and yet Asians are the only racial group that is penalized by Harvard’s personality scores… not whites or any other racial group which suggests a pervasive bias that is far from small.
and yet Asians have to score 140 points higher than whites for the same chances of admission to selective universities.
pretty clear that Harvard and many selective colleges (ie Stanford vs Berkeley) give preference to underqualified whites over more qualified Asians with higher SAT and GPAs
where exactly are you getting Berkeley data? from what years considering race and not considering race?
This can also be noticed among other racial and ethnic groups, where recent immigrant parents were selected by the immigration system to favor skilled workers and PhD students (i.e. people with BA/BS or higher degrees upon entry, possibly to attain higher degrees in the US). Parental educational achievement strongly correlates with kids’ educational achievement, so it is no surprise that kids of highly educated immigrants are more likely to be high educational achievers.
However, most people look at race/ethnicity first without looking deeper. The result is that, among white and black people, the relatively small number of such immigrants and their kids compared to the overall racial/ethnic populations tends to be ignored in discussions about educational achievement. However, the relatively large number of such immigrants among Asian people leads people to believe that the focus on educational achievement is an “Asian thing” rather than a “highly educated parents thing”. Hawaii is an example of a place with a large Asian American population but far less of a focus on educational achievement than commonly associated with Asian people, because the historical patterns of Asian immigration to Hawaii are different from those of the rest of the US (no one seems to be saying that University of Hawaii is an elite public university, for example).
It would not be surprising if what you noticed among African American Ivy League students were also present to some extent among European American students who did not have any of the preference characteristics like legacy or athlete.
Note that immigration from Mexico has the opposite effect, with few immigrants from Mexico having BA/BS degrees (compared to BA/BS degree attainment in either the US or Mexico).
Education has been highly valued in Northeast Asia since the time of Confucius (at least). China used an examination based merit system - of one form or another - for over 2000 years. The perception that educational achievement is an “Asian thing” has nothing to do with recent patterns of immigration.
Bachelor’s degree attainment in China today is a much lower percentage of the over 25 population than in the US. Do not assume that educational achievement of the elites reflects the entire population.
^ Don’t assume that a bachelor’s degree means anything in the United States. If I recall correctly, the extensive NALS data showed that the average United States holder of a postgraduate degree could barely read at an 11th grade level. Math was worse. I’ll see if I can find my cites and post.
None of what you wrote in #3663 or #3665 contradicts the fact that recent Chinese immigrants to the US are a highly selected subset of the Chinese population, and not representative of the overall Chinese population in education and related matters.
@ucbalumnus If a large percentage of unhooked White students attending Harvard were of recent European immigrants (with in 2 generations) as well, what would that say about the drive of multi-generational American households? That would be some very interesting data, but I bet it does not exist. Once a family hits generation 3 in America, I wonder how much of that initial drive and work ethic still remains from their great grandparents who made it to America. It is hard to remember the tough times and sacrifices when the 3rd generation born in America didn’t live through them.
That would be interesting, @ChangeTheGame . In general I think white Americans who have been here longest are generally wealthier and more educated, for a variety of reasons.
Just off the top of my head…
Earliest immigrants - meaning pre-colonial and colonial settlers - had a lot of resources available to them here. Unclaimed (by white people) land, slave labor, wealth from back home in some cases.
Many later (relatively speaking, 19th and 20th century) white immigrants came as unskilled laborers, not as PhDs. Or as refugees in some cases.
Complicated question.
Harvard being exposed for it’s anti- Asian bias in its admissions process is similar to what happened at Berkeley 20 years ago… Unsurprisingly Berkeley denied the charges as Harvard is doing now but Asian Enrollment went up and surpassed white enrollment for the first time in the school’s history after anti-Asian bias was exposed and policies instituted to end that bias were implemented
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/etc/ucb.html
In November of 1988, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights announced that it was investigating admissions procedures at Berkeley after receiving complaints that the school was capping admissions of Asian students. As far back as the 60s, the Asian presence on campus had always been strong, and Asian admits rose dramatically throughout the 70s.
But during the next decade, statistics showed a sharp drop in the percentage of Asian admissions, even though a higher percentage of these applicants met Berkeley’s standards than those from other racial groups. Critics blamed the drop on the school’s subjective admissions policies, which they said placed too much weight on extracurricular activities.
In April of 1989, Berkeley Chancellor Ira Michael Heyman publicly apologized for the drop in Asian admissions at the school. Though he denied that policies had been put in place to deliberately restrict Asians, he vowed to make changes to correct the error. In May, the University announced changes to admissions standards that placed more emphasis on academic achievement, and agreed to make its admissions process public for the first time.
In the freshman class of 1991, Asian students outnumbered whites for the first time in the school’s history.
^ that all happened while Berkeley “considered race” and before they stopped affirmative action in CA @sbballer
New freshman enrollment stats for this period is below. Note that the White percentage at Berkeley was dropping like a rock in the 80s going from 56% in 1984 to 34% in 1990. Other races all increased during this period. The Asian freshman enrollment had a significant increase, but the big gainer was Hispanic, which increased from 9% to 21%. I expect some of this increase relates to changing demographics of the CA population, with a greater portion of high school students being Hispanic and Asian. With the class of 1992, Berkeley implemented a new admission policy that included a greater emphasis on stats, including admitting 50% of the class based on stats, as well as a greater emphasis on social diversity with a matrix that combines social diversity with stats (lower SES is permitted lower stats). Affirmative action was still in place. Upon implementing this policy, the White freshmen enrollment rate of decline slowed, the Asian freshmen enrollment made large gains, and Hispanics had large losses. Black enrollment was largely unchanged. It wasn’t until prop 209 in 1998 forbidding the use of race that the Black enrollment had a sharp decline.
1984 – 56% White, 24% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 7% Black
1986 – 46% White, 27% Asian, 12% Hispanic, 8% Black
1988 – 37% White, 26% Asian, 19% Hispanic, 11% Black
1990 – 34% White, 31% Asian, 21% Hispanic, 8% Black
← Berkeley implements new admission policy, including allotting half of class to highest stats →
1992 – 31% White, 40% Asian, 14% Hispanic, 8% Black
…
1997 – 28% White, 41% Asian, 13% Hispanic, 7% Black, 5% Unknown
← Berkeley implements new admission policy, forbidding consideration of race in admissions →
1998 – 29% White, 42% Asian, 7% Hispanic, 3% Black, 14% Unknown
I see this as a circular problem – the “not attempting” part is tied to how the schools are perceived – it is a combination of “why bother” and “those types of schools don’t care about people like me.”
But does that much-appreciated honesty mean that your son is going to apply to CalTech? Or is he going to be more inclined to follow his sister’s path toward a HBCU? I don’t think it’s a desire to self-segregate – but I think it’s hard to be isolated. So it takes at least a core group within a school before there is that sense of awareness of specific needs faced by that group.
That’s why I don’t perceive the heavy reliance on standardized testing as “fair”. It builds in a cultural bias tilted to those who buy into the testing (and retesting) mentality. So the heavily prepped repeaters are not necessarily more talented in math – as I’m sure you know it doesn’t take very many mistakes to bring down the score significantly, and score calculation can vary from one administration to the next (see https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/07/12/surprisingly-low-scores-mathematics-sat-stun-and-anger-students) But the test-taking culture ends up operating as a system geared to weeding out students who aren’t playing that game. Not because they are less capable.
I think this article does a good job of summarizing and highlighting the many barriers faced along the way by African American students – https://blog.ozobot.com/2018/02/20/need-know-stem-race-gap/
Superscoring is a win-win for both the testing agencies and the colleges. The testing agencies make more money, and the colleges get to show higher scores. And as you say, it favors retesting, which tends to benefit the affluent, another $win for the colleges. There is an easy way to stop this, and that is for USNWR to penalize colleges that allow score choice and superscoring.
Having said that, superscoring has the biggest effects in the middle of the score distribution, where scores tend to move a lot, rather than at the extremes. It is not the CalTech kids that are likely to retest often.
yet even given these trends… the anti Asian policy Berkeley had covertly implemented had suppressed Asian enrollment despite increasing Asian enrollment prior to these changes from 24% to 31%.
white enrollment declined while Asian enrollment increased during this period prior to the change which very well could be the reason this anti-Asian policy existed in the first place (ie Harvard).
Asian enrollment shot up to 40% after the anti-Asian policy was addressed while white enrollment lost ground to 29-31% from 34-37% prior to the change. These Asian and white enrollment stats remained steady after the change through the 90s.
so the previous stats from Berkeley that showed no change when considering race vs not for Asians and whites was not accurate in that it did not reflect the increase in Asian enrollment and decrease in white enrollment as a result of the changes Berkeley made to address its anti-Asian bias
The policy change in the early 90s included an increased focus on stats and increased preference for low SES. Both of these changes favored Asian applicants, but it’s not accurate to call this an “anti-Asian bias” policy. However, it’s possible that one factor in their decision to increase focus on objective stats and reduce weighting of more subjective criteria that some members of the Asian community objected to, was to partially repair the damaged relationship and trust with some members of the Asian community. This subjective non-stat criteria that was given reduced weighting in admission decisions includes things like HS course selection, essays, honors, and awards. I expect the rapidly declining portion of the class that was White and rapidly increasing portion that was Hispanic was another factor in the change in admission policy, as were various issues unrelated to race. Under the new admission policy, the most to least preferred order was as followed for in state. The lower the grouping, the lower stats were required for an auto admit.
A – At least 2 of the following – Black/Indian/Chicano, Low SES, Disabled
B – Black/Indian/Chicano or Low SES or Disabled or Latino + Low SES
C – Latino
D – Very low SES
E – Low SES
F – Rural or Filipino
G – Not low SES, Not Rural, and (White or non-Filipino Asian)
If you continue the trend line from 1984, then the expected and actual percentages in 1992 were as follows. The portion White was slightly higher than expected based on the trend line. However, with the increased focus on stats, Asians had the biggest gain over expected. Hispanics had the largest change of all from expected, making the portion of Hispanics notably underrepresented compared to the CA HS population.
1992 Expected – 29% White, 32% Asian, 25% Hispanic, 8% Black
1992 Actual – 31% White, 40% Asian, 14% Hispanic, 8% Black
“It is only when I come back to my diverse enclave of America that HYPSM means anything to the African American students I am in contact with. Just to give you an idea of how this is much bigger than the schools themselves, I recently met a student, top of her class at one of the best public schools in the city of Atlanta. This student only took the ACT 1 time (made a 29 with only 1 week of prep) and just stopped because her goal (top HBCUs) was already in reach”
Why would this student bother to retake a test when she scored above the 90th percentile AND met her desired goal? I find the HYPSM obsession among certain groups to be rather comical. The ridiculously low acceptance rates coupled with the perception that many highly selective or prestigious schools aren’t very URM friendly are just two reasons most black students don’t bother with these schools, even when they have the “stats” to get in. I know black millionaires who went to school never discussed on CC. HBCUs produce more black physicians than all of the HWCU put together. So what’s the point of obsessing over schools with five percent acceptance rates when there are hundreds, if not thousands, of schools where black students can succeed? It’s a rather narrow-minded and Eurocentric view that these schools are the end-all-be-all.
My spouse and I have attended a wide variety of colleges and universities, only one of which would be considered highly selective. We’re a multi-ethnic URM family with an income in the 97th percentile and strongly believe our kids will be just fine attending solid public universities.
@calmom I don’t think the elite schools perception is the major reason that African American students don’t attend. HBCUs for for a large number of high achieving Black students are no different from PWIs with large white populations from an African American perspective. My daughter goes to Howard (85% Black) while one of her good friends chose to go to Auburn (which is 85% White while the state of Alabama is not close to that demographic breakdown). No one says that a White student attending Auburn is self segregation, but it is the perception that attending an HBCU is self segregation. My daughter told me over Christmas break that it is weird being just a smart student, because she knows she was perceived as the “smart Black girl student” from the point that she was one of the few African Americans in her school to move to the most accelerated math track in our school district in 5th grade.
As for my son, he probably won’t apply to CalTech, but it is only due to not wanting to take any more standardized tests (SAT subject tests). But it has nothing to do with CalTech which he thinks is a great school, just not enough to ramp up for another test preparation cycle. He has applied to some of the elite summer programs (MITES and Carnegie Mellon SAMS) but regardless of where he goes to college has decided that he will not apply to any SAT subject test mandatory schools. His list will be HBCU heavy and I think he will probably chose a HBCU as well.
@indiethoughts I am definitely one person who is not obsessed with elite level schools, but I do believe in having all of the information which that particular student I talked about was sorely missing. Taking the ACT and getting a higher score could have been monumental step in lowering that student’s cost at her top choice school (Howard University) by giving her access to the highest merit based scholarships.
I speak of elite level PWIs for the student I mentioned because of the costs (raised in a single parent home with no father in her life), would be very low (maybe even free since the student applied to colleges using fee waivers). I don’t believe in taking options of the table, especially ones that could be free. The number 1 reason that I see African American students drop out from school short of their degree is due to the financial pain of attending colleges and universities in America and that could have taken off the table by attending an elite PWI with generous financial aid policies (without the GPA requirements of a scholarship at a HBCU). But she just did not know. I also don’t think you realize that my wife and I attended HBCUs (Our daughter is a 4th generation HBCU attendee on her Mom’s side of the family) and we believe in their mission and purpose. That student will probably go to a state university if Howard end up being too expensive with Zell Miller Scholarship in tow (full tuition at any state public university), but will probably rack up some debt.
Be careful – if the parents are divorced and both are alive, most of the good financial aid colleges require both parents’ financial information. If the parents are non-cooperative, this can eliminate those colleges from affordability, though if the non-custodial parent is completely unreachable, a waiver request has some chance of success. (Yes, this allows those colleges to advertise generous financial aid, while disqualifying many financially-needy students from getting it.)
But also, regarding “PWI”, some of those elite colleges are no longer predominantly (>50%) white.
@ucbalumnus The student has never met her father, who abandoned her mother. I doubt the father is on birth certificate because he was long gone by the time the student was born and the mother did not attempt to draw child support.
Most do not understand the continued importance of HBCUs today so I pulled a few numbers.
HBCUs are 3% of all US Colleges/Universities
12% of African American College students
23% of all African American College grads
40% of all African American STEM degrees
40% of all African American Health Professionals
50% of all African American Teachers
50% of all African American Laywers
60% of all African American Engineers
70% of all African American Doctors and Dentists
80% of all African American Judges
@calmom When you look at the percentages of Black students and professions that flow through HBCU campuses, the importance of these schools is understated on CC and in the media at large. Self-segregation is definitely not the purpose or goal of HBCUs. Educating a historically disenfranchised people are what HBCUs are all about.