What are you basing this on? The percentage of Asian students at different “elite” colleges is highly variable. The numbers below show the percent of undergrad students who as listed on IPEDS. I listed two numbers – the first is the percent Asian, assuming no International students or students who do not check the ethnicity box are Asian. The second number assumes ~2/3 of students who are International or did not check the ethnicity box are Asian:
Caltech: 43-49% Asian
Berkeley: 35-46% Asian
CMU: 30-46% Asian
MIT: 26-34% Asian
Princeton; 21-31% Asian
Harvard: 17-27% Asian
Williams: 13-19% Asian
Notre Dame: 5-9% Asian
Ah, I should have been more clear. I should have stated elite colleges who have holistic admission process (i.e. where racial composition can be manipulated).
Why are you including international Asian students in your numbers? Why are you conflating Asian Asians with Asian-Americans? Colleges mark international students as international and don’t count them under their racial categories. Asian Asians are not the subject of current admission discrimination controversy and should not be lumped together with Asian-Americans.
Using the most recent incoming class demographics (Class of 2022). Asian-Americans make up:
Harvard - 18.1%
Yale - 21.7%
Princeton - 20%
Dartmouth - 21% Brown - ? - 14,7% (Class of 2021 per NCES/IPEDS)
Cornell - 18.7% Columbia - ? - 17.3% (Class of 2021 per NCES/IPEDS) UPenn - ? - 19.5% (Class of 2021 per NCES/IPEDS)
Stanford - ? - 21.6% (Class of 2021 per NCES/IPEDS)
MIT - 37%
Williams - 18.9% Amherst - ? - 14.3% (Class of 2021 per NCES/IPEDS)
These numbers come straight from each respective colleges’ admission web site. Interestingly, Brown, Columbia, UPenn, Stanford, and Amherst do not break out the racial composition. As I’ve said, Asian-American students are capped at around or below 20% with the exception of MIT which seems to be the outlier with 37% Asian-American.
It’s like they are in cahoots together, colluding or something. B-)
FWIW, I just read a post that claimed Brown is the most holistic in their admission process among Ivy League schools. Interestingly, Brown has the lowest Asian-American percentage. Most holistic = Lowest Asian-American?
I listed 2 numbers for each college – one assuming international students and students who check unknown are not Asian, and one including these groups.
That is generally not an accurate source for comparisons between different colleges. Different websites handle muti-racial and international students differently in their website reporting, often in a way to inflate/deflate to closer to desired percentages.
For example, you mentioned MIT was an outlier with 37% Asian as listed at https://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/profile/ . However, MIT says the fall 2017 cohort was 27% Asian at http://web.mit.edu/ir/pop/students/diversity.html. Why the difference? At the bottom, of the first link, they say “Total exceeds 100% of class because U.S. students may indicate more than one race/ethnicity.” Double counting students who enter multiple races inflates the number of minorities above IPEDS/federal definitions in the 2nd link, including Asian. Considering the format and the high 127% sum, I expect they are also allowing international students to indicate race. For example, if a student says they are international and Asian, they count as both the 8% international and the 37% Asian.
In contrast, the Federal/IPEDS numbers I listed use the same consistent racial definitions for all colleges.
The numbers below list the percent Asian undergrads, among US residents who select a single race, as listed in IPEDS (% Asian / (total - excluded categories)). It’s true that Harvard and Yale are around 20%, but other selective colleges have a wide range varying from near 5% to more than 40% – not just near 20%, like Harvard and Yale… In general selective colleges that have a larger portion of STEM majors have a larger portion of Asian students, while LACs and other selective colleges with few STEM majors have a relatively smaller portion of Asian students. .
In my original post, the first number I listed assumes all international students are not Asian. It also assumes all students who do not check the box listing their ethnicity are not Asian. Obviously these are not accurate assumptions, but there are also valid reasons to exclude these two categories, as you touched on. So I listed two sets of numbers, one that excludes these two categories and one that includes them. The later number might be used to better compare the percentage of students who consider themselves to be Asian.
Data10, please don’t confuse people by using the international Asian percentage. That is a completely separate pool of applicants that isn’t relevant but can be misleading.
Asian American college aged population doubled in 20 years. The USA population grew only 25% in these years.
The Asian American percent very suspiciously converged to a very similar number for all Ivy league colleges.
Not only has the population increased. The overall quality of the Asian American population has increased. Many of the Asian immigrant parents of Asian Americans in this generation grew up after the cultural revolution and after Asian poverty.
From 1965, Asian immigration has been heavily PhD student and skilled labor based, so it is not like it is a new thing that Asian immigrant parents are highly educated (and therefore associated with their kids’ educational attainment advantage), regardless of how rich or poor their origin countries were and are (and the cultural revolution was PRC-specific, not applicable to other places in Asia).
“FWIW, I just read a post that claimed Brown is the most holistic in their admission process among Ivy League schools. Interestingly, Brown has the lowest Asian-American percentage. Most holistic = Lowest Asian-American?”
For Brown (or any school) the statistic “percentage of an individual race attending” indicates very little in isolation.
One has to consider the size, quality and yield from the individual ethnic group to determine if the school is showing bias or preference versus candidates self selecting away.
As a hypothetical if a school has a relatively low versus peers number of Ethnic group X applicants, a lesser quality applicant pool within group X, or a lower percentage of group X matriculating once accepted, the final percentage of an entire class will tell very little about the issue of race or quotas.
Some STEM schools are particularly appealing to some groups, some schools value different types of ECs in applicants, and I am sure some schools are regrettably using hidden quotas. With that said you can’t use a simple outcomes number to determine input criteria such as “Holistically=few Asian Americans”.
You do realize that when you modify the data with, as you acknowledge, not accurate assumptions, you invalidate the resulting data and any conclusion you make from the said resulting data.
What I find egregious is the way your present your false and misleading data to give an air of legitimacy and credibility when, in fact, your data is nothing more than made-up numbers. All your posts mentioning your bogus numbers should be retracted/deleted.
So you are assuming that there is no difference between Asians and Asian-Americans. That’s down right racist. You ever hear of “perpetual foreigner” stereotype, that Asian-American are not and cannot be real Americans?
My only guess at your conflating the Asian and Asian-American numbers is that you are a proponent of holistic admission and want to give an impression that there is a large number of “Asians” at elite colleges and, therefore, there is no discrimination of Asian-Americans.
One of the worst offense in academic research is manipulating the data to fit the hypothesis.
I was perfectly happy to jump to my conclusion. Thank you. Who knows why Brown has noticeably lower percentage of Asian-Americans. My guess is that it’s one of the least known elite colleges or something about Brown that is not appealing to Asian-American students, hence fewer Asian-Americans apply to Brown compared to other elite schools. Who knows?
Ap0state impressive how you appear to take all sides of an argument in the pursuit of invariably being right in one of your conflicting statements. Emoji smile aside.
I wont digress to “guess” the basis of a school’s demographic breakout to avoid sounding stupid. Perhaps you should follow suit.
" I just read a post that claimed Brown is the most holistic in their admission process among Ivy League schools." I wouldn’t assume your lack of familiarity with Brown is held by more informed populations. Perhaps more reading on your part is in order as each of your posts suggest an evolution of thought based on piecemeal review. Certainly the 36,000 kids who applied to Brown didn’t view it as “least known” nor is the 7.2% acceptance rate consistent with your comments.
Each school has unique dynamics at play that aren’t pejorative in spite of your apparent goal of provocation.
Ap0state- Sorry didn’t realize you were “time outed” or I wouldn’t have responded and left you unable to respond. Always welcome conversation even with those I disagree with.
You quoted my post in a misleading way. The first number is a direct quote of the federally reported Asian percentage from IPEDS. There is no data modification. This direct quote from IPEDS is the one that has the “not accurate assumptions” I referred to since it does not consider categories like students who do not check the ethnicity box among the Asian grouping. I attempted to compensate for some of these factors in the 2nd number. If it’s too complicated, just look at the first number, which is the Asian percentage that the colleges report to IPEDS.
The calculations were all well defined. The “made up number” is the one you listed in your quote that started this – “All the elite universities and colleges cap Asian-American percentage to around or below 20%.” The 20% seems to be based on the percentage Asian listed in the Harvard lawsuit and assumed to be similar at “all elite university colleges” for no good reason. Highly selective colleges that are similar to Harvard tend to have a similar percentage of Asian students. However, not all selective colleges are closely similar to Harvard or even closely similar to Ivies. The numbers below show the IPEDS category percentages as direct quotes. As you can see from the examples, there are a wide variety of Asian percentages. They are not all near 20%, like the Harvard lawsuit.
Selective colleges with a higher portion of STEM majors tend to have a larger portion of Asian students. Examples are below:
Carnegie Mellon – 30% Asian, 30% White, 19% International, 8% Hispanic, 5% Black, 9% Other
MIT – 26% Asian, 35% White, 10% International, 15% Hispanic, 6% Black, 9% Other
Johns Hopkins – 23% Asian, 38% White, 11% International, 13% Hispanic, 6% Black, 9% Other
Some selective colleges have a high Asian percentage for other reasons. One example is:
Emory: Oxford – 28% Asian, 32% White, 16% International, 9% Hispanic, 8% Black, 6% Other
Selective LACs with a smaller portion of STEM majors tend to have a smaller portion of Asian students. Some LACs treat Asian students as an URM. Some examples with lower Asian percentages are below:
Oberlin – 4% Asian, 66% White, 9% International, 8% Hispanic, 5% Black, 9% Other
Middlebury – 7% Asian, 64% White, 10% International, 9% Hispanic, 3% Black, 6% Other
Haverford – 10% Asian, 59% White, 10% International, 8% Hispanic, 7% Black, 6% Other
Some selective non-LACs have low Asian percentages for other reasons besides lack of STEM, such as religious colleges. Some examples of non-LACs with lower Asian percentages are below:
Notre Dame – 5% Asian, 69% White, 6% International, 11% Hispanic, 4% Black, 5% Other
Georgetown – 9% Asian, 54% White, 14% International, 8% Hispanic, 6% Black, 7% Other
I am taking all sides because I have no sides. It’s not that I want to be right. I don’t know what or who is right. Both sides offer good points and bad points.
And there appears to be exceptions to rule on both sides. The most recent one is Brown - lowest Asian-American percentage and yet considered then dropped from DOJ probe. Yale who had the highest Asian-American percentage gets targeted. It makes me wonder.
What can I say? I am an admirer of Socratic method. I would have hoped to have stimulated more conversation.
You have yet to give a reason why you are conflating international Asian numbers with Asian-American numbers. Your numbers do not reflect the Asian-American percentage at the top schools and irrelevant to the thread topic. Just stop.
Who knows why Brown has noticeably lower percentage of Asian-Americans. My guess is that it’s one of the least known elite colleges or something about Brown that is not appealing to Asian-American students, hence fewer Asian-Americans apply to Brown compared to other elite schools. Who knows?
