<p>Whether it's "minuscule" in the overall wealth of the U is immaterial. I'm talking about a trend. You haven't shown me that there is a trend toward greater wealth of acceptees in the <em>recent</em> past -- & I do mean the last few cycles. </p>
<p>Secondly, an individual U is not to be blamed if a multiple-acceptee -- such as the young man (forget his screen name) who posted on PF last cycle, has the gall to choose only one U for enrollment. Naturally the one enrollment looks "minuscule" overall, but the point is, the U's have reported, & dozens of students have reported, that poor students are being accepted over wealthier ones in more than half the recent cases of such reporting, where a great disparity of wealth is evident. The fact that a student has to make a choice, will limit the appearance of just how widespread the policy has become. What's notable to me is when (and it often happens) 4-8 top schools accepted one poor student over much wealthier students from that same high school. That's the news story, not that H, or Y, or P, as gained one poor student.</p>
<p>You don't have access to acceptances, mini. (Or rejections.) You only have access to enrollees. And that's precisely what some of us have been arguing on this thread. It's important for the case being discussed. Very important.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The plural of anecdote is not evidence.
[/quote]
Umm, actually, that's wrong. Even the singular of anecdote is "evidence". I think what you mean to say is that the plural of anecdote isn't "proof".</p>
<p>And while we're at it, how about this, anecdotally speaking? When I was in high school, my SAT scores, as "recentered" later, would have been 1600. If my parents had urged me to apply to every Ivy League school I would have been rejected from some or all - even back in the day. (Tests scores were about all I brought to the table, to be honest.) But they didn't urge me, and I didn't apply. (The only kid I remember who went to Harvard was a less-than-stellar intellect with M.D. parents.) Thinking about this makes me wonder - would the apparent disparity in SAT scores be a function of the emphasis in different cultural groups towards applying to "Ivy's" if one has high "stats" even if there's a better fit elsewhere? And would that result in a glut of high-stat applications from that group which would necessarily result in an apparent stat/acceptance imbalance? </p>
<p>
[quote]
2) the athletes (by which i mean RECRUITED athletes at ivies) are laughable: they're not good enough to compete with their peers at big schools that give scholarship money, and they're too dumb to contribute at all to the intellectual atmosphere. Also, no one goes to athletic events (except for the game against harvard), so there's really no school spirit argument.
<p>Xiggi: please read my posts, my arguments are substantive and relate to the constitutional/political merits of a claim by Asians under the 14th, the legal dimension is inherent. But I want to thank you for actually engaging me in a meaningful discussion about the issues I've raised, which is more than what minni has done. </p>
<p>From your post, I can gather one criticism to my argument, which is that the empirical studies showing that Asians are held to a higher standard than Whites on the factor of SATs are "bogus." </p>
<p>If your only contention is I'm relying on faulty empirical data, then fine. If empirically, it turns out that Whites are not held to a lower academic standard, then I have no complaints. But since there's a study on point that suggests that Asians are discriminated against academically compared to Whites, than the rest of my argument rests on legitimate, if not ironclad grounds.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Thinking about this makes me wonder - would the apparent disparity in SAT scores be a function of the emphasis in different cultural groups towards applying to "Ivy's" if one has high "stats" even if there's a better fit elsewhere? And would that result in a glut of high-stat applications from that group which would necessarily result in an apparent stat/acceptance imbalance? </p>
<p>Just a thought.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The imbalance resulting from a myopic and undiscriminating hyper-focus on a few schools has been discussed many times in the past. And for good reasons, as it is at the core of the problem. The reports of students applying to ALL Ivies plus MIT and Stanford are a dime a dozen on College Confidential. </p>
<p>However, what is not discussed as often is the imbalance between the number of candidates at the Ivies and their REAL qualifications. More than 150,000 applications are sent to the eight Ivies, but the number of applicants with statrospherically high SAT is a mere fraction of that number. Some would like us to believe that there is one particular sub-group enjoys a quasi-monopoly on the high scores. Well, nothing could be farther from the truth!</p>
<p>Minni: this is much more reasonable counter argument, thank you. </p>
<p>You contend that colleges may use SATs in such a way that a 50 point difference between two large populations would not be relevant. I concede this is possible, but I don't see how you honestly think that would be likely. </p>
<p>Two counter points:
1) In order for 50 points to not be relevent to the calculus, you'd have to assert that either the cut off line for having SATs matter is surprisingly low for colleges, or that SATs represent a very minor part of the admissions process, i.e. perhaps less than 25%. Since these assertions are quite contrary to CW, you'd need some evidence to support them.<br>
2) If 50 points are not relevant, then you would see that the standard for choosing Asians with a 50 point differential would be the same. But I suspect that it's not. I don't have proof on this point, but anecdotally my experience has been that an Asian with a 1500 is much more likely to be at yale than an asian with 1450, and the asian with the 1450 is much more likely to have had some very impressive soft factors going for her.</p>
<p>"(The actual number of enrollees in the mid and second upper quintile, not low-income, but $40k-$92k, at these colleges is miniscule, and a large percentage of them are recruited athletes. I won't give you all the percentages again.)"</p>
<p>That is definitely not true at Yale, nor Harvard. Nearly half of admitted students at Yale received need-based aid of an average of $27,000. Most of these can mathematically not be recruited athletes. Neither can most of them earn more than $92,000 to receive such packages. However you slice it or dice it, if your income is above $100K you won't get much in aid. You have implied elsewhere that HYP students with parent income of over $160K could receive financial aid packages. I personally wish that were true, but it is simply false.</p>
<p>I would certainly welcome to see any statistics on parent income data on admitted students at HYP that you purport to have.</p>
<p>Ikki, since I am far from qualified to debate the legal ramifications of the Jian Li case, I'll let the OCR's finding be my guide. It is their mission and responsibility to investigate each and every claim filed. I do, however, believe that the depth and scope of the investigation will not be a s far reaching as Jian Li's mentors might have dreamed off. </p>
<p>On the issue of the studies, I did indeed call the CEO study of the Michigan admission bogus. I do believe that the rebuttal issued by the University of Michigan does lift the veil on the serious questions about the integrity of the group led by Linda Chavez. And, for what it is worth, I do not really see how the CEO study provides direct relevance to Jian Li's CURRENT claim of discrimination.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You have implied elsewhere that HYP students with parent income of over $160K could receive financial aid packages. I personally wish that were true, but it is simply false.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Cellardweller, fortunately that is in fact ... true. Families with income over $160,000 DO receive financial aid. However, it does require atypical circumstances such as multiple siblings in college at the same time. At Harvard only, well over 300 families with income over 160K applied for aid, and more than 200 did receive financial aid.</p>
<p>Since I doubt you'll take MY word for it, here's a source that should be more trustworthy:</p>
<p>And, for the record, Mini's quoting numbers from a study generated by Morton Schapiro's think tank at Williams. The distribution of financial aid at schools such Harvard might surprise some.</p>
<p>xiggi, my OP does no address specifically Jian Li's claims. Personally I don't think his claim has legal merit because it's almost impossible to pin down Princeton as having engaged in racial discrimination against him in particular. </p>
<p>What my OP DOES address, however, is the possibility to raising the issue as it applies to the general debate over AA. I identified an important political justification of AA as the fact that the reverse discrimination is being inflicted by the racial/political majority against itself. An argument can be made under the 14th Amend that this type of discrimination is constitutional because it doesn't raise the same sort of potential for abuse and corruption that conventional discriminatory practices like Jim Crow laws might have. However, this argument for AA is undermined if empirically, it can be shown that the reverse discrimination does not adversely affect the majority group at all. This is because absent this self-sacrifice, there's no mechanism for curbing abuse and corruption.</p>
<p>Speaking only to the financial aid issue, I am aware of a number of >$160,000 incomes receiving aid (3 in school and huge debt for one) and many <$92,000 paying full fare ( private school large equity in home and non-protected assets). So please don't make assertions of absolute fact that are not accurate.</p>
<p>Ikki:
I'm told that adcoms tend to look at SATs in tranches of 50s. So 1550 is pretty much the same as 1600. But the 100s present a psychological barrier. 1480 is not quite the same as 1500 because of this psychological factor.
When S1 took the SAT several years ago, his SAT-V was 680. Technically, that was the same as 700, and his GC acknowledged it was so, but still, she urged him to retake it and get over 700--which he did. </p>
<p>Now how to interpret the 50 points gap between Asian and Caucasian applicants? Analysis must treat individuals and groups differently. It is very possible that a 50 points between individual applicants may be insignificant, but for a group such a gap needs to be explained. So if, for example, Jian Li were to claim that he was passed over in favor of another applicant with a 1550 SAT, that would not be a good claim to make on statistical grounds alone. If, however, he is making the claim that Asians as a group score 50 points higher (and I gather that this is the basis of his claim), then that gap needs to be explained.</p>
<p>In and of itself, however, it does not point to discrimination. Adcoms prefer high GPAs to high SATs. Over the weekend, I talked to some folks who actually sat in on adcom deliberations at some Ivies and they all made that point. As well, past a certain threshhold, other factors kick in: ECs, essays, majors, geography, background, experiences, the needs of the college, and so forth. Most applicants to HYPSM score high in more than one of these categories. As a result, it is hard to isolate SAT scores as the deciding factor in admissions or rejection.</p>
<p>Marite, I know that SATs are not the sole basis or even the most important basis for admission. But I'm claiming that absent evidence of a counter-balancing difference in other factors between Whites and Asians like GPA / class rank, etc., then the gap in SATs between Asians and Whites indicates racial discrimination. </p>
<p>Think of it this way. All else being equal, if a asian needs 50 points higher than a white to be admitted, wouldn't that be racial discrimination? Among individuals, it's almost impossible to say that "all else is equal", but between two large populations, it would quite problematic to claim that one has a higher GPA, class rank, EC, or creativity, or personality, ABSENT ANY OBJECTIVE PROOF.</p>
<p>Edit: my hypothesis about racial discrimination is easily falsifiable: if Yale or Princeton or Harvard released its admissions data showing that even though Asians have to score 50 points higher on the SATs compared to White, Whites have to have a 3% higher class rank, then I stand corrected, no racial discrimination. But if all they can show is that the adcoms think that Whites score better on the "personality" factor, then that would be very very questionable.</p>
<p>The problem with most studies is that they have not looked at factors other than GPAs and SATs. But absent actual proof, I could still surmise that there are probably fewer Asians among the pool of recruited athletes than Caucasians or African-Americans, fewer children of donors or legacies than among Caucasians, and so on. And yet, these factors--athletics, prospective donors, legacies-- are important to adcoms. </p>
<p>There are factors which, while ostensibly neutral, can disadvantage a group. For example, allocating the same amount of space to women's and men's restrooms will result in very long lines at the women's restroom and none at the men's. The same height requirement will disadvantage women (and possibly many first generation Asian males). The result is certainly disadvantageous to women but is the policy discriminatory?</p>
<p>Colleges could choose to give more weight to SAT scores; could choose to admit more math/science students; could pay less attention to geographical diversity; could reduce the importance of legacy status, and so on. This would make for very different student bodies. And it would make HYP very different from what they are now. But while many do not like HYP as they are now, the fact is there would be no suit and no rancor if so many people did not want to be at HYP as they are now, not as they might be if only adcoms followed totally different admissions policies.</p>
<p>EDIT: To address Ikki's additional point. Things are not so cut and dried.
Take my S, whose SAT scores were high, but had a GPA that was well below that of the vals and sals of his high school, and probably quite a few others. How would one quantify his hook (legacy), and his large number of college classes or the recs from a college prof? Presumably, these last factors trumped his not so stellar GPA (which did not include his college courses).
To conduct the study properly and second guess adcoms, one would have to look holistically at both accepted and rejected applicants. Maybe someone wants to wade through 20k+ applications?</p>
<p>Think of it this way. If all asians in the pool had 1600s and all the whites had 1550s should we only accept the asians? If we accept asians in any percentage less than 100% they are going to look like they needed 50 more points to get in.</p>
<p>I was only referring to Harvard, Princeton and Yale. I am fully aware that other schools even top level schools such as Duke or Swartmore do offer non-need based aid.</p>
<p>Xiggi:</p>
<p>I do realize that it is technically possible to have an EFC < $45K with an income > $160K but you have to have some unusual circumstances (3+ kids in college, highly variable income) and the need-based contribution will not come close to covering the total tuition. I would hardly call a family in that situation wealthy.</p>
<p>I addressed the legacy/recruited athletes problem in my OP. They could definitely account for the discrepancy, but it's still a bad idea for those universities to admit them because they IN FACT give very little to the university. (exception to this might be stanford, since the athletes there are actually very good and contribute to the school's prestige, image, and alumni enthusiasm).</p>
<p>In your hypothetical, can we assume that the asians and whites are identical in every other way except racial background? If yes, then accepting any White WOULD be racial discrimination. </p>
<p>Your hypo/line of argument is also susceptible of conflating different statistical elements. We're talking about averages within a big population, not identical scores for each individual within that population. Conflating the two in order to set up an analysis is very problematic.</p>
<p>Mini, "Magistri pueris parvis crustula saepe dant." I would think the reverse is more true. Isn't it here a case of students giving the school the cookies rahter than what you qouted?</p>
<p>You seem to have missed the posts regarding the difference between correlation and causation in regards to SAT scores. You don't need necessarily a greater GPA to compensate for a slightly lower SAT. Many schools simply don't care what your SAT score is once you reach a certain level. At MIT specifically, a 2250 (99th percentile) is treated the same as a 2400 for admissions. (See the multiple threads on the MIT boards on this issue). </p>
<p>A good SAT score may be necessary to show you can handle the tough workload at MIT, but it is certainly not sufficient to demonstrate the creative capacity the school seeks in its students. Note that Li was rejected outright by MIT, and he did not try to sue the school. He was rejected not on the basis of his ethnicity, but he simply did not show any particular achievements that would have him stand among a number of academically qualified applicants. That is exactly what Princeton is also claiming. Academically excellent, but not oustanding.</p>