In my last post, I said that " the current situation is that colleges are discriminating towards certain preference groups, not specifically against Asians." The term “current situation” was an important part of that sentence.
The following graph was revealed as part of the SFFA lawsuit. It was created by Harvard’s Office of Institutional Research and shows the percentage of Asians that would be admitted under various criteria.
There are a few interesting things to note about this graph:
In the trial, Harvard disavowed the research on this graph, even though the percentage shown in Model 4 (which included adding a thumb on the scale for race) very closely approximated the demographics of the actual admitted class.
Based upon Harvard’s internal model that considered admission based upon academics, legacy, athletes, ECs and personal, but excluded race, Asians would be 26% of the class.
Subsequent to the lawsuit, the percentage of Asians admitted by Harvard substantially increased, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. For Harvard’s Class of 2025, 27.2% are Asian-American, compared to 26.0% that would be admitted if race was not considered.
This data suggests that Harvard used to have a thumb on the scale for race that disadvantaged Asian-American applicants, but that they no longer do.
The Oxford chart indicates that last year about 11% of Oxford is domestic Asian, another 2% domestic South Asian ethnically, and 8% of mixed heritage, which is consistent with the overall eligible student population of qualified applicants. Seems entirely reasonable.
Getting back to the movie, does anyone wonder whether the three students with tiger or helicopter parents (who have presumably graduated college by now) have escaped from the “box” (as Alvan put it) that their parents were keeping them while they were in high school?
Are you are willing to apply this same “overall eligible student population of qualified applicants” standard to schools like Harvard and Stanford, where approximately a quarter of the class is Asian American?
I am more than willing to acknowledge that the UK has an effective and efficient system that produces more equitable results than the US, which is the topic of this thread
The numbers are clearly stated in your source. The Bristish students self-select and do not apply en masse to Oxford. The Asian students do. The drive for prestige is no less strong on the other side of the pond. This does not mean that Oxford should or can take everybody that applies, especially if they apply for the same majors. Oxford admits direct to the major. There are only 128 spots combined for applicants in CS/math, CS and CS and philosophy.
This discussion is about their admission process vs ours, not about admitting by race. The British system includes a difficult entrance exam on mathematics/problem solving which weeds out the majority of applicants. British universities are also public and cannot have opaque admission. The elite US universities are neither.
Model 1 of admissions by academics only was estimated to result in a class where White students were not the largest group. Perhaps that is a line that Harvard may not want to cross (at least now) for marketing reasons.
Yes, but I don’t understand why for Harvard/Stanford we look at acceptance rate of those who actually applied, but for Oxford you use percentage of qualified students admitted Oxford, whether they applied or not. The same factors you describe exist at both, so it seems we need to use the same standard of comparison.
Let me put it another way. What if it turned out that the percentage of qualified Asian Americans (whether they applied or not) accepted to Stanford was close to the percentage of qualified white Americans (whether they applied or not) accepted to Stanford. Would you then conclude, like you did with Oxford, that there was no “blatant injustice”? If not, why not?
Asian American students also self-select by applying more heavily to schools like Harvard and Stanford, so why use different denominator for Oxford than for Harvard/Stanford?
This discussion is about the movie Try Harder!. The reaction here by some is to suggest that movie is somehow compelling evidence that 1) Asian American students face discrimination in admission by schools like Stanford/Harvard, and 2) that Asian students would not be discriminated against if we adopted a system like the system used in the UK. So, I think it on point to look at just how well Asian students do in their system as compared to ours.
Since Stanford won’t release information by race, we don’t know the percentage of qualified applicants admitted by racial category. So your comparison does not work.
The number of applications to Stanford is completely irrelevant under the methodology used by @Mumfromca above. All that matters are acceptances. Total acceptances could be somewhat approximated by looking at the total Asian enrollment for a particular class and multiplying from there based on estimated yield.
For example, last year Stanford’s admitted class was 25% Asian American so we can easily determine the minimum number accepted, and approximate from there.
The question that you pose does not logically relate to the statement that I made. The reason is probably because you had already decided to build a strawman and take the point out of context. The fact that the Vassar AOs were also likely racist back in the 1980s is almost certainly not surprising to anyone here.
My expectation is that most people in this thread will have actually seen the movie and understand what we were discussing. The point is simply that people are not the same regardless of stereotypes. If you want to think that people can be placed boxes because of the way they look, act, study, etc., I believe that you are wrong.
I don’t think racism is limited to a few groups of people. But I do think it almost always affects the minorities in populations more than the majority.
Well I guess you have exceptions to this rule when you state…
Curious about your use of the word “also” in the following….
Are you suggesting I am racist because my answer is an unabashed NO to the question of whether I would want to attend a school where everyone either looks or were the same as me?
And not sure how it is out of context or not logically related when I provided your entire post and responded near verbatim to;
Lastly I never said or suggested anyone at Vassar was racist and such a statement would in fact be extremely surprising to anyone familiar with Vassar and it’s historically inclusive culture.
Mtmind, I did not say that Asian American students face discrimination in admission, somebody else did. There are plenty of Asian students at the top schools (40% at UC Berkeley, 27% at Harvard, 25% at Stanford).
There are plenty of people in any large group of people that share the some of the same qualities. That doesn’t mean all the people in that large group are the same. Likewise, a smaller group can also share similar qualities without being exactly the same.
The “also” was referring to the AO at Stanford. That is what many of the posts here are actually about.
It seems clear that saying “I wouldn’t want to attend a school where everybody looked or were the same (like me)” is not the same as saying a group of people that don’t include you are all same. Do you really not see the difference?
Also, do you really feel so much the same as other people that you are fine
being generalized about?
The increase in applicants is directly the result of the fact that the internet has allowed a much wider population of prestige seeking parents and students to access college advice websites. Since the great majority of these college websites put “elite” colleges on a pedestal, this attitude has spread. Back when USNews ranking, Niche, College Raptor, and other such websites which also rank colleges were only available in paper, or before access to internet was the rule for more affluent families, most families did not even have any colleges on their radars which were all that far away.
Affluent families sent their kids to their state flagship or to the private colleges that were within the vicinity. A very small number of colleges, like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and MIT were known by name and reputation outside of their own region, and attracted a smaller number of students from further away. But, for the most part, even private “elite” colleges were attended by kids from no more than a train ride away.
However, as more college-related websites popped up, or college related magazines went online, and as these increasingly focused on ranking and “matching” students to colleges, and as more and more focus was put on “elite” colleges, these became the new status symbol of the affluent and prestige symbol for families who want to project an image of “smart people” to their family, friends, and neighbors.
Moreover, now, more than ever, there are article after article which talk about how difficult it is to get into “elite” colleges, and how the kids who are accepted are so great, articles about the joys of the Few Who Made It. Not only do the vast majority of those articles not question whether attending “elite” colleges is worthwhile, most actually go on, often at length, about all the benefits there are in attending an “elite” college.
At the same time, many of these “elite” colleges were actually looking to increase the number of non-affluent students, who, in the past, did not think of attending an “elite” college. So “elite” colleges started reaching out and providing financial aid to the 80% of the population who had, in the past, almost never applied to any of these colleges (if they even applied to college). As states increasingly cut funding to public universities, “elite” private colleges became even more attractive to lower income families.
So yes, there are more top notch applicants than there are places for them in the most popular colleges, no matter what the criteria.
Please read what I wrote.
For Oxbridge I only counted the students at Oxbridge who were from the UK. Oxbridge actually have around 7,800 first year students.
You’re talking as if internet were a US-only phenomenon. Internet does amplify trends, but it’s global. The dramatic and continuing increases in applications to “elite” colleges in the US clearly have other underlying causes. If you keep removing and/or lowering measurable entrance bars, making more people feel that they’re “qualified”, why should you be surprised that more would apply?
Prestige seeking is also not a US-only phenomenon. More people in the UK (and around the world) undoubtedly consider Oxbridge more prestigious (and better known) than those in the US who would consider, say, Rice (sorry Rice fans, I had to pick one), prestigious (or better known). Yet, Rice has a lower acceptance rate.
The argument that the percentage of Asians at a school is higher than 7% (the percentage in the population) and therefore the school is not racist is one that rubs me the wrong way. The thinking behind that seems to be “See, we made extra space for you, so stop complaining”, which presupposes a white/dominant group viewpoint who is responsible for making the space.
But all of the data releases show that Asians have higher academic achievement even when correcting for socioeconomic status and such, as well as very high extracurriculars, even if they are of the “wrong” kind (violin, not lacrosse or crew - funny how it is fine to have 40 lacrosse players admitted to a school - aren’t they all the “same”?). So the implication is always that is their Asian “personalities” that is holding them back. The schools’ actions today are no different than when they conspired to tamp down Jewish enrollment in the 20s and 30s. Actually the arguments made then about upholding a common Western cultural background were if anything, more coherent than the non-argument and evasion that surrounds college admissions today.
We need more schools like Cal Tech that stop putting race in the scale. We can also have plenty of pathways to ensure that underrepresented minorities have opportunity (Black, Latino/a, Pacific Islander, Native Americans), but we need to stop saving so many spaces for the underrepresented white majority if they are underachieving.
I would also add to this that the elite’s admissions practices are doing no favors to whites either. If you meet a white Harvard graduate, are you more likely to think they are smart, or that perhaps their parents donated $2.5 million to get junior in? The whole system is an awful mess.
The Stanford rep is claimed to have asked “raise your hand if you want everyone at your school to be the same?”
“Same” means a lot of things well beyond race. In this case It could simply mean the same school, geography or magnate public schools kids. It could (and does) mean Stanford doesn’t want kids with the same areas of academic interests, lived experiences or generic ECs. It could mean they don’t want a community populated with violin and tennis players who don’t have true passion for either but prefer the class star who was offered admission.
The comment seemed to be an important reminder of the need to stand out among a very crowded and talented global pool. Seems entirely appropriate from an AO from a college that accepts 3% of applicants. It’s a question that could and should be asked in any and all HS across the country and would consistently not have a racial undertone unless someone sought to imply one.
This isn’t racisms or stereotyping as you suggest. Please recall Lowell HS wasn’t 100% Asian so the only thing the “same” about the audience members who were asked the question was the high school from which they were applying.
If I missed it please point me to where you seem to insist someone suggested or stated that a specific race or group of people are all the same.
Seriously? Maybe because I live in an affluent community in the northeast, I’ve meant countless white Harvard graduates. I work with them, they are my neighbors, they’re everywhere. I’ll admit that I’ve met some that left me wondering if they got in because their parents were rich, but most are very intelligent accomplished people.
Why should we have an education system that leaves us wondering this at all? The pay-to-play system is corrupting, even if “most” applicants are admitted on merit. In my experience, Ivy grads are more likely to have flexible ethical standards that adapt easily to power dynamics. This is one of the elements that helps them “achieve” in our society.
