"Report Takes Aim at ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype of Asian-American Students"

[tokenadult]

From the 10 June 2008 New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/ed.../10asians.html

The report also notes the underrepresentation of Asian-Americans in administrative jobs at colleges. Only 33 of the nation’s college presidents, fewer than 1 percent, are Asian-Americans or Pacific Islanders.

[Easy]

Some have suggested that Asian-Americans are held to higher admissions standards at the most selective colleges. In 2006, Jian Li, the New Jersey-born son of Chinese immigrants, filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights at the Education Department, saying he had been rejected by Princeton because he is Asian. Princeton’s admission policies are under review, the department says.

For more analysis on this phenomenon: "The Opportunity Cost of Admissions Preferences at Elite Universities"

opr.princeton.edu/faculty/Tje/EspenshadeSSQPtII.pdf

[interesteddad]

Some have suggested that Asian-Americans are held to higher admissions standards at the most selective colleges.

Typical crap New York Times reporting. Who exactly is "some"? Friends of Judith Miller writing fiction around the water cooler?

Give us a source or don't report it.

[lethargytm]

its true. although ucberkley and ucla are key exceptions.

[jessiehl]

its true. although ucberkley and ucla are key exceptions.

Sorry, CC posters don't count as sources.

Edit: Sorry, I don't mean to be a jerk, but if we were going to believe everything that CC posters said about controversial issues, and particularly about race-based preferences in college admissions, we would end up with a ludicrously distorted view of the world.

[lethargytm]

Look at their acceptance statistics then tell me again. you can find the source on the net somewhere. there was actual study like last year or so where they compared prestigious schools acceptance rate based on not looking at their race to looking at their race (forgot the correct term). turned out "asians" had higher rate of acceptance (purely statisically speaking) when they did blind race admission (is that the right term?).

[Easy]

I got your back, lethargy. From the link I posted earlier:

Asian applicants are the biggest winners if race is no longer considered in
admissions. Nearly four out of every five places in the admitted class not
taken by African-American and Hispanic students would be filled by Asians.
We noted earlier that Asian candidates are at a disadvantage in admission
compared to their white, African-American, and Hispanic counterparts.
Removing this disadvantage at the same time preferences for African Americans
and Hispanics are eliminated results in a significant gain in the acceptance
rate for Asian students

...

A final test comes from a real-world ‘‘natural experiment.’’ The Board of
Regents for the University of California system voted in 1995 to eliminate
affirmative action in higher education. This decision was reinforced in November
1996 by a statewide vote in favor of Proposition 209. Impacts on
graduate programs took effect with the fall of 1997 entering classes. Effects
on admission to undergraduate programs were delayed until the fall of 1998.
The impacts are striking.

...

Numbers at the undergraduate level mirrored those in graduate programs.
At UC–Berkeley, just 10 percent of all undergraduate students admitted for
the fall of 1998 were underrepresented minority students compared with 23
percent admitted in the previous year (Guerrero, 2002:146). The largest
declines occurred among African Americans, whose admission numbers fell
by 66 percent between 1997 and 1998. Admission to the undergraduate
College of Letters and Science at UCLA was similarly affected (Committee
on Undergraduate Admissions and Relations with Schools, 1999). Acceptance
rates for African Americans fell from 57 percent in 1997 to 31 percent
in 1998. Those for Hispanics (including Latino Americans and Chicanos/
Mexican Americans) declined from 51 to 30 percent. These declines were
offset by small increases in admission rates for Asian Americans. In general,
our simulation results are in very good agreement with the California experience.

Ellipses are mine.

[tokenadult]

The before-and-after patterns of admission at state universities whose admission practices have been litigated are food for thought on this issue.

Anyway, what I liked about the article was the reminder that "Asian" is an overbroad term. I HOPE that every admission officer in the land understands that a Hmong student who began living in St. Paul, Minnesota at age thirteen after growing up in a refugee camp in Thailand has a distinct pattern of life experience from a Chinese-American student born to two Ph.D. candidates from China who were pursuing Ivy League graduate degrees at the time. Each student might have a legitimate case for being admitted to some fine college, but their dissimilarities probably swamp any commonality they experience in American society from being "Asian."

[Easy]

token, (the issue of affirmative action itself aside) I think that the ultimate tragedy there is that the Hmong student would suffer the detriment of disaffirmative action by virtue of his Pacific Rim Asian peers as a result of colleges treating various Asian clusters as the same.

[SV2]

The report:
http://professionals.collegeboard.co...-0608-AAPI.pdf

From the table of contents:

Fiction 1: AAPI Students Are “Taking Over” U.S. Higher Education
Fact A: The increasing presence of AAPI students parallels similar increases that other
student populations have experienced.
Fact B: The AAPI student population is concentrated in a small percentage of institutions,
giving the false impression of high enrollment in higher education overall.
Fact C: AAPIs have a wide range of academic interests including the Social Sciences,
Humanities, and Education as opposed to just Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM).

Fiction 2: AAPIs Are Concentrated Only in Selective Four-Year Universities
Fact A: AAPI students are evenly distributed in two-year and four-year institutions,
with the majority attending public institutions.
Fact B: AAPIs have a wide range of scores on standardized tests, which afford different levels
of eligibility and competitiveness in selective admissions.
Fact C: AAPI enrollment in public two-year community colleges is increasing at a faster rate
than their enrollment in four-year colleges.
Fact D: AAPI community college enrollment is increasing fastest in the Midwest and the South.

Fiction 3: AAPIs are a Homogenous Racial Group with Uniformity in Educational
and Financial Attainment, Culture, Religion, and Histories
Fact A: AAPIs are an ethnically diverse population.
Fact B: AAPI students and their families encompass many different languages and dialects.
Fact C: Immigration histories have an effect on the needs and assets of different AAPI communities.
Fact D: Economic, social, and cultural capital varies greatly among AAPIs.

[SV2]

Challenging Beliefs on Asian-American Students :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs

The report also comes at a time that the success of some Asian Americans is viewed as license to mock them in ways that strike many as insensitive at best and racist at worst.

To challenge various stereotypes, the report cites data showing, for example, that Asian American students enroll in plenty of college programs having nothing to do with math and science. In fact while Asian American enrollments are high in engineering, even there the figures might surprise many observers — especially those who in their minds combine students from Asian countries (who are not Americans) with Asian Americans.

Breakdown of Undergraduate Degrees, 2003

Percentage of All Bachelor’s Degrees

Business 33.7%
Social sciences and humanities 19.5%
Engineering 15.9%
Education 17.4%
Health sciences 7.3%
Biological/life sciences 6.2%

Percentage of Degrees Earned by Asian Americans

Business 28.8%
Social sciences and humanities 26.1%
Engineering 21.8%
Education 14.2%
Health sciences 3.0%
Biological/life sciences 6.2%

[xiggi]

Some have suggested that Asian-Americans are held to higher admissions standards at the most selective colleges. In 2006, Jian Li, the New Jersey-born son of Chinese immigrants, filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights at the Education Department, saying he had been rejected by Princeton because he is Asian. Princeton’s admission policies are under review, the department says.

Here we go again! What's next? More of the Espenshade's and Chung's experimental games that pretend to be science or more of the incomplete "research" by Golden that conveniently forgets the FINAL OUTCOME of the OCR complaints which reversed the erroneous preliminary findings?

Was Jian Li really born in New Jersey? Is he an American citizen? What does it mean to Princeton to have its admission policies "under review?" Doesn't the Office for Civil Rights at the Education Department have the obligation to investigate every claim?

Writing about education for the NY Times does not seem to require many brain cells, the need to check data, nor a modicum of integrity.

[interesteddad]

Writing about education for the NY Times does not seem to require many brain cells, the need to check data, nor a modicum of integrity.

Why limit it just to writing about education for the NY TIMES. The Tiimes is rife with that "some say" garbage reporting.

[Bay]

Each student might have a legitimate case for being admitted to some fine college, but their dissimilarities probably swamp any commonality they experience in American society from being "Asian."

How is this phenomenon unique to Asians? The same could be said about the dissimilarities in subgroups of Caucasians, Blacks and Latinos.

[Easy]

"Here we go again! What's next? More of the Espenshade's and Chung's experimental games that pretend to be science"

For the most part they're analyzing recorded data. Their simulations are just there to provide a readily understandable table for laymen to look at--they don't show anything the rest of their analysis wouldn't. This isn't the equivalent of them setting NBA Live on auto-play to predict the champion.