The Harvard admissions lawsuit
I think that Princeton's current population of students who are children of alumni is about 13%. Some will say that still is too high, but I think that is a reasonable number. And I know from anecdotal experience that there are many alumni there whose children - with high GPAs, scores etc. - are rejected, not even waitlisted. And they are also investing in the campus - new residence halls, classroom buildings etc. - enabling them to grow their undergraduate class size and accept and enroll more students.
And regarding the number of community college students they are beginning to accept, it is a very small percentage of their overall population, but I also think it's realistic to expect that it always will be.
I'm not arguing it's a perfect and completely fair situation there, but perhaps it's not as "elitist" as some folks may believe.
apple44 said:
I think that Princeton's current population of students who are children of alumni is about 13%. Some will say that still is too high, but I think that is a reasonable number. And I know from anecdotal experience that there are many alumni there whose children - with high GPAs, scores etc. - are rejected, not even waitlisted. And they are also investing in the campus - new residence halls, classroom buildings etc. - enabling them to grow their undergraduate class size and accept and enroll more students.
And regarding the number of community college students they are beginning to accept, it is a very small percentage of their overall population, but I also think it's realistic to expect that it always will be.
I'm not arguing it's a perfect and completely fair situation there, but perhaps it's not as "elitist" as some folks may believe.
My interpretation of the American Talent Initiative is that it consists of greater outreach to low-income students, greater financial aid, and sometimes opening the door to community college transfer students. It is not SES-based affirmative action. Harvard itself is a member of the American Talent Initiative, and its dean just last week said that Harvard didn't want to have SES affirmative action because it "wanted talent."
Harvard also has more legacy children than Princeton, 30% of each class versus 13-14%, so perhaps generalizations about the Ivies are inappropriate.
I'm sure that many legacy children and children of big donors are themselves brilliant and would have gotten in even absent legacy/donor preferences, just like many students from racial minorities would get in even without racial preferences.
But that doesn't change the fact that legacy applicants are 45% more likely to be accepted, all else being equal. One study said that being a legacy was equivalent to a 160 point increase on the SAT (of 1600) So It's more than a "thumb on he scale."
I think the elite colleges are wrong when they say that ending legacy preferences would cut donations. Chad Coffman in "Affirmative Action for the Rich" looked at seven colleges that eliminated legacy donations and found there was no drop in donations. Another study found that the difference was $15 per alumnus per year. Yale has reduced legacy admits to 8% and has had no drop in fundraising.
Also, universities have ways other than admissions preferences to induce donations, like naming stuff after donors.
Even if donations did drop, I think that would be a GOOD thing. Let's say a rich Harvard alumnus's child ends up at some other good private school, but not the equal of Harvard, like Hopkins or Emory or Carnegie-Mellon etc and then the rich alumnus decides to donate to that less-well-endowed school. I'd rather a big donation go to a state school, but if the donor gives to a less-well-endowed private college instead of Harvard, how is that not a good thing?
Also, since the US Treasury loses money every time someone donates to a college, even no donation at all to Harvard or Princeton might be more socially useful, since at least the US would take more income taxes in.
IMO, part of the reason elite universities defend race-based affirmative action so intensely and unconditionally is that they know that if they could not use racial preferences, persisted in donor/legacy/staff children preferences, and didn't use SES-affirmative action that they would become over 95% white and Asian. For several reasons, most universities don't want to end legacy preferences or use SES-affirmative action, so they use racial preferences to conceal the degree to which they perpetuate multigenerational privilege.
Re: legacy preferences
I find it ironic that the United Kingdom, a country with titled aristocrats and a hereditary monarchy, has eliminated legacy preferences at Oxford and Cambridge, while the US, a proud republic whose constitution bans titles of nobility in two places, allows hereditary privilege in college admission to flourish.
Runner_Guy said:
Harvard itself is a member of the American Talent Initiative, and its dean just last week said that Harvard didn't want to have SES affirmative action because it "wanted talent."
That’s not what Khurana said, either literally or contextually.
IMO, part of the reason elite universities defend race-based affirmative action so intensely and unconditionally is that they know that if they could not use racial preferences, persisted in donor/legacy/staff children preferences, and didn't use SES-affirmative action that they would become over 95% white and Asian. For several reasons, most universities don't want to end legacy preferences or use SES-affirmative action, so they use racial preferences to conceal the degree to which they perpetuate multigenerational privilege.
If outlawing race-based preferences is a cudgel to get universities to step up on SES affirmative action, what’s the cudgel to get them to complete the deal by eliminating legacy, donor and staff preferences so African-American and Hispanic enrollments don’t take a big hit? Are you counting on the schools’ embarrassment, public pressure — or very sincere litigants like Mr. Blum — to carry the day over the privileged constituencies?
In March 2018, the editorial board of the Harvard Crimson called for abolishing preferential treatment for legacy applicants.
"Harvard’s practice of admitting a disproportionate number of applicants who are related to alumni has routinely made headlines through the years. Most recently, some students and alumni of the College signed a letter to university administrators across the country asking for transparency on how legacy applicants are treated in the admissions process, arguing that preference for legacy admissions is “hampering economic mobility.”
We stand by our precedent that abolishing preferential treatment for legacy applicants would be a positive step towards socioeconomic justice. We remain steadfast in our belief that legacy status should not be a consideration in the admissions process."
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/3/8/editorial-unjust-legacy/#.WqG2dUVnt44.twitter
DaveSchmidt said:
Runner_Guy said:That’s not what Khurana said, either literally or contextually.
Harvard itself is a member of the American Talent Initiative, and its dean just last week said that Harvard didn't want to have SES affirmative action because it "wanted talent."
I think it's a fair, short summary of a longer statement, which was literally "What we’re trying to do is identify talent and make it possible for them to come to a place like Harvard."
This is where I got it
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/23/khurana-testimony/:
Don’t you actually think that Harvard’s class should have a socioeconomic makeup that looks a lot more like America, provided the students were academically qualified to be at Harvard?” Mortara asked Khurana. “Your personal opinion, sir?” “
"I don’t,” Khurana replied.
“What is special about wealthy people that Harvard needs to have them overrepresented by a factor of six on its campus?” Mortara asked later.
In response, Khurana said Mortara was missing the point.
“We’re not trying to mirror the socioeconomic or income distribution of the United States,” Khurana said. “What we’re trying to do is identify talent and make it possible for them to come to a place like Harvard.”
So it doesn't seem like Rakesh Kharuna thinks that socioeconomic diversity is important. He disagrees, point blank, with the premise of a question that Harvard should have a makeup that looks a lot more like America.
He says Harvard is striving for talent, but implicit in that is that he believes Harvard should loosen its "talent requirement" for race, but not low-income status.
IMO, part of the reason elite universities defend race-based affirmative action so intensely and unconditionally is that they know that if they could not use racial preferences, persisted in donor/legacy/staff children preferences, and didn't use SES-affirmative action that they would become over 95% white and Asian. For several reasons, most universities don't want to end legacy preferences or use SES-affirmative action, so they use racial preferences to conceal the degree to which they perpetuate multigenerational privilege.If outlawing race-based preferences is a cudgel to get universities to step up on SES affirmative action, what’s the cudgel to get them to complete the deal by eliminating legacy, donor and staff preferences so African-American and Hispanic enrollments don’t take a big hit? Are you counting on the schools’ embarrassment, public pressure — or very sincere litigants like Mr. Blum — to carry the day over the privileged constituencies?
There isn't a cudgel other than their own embarrassment at becoming >95% white and Asian. I think that's plenty powerful.
Runner_Guy said:
I think it's a fair, short summary of a longer statement, which was literally "What we’re trying to do is identify talent and make it possible for them to come to a place like Harvard.
Fairer, I think: When asked if one in 10 Harvard students should be in poverty and only one in 100 from the wealthiest 1 percent, the dean of admissions said no. But give him a student in poverty who's bright or talented enough for Harvard, he added, and the university will work something out.
There isn't a cudgel other than their own embarrassment at becoming >95% white and Asian. I think that's plenty powerful.
Good luck with that. (See: California, University of.)
Norman_Bates said:
If you don't like long posts, please don't read his one! I am borrowing from my post in the other thread here but I would like to nudge people to reconsider a few common assumptions.
Assumption #1: The purpose of affirmative action in university admissions is strictly to help "minority" students...that colleges are admitting otherwise unqualified students as a social justice endeavor. [That isn't necessarily the case. In fact, most institutions really do believe that having a student body that is significantly mixed benefits all students - including whites - because the college wants to prepare students for today's global society, not the society of the 1950s. Ostensibly, colleges are producing the leaders of tomorrow's society. Having a campus in which students have a meaningful opportunity to interact with, and learn from, those who are different from themselves is a key part of the educational process. It contributes to academic and social learning. So, the purpose of considering race and other characteristics is not all about helping students of color. Rather, it's about creating an optimal learning environment for all students. And the Supreme Court has determined that educational institutions have the right to do this...and doing so doesn't violate Title VI or the 14th amendment.]
I find it ironic that the pro-race-based affirmative action side has invested so much in the diversity rationale that they have ceded the argument that race-based affirmative action has anything to do with fairness. In both the Fischer case and the Harvard case, when proponents of racial preferences have been asked about the fairness of giving a preference even to a wealthy, prep school black applicant they've said that's a good thing because it reminds the white and Asian students at the college that wealthy, prep school blacks exist.
But the whole Diversity vs Homogeneity argument presents a FALSE CHOICE because race and class are intertwined in the United States and so SES-affirmative action would also produce a racially diverse class, but with a dramatically wider range of personal experiences and backgrounds.
Harvard's own analysis has shown that if it used SES-affirmative action its black enrollment would fall to only 10%. 10% was high enough that even the judge in this case asked "how is that not enough to have viewpoint diversity?" Richard Kahlenberg's more robust version of SES-diversity (which would include parental wealth and eliminate privilege preferences) would keep black and Latino enrollment constant. Kahlenberg's analysis also shows that on the SAT (at least), Harvard's students would still come from the 98th percentile.
If racial preferences are necessary for viewpoint diversity, why would viewpoint diversity not be sufficient if blacks were 10% of an elite school versus 12%? And would not the corresponding increase in SES-diversity more than make up for the slight diminishment of racial diversity?
I also find it ironic that the proponents of race-based affirmative action are stereotyping enormous categories of people and assuming that people with ancestors from Africa, Europe, Asia, or Latin America are going to have common ways of thinking and that a given black person or Latino person can be a spokesman for his race.
Even if we allow for generalizations about racial groups having certain common beliefs, it's also ignoring that the black, white, Asian, and Latino populations don't have significant sub-populations and sub-sub-populations whose attitudes may differ on a given issue. Even when groups come from the same stock, they might have nothing in common and yet Harvard feels like it's appropriate to lump together Scotch-Irish "Hillbillies" and "Boston Brahmins" because they are both white. Harvard also thinks its appropriate to lump together Latin America's exploitative feudal class with the Indian peons they exploited.
Also, there are so many people who can't be neatly racially classified anyway. How much extra weight to biracial people get? Are Arabs African-American, white, or Asian? Do Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews count as Arabs at all or just Muslims?
Normally, intelligent people try to recognize the variation within racial populations and see people as individuals, but under race-based affirmative action diversity-within-diversity isn't really a concept.
Finally, if someone wants to lie about his background, like Vijay Chokalingam did when he applied to med school as a black person, there's zero verification.
If SES-affirmative action resulted in more poor whites and Asians getting into elite colleges, I think that is a good thing for the colleges themselves and would be a good thing politically, because the deep resentment that lower-income whites have towards liberalism would start to fade.
People disagree with what fairness is, but fairness is the the most commonly used moral dimension we try weigh public policy options. When only one side even purports to base its argument on fairness, I think something is very much wrong.
Runner_Guy said:
I find it ironic that the pro-race-based affirmative action side has invested so much in the diversity rationale that they have ceded the argument that race-based affirmative action has anything to do with fairness. In both the Fischer case and the Harvard case, when proponents of racial preferences have been asked about the fairness of giving a preference even to a wealthy, prep school black applicant they've said that's a good thing because it reminds the white and Asian students at the college that wealthy, prep school blacks exist.
[part of post deleted]
If racial preferences are necessary for viewpoint diversity, why would viewpoint diversity not be sufficient if blacks were 10% of an elite school versus 12%? And would not the corresponding increase in SES-diversity more than make up for the slight diminishment of racial diversity?
Your questions are very reasonable. In 2003 Justice O’Connor said that schools may seek to enroll a “critical mass” of minority students in order to create a campus environment that provides the sort of sufficient and meaningful opportunities for group interaction that is necessary to facilitate learning and change. For example, one Native American student on a campus of 10,000 isn't enough of a presence to assure the required degree of interaction. O’Connor’s contention was embedded in the Supreme Court’s rulings in the Michigan and Texas cases. The central complications of this concept are: (1) this sounds a lot like a quota, which is not allowed and (2) just what constitutes a critical mass has gone undefined by the courts. If 1 isn't enough, how about 5? or is it 100? Is it 10% or 12%? Nobody knows.
With respect to your question as to whether what Harvard or other private colleges are trying to do to create an optimal student body for that particular institution is "fair", a private college really isn't required to be "fair", only to comply with the prevailing laws. Since admission isn't a right or an entitlement, a private college can pretty much admit who it wants provided it doesn't exceed the parameters the courts have determined to be tolerable under laws such as Title VI. I do, however, recognize that some people seem to believe the admissions process should be more objective and driven by academic qualifications more than anything else. I guess the court will look at all of these issues.
Runner_Guy said:
People disagree with what fairness is, but fairness is the the most commonly used moral dimension we try weigh public policy options. When only one side even purports to base its argument on fairness, I think something is very much wrong.
If you find all this irony, it may be because your understanding of the other side is limited. Disagreement happens, but unlike, say, Adam Serwer in the American Prospect article I quoted, you haven’t really shown that you get the counterarguments to begin with. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can make them any clearer myself. That’s one of my limitations.
No supporter of race-conscious admissions in this discussion has argued against SAS preferences. The only false choice I see is yours, claiming it must be one or the other.
Fairness is taking the full measure of an applicant, or as much as possible, into account. Unfair is telling an applicant whose race is prima facie a consequential part of his or her existence — rich, poor or in between — that it doesn’t, that it can’t, count at all. How consequential? That can be explored through essays, interviews and recommendations, but in any case it’s at least as consequential as the small advantage it gives in admissions.
Again, go ahead and disagree. But declaring that “only one side even purports” is a statement of limited understanding.
If you get a chance:
In both the Fischer case and the Harvard case, when proponents of racial preferences have been asked about the fairness of giving a preference even to a wealthy, prep school black applicant they've said that's a good thing because it reminds the white and Asian students at the college that wealthy, prep school blacks exist.
Any examples? The responses may be just as you describe them, but I’d like my own chance to mull what was said.
Runner_Guy said:
In both the Fischer case and the Harvard case, when proponents of racial preferences have been asked about the fairness of giving a preference even to a wealthy, prep school black applicant they've said that's a good thing because it reminds the white and Asian students at the college that wealthy, prep school blacks exist.
Maybe something like this (which involves more than a reminder that prep school blacks exist) was what you had in mind?
sprout said:
Considering race as well as economic status would allow Harvard not to reduce their proportion of admitted African American students, by allowing them to select students from a broader cross-section of economic backgrounds. If we go to a purely economic indicator without considerations of race, Harvard students will interact primarily with 'poor Black students'. Which would be antithetical to the point of trying to have a diverse student body for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of our society.
Rainy days and some idle time ...
Runner_Guy said:
If racial preferences are necessary for viewpoint diversity, why would viewpoint diversity not be sufficient if blacks were 10% of an elite school versus 12%?
Precisely because individuals from any race don’t share monolithic views on how it shapes a person and the world, even a loss of 2 percent makes a difference in what insights and experiences course through the student body. A shrug at 2 percent is more symptomatic, if anything, of an opinion that they’re all the same.
So what’s below is just wrong. If someone supports greater representation in the name of diversity, the opposite must be true. I could even argue that the idea that wealthy blacks are stereotypically defined by their class is what’s ironic. But that would just be calling my miscomprehension by another name.
I also find it ironic that the proponents of race-based affirmative action are stereotyping enormous categories of people and assuming that people with ancestors from Africa, Europe, Asia, or Latin America are going to have common ways of thinking and that a given black person or Latino person can be a spokesman for his race.
Don't mean to broken-record this point, but ''fairness" and "elite private college"--in my mind, those two things will never go together.
DaveSchmidt said:
Rainy days and some idle time ...
Runner_Guy said:Precisely because individuals from any race don’t share monolithic views on how it shapes a person and the world, even a loss of 2 percent makes a difference in what insights and experiences course through the student body. A shrug at 2 percent is more symptomatic, if anything, of an opinion that they’re all the same.
If racial preferences are necessary for viewpoint diversity, why would viewpoint diversity not be sufficient if blacks were 10% of an elite school versus 12%?
So what’s below is just wrong. If someone supports greater representation in the name of diversity, the opposite must be true. I could even argue that the idea that wealthy blacks are stereotypically defined by their class is what’s ironic. But that would just be calling my miscomprehension by another name.
I also find it ironic that the proponents of race-based affirmative action are stereotyping enormous categories of people and assuming that people with ancestors from Africa, Europe, Asia, or Latin America are going to have common ways of thinking and that a given black person or Latino person can be a spokesman for his race.
If you start talking about percentages -- 10%, 12%, or 14% -- and then what the minimum percentage is for enough class diversity then you are getting into territory that defenders of affirmative action normally avoid, which is that affirmative action still creates quotas and that the "critical mass" that top colleges seek is a quota by another name.
Every single person is a universe of opinions, experiences, and insights, but since SES-based affirmative action would increase the socioeconomic diversity of college classes, it would therefore increase the range of personal experience in a class. If you restrict the concept of diversity to "racial diversity," then there might be a loss under SES-preferences, but for someone whose definition of diversity is broader than that, diversity increases.
I exaggerated when I said that defenders of racial preferences had ceded the fairness argument to the opponents of race-based affirmative action, but an exaggeration is not a falsification and the opponents of race-based affirmative action do talk about fairness much more than the proponents, which is the inversion of our usual liberal-conservative discourse. When I asked you about racial preferences for Latinos you said it was justified based on diversity, not fairness.
To proponents of affirmative action, fairness might be about fairness for a racial category, not an individual. Many people disagree with that.
But to get back to the original topic of the SFFA lawsuit, I don't know how anyone can look at the admissions numbers for top-flight colleges and not see that they are at least discriminating against Asians. Prior to the Harvard lawsuit starting up in 2014, the percentage of Asians at the Ivy+ schools stayed constant at around 18% and even fell from peaks reached 10-15 years ago, despite the large increase in the American Asian population. This quota even exists at MIT.
Documents that have become public in this lawsuit have exposed that Harvard's admissions office systematically and consistently gave Asians lower "personal ratings" than non-Asians. Doesn't that bother you a little?
How is that not an anti-Asian quota? And how is the status quo of today different from the anti-Jewish quotas of a few generations ago?
Work with me a little here, so we both can be clearer.
Runner_Guy said:
If you start talking about percentages -- 10%, 12%, or 14% -- and then what the minimum percentage is for enough class diversity then you are getting into territory that defenders of affirmative action normally avoid, which is that affirmative action still creates quotas and that the "critical mass" that top colleges seek is a quota by another name.
Can one maintain that X percent and Y percent are different in terms of diversity and access without it being about a quota of either X or Y? Or is that an irreconcilable position?
Every single person is a universe of opinions, experiences, and insights, but since SES-based affirmative action would increase the socioeconomic diversity of college classes, it would therefore increase the range of personal experience in a class. If you restrict the concept of diversity to "racial diversity," then there might be a loss under SES-preferences, but for someone whose definition of diversity is broader than that, diversity increases.
Is anyone here arguing against the first sentence? Is anyone arguing for the second?
I exaggerated when I said that defenders of racial preferences had ceded the fairness argument to the opponents of race-based affirmative action, but an exaggeration is not a falsification and the opponents of race-based affirmative action do talk about fairness much more than the proponents, which is the inversion of our usual liberal-conservative discourse. When I asked you about racial preferences for Latinos you said it was justified based on diversity, not fairness.
It’s not your only exaggeration in this discussion; I noted a few others earlier. We’ll just have to disagree on their usefulness.
Was diversity the only reason I gave, or did I also mention societal discrimination? If I did, could countermeasures to address that be considered a matter of fairness?
How is that not an anti-Asian quota? And how is the status quo of today different from the anti-Jewish quotas of a few generations ago? hat admissions decision isn’t part of a quota?
What admissions decision doesn’t fall under some kind of quota? Does it make more sense to throw out all the subjective factors that a university weighs to fill a class, or to acknowledge distinctions in their magnitude and the reasons behind them? If the former, why start with race? If the latter, can you think of any distinctions?
Doesn't that bother you a little?
It does. I said so in my second post. Has what I’ve written since then undermined that?
Runner_Guy said:
Prior to the Harvard lawsuit starting up in 2014, the percentage of Asians at the Ivy+ schools stayed constant at around 18% and even fell from peaks reached 10-15 years ago, despite the large increase in the American Asian population. This quota even exists at MIT.
That graph seems to show an increase in the number of 18-21 year old Asians in the U.S over time. Do you have graphed trends by percentages of 18-21 year olds across race categories in the US? (I can look, but if you have one, it could be helpful for understanding the national context).
If the former, why start with race?
Sorry, this was a redundant question. You’ve already discussed why you think race is a different kind of category.
sprout said:Runner_Guy said:That graph seems to show an increase in the number of 18-21 year old Asians in the U.S over time. Do you have graphed trends by percentages of 18-21 year olds across race categories in the US? (I can look, but if you have one, it could be helpful for understanding the national context).
Prior to the Harvard lawsuit starting up in 2014, the percentage of Asians at the Ivy+ schools stayed constant at around 18% and even fell from peaks reached 10-15 years ago, despite the large increase in the American Asian population. This quota even exists at MIT.
I decided to try a google search, and couldn't find anything that specific. But I did find something that gave a breakout of adolescents by race in 2014. Does it seem correct that the percentage of Asian adolescents was only around 5% of all adolescents in the USA?
https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/facts-and-stats/changing-face-of-americas-adolescents/index.html#race
If it is correct that the percentage of Asian 18-21 year olds in the USA was also around 5% in 2014, and Asians comprised between 10-20% the Ivy League admitted class (except at CalTech where it was nearing 45%) it does not, on its face, appear to indicate a bias against Asian applicants. However, it could seem CalTech's entry criteria heavily favors Asian students.
Are you arguing that Ivy League entry criteria should all result in ~5% of the population representing ~50% of the Ivy League student body?
sprout said:
sprout said:I decided to try a google search, and couldn't find anything that specific. But I did find something that gave a breakout of adolescents by race in 2014. Does it seem correct that the percentage of Asian adolescents was only around 5% of all adolescents in the USA?
Runner_Guy said:That graph seems to show an increase in the number of 18-21 year old Asians in the U.S over time. Do you have graphed trends by percentages of 18-21 year olds across race categories in the US? (I can look, but if you have one, it could be helpful for understanding the national context).
Prior to the Harvard lawsuit starting up in 2014, the percentage of Asians at the Ivy+ schools stayed constant at around 18% and even fell from peaks reached 10-15 years ago, despite the large increase in the American Asian population. This quota even exists at MIT.
https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/facts-and-stats/changing-face-of-americas-adolescents/index.html#race
If it is correct that the percentage of Asian 18-21 year olds in the USA was also around 5% in 2014, and Asians comprised between 10-20% the Ivy League admitted class (except at CalTech where it was nearing 45%) it does not, on its face, appear to indicate a bias against Asian applicants. However, it could seem CalTech's entry criteria heavily favors Asian students.
Are you arguing that Ivy League entry criteria should all result in ~5% of the population representing ~50% of the Ivy League student body?
I would not object at all if Asians became 40-50% of the student body at elite universities, except if that overrepresentation were entangled with growing up in superior wealth. I would notice the overrepresentation and be interested in what the causes of that overrepresentation are, but I would not think that Asian overrepresentation was a problem requiring a solution, and certainly not a solution that involved halving their enrollment by assigning them negative "personal ratings."
I don't think having an excellent academic record as a product of anyone's race. Doing well is an individual accomplishment that is facilitated by a student's family and school. Since families and schools vary in their ability to support a student's academic and talent development, I would support giving preferences to applicants who came from some kind of family or school disadvantage.
I do have nuanced opinions on affirmative action and know that American history has been brutal to blacks and Native Americans. If it were legal, I would also support giving a preference to black and Native American applicants because of the crimes America has committed against them in the past. However, our blessed Supreme Court has said that affirmative action can only be based on diversity, not compensation for past abuses and American universities have embraced the diversity rationale unconditionally. Not all beneficiaries of affirmative action have had their ancestors go through slavery and ethnic cleansing, and not all are economically disadvantaged. To me that isn't fair when there is so much disadvantage in non-URM populations.
I actually think that anti-Asian quotas could be a reason for Asian-American overperformance. Asians know that they are competing against other Asians, not the general population. I think it's entirely possible that Asian overachievement exists in part because Asians know that they have to clear higher bars to succeed. I also think that Asians, more than other applicants, have to pursue extracurriculars they aren't really interested in because they don't want to come off as "too Asian."
However, it could seem CalTech's entry criteria heavily favors Asian students.
I don't think Caltech's entry criteria favor Asian students as Asians. Caltech wants students with exceptional math and science skills, which are not racially or culturally Asian skills. Asian kids aren't born knowing anything about math and often they don't have parents who can help. If a student of Asian descent happens to be great at math, then the credit should go to him or her as an individual.
Runner_Guy said:
sprout said:I don't think Caltech's entry criteria favor Asian students as Asians. Caltech wants students with exceptional math and science skills, which are not racially or culturally Asian skills. Asian kids aren't born knowing anything about math and often they don't have parents who can help. If a student of Asian descent happens to be great at math, then the credit should go to him or her as an individual.
However, it could seem CalTech's entry criteria heavily favors Asian students.
It's strange that you linked to that article saying it's about kids who "don't have parents who can help", when it's all about the various methods, from tutoring to motivational tools (including corporal punishment) in which their parents and relatives do 'help' their child become successful at school and tests.
I think what is measured by standardized testing is extraordinarily limited. Having a singular strong reliance on standardized testing as a general indicator of "intelligence" oversimplifies the concept (and the selection process), and is severely misguided. For example, I suspect a math SAT score has a low or near zero correlation with success in psychology -- so why use it at all as a criteria for admissions of psychology majors?
Throughout my life I have met extraordinary people in school, personal, and professional settings. I have been blown away by insights, visions, and strategies that I would not have conceived of on my own. I am certain many of these people did not have scores on the SATs that reflected their brilliance.
Conversely, as a female who scored high on the Math SATs and was courted by engineering schools including CalTech, I attended programs with "top" faculty. I was appalled at the small-mindedness, self-absorption, and sometimes sexism, that was embedded deep within some "brilliant minds".
It is clear that you don't believe in 'diversity' just for the sake of it. But perhaps if you could see the loss of multidimensionality -- especially the loss of humans understanding other humans-- when test scores reign supreme, you might reconsider.
Runner_Guy said:
I would not object at all if Asians became 40-50% of the student body at elite universities, except if that overrepresentation were entangled with growing up in superior wealth. I would notice the overrepresentation and be interested in what the causes of that overrepresentation are, but I would not think that Asian overrepresentation was a problem requiring a solution, and certainly not a solution that involved halving their enrollment by assigning them negative "personal ratings."
Asian-Americans and Asians make up more than 40 percent of my son's college. That demographic and its diversity are a boon for his awareness, because he had always attended schools that were about 50 percent black and most of the rest white. But when I walk around the campus, which is only 3 percent African-American, and when my son relays some of the racial ignorance that he hears non-black students express after 13 years in schools surrounded by kids just like themselves, I think to myself: There are a lot of students here getting a deficient education.
sprout said:
sprout said:I decided to try a google search, and couldn't find anything that specific. But I did find something that gave a breakout of adolescents by race in 2014. Does it seem correct that the percentage of Asian adolescents was only around 5% of all adolescents in the USA?
Runner_Guy said:That graph seems to show an increase in the number of 18-21 year old Asians in the U.S over time. Do you have graphed trends by percentages of 18-21 year olds across race categories in the US? (I can look, but if you have one, it could be helpful for understanding the national context).
Prior to the Harvard lawsuit starting up in 2014, the percentage of Asians at the Ivy+ schools stayed constant at around 18% and even fell from peaks reached 10-15 years ago, despite the large increase in the American Asian population. This quota even exists at MIT.
https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/facts-and-stats/changing-face-of-americas-adolescents/index.html#race
If it is correct that the percentage of Asian 18-21 year olds in the USA was also around 5% in 2014, and Asians comprised between 10-20% the Ivy League admitted class (except at CalTech where it was nearing 45%) it does not, on its face, appear to indicate a bias against Asian applicants. However, it could seem CalTech's entry criteria heavily favors Asian students.
Are you arguing that Ivy League entry criteria should all result in ~5% of the population representing ~50% of the Ivy League student body?
I have heard this argument before. Namely, a dominant group, such as Asian Americans, should not always be dominant because it is unfair to others. I believe such a focus on outcomes, rather than equal opportunity, is not helpful.
RealityForAll said:
sprout said:I have heard this argument before. Namely, a dominant group, such as Asian Americans, should not always be dominant because it is unfair to others. I believe such a focus on outcomes, rather than equal opportunity, is not helpful.
If it is correct that the percentage of Asian 18-21 year olds in the USA was also around 5% in 2014, and Asians comprised between 10-20% the Ivy League admitted class (except at CalTech where it was nearing 45%) it does not, on its face, appear to indicate a bias against Asian applicants. However, it could seem CalTech's entry criteria heavily favors Asian students.
Are you arguing that Ivy League entry criteria should all result in ~5% of the population representing ~50% of the Ivy League student body?
Ah. Nice misread -- Where do I say anything about "fairness"?
To address that topic: I think it's possible that math SAT scores correlate highly with engineering "success", so heavy use of SAT scores for CalTech may be "fair". But the other listed Ivy League schools aren't engineering schools. So, as I stated above:
I suspect a math SAT score has a low or near zero correlation with success in psychology -- so why use it at all as a criteria for admissions of psychology majors?
and
It is clear that you don't believe in 'diversity' just for the sake of it. But perhaps if you could see the loss of multidimensionality -- especially the loss of humans understanding other humans-- when test scores reign supreme, you might reconsider.
Runner_Guy said:
I actually think that anti-Asian quotas could be a reason for Asian-American overperformance. Asians know that they are competing against other Asians, not the general population. I think it's entirely possible that Asian overachievement exists in part because Asians know that they have to clear higher bars to succeed. I also think that Asians, more than other applicants, have to pursue extracurriculars they aren't really interested in because they don't want to come off as "too Asian."
I’ve already overloaded you with questions, but I do wonder how African-Americans have responded when you’ve broached these nuanced theories of overachievement-thanks-to-obstacles and going-out-of-the-way-to-not-seem-“too-us.”
sprout said:
RealityForAll said:Ah. Nice misread -- Where do I say anything about "fairness"?
sprout said:I have heard this argument before. Namely, a dominant group, such as Asian Americans, should not always be dominant because it is unfair to others. I believe such a focus on outcomes, rather than equal opportunity, is not helpful.
If it is correct that the percentage of Asian 18-21 year olds in the USA was also around 5% in 2014, and Asians comprised between 10-20% the Ivy League admitted class (except at CalTech where it was nearing 45%) it does not, on its face, appear to indicate a bias against Asian applicants. However, it could seem CalTech's entry criteria heavily favors Asian students.
Are you arguing that Ivy League entry criteria should all result in ~5% of the population representing ~50% of the Ivy League student body?
To address that topic: I think it's possible that math SAT scores correlate highly with engineering "success", so heavy use of SAT scores for CalTech may be "fair". But the other listed Ivy League schools aren't engineering schools. So, as I stated above:
I suspect a math SAT score has a low or near zero correlation with success in psychology -- so why use it at all as a criteria for admissions of psychology majors?and
It is clear that you don't believe in 'diversity' just for the sake of it. But perhaps if you could see the loss of multidimensionality -- especially the loss of humans understanding other humans-- when test scores reign supreme, you might reconsider.
If not fairness (vis-à-vis dominant and subdominant group), what is your justification for not using objective standards to determine Ivy admissions regardless of the outcomes (in this instance, you have projected 50% of the Ivy student body being Asian American while Asian Americans only represent about 5% of US population)?
If you want, perhaps you may want to distinguish your justification based on major (namely, engineering versus psychology).
RealityForAll said:
... what is your justification for not using objective standards to determine Ivy admissions regardless of the outcomes ...
Let’s say the University of Reality For All (URFA) determines admissions using only objective standards. What standards do you use?
sprout said:
Runner_Guy said:It's strange that you linked to that article saying it's about kids who "don't have parents who can help", when it's all about the various methods, from tutoring to motivational tools (including corporal punishment) in which their parents and relatives do 'help' their child become successful at school and tests.
sprout said:I don't think Caltech's entry criteria favor Asian students as Asians. Caltech wants students with exceptional math and science skills, which are not racially or culturally Asian skills. Asian kids aren't born knowing anything about math and often they don't have parents who can help. If a student of Asian descent happens to be great at math, then the credit should go to him or her as an individual.
However, it could seem CalTech's entry criteria heavily favors Asian students.
I think what is measured by standardized testing is extraordinarily limited. Having a singular strong reliance on standardized testing as a general indicator of "intelligence" oversimplifies the concept (and the selection process), and is severely misguided. For example, I suspect a math SAT score has a low or near zero correlation with success in psychology -- so why use it at all as a criteria for admissions of psychology majors?
Throughout my life I have met extraordinary people in school, personal, and professional settings. I have been blown away by insights, visions, and strategies that I would not have conceived of on my own. I am certain many of these people did not have scores on the SATs that reflected their brilliance.
Conversely, as a female who scored high on the Math SATs and was courted by engineering schools including CalTech, I attended programs with "top" faculty. I was appalled at the small-mindedness, self-absorption, and sometimes sexism, that was embedded deep within some "brilliant minds".
It is clear that you don't believe in 'diversity' just for the sake of it. But perhaps if you could see the loss of multidimensionality -- especially the loss of humans understanding other humans-- when test scores reign supreme, you might reconsider.
When I said that Asians kids "often don't have parents who can help" I meant "direct help from the parents," as in helping out on an English essay or with algebra.
My context for that statement (which could have been better explained) was New York City, where Asians have the highest poverty rate, and yet are 70% of the students at Stuyvesant. Although Asian parents may do a lot to admonish their kids to do well and make sacrifices to pay for test prep, in NYC at least it's hard to imagine that they would be the most successful in direct tutoring.
The NYTimes article, which I linked to, was about an Asian teenager whose parents worked at a laundromat.
Ting Shi said his first two years in the United States were wretched. He slept in a bunk bed in the same room with his grandparents and a cousin in Chinatown, while his parents lived on East 89th Street, near a laundromat where they endured 12-hour shifts. He saw them only on Sundays.
Even after they found an apartment together, his father often talked about taking the family back to China. So, following the advice of friends and relatives from Fuzhou, where he is from, Ting spent more than two years poring over dog-eared test prep books, attending summer and after-school classes, even going over math formulas on the walk home from school.
The afternoon his acceptance letter to Stuyvesant High School arrived in the mail, he and his parents gathered at the laundromat, the smell of detergent and the whirl of the washing machines filling the air. “Everyone was excited,” Ting recalled.
RE: SAT scores
Throughout my life I have met extraordinary people in school, personal, and professional settings. I have been blown away by insights, visions, and strategies that I would not have conceived of on my own. I am certain many of these people did not have scores on the SATs that reflected their brilliance.
Conversely, as a female who scored high on the Math SATs and was courted by engineering schools including CalTech, I attended programs with "top" faculty. I was appalled at the small-mindedness, self-absorption, and sometimes sexism, that was embedded deep within some "brilliant minds".
I would never think that the SAT should be anything other than a small factor in college admissions, but excelling on the SAT doesn't automatically mean that anyone doesn't have other talents or isn't a kind, funny person. There's no conservation of virtues and someone can be good at several things.
If we use SAT scores as a shorthand to compare students, as the plaintiffs in the SFFA case must, it's because it's the most easily quantified of all the factors that go into college admissions.
The SFFA case has revealed that Asian applicants were also in first place in GPA and in extracurricular participation. As it's come out, it was just in Harvard's "personal ratings" that they had low rankings.
Debating the fairness or purpose of affirmative action in admissions is all well and good, however, the equally important reality of graduation rates tends to be overlooked in the fervor. According to a 2017 study of students who enrolled at a college (either a 2-year or 4-year institution) "White and Asian students completed their programs at similar rates -- 62 percent and 63.2 percent, respectively -- while Hispanic and Black students graduated at rates of 45.8 percent and 38 percent, respectively." The graduation rate for 4-year institutions is a bit higher but the demographic differences remain constant. [ https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/04/26/college-completion-rates-vary-race-and-ethnicity-report-finds ] Interestingly, the graduation rates of students from all demographic groups at selective universities is the highest; in fact, the graduation rate of African-American students at Harvard is about 97%.
Last night, the PBS News Hour explored this issue, particularly comparing graduation rates for Pell recipients vs those who do not...which, essentially, is a defacto comparison of the graduation rates of more affluent vs less affluent students. But the question remains: Whether a university admits students for the purpose of creating a diverse learning environment or simply for "social justice" reasons, to what extent is that institution then responsible for assuring degree completion? Most people probably agree that a college should offer resources such as study skills and tutoring assistance. But, ultimately, is it the institution or each student's personal responsibility to do what is necessary to complete the degree? The PBS story looked at how some colleges that take a very involved approach with students to assure degree completion, especially with those students who may not have arrived on campus with the same social capital and educational advantages as others, are increasing grad rates. However, some conservative critics are questioning whether supporting recipients who are unlikely to graduate is a wise use of public funds, arguing that public financial aid should be spent on those with need who are most likely to graduate. And, with the student loan default rate looming large, they are gaining more supporters.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-looming-student-loan-default-crisis-is-worse-than-we-thought/
Sponsored Business
Promote your business here - Businesses get highlighted throughout the site and you can add a deal.
Featured Events
-
Stephen Whitty Presents - Hometown Movie Stars: The Celebrated Actors Of CHS
May 6, 2024 at 7:00pm
Several Ivies are worse than Harvard when it comes to SES diversity. That's the reason I've highlighted the 20% of students whose family income is less than $65,000. Harvard ranks no. 4 in the percentage of students whose family income is less than $20,000 (4.5%.)