Princeton answers to Jian Li claims

<p>mini: you are mixing apples and oranges and cause and effect to drive your point.</p>

<p>Is it my imagination, or have I read these arguments over and over and over again on this and a ton of other CC threads?</p>

<p>ICarGirl</p>

<p>Thanks for the excellent post from someone on the inside. You clearly make the comparison I was trying to make. DD has very similar stats to your own. She was admitted to MIT, Jian Li was not. Is there discrimination? How could any of us know for sure? Recommendations, essay and interviews are the only avenues for differentiation between many fine students. None of us are privy to this data.</p>

<p>Another point many seem to be making is that Asians all have the same activities and that colleges can't admit classes comprised completely of violin & piano playing students. That's fine.</p>

<p>If that's the reason why many "high-scoring, violin-playing" Asians are rejected, then why don't we take the race component out of the equation? If anything that should quell the complaints of racism.</p>

<p>Don't argue FOR racism while saying that the impact is negligible! Do away with it if it's negligible. Racism is racism.</p>

<p>And mini,
In response to your post on Page 7. These "private" colleges get a great deal of funds from the public and the government as nonprofit organizations. As such, I think they should be transparent. If they don't want to be, how about if we change the label to "corporation?" Maybe they can sell stocks too - I'm sure that would make even more money. That seems to be the name of the game now. At the end of the day, are they academic or corporate institutions?</p>

<p>You claim that the current system goes by an academic threshhold method (scores aren't a big deal past a certain point)? Why is that threshhold magically higher for the yellow-skinned folks? Don't tell me that Asians don't participate in activities other than Science Club and Orchestra, because that's an offensive and outdated stereotype. Asians are AS diverse as any other group. At our school we have several Asians on our football team, including the QB. We have Asians in drama. We have Asians in almost every other activity as well!</p>

<p>saro, i never stated anything that would have required insider info. koolcrud, on the other hand, made a broad statement that is completely impossible to prove.
you're clearly biased on the second point--from what i'm reading from icargirl's post, he was a strong applicant, but certainly not an amazing one. i actually expected something along the lines of: "he was a strong applicant, but we have so many of those vying for so few spaces that it came down to a seemingly arbitrary decision" or something along those lines.</p>

<p>"If that's the reason why many "high-scoring, violin-playing" Asians are rejected, then why don't we take the race component out of the equation?"</p>

<p>But how do you know that, when it comes to Asian-Americans, it is even IN the equation? (I think the evidence would show that, for non-legacy, non-developmental admit, non-athlete, non-offspring of senators, congresspeople, ambassadors, etc., non-authors of novels or holders of patents, and, maybe, non-full freight payers, Asian-Americans, as a group (with exceptions in many of the subgroups) are way overrepresented both in admissions and in attendance, at this tiny subset of colleges and universities.</p>

<p>I think when all is said and done, Jian Li's "complaint" will set back most Asian-Americans in admissions substantially, because the evidence will prove precisely the opposite of what he claims.</p>

<p>
[quote]
why don't we take the race component out of the equation

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Because Princeton -- a private organization -- has decided that they need to recruit URMs to help atone for past sins. That NONE of this year's applicants had anything to do with those sins is irrelevant, because some of them might have ancestors who did benefit. The sins of the ancestors, therefore, are to be atoned for by the inability of some small fraction of their descendants to matriculate at a handful of the nation's colleges and universities.</p>

<p>No one involved in making these decisions cares about my opinion, so I'll keep my virtual mouth shut... ... ... except that it still doesn't make sense to me... </p>

<p>Educational preferences based on economic background sure seems a lot more defensible to me than preferences based on race (or any other random property of a person). A really bright kid growing up in a tough situation really won't have the same background as one of our middle-class CC overachievers, and that's bad for the kid, and bad for the country. We waste brain power by not recognizing the connection between poverty and near-poverty and lower academic achievement. Just a humble vote for measuring the independent variable (economic background) rather than some random dependent variable ("race"). </p>

<p>Anecdote alert: our neighbors were African-American. The father was a doctor. His daughter went to an expensive prep school. She might be a URM, but she for sure is not "disadvantaged."</p>

<p>"Because Princeton -- a private organization -- has decided that they need to recruit URMs to help atone for past sins."</p>

<p>Nope. Not true in the least. This may be true in some few public institutions, but has never been the case in the private ones. The purpose of recruiting URMs (and there are a smaller percentage of African-Americans at Princeton today than in 1971) at prestige colleges is to enhance the educational experience of white, full-freight customers, and has always been so. The institutions were farsighted enough to see that failure to create at least a modicum of contact with others of various race and experience would place their WHITE, well-heeled graduates at a distinct disadvantage in the real world. And that has proven to be true.</p>

<p>"Anecdote alert: our neighbors were African-American. The father was a doctor. His daughter went to an expensive prep school. She might be a URM, but she for sure is not "disadvantaged."</p>

<p>There is a huge advantage to be gained by admitting wealthy URM students - four to be more precise. First of all - the obvious - they can pay the full-freight, and provide "color" to a campus. Secondly, there is a large number of white students who have never met a URM from a wealthy background (I can say categorically that, before I went to college, I never had, and I imagine there are vast numbers of smart white students in middle America who never have either.) Thirdly, there are large numbers of smart URM students who have never met wealthy URMs either, and the latter provide both examples for the aspirations of less fortunate ones. And fourthly, there are so relatively few wealthy URMs in the U.S. that they truly bring something unique to the campus.</p>

<p>The number of African-American physicians in the U.S. is now estimated to be slightly over 20,000. The number of college age offspring of said physicians is likely well under 1,000. The number of them who attend prestige colleges is likely less than a fourth of those, and the number admitted and attending prestige college each year a fourth of that. It isn't much of an anecdote, except to demonstrate how important it might be to have some of them on your campus.</p>

<p>"if his assertion that he was hoping to be rejected from Princeton is to be believed,.."</p>

<p>People really need to read things more carefully. Jian Li said that "after he was waitlisted, he was hoping..."</p>

<p>There is a big difference between "before" and "after."</p>

<p>mini,
If it's not in the equation, what's the harm in not asking for it and going by the SSN method?</p>

<p>quirkily,
Universities openly admit that they accept "developmental candidates," a Duke professor even admitted that only 50% of their student body was there on their own achievements! If Bill Gates' daughter applied to Harvard with perfect scores across the board, she would be accepted in a flash. The admissions officers would be on their knees begging her to attend. You don't have to be an Adcom to know that.</p>

<p>I'm biased. I admit it. They are biased as well. They're obviously going to play down his accomplishments to justify his rejection. Admitting that he was possibly qualified would only open more doors in the case aganst them. The fact that they made such a strong statement says nothing.</p>

<p>Washdad,
I don't disagree with what you said, but the institutions are still wrong.</p>

<p>"If it's not in the equation, what's the harm in not asking for it and going by the SSN method?"</p>

<p>Because if doing so would result in there not being enough URMs on campus that the educational value of what was to be offered should suffer, it SHOULD be in the equation. That's the reason it always has been in the equation - it enhances the educational experience of ALL students. (And the fact that Asian-Americans are overrepresented in admissions at these institutions doesn't change that reality.)</p>

<p>Mini,
What exactly can a rich URM bring to a campus that a rich Asian or a rich Caucasian can't? What's the difference between an Asian orphan who grows up in the ghetto and an URM orphan who grows up in the ghetto?</p>

<p>Is this some unquantifiable quality that all Asians just lack by nature? Blond hair? Blue eyes? </p>

<p>Are people of color not all equal?</p>

<p>Just read this thread and loved Bopop's post (366). My son is at P'ton but was rejected from Yale. Why? Who knows? Even with perfect scores across the board, we were not expecting ANYTHING and were thrilled when he got in to many, but not all of the schools he applied to. Why did he get an early write from Amherst and rejected from Swarthmore? Who knows? Every school has their own criteria and not all schools are going to be looking for the same things. A classmate of my son's was waitlisted and then rejected at P'ton but accepted to Yale. Similar stats and some similar EC's, both with nat'l awards in math, but one was interested more in science and one in humanities. The difference could be as subtle as that, or it could be that one is asian and one is caucasian. We will never know and frankly, we don't care.</p>

<p>Sew,
I'm assuming that you don't care because your son was still admitted to a highly prestigious Ivy. </p>

<p>What if your son had been rejected at P'ton as well and had to go to a state school, and it was possibly because of his race? Would you still be so forthright with your apathy?</p>

<p>saro - my 2 cents worth, here: racism is bad enough in this country already. We've made progress - it is now socially frowned upon to the point where people usually don't make grossly offensive racist jokes in public like they did only a few years ago, but a basic lack of trust between people of different ethnic backgrounds is still a serious problem in society. Remember the Japanese student out on Halloween night in a tux who was shot by a white homeowner when he came to the door? A weird byproduct of underlying racism, but a byproduct nonetheless.</p>

<p>So racial diversity on campuses is probably a good thing. College is a time when people are open to interaction with other people they don't know - maybe uniquely such a time. So given that all of these bright kids are going to end up at some great college, why not take the effort to mix up the student bodies enough to make sure that there's at least a reasonably significant number of all of the larger ethic groups in the country at each college, so that all of them have an opportunity to get to know people from a variety of backgrounds - economic, social, racial, religious, etc.? I have to admit, I'm really at a loss to see where the "injustice" is in doing that, even if it means that student A doesn't get into College X, and goes to College Y instead. My some didn't get into his dream school despite pretty good SAT's and grades - but he ended up at a similar school which he's now crazy about. No tragedy involved, even though it's "a state school.".</p>

<p>"What exactly can a rich URM bring to a campus that a rich Asian or a rich Caucasian can't?"</p>

<p>Asked and answered, and in detail. (post #148)</p>

<p>"Is this some unquantifiable quality that all Asians just lack by nature?"</p>

<p>You might want to ask the opposite question, as to why (taking out all the slots I wrote of early) they are OVERREPRESENTED in prestige college admissions.</p>

<p>"My d. had an 800 verbal in eighth grade, one of seven in the nation (and the math was not far behind.)"</p>

<p>What was her secret? I gather that she was born in Mumbai. You have said that your household income is about the median US household income.</p>

<p>So how did she ace the test? Did SAT fairy randomly picked her score?</p>

<p>Saro...I don't think you're being fair to sewbusy and I think you aren't understanding the point sewbusy is trying to make. (Or just blatantly ignoring on purpose...I can't tell) Regardless, your comment is rather inflammatory and really not called for.</p>

<p>And by the way, what’s wrong with state schools?</p>

<p>"So how did she ace the test? Did SAT fairy randomly picked her score?"</p>

<p>This one was born in California.</p>

<p>I think the trick, beyond native intelligence, was not sending her to school. (and I'm not joking either.) </p>

<p>As to what we "did", well, you can read my books. ;)</p>

<p>how did the Mumbai girl do?....I bet she was not far behind.</p>