"Race" in College Admission FAQ & Discussion 7

[siserune]

<p>

People quoting such SAT-equivalents as fact are usually repeating them as second-hand rumors of studies they have never seen. Such rumors are readily accepted and very rarely challenged in US (and some overseas!) Asian communities, insofar as they provide quantitative- and objective-sounding support (“Princeton studies have shown” ; “150 SAT points”) for pre-existing discrimination theories.

Isn’t the 150 points thing from the Epenshade study? Sorry if I’m wrong; it’s been a while since I’ve read it, and I don’t really feel like scouring my computer files for it. But I’m sure, as you are, that most people saying it here have not read it.

</p>

<p>I explained where the 150 (or 140, or 50) point figures come from in the posting you’re quoting. </p>

<p>Those throwing around the Asian SAT penalty numbers as factual, might want to test the theory against a search in the Google books archive for “Espenshade Radford Chung underperformance Asian”. E-R-C are the authors of the 2009 book.</p>

[tokenadult]

<p>

@AdmissionsOffice

I’m an admissions officer

</p>

<p>The College Confidential Terms of Service </p>

<p>[College</a> Confidential - FAQ: College Discussion - TOS & FAQ](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_new_faq_item]College”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_new_faq_item) </p>

<p>include a section about member claims to be college officers: </p>

<p>[College</a> Confidential - FAQ: College Discussion - TOS & FAQ](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_new_faq_item]College”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_new_faq_item) </p>

<p>

@College Confidential Terms of Service

College Professionals. Some of our members are be admissions officials, administrators, or faculty at a college or university. Occasionally, a member may falsely claim to hold such a position. To protect our student and parent members, there are two ways that a higher education professional can post. First, that member can contact the forum administrator and present independently verifiable information as to personal identity and school; that individual can then receive “College Rep” status, which indicates that CC has taken reasonable steps to verify the individual is from the claimed school. The school must be identified publicly, although the individual’s personal info will not be disclosed. Second, if an individual prefers to remain anonymous, he or she will refrain from making claims (even if true) as to current position. E.g., “I’m an admissions officer at a selective liberal arts college” would not be permitted. Such members will still develop a reputation for expertise, of course, if their body of posts demonstrates their knowledge. CC members are advised NOT to publicly question the credentials of a new member claiming a university affiliation. Rather, they should call the post to the attention of the moderators or the administrator so that CC policy may be explained and any necessary verification take place.

</p>

<p>Based on the advice in that section, I have reported one post in this newly merged thread to the moderation team. Forum management will take steps to verify the identity of the poster.</p>

[tokenadult]

<p>On the general issue of applicants self-reporting race or ethnicity, it is important to remember that for students in higher education, declining to self-report either is a legal right protected by federal regulations </p>

<p>[U.S&lt;/a&gt;. Department of Education; Office of the Secretary; Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the U.S. Department of Education [OS]](<a href=“http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.html]U.S”>http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.html) </p>

<p>and as such shouldn’t be a basis for an adverse admission decision. The federal government is quite clear that racial or ethnic discrimination in college admission is illegal, period, </p>

<p>[Know</a> Your Rights](<a href=“http://ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/know.html]Know”>Know Your Rights) </p>

<p>so admission officers imposing their personal opinion about whether applicants from one “race” or another should self-report that race is an illegal practice. Any student of any race or ethnicity is permitted to decline to self-identify as to any or all applicable categories. </p>

<p>As an actual matter of fact, a large number of colleges admit a growing number of “race/ethnicity unreported” students each year, </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1064033868-post6.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1064033868-post6.html&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1064033879-post7.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1064033879-post7.html&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p><a href=“American Council on Education”>http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=CAREE&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=34214&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p><a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010152.pdf[/url]”>http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010152.pdf&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>so if your personal decision is not to self-report race or ethnicity, you will be in the company of thousands of successful college applicants.</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>

“Tokenadult’s threats” is an apt spelling, because not only have his threads tended to focus aplenty on white vs Asian admission, but he has been an activist in directly and indirectly promoting that subject through postings on CC and elsewhere, going as far as to encourage admissions discrimination complaints to the Office Of Civil Rights (of the US Dept of Education), i.e., sequels to the Jian Li case. Such complaints, even when groundless, can be quite costly for the universities accused.

</p>

<p>What kind of message are you sending? Don’t stand up for yourself because the accused has to pay to defend itself? I really hope you’re not trying to argue that people shouldn’t file complaints with the OCR because it might “be quite costly for the universities accused.” </p>

<p>

When elements of Espenshades studies are pointed out that contradict the discrimination theories, one starts to see those aspects challenged, uncomfortably avoided, the ominous spectre of racism raised, and so on — the Anything But Data school of interpretation. We’ve seen this in CC when discussing the data on Asian underperformance (you read that correctly!) in “admissions” selections represented by elite math competitions and other high-level measures.

</p>

<p>What “elements” are you talking about? And if you want to bring up the “elite math competitions” discussions from a previous incarnation of this thread, siserune, I would still like to hear you rescind your offensive and utterly baseless suggestion that East Asian parents encourage their children to pick “low hanging fruit.”</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>

What none of these discrimination accusers will tell you, is that Espenshade also found the same type of statistical evidence, corroborating what was long noticed in upper levels of academia, of Asian over-preparation prior to admission, and academic under-performance by Asians once in college. The latter is usually a signature of affirmative action (in this case, seemingly in favor of Asians), but it is also consistent with universities discriminating to a lesser extent than a meritocracy would require, maybe because of legal constraints.

</p>

<p>Oh, really? Links or page numbers, please.</p>

[thrill]

<p>

I’m an admissions officer and one of the things we absolutely hate to see are asians who try to hide their identity by changing legal last names to something like Johnson or Cunningham and then not check the race box in order to not get disadvantaged in admissions. It’s absolutely unethical to imply you are a different race and when we meet them face to face after admissions (we do for every applicant to confirm their race) we see that disparity we will often rescind their acceptance.

</p>

<p>The unethical act here is when you assume, or actively determine, someone’s race and make a decision based on it.</p>

[SaintSaens]

<p>It’s an unlawful one, too.</p>

[kablam237]

<p>Mine won’t help. (asian)</p>

[kablam237]

<p>anyone want to answer?</p>

[Redroses]

<p>What’s your last name?</p>

[raelah]

<p>You do not have to put your ethnicity, there’s like a law that says no one is forced to report their ethnicity on college apps. So if you don’t want to, don’t put it. Although your name might give it away.</p>

[entomom]

<p>Ethnicity and race are optional, as plainly stated on any college application.</p>

[applicannot]

<p>You don’t have to put it down, and don’t worry about your last name. My last name is French, but I’m far from it. The race bias isn’t as strong as perceived here; and either way, they aren’t going to reject you based on your last name. If you get rejected, it’s going to be because your application was weak.</p>

[tokenadult]

<p>Odd link, rather bereft of context and proper citation, that I just found while doing a Google search that I thought would lead me somewhere else: </p>

<p>[Untitled</a> Document](<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~hist32/History/White.htm]Untitled”>Untitled Document)</p>

[Hope_Full]

<p>I really think this anti-Asian hype is overblown. I am Asian and was accepted to every school to which I applied. My four best friends are Asian and will be attending Harvard, Yale, MIT, and UCLA. The top students in my school are predominately Asian and I have seen no backlash or evidence that it was harder for us to go to great schools. Most importantly, none of us hid our ethnicity, so my advice to you is to proudly state your ethnicity.</p>

[glido]

<p>You don’t have to put it down. It is okay to ask to stand as an individual and not be placed in an ethnic grouping - that is so 20th century Europe.</p>

[Browniebaker]

<p>^^ Hope Full, that is a very small sampling on which to base your conclusion.</p>

[Bedouin]

<p>Statistics show that putting down ‘White’ or ‘Asian’ is like shaving off .5 points off of your gpa and 200 points off of your SAT scores. Not OR… I mean AND.</p>

<p>Of course, in PC America of course no one will talk to you. :rolleyes:</p>

[Nick567]

<p>Statistics show that? I’d love to be pointed to them.</p>

[Beowulf]

<p>not quite the same study as Bedouin mentioned but: [Princeton</a> University - Study: Ending affirmative action would devastate most minority college enrollment](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S11/80/77I23/index.xml]Princeton”>Study: Ending affirmative action would devastate most minority college enrollment)</p>