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<p>And that, precisely, is what Asians are asking for. I am sure that will come one day.</p>
<p>More power to you anyway. Make American a fair country for everyone, based on their merit, and based on their need.</p>
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<p>I believe that it probably does. How much does it add, and under what conditions? I don’t think we can easily measure that. Look again at that Caroline Hoxby study. Like many scholarly studies, it is cautious. She measures the advantage from moving across “Rank Groups”, but refrains from trying to measure the advantages of moving up within the highest Rank Group (“It is possible to use a finer ranking of colleges, but the precision of earnings estimates falls as the ranking becomes more fine.”) Furthermore, after correcting for aptitude, much of the advantage even of moving across a couple of Rank Groups disappears (consistent with the Krueger/Dale study, to a degree).</p>
<p>Still, I think that for a certain kind of person, yes, the HYPSM diploma probably adds the kind of value you’re talking about. </p>
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<p>If you are referring to me, please re-read my post 3755. To repeat, I would not (at least, not in my more lucid moments) state categorically that the quality of education at specific colleges (such as Reed) is (or isn’t) as good or better than HYPSM. People disagree about how we measure quality of education. Some people value networking opportunities and maximum financial outcomes. Some people value other things more. I would not be inclined to recommend a place like Reed College to an ambitious young person bent on a career in Investment Banking, especially if I thought s/he had a shot at HYPSM or Wharton.</p>
<p>On the other hand, few people who apply to those schools are admitted. None of those tip-top schools are likely to increase enrollments of ambitious STEM and econ/finance majors enough to accommodate all the fine young people who apply. Maybe they should (if they can do so without eliminating places for Humanities etc.). In the meantime, there are other decent options (in colleges and in careers).</p>
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<p>I don’t think so.
Not all desirable human qualities can be measured by machines. In some cases, “you know it when you see it”. Random audits could threaten academic freedom.</p>
<p>As I’ve said before, I like the Oxbridge system, which is relatively objective except for the faculty interview. Those interviews could not be scored by machine. You have to trust to faculty judgement.</p>
<p>IndianParent, I do sympathize with your concerns. There may be a bigger problem with racial bias than I realize. However, those three steps would not be the way I’d want to address them.</p>
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<p>PG, I am happy you’re enjoying an article about the Texas 10 percent rule. As you might expect, much has been written and debated about this on College Confidential. It success (if equitable representation is a definition of success) can be ascribed to the fact that a mediocre public school in El Paso, Harlingen, or San Antonio can send its top 10 percent to a flagship in the same manner as a mediocre school from Bubbaville, Texas or a uppity school in Highland Park, Dallas do. Fwiw, the system has also been spared its collapse because many qualified applicants from impoverished regions do not trek to Austin because of economic and cultural restrictions AND many graduates of the best high schools in Texas do not qualify as their school do not rank their students pr simply prefer to select an OOS school of higher caliber. </p>
<p>However, what the system does create are equal chances for all the “barrio’s” Maria and Jose or the “hood’s” Lebron or LaShonda to parlay a ten percent rank into a spot at Austin or TAMU. If such survival school has 100 HS graduates that means that 10 students could (in theory) make their school proud in Austin, and then meet the 100s ten percenter from schools such as Plano High or any of the many suburban Shangri-Las that have sprung in the last decades and accomodate the many who can afford to leave behind them the academic refuse of the larger urban or isolated rural areas. </p>
<p>The system is hardly perfect, but it compares more than favorably to its counterparts in the study.</p>
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<p>Is that what the Asians are really asking for? Or do they scream for the elimination of preferences given to a handful of URMs who seem to grab the spots Asians are entitled to? </p>
<p>In this thread, people continuously present cases that this discrimination should end or posit that it will some day end, and this without ever having made a case that this discrimination does indeed exist. All we hear is that the same admissions committees that have accepted enough Asians to create a vast overrepresentation have now become sordid racists who could NOT be trusted to do their jobs without unconscious prejudice or open racism. </p>
<p>People here are asking for a system with clear rules. Are schools such as HYPS and similar NOT very clear that they believe in giving preferences to a number of subgroups? The fact that one does not agree with the “rules” does not make them unfair or discriminatory. </p>
<p>In the end, as it has been said before, no discussions of this kind will ever appease the Asians. The hollow ranting and repetitive complaining will not accomplish anything. Actively compiling EVIDENCE and presenting facts will. This latter, however, has remained hopelessly beyond the reach of the complainers because positive activism requires an enormous amount of dedication and selfishness. Not to mention a case!</p>
<p>Xiggi - The way I see it, they don’t all have to trek to Austin. There are several UTs and A&Ms around the State which may not be the best but they may actually be better for education by being much smaller than UT A or TAMU in college station, making them more focused. I have seen valedictorian kids from some inner city high schools in Houston choose University of Houston over UT A but I see that as a much better proposition for them in terms of staying home and not going into debt (who knows, by the time they graduate UH might even be ranked high as a tier 1).</p>
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<p>I have already said that while I would like for racial classification to not be considered at all, I am fine with modifying the “box” to where it only asks if you’re a “URM” and assigning every applicant a unique identifier. Even some ardent advocates of racial preferences, like Pizzagirl, have said they have no issues with such a change because they recognize a problem you dismiss as trivial: “unconscious prejudice.”</p>
<p>You know, xiggi, your posts confuse me at times. It seems that what really peeves you are seemingly benign comments rather than outright hostile remarks. When I dissed your alma mater pages and pages ago for not teaching you anything about diversity when it came to Asians, you shook it off without a care.</p>
<p>By contrast, when IndianParent wrote “And that, precisely, is what Asians are asking for,” you replied with a post that didn’t even try to contain your displeasure. Similarly, when I told Ghostt pages ago (#3107) that there is a “fundamental divide in how people of different political leanings think,” you replied with “Really? Based on my expressed viewpoints here (or elsewhere on CC) could you define my political leanings?” It was only one sentence, but I recall that you’ve made similar posts before whenever I’ve commented on the “fundamental divide,” suggesting to me that such a phrase annoys you.</p>
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Not quite. It’s like saying American won’t be America if we let one ethnic group dominate. </p>
<p>When I was at Harvard I met a world class cellist, a best selling novelist, a couple of people who became ministers, some captains of industry, a guy who got a McArthur award for his innovative stagings of opera and yeah a bunch of math and science guys who are doing good work in their fields. That’s why you go to Harvard and not the institution down the river. (Though it’s got more variety of majors than it’s often given credit for.)</p>
<p>Most of my friends though I’ll admit are nothing memorable.</p>
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<p>Are you now blaming me for ignoring ad hominem attacks? </p>
<p>Addressing ad hominem or silly baiting attempts do not further the debates. Fwiw, I always regret to even complain about the more outrageous ad hominem.</p>
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<p>Why would I need to hide my displeasure? We are here to express our opinion. If there is displeasure it must be created by the exasperation of reading the same argument presented in fifty different ways but without any foundation. This seems a game of launching moving targets ad nauseam with the secret hope that the shooters will get tired of hitting them, and that one safe landing will mean … victory.</p>
<p>And, fwiw, time might have come to change tactics in similar threads: Accept the argument that discrimination does indeed exist. Accept that it is unjust and unfair that HYPS are not mere copycats of the UC system. Accept that the complaining about HYPS not being at 50 percent Asian is just and founded. Accept that the pool of well-qualified Asians is actually ten times as large as it is. </p>
<p>And then … what! Would you feel better if the pixelized persona known as Xiggi agrees with some ludicrous and ill-founded proposal? Will this change anything in the manner in which the adcoms make their decisions? THEY know the reality; THEY have access to all the files. </p>
<p>We, however, are just speculating about what is compiled in the files, and debating issues without complete access to the necessary information.</p>
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<p>Well of course you do, because you don’t have jack when it comes to evidence of racial discrimination against Asians, so you are going to have to justify your rants about it somehow, and why not redirect it to the posters whose opinions you don’t like?</p>
<p>I did not say that UC Berkeley or any college was “full of” nose pickers. I’ll bet you $10 there are at least two there, though. And if UCB is 50% Asian, then one of them is probably Asian.</p>
<p>Mathmom,</p>
<p>That Lit subject test is the one my own kids say is by far the hardest. Older kid was a testing machine and he is proudest of his 800 on lit, came out of it pretty dazed and babbling about tropes all week! </p>
<p>Am encouraging my younger to slip in the Lit subject test this fall. She is a super literary type and might do really well on it and my older one thinks it’s the secret stealth subject test often overlooked but which admissions folks pay attention to.</p>
<p>So good for your younger son. </p>
<p>It’s kind of interesting (when I’m NOT giving into the stress of the whole thing) to shepherd two really different kids through this process.</p>
<p>Oh, and Bay, the “nose-picker” comment was way harsh.</p>
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<p>Well, first, you didn’t ignore the remark-in-question; “you shook it off without a care.” Second, if I “blame” you for anything, it would be your negative stereotypes of Asians.</p>
<p>sewhappy have the kid get the Blue Book of sample tests and they can try out the Lit test. That’s how my younger son knew he was likely to get a good score. He doesn’t even like English, but he knows all about tropes from [Home</a> Page - Television Tropes & Idioms](<a href=“http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage]Home”>http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage) :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>Fabrizio, what are you trying to say? Is there a point here? Are you about to start redefining what ignoring and shaking off might mean?</p>
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<p>Why? Did I miss the memo to tread lightly when in comes to nose-pickers? Where I’m from, it is still considered a disgusting habit.</p>
<p>Xiggi - Btw, I define Texas state school policy as the most holistic in the nation based purely on ACADEMICS, without any interpretation by an adcom. Here is my reasoning.</p>
<p>If you go listen to any presentation by a school about being holistic, they say that they interpret one’s achievements based only on the school they went to and how they made use of it. So they expect you to do well in the school you went to with what the school gives you. So if the school has APs or IB, you do well and show up at the top, and if they don’t, you are still required to do well to come out in the top 10% to have a guaranteed 4 year school admission.</p>
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<p>How about you…finish quoting the rest of my post? *Second, if I “blame” you for anything, it would be your negative stereotypes of Asians. *</p>
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<p>If you ignored my remark, you would not have addressed it in your reply. But you did. Hence, you shook it off as opposed to ignoring it.</p>
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<p>Thank you. That should put to rest the fiction that Asians choose HYPSM because of prestige. </p>
<p>Incidentally, if Asian parents did prefer HYPSM because of prestige, they wouldn’t have relentlessly pushed their kids to major in certain areas after they got in. They would have been happy with just the name brand. But they do, which goes to show that financial success is what they have in mind, and their decision to prefer HYPSM is quite rational.</p>
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<p>Why not?</p>
<p>When I ask this question, I typically do not get answers from as emotionally neutral a point-of-view as possible, as you prefer. The typical answers I get are, because they have never done it, that’s not their charter, and that would be the end of the Western civilization as we know it.</p>
<p>So I ask you, please answer from as emotionally neutral a point-of-view as possible, why not?</p>
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<p>Again, what is wrong with eliminating places for Humanities? Would appreciate an answer from as emotionally neutral a point-of-view as possible.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
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<p>It is pointless to debate this kind of statements, so I won’t. Go in peace.</p>
<p>Nice try, IP. The losing side of every debate usually resorts to unfounded name-calling before going down in flames.</p>
<p>Adding: IP called me a hard-core racist before he edited out of the post above.</p>