Harvard, Princeton Targeted in Asian Discrimination Probe

SAT scores are not a sufficient indicator for bias in college admissions. There are two factors at work here:<p>1. For elite colleges, specific SAT scores are irrelevant. Essentially, once a certain cut-off is reached, say 2250, it doesn't matter how high you go. In fact, I'm sure admissions officers get a kick out of rejecting the 2400 - I'd rather have a 2380 than a 2400 any day. The variance in SAT scores over a certain cutoff is simply not a good enough indicator for what the colleges are looking for.<p>2. In my experience, Asian families tend to place a disproportionate emphasis on test scores and grades. This leads to higher than average SAT scores for Asian students, sometimes at the cost of other parts of the application package.<p>Taken together, I believe these two ideas contribute to a reasonable explanation for the phenomenon discussed in the article.<p>This is not to say that admissions are not racially biased - I would not be at all surprised if they are.

We will now see the same racial discrimination departments which filed court briefs saying that race-neutral admissions policies would make them into Asian enclaves suddenly pretend to be shocked, shocked that anyone would suggest they were anything but valiant upholders of equal opportunity.<p>I'll refrain from opining on what the government will do, solely out of respects for the HN politics rule.<p>[Edit: One may think I am being unfair. Here, try reading Harvard's amici brief. <a href="http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/admissions/legal/gra_amicus-ussc/um/Harvard-both.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/admissions/legal/gra_amicus-ussc...</a> ]

Have we considered, that maybe the reason Asians need higher entrance scores, is because they end to have the same qualifications?<p>I'm going to be a little racist towards my own race here, and tell you what I've observed recently.<p>Most Chinese Females... 1. Play piano and/or violin 2. Take pictures of food 3. Probably applying to sciences<p>Most Chinese Males... 1. Plays a racket sport - probably badminton (myself included) 2. Only works out upper body 3. Probably applying to engineering<p>I never scored perfect SAT marks, and yet I still got my acceptances just fine, because I did so many things most Asians don't do. If the people doing these assessments actually spent time at elite campuses, they would understand better.<p>Filing a complaint for not being admitted with a 2400 SAT score is ridiculous. I wouldn't want that kind of person in my class, that's for sure.

The thing is, admissions to elite universities is almost never about test scores. Immigrant parents from countries like China and India are used to test scores mattering a lot. In those countries, your absolute score on the National Exam determines not only your placement into a university, but also what fields are available to you for study.<p>The SAT is nothing like that. If you walk into Harvard or Princeton, you'll find that most of the kids got above 2300 on the SAT, and a ton had perfect scores. If you tried using the SAT to distinguish between members of the student body at either place, you would have little success. The admissions committee has the same problem, so, kids are not selected based on SATs. You get in because you're good, or at least, you show a lot of promise, not because you can study for a test.<p>So yeah, maybe asians have higher test scores as a cohort, but maybe they also have less other things that are equally important -- sports, focus, passion, alumni connections, etc. These things count just as much in admissions decisions.<p>It's possibly to argue that selecting for these things is inherently racist, but I mean, what isn't? The SAT itself privileges a white collar suburban education. Who's to say it's more valuable to be able to memorize vocab, or do arithmetic than to run or paint?

Wow... I wonder what the Ivies would look like if admissions were 100% merit.<p>No legacies. I think there would be FAR fewer trust-funders.<p>And MIT's 'Chocolate City'...pretty much gone.<p>I suspect they would be very Asian places with a smattering of Jewish students. I think I can see why they would give ... say ... a Colorado snow boarder a few extra points. I think there is something that he brings to an Ivy campus...though I can't quantify it.

Here are my problems with Affirmative Action.<p>1. Academic Mismatch - Those who benefited from AA often can't keep up. They often fall behind or transfer to an easier major.<p>2. Cascading Academic Mismatch - This mismatch is replicated everywhere because the top academic tier recruits the top 'racial balancing' students from the tier below it.<p>3. Academic Mismatch Semiotics - This mismatch encourages judging people by their race on campus. It breeds racial conflict(no matter how low level it may be) and reduces solidarity between peoples on campus.<p>Racial balancing and academic standards are at odds with each other. Schools that value racial diversity should set their academic standards appropriately.

A very comprehensive FAQ on "race" and "ethnicity" as those categories apply to college admission in the United States can be found at<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1228264-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-9-a.html" rel="nofollow">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/12282...</a><p>The FAQ links to the relevant federal regulations defining the categories, and to guides to admission professionals on how to apply the categories, and to admissions statistics from a variety of colleges. Some colleges admit a substantial percentage of students who decline to self-report race or ethnicity, as is the right of every United States college applicant. Harvard, for example, has 12 percent of its currently enrolled undergraduates reported to the federal government as "race/ethnicity unknown"<p><a href="http://members.ucan-network.org/harvard" rel="nofollow">http://members.ucan-network.org/harvard</a><p>(even though Harvard personally interviews essentially all of its undergraduate applicants) and another 10 percent of its enrolled undergraduates are international students, for whom race and ethnicity are not reported as a matter of federal regulation.<p>It will be interesting to see how this latest case turns out. As the submitted article notes, "While the Office for Civil Rights has the power to terminate federal financial aid to colleges, it almost always negotiates agreements with schools on steps required for compliance, rather than taking enforcement action, the Education Department spokesman said."

Isn't it pretty easy to determine if there is racial bias in admissions?<p>Isn't the fact that Asians need to score a couple hundred points higher on SAT score just to get admitted enough evidence that there is bias?<p>Correct me if I'm wrong, but at Berkeley where Race is not considered in admissions, Asians comprise like 50% of the student body. I'm pretty sure you'd see similar numbers at all the elite universities if race wasn't an issue.

Are the essays that some universities require there to offer a layer of plausible deniability ("sure your marks were excellent but your essay somehow didn't get us very excited").

This article fails to mention that college admission is not based solely on test scores. Many Asians are almost solely test-driven and tend to ignore the other aspects of a "well-rounded" eduction.<p>I am sure if you looked at race-based stats on who played sports in high school (as opposed to test scores like in the article), you would see that Asians are way behind in that particular metric.<p>And while some may not think sports matter, colleges do. And it appears that there is good reason for this, as sports teach leadership, teamwork, how to perform under pressure, etc.<p>I would hope this lawsuit is thrown out, as this country really should not be encouraging "tiger mom" behavior as the right thing to do. Instead, if you want your son to get into Harvard, stop making him study 15 hours a day and get him into extracurricular activities.

Long ago, the valedictorian of my high school class (white, female), did not get into Brown, Harvard, MIT or Cornell, despite a stellar academic record and near-perfect SAT scores. She wound up going to a state school. Another white female in my class got into three of those places, despite being below the top 10%. Ivy admissions are entirely mysterious to me.

Whenever I read articles about the American university admission system, and the ensuing discussions about them, I feel like Gulliver visiting a weird country.<p>It is so arcane and bizarre. If you want to major in CS or mathematics or engineering, who cares if you do ice skating or can play the tuba? And if you're a tuba player who wants to major in music, what can be possibly be more important than your musical skills?<p>Entrance examinations are like the democracy. They suck but they suck far less than the existing alternatives.<p>Of course, a lot of the top universities in the world are American; but I think that's despite the admission system, not thanks to it.

Seems to be a case of helicopter parents freaking out because their beloved didn't get offers from the same universities as their neighbours.<p>Good colleges look at how rounded a person is, standardised tests don't always capture the high achievers.

"""" "If all other credentials are equal, Asian-Americans need to score 140 points more than whites, 270 points higher than Hispanics, and 450 points above African-Americans out of a maximum 1600 on the math and reading SAT to have the same chance of admission to a private college, according to “No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal,” a 2009 book co-written by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade. """"<p>The gap is nowhere near that large for Wisconsin-Madison or Duke which are rather selective institutions. I bet you're only going to get those kind of gaps at the Ivies and even then I'm very skeptical.

We should explore why some people deserve to enter Harvard/Stanford/etc. and why some don't? Part of the reason Harvard graduates are successful have little to do with merit and everything to do with being a "Harvard Grad", so it is a self-fulfilling prophecy in many ways. In other words, if we pulled 3 super-hard working freshman from random state schools, and put them through Harvard, and follow them 10 years later, would it surprise anybody that they would end up being successful? If so, what does it matter that their SATs sucked in the first place? Do they not deserve a shot at success as the next person? So they scored "only" in the top 20%, because they were hard working dual athletes with a part time job helping out their single parent and no AP classes, so what? Why should they not have the same shot at the Harvard lottery ticket as the kid who's fortunate enough to be born to a "tiger" Asian mother or well connected blue blood parents?<p>It's clearly a racket, this whole Ivy/Stanford system where grads from such schools receive the benefit of the doubt when it comes to employment.<p>By the way, I am such a tiger parent, and it's almost ridiculously pathetic to game this system to a certain degree. Let's see, he is currently enjoying: 1. Summer computer camps 2. Singing/piano lessons + rock band camp in the summer 3. Leadership/Scout programs 4. Private school education with very small teacher/student ratios 5. Competing on the swim team 6. Starting a recycling program at his school as his "entrepreneurial project" and writing a journal about his experiences<p>Most importantly, the above is very fun for him because he's allowed to enjoy the moment after periods of incredibly hard work. And he just turned 8. The only time he watches "TV" is Netflix on the iPad in the car while we shuttle him between activities. This is the new normal, and what I'm doing is what all the other Tiger parents are doing to create the "balanced" individual.<p>Yes, he goes to birthday parties, yes he has sleepovers, and yes he has lots of friends. But because he's having "fun", we are not pushing him 24/7 to be the "best" in all these activities, but to simply do his best, as best as an 8 year old is expected to do. Nevertheless, I feel bad for the kids that do not have such supportive parents with the resources to help their children in this way. My son does not deserve success any more than the next child, he's simply blessed that he was not born in the 'hood.

This has been happening for at least 15 years. When I was in high school mid 1990's we had several Asian students with over a 4.2 GPA that were not accepted to local universities such as UCLA. There was not a specific rejection reason related to race, however several students with a GPA around 3.6 who were not Asian were accepted to UCLA.

I don't get it. Family income is a very strong (if not the best) predictor of SAT score. In this case, if you order each race by median income you get the exact same order as mean SAT score, Asian-American families with the highest median income and SAT, African-American families with the lowest.

People are pointing out the fact that Asians may not be getting in because they are focused too much on their studies and do not spend enough time in extra-circulars. If that's the issue, why not remove the race category on the form? That way, it is completely merit-based. I don't the admissions officer needs to see the race of the applicant to determine if he/she is interesting and has diverse extracurricular activities. The name could still hint at the race, but it should be much fairer than currently.

I'd like to see some numbers related more to where people applying/going to prestigious schools are actually from, and application density for a given area.

<i>The issue remains unresolved, said Stephen Hsu, a physics professor at the University of Oregon who blogs about the admissions process.<p>“The only way to answer these questions is to force these schools to open their data sets,” he said. “College admissions should be transparent.” </i><p>If this every happens, heads will roll. Alas, Hell will freeze over first.

Guess they should use "Asian Problems"?<p><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556" rel="nofollow">http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3096793" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3096793</a>

Controversial topics like these usually have a core "assumption" that the discussions and arguments always circle around.<p>The un-stated assumption in this case is that Asians, are for the most part, not well-rounded (and only focus on test scores), and hence, any reasonable admissions process that favors well-roundedness will result in an understandable (obviously!) bias against Asians.