Princeton is being sued by a rejected applicant

Colleges & Universities A-Z Princeton University
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Well, I'm too busy to do that but I do wish Mr. Li the best of luck. For the sake of true justice, I hope it doesn't get thrown out but makes it all the way to the Supreme Court. I think the Roberts Court could crush AA for once and for all.

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<p>If that's what you hope for, you're a bit more radical than I thought. Is that really what you think will make America just? End AA? Your Ivy League education clearly taught you nothing about the value of diversity.</p>

<p>There are clearly problems with AA as it stands. As you point out, much of the overt discrimination has been eliminated, but subconscious discrimination will always exist. That's why AA is now the magical box with no fixed numbers, no set quotas (unlike what you claim), and no formula for how much race should or should not count. I had one friend who just quit after three years of being in the Princeton admissions department. He was a member of Prep for Prep, a program in NYC that seeks to places minorities in private schools to give them a lift up (that includes a ton of asians, too). I asked him outright how AA worked at Princeton, and why he would work in the admissions office as an Asian. Look, I had the same conception of AA back then as you did, but his answer surprising. He basically told me that the admissions committee simply aims for diversity, and that admitting people is an art. He said that a ton of progress in admissions had been made in recent years, so that's why it's necessary to just let reform slowly creep in. The art is gradually changing in favor of more minority admits - and yes - Asians do benefit from the changing admissions culture.</p>

<p>Everyone's subject to subconscious racism. Asians have one double standard applied to them, but it's important to note that not everyone applies it, and admissions committees are actively working to combat this. Of course there's an admissions gap between asians and whites - we're still overrepresented, some of us actually are one-dimensional, and nearly none of us are legacies or athletic admits. Read the WSJ article on the Jian Li case. It explicitly states that overrepresented minorities have no race advantage in the AA admissions system now, but they did back when Asians were still quite rare. Just keep in mind that even with no AA advantage, the gap is slowly closing, as you can see in the rising Asian percentages at nearly all schools.</p>

<p>With regards to AA after school, Asians do benefit from it. While some programs are targeted at blacks and hispanics and mistakenly called AA, federal government practices clearly see Asians as desirable to hire due to their low numbers in many government positions. Every State Department, FBI, and DOD recruiter I've talked to has gone out of his way to note that AA helps Asians secure jobs where they're not well represented.</p>

<p>As for the glass ceiling on Asians in upper levels of management and academia, that's a place where AA can be better applied in our favor. There, you could actually file a lawsuit for discrimination and failure to implement AA. But as other sociologists have noted, are there cultural reasons for why Asians don't climb the corporate ladder? Do we really need to develop more leaders? </p>

<p>Some of these questions don't just deal with AA, and removing AA can't solve the problems when it's subconscious discrimination. In fact, properly implementing AA (as it's done in the Fed govt) would help Asians in a variety of post-graduate fields. Would you really strike down AA when it could potentially help address these problems? Do you really want to strike down AA when it helps so many other segments of society?</p>

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<p>my psychology teacher talked about this a few times last year. Though it sucks he got rejected, its hard for me to have a great deal of sympathy for him because he goes to Yale. He needs to move on ... he'll be just fine.</p>

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<p>You sound more reasonable there but I think it helps to keep up the pressure. </p>

<p>Ultimately, I think equality and fairness should be assessed at the level of the individual, not at the level of a group to which the individual belongs. It's useful to track statistics for ethnic groups to look out for systematic biases which may well be present, but I don't think it should be the goal to ensure equal outcome for all ethnic groups regardless of performance. </p>

<p>For example, I don't think it's fair to tell someone to be content with a rejection letter because of all the other "asians out of the general population that are making it into top colleges". It diminishes the value of the individual and creates the illusion that success of a group equals the success of an individual.</p>

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I think the Roberts Court could crush AA for once and for all.

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<p>Ya because the Laissez-faire method has worked perfectly in the past.</p>

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Ultimately, I think equality and fairness should be assessed at the level of the individual, not at the level of a group to which the individual belongs. It's useful to track statistics for ethnic groups to look out for systematic biases which may well be present, but I don't think it should be the goal to ensure equal outcome for all ethnic groups regardless of performance.

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<p>I agree too. This is actually what Princeton and most proactive colleges are trying to do - eliminate the subconscious bias towards minorities that always creeps into admissions. The fact that Jian Li made it into Yale and was waitlisted at a few other top schools shows that the admissions office definitely evaluated him as an individual, and decided that he was a very good admit across the board.</p>

<p>Filing a lawsuit alleging discrimination on the sole basis of race (without taking anything else into account) is frivolous, because AA ultimately seeks to create a diverse population in many ways by looking at gender, income, and race as well. In the aftermath of the Li lawsuit and also the Daily Princetonian column that made fun of him, admissions officers candidly held conversations with students where they explained exactly how admissions works. As far as I know, an applicant only needs a certain amount of votes from the four or so junior admissions officers who read the application to get in. Once you get that number, you're automatically in. After this is over, over 75% of the admittees will have been decided, and then the staff goes back and starts reviewing more. At no point are quotas or anything applied. No one took Li's application out of the admit pile and stuck a black student's in there instead.</p>

<p>Li needs to understand that he was an extremely good applicant, but even the best get sidelined by certain colleges. Yet all fairly evaluated him as an individual - he didn't even get outright rejections from any of his top choices! Yes, a black student would have had a better chance of getting in with his stats, but that's how AA works for URMs. To a degree, it's not necessarily Princeton's fault that so few black kids from Harlem get in - there just aren't that many to admit. But even if the black student is middle /upper class, the student still adds an indispensible amount of diversity to the student body. These kids aren't just copycats of rich white admits with different skin color - there is a definitely a strong black student community at Princeton, and I'd be sad if there weren't.</p>

<p>There's certainly a lot of room for improvement, but I believe striking down AA would only be a setback for America's efforts to adjust for its diverse population. Princeton and other schools are actively trying to adjust to admitting more racially and socioeconomically diverse applicants, as the latest decision to drop early decision can attest to.</p>

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<p>Moreover his crybaby attitude only proves that Princeton make a good choice rejecting him!</p>

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<p>Wow, I see this thread is still active.</p>

<p>Mzhang, your responses to Ske have been reasoned and eloquent. Personally, I agree with nearly all of what you’ve written. There are just a few more corrections that need to be made. </p>

<p>First, the racial preferences study is NOT a study of Princeton admissions as Ske keeps saying. The study was undertaken by Princeton researchers and is titled “Admission preferences for minority students, athletes, and legacies at elite universities.” Free access to it can be found online if you do just a little searching. </p>

<p>Now, had Ske actually read that study, he would have known that it is not presented as a study of admission practices at Princeton. The data on which the study is based were provided by “three private research universities that represent the top tier of American higher education.” The universities themselves were guaranteed complete anonymity by the authors who have kept their promise. The names of the three have not been published. </p>

<p>Of course Princeton would certainly qualify as “top tier” but since the University has never revealed this kind of information before and considers it highly confidential, I believe Princeton may not have provided it. Actually, I believe there is a better chance that one of the universities is Harvard, since some of these data for Harvard had already been made part of the public record when, as Ske points out, Harvard’s admission practices were investigated by the Department of Education in the 1980s. </p>

<p>Ske’s friend’s story is pure fabrication. I see that Ske has backed off from his earlier claim about student members of the admissions committee and is now claiming that it was “an Asian member of the admissions staff”. Now, seriously, does anyone really believe that an admission officer would tell a rejected applicant not only why he or she was rejected but state it in such a crude way, saying that the disappointed applicant “was too one-sided and fit the stereotypical Asian math geek mold.” Please. No admission officer at any university would behave in this manner. </p>

<p>In addition, no one knows the admission percentages for various ethnic groups at Princeton since the University doesn’t publish detailed ethnic statistics for admitted students or for applicants. This is true for most universities. The ethnic breakdown of the final class that arrives in September is published but without being able to compare the total number of Asian-American applicants to the total number accepted, it is impossible to determine whether the acceptance rate for that ethnic group is different from the acceptance rates for others. The numbers Ske keeps quoting are not Princeton’s. </p>

<p>Now, none of this is to say that I discount the conclusions in the study performed by Espenshade, Chung and Walling. I believe that there is a problem here. It is simply dishonest of Ske to suggest that the problem is worse at Princeton than at any of its peers based on the publicly available information.</p>

<p>Finally, Ske, you have made your opinions about the relative merits of Harvard and Princeton well known on these boards. I would invite anyone who isn’t already aware of those feelings to visit just a couple of threads:</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=335415%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=335415&lt;/a> </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=363740%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=363740&lt;/a> </p>

<p>There’s nothing wrong with supporting old alma mater but I think readers should be aware of the preconceptions of authors. I find it ironic, in a way. You stated that the attitudes exhibited by Princeton in its alleged treatment of your friend were a significant factor in your decision to turn down Princeton and attend Harvard. I have to say that you have reminded me of attitudes that played a role in my own decision to turn down Harvard and attend Princeton. We seem to be living in strangely parallel but different universes. I just happen to think mine is nicer.</p>

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<p>"It is simply dishonest of Ske to suggest that the problem is worse at Princeton than at any of its peers based on the publicly available information."</p>

<p>I concede that the Princeton study focused on three "top" universities, not just Princeton. However, there is no denying that Princeton is at the very bottom of the Ivy League in the percentage of Asians on campus. For example, as I noted earlier, Harvard's Asian percentage has been anywhere between 33% to 50% higher than Princeton's, which is a HUGE differential. The problem does indeed appear to be significantly worse at Princeton and I am merely pointing it out.</p>

<p>"Ske’s friend’s story is pure fabrication...Now, seriously, does anyone really believe that an admission officer would tell a rejected applicant not only why he or she was rejected but state it in such a crude way".</p>

<p>Now, it is in fact a true story. The admissions officer probably did not use the exact words "one-sided stereotypical Asian math geek", of course, and I cannot quote him/her verbatim because I'm not the one who talked to him/her, but that's what it boiled down to, and that's the message that my friend got and relayed to me. He wasn't actually all that bitter since his first choice had been Stanford and he got in there. If I were you, I would be a little more careful about accusing someone of fabrication unless you had conclusive proof. You could put yourself in a very difficult situation when you turn out to be wrong. That's different from expressing skepticism, which is of course acceptable.</p>

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<p>"Actually, I believe there is a better chance that one of the universities is Harvard, since some of these data for Harvard had already been made part of the public record when, as Ske points out, Harvard’s admission practices were investigated by the Department of Education in the 1980s."</p>

<p>Very clever argument, but don't you think the Princeton researchers would want to use the admissions data from 1980s to reach conclusions about admissions practices in 2000s? They have evolved, you know.</p>

<p>I say that one of the three universities is almost certainly Princeton since the researchers are based at Princeton and would have the easiest access to it and the Princeton officials would have been the most cooperative to them.</p>

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<p>Now Ske, this is just going to become more and more embarrassing for you if you don’t actually read the study before pretending to know something about it.</p>

<p>Dismissing the possibility that Harvard could have been one of the three schools studied, you write “very clever argument, but don’t you think the Princeton researchers would want to use the admissions data from 1980s to reach conclusions about admissions practices in 2000s? They have evolved, you know.”</p>

<p>Well, this is a bit garbled but what I assume you meant to write was that it would be ridiculous to believe that data from the 1980s would have been used in the study. If you had actually read the report you would have seen the very opening paragraphs which I quote in part…</p>

<p>“To examine these questions, we use data from the National Study of College Experience (NSCE), a project whose purpose is to understand the paths different students follow through higher education. Ten academically selective colleges and universities participated in the NSCE and supplied individual-level data on all persons who applied for admission in the fall of 1983 (or a nearby year), 1993, and 1997.”</p>

<p>So, yes, the publicly available data for Harvard fit right into the period of the study.</p>

<p>Now, as for Princeton being one of the three universities studied, I agree that it’s possible but doubtful for the very reason you gave. You (and many others) have simply assumed, without bothering to read the study that it was about Princeton because the researchers are based there. Knowing that Princeton is very protective of information it considers confidential, and that they would have been concerned that readers would automatically have made the assumption you made, I believe they would have been even MORE wary of providing their data.</p>

<p>Moving on, you write: “However, there is no denying that Princeton is at the very bottom of the Ivy League in the percentage of Asians on campus.” Yes, Princeton is at the bottom, separated from three other Ivy League schools (Yale, Dartmouth and Brown) by a fraction of 1% while those four are a couple of percentage points below Cornell and Columbia which are themselves a couple of percentage points below Penn and Harvard. The grouping of Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth and Brown at the bottom is nothing to be proud of but you continue to single out Princeton as somehow ripe for scorn while failing to mention the others at all. I also find it amusing that you don’t seem to invite comparisons to Stanford which clearly has a much higher percentage of Asian-Americans than Harvard.</p>

<p>You also seem to need a little help with statistics. If you can tell me how many Asian-American students applied to and were then accepted at Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth and Brown (along with how many of those actually matriculated) then we would be able to make real comparisons with the similar statistics for other ethnic groups. Do you know, for instance that the Asian-American percentage of Harvard’s applicant pool is the same as Princeton’s? If your argument is that Princeton’s applicant pool percentages must be the same as Harvard’s then surely you would want to say that both of them are similar to Stanford’s. Surely, all three of them are in the “top tier” of national universities and must have similar applicant pools. If that is true, then I hope you have an explanation for why Harvard seems to do so poorly compared to Stanford when it comes to Asian-American representation.</p>

<p>You’re going to have to have many more facts at your fingertips to make these arguments.</p>

<p>So, again, I state with great confidence that there is a problem here but the “problem” is no worse at Princeton than at many of its peers and that Harvard is not a shining example.</p>

<p>And finally…I see a little more backtracking on the “friend” story. So, let’s review. It wasn’t actually a student who said these things as you first wrote. Now you tell us that it may not actually have been a quote but just an impression that was given. Sorry, still not convinced. Mark me down as a significant skeptic on this story; in fact, rising to the level of being confident that it is too incredible to be anything more than a story, especially given all of your qualifiers.</p>

<p>So here we are again, if you wish to discuss the Espenshade study, you need first to read it. I’m happy to share thoughts on the details but you need to know those details before we can begin and simple bashing of Princeton on the Princeton board is low class in the extreme.</p>

<p>May I end by saying, though I hadn’t mentioned it before, I part company with you completely when it comes to your following statement: </p>

<p>“For the sake of true justice, I hope it [i.e. the Jian Li complaint] doesn't get thrown out but makes it all the way to the Supreme Court. I think the Roberts Court could crush AA [i.e. affirmative action] for once and for all.”</p>

<p>You should be aware, by the way, that this is not a lawsuit and it will never get to the Supreme Court. It is a complaint filed with the Office for Civil Rights within the Department of Education. It is an administrative matter. (Just another little correction for you.)</p>

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<p>i'd just like to repeat the fact that princeton at least waitlisted mr. li, while harvard, MIT, stanford, and PENN all outright rejected him. i repeat this because of the repeated insinuation here that princeton is somehow tougher on asian applicants than its peers are.</p>

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<p>The discussion has left selectivity on the part of students (as opposed to universities) out of the discussion.
The numbers suggest that many Asian-Americans prefer larger urban environments to smaller environments without large Asian-American populations.
It should be no surprise that the percentage of Asian-Americans at Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale and Brown should be the lowest among the Ivies. Discrimination on the part of some Ivy admissions offices and not others would not be one of the first places I would look to for an explanation for the percentage differences.
The top non-urban LACs tend to have sub-Ivy percentages of Asian-Americans.
If I were an Asian-American applicant, I would be tempted to think I might get a better shake (at the margin) at a school with a lower percentage of Asian-American students rather than higher.</p>

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<p>The "admissions officer" seems very suspect.</p>

<p>As a matter of policy, Princeton admissions officers don't even talk to college counselors. Private school counselors have great relations with officers at a number of schools, but Princeton officers are forbidden from talking to college counselors.</p>

<p>Princeton admissions officers also read thousands of applications, and all of those applications are read by multiple officers and voted upon and discussed in multiple committee sessions. </p>

<p>It just seems highly suspect that first a "student member" of the admissions committee, then "an admissions officer," and now "an asian admissions officer" would tell a kid the exact reason why he was rejected, and in a manner that seemingly incriminates Princeton and invites a civil rights lawsuit on the grounds of blatant race choice (which is not what AA is supposed to be).</p>

<p>As I've pointed out previously, I've always expressed much doubt that something like this could actually happen. Your friend wasn't happy about Princeton's decision, so I doubt he's telling an impartial story about his experience. Jian Li likes to cast his as a story racial discrimination - but from the way everyone else hears it, he took a shot at Princeton, he was a strong student, but they waitlisted him like they did to thousands of other top students.</p>

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<p>“Ten academically selective colleges and universities participated in the NSCE and supplied individual-level data on all persons who applied for admission in the fall of 1983 (or a nearby year), 1993, and 1997.”
So, yes, the publicly available data for Harvard fit right into the period of the study.”</p>

<p>So? The Department of Education investigated Harvard in the 80s but how does it follow that the Harvard admissions data was made public? And pretending for the moment that it did, where do you get the idea that Harvard’s data from 1993 and 1997 were also released to the public? All three are required for the study, and there’s hardly any difference in the amount of hassle you go through getting 2 sets of data vs. 3 sets of data from the Harvard Admissions Office. I actually do think there is a decent chance that Harvard was among the three, but because it’s Harvard, not because of the reason you give. </p>

<p>By the way, Harvard was not the only school under spotlight at that time. Although it was the only one formally investigated, Princeton’s admissions practices and possible bias against Asians was a subject of media scrutiny. Try searching the New York Times archives. </p>

<p>“Knowing that Princeton is very protective of information it considers confidential, and that they would have been concerned that readers would automatically have made the assumption you made, I believe they would have been even MORE wary of providing their data.”</p>

<p>This is quite laughable. Why should Princeton be more concerned about confidentiality than any other college? Perhaps they have something to hide? Besides, the study was done in aggregate, the institutions are not identified by name, and there is NO confidentiality issue for individual students whatsover. This is just like a pharmaceutical company claiming that it respects the confidentiality of patients so much that it can’t release any aggregate data on the safety profiles of its medications. Or that it doesn't want patients to misunderstand the data and become alarmed for wrong reaasons.</p>

<p>Historically, Princeton has been the most reactionary school among the Big Three. If you read Jerome Karabel’s “The Chosen”, while all three schools were guilty of using various criteria to “increase diversity” and keep out academically talented Jews, Princeton was the most aggressive in promoting this notion of “social acceptability” while Harvard was the most progressive. Harvard has traditionally had the highest percentage of minorities among the Big Three and Princeton the least. And while I do not by any means suggest that any of this past history of racial discrimination persists in present day admissions, it’s interesting to note that the order has not changed. Harvard well ahead of the other two in the percentage of Asians, Yale in the middle, and Princeton last. </p>

<p>“If your argument is that Princeton’s applicant pool percentages must be the same as Harvard’s then surely you would want to say that both of them are similar to Stanford’s. If that is true, then I hope you have an explanation for why Harvard seems to do so poorly compared to Stanford when it comes to Asian-American representation.”</p>

<p>You have already pointed out that Stanford heavily draws its student population from California yourself. Harvard and Princeton, on the other hand, compete for the same geographic pool. One reasonably expects their applicant percentages to be roughly similar.</p>

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<p>"Jian Li likes to cast his as a story racial discrimination - but from the way everyone else hears it, he took a shot at Princeton, he was a strong student, but they waitlisted him like they did to thousands of other top students."</p>

<p>I agree that this may well be the case and smart people get rejected from top schools all the time for all kinds of reasons. Maybe Jian Li came across as too arrogant during his alumni interview, maybe he slipped during interview and said his dream school was really MIT, or whatever. </p>

<p>But when you accumulate large amounts of data over decades, random noises like that should really disappear. What is troubling is the consistent differential in the acceptance rates of Asians and others. It's not a problem unique to Princeton but perhaps more noticeable because of the lower percentages of Asians at Princeton. Rather than sweeping it under the rug, I think it's important to try to determine the cause and take corrective action, if warranted. I wasn't trying to bash Princeton at all.</p>

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<p>finally someone's suing...bastard supporters of affirmative action (no offense but i'm getting screwed by it...)</p>

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<p>“I actually do think there is a decent chance that Harvard was among the three [universities in the racial discrimination study], but because it’s Harvard, not because of the reason you give.”</p>

<p>Ske, this is a welcome but belated acknowledgement. So, we’ve gone from your claim that the study was clearly about Princeton, to a later admission that it was looking at three “top tier” schools to this new admission that you believe there is a “decent chance that Harvard was among the three.” Three cheers. You’ve come so far I’ll even give you a pass on your disagreement about the reasons Harvard might have been part of the study. “Because it’s Harvard,” it shall be. If that fits in with your world view, it’s good enough for me.</p>

<p>I’m also glad to see you write that the problem is not “unique to Princeton” and that “I wasn’t trying to bash Princeton at all.” I have no problem with fair criticism and as Karabel points out (yes, I have picked up a copy) Harvard, Princeton and Yale were, particularly in the early and middle parts of the 20th century, ALL guilty of discrimination against many groups. </p>

<p>So, we were going along fine and then you had to write the following:</p>

<p>*t’s interesting to note that the order has not changed. Harvard well ahead of the other two in the percentage of Asians, Yale in the middle, and Princeton last.”</p>

<p>Now Ske, you know this is a distortion or at least a gross exaggeration. Harvard College as a whole is about 18% Asian-American about four percentage points ahead of the four schools, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth and Brown all of which are tightly clustered at about 14%. Yes, there is a difference and if you want to praise that as “well ahead” I suppose that’s fine. (You may have to eat humble pie in front of the Stanford grads, however.) Yale, however, is not “in the middle” at all but shares a spot with Princeton, Dartmouth and Brown. Within the Ivy League, the “middle” is held by Columbia and Cornell. (In fact, including the California schools places the Ivy League as a whole in “last” place.) So, your continued characterization of Princeton as somehow dead last and therefore implicitly deserving of scorn doesn’t quite fit with your new ‘non-bashing’ policy. In fact, it seems closer in sentiment to your feelings in the thread previously referenced when you recommended to a student choosing between Harvard and Princeton that if he/she had to ask the question, “you aren’t Harvard material so go to Princeton…. [and] if you are not smart enough to have it figured out by now, by all means, go to the lesser school.” </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=335415%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=335415&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It seems as though there may be some strong views clouding your reasoning.</p>

<p>But, before I go, one more bit of thanks. You write the following, in defense of the fact that Harvard has a much lower percentage of Asian-Americans than Stanford.</p>

<p>“You have already pointed out that Stanford heavily draws its student population from California yourself.”</p>

<p>Bingo…an acknowledgement that just because Stanford, Princeton and Harvard are all national universities does NOT mean that their applicant pools are identical. I say you deserve an extra cheer for noticing. Yes, that is EXACTLY the point I was making. But it isn’t just a difference between California and the Northeast. What about the difference between urban universities and suburban? It turns out that most urban campuses attract a higher percentage of minority applicants than suburban and rural campuses. Then there are other factors as well. For example, the way financial aid is structured or the reputation of the strength of particular departments or programs or the amount and kind of targeted recruiting a particular institution undertakes. The point is that there ARE differences in the ethnic composition of applicant groups at different universities and without knowing the actual numbers (no, guessing won’t do) comparisons are impossible. This, of course, is exactly why the Espenshade study required detailed data from the universities being studied.</p>

<p>So, we’re in agreement that the Espenshade study of racial discrimination of leading universities isn’t a study specifically about Princeton and that Harvard may, in fact, have been one of the institutions studied. (You really do need to read this work. It’s short and interesting.) We’re also in agreement that universities vary in the ethnic composition of their applicant pools and that it is therefore necessary to know the actual ethnic breakdowns for each school AND for different ethnic groups within each school before any meaningful comparisons can be made or conclusions drawn. Finally, we’ve gotten an acknowledgement from you that to the extent that there is a problem it is not unique to Princeton. I won’t even get into the issue of your ‘friend’.</p>

<p>Finally, I extend to you a request. If you can avoid mischaracterizations and exaggerations in regard to Princeton, you may really be able to contribute something to a debate which is both important and complex, just like the admission process itself. (I still, however, disagree with your desire to get rid of affirmative action.)</p>

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<p>You come across as mildly patronizing, but I will take your thanks.</p>

<p>My stance has not changed as much during this discussion as you suggest. I have never insisted that Harvard was not a subject of the Princeton study. I have still not ruled out the overwhelming likelihood that Princeton was one of the institutions studied. It has never been my intention to bash Princeton despite what you seem to believe. And no, I am not yet convinced that the urban/suburban campus difference exonerates Princeton. It may, but the jury is still out. I think the best way is for Princeton (and other elite colleges) to make its data available to the public or at least to a disinterested third party so that the ethnic makeup of applicants and admittees can be analyzed and the question of a possible bias ruled out. Hopefully that's what the Dept of Education is currently working on.</p>

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<p>A measured and civil response, Ske. I commend you. Though I disagree with you at very fundamental levels, perhaps we can still have a conversation. Now…about that study that you still need to read…</p>