are colleges racist?

[sewhappy]

<p>I agree with Indianparent’s posts.</p>

<p>And Epiphany, you seem to lecture me a lot about what the elite colleges are looking for. I think I get it. Son was the quintessential cross-admit, essentially one of these:</p>

<p>From yale admissions website –</p>

<p>

Between two and three hundred students in any year are so strong academically that their admission is scarcely ever in doubt.

</p>

<p>Have had kids at two highly competitive high schools that send a great many students to HYPS. Have been watching this whole thing for a lot of years now.</p>

<p>What I’m not sure you get, is that for the asian and white applicant who is not hooked or so ridiculously bright that they will be one of the 2 or 3 hundred for whom “admission is never in question,” there is an extremely high threshold for scores and gpa just to get a look to even assess whether they are special or unique or whatever the line is this year. I think many kids and families look at the middle 50 percentile scores and think they just have to hit that and that their passion or community service will do the rest. I honestly think that those kids need to be in the upper 25th percent of the admitted class to get more than a 2 minute read of their application.</p>

<p>And that’s why I was interested in siserune’s post on gender and the SAT. And btw, I was being somewhat facetious in that post. You seem to think I take this all desperately seriously when I really don’t. I know my younger kid will be at a great school regardless of whether it is HYPS and I definitely don’t think going to HYPS is the ticket to heaven that many seem to assume.</p>

<p>I hang around this thread because I think using race in admissions is unsavory and I think there should be a lot of attention on it.</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>

Immigrants from foreign lands who want to assimilate learn to speak English well, and often try to lose their foreign-sounding accents. Their kids often have no noticeable accents at all. This is part of cultural assimilation, and it is certainly characteristic of the wave of Jewish immigrants.

</p>

<p>Can you give any immigrant “group” where what you said is not a characteristic? If not, I don’t see why you brought it up.</p>

[bovertine]

<p>

canuckguy - "I have never written the SAT, but was told that there was a re-centering in the 90s, making it easier to hit the ceiling in the math portion than the verbal portion. "</p>

<p>I don’t know if we are saying the samething differently but I look at scoring high in Math these days as being much harder unless you make very few mistakes.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I agree with texaspg (Texas PizzaGirl? lol) to a certain extent (I think). The scaled scores have always been higher in the Math section than the Verbal section, at least since the 70s when I took the test. I don’t think that has anything to do with re-centering. </p>

<p>IMO, the verbal section has been simplified much more than the math section. THey have eliminated analogies and antonyms (or whichever one they used to have), and the only vocabulary related questions currently are those “fill in the blank in context” type questions, which are much simpler IMO.</p>

<p>I can’t really remember the Math questons way back when, but I suspect the current questions are of similar difficulty. They have eliminated the “quant comparisons” which used to bedevil me, but had become more of a calculator exercise. The thing that is tough is that you can’t miss anything and get an extremely high score. So you don’t have to be particularly crafty to answer every problem correctly, but you do have to be very meticulous. I’m not sure who this benefits, if anyone.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>

And if you really want to change this, and are not just blowing steam, I suspect one good way would be to get out and campaign against the current President. A couple strategic appointments to the Supreme Court will likely have more impact than a debate on College Confidential.

I suspect that this depends on what you mean by “this.” (I sound like Bill Clinton.) If you mean preferences for URMs, then you may be right. But I think the conservative judges might not be all that receptive to a case brought by somebody like Jian Li.</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>

You live in Georgia, a state with one of the highest proportions of middle-class blacks in the U.S. and yet, you never mention how your middle-class black friends react to you when you debate these issues with them; you certainly don’t exhibit a great deal of empathy for them. In fact, your entire relationship with black people is a bit of a mystery and, something, I would think, that as an Asian living in a state with a history of state-mandated apartheid and the graduate of a school that did not even allow blacks to matricualte until the 1970s, you’d want to address.

</p>

<p>Several pages back, I told Shrinkrap a bit about “me.” Half my high school was black my senior year, and almost half (of the school) qualified for “free or reduced lunch.” I had many black friends and acquaintances, but few were middle-class. That could be because I went to a public high school in rural South Georgia. I am not from Atlanta, which is probably the home of most of the middle-class black families in Georgia.</p>

<p>

But even without going there, I would think a good number of your black friends or their sisters and brothers, got admitted to some pretty good schools, maybe on the basis of their race; maybe because of the fact that they live in Georgia.

</p>

<p>There was no “point” in debating this issue with my black classmates because none of them was interested in attending private elites. And your guess is incorrect. I don’t think any of my black classmates applied “higher” than the University of Georgia, and in that regard, they were no different from our white classmates. Most of the student body was more than content to attend UGA or Georgia Southern, with the STEM-minded going to Georgia Tech; I did not go to a high school where most of the student body had their sights on “HYPSM et al.”</p>

<p>Lastly, your characterization of my alma mater is wrong. I am proud to be a Georgia Tech graduate; we were the first university in the Deep South that peacefully desegregated. We were too busy to hate then, and we’re too busy to hate now. What’s more, we did so in the mid-1960s, so you’re a decade off.</p>

<p>I hope I’ve resolved some of your curiosities, and while I thank you for expressing your thoughts, it remains that you don’t really have any sentence of mine as evidence of my alleged animus against blacks (or Jews).</p>

<p>Thanks for confirming that like Pizzagirl, you have a stereotype about the South with respect to racial relations. I’ve never said the South is perfect. It’s not; I know racism still exists because I’ve experienced it. But white families did not run away from my high school merely because it was half black. I doubt some of the parents here who are praising the American love of diversity could say the same for their public schools.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>

What I’m not sure you get, is that for the asian and white applicant who is not hooked or so ridiculously bright that they will be one of the 2 or 3 hundred for whom “admission is never in question,” there is an extremely high threshold for scores and gpa just to get a look to even assess whether they are special or unique or whatever the line is this year. I think many kids and families look at the middle 50 percentile scores and think they just have to hit that and that their passion or community service will do the rest. I honestly think that those kids need to be in the upper 25th percent of the admitted class to get more than a 2 minute read of their application.

See, I agree with this, because of your inclusion of the words “and white.” This is why it is so important to distinguish between two threads of discussion here–(1) preferences for URMs and (2) discrimination against Asians in favor of whites.</p>

<p>

Can you give any immigrant “group” where what you said is not a characteristic? If not, I don’t see why you brought it up.

Once again, I will do the courtesy of answering fabrizio’s question, although I can see what he is up to. I listed English proficiency as something immigrant Jews did to assimilate. As you note, this is a strategy used for most immigrant groups. I see, of course, that you would like to insinuate that I am insulting Asians for talking funny. If they do talk funny, it probably does hurt them in some settings, such as in interviews with white Americans. That’s true of just about anybody with a foreign accent, of course (with the possible exception of the British, whose accents impress Americans).</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>

Moreover, there is ample evidence that |
…
b) Asians disproportionately apply to a more concentrated list of schools, the UC’s and the Ivy League / other top schools among them, especially because few of them are “siphoned off” by living in Big 10 country as many whites would be, or “siphoned off” by HBCU’s as blacks would be)

</p>

<p>I missed this ample evidence. Could you link to it again, please?</p>

<p>

it’s no surprise that a homogenous culture has a hard time really understanding how we here in the US in the year 2011 value diversity.

</p>

<p>Do you know the racial composition of your area’s public schools? And did you send your kids there?</p>

[bovertine]

<p>

I suspect that this depends on what you mean by “this.” (I sound like Bill Clinton.) If you mean preferences for URMs, then you may be right. But I think the conservative judges might not be all that receptive to a case brought by somebody like Jian Li.

</p>

<p>I’m not all that familiar with the Jian Li case because, like I said, I don’t generally think much about this. And by “not all that familiar” I mean I know pretty much nothing about it, except what Fab has written on here.</p>

<p>THere are all sorts of different conservatives, I suppose, from libertarian, to constructionist, to originalist, to whatever. Some might be less likely to want to tamper with admissions processes at what they consider “private” organizations. And yes, I know there is debate about what is “private” and what isn’t from some quarters.</p>

<p>But I suspect you are correct about the URM issue. As far as AA in general, I think in general a Republican appointee would be more likely to oppose any race based or diversity considerations. If I was looking to turn back affirmative action, I would not be looking to appoint more Sonya Sotomayors or Elena Kagans. But I understand there are competing ideological values,and there are risks either way. And I’m no expert on the subject.</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>

As you note, this is a strategy used for most immigrant groups.

</p>

<p>So…why’d you bring it up then? The Jews are not unique in that aspect.</p>

<p>

I see, of course, that you would like to insinuate that I am insulting Asians for talking funny. If they do talk funny, it probably does hurt them in some settings, such as in interviews with white Americans. That’s true of just about anybody with a foreign accent, of course (with the possible exception of the British, whose accents impress Americans).

</p>

<p>You replied to my post, but you didn’t answer my question. (At least I answered yours, though you think it is based on weak-to-nonexistent evidence. You’re free to think that.) Can you give any immigrant “group” where what you said is not a characteristic?</p>

[sewhappy]

<h1>2465 – Great post, Fabrizio.</h1>

<p>Hunt, my hunch is that the bar is higher for Asians than for whites. No evidence beyond my observations over the years and crude arithmetic. Asians have the highest scores and are apparently compared to other Asians since they are identified apart from whites.</p>

<p>At the very least I would like to see a URM/non-URM box vs the morphing “coat of many colors” boxes we are seeing. Which brings up the multi-race question, the socio-economic, US vs non-US black issue, etc.</p>

<p>A Pandora’s Box. Uglier and uglier. Surely, no one can be really approving of what is going on at this point. It is making kids hyper race aware rather than helping them move past race in their interactions with all people. </p>

<p>Splitting hairs over whether you are 1/8 Native American or Black or Asian or White or … next we will be sending the applicants’ blood to the lab for testing as part of the admissions decision.</p>

<p>Sorry. I know the intentions have been pure of heart and worthy. But it is morphing into the ridiculous.</p>

[Bay]

<p>Recently, UT’s use of AA was upheld in Fisher v. Texas (5th Cir), and its next stop, if any, is the US Supreme Ct: </p>

<p>[Is</a> Affirmative Action Headed Back to the Supreme Court? - Innovations - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/is-affirmative-action-headed-back-to-the-supreme-court/29699]Is”>http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/is-affirmative-action-headed-back-to-the-supreme-court/29699)</p>

<p>

If the suit is appealed, will the U.S. Supreme Court agree to consider the case? On the one hand, there is no split among Circuit courts—with one court ruling one way and another court ruling another—which sometimes prompts the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. But Chief Judge Jones and her dissenting colleagues seemed to be signaling to the Supreme Court that the question of how the 2003 Grutter decision is applied is one of national significance. And for the new conservative majority on the Court that has formed in the years since Grutter was decided, the Fisher case may present a unique opportunity to reshape the law of affirmative action. (There are no other high-profile challenges to affirmative action in higher education waiting in the wings.)</p>

<p>In particular, the Fisher case appears tailor-made to appeal to Justice Anthony Kennedy, the new swing vote on the Supreme Court, and a dissenter in the Grutter decision. In Grutter, Kennedy complained that the university was not sufficiently pressed to show that it was impossible to find race-neutral means—such as top-percent plans or class-based affirmative action—to achieve racial diversity prior to resorting to racial preferences.</p>

<p>Finally, the Court may wish to revisit the question of affirmative action given accelerating demographic changes. For example, how should admissions officers treat bi-racial or multi-racial children? As a recent front-page New York Times story asks, is it right that the current system of racial preferences in college encourages a student who identifies as both Asian and black to check only the black box to increase her chances of admission? As others have noted, the UT Austin case also highlights the way affirmative action affects America’s largest minority group, Latinos, moving beyond the older, largely black/white paradigm presented in Grutter and earlier cases.</p>

<p>If the Supreme Court does decide to hear the case, the issue will put the Obama administration in an awkward position. At the lower court level, where very little attention was paid, Obama’s Department of Justice sided with the University of Texas in support of using race in admissions. But this position may be hard to reconcile with Obama’s stated belief that his own privileged daughters don’t deserve affirmative-action preferences, and that low-income students of all races do. Roger Clegg, of the conservative Center for Equal Opportunity, argues that Obama’s endorsement of race-neutral alternatives to affirmative action could be “a Nixon goes to China moment.”

</p>

<p>For anyone who is interested, there was an amicus brief filed by an Asian-American Legal association, but I did not read it.</p>

[bovertine]

<p>

Between two and three hundred students in any year are so strong academically that their admission is scarcely ever in doubt.

</p>

<p>I’m curious what this means. Has Yale quantified this? It must mean something beyond what we typically thinnk of as academic strength - beyond grades and test scores. Does it include things like USAMO or Siemens and the like? Or does this take into account the high school?</p>

<p>I don’t think LoremIpsum’s kid ever got much of anything wrong on any standardized test, including two separate administrations of the ACT he was required to take. A passle of perfect SATIIs and APs. Plus he completed what seems like the equivalent of high school and two years of college at the top of his class. He didn’t get into every school he applied to, so I’m not sure what else he could have done “academically.”</p>

<p>Really, whether it seems so or not, I’m just curious what a kid could do purely academically to make it into this august group. Not that any kid of mine could do it, but I’m sure there are people reading who are curious.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>

So…why’d you bring it up then?

Are you familiar with the concept of a “list?” I gave a list of things that immigrant Jews did to assimilate. The fact that you keep mentioning this particular thing is suggestive, of course.</p>

<p>

Between two and three hundred students in any year are so strong academically that their admission is scarcely ever in doubt.

I suspect that this is talking about kids who are prize-winners and the like. I agree that this doesn’t seem to be true if you are talking about grades and scores alone.</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>

I’m curious what this means. Has Yale quantified this? It must mean something beyond what we typoically thinnk of as academic strength - beyond grades and test scores. **Does it include things like USAMO or Siemens and the like? **Or does this take into account the high school?

</p>

<p>Yes, it does. </p>

<p>Traditionally, all the MOSP (math olympiad training camp) qualifiers got into Harvard and everywhere else. Probably, there were 25-30 graduating seniors with this qualification as there were 60 qualifiers per year, although the numbers have expanded in the past 10 years. I suspect a big part of this is the presence of the Putnam competition. If they don’t admit these people, it will be visible to the outside world, and that impacts their reputation. If you actually make the olympic team of the other disciplines (bio, chem, physics) then you are probably good to go if the rest of your record fits with that (and it often does.) </p>

<p>Intel finalist is no longer enough for automatic admission, but this combined with other things may make you part of the 200 automatic people. (FYI, an Intel finalist forwarded a list of email exchanges between other intel finalists complaining that they were being “rejected everywhere.” I doubt they were being rejected everywhere, but not getting into the top 1 or 2 choices was probably not uncommon for them.)</p>

<p>RSI, a competitive research program at MIT which requires very high qualifications to get admitted, is generally a credential that can be considered a hook. Ironically, sometimes these kids don’t get into MIT anymore. There probably aren’t too many RSI kids per year though.</p>

<p>And, of course, there are some humanities majors which may be part of the automatic 200-300 admitted on academic strength alone, although this is harder because the competitions out there in humanities aren’t considered as reflective of talent in this area as math/sci comptitions. For instance, one of the most well-known humanities competitions is scholastic bowl, but I don’t think this is any more respected than science olympiad. Maybe someone whose translation of the illiad was published or something lik that. I don’t know if you consider music an academic discipline, but I’m sure Yo Yo Ma would have admitted regardless of his grades.</p>

[performersmom]

<p>True that, sewhappy.</p>

<p>My experiences with racial (and other “outsider”) stereotyping are from multiple environments, ranging from Japan to Europe to NYC, to where I live now. For about 50 years. It is absolutely fascinating. My mind is very open and I try to learn not just by anecdote but via others’ research, and want to see everything from everyone’s point of view. Being on this forum has been a great opportunity to learn from pro- AA’ers, those who suspect bias, and those who do not. </p>

<p>My point is that I come from a very different life than Fabrizio, but we both find use of racial boxes in selective college admissions to be at cross-purposes to its goals promoting equal opportunity.</p>

<p>My observations would be a whole course in looking at how racial differences are handled or ignored, and to what effect. Different cultures handle things like immigrants, foreign language speakers, practicers of minority religions, women, those with different skin colors, unexpected sexual orientation, the handicapped very differently at all levels (citizenship, voting rights, school access, education systems, pedagogic approaches, taxes…). Each scenario is different from top to bottom and historically, so nothing is absolutely comparable, but, believe me, there are interesting patterns and effects and it is interesting to see!</p>

<p>I am not a sociologist, so my observations cannot be considered perfectly objective or systematic. But the breadth of my exposure in actual day to day experience is probably worth something. I feel very fortunate to have had this sort of “education”. And I am lucky enough to be able to be safe, healthy, and comfortable enough to even question these things, and perhaps that makes it imperative for someone in my position to do so. </p>

<p>Everyone has a right to believe what they want to (in the USA), but it is important to understand what programs and policies’ effects may really be, and what they may might reflect. And whether they are still valid, or need some tinkering.</p>

<p>The human species is a fascinating one! Intra-species competition is a major aspect of our species. Yet, overall, we are a very dominant species in relation to other species on our planet. Fab may label himself a libertarian. I feel more like a student (continually learning, as here) of human nature. May we all learn to get along and respect each other, to bring out the best of each and every individual.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>I think people who have been to TASP do very well.</p>

[IndianParent]

<p>I agree with bovertine that debates on CC won’t change anything. Asians have to become more involved in the political process. The influence of the Jewish lobby changed many things in favor for the Jewish community at large, including academics.</p>

<p>As for the bias, I am not going to debate it, or try to prove it. I believe it is there and am preparing my son to counter it in his college admissions. I do feel that stereotyping any group - Asians or otherwise - is inherently odious, and perhaps racist.</p>

[epiphany]

<p>

And Epiphany, you seem to lecture me a lot about what the elite colleges are looking for. I think I get it.

</p>

<p>My response wasn’t a “lecture.” It was two things:</p>

<p>(1) A very suprised response to an inexplicable statement on your part that maybe a very bright student “otherwise un-hooked” “has a chance” to be considered, especially since you contextualized that statement of yours within a comment about ‘gamesmanship.’</p>

<p>(2) A clarification about what I actually said (vs. what you lumped me in, in that earlier post, as supposedly representing, standing for, or “having a bias about.”) Nonsense. Your statements, not mine, indicated a complete misrepresentation both of what I said and, I might add, what siserune said. So either you read selectively, or you post/respond selectively. Posters have a right to clarify their positions without being referred to as “lecturing.” If you don’t want posters to have to correct statements continually, then be clear, and the problem won’t exist. Discussion forums profit from accuracy and clarity.</p>

<p>

What I’m not sure you get, is that for the asian and white applicant who is not hooked or so ridiculously bright that they will be one of the 2 or 3 hundred for whom “admission is never in question,” there is an extremely high threshold for scores and gpa just to get a look to even assess whether they are special or unique or whatever the line is this year.

</p>

<p>If it’s Asians plus whites, I’m not sure what your objection is to that, and there’s nothing that I should “get” (i.e., somehow don’t understand). The hooked pool, of which URM’s are but a small portion, is compositely about 40%, including athletes, donors, celebrities as well. And since “you’ve been doing this for years,” you should already know that. But the 50-60% unhooked pool does, yes, have to be outstanding, so there is a high threshold for scores/grades in general, not always as “extremely high” as you might believe. But that applies equally to all those thousands of applicants, the vast majority of which are not URM’s.</p>

<p>

I think many kids and families look at the middle 50 percentile scores and think they just have to hit that and that their passion or community service will do the rest.

</p>

<p>Well, if they, like you, “have been doing this for years,” I doubt very much that most of them actually think that. I don’t meet many that do – not among students, parents, teachers. </p>

<p>

And btw, I was being somewhat facetious in that post. You seem to think I take this all desperately seriously when I really don’t.

</p>

<p>I’m pretty good at reading tone, including subtlety. Sorry, but your tone has sounded deadly serious, rather outraged, and not in the least bit facetious. Hence, my earnest replies, which I am sorry have apparently offended you in their thoroughness and attempts, not to “lecture,” but to clarify statements of mine that you have clearly misinterpreted and called into question. That’s what discussion forums are all about.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

Hunt, my hunch is that the bar is higher for Asians than for whites. No evidence beyond my observations over the years and crude arithmetic. Asians have the highest scores and are apparently compared to other Asians since they are identified apart from whites.

</p>

<p>Sigh. No, it is not that the bar is higher for Asians. It is that the overall pool of Asians has higher scores than whites and whites in turn higher scores than blacks, so if you pull from a higher-score pool you’re going to have … ta da … higher scores. That is DIFFERENT from “requiring higher scores to take a second look.”</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

What I’m not sure you get, is that for the asian and white applicant who is not hooked or so ridiculously bright that they will be one of the 2 or 3 hundred for whom “admission is never in question,” there is an extremely high threshold for scores and gpa just to get a look to even assess whether they are special or unique or whatever the line is this year.

</p>

<p>Who on this board doesn’t “get” that?|</p>

<p>Look, it’s all in the approach. As someone whose kids did get into fairly elite schools, our approach was most definitely of the “it’s worth swinging at the ball, but be prepared, the chances you will strike out are overwhelming, and treat it as a delightful surprise if you do get in.” Compare and contrast that to the ugly entitlement I see all over CC – from people of all backgrounds, to be sure – of “Well, <em>I</em> had scores of blah blah blah and <em>I</em> didn’t sweep HYPSM and have to settle for Duke or whatever.” Really? Who told you that your scores gave you even one iota’s worth of entitlement to a slot? Not my fault that that mentality exists – and that recent Asian immigrants have not done as good of a job as they could teaching their more newly arrived brethren that high scores and the same set of EC’s don’t entitle anyone to anything.</p>