Regarding Nobel prizes, your claim that the reason for the huge overrepresentation of Jews receiving them is because they were preferentially admitted to elite institutions is simply wrong. I just scanned a list and saw 1 (who received a masters) from an elite institution. It can take 30-40 years after an achievement for a Nobel prize to be awarded, particularly in the sciences. The committee waits until the achievement is commonly accepted in general practice.
Jews of the past tended to focus in science, primarily because it was a way to obtain success based solely on merit in an antisemitic society where many businesses were closed to them.
Even after overt discriminatory practices in elite institutions ended, legacy -which was instituted to disadvantage Jews - was continued.
See, https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-discriminating-against-jews-2014-12
Many much more informed writers than I have tried to explain Jewish success in Nobels and in general. It goes back to being a persecuted immigrant group (and, many of the Nobel winners experienced extreme antisemitism), which also highly values learning (back to the time when Jewish boys/men spent the day learning the Talmud). Jews of my parents generation were overrepresented in scientific fields, especially medicine, fields of meritocracy. There is discussion that Jewish Nobel prize winners in the sciences will be declining. With more avenues open to Jews, there are far fewer Jews obtaining scientific PhDs.
As for Jewish NMFs, I am not informed on that front. As another poster mentioned, many Jews, including my children, do not have Jewish last names. My son did not check a religion box as we thought it would be detrimental and, although I am trying to dispel the myth of “Jewish favoritism” which as you say the alleged Jews running the elite institutions are “good at hiding,” we are not religious. All I know is that my son scored in the 99th%. He is not attending an elite insitution.
What I, and many writers believe, is that the Asians are the “new Jews.” They too are immigrants striving to get ahead through education, and elite institutions are striving to maintain a “balanced” class at their expense.
Just a guess, with regard to NMF, if it is true that there are few Jewish winners, it may have to do with the fact that Jewish families are highly concentrated in just a few areas. Mostly, New York, NJ and Connecticut – states with the highest scoring requirements. If NMF scored nationally, it might be different. In essence, the Jewish students are all competing with each other.
Again, just a guess.
@gallentjill that’s a great point and probably has something to do with it. The NMF’s cutoffs vary a lot by state.
Another consideration is that NMF is based off of the PSAT, as we all know. I think part of the defense of many Jewish applicants getting spots at top schools is that culturally Jewish families value hard work, especially as it relates to education. So they might be studying really hard for the SAT (or ACT) and therefore pulling up their scores more than many others.
Regarding Jewish people, http://www.pewforum.org/2016/12/13/jewish-educational-attainment/ indicates that Jewish people are relatively highly educated compared to where they live. For example, in North America, 40% of the overall population but 75% of the Jewish population have some post-secondary formal education.
Whatever the historical reasons are behind this phenomenon, since educational attainment tends to transmit well across generations, it should not be surprising to see Jewish people well represented in educational achievements.
On Stuyvesant:
Investigators found that Stanley Teitel (right), the former principal of Stuyvesant High School, tried to sweep a massive, 66-student cheating ring under the rug, part of a pattern of hushing up cheating at the elite school.
“You could call Stuyvesant a meritocracy. Your worth is kind of judged on your academic success. Everyone here is pushing for the Ivies,” freshman Matthew Qiu, 15, told The Post. “Some kids do it by studying. Other kids don’t want to put in the effort or they aren’t able to, so they cheat.”
A survey by the student newspaper, The Spectator, found a stunning 83 percent of 329 responding students admitted they cheated at the elite institution. https://nypost.com/2018/01/27/cheating-still-rampant-at-disgraced-stuyvesant-school/
My point is that pure meritocracies can and do lead one down the slippery slope of a numbers game and cheating is only one of the dangers.
Others include performance enhancing drug abuse and serious anxiety and depression which leads to more cheating…drugs…
Wouldn’t partial meritocracies (e.g. competition for admission to super-selective colleges) be even worse, in that if the aspirants believe that only a portion of the spots are available for ordinary people like themselves (versus whatever favored groups that they are not part of), the pressure becomes even greater (whether the merit is measured by numbers or by something subjectively and/or holistically graded)?
My two “jews” (4.0/35ACT) and (4.0/1550SAT) both with 800 Math2 and 780/790 Physics/Bio SAT2s with a nice set of ECs did not get a even sniff from ivy admissions. One of them had a perfect score on an AP exam so around top .1 -.2%.
BTW, if a non-jew says “jew”, I find that offensive. I hear “adjective”-jew. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to what some of the adjectives might be.
Call me a “Jewish-American”.
re: post # 2128: Stuyvesant lives in a fishbowl though. Practically every move they make is reported in the news.
@NoKillli I agree, thanks for speaking up. I rarely post in this forum but check it occasionally; I have neither the education nor pertinent sources to cite for support of my opinion. Yet tonight I’ll chime in with personal experience.
My DD is a “super senior” at Penn (medical leave sophomore year, graduating this December.) She is biracial, identifies as black. She is Jewish by heritage (mine,) yet we are atheist. Which of those characteristic gained her holistic admission to Penn, with a 1450 SAT, 32 ACT and 2 SAT subject scores over 700? I am SO TIRED of the position that only perfect test scores qualify you to elite school admissions.
Do any of the regular posters here actually know any URM students? One of my DD’s (black) friends is headed to Oxford on a Fulbright scholarship; she was a film/writing concentration at Penn. Another has started education charities in disadvantaged countries and after graduation left for Uganda. Every single person I have met over her 4 years has been exceptional in some way, and no one asks for their high school admittance test scores. Because there is SO MUCH MORE that makes them extraordinary!
And yes, the constant referral to “Jews” here is insulting, even to an atheist.
Jews are an ethnic group so I don’t see how that’s insulting. IT seems like people are diverting fro mthe core issue. One mainstream caucasian group is GROSSLY overrepresnted in college admissions despite scoring less than ethnic minorities, and the reason, by the college adcoms own standards, is not transparent. That is cause for worry and it seems like racism.
Stop focusing on the J word and focus onthe narrative being told. It shouldn’t be right to discriminate either group
You do know how black people got to the Caribbean right?
not as a result of the US government? The SC affirmative action decision specifically cites the US Government’s treatment of African Americans over and over. Or are we going to generalize all white people are slave traffickers? This is moving beyond the scope of CC
@elopez1275 Since you are not a Jewish person yourself, perhaps you should not be asserting how Jewish people would like to refer to themselves.
@elopez1275 Let’s get this out in the open: You have multiple posts where you espouse the need to put a “quota” on Jewish people as part of affirmative action. Why do you feel a need to attack this one group? And what exactly are you suggesting to implement such a quota? Are you advocating for some sort of law that requires Jewish people to report their religion on applications? Perhaps you think Jewish people should also wear yellow stars? And then, you also express a wish for affirmative action for Muslim people. I just want others on this thread to see the full range and ramifications of your self-serving posts.
For the record, there is no evidence that Jewish people score lower on ANY academic metric than other ethnic minorities. Right now, in the US, many Jewish people do not mark their religion when asked, so any statistics on this matter may be skewed. And of course there is no evidence that there is affirmative action for Jewish people, nor has it ever been requested. I understand you would like to argue that based on spurious statistics. Have you ever studied statistics formally? It doesn’t seem so from your posts. So please, stop saying things are facts, when they are merely inventions of self-serving conspiracy theorists.
Your suggestion that Jewish people are over-represented in academia and therefore must somehow be granting themselves AA in admissions is based on faulty logic. By the same logic, we could assume Jamaicans excel at running because the Olympics grants them AA in start positions. Does that really make sense? Perhaps instead, Jamaican culture admires and promotes running as the national sport, children start training at an early age, and many Jamaican individuals have a physique naturally compatible with this skill set. No AA required to explain their success.
Wrong my grandmother was. 1. This is not about personal attacks, we can’t get that low
- I don't think we should have a quota on Jews, however if one were to be consistent that would be the case (in fact as I pointed out multiple times we already have had them in the past, and they were the basis for 'whole character admissions'
“For the record, there is no evidence that Jewish people score lower on ANY academic metric than other ethnic minorities” This is false. You keep asserting this, please see Ron Unz’s article Japanese Indian and Koreans score higher than many Jewish Americans. In fact Unz, himself a Jew points out that many Jewish Americans today underperform their forefathers.
As for the last point, I implied this because this seems to be the norm wiith any college administration/organization that favors it’s own, consciously or subconsciously. Pointin out a ‘culture of hard work’ is faulty…Asians also have a culture of hard work. That’s not a point of variance.
Im not for or against race based admissions. But I am for consistency, you simply cannot in 2018 discriminate against a non-caucasian group while allowing no such quotas for other groups. That is the definition of racial discrimination.
@ELopez1275 they were brought from the same slave markets in Africa to the Caribbean in the same ships by the same slave merchants as US slaves. Who bought those slaves varied by country or colony but they share the same, or very similar, history of slavery, is what I said.
Often rules or executive orders are replaced when the other party takes over. If administrations want things to be permanent, they need to enact them as legislation.
I think schools will do what they want to do to promote racial diversity.
From my understanding, the change in is merely in guideline and not in the actual policy itself. Most colleges will likely continue to use affirmative action unless a law gets passed or it is invalidated by the Supreme Court. The policy existed long before Obama’s era and that specific court case, as there have been several precedents.
The thing is Asian-Americans at other places directly benefit from affirmative action, especially if you are a pacific islander or a underrepresented minority within that umbrella. Also in my opinion embracing diversity and reversing centuries of discrimination is a good thing.
In my opinion the central issue at stake here is what is described in this article, potential stereotyping, not AA.
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/6/27/17509140/admissions-bias-personalities-harvard-affirmative-action
According to this:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-drops-obama-era-154720371.html
The Trump admin. is trying to reverse Obama-era’s promote racial diversity.
What do you think this of policy? Will he succeed?