughter to take my daughter back to school after Thanksgiving. I’m not speeding or doing anything at all! Some cop pulls me over, and starts asking for stuff and looking in my car. I mean, I wasn’t doing anything! Then, he claims I was driving without a safety belt. My kids protested that he was wrong and that they will testify against him in court because it is a law in our home that we do not turn on the car until we both pray, and then check everyone for safety belts. They said our whole neighborhood knows it and that they will all come out against him. Then he backed down and said, “move along”. Has that every happened to any of you folks? I doubt it.</p>

<p>Racism is just a consideration all over America. And it is always coming down on blacks, even if we do everything right, as I try to do. It has always been like this, since we came here in chains back in 1619, and it has lasted to this very day. Has it been like that for whites? Nope. Has it even been like this for Asians? Nope. Have Indians or Pakistanis here gone through this? Nope. America has developed a debt to blacks, since it stole our natural rights. It does us no favor when it recognizes the debt and tries to set structures in repayment that allow us to work ourselves out of the mess it put us in. Are racial preferences the best solution? I don’t think so. The best solution was attempted when Booker T. Washington began to lead us out of slavery into prosperity. It existed when blacks formed their own economic districts, when they formed their own institutions and began to work themselves into prosperity without any civil rights laws at all. But without such laws, whites destroyed us at every turn. They simply rode into our communities and stopped us dead in our tracks, time and time again. They formed groups whose purpose was to make sure we could never rise above slavery. They passed laws limiting our right to vote. They did it all, and now, quite reasonably, many of us lack faith in the system. The whole color-blind thing is a sham to vast numbers of us. That ship has sailed. Many of us are still trying, nevertheless. But it will take time.</p>

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<p>Northeastmom, I lived in central NJ for 16 years, and there was enormous changes in the ethnicity of the population during that time, mostly because of an influx of first generation Chinese and Indian students. West Windsor/Plainsboro changed from an almost-exclusively white school district to one that strongly supported Asian students. The reason? I think the Mount Laurel decision, a court ruling that required wealthy NJ towns to supply low income housing options, allowed immigrant families to live in good school districts while making their first American dollars. As they prospered and moved to more expensive homes, the district moved up with them. Once ethnic groups had established themselves in these communities, they began to sponsor family members who also moved into the area.</p>

<p>I, for one, welcomed the increasing diversity, although I wished that more African-American families moved from Trenton into the surrounding school districts.</p>

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<p>momwaitingfornew, That is interesting, and does explain part of it. In our surrounding communities it is because the schools are excellently rated. The Asian families that are moving into the neighborhoods that I am thinking of, have the funds to purchase homes that start at 400,000 (small old fix me ups or condos), and home prices go up in these towns to over 5 million dollars.</p>

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<p>Drosselmeier notes,"It should be considered because it is considered everywhere else. I can’t even drive down the street without getting pulled over by a doggone cop"</p>

<p>Response: Yes, there are racial incidents. Yes, there are cops who are acting both inappropriately and illegally. So should your kids get special preferences in college admission and maybe even hiring because some cops on idiots? If you were spurned by a waitress in a restaurant, your kids should get many preferences in life? Is this what your argument?</p>

<p>Is using illegal discrimination/affirmative action to correct some previous illegal wrongs in society the right answer? In my opinion, we should attempt to change the wrongs. In your case, cops that do racial profiling for no good reason should be removed from the police. You should not be given special preferences in life, however, in order to "solve" some unrelated societal problems.</p>

<p>If African American kids are not perfoming in school appropriately, giving affirmative action to them doesn't seem to solve the problem. AA has been going on for over 20 years, yet the SAT scores for African Americans and Hispanic Americans have stayed in the doldrums. What is needed is NOT AA. What is needed is to put more resources in improving the performance of all under performing groups in schools. We can spend 10s of billions on IRAQ and yet not have money for special support for under performing groups. This is a tragedy that needs remediation.</p>