To try to clarify, I don’t think that prestigious schools are intentionally leaning on factors like geographic diversity with the goal of suppressing Asian enrollment. At least I hope they aren’t. I think it more likely that the schools truly believe that diversity, including geographic diversity, is crucial to their educational mission, and that there are enough qualified students everywhere to allow the schools to accomplish their diversity goals. Nonetheless, the approach may make admissions less competitive in places with lower concentrations of highly qualified kids and more competitive in places with relatively high concentrations of highly qualified students, whether or not they are Asian American.
Same. Reflecting further, a few thoughts come to mind:
I wonder whether the super-rejectives are fulfilling their geographic diversity targets with Asian-Americans from these states;
Extrapolating these results to PSAT (and NMSF/NMF), perhaps Asian-Americans don’t lose out to the extent we believe because they are topping the tables in a high proportion of states; and
To the extent that Presidential Scholars are chosen by state level committees rather than DOE officials in DC, perhaps we are not in as a bad a shape as a country than is portrayed in the media.
Candidates for Presidential Scholars are chosen by the states but the selection of semifinalists and finalists is by a national committee. Like NMSF/NMF selections, semifinalists and finalists selections are shaped by state-level quotas. But unlike NMSF/NMF, the selection process is holistic (i.e. essay, ECs, etc. are significant factors). However, unlike the college admission processes at elite privates, race isn’t a consideration for the selection of semifinalists and finalists.
How many of them are kids of those who immigrated as graduate students or skilled workers (physicians, computer scientists, engineers, etc.)?
Immigrants from large countries in Asia are much more likely to have bachelor’s degrees than Americans in general, or citizens of their origin countries in general. The Asian American population includes a large percentage of immigrants and their kids.
This is also often noticeable with high achieving White and Black students if you look a little beyond visible race. But immigrants and their kids are a much smaller percentage of these populations in the US.
I think SCOTUS is likely to rule for Harvard, and not make the case into a referendum on affirmative action. The motivation for the case is ridiculous, and no matter what legal arguments are made, the justices can see it for what it is: plaintiffs with good test scores saying, “I’m good at taking tests, therefore your admissions policy should place highest priority on that.” The plaintiffs are a 4x over represented demographic, and are fighting to cut the enrollment of blacks and Hispanics in half because 4x isn’t enough.
Schools have freedom to weigh the value of test scores, and they understand that the 69th percentile can often be MUCH more impressive than the 96th percentile, depending on the circumstances. The plaintiffs in this case lack the empathy and self-awareness to realize this. Spending $40k on a college coach is not very impressive.
In addition, the plaintiffs don’t have likability on their side. The plaintiffs have held signs at protests saying “We have a dream, too”, as though a Harvard rejection is the equivalent of a lynching. Unbelievable.
One would think that students so capable and immensely talented can find a way to attain the education that they want to attain if they are rejected by Harvard. It seems to me that they are simply chasing exclusion.
Good question. I have no idea whether Asian immigrants in the states I mentioned are largely highly educated or not. At least in NYC, there seems to be a substantial percentage of less well-off (and presumably less well-educated) Asian immigrants - as discussed above, around 46% of Stuyvesant students qualify for free or reduced lunch and Asians comprise around 70% of the student body.
Note, however, that about 73% of NYC public school students are eligible for FRPL by the usual guidelines (though NYC public schools now give free lunch to all students), so Stuyvesant students are less poor than NYC public school students overall by that measure.
Wow, I don’t know in what world someone would seriously compare 69% v. 96%. I certainly wouldn’t hire a D+ student when an A student is available.
The folks who brought the case have designed it in the manner in which they think they will win. You may not agree, but stating that they are “unlikeable” because they carry signs related to MLK isn’t going to change the outcome.
That is a fact-free statement. As a group, the Asian applicants scored higher on every metric. Well, every metric except one: They scored lower on the “personal evaluation” by the admissions officers.
It might be a surprise to you, but applicants are applying as individuals, not as a group. Each person wants to be evaluated on his or her separate merits.
Nothing against the rest of what is being discussed here as I’m a spectator, but I wanted to point out that someone who scores above average on the SAT/ACT (69%) is not a D+ student. They’re not even our C students. Students regularly getting grades of C or worse rarely go to college and if they do, it’s community college.
Correct. I should have said the top tier 96% is always going to be much more competitive than 69%. IMO, there is a huge distinction between 69% and 96% on the SAT, grades, really anything. But since the original cited example was the SAT, the comparison probably isn’t a good comparison to grades.
The original cited example is a red herring. It was regarding marketing material, not admissions statistics. Marketing material vs. admission statistics probably isn’t a good comparison.
It seems like you want it both ways. You look at aggregate statistics for the group then use those statistics to conclude that individuals suffered discrimination. That isn’t always a sound conclusion. as the NMSF example illustrates.
ETA:
The personal score isn’t subjectively determined by the admissions officers based on factors such as race. It is determined based on the student’s essays, their interviews, and their teacher and counselor reports/recommendations. Most of these factors are relative to the applicants particular circumstance, such as the school of the applicant. And like with class rank, an outstanding student may not stand out if they happen to be at a school with a large number of other outstanding students, and thus are being compared to those students.
In other words, we’d need much more information to know whether the difference in aggregate “personal” scores for Asian American students was adversely impacted by their race, or by the other factors.
Unfortunately “topping the tables in a high proportion of states” wouldn’t move the needle much, because the states where Asian Americans are most concentrated tend to have much higher populations and much higher index scores.
For example, as mentioned above, the four states with the lowest Index cutoff for 2021 were North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Because of their low populations, these four states had only 142 National Merit Semifinalists, combined. In comparison, California had 9,177 kids who scored at the cut-off for these states or higher, but only 1,942 of these California students qualified as NMSF.
That means that there were 7,235 California students with equal or higher index scores who were not given the same recognition or scholarship and admission opportunities. Given that this is California, thousands of the students on the outside looking in were very likely to be Asian Americans. And there are likely thousands more in the other states with large Asian American populations. Topping the table in states where with relatively lower populations (and index scores) cannot possibly balance that.
Harvard defines an academic index 4 as the following. It sounds like this is the lower ending range of PSAT mailers for Black students. During the lawsuit period the admit rate for academic non-ALDC hooked 4 academic applicants was 3/18176 = <0.02%. For all practical purposes, it is an auto-reject, regardless of race. After Harvard started sending mailers to Black students with stats in this range, the number of Black applicants with stats in this range shot up tremendously. A graph in the lawsuit shows a noteworthy decrease in the average SAT scores of Black applicants, but no change in the trend of scores of admitted Black students, which steadily increased over time.
Adequate preparation. Respectable grades and low-to mid-600 scores on SAT and subject tests or 26 to 29 ACT.
During the lawsuit period, the portion of non-ALDC applicants with stats in this 4 academic near auto reject range were below:
Black – 51% of applicants have 4+ academic, admit rate = 1 / 7,950
White – 10% of applicants have 4+ academic, admit rate = 1 / 5,689
Asian – 8% of applicants have 4+ academic, admit rate = 0 / 3,229
Sounds like an active search for auto-reject applicants to me. Truly astonishing that Harvard conned thousands of black kids into wasting their time and money on an application.
So the reality is that just because some students with marginal academic credentials (by Harvard’s standards) were invited to apply doesn’t mean that these same students are actually going to be admitted over more “deserving” Asians - as someone suggested above.
Harvard OIR internal analysis found applicants averaged lower scores than White applicants on the following metrics listed in the lawsuit – athletic, personal, teacher LOR #2, counselor LOR, and alumni personal. The largest degree of difference was in athletic and smallest in LORs + alumni personal. The LOR and alunmni personal differences probably did not reach statistical significance, so it is not surprising that the Harvard lawsuit analysis had slightly difference results with very slightly lower Asian averages in teacher LOR #1 and counselor LOR, but not alumni personal or LOR #2.
While there was a statistically significant difference of ~0.13 average score in White vs Asian personal, the lawsuit instead tried to emphasize that the differences were larger when controlling for AI score decile. That is, the personal ratings did not follow SAT/GPA stats closely, so if you look at students within a particular score range, then there are larger differences between average personal rating of White and Asian applicants.
I personally didn’t think this controlling for SAT/AI score argument was convincing. I doubt that this was an institutional policy to rank Asian students an average of ~0.13 lower on personal than White students. I think it’s more likely that some readers had internal biases that influenced what types of characteristics they mark has high personal qualities. This fits with Harvard modifying the reader guidelines following the lawsuit to include the following statement:
It is important to keep in mind that characteristics not always synonymous with extroversion are similarly valued. Applicants who seem to be particularly reflective, insightful and/or
dedicated should receive higher personal ratings as well
And let’s not forget that this didn’t happen by accident. Some people in Harvard admissions made an active decision to spend marketing dollars to attract highly unqualified candidates so they could reject them. Makes you wonder what other games they played.
I remember very clearly reading from multiple places that the alumni rating was not lower, which is why the personal rating by the admissions committee was notably odd. Here is what the NY Times said about this back in 2018:
Note that my post said the alumni personal rating was lower in the Harvard OIR sample (occurred prior to and separately from lawsuit), but not the lawsuit sample. The articles you quote are referring to the lawsuit sample, not the Harvard OIR sample. The post also mentioned that the difference in average rations on LORs and alumni personal does not reach statistical significance. As such, I expect there is random variation from year to year and sample to sample, as well as differences depending on which ALDC hook groups are included/excluded. One sample group may find a higher Asians applicants average slightly higher, and another White applicants average slightly higher.