"Race" in College Applications FAQ & Discussion 12

Applying to College
2281

Not necessarily, @SculptorDad. Harvard is free to use pretty much any criteria it wants. For instance, it could auction off admissions spots, grant even more outrageous preferences to legacies, impose a cap on how many “smart people” it wants, grant huge preferences for low SES, etc. Any of these or any number of other methods or combinations thereof would create a class quite different from MIT’s or UCB’s.

What Harvard should not be allowed to do under the law is to create different standards for different races. That’s just the way our legal system works. Harvard wants its cake and it wants to eat it too. It apparently wants a class that can only be created through race discrimination, and that should not be tolerated.

2282

I have accepted major quotas like this as well. Perhaps they are for the greater good of our society. But it always feels bad for making the data “highly confidential” and then blaming Asian kids for not being holistic.

2283

I doubt that. Apparently it is legal enough as long as it increases diversity and the result becomes closer to demographic of general population.

2284

Just wondering why it is that it is so generally accepted that every university, especially the super elites MUST seek to represent the demographic of the general population…
Academics are a rigorous endeavor at that level and I don’t see similar complaints about professional sports, music or the tech industry-where talent is everything.
Now, socioeconomic opportunity is a different matter which many universities can and do address-and I am all for that.
But priorities based on skin color and hair texture seems more like a PR move, since many of the beneficiaries are high socioeconomic status and/or international.

2285

@SculptorDad and @SatchelSF The problem with putting your finger on the scale is, no one ever agrees how much pressure to apply. For one race, group or other category it’s enough, for others it’s too much. It’s shameful that Harvard has excluded an entire group of people who would have gotten in had they been another race.

That changes society too! The problem with colleges trying to reflect the demographics of race in their class is, they muddle the waters. Like communism, it sounds like a good idea until it plays out. Utopian ideals and people rarely thrive. In the case of Harvard, how many kids did they lose because they were Asian? Some of these kids went to MIT and Cal Tech undoubtably. But others went to schools where their access to the best education was denied. Not fair.

This is especially true of Asian kids who are low income. What’s their trajectory? Why should someone who is an URM in a specific category sail past some Asian kid with higher everything? It doesn’t make sense. And the other kids know when a student is weak. This detracts from the overall class.

Harvard is definitely in hot water this time.

2286

@Happytimes2001 I am one who does not think Harvard is truly worried about what happens. As a private institution with a $37,000,000,000+ endowment, I think they have the option to reject all federal funds and still be able to function under their current processes. I believe they could charge $100,000 a year right now or have a fundraiser and cover the entire amount received by the federal government. Not every elite university would have that same pull, but no one is going to be happy with the final decision is what I am predicting. I have always believed that a shift to account more for socioeconomic status would still bring in a number of URMs and protect Harvard and other elites from charges of reverse discrimination, but these same discussions we are having about URMs would just switch to poorer elite students as those spots are so coveted.

2287

I probably should know this, but does the UC system rely only on stats? GPA and scores? How are they LESS holistic?

I still feel like “race” should be allowed to be a “holistic” factor because you could just as easily argue that having the cultural diversity is just as important as other holistic measurements, like unique talents/skills/accomplishments/experiences. But only when the applicant from the URM race truly has a less represented background and he/she is not just checking a box because they are 1/8th hispanic.

@dragonmom I completely agree with your thoughts on socioeconomic factors. I think that is the one area we all mostly agree on…that she be a bigger factor than anything else. It’s easier to justify giving a spot to someone at an elite university because they truly haven’t had the opportunity based on where they live and how bad their schools might be.

I do think that the amazing applicants that aren’t getting into their top schools can and probably will still end up somewhere just fine and end up doing just fine in life. But that’s a different conversation.

2288

UC practices a holistic review without race. California law prohibits the consideration of an applicant’s race and/or gender in individual admission decisions.

UC legally can’t. But it still tries to promote racial diversity by promotions that target areas with minority population. It just can’t distinguish individual applicant’s race in the target areas. An Asian applicant in mostly Hispanic population area may get the same benefit with his/her Hispanic neighbors.

Top UC campuses have well over 40% Asian students

While not legally required, Caltech is also not race-conscious. Actually Caltech is probably the only top university that considers purely academic merit only on admission, and also has over 40% Asian students.

MIT’s admission is race-conscious. But it seems is less so because it still has about 30% Asian students, which is significantly higher than average 20% at Stanford, IVY and other top colleges including Harvey Mudd.

Considering that accepted Asian students have a bit higher enrollment rate at those top schools, actual admission quota of Asian is thought to be somewhat less than 20% at most of top colleges.

2289

I collected these numbers from the colleges’ own website in 2012. I don’t want to do it again now but I see no reason that the numbers would be significantly different now.

Colleges that likely do not have Asian Quota (% of Asian Students)

Cal Tech (37%)
MIT (30%)
UC Berkeley (41%)
UC Davis (40%)
UC LA (38%)
UC San Diego (41%)
UC Irvine (50%)

Colleges that likely have Asian Quota (% of Asian Students)

Stanford (22.4%)
Yale (15.5%)
Dartmouth (16.1%)
Harvard (19.1%)
Princeton (17.6%)
U Penn (23%)

2290

People should also realize that low SES white kids likely have just as hard of a time getting in as Asians generally. After all, when you add up all the preferences for development, legacies, faculty kids and athletic recruits, you have already accounted for more than half the white admits. And, as should be obvious by now to everyone, Harvard is most certainly applying racial quotas as part of its target class composition.

2291

@SatchelSF, the article you quoted on post 2280 suggests that 75% of admitted White students are based on Academics only. All the preferences for development, legacies, faculty kids and athletic recruits don’t seem to add up to much more than 25%. Therefore, I can’t agree with your assertion that “low SES white kids likely have just as hard of a time getting in as Asians,” unless you were comparing low SES White kids to average Asians rather than low SES Asians.

2292

@SculptorDad

That post 2280 simply reflects changes in percentages of admitted students if race preference were eliminated but all other holistic criteria remained.

The actual numbers of preference admits was given by Arcidiacono in Table B.3.2R. For the admitted class, as a percentage of the white admits only:

Legacy – 24.5%
Dean/director list – 15.9%
Faculty/staff - 1.8%
Total – 42.2%

Now, recruited athletes are excluded from that expanded dataset, but are given elsewhere in the documents as ~16% of the white admits.

There are no doubt some small overlaps in these categories but if you run the numbers based on the percentage of white admits in the total class, the addition of the athletic recruits pushes the total well over 50%. Low SES whites might be in the athletic group to a small extent (but most sports are wealthy like lax or tennis), but by definition would not appear in the other categories.

In some ways, the lower percentage of recruited athletes in the Asian admit pool, and somewhat lower legacy and development percentages, makes it a bit easier for low SES Asians to be admitted in my opinion. It would appear that that message has gotten out, as fully 10% of the Asian applicant pool is tagged as disadvantaged while only 6% of the white applicant pool is so tagged (same Table B.3.2R).

I hope that helps; as always I would welcome any input on getting these numbers more accurate - the documents contain a sometimes bewildering array of figures and data presentations!

http://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Doc-415-2-Arcidiacono-Rebuttal-Report.pdf (see p. 144 for table)

2293

@SatchelSF,

The Legacy - 24.5% and Dean/director list - 15.9% includes those who could get in with pure academics, while the post also shows % changes by adding legacy, athlete, EC and Personal, which increased White percentage from 9.43% to 12.45%. (12.45-9.43)/12.45 = 24.3% of potential White admitted without considering demographics are White kids who took the spots without Academic merit.

The actual stats would be different and I made several assumptions for the simple calculation. But while none of the numbers, both in the source data and the calculated values are very scientific, I think 24.3% is a better estimate than $42.2% is the number we need to consider to see unfair disadvantages low SES Whites receive.

The same chart suggests that 19.1% are either or both of legacy and athlete, which is somewhat consistent with ~16% of White admits being athlete.

With another similarly over-simplified estimate, please allow me to estimate that, among Asian kids with good enough academics, (17.35-12.66)/17.35 = 27.0% were eliminated for not being either of legacy and athlete, (12.66-10.48)/17.35 = 12.6% had lack of EC and personality. Then even among those who had Academics and survived other holistic reviews, 27% were eliminated just for being Asian. While 13.5% of White kids who survived other holistic reviews were eliminated just for being White.

It seems qualified Asians are still about twice more likely to be denied than qualified Whites based on race.

On the other hand, demographics of high school students and Fell grant recipients suggest that It is far less likely to be a low SES White than a low SES Asian. Consequently, college admission chance would be similarly, or even much more low for a low SES White student than for a low SES Asian student. That’s why I think we should move some of the focus on racial diversity to socio-economical diversity. That’s another discussion for another day for me.

2294

Caltech has holistic admissions and considers various non-academic criteria. For example, Caltech’s CDS marks character/personal qualities as important as academic ones. Caltech’s website gives a similar impression.

Some things that make Caltech different from other highly selective, holistic, private colleges such as .HYPS, are giving little boost to several of the most common hooks – race, legacy, and athlete. This also is one of the reasons why the percentage of Asian students is so high. The focus on STEM is another.

2295

Colleges list racial percentages on their website in different ways that often correspond to their institutional goals. For example, how are mixed ethnicity applicants considered? Or international? In some cases, it can lead to large differences in reported percentages. The difference is often especially notable for percent URM.

The percent Asian as listed in the most recent IPEDS is below. These use the same standard and consistent federal definition, which excludes 2 or more races and international. There is a positive correlation between Asian and STEM, but beyond that Caltech and Berkeley are outliers, which are both known to not consider race. Similarly both Caltech and Berkeley have a lower Black percentage than other selective colleges However, MIT doesn’t really fit this pattern. They do have a higher Asian percentage than HYPS, but this likely largely relates to the greater emphasis on STEM/tech.

Caltech – 43% Asian, 29% White, 1% Black
Berkeley – 35% Asian, 26% White, 2% Black
CMU – 30% Asian, 30% White, 5% Black
MIT – 26% Asian, 35% White, 6% Black
Johns Hopkins – 23% Asian, 38% White, 6% Black
Stanford – 21% Asian, 36% White, 6% Black
Princeton – 21% Asian, 43% White, 8% Black
Harvey Mudd – 19% Asian, 36% White, 3% Black
Harvard – 17% Asian, 43% White, 7% Black
Yale – 17% Asian, 46% White, 7% Black
Brown – 14% Asian, 42% White, 6% Black
Georgetown – 9% Asian, 54% White, 6% Black
Middlebury – 7% Asian, 64% White, 3% Black
Muhlenberg – 3% Asian, 75% White, 3% Black
Yeshiva – 0% Asian, 95% White, 0% Black

2296

It is well understood that MIT is more holistic than CalTech. Even 10 years ago, MIT was known to want smart basketball players over the 1000th Math Club applicant.

2297

56% of White admits were in the non-baseline group, which includes applicants the listed hooks as well as early action applicants. A good portion of this 56% were no doubt unhooked early action admits, so I think over 50% having the listed hooks is a high estimate. Nevertheless, the percentage of White admits is still quite high.

In the plantiff’s model, the regression coefficient for low SES flagged and White was +1.53 (0.14), and the combined regression coefficients for low SES and Asian was approximately +1.43. This suggests a significant boost for both groups, but less than the boost associated with the hook groups mentioned above. The Harvard OIR report at http://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Doc-421-112-May-1-2013-Memorandum.pdf came to similar conclusions, with low SES flagged applicants who received a high academic rating having a 24% admit rate, compared to 15% for applicants who were not low SES flagged.

However, low SES applicants often cannot apply early for financial reasons, and the penalty for not applying early almost exactly canceled out this boost in the plantiff’s model, with a regression coefficient of 1.53 (0.096) for applying early. Furthermore, low SES applicants are more likely to face disadvantages in various other sections of the application, compared to wealthier applicants. A good portion of low income applicants also are not flagged correctly as SES disadvantaged by admission officers. I’d expect low SES applicants to face more admission challenges than other applicants overall, regardless of race.

2298

“Just wondering why it is that it is so generally accepted that every university, especially the super elites MUST seek to represent the demographic of the general population…”

@dragonmom3 if you are genuinely interested this book explains the logic

https://www.amazon.com/Shape-River-William-Bowen/dp/0691050198

I am not saying it will convince you it is correct, but it will give you a comprehensive explanation of why.

2299

@Postmodern
I have not read the book you recommended, only read a couple reviews, and I found this excerpt from an one-star review of the book to be informative:
“Neither Princeton nor Harvard nor Williams nor Dartmouth, nor all of the select colleges and universities in this great nation combined, have enough slots in their programs to begin to remedy the impact of racism in our society. I find the idea that our select universities are going to independently remedy the wrongs of 400 years to be quaint indeed. Even the book argues that admission to the rest of the institutions doesn’t require special consideration (i.e. the test scores are high enough). I guess I find the idea a bit presumptuous, and I guess that I believe that integration of the campus is more for the benefit of the school and its administrators than for the students themselves, even if it is beneficial to those students, as the book so clearly demonstrates.”
What I would like to know is whether AA’s existence, actually hinders the more helpful implementations of much-needed improvements at public, pre-school/elementary/mid-/high-school level, which would have benefited a much larger student population than AA at selective colleges could ever achieve. Of course, it is a lot harder to do and a lot more expensive to achieve. But cost is always a relative term.

2300

@makemesmart if you read the book you will see the premise is much broader and more complex than stated by that reviewer. One major point was that balance enhances the universities and their mission. It’s not about reparations and the intent is not “to remedy the impact of racism in our society”.

The book is nearly entirely statistically based and makes a strong case that both the universities and society at large have benefit from racial balance considerations in college admissions. It’s the definitive volume on the subject and very useful for anyone who wants to move from a position solely based on ideology – even if you disagree with its conclusions.

Disclosure: While I am attempting to withhold my own opinions on this subject, I spent a week in China with the late Dr. Bowen long ago and remember him as a wonderful and brilliant person, so I do have a bias from that.