Probably not that many. Last year there were only 583 perfect scores on the SAT. Though this guy took the ACT, and there were 1598 36s (36 does not necessarily mean perfect though) on the ACT last year.
He sounds like a very strong student and I’m sure each of those schools that rejected him accepted other students who weren’t as strong or impressive. I don’t really think that rises to the level of newsworthy, but if I was him I might be a bit upset too.
^^ Except Wang DIDN’T get rejected from all the Ivies he applied to. He’s suing because he didn’t get into Harvard.
^as strong or impressive in numerics. when you expand to 3.9 and up and 34/2250 and up (I dont think colkeges see a significant difference), it is more likely lots have been rejected. And you can’t say rejecting a 4.0/36 for a 4.0/34 is significantly different.
People complaining of getting into only one Ivy…
@katliamom, it’s part of their identity to admit more kids from sports where Asian-Americans aren’t well-represented than they did 20-30 years ago? Note that that was what my “why” was about. Not why they have sports.
And note that while Oxbridge have a bunch of sports, athletic prowess pretty much doesn’t factor in to admissions to those 2 schools at all.
“Why do we keep discussing this?”
Because the time has come for this traditional semi-annual thread.
According to Gov scorecard Columbia is 39% White but it should be 20% White. Let’s discuss.
I think you misread my post. " each of those schools that rejected him" is referring to the group of schools. All the schools that rejected him. Not that all the schools rejected him.
I only skimmed the article (it’s long and I’m not very interested in this) but I didn’t see anywhere that said he was suing Harvard. I found a reference to a lawsuit against Harvard and UNC that someone else made. I did ctrl+f for “sue,” “suing,” and “lawsuit” and didn’t find anything about this guy suing Harvard.
My bad, Vlad. He filed a complaint with the US Department of Education alleging that Yale, Stanford, and Princeton discriminated against him because he was Asian-American. In addition, he joined a group of 64 Asian-American organisations that made a joint complaint to the Department of Education against Harvard, alleging racial discrimination.
"The ladder is being pulled away from our feet,” says Tricia Liu. “If we can’t go to the Ivy League universities, how can we get the positions in Wall Street, or Congress, or the Supreme Court?”
From the article…
This is part of the problem…thinking the Ivies are the only way to “make it”.
@HRSMom, distressingly, for the Supreme Court, that is true.
Note that this is a fairly recent phenomenon.
Look at the giants of the Warren Court:
Warren attended Cal for undergrad and law school.
Hugo Black got his JD from 'Bama.
Felix Frankfurter did go to HLS but went to CCNY for undergrad.
William Douglas went to Columbia Law but attended Whitman for undergrad and picked cherries with migrant workers there.
Robert Jackon attended Albany Law School.
William Brennan was UPenn and HLS.
Potter Stewart was Yale and YLS.
Abe Fortas was YLS but went to undergrad at Rhodes.
Thurgood Marshall was Lincoln University and Howard Law.
John Harlan went to Princeton undergrad but New York Law School.
Contrast with the current Supreme Court:
Every single current justice attended YLS or HLS. Every single one except Clarence Thomas attended an Ivy or equivalent for undergrad. Heck, HYPS, making up a small percentage of even the Ivies/equivalents tier, contributes 2/3rds of the current Supreme Court.
It’s a point made by the author of The Economist article. They just quoted Tricia Liu to “support” that point.
But I don’t think the Ivy thing is true. Especially as society moves forward.
“Can you or anyone else offer a convincing explanation for why that is the case other than the existence of either an Asian quota or increased anti-Asian biases at Ivy adcoms?”
Yes. The Asian community is more obsessed with Ivy education than any other group. Eg. "The ladder is being pulled away from our feet,” says Tricia Liu. “If we can’t go to the Ivy League universities, how can we get the positions in Wall Street, or Congress, or the Supreme Court?”
And that could well affect the overall quality of the applicant pool as desperate families push/expect their perfectly good but not quite Ivy material children to apply. More applicants from a group does not necessarily mean more admits. I’m not saying this has to be true. But it could be true. There is no way to answer these questions without a lot of very detailed information on the applicant pool which I don’t believe is public. There are a lot of possible explanations for these trends and only one of them is a conspiracy among these institutions to discriminate.
^Yes, this.
@HRSMom, except I just showed that the Supreme Court is even more elitist now than it was in the past.
Are you going to cling to your beliefs despite evidence to the contrary? Why do you think that society is moving forward, not backwards?
“Can you or anyone else offer a convincing explanation for why that is the case other than the existence of either an Asian quota or increased anti-Asian biases at Ivy adcoms?”
Another possibility: by and large, Asian applicants are unhooked. They’re not generally athletic recruits or developmental prospects, and they’re not as large a percentage of the legacy class. Though it’s a smaller hook, they’re also not as well represented in the first-generation-going-to-college set.
What’s really needed is comparing the admissions rates of unhooked applicants by ethnicity. And that is highly, highly unlikely to happen. Heck, it’s never gonna happen. Best you can get is the estimates that folks here on CC make based on looking at athletic rosters and making educated guesses about the number of developmental/celebrity/etc admits. I wonder if the plantiffs in the case have done that kind of analysis.
Incidentally, the student was admitted to Penn but ended up at Williams.
Are you asking us to disprove a negative? That is a fool errand.
PS: how did you show it was “more elitist”, as I don’t know what you mean by that.
My point is that if people think there is a “formula to success”, they are sadly mistaken. There is always that “something else” that you need to have. Call it charisma, leadership, whatever. Some have it. Some don’t. Some Asians have it. Some don’t. To me that is a better explanation. Bc it is not like Asians are being “excluded”, not even close!
The argument that the preference given to legacies and athletes (disproportionately white) is the reason for the “ceiling” on asian american admits is a red herring. In the last 20 years, the percentage of white students has not budged at Harvard & Yale, while the percentage of whites in the US population has steadily declined.
White admits as percentage of domestic admits:
** School | 2006 | 2008 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | change from 2006 to 2013 **
Harv | 48.5% || 45.5% || 48.9% || 50.5% || not av || 48.6% || ← 100% change
Yale | 53.2% || 38.5% || 55.1% || 50.6% || 49.4% || 53.8% || ← 101% change
Chart of historical US racial percentage trend
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2013/05/Screen-Shot-2013-05-07-at-7.33.46-PM.png
PT edit above: i missed your post. Let me go back and read it!
Read it. There are a lot of Ivies there, but I still say it is not as important as people think. It’s like saying business is dominated by Ivies bc Goldman is. Just one example. Plus i would bet the next Justice will be Asian.
My point is, these kids ARE getting into Ivies, and other fantastic schools, but it seems that’s not goid enough unless they either get into all, or the Ivies start admitting by scores only!
@gmt007 , on the news, Asians will rise to 38% of immigrants soon…
Not following your argument. Having preference for hooked applicants has nothing to do with the percentage of whites in the US population. You need to look at the ethnic makeup of the class of hooked applicants. That can still be overwhelmingly white even though the percentage of whites overall is declining.
I don’t have the detailed admission data. Whoever does could analyze the data to filter for hooks.
I am merely pointing out that, prima facie, the numbers don’t make sense. But it’s not my burden to prove there’s no discrimination. I’m not the one being sued by Edward Blum.
