<p>There’s really no question of the existence of discriminations against Asians in general in college admissions, along with ubiquitous, yet currently unacknowledged advantages to being an URM when applying to colleges. However, said discrimination has nothing to do with race itself; many more Asian applicants are rejected not because of any physical racial traits. Rather, what appears to be racism is in fact a technique intended to balance student populations. If, say, many Latino children were to be forced by parents to undertake intensive test-prep, and dedicated their high school lives simply to college applications, then there would be an undeniable prejudice against Latino applicants by adcoms. At any college/university, Latinos would be expected to send in more impressive resumes (as Asian applicants are much expected to today) if they want to be accepted into those selective schools. This prejudice could actually be applied to any race (Asian/Latino/Caucasian/African/etc.) as long as the group receiving the prejudice is known for spending significantly more time on padding applications than other races, thus making college admissions not racist, per se, but ‘adaptively prejudiced’ against applicants.</p>
<p>fab,
If I may summarize my understanding of your position:</p>
<p>You are not opposed to the idea of URMs actually attending elite u’s; in other words, you harbor no prejudice against them due to their race.</p>
<p>You acknowledge that there are students admitted to elite u’s who gain admission to the elites for reasons other than their academic accomplishments, some of which may be out of the applicant’s control, including low-SES, athletes, legacies and development admits, and this is acceptable to you (except for geographic tips).</p>
<p>You are a big supporter of “holistic” admissions practices. And hence you believe that a diverse student body is preferable to one that considers only GPAs and test scores.</p>
<p>You are aware that there is a range of academic accomplishment in every incoming elite freshman class, including some relatively low SAT scorers, yet those schools consistently rank at or near the top of the food chain.</p>
<p>Given the above, it is not clear to me why YOU PERSONALLY object to the use of race as a factor in admissions. You seem to have accepted as gospel, the US Supreme Ct’s label of race as a “suspect class,” but at the same time you reject the US Supreme Ct’s interpretation of what that means in the context of college admissions. </p>
<p>Therefore, I’d really appreciate hearing your personal objection to the practice in your own words, without resorting to quoting Martin Luther King, or Justice Roberts, or someone else.</p>
<p>Indianparent wrote:
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<p>Then, your analogy involving a person with Asperger’s “facing a wall” is even more idiotic than I thought.</p>
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<p>Again with the logical fallacies. Some of you need to learn to distinguish affirmative statements from exclusive statements. Mine was not an exclusive statement, but an inclusive one. There will be URMs, ORM’s, and those who are neither who also deserved to get in, but did not. </p>
<p>When choosing among the oversupply of the deserving, geography is important (school & region); last name is not. The equally deserving one from Missouri, with an Irish last name, has a better chance than the 5 similar students from X East Coast school with Irish names.</p>
<p>"Then, your analogy involving a person with Asperger’s “facing a wall” is even more idiotic than I thought. "</p>
<p>No it is not when you are trying to prove that a person can be successful in making a lot of money with ZERO leadership potential. So leadership qualities have zero ability to predict a person’s success in future and thus should nt be the EC that determines a college admission over a brilliant candidate. </p>
<p>At least that is where IP is headed.</p>
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<p>Although the question was not addressed to me…
I didn’t read limabeans’ post; I’ll try to find it. It’s not that leadership skills are “needed for success.” It’s that it is an extra component (not essential, but often desired) for reasons other than mere economic success. We value much more than “I’ve-got-mine” economic success in this country. We value leaders who can continue to represent democratic ideals of opportunity, inclusion, and representation for all peoples living here, not just for those who one group or another group perceives narrowly as “meritorious.” And elite colleges like to be in the forefront of representing those future leaders – yes, so they can brag about that later, so they can keep the name of the institution in public view.</p>
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I think a lot of different strategies will be needed. I happen to think that AA is one, because it boosts the number of middle class URMs, creates more role models, and chips away at the “acting white” problem. I think fixing the problem will be a huge task no matter what techniques are used.</p>
<p>epiphany, I wonder if there might be an unconscious bias against people with Italian last names, particularly if they come from certain Northeast states. But I don’t wonder it quite enough to think it should be studied.</p>
<p>Actually, that point reminds me of some interesting studies I’ve read about, which showed that in hiring, applicants with names that reviewers associated with lower-SES blacks were less likely to get interviews than those with more middle-class names. Thus, two identical resumes, except that one was for “LaTonYa” and the other was for “Susan” were evaluated differently. This is just an example of the kind of unconscious discrimination that can happen–which is why I don’t discount the possibility that this could be happening to Asians.</p>
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<p>Even more idiotic? Calm down John.</p>
<p>texaspg wrote:
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<p>I don’t buy it. Stop trying to dumb-down the word, “global”.</p>
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<p>Wonder all you like, but I will tell you that there is not much difficulty overcoming a bias when two students with different last names are placed side by side, but the one with the Italian last name is clearly the kind of brain which JHS mentioned the faculty strongly prefers to the one with the non-Italian last name. Watch how quickly self-interest (for the institution) trumps negative or positive social engineering.</p>
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Well, sure. I would expect unconscious biases mostly to function at the margins, for close calls. And because adcoms are human, there are probably all kinds of biases like that, and we can just hope that in the big picture they cancel each other out.</p>
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<p>Wait a minute. Didn’t I learn on this website that SAT scores have zero ability to predict a person’s success in the future (other than very slight increased performance freshman year that goes away soph year)? Why should SAT scores be used to determine college admissons, then?</p>
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<p>What you can count on them not doing is making decisions which may jeopardize the economic standing of the institution. It’s not just “about Harvard,” in a vacuum. It’s about Harvard vs. Yale vs. Princeton, etc. This is why the clearly outstanding – regardless of last name – are cross-admits, especially if they’re outstanding on all measures. But even if they’re outstanding on only the intellectual measures, and clearly superior to their classmates from that school/region, the Fear and Trembling is that, if your institution does not admit this probably brilliant inventor, penetrating scholar, talented engineer, or expansive thinker in international relations, Yale and/or Princeton will. In fact, you’re making a calculated guess that they will. At that point, you have no interest, despite your personal bias, in whether that student is an O’Malley, a Chu, a Schwartz, or a Romano. Because your primary bias is the competitive standing of your institution in the elite university marketplace.</p>
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<p>How do you know?</p>
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<p>Any techniques other than AA?</p>
<p>I don’t know why people bother arguing with IndianParent on this thread. It has become obvious that the only criteria he thinks should be <em>allowed</em> to be used by colleges (even private ones) is GPA and test scores, with a few STEM-related awards thrown in. In order to give himself the appearance of being socially responsible, he claims he is “fine” with AA for low-SES applicants, because in reality he knows that the chances of low-income URMs having HYPSM on their radar is close to zero, so they won’t be “stealing” the spots of Asians anyway.</p>
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Yeah, a lot of makeup, like that SNL skit with Eddie Murphy. What, is this a serious question? There are lots of things, like better schools, early intervention programs, nutrition programs, and more.</p>
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<p>What does that have to do with the typical leadership ECs that applicants cite? How is running a student organization indicative of “represent democratic ideals of opportunity, inclusion, and representation for all peoples living here”?</p>
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<p>Are you as passionate about those as you are about AA?</p>
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<p>Not at all. I think awards in piano and violin - and other expressions of art - should count as well. Same for LA awards - as talent is talent. </p>
<p>However, cute, quirky essays from class clowns shouldn’t count.</p>