"Race" in College Admission FAQ & Discussion 11

<p>“It is a quota. Essentially. It is justified by encouraging racial diversity.”</p>

<p>Why is a quota needed? While NBA players are 80%(? not exact but looks like it.) blacks, do we need to ask NBA to implement quota? How about NFL? </p>

<p>There is nothing to justify using quota to screen less-qualified candidates in, sports and college admissions alike! (Otherwise, why is overpopulated with blacks acceptable?)</p>

<p>Caltech, which is a private institution with students from all states, has enrolled 40-50% Asian students. This is an admission process without race injected and students there are doing fine with the racial diversity. </p>

<p>[Office</a> of the Registrar - California Institute of Technology](<a href=“http://www.registrar.caltech.edu/statistics.htm]Office”>http://www.registrar.caltech.edu/statistics.htm)</p>

<p>Compare 40% Asians in top colleges to 80% Blacks in sports, I wouldn’t say 40% is over populated.</p>

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<p>So, let’s be 100% clear on this: you are saying that Asian enrollment at elites should be <6%? And whites should receive racial preferences, if need be, to get them from ~40% to ~60-~70%?</p>

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<p>How is it that whites bring “racial and thus cultural diversity to the table” when they go from ~40% to ~60-~70% but Asians do not when they go from <6% to ~15%?</p>

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<p>But you see that what you say justifies extremely imbalanced demographics? That what you say implies a view that individuals “represent” their racial classifications?</p>

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<p>Again, what you’re saying here justifies extremely imbalanced demographics and suggests a view that individuals “represent” their racial classifications, ancestries, and so forth.</p>

<p>Why can’t you have a Georgian choir with a 70% Asian student body? Your view of the world seems to rely heavily on people fitting coarse stereotypes.</p>

<p>To be honest, though I personally believe college admissions need to be more of a meritocracy than they currently are (at some places, anyways…) the idea that racial diversity is “good” for a college is actually not as emotionally-ground as you might think. Though this study was done on businesses and not colleges, it clearly shows a link between company revenue and company diversity. Humans simply work better in more diverse environments. <a href=“http://www.uww.edu/diversity/resources/does%20diversity%20pay.pdf[/url]”>http://www.uww.edu/diversity/resources/does%20diversity%20pay.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>This one says setting up less-qualified for failure is not helping them. And the admissions process is immoral.</p>

<p>New York Times:
Confessions of an Application Reader
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/ed...er=rss&emc=rss[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/ed...er=rss&emc=rss&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Last paragraphs: (and conclusion)</p>

<p>"The assistant director’s words — look for “evidence a student can succeed at Berkeley” — echoed in my ears when I wanted to give a disadvantaged applicant a leg up in the world. I wanted to help. Surely, if these students got to Berkeley they would be exposed to all sorts of test-taking and studying techniques. </p>

<p>But would they be able to compete with the engineering applicant with the 3.95 G.P.A. and 2300 SATs? Does Berkeley have sufficient support services to bridge gaps and ensure success? Could this student with a story full of stressors and remedial-level writing skills survive in a college writing course? </p>

<p>I wanted every freshman walking through Sather Gate to succeed. </p>

<p>Underrepresented minorities still lag behind: about 92 percent of whites and Asians at Berkeley graduate within six years, compared with 81 percent of Hispanics and 71 percent of blacks. A study of the University of California system shows that 17 percent of underrepresented minority students who express interest in the sciences graduate with a science degree within five years, compared with 31 percent of white students. </p>

<p>When the invitation came to sign up for the next application cycle, I wavered. My job as an application reader — evaluating the potential success of so many hopeful students — had been one of the most serious endeavors of my academic career. But the opaque and secretive nature of the process had made me queasy. Wouldn’t better disclosure of how decisions are made help families better position their children? Does Proposition 209 serve merely to push race underground? Can the playing field of admissions ever be level? </p>

<p>For me, the process presented simply too many moral dilemmas. In the end, I chose not to participate again. </p>

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<p>The paper you linked to, from the American Sociological Review, explicitly mentions that it makes no claims about whether (higher) racial diversity causes higher revenue, number of customers, and so forth. All it says to me is that larger organizations tend to be more racially diverse.</p>

<p>Any bets on how much longer until this thread gets locked?</p>

<p>If diversity is truly a goal that governments might want to promote, perhaps they ought to invest in high schools and education. Perhaps they ought to try to change the educational culture of the inner city or rural country. Perhaps they oughtn’t lower the educational standards of institutions of higher learning to pander to perceived inequality, real or imaginary.</p>

<p>Equality of results in college admissions is no equality at all. Rather, it is a trick of the pen, clever deceit of the numbers, as fair as excluding “Mestizos” from the Hispanic race and awing at a dramatic demographic transformation.</p>

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<p>That argument sounds like one a white person would make to acquire or defend a privileged position based on his/her race. Similar arguments were made 90 years ago:</p>

<p>[Harvard’s</a> Jewish Problem](<a href=“http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/harvard.html]Harvard’s”>Harvard's Jewish Problem)</p>

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I’m Asian, but good try.</p>

<p>To answer OP, pretty much, yeah. They’re biased against Asians and biased towards blacks and Hispanics. </p>

<p>Also, from my experience, not all Asians are violinists and STEM majors. (Some of us are pianists! :P)</p>

<p>No, but seriously, a lot of the Asians who graduated from my school and went to upper tier schools majored in social science stuff. Many wanted to go into medical school, so they majored in “easy” stuff to keep their GPAs up. One girl majored in English, I believe.</p>

<p>But in my opinion, I don’t think race should be factored in at all. An Asian who’s worked extremely hard throughout high school shouldn’t be rejected in favor of a black/Hispanic who has worked hard, but maybe not as much.</p>

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I hate those people, whatever race they may be. They ruin it for the rest of us who are pursuing what we love! haha </p>

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I would have agreed two years ago, but my views have changed somewhat. I mean, historically discriminated against groups have had it bad in education. I mean, I remember some black guy on here who was writing an essay on how his grades slipped because he didn’t want to fit into the stereotype of “being white” and doing well at school. </p>

<p>Social conditions also make it very hard for certain minorities to succeed. I mean, this is a starting point: [The</a> Other American Dream: Social Mobility, Race and Opportunity | Brookings Institution](<a href=“http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/social-mobility-memos/posts/2013/08/28-social-mobility-race-opportunity-reeves]The”>The Other American Dream: Social Mobility, Race and Opportunity | Brookings)
As a society, we need to figure out why black men who have never been in prison fare worse in the job market than white men who are fresh out of prison. As studies show, black children tend to be more at risk for being born into poverty. As a result, they don’t have the opportunities available to them that many whites and Asians have. In fact, Asians are generally an affluent group in this country - many hold advanced degrees, as a result of “brain drain” from China and India. </p>

<p>So it all comes down to how you define “working hard”. Does it mean getting good grades and SATs? Well, the white and Asians have the resources to prep for the SATs and also have the time to put in the work to get good grades. I mean, if you’re born into poverty, you most likely start working from a very young age to help support your family. That takes time away from ECs and homework, leading to lower grades. Then there’s the social stigma that associates doing well at school and going to top universities with “being white” - that aforementioned kid’s words, not mine. So it’s a lot more complicated than making it a meritocracy. It’d be a whole lot easier if people had the same opportunities, but the reality is, they don’t.</p>

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<p>That does not explain why you apparently believe that there should be affirmative action for white students over Asian students.</p>

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That was not addressed to you, so it obviously will not answer your question. I have answered that question and will do so again. I believe in admissions that reflects the demographics of the general population and not admitting overwhelming numbers of one racial category. I believe in this in the name of racial diversity. We are not going to get anywhere in this discussion. You and I obviously have different beliefs and, if you want to be mature about it, it’s no use attacking each other because they are equally valid. Now, if you want to PM me to discuss my exact beliefs and get all the details, feel free to do so. I just feel that it is no longer necessary to continue this discussion on this thread, as I have voiced my opinion and you have voiced yours; all that’s left now is to attack each other and get nowhere.</p>

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<p>Princeton undergraduates are about 19.8% Asian. This means that Asians are overrepresented at Princeton by 3.5 times relative to their 5.6% share of their population in the US.</p>

<p>Are you planning to transfer out of Princeton to help bring its demographics closer to your ideal of being “representative of the general population” in order to “to create an environment that is a microcosm of the real world, which fosters interactions between races that is the essence of a liberal arts education - to learn how to live together”? (post #16)</p>

<p>If not, are you that sure that you are in the top 28% of the 19.8% Asian students at Princeton (by whichever method Princeton admissions judges applicants) so that you “deserve” to be within the 5.6% Asian quota at Princeton that you advocate?</p>

<p>1) Transferring out of Princeton to make a point is idiotic. You need some sort of critical mass to be able to make change. I’d be perfectly happy if it was admissions season and I wasn’t admitted because of a race-proportionate admission policy. It would be fair and I wouldn’t think twice of it. I was recruited at several other colleges for athletics. At least I would have been able to continue my career (D3 caliber). </p>

<p>I don’t care if I am in the “top 28% of the 19.8% Asian students at Princeton…” Whether I deserve to be there is irrelevant. Making people, of any race, transfer OUT of Princeton once they have begun their undergraduate studies there is unethical. As I said, if Princeton would have changed its policy when I was applying, I would have been fine with it. </p>

<p>Now, you say “easy for you to say”. But when you make a policy change, you’re going to have to grandfather people in just for the sake of practicality and ethics. So your whole discussion about me transferring out is irrelevant. I will not entertain any other speculative questions about what would happen, retroactively, to those who have already been admitted. My model would be applied immediately and would take effect immediately, not retroactively, for the sake of ethics and practicality.</p>

<p>No one is making you transfer out. But you can voluntarily transfer out to make your actions match your words.</p>

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That’s like one person on an assembly line throwing down his tools and saying “I’ve had enough!”, walks out, and goes on strike. He will be ignored because he is the only one doing it. That is what a fool would do. To change the system, you must implement the alternative, which I concede does not look probable right now. My actions do match my words. My words are to apply the policy, which for the sake of practicality and ethics, cannot apply retroactively. My own situation has nothing to do with it. Get that through your head. We are done here.</p>

<p>This thread isn’t locked yet? Oh goodie…</p>

<p>When thinking of elite (mostly North Eastern) highly selective private schools, take into account we’re really talking about two pools of applicants. The first pool are “hooked”; one or both parents are alumni, they went to all of the right prep schools, and did all of the right EC’s. To some lesser degree, you could even include URM’s into this pool. Most Asians (being more recent entries to the US, say the last 100 years or so…) are not part of this group. </p>

<p>The second group, includes all other applicants. Out of this group, Asians do very well…hence the roughly 20% Asians in Harvard and Princeton.</p>

<p>So is it a disadvantage to not being a legacy and/or the senator’s/CEO’s child? Yep, but it’s the same disadvantage shared by the white kid in Kansas who lives on a farm.</p>

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<p>Actually, you can probably generate your desired attention by giving an interview with the campus newspaper about why you are transferring out. Or you can try to convince other Asian students to transfer out for the same reason that you do.</p>