That gets to a general principle that seems to be fairly common here – the colleges that student sees as “fits” are different from the colleges that see the student as a “fit”.
For example, it has been noted that some New England colleges may see Asian students as URM, but Asian students may be less willing to go there because they do not want to be the only one there. This is not unique to Asian students. For example, over 60 years since desegregation, UAH is 71% White and nearby AAMU is 90% Black.
This also applies to other student characteristics like intended major. Students often focus on colleges where their majors are so popular that it must be additionally selective beyond admission to the college, even if some other college also offers the major without additional selection.
@ucbalumnus goes on to point out the understandable desire for a critical mass of similar students, as well as the tendency to go after colleges that are strong in the (already competitive) majors of interest.
…all this before taking into account that for too many students “fit”=“prestige”.
First, there are over 1.5 million White immigrants from East Europe, all who are always asked where they are from. Most are told to “go back to their own country”.
They are highly educated, and prioritize education at least as much as any Asian group, have kids who are highly accomplished, and, guess what? These kids suffer from the exact same issues as Asian Americans. They have no legacy advantage, are not considered URMs, do not have the money to participate in wealth kid sports, and have less money than do Asians (median income is far below that of most Asian Immigrant groups), and, as an absolutely wonderful member from another thread discovered, are having just as much difficulty being accepted to “elite” colleges as any middle class Asian kid.
So you are clumping them here with the rest of the White people.
Then there are people from the Middle East and North Africa. On the Common Ap they are categorized as “White”, and are considered as such by all colleges, yet you better believe that they are asked where they are from and told to go back to their own country. In fact, they generally suffer worse discrimination than Asian Americans. There are at least 3 million of these (probably more).
You are, essentially, looking at the affluent White non-immigrant families of European origin that live in your community and extrapolating from them to the other 54,000,000 White families in the USA.
The White people that fit the way that you describe “White people” constitute fewer than 10% of the White people that live in the USA.
Those 10% are where the vast majority of hooked White people are. But you are, essentially, claiming that, because the majority of hooked wealthy people are White, therefore all White people of all incomes are hooked.
A general claim about the characteristics of a group which is not only extremely diverse, but which can be divided into multiple smaller groups which differ substantially in those same characteristics is entirely meaningless.
Since White Americans are such a group, and Asian Americans are even more so (I mean, clumping Indian Americans with Chinese, Japanese with Hmong, Filipino with Vietnamese?), your comparisons of the two groups have actually little meaning.
[aside] I think that it’s time to retire the term “Asian American”, since it’s really meaningless. There are Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, Hmong Americans, etc. [/aside]
The issue is more the admit rate than the percent of Asians, you have to take into account how many are applying, acceptance rate, yield before claiming that Harvard is more or less welcoming. Here’s an article from the Crimson around the time of the trial that had the Asian-Americans with with the lowest admit rates. Asians are the lowest at 8%, African Americans are highest at 13%. This is 18 years worth of data and a lot of students, so I think 5% difference is significant, @Data10 may be able to comment on that.
90% of white people face discrimination? I never knew. That’s terrible.
The majority of hooked wealthy people are white? Is that what I said? I thought I stated that the majority of legacies are white (which is true).
And since I said the majority of legacies are white, I must’ve implied that ALL white people of ALL incomes are hooked? I guess that could be technically true since legacies come from all income groups.
And based on this statement, I meant that ALL white people are hooked? I’m not sure if that’s what you’re saying? Is that even possible? Tell me again what I said and what I meant. Im a little confused.
Either way, You’ve completely enlightened me. Thank you.
In my prior post, I was referring to “measurable entrance bars”. “Measurable” in the sense that applicants themselves can gauge, so they know whether it’s worthwhile to apply. If you lower such “measurable entrance bars”, you’ll encourage “a larger number” of applicants to apply, if that’s your goal. But it means more stresses for everyone (other than a few who are super hooked) who apply.
A meritocratic system, or a system that strives to be more meritocratic, can’t, by definition, guarantee to produce equal outcomes for every demographic group, can it? It must view individuals as “individuals”, not some members of a particular demographic group. Why should you expect equal outcomes from such a system?
Last call for posts on the topic that comply with ToS. The moderating team is unanimous that this thread has become too time-consuming to clean all the prohibited race posts, so I’m putting the thread on an automatic timer to close. Further flags will result in the thread being immediately closed.
To me what is sad about documentaries like “Try Harder” isn’t that students had to “settle” for schools like UCLA or Emory, but that they spent their HS years laser focused on elite college admissions and then feel it wasn’t “worth it”. I think you’d see less of this if high stats parents/students accepted that there are more than 20 (or 50) colleges worth attending in this country and that their fantastic kids will be successful regardless of what school they attend. Instead, we are left debating what kids are most “deserving” of admission to a handful schools when, in reality, regardless of what admissions criteria are used there will always be many outstanding students left out - there are too many great students and too few available seats.
As someone of Middle Eastern descent, I can confirm that there’s huge anti-immigrant sentiment, not limited to those of Asian descent.
I think everything depends on the intent of the speaker. If they are friendly and genuinely curious, I cannot imagine taking offense at a question like “Where are you from?”
Also, I have dark coloring, and somehow I gave birth to a very blond child. I can’t count the number of times I was asked “Are you his babysitter?” or similar. My son and I are amused by this and its kind of a joke between us. People don’t mean any harm. It might be kind of stupid, but given that I myself am not immune to asking kind of stupid questions, I cut people some slack.
I agree that it depends on the intent. What some posters described isn’t just the initial question of “Where are you from?”, but the follow-up question of “Where are you really from?” when the questioner isn’t satisfied with the answer to the initial question because the person “looks” different from the majority.
That is not true for some applicants even at a place like Harvard. The court data shows athletes e.g. with a good (but not exceptional) academic rating to have an 80+ percent chance of getting in. Athletes are 15% of the class at Harvard. People shouldn’t think that the 4% admit rate applies to everyone. As discussed on other threads, unhooked kids from Lowell are probably competing for about half the slots at places like Harvard.
Except of the pool of athletes trying to get recruited by Harvard, probably only about 2% are successful. So their admit rate is just as low; except you don’t see their full process, which can take two years or more, only the very last part (the actual application and resulting decision).
My DS had a classmate that was ranked #1 in his position, #1 in state overall and mid single digits overall. He had a strong enough academic profile that his acceptance rate would have been 100% at any college that plays his sport.
Yes, that’s my point. Extremely few kids have that boy’s profile, though they are good athletes and students. They are the “average excellent” and that boy was exceptional. Someone exceptional in other ways (David Hogg, eg) also is extremely likely to be admitted.
But “average excellent” kids are admitted; it’s just that the competition for those spots is fierce. My point was that there’s just as much fierce competition for those athletic recruit spots too. But that competition takes place out of sight from the general admission process.
Because the obsession with attending an “elite” college is widespread among the wealthy, because it is a status symbol, or they believe that prestige indicates quality, or they prefer luxury items, etc. Therefore, they will use their wealth to gain any advantage in admissions that they can (sometimes illegally, as we have seen). Since GPA and test scores are “Very Important” in admissions to the vast majority of “elite” colleges, they will use wealth to gain advantage in these as well as in other criteria.
However, with “holistic” admissions, college which actually want to increase the presence of low income students can consider family income as a mitigating factor. In purportedly “merit only” admissions, higher GPA always trumps lower GPA even when the higher GPA is purchased, not achieved by skill or talent.
Wealthy kids will always have an advantage in college admissions, especially in a country like the USA which has an education system in which one’s spending ability determines the quality of the education one’s kid receives.
The question is whether colleges care. It is the duty of public colleges to care, since their mission is to provide education to all qualified students in the state, and not ignore students whose elementary school sucked because the district was poor.
On the other hand, public universities fulfill their duties to the government by being a non-profit education program. The Federal government only requires that there be no overt discrimination against protected classes. However, when the actual discrimination is happening in the K-12 systems of each state, it is not the required from private colleges to solve issues that are being caused by state legislatures.
Whether holistic admissions discriminates against any protected group depends on the factors that the admissions consider.
PS. I’m not judging wealthy people for using their wealth to obtain admissions to an “elite” college, BTW. What else is money for, if not to spend on things that one needs, wants, or thinks that they need? Whether admissions should be up for purchase is another issue entirely with a more ambiguous answer.