The Harvard Crimson: Filings Show Athletes With High Academic Scores Have 83% Acceptance Rate

Parents Forum
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Just curious, lookingforward, do you challenge the claim by the plaintiffs in the Harvard case that Asian-American applicants had noticeably worse Personal scores than applicants in other demographic groups, or do you challenge the claim that the scores/categorizations given to Asian-Americans by the interviewers were comparable to the scores/categorizations for other applicants? These claims seem pretty factual to me. They are certainly falsifiable, if false, but I haven’t seen any commentary to that effect.

It is true that if the athletes were all eliminated from the admitted student group, it would not change the raw odds of admission much for the rest of the applicants. It is a bit like the situation where 500 people drive past three empty handicapper spots while looking for a parking place in an over-crowded lot and think that if only those spots had not been reserved, they surely would have found a spot.

And yet a small number of applicants are in the so-close group, who would have been admitted in any given year, had there been no preference for athletes or legacies. One might say, “Tough luck, they should have tried harder,” but in my view, that would be about as useful as the advice I once got from a Nobel laureate, to “be just a little better.” He was very well-meaning, and no doubt right. But if I could be any better, I would be!

I wish that there were some way of tagging the closest of the non-admitted group (beyond admission from the wait list, because those students do get in eventually), so that applicants in the very close group only had to lose out to athletes and legacies once. Down the road, I don’t think law schools or med schools give an admissions boost for college athletes, but maybe they do. If so, I think it would be great if the closest of the non-admitted group only had to lose out to the athletes once in their academic careers. Hmmm, Rhodes Scholarships come to mind, but athleticism is written into Cecil Rhodes’ will. Since the colleges in the Ivy League apparently discuss some of the applicants among themselves, perhaps an applicant who is very close in all of those colleges and lost out to athletes in every single one of them could be admitted to one?

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The whole Bright Minds thing at H ie about raw excellence. I said earlier that I accept it. Doesn’t mean I like it

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“You can at least try to decipher it.”

I’m going to venture that contrary to your opinions on this, most, i.e over 50% of the Asian applicants to selective schools have deciphered it. Recall from Harvard’s own docs that 43% of their class would be Asian before considering race, athletic prowess and personal qualities. This includes I think academics and ECs, recs, essays.

And say someone gets into Princeton and Yale, but not Stanford or Harvard, have they deciphered it?

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“Harvard views athletics as part of the academic mission of the university, hence the endowed coaching positions, involvement of faculty advisors, etc. Maybe they don’t view singing clubs the same way.”

So it would seem. And that’s broken.

Also, Ivy League and DIII schools don’t ever, ever say what you said…we have to read it from their actions. A mismatch between the stated truth and the underlying truth is a signal that something is wrong.

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From https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/6/30/athlete-admissions/

So the group that is suing H over specific admissions preference isn’t touching - or even considering - athletic recruit preference in its analysis submitted to the court.

It’s that…untouchable? Too big to fail comes to mind.

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“So the group that is suing H isn’t even touching athletic recruit preference? It’s that toxic to bring into the case?”

The case is based on racial discrimination. It would be tough to make a case that nonathletes are a protected class when it comes to discrimination law. Maybe that concept could be stretched to the idea that greatly favoring athletes by definition discriminates against physically disabled people (who are a protected class) but that would be a much tougher thing to prove than the simple racial discrimination that is being alleged exists against Asians.

BTW, I support the idea that private business should have some latitude to make their own determination about what attributes they want to attract and support as long as those aren’t contrary to federal antidiscrimination laws. My issue with the athletic, legacy, Z-list and other preferences is the same issue Hanna states “A mismatch between the stated truth and the underlying truth is a signal that something is wrong.”

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You misunderstand, I think. I do not expect the plaintiffs to deal with athletes one way or the other, but that is the only group they excluded - very specifically - from their analysis of admissions stats, @milee30 30 .

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^The plaintiffs dealt with a lot of factors–legacy, athlete, z-list etc (athlete was just one of them) and none could really explain their low admission rate other than the low personality score.

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Interviews are offsides. They’re “eyes on,” but their ratings should not be taken as determinative. They see a kid for 30 minutes, haven’t seen their app/supp, etc. There are tippy top alum interviewers on CC who have said they’ve never given a negative review. There are some who insist interviews aren’t important to adcoms, but they are valuable input.

To say interviewers rate higher isn’t enough.

Personal scores are also, to some extent, in context. What’s expected of one potential major vs another is also different. Make no mistake, the Asian American applicants are generally great, they work hard and are usually engaged in breadth and depth, they convey grounding and interpersonal skills, (not the stereotypes many think.) And certainly the right amount of risk taking.

But “43% of their class” is not reflective of all the holistic factors. And yes, institutional needs. It’s much more than “academics and ECs, recs, essays.” Nor is it this CC idea that you need to stand out in odd/unusual ways.

An easy example. More kids than one would assume can’t answer a Why Us (remember, it’s not just an obvious Why question that looks for this sense of match.) They go generic (“You’re a top college”) or simple (“You have study abroad.”) They name programs or majors that don’t exist. They portray themselves in ways that make one question their thinking, knowledge of the school, and reasons for applying. Sometimes, in the rush to write an essay that “someone could find and know it’s you,” they reveal things better left out.

Of course, music groups are important. The Whiffs are the wrong example. All this assumption, eg, that Asian Am kids should omit that they’ve played an instrument for years, reached a high level, is just off.

I said one reason I mind the amount of pull a coach can have is because of the kids who don’t truly fit, who would benefit from a different envirnoment. But it’s also that, considering geo diversity needs, you take that star player who would benefit elsewhere and it affects the number from his/her area, even the high school. In contrast, don’t assume a minority or low SES kid can’t be a great match.

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The Asian score deficit in “personal qualities” may turn out to be at the heart of the Harvard lawsuit. When I first saw this, I assumed it was associated with letters of recommendation, but that is apparently not the case. Which begs the question as to whether the rating are concocted to achieve racial balancing. I found this incredibly disturbing:

“Asian-American applicants receive a 2 or better on the personal score more than 20% of the time only in the top academic index decile. By contrast, white applicants receive a 2 or better on the personal score more than 20% of the time in the top six deciles,” wrote Mr. Arcidiacono. “Hispanics receive such personal scores more than 20% of the time in the top seven deciles, and African Americans receive such scores more than 20% of the time in the top eight deciles.” (from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/opinion/harvard-asian-american-racism.html).

As noted in the article, “even if the very worst stereotypes about Asians were true on average, it beggars belief that one could arrive at divergences as dramatic…”

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Then why did they include all those categories in the analysis EXCEPT recruited athletes?

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^The effect of recruited athletes is well analyzed in the report, it has its own regression coefficient and etc.

What I think is interesting about Harvard’s athletic score is its almost binary nature: beyond the score of 1 there is not much of a boost. A score of 2, which is only 9% of the applicants, much rarer than an academic score of 2 which is 42% of the applicants, has less of an impact on admission than academic score of 2.

Another curious aspect of the athletic score is that its scale does not reflect athletic prowess; as many of you said it is merely a code. A famous non-admit example coming to my mind this year—as QuantMech said the closest of non-admit sometimes is more revealing—is the case of Olympian, two time US champion, Nathan Chen. He was rejected by Harvard this year with a reportedly high GPA 4.0 SAT 800, but eventually admitted by Yale and matriculating. His stories and interviews were everywhere on the media before his application, for everyone to see. I have to believe that he did not receive a “1” in athletic score (perhaps a low personal score too).

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The figure skating is not a recruited sport, so I think he received no score at all (other than if they give a score to everyone for just participating in sports in general). Maybe they though he wasn’t dedicated to school, that he’d want a lot of semesters off.

Maybe they just didn’t like him. Who knows? He wasn’t a recruited athlete so he’s just in the general app pool.

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Nathan Chen is also the 2018 world champion. How curious that Harvard didn’t admit him. Figure skaters are among some of the more personable and mature in the athletic world (you don’t hear of them trashing a hotel room or being brought up on charges of assault, for instance - Tonya Harding being a notable exception). They make great TV personalities and leaders (think Yamaguchi, Hamilton, Boitano, and so forth). His academics or test scores apparently weren’t the issue.

Sarah Hughes also attended Yale (not sure where else she got in) so maybe Yale likes figure skaters and Harvard doesn’t.

Edit to above: oops. Paul Wylie attended Harvard.

Another Edit: So did Emily Hughes, younger sister of Sarah and a figure skater in her own right with fewer successful accolades.

One more edit: Sarah Hughes was, indeed, admitted to H as well, per the Crimson.

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@jzducol Actually I guess he excluded all the “special buckets”, not only athletes. If you have some evidence to the contrary I’d enjoy seeing it.

https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/diverse-education/files/harvardsummaryjudgment - Page 41.

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“Maybe they just didn’t like him. Who knows? He wasn’t a recruited athlete so he’s just in the general app pool.”

Maybe and maybe not. Anecdotally, Harvard likes smart figure skaters. And world champions in most activities probably have a good chance of getting in. My relative who attended Harvard said it was common knowledge that the best break-dancer could get into Harvard. They look for exceptional candidates, not just smart ones.

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It helps to have some perspective on what the mass of apps looks like, as a whole and on an individual basis. It helps not to assume the plaintiff “expert” has summarized and stratified in ways that truly reflect what Harvard does.

In ten plus years, I have only seen one time when an adcom said something comparative about an As Am applicant that reflected a “sameness” as some defect. One time. It was so striking to see that I stopped to see if the adcom was new. Not.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t evaluations and evaluative comments about how a kid stands out as special or not, everything in the holistic playbook. Many kids are doing the same menu of things. In itself, that’s not bad. Many kids have limited themselves to more easily accessible experiences. That’s not so great.

I’m trying to be respectful, but it’s a fact that not each top perfoming kid who wants similar majors or who has a similar record or comes from the same narrow geo area, will find a spot.

Nor is the culling just about Asian American kids.

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^ @OHMomof2 The whole point of Dr. Arcidiancono’s statistical analysis is to narrow down all the possible causes. Taking out all the effects from “special buckets” you are left with one big suspicious category called “personality”. Of course, this is not the topic of this thread.

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Chen. I know little about him but we once reviewed an Olympian whom no one wanted to advance. Some winter sport, not a recruit. Thing is, this guy had done nothing but his sport, couldn’t even point to mentoring younger team members. The net-net in his own self presentation was, with top grades and sports notability, he wanted in. Fine, but he didn’t get the nod.

Chen may have done more. But maybe Yale saw and could accept some factors that H chose not to. Maybe H had more in the pool who were similar to Chen and could only take so many.

Break dancing isn’t exceptional, not a tip, not in itself.

“Exceptional” very much includes the the self presentation, the record, the choices along the way, and the choices in how to put forth your best application- yes, knowing what that means. You’ve got 40k apps and probably 15k or so after first cut. Nearly all of whom are top performers.

To clairfy, my experience is not H.

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So I don’t see a problem with this (and, btw, all of this “transparency” into how private universities make choices isn’t solving issues but creating new ones)…they’re amazing athletes & amazing scholars…how many of us have done so well down two separate paths? (answer, very very few).