<p>epiphany, I think you have to show a lot more steps here to make a case that the particular population studied by the cited author wasn’t affected by action adverse to Asian applicants.</p>
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<p>Thank you for selectively reading my post, epiphany. I especially liked how you glossed over the three academics I mentioned. Apparently, it didn’t matter that they all vigorously support affirmative action. Since they all recognize the existence of negative action and argue against it, they’re quacks.</p>
<p>In addition to not referring to any sources, you’re still making the unsubstantiated claim that “…higher scores were ‘needed’ by Asians.” It’s pretty clear that at best, you haven’t read the paper in a while and at worst, you never read the paper in the first place. E&C wrote that Asians faced the equivalent of a 50 point reduction. They did not say anything about how Asians need higher scores.</p>
<p>Kidder, who you don’t even bother to refer to anymore, never disputed E&C’s 50 point figure. In fact, negative 50 points is consistent with the negative action that Kidder believes is a true problem.</p>
<p>It’s not “adverse” to any group or person to have a high score. It’s adverse to count on 50 points+ as a number which “qualifies” you more than someone else & then complain because the college hasn’t signed on to “your” admission policy. The score in itself does not qualify you “more,” not according to admissions offices of HYPSMC, other privates, and even the UC’s. Admissions offices aren’t run by cc posters, or by Kidder, or by E&C. As with other numerical elements to an application (including gpa, number of advanced courses taken, number of total courses taken), the quantitative factors combined, in the context of lots of other aspects to an application (even setting aside personal origin, but including things like recommendations, statements of purpose, success in communicating a clear profile via the application) provide a holistic picture by which the college believes it can judge the academic potential, or “qualification.” After that is determined, the aspects of creating ethnic, racial, geographic, economic, extracurricular, & academic-interest balance come into play among the above highly qualified pool, to create a maximally diverse & overall interesting class.</p>
<p>But is your claim that all the Asian applicants found in that study were missing one of the other factors you mention? If the study authors were to assure you that those applicants were indistinguishable in all those other regards (other than being Asian rather than white), then what would you say?</p>
<p>Re, Post 524:</p>
<h1>1: “indistinguishable in all other regards” is a phrase fraught with problems. It is not dissimilar to job applicants, where similarly qualified (virtually ‘identical’) applicants can be either marginally distinguished or greatly distinguished from each other, as a result of the face to face interview combined with an evaluation of their application materials, combined with speaking to their references or “recommenders” & colleagues. Requiring others to quantify an ultimately nonquantifiable process is an exercise in futility.</h1>
<h1>2: What is not present in “the study,” nor in the information banks of most people on cc, are the OFFERS OF ADMISSION GIVEN TO DOZENS of such distinguished Asian applicants yearly – applicants who often reject offers from one U or college, to accept an offer at a more “prestigious” U or college.</h1>
<p>epiphany,</p>
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</p>
<p>Of course it’s not bad to have a high score. Guess what? E&C never claimed otherwise. Moreover, E&C never said that a higher score indicates stronger qualification. They simply said that being Asian was worth the equivalent of 50 fewer SAT points. You have created a straw man and used it to argue that E&C’s paper is flawed. Had you actually read their paper, you would have realized that your points are not only irrelevant but also factually baseless.</p>
<p>Well, again, guess who is actually arguing from a baseless baseline?</p>
<p>(1) I read the “study,” and I continue to put it in quotes. It lacks the scientific paramaters of a true study, because it lacks the comparative data (the non-Asians that were not admitted with 50 extra points).</p>
<p>(2) That facts are that you, Jian Li, and many others have used “the study” to assert that “higher scores” = required higher scores = different standards for admission = discrimination.</p>
<p>(3) I’m glad that you now acknowledge that 50 extra points are voluntary extra points and that those points amount to saturation from a University’s point of view – not “more qualified” from a University’s point of view.</p>
<p>epiphany,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Obviously you since you continue to make erroneous assertions about what E&C’s paper actually found.</p>
<p>Despite the following evidence:</p>
<ol>
<li>Espenshade and Chung’s paper was published in a peer-reviewed journal.</li>
<li>William Kidder’s response does not criticize the methodology, only the conclusion.</li>
<li>Jian Li referred to this paper as key evidence in his civil rights complaint, and the Office of Civil Rights did not strike down his complaint as frivolous.</li>
</ol>
<p>you still maintain that the paper is fatally flawed garbage. Now, either you know something that the peer-reviewers, Kidder, and the officials at OCR don’t know, or you’re simply in denial that the only controversial aspect of the paper was its conclusion. Which is more likely?</p>
<p><a href=“3”>quote</a> I’m glad that you now acknowledge that 50 extra points are voluntary extra points and that those points amount to saturation from a University’s point of view – not “more qualified” from a University’s point of view.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>To borrow a phrase from your side and use it against you, you appear to have a sense of entitlement. Judging from your continued mischaracterizations of Espenshade and Chung’s study, it appears that you believe you have the right to discuss their paper and criticize it without having read it.</p>
<p>First, Epsenshade and Chung never claimed that fifty points made a candidate more qualified. That is yet another straw man that you’ve used to argue that their paper is flawed. </p>
<p>Second, it is not fifty “extra points.” Espenshade and Chung wrote, and I quote, “Other things equal…Asian-American applicants applicants face a loss equivalent to 50 points.” That is the negative action that William Kidder, Jerry Kang, and Frank Wu all recognize as a solvable problem.</p>
<p>It seems that Espenshade and Chung’s 2005 paper is your Achilles’ Heel, epiphany. You can only use straw men to argue against it, and when asked to cite the names of people who have critiqued the paper, you can’t. You can only say that they exist.</p>
<p>The facts remain that the paper was published in a peer-reviewed journal and that the only controversial aspect of it was its conclusion that Asians would make the greatest gains from eliminating racial preferences.</p>
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</p>
<p>So now my follow-up question is, how would a member of an ethnic group described as “underrepresented” make the case that a college is discriminating against applicants from that group? How, on the other hand, would a college defend itself against that claim? Is there a way to discuss this issue with evidence, or isn’t there?</p>
<p>It looks like a lot of students are filling out application forms now. Good luck to this year’s applicants.</p>
<p>Non-Hispanic Caucasians are underrepresented in proportion to their percentage of the United States population at many of the most prestigious colleges and universities in America, including Harvard and Princeton. </p>
<p>They are the most underrepresented ethnicity at Stanford by a sizable margin. </p>
<p>Is this significant? What factors have led to this situation?</p>
<p>(sorry for typo in title..)</p>
<p>The fact that Asians are heavily overrepresented.</p>
<p>1) Asians are very much overrepresented.
2) Many whites and Asians aiming for the top schools mark themselves as “Race Unknown” or don’t answer the race/ethnicity question on their applications, which drives down their respective percentages.</p>
<p>also, many people who usually consider themselves “white” suddenly turn into a different ethnicity on the college application…</p>
<p>“Many whites and Asians aiming for the top schools mark themselves as “Race Unknown” or don’t answer the race/ethnicity question on their applications, which drives down their respective percentages.”</p>
<p>This factor would not affect the numbers I use, which is just a general substraction of “percent students of color” from total percentage.</p>
<p>What’s led to this: The fact that Asians as a group score higher on college boards than do any other racial group. The fact that Asians as a group also are disproportionately represented in groups of high school students with high grades and rigorous curricula. As a group, they also value academics more than things like – for instance football and cheerleading – so spend their free time doing academically-related activities.</p>
<p>Does anyone now think that whites are disadvantaged so should get admissions tips so they are proportionately represented in top colleges?</p>
<p>I think any white student who is as driven and academically-focused as your average (stereotype) over-achieving Asian has as much of a chance of getting in, since Asians don’t really get any URM preference. It’s not really about groups as much as it is individuals.</p>
<p>NOTE TO “Caucasians most underrepresented ethnicity at some top universities” THREAD: </p>
<p>Merged (with one-day redirect) with preexisting FAQ thread, with the request to “show the work” how anyone would know, one way or the other, which ethnic group, if any, is underrepresented at any particular college.</p>
<p>From the Stanford viewbook:</p>
<p>“Stanford is among the most diverse colleges in the
United States. Among the many measures of diversity,
more than half of our freshmen are students of color.
• Asian American 19.8%
• Latino/a 14.5%
• African American 10.6%
• International 7.3%
• American Indian,
Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian 3.9%”</p>
<p>Using these numbers (and according to Stanford’s website), white students constitute fewer than half of the students at the university. Let’s assign them a percentage representation of 49% (although the actual percentage is probably lower).</p>
<p>According to Wikipedia, the current US ethnic demographics are as follows: Non-Hispanic white (68%), Hispanic (15%), African American (12%), Asian American (5%). </p>
<p>Using the two sets of data, one can clearly see that the only two ethnic groups underrepresented at Stanford in relation to their proportion of the US population are caucasians and African Americans. Of the two, a quick bit of division shows you that caucasians are by far the more underrepresented.</p>
<p>Of all the Ivies, only at Brown and Yale are caucasians not underrepresented.</p>