<p>…</p>
<p>
This isn’t the case…
A top-tier college can only accept a few qualified applicants.
There just isn’t enough space for all of them.</p>
<p>^ Well, obviously. But the distinction between equally qualified applicants should be based on a truer tiebreaker than race.</p>
<p>And what kind of tiebreaker do you have in mind, diamondbacker?</p>
<p>I believe I have a very unique perspective on this case, considering I’m a Black Student from Jian Li’s High School, who also scored extremely high on his SATs (2370) and applied to some of the same school’s as Li. Now I will not debate the merits or demerits of AA, which I believe have been discussed in great length on this thread and others, what I will debate is the perceived power of AA on the admission process, the validity of Jian’s “investigation”, the purpose of AA, and whether or not it really is achieving its goals.</p>
<p>Now, I am of the belief that URM status can be very powerful at LACs such as AWS, which are not known to the general public and would not get a huge URM population without rigorous application of AA, however URM status isn’t as helpful as one would think at the upper-end schools, namely HYPSM. Here’s a little background, I too, applied to Princeton, MIT, and Stanford. My SATs and SAT II’s were 2370 and 2350 respectively (not far off from 2400/2390) and I still failed to secure admission at Princeton and MIT, and highly doubt I would have gotten into H or Y had I applied. In fact, I was not even waitlisted at Princeton like Jian Li was. Even though this is anecdotal evidence, it leads me to believe that one’s race is not as important as some would make it out to be and that test scores alone do not lead to admission. Furthermore, many people bring up the Black from a privileged family getting in over an Asian from a ghetto family when disparaging AA. I firmly believe that my socioeconomic status (upper middle class) was certainly evaluated in the admissions process. In fact, I know quite a few URMs who were less academically and extracurricularly distinguished than I who could secure admission to HYPS. The reason was, however, that they come far less privileged backgrounds than I, went to a high school that was predominantly minority (and low performing), and still managed to be competitive for admission to top schools. While this made me angry at first, since I knew how much I had wanted to get into Princeton (like Jian), I realized that I had a lot more opportunities than they and did might not have fully maximized them. I strongly believe that while AA does pay attention to ones race, I think socioeconomic status is employed because these days there isn’t a dearth of URMs applying to top schools, at least HYPS and the ivies.</p>
<p>Now, onto the validity of Jian Li’s case. I firmly believe he has every right to open up an investigation. If there is undue discrimination going on in Princeton’s admissions office, I feel the public has a right to know about it. As one of our nation’s premier institutions, entrusted with the responsibility of picking the nation’s best students for admission, I sincerely hope we find nothing to look askance at. If there is racial discrimination, that goes beyond equalizing the playing field and recognizing different opportunities, Princeton ought to be upfront about it. I don’t see how people can be against Li’s suit, don’t you want to know the truth?</p>
<p>The purpose of AA is a tricky one. The schools claim it is to provide diversity, and that diversity is correlated with a better college and learning experience, while some of the people on this thread claim AA is supposed to level the playing field, in essence right past wrongs. Perhaps its both or neither. My cynical side tells me AA helps the school present itself as an accepting place for high caliber students regardless of race. I think defining the purpose of AA is important in being able to assess its effectiveness.</p>
<p>Lastly, is AA achieving its goals? If AA’s purpose is to right wrongs, I feel that AA is woefully failing. Admitting a few kids into top schools does not right hundreds of years of discrimination, a better plan would be allowing free community college for URMs. If AA’s goal is to provide diversity, it may or may not do that. It does in the sense that, you’re going to a school with people of all different races in significant numbers (an experience not all people have had-myself included) It fails however, in that, it is human nature to self-segregate amongst people like you, people with similar interests, cultures, and yes, race. This invariably happens at top schools, and things like theme houses, racial frats, secret societies and the like do nothing to help the problem. Finally, if the goal is to present the school as one accepting of different races-on paper that works wonderfully. No one will be scared of not applying to a top school due to racial tension, knowing that a significant portion of your class is part of your race is certainly heartwarming. Conversely, it is easy for a school to boast that it is equal opportunity and welcoming of all races, a win-win situation, unless you consider those (wrongfully?) denied admission due to AA policies.</p>
<p>Ultimately, it is my belief that colleges act to help themselves first, thus I believe AA is practiced mainly for PR purposes. Considering today’s highly competitive admissions process, denying a highly qualified ORM has become the rule, not the exception. Furthermore, as more and more highly qualified URM students apply for admission, these schools can afford to be more selective in their selection of URM students. We see the results of such a process and now the hard question comes, is this right? Clearly in the case of Jian Li, he personally was not affected highly and there’s little loss to him as a result of such an admissions process. However, this growing trend of top colleges putting their needs before others is becoming slightly disconcerting. Even though now the needs of the top colleges align closely with the needs of the public, hence no widespread outrage about the practice of AA, what if there’s a time top colleges want something that is not beneficial to the public and not putting the public’s interest in mind? Considering the near monopoly the top colleges have on America’s sharpest minds, this could be cause for fear. Even though people will argue HYPSM+Ivies are private, they can do whatever they want, they not only have a legal responsibility to the public (through the funds they get from taxpayers), but they also have a moral obligation to the public, to put their best foot forward in improving America.</p>
<p>
Since when did you become the judge of who experiences PROFOUND discrimination and who doesn’t? Have you met every Asian person living in America? No, you haven’t, so don’t tell me that the hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans thrown out of their homes and locked up in WWII internment camps for instance haven’t experienced PROFOUND discrimination. Are you seriously going to start quantifying the amount of discrimination and suffering each race has had to endure? It’s hard to take you seriously anymore.</p>
<p>Wraider, he’s not Japanese is he? He’s Chinese.</p>
<p>First off:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This contribute very little to the topic of this thread, but I feel it’s necessary to explain to you that Asians don’t magically become people who have no interest in sports once they step on US soil. Your argument breaks down if there’s even a single Asian person in the US “obsessed” with sports the way a lot of white and black people apparently are in your mind. Introduce me to every single Asian person in the entire US, and prove to me that they’re not “obsessed” with sports. …or I can do you a favor and introduce you to Yao Ming.</p>
<p>Now on to more important things…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Great post, Cervantes, and I actually have a story from Princeton that substantiates that view.</p>
<p>A friend of mine does interviews for his publication at Princeton and he told me that Princeton apparently have these “banquets” that caters to legacy URMs. Princeton apparently asks its current URM student population to provide names of their relatives who are of college age, and Princeton pays airfare, lodging, etc. for those family members and actively try to recruit them throughout the process. Apparently those legacy URMs are told in pretty certain terms that they will be admitted if they choose to apply. My friend’s analysis is that this is both a cheap (since legacies of current students are usually more affluent then their non-legacy counterparts) and effective way to get “smart” URMs. This story, more than anything else, got me pretty ticked-off at Princeton, but I doubt that such programs are practiced only at the institution.</p>
<p>And this, of course, illustrates that AA is not just about “retributive action” on the part of the top colleges, but also (and perhaps even largely) about making themselves look better on paper. If it really were just the big guys helping out the little guys, then that whole legacy-based racial recruiting should never have happened.</p>
<p>^What does that have to do with anything…</p>
<p>**refering to Dr Sciences post</p>
<p>Jian Li doesn’t stand a chance…
He has no proof… All he can say is “hey, I got a 2400 and I still got rejected” BIG WHOOP! Who cares? Having a perfect score doesn’t entitle ANY SINGLE HUMAN BEING ON THIS PLANET immediate admissions to ANY university! And why didn’t he file complaints to the OTHER universities he got rejected from? Why just Princeton? Obviously, Li plans to benefit himself rather than “the greater good”. What a selfish jerk… This ridiculous claim by Li reveals a lot about his personality, and ultimately why he got rejected from many top-tier universities.
This is so dumb…</p>
<p>yes i admit jian li stands little chance of winning but…</p>
<p>just becuz other asians made it doesnt mean that there ISNT discrimination, it just means those other asians had better applications</p>
<p>calculus,
a black person with jian li’s credentials would guarantee them admissions into princeton - i would bet my life savings on it (50 bucks!)</p>
<p>How would this benefit himself? He’s already in Yale, he transferred (or is transferring?) to Harvard…I don’t really see any huge benefit of him winning this case. I think that the only people who can possibly benefit from Li’s case are the upcoming classes that will be applying to college. If I were him and I had guts, I would want to challenge a system that I wasn’t satisfied with because I wouldn’t want those in the future to be thinking “oh, I wish people took some action to change so-and-so in the past…” And I’m just referring to any general topic here, not just AA.</p>
<p>slshi,
there’s money involved.</p>
<p>“leave Britney (jianli) Alone!!!”</p>
<p>^ my point exactly</p>
<p>by the way, just intrested:</p>
<p>does anyone actually believe that college admissions DO NOT discriminate?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My parents are Chinese, and I was born in the United States. THIS is my home country; the Peoples Republic of China is NOT.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I can. Considering that Michael Chang is the still the youngest male tennis player to win a major title, I would think that he was pretty obsessed with his sport, or else he wouldnt have been the great player that he was.</p>
<p>Personally, assuming of course I was at an elite school like Princeton (or any school for that matter), I would rather have an African American or Hispanic kid in my class than another white or Asian kid, even if the AA or Hispanic had lower grades. It’s not so much the color of their skin as it is the different perspective they would bring to discussions.</p>
<p>It seems the majority of those opposed to Affirmative Action would rather have an elite school system filled with whites, Asians and Indians. “So what if the black or hispanic demographic is only 1% of the total student body! It’s just not fair that I didn’t get into Harvard!”</p>
<p>Did anyone else stop to think that the Asian kid’s application was probably really boring and had nothing special in it other than grades and scores? It has nothing to do with race(well, not really) when I say that a lot of the overachieving Asian kids are shut-ins who do nothing but nerd out about SAT’s and AP scores. Even the Adcom at Princeton mentioned that his outside school activities were nothing special. The kid was BORING. I’d rather have a black or hispanic kid in my class with a story and social skills than whiny Jian.</p>
<p>I just feel like I should say that I am not by any means disparaging Asians with my post, it may be a stereotype but it holds true to a large extent, just like the WASPY white kids at HYP.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As others have noted, its pointless and even perverse to argue along the lines of my people were discriminated against more than your people!</p>
<p>Yet, the statement Asians have not experienced PROFOUND discrimination is not true. Congress forbade Chinese immigration in 1882. The Gentlemens Agreement by President Theodore Roosevelt informally forbade Japanese immigration. Hell, American Japanese were interned in World War II. In an absolute sense, all of that is profound.</p>