"Race" in College Applications FAQ & Discussion 12

Applying to College
1481

I never heard that Indians were treated differently and had the same thoughts about their success in STEM. Maybe it just depends on the specific college’s goals. Maybe some schools have more of one kind of Asian than another.

I think the comment that had been made a while back about colleges flying Asians in…I think it was made in the context of some schools still counting them as URM’s relative to that college’s specific student population. And I think the poster might have even just meant domestic Asians being treated like other URM applicants for these schools.

1482

The flyins are not just for Hmong, or Indians. They are available - at those schools that include them - to Asian applicants, period.

I’d like to see some evidence from those who are disputing the very clear criteria presented by the colleges on their web sites and other literature, because I know more than one Asian student recruited this way to an elite LAC. And as with every other racial group, being first-gen and/or low income will help with those programs, indeed some require that a student check more than one box.

Kids from India and Pakistan are considered Asian by colleges because the Common App uses the US census definition: https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html

“Asian – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.”

Colleges can distinguish between those groups in terms of which of them they may wish to recruit more of. The Hmong being one fairly well known example.

1483

Just a few of the dozens of LAC fly-in programs that specify Asian Americans among those included are listed below. In addition many schools have such programs for all students of color. If you look at the photos attached to the program listings it’s clear they do not simply apply to Asian minority sub-groups such as the Hmong.

Diversity Fly In Program: Prologue to Bates
Prologue to Bates is an open house program geared towards serving first-generation-to-college students and/or students coming from diverse backgrounds. Prologue to Bates is open to all rising high school seniors, however, the committee prioritizes the selection of students from historically under-represented backgrounds such as African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic and Latino, Alaskan and Native American and first-generation-to-college students. We invite prospective students to enjoy three days on us to see a slice of what Bates College has to offer.

Vassar View is open to seniors from traditionally underrepresented groups in higher education: Asian, Black, Latino/a, and/or Native American; and students who are the first in their family to pursue a four-year college education.

Amherst… The Diversity Open Houses are available to all prospective students, but the DIVOH selection committee prioritizes the invitation of students from traditionally under-represented groups, such as African-American, Hispanic/Latino American, Native American, and Asian-American backgrounds, as well as first-generation students.

Oberlin’s Multicultural Visit Program (MVP) is a selective, all-expenses-paid visit program for high-achieving high school seniors. We encourage applications from students from diverse backgrounds such as Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Hispanic/Latino/a/x, or Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.

Barnard Bound provides a taste of both Barnard College and New York City for promising young women who will be high school seniors in Fall 2017 and self-identify as students of color (which we define as individuals from Black/African-American, Hispanic/Latina, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian, bi- and multi-racial backgrounds)

The Women of Distinction program for high school seniors highlights the opportunities that Smith College offers for African American, Asian American, Latina and Native American students.

Grinnell…Applicants must be high school seniors, students of color (African American, Latinx, Asian, Native American) OR the first in their family to attend college

Ithaca College…Inside Look is a program for accepted students who self-identify as ALANA (African American, Latino[a], Asian American and Native American)

1484

@Zinhead because you are mixed, you can put either in all honesty. Some black-white mixed people identify themselves as black. It just all depends on how you see yourself.

1485

Just caught up on this thread. A few thoughts, as someone educated at elite schools and currently working in academia (not in the US, but AA is an issue here as well, albeit to a lesser extent and in different forms than in the US).

One point that I think has been obscured in this thread is the considerable difference between opposing AA in principle and opposing AA as it is or may be practiced by certain schools in certain cases.

Once we are operating in a system of holistic admissions, considering the race of applicants makes perfect sense. Though I disagree with those who believe admissions should be almost exclusively based on tests and scores, that is a coherent position that I can understand and respect. I do not think that it is logically consistent to support other kinds of non-merit based admissions preferences but oppose considering race.

I am not simply talking here about the usual suspects of legacy and sports, which are controversial in their own right, but about assessments that would be broadly considered more benign. Take two students of comparable merit. Based on scores and grades, both could easily get into the school, but given the admissions odds, at a school that rejects the vast majority of applicants, neither is likely to. Neither has overwhelmingly impressive academic achievements outside of the grade/score metric; neither has a particularly interesting personal story; both are white girls from suburban Connecticut. The major EC for both is vocal music, in which their achievements are significant but not extraordinary enough to make them obvious admits. The only difference is that girl 1’s area of music is musical theater, and girl 2’s is classical opera.

There is nothing intrinsically meritorious in focusing in opera rather than musical theater. However, I’d wager that schools see a lot more applicants whose dream is Broadway than whose dream is the Met or La Scala. So, girl 2 gets admitted, and girl 1 gets denied – for a reason that has nothing to do with academic achievement, and everything to do with institutional interest in the candidate with a rarer profile.

It is true that race, unlike musical area of interest, is a category that gets strict scrutiny, and with good reason. But strict scrutiny does not mean “unjustifiable in all cases.” To me, the same interest in having a diverse (in all senses of the word) student body that would justify preferring a student with a rare hobby over a student with a common hobby or a student from a rural background from a student from a suburban one justifies preferring a student from a racial or ethnic background that is not as prevalent in elite colleges to one from a background that is highly common in elite colleges.

That is a different matter than substantially lowering admissions standards purely because of race (or gender, or geography). Taking into consideration obstacles to achievement like poverty, attending a failing school district, growing up with parents with limited educational attainment, etc. makes perfect sense, of course, but while I’m not going to claim a wealthy black student in a suburban high school never faces discrimination, I am unpersuaded that this is a barrier to success in any way comparable to growing up poor or otherwise disadvantaged. So, I have zero problem with the notion that a middle-class African-American student with a 1530/top 5 % of competitive HS class is going to be very likely to get into HYP, while a white or Asian student with that profile is going to be very likely to be denied. I do have a problem with a middle-class African American student with a 1450/top 10 % of competitive HS class being admitted to HYP, since at that point we’re holding the student to a totally different set of standards. He or she will probably do fine at Harvard, but it isn’t fair.

That being said - I don’t know (and I don’t think any of you do, either) to what extent the latter is actually happening. In order to begin to answer that question, we’d have to do a very fine grained analysis of admissions data that compared only otherwise unhooked students from similar income and educational backgrounds. Some opponents of AA seem to operate under the impression that all members of a given race are equally advantaged by the program and that admissions for white and Asian applicants isn’t taking into account factors like income and hardship. So when I see an question like, why should the black doctor’s kid get into Harvard with lower scores than the child of a dirt-poor miner from Appalachia, my answer is that we don’t know that he does, and I suspect he doesn’t.

I do suspect that because the very top schools are taking the most qualified black students, the disparities at schools a tier or two down are probably higher than I would be comfortable with. Schools a little lower in the pecking order benefit from the fact that because there are so many more qualified students than spots, they are getting tons of students every bit as good as the ones attending HYPMS. If (as I suspect) the chances that a URM applicant with a 1500 + on the SAT will get into at least one of HYP is 90 % +, that means that a Northwestern or a Wash U or even a Cornell that wants a critical mass of minorities is probably going to have to lower standards past what I think is ethical. But again, I don’t know for sure.

On the topic of Asians, my suspicion, based on what I’ve read and seen, is that they are disadvantaged, but not necessarily by as much as some think, because again, data doesn’t account for things like overrepresentation of Asian applicants in certain geographical areas or prospective majors, or for underrepresentation of Asians among athletic and legacy admits. Controlling for those factors might yield a less dramatic picture. However, I do think that the unfair stereotype of Asian math drones probably hurts, as does concern about having too many Asians on campuses. Colleges are probably right that white students wouldn’t find overwhelmingly Asian colleges as attractive, but that isn’t a justification for discrimination. It is one thing to look for a critical mass of students from different backgrounds. There is no justification for deciding that schools have to be at least 45 to 50 % white. 20 % is also a critical mass.

1486

For what I assume is your first post, or one of your first posts, on this thread, that was a very well written and nuanced post. Worth reading all the way through.

1487

"I do have a problem with a middle-class African American student with a 1450/top 10 % of competitive HS class being admitted to HYP, since at that point we’re holding the student to a totally different set of standards…

That being said - I don’t know (and I don’t think any of you do, either) to what extent the latter is actually happening."

Agreed with the others that this first post is well worth reading. But this is the crux of it. Anyone who has a problem with African American students getting into HYP with those sorts of stats has a problem with affirmative action as practiced. Using reasonable assumptions and what we do know about score distributions, I do not think there are enough 1450+ SAT/top 10% competitive high school African American students in the entire country to even fill the African American quotas at HYP (and, they are quotas, clearly). What about the rest of HYPMS+ schools?

It is a little maddening because the schools won’t give out the data. Take a look here at some numbers from the liberal Brookings Institute, and employ some old-fashioned common sense: https://www.brookings.edu/research/race-gaps-in-sat-scores-highlight-inequality-and-hinder-upward-mobility/.

There might be 500-750 or so African Americans (at most) who score upwards of 1450 combined (the Brookings paper hints at this, but of course stretches the limits of the normal distribution to try to create an impression that there are more such students). The overwhelming majority will be middle class or higher - sometimes much higher - and many if not most will have enjoyed substantial SES privileges (professional parents, access to the best secondary schools through prior affirmative action preferences, etc.). Above 1500 on the SAT? If there are 250 African American students who score this high in the general college applicant pool each year, I’d be surprised.

It is impossible that HYP are not admitting high-SES African American applicants with substantially lower stats than those posited. That has been the lesson from every disclosure of actual admissions statistics (usually through lawsuits, but the data can sometimes be teased out through insider articles and books). “Holistic” is not a description of some actual process. The elite schools admit whom they want for their own reasons, and then lay on the holistic smoke and “diversity” rationalizations to cover what is actually happening. It could be legacy, race, athletics, etc. - whatever is fashionable for the elite institutions at the time. Honestly, I can’t figure out why they bother with this elaborate ruse?

1488

The “justification” from the colleges’ point of view is their own marketing (rather than ethical principles and the like). In order to be marketable to all students, they want to have enough of a “critical mass” of each race/ethnicity. But the “critical mass” is not the same for all prospective students. Others have said that white students tend to prefer colleges with a white majority, while non-white students commonly find smaller “critical mass” levels acceptable.

1489

True, and this is why many of the black students at elite schools are actually international students from countries in Africa or the West Indies that have a history of generating highly qualified students.

I suppose one key question is: Does this help with “critical mass”? Given the friction on elite campuses between blacks descended from slavery and those coming here just for college, the answer seems to be no.

1490

@hebegebe So would you say there are more Hispanics and Native Americans with higher test scores than AA? I would assume so, because all the people making news for getting accepted into multiple Ivy leagues are AA, which would mean the Hispanic and Native American quotas are getting filled by qualified people from the US…

1491

if adding black people for quota is supposedly A Thing, using international students won’t do it as they aren’t counted in reports of race at colleges, they’re just lumped together as “international”.

AA means African-AMERICAN.

1492

@SatchelSF

Aside from international students, your numbers also have to take into account the fact that I’m suggesting that in a fair system, African-American students at HYP should have a 1500 or higher if they are otherwise unhooked and come from a relatively privileged background. But of course, there’s a not insignificant number of AA students in every given class who are going to fall outside that group. You’re going to have economically disadvantaged AA students. You’re going to have recruited athletes. You’re going to have AA students with impressive extracurricular accomplishments of various other kinds, or AA students who are exceptionally strong in one academic area and significantly weaker in the other. Those students – like students of any race who belong in these categories – are going to be able to be admitted with proportionally lower pure academic stats.Again, for any given profile, you’re more likely to be admitted if you are also a URM, but it wouldn’t necessarily follow that you’d be less qualified than other otherwise similarly situated applicants. If you are admitting a proportionally higher number of low-income students or low-scoring athletes from a certain demographic, then you can fill your class and your implicit racial quota without going any lower than you would for a low-income student or powerhouse athlete from any other demographic.

As I indicated earlier, I do think that once you get past a certain tier of schools, the disparities would have to increase because of scarcity of qualified applicants. But I’m not convinced that it starts as high up the tree as your post suggests.

1493

Things are not always as they appear. I suspect that many of the black students with multiple Ivy League acceptances are like this first generation student:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/why-the-all-ivy-league-story-stirs-up-tensions-between-african-immigrants-and-black-americans/359978/

So @OHMomof2, depending upon his citizenship/green card status he could be counted as African-American, or an international student. But in either case, his family has not faced the disadvantages that blacks descended from slavery have faced.

1494

Immigrants from Africa or the West Indies who are US citizens are a different story and who is international vs who is not is very clear for college admission. If you are a US citizen who attended HS in the US, you are a domestic applicant. If you are a non-citizen you are international, wherever you attended school. If you are a US citizen attending school abroad, that’s a slightly different scenario.

Colleges don’t, AFAIK, ask applicants how long their families have been in the US or whether they are descended from slaves (which of course black West Indian students usually are), or if their black immigrant-but-not-slave-descended parents were prevented from buying a home in an nice area because they were black or if the immigration occurred in the 1960s when it would be difficult for a black person to get a good job or anything like that.

Being both AA and low income or first gen is a plus for most elite colleges, two birds one stone. At the same time, I doubt any want ALL their black students to come from poor backgrounds either. I’d think the ideal is socio-economic diversity plus racial diversity plus diversity of interests/majors plus geographic diversity, etc.

1495

The elite colleges’ notion of ideal SES diversity is probably what they have: nearly half from the top 2-3% (i.e. students who need no FA), with most of the rest from the upper half of the income distribution (i.e. students who get FA but not Pell) and a smaller number from the lower half of the income distribution (i.e. students who get Pell grants). That probably has a lot to do with net tuition revenue / financial aid budgeting.

1496

Sure, @ucbalumnus but that’s not what I meant. I think colleges would ideally like SES diversity within racial and geographic etc groups.

All the black kids low income? All the Hispanic kids first gen? All the rich kids athletes? Not ideal.

1497

I suspect if you are a green card holder, you are also treated as a domestic applicant. However regardless of whether a first generation black applicant is a citizen, a green card holder, or holds another type of visa, the background he brings to the college is quite different from a black family that has been here for hundreds of years.

1498

My point was that international students are not counted as “black” for AA purposes.

1499

I have followed and read this post for a very long time, but have not chimed in. I am going to share the stats of my DD, a biracial (IDs as black) senior at Penn (my pic is her freshman move in.) Her SAT was 2150, which based on conversion charts is equivalent to 1490 on the current test. Her ACT was 32. Her 2 SAT subject tests scored 700 (math) and 710 (literature.)
She was accepted to Penn regular decision, after being denied to Yale EA. We were shocked, thrilled, stunned. She was also denied to Brown. But all the rest were acceptances - Williams, Middlebury, Northwestern, Oberlin, Tufts. The decision was not easy; she had such amazing choices.
She has thrived at Penn, and is still a leader. Interned with a congressman last summer, and is now with a voter integrity group in Philly. Works on campus, dances hip hop (with a majority asian cohort - she is only 1 of 2 POC.) Studied abroad twice, belongs to multiple on campus groups.

My point? Her scores weren’t perfect, yet she complains about the lack of preparation and “seriousness” of her fellow students. She comes from a middle class, mostly white suburb yet feels the sense of entitlement, the lack of appreciation of the opportunity, and the callousness of privilege demonstrated by those around her. She is still offered basically everything she applies for. So should the “best scores” be the determinative factor in higher ed? Of is it that unknown other, something more arbitrary that holistic admissions can hone in on, that should open the door?

1500

Of course, it’s logically consistent. The US constitution, and by extension through the civil rights act, bans discrimination on the basis of race. There’s no constitutional amendment or federal law that treats non-athletic people or non-legacies as a protected class.