Does Harvard (or other Ivy Leagues) have a quota for Asian applicants?

Colleges & Universities Harvard University
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<p>chi-town, clearly the legacy is undeserving as is the athlete. As is the affluent URM with average scores, grades. For the disadvantaged URMs there must be a mechanism to assure us that not every parameter of performance, GPA, scores etc is thrown out and only disadvantage counted in. </p>

<p>hpa 10: MIT knows what it is doing? Maybe, maybe not. Harvard admitted the Unabombed and denied Warren Buffett. We hear of their successes and not of their average no-name grads. Survivorship bias.</p>

<p>Collegealum, that was said only half in jest. Where I work, supervisors enhance the performance ratings of women because they “balance family and work” . This is America. If Bach were to compose for us and a blind, one-legged Tibetan hermaphrodite who can’t carry a tune, the Tibetan will win!</p>

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<p>Your being sarcastic right? Prove to me that being a football or basketball superstar is easier than having a high gpa and high sat scores. While your at it, please demonstrate how someone who studies every day for numerous hours is more deserving than someone who has to practice for hours a day in order to run a 10 second 100-meters or a 15 minute 5k.</p>

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<p>okay I will say this that Harvards attracts indeed many steallar asian and jewish kids that the competiton among these students to get in is very tough. Becuase of diversity needs Harvard needs to admit AA kids who has some very intellegent kids, but harvard does cherry pick the best possible AA kids among the AA category. I do agree that Harvard needs to admit more AA kids and give them slack for socio economic factors, but they also admit AA middle classkids and give them break. H also admit many atheletes and legacy who do not have numebrs but bring something to table. It is not most popular policy but it is the politically correct thing they are trying to cast by a wider net. I am an asian and sometime do think that merit based system is better. But Harvard has this policy to incude kids from all phase of life, and they are building a class which includes musicains,atheletes, scientist, economist, psycologist etc… So I do not think this will change for alongtime. But I will say povert does notmean kid can not be competitive, seemany JKC young scholars who thrive despite their fiscal problems and can compete with any kids. I think Harvard is trying to build thismodel among AA.</p>

<p>Do not assume that AA means that kids are stupid. I konw many AA kids who wil lput many asians to shame with their achievements. Intellgent kids can walk from any race as well as from any socio economic place and any other country. So we have to trust what they are doing even though it may not be popular. They are trying to be politically correct.</p>

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<p>I loved the last paragraph middsmith.</p>

<p>I don’t see the need to make this an AA bashing thread. Harvard rejected you for a reason; you were not who they wanted. It had nothing to do with your ethnicity. It’s a very simply concept, actually.</p>

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<p>OK, so this thread made me join CC and post. It is so sour grapes, if not downright racist. Of the students from my HS currently at Stanford, 6/8 are Asian. No AA there. And the stats of at least one asn female aren’t great, (but she’s amazing anyway and deserved it). At Harvard, they got a Hispanic athlete, but it was probably his USAMO, extreme music, debate, etc. that got him noticed.</p>

<p>My best friend is Chinese, and for his parents, it’s all about the name. He’s going to Yale for his parents, not himself. They never supported his involvement in sports because it took away study time… they made him do test prep all summer… and they compared him to the other Asians only.</p>

<p>He’d probably be happier elsewhere. There are thousands of colleges to choose.</p>

<p>No one should have to defend their position anywhere. No one “steals” a position from another individual; the adcoms have the right to build a class however they want. Go Kubakloth. The adcoms can recognize arrogance, competition as a primary value (when collaboration is desired, at say, MIT), and, probably racism. They can also detect creativity, drive toward the common good, high moral character, and just interesting people.</p>

<p>ramaswami, stop whining.</p>

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<p>proudamerican007, that is essentially what I said earlier. Harvard and other colleges are all trying to cast a wide net to create their class and make it as diverse a possible. In the process, there are many qualified people who are left out. It’s not that schools are finding something wrong with you so much as they find something they feel they must have in someone else. And that is really a combination of qualities rather than a single one. No one gets in solely because they’re black or hispanic or because they’re poor or rich or an athlete or legacy. If that was the case, then the student bodies would be made of just those people. Likewise, people aren’t rejected because of those as well.</p>

<p>Rosh420: it may be a simple concept, but when the mind is operating while under stress, disappointment, and anger, things tend to be a little skewed, no?</p>

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<p>hpa: >>>Prove to me that being a football or basketball superstar is easier than having a high gpa and high sat scores. While your at it, please demonstrate how someone who studies every day for numerous hours is more deserving than someone who has to practice for hours a day in order to run a 10 second 100-meters or a 15 minute 5k.>></p>

<p>Last time I checked Harvard is an educational institution, i.e, an institution of learning. Athletics is not the central mission of the university. The sports superstar should be given priority for acceptance into a sports team, but not into an institution of learning. How stupid would it be for the NBA or NFL to include in each team someone who was an OK athlete but was really smart and had high SAT scores. It is equally stupid for colleges to recruit athletes primarily for their athletic ability. The fact that this happens does not make it any less stupid.</p>

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<p>Athletics may not be the “central mission” of a university, but in the United States it is considered to be part of the college experience as a whole. Obviously, it plays a greater or lesser role in different institutions, but the elite colleges for the most part have no interest in being institutions that are viewed as being filled exclusively with academically overachieving grinds. Even at the institutions of higher learning there is some reflection of the anti-intellectualism that exists in the culture at large. We as a society like sporty, outgoing, social, affable, confident, attractive people – these “ideals” are reflected in some of the admission decisions. A student body made entirely up of non-athletic, “nerdy” academic superstars will have a more limited appeal. Image is everything.</p>

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<p>well, it’s survival of the fittest, so in a few years when foreign universities surpass HYP in term of academic output, you know why. no school stands on top forever.</p>

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<p>hpa10, when I read your post I was salivating until I noticed vicariousparent had destroyed your argument. The idea that a college should admit someone who is skilled at throwing a ball would be laughed at in any other country and has been laughed at throughout history. Plato’s academy which lasted nearly 700 years didn’t admit based on athletics. You didn’t go to Bohr in Copenhagen (his institute is considered a recreation of the Academy for a brief period of time in that the best in physics and math gathered there) because of football. Finally, hpa, my son was an athlete, a tennis star who won at state level and since I ferried him to tournaments and practice for years I know the commitment and drive involved.</p>

<p>proudamerican, “bring to the table”, “build a class” have become cliches. I can build HYP a class based on diversity of race and institutional needs but I must demonstrate an explicit, objective methodology otherwise it is the same subjective process that excluded Jews and characterized Asians in negative ways as adcoms did in the 80s as shown in an investigation of Harvard in 1988.</p>

<p>Logical, your reasoning belies your screen name. The issue is not whether Asian parents force certain colleges on their kids. </p>

<p>Chitown, agree no one is chosen just because they are black, hispanic etc. The question is what is the PLUS factor and what weight?</p>

<p>broetchn, good point, the argument the Ivies make is that if they admitted based on scholarship alone they would become as irrelevant as the U of Chicago as far as impact on the social and cultural life of the world. </p>

<p>Whilst I lean toward middsmith re foreign universities I have to concede that their unidimensional admit policies, perhaps also Chicago’s (I don’t know too much about Chicago admissions, can someone enlighten me?) will throw up uncreative, uninteresting people like the IITs do. Overall, the American system seems better to me but needs to reduce the weight given to legacy, athletes,</p>

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<p>I didn’t want to comment on this but changed my mind.</p>

<p>What hpa might of wanted is that an athlete who can meet the average for admissions in the Ivy League should be given a better shot than the average applicant. You guys can mention Siemens finalists, nationally renowned violinists and state champion debaters, but these schools already have many of those applying due to the caliber of the average applicant. Not that they are less deserving (they are more deserving if anything) However, getting football players in society who can score 1950-2150 is hard enough because we our society praises guys who might be felons with mininum GPAs of 2.0 as long as they can excel in a sport, which isn’t helping our economy. Lowered standards might be shoddy, but it shows that the Ancient Eight are willing to break the stereotype of ‘dumb jock’ - if these guys wanted 2250’s and 3.9’s, they could’ve gotten it, but they wouldn’t be fulfilling the will that every person has, the will to excel at something geniune to their character rather than fill their EC background. It also makes for good alumni donations from Wall Street in later years.</p>

<p>Oh, and the Ivy League is an athletic league, even if the schools under it are known for academics. just Google or Wiki it. Disassociate the social definition from the literal, and you’ll understand.</p>

<p>As for the OP question: I wish it wasn’t true, and I hate to stereotype the “average Asian” cause you can’t do that any easier than you can do it on the “average URM” or “average Caucasian” applicant. However, the admissions office must see a trend that we can’t. It’s gross to think about, but we don’t know what they know. If they do have a quota, it’s hope its not to keep Asians out, but to get other ethnicities in, which will lead to my next and final point…</p>

<p>As for the argument on URMs, most of us don’t know what’s in their application that got the schools attracted to them. It’s easy to generalize AA practices, but it’s also wrong. Maybe Bill Cosby’s been yanking my chain, but he once claimed that the reason African-Americans don’t do as well as Asians and whites on average is because of our social stigma regarding stereotypes. Not that anyone is being oppressed, but the stigma he noted was that if a smart black or Hispanic kid tries to excel in a upper middle-class environment, the usually white or Asian kids around her/him will:</p>

<p>a) tell so and so that they are acting too “white” for their own good, or
b) claim that they will get into any college they want just because of their ethnicity</p>

<p>The explanation to a) is hard to touch on because there are so many complexities. The same thing can happen in a lower-class surrounding. But the easiest way to explain it is that even though racism doesn’t exist as it used to, people still see race and stereotype off of that. There are the positive stereotypes, like Asians being more driven than most due to past oppression. Then they’re are the negative ones, like Asians also being introverted due to their work ethic, or blacks and Hispanics being associated with certain types of music (rap), speech or tendencies (clothing, interests).</p>

<p>Sociologists have noted this trend and claimed that minorities have felt pressured when they attempt to excel based on sifting away from the tendencies I just mentioned and that’s why grades and scores for those groups are lower than the scores for other groups by a significant amount. This doesn’t excuse an individual for mediocrity just cause of their race, but it provides some explanation for different ethnic groups as a whole.</p>

<p>In fact, I can relate to this, being black. Last year, a girl I knew got into Yale with a 1860 (!!!). I know, I know, wayyyy below standards (she ended up going to Loyola Marymount). However, the first point everyone made was her being African-American. It made sense with her, but some people try to force that on me. I scored better than that already, have earned 2100s on practice tests and will take it again to get in the 2150-2250 range. I take AP courses and still find time to do other stuff in my community. However, I still hear the “white” arguments not from the black kids I know at my middle-class school, but from the white and Asian kids. I just ignore them and do my thing. I don’t hear it as much as I did my first two HS years, but it occurs.</p>

<p>In response to b), I fear that I do get accepted into some really prestigious private school, the same kids who said I acted “white” will excuse my acceptance as a result of my skin color. Someone else mentioned this scenario with their own son who sounds very competitive in their stats. I don’t want that to be, so I’m stuck with this paranoia that causes me to 1-up each past attempt in order to look competitive. But if that’s the case, I won’t answer to their new claim in the same manner that I didn’t answer to the other claims. I only have myself to please.</p>

<p>As with the alleged quota on Asians, I have no idea why the Ivy League schools admit a high number of less-than-stellar URMs with a strong socioeconomic background over more deserving candidates. These kids might even come from areas where they don’t face the same pressures I constantly am worried about. The Eight must have their reasons however. It cripples meritocracy for the sake of diversity even when diversity can’t be forced on society. How MIT doesn’t get involved with the same mess is beyond me. I don’t think these kids should be awarded for breaking the stereotype and fighting the social norm unless they come from underpriviledged backgrounds or have the grades to compete with any other applicant. </p>

<p>All of this blows my mind so much, I might need some aspirin.</p>

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<p>I know people who have amazing academics, outstanding leadership positions in the community, started their own nonprofits, and still not get into top schools. How do you not rant about AA then? If you look at your application and the only thing you could have possibly done better was to have checked URM instead of white/asian?</p>

<p>All I can say is that I hate AA with a passion. An African American friend of mine got into a top school last year; a white friend of mine with almost identical grades and ECs didn’t. They’re both brilliant. For the next few months, you could not say “X got into college Y” without hearing someone else add immediately “because he’s black”. It was ridiculous. It doesn’t matter how qualified he was; the only thing that mattered was his ethnicity. If somehow, AA does not exist and have never existed, you would hear “wow, X got into college Y, he must be very smart”. But now it just doesn’t matter.</p>

<p>On the other spectrum of things, a friend of mine got into Harvard last year. This person made camp for USAMO and USNCO. And then he went to IPHO and got a gold medal. He’s Hispanic. When this fact is mentioned, people say incredulously, “really?! He’s HISPANIC?!”</p>

<p>My thoughts cannot even be expressed coherently anymore. I’ve pretty much lost what I was trying to say except that I Hate AA. I Hate It. Not just because it screws us Asians over, but because it belittles the accomplishments of truly deserving URMS. In the long run, how does it help anyone?</p>

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<p>your last paragraph drove home the point, highlander12.
ramaswami, I accompanied someone to a conference with a lot of papers presented by foreign university and yes, their research is still very primitive compare to ones from Cal, for example. however, a few years ago, it’s unheard of to do research in such grand scale for these countries. IITs is a glorified tech school, but there are quite a few school out there focusing on research now. I believe IIT is changing in that direction as well.</p>

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<p>“Affirmative Action should be based on a socioeconomic perspective, but 'oh well.”</p>

<p>when you think about it, it is. affirmative action is not really boosting minority applicants whose families make above a certain level of income.</p>

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<p>How so? I’m thinking about it and it seems to me that it does boost minority applicants whose families are socioeconomically wealthy enough to afford them the opportunities to realize their full potential. I think there are some studies that support this.</p>

<p>This is not to bash A.A., my views on it are complex and not very easy to articulate, but that’s one aspect of it that I feel very conflicted about.</p>

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<p>Well, that is a tough issue. All of the things I’ve seen regarding URMs from wealthier backgrounds is anecdotal using this site. From what I’ve seen, there are such students that get in with lower scores, but I’ve also seen wealthier URMs with higher scores get rejected. I’ve seen the opposite as well. This leads me to believe that there is something else to each application that leads to such results. I have no idea what that would be, though. I don’t work in admissions.</p>

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<p>My son’s EC interviewer from MIT is black. I cringe when I think others assume she got in there because she is black, and not because she is brilliant. She was there 30 years ago and is now doing great things.</p>

<p>These schools do NOT have quotas. They DO view students holistically.</p>

<p>Because I teach at a competitive high school, I see these students everyday. Scores are a very small factor for admission after some point, and the colleges are very transparent about that. I read students’ essays, and they speak volumes. I’m sure those matter, along with teacher perceptions, which do not always align only with top scores. We understand natural talent (even when untapped), potential for success, creative thinking (yes, it does matter), and character.</p>

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<p>i agree that AA is morally wrong and that it exists across the board
however, asians need to start thinking about things differently… especially the parents. It’s pretty pathetic that so many asians lead cookie-cutter asian lives. they’re exact carbon copies of one another.
I’m an asian and i’ve been trying hard all my life to stay out of this trap that perhaps my upbringing has sucked me into</p>

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<p>“I know people who have amazing academics, outstanding leadership positions in the community, started their own nonprofits, and still not get into top schools. How do you not rant about AA then? If you look at your application and the only thing you could have possibly done better was to have checked URM instead of white/asian?”</p>

<p>All sorts of people including URMs who have done the kind of things that you mention do not get into top colleges because admissions is so competitive.</p>

<p>It continues to amaze me that so many people persist in blaming AA when whites or Asians don’t get in. Why not blame the fact that more students than ever before are applying to college? Why not blame the fact that athletes, and celebrity kids and wealthy donors’ kids get in with stats and achievements than is the norm?</p>

<p>When it comes to LACs, why not blame the fact that males - including white and Asian males --can get in with lower scores than is the norm because they are underrepresented? Funny how this is a well known fact, yet I’ve never seen anyone complain about this.</p>

<p>What about the fact that females have an advantage when it comes to applying to places like engineering schools where women are underrepresented?</p>

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<p>“How so? I’m thinking about it and it seems to me that it does boost minority applicants whose families are socioeconomically wealthy enough to afford them the opportunities to realize their full potential. I think there are some studies that support this.”</p>

<p>When i made this statement i was referring to my observations as a Cornell student. Most of the black students i know, and its safe to say that i know most of the blacks in the class of 2011 (not simply a generalization), and the overwhelming majority of these students come from poor backgrounds. Many, when it comes to NY State, even qualify for H/EOP. The same for many of the Hispanics i know.</p>

<p>I also know black students who graduated from prestigious high schools like the Dalton School and Horace Mann who scored between 2000-2150 (give or take) and were denied admission to Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Brown. These were students who were fairly wealthy; they could afford to pay full tuition at their high schools-something that is no small feat. While this does not necessarily prove my gut feeling that affirmative action does not really help wealthy minorities, I think it does at least support it.</p>