Harvard & UNC lawsuits: LEGACY PREFERENCE

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<p>About 50% choose undecided per the Crimson, as far as I recall. I recommend all the kids that I advise to choose undecided and also not to volunteer their race, as it is illegal to guesstimate the race.</p>

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<p>Right, it is illegal because?</p>

<p>US law. You have to treat everyone as an individual and not as part of a given race (unless you are giving some kind of a benefit based on the race). You can’t treat an individual African American male, for example, as potential a jailbird, just because a disproportionate number of African American males end up in jail. That’s discriminatory.</p>

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<p>Any specific links to go with it.</p>

<p>Will look for it.</p>

<p>They aren’t committed to whatever they write, but when a kid states an interest, it should make sense vis-a-vis his or her record/prep, academically and in activities. </p>

<p>This is separate from the fact they declare later or can change their minds. You tell me you want a math major and I expect you to have tested and stretched yourself in that direction. (Plus others.) Etc.</p>

<p>Some majors don’t have many hs opportunities. Or obvious activities the kid can pursue. You can still look for the patterns.</p>

<p>It’s not rocket science. If your kid’s friend came to you and said, I want to major in engineering, wouldn’t you expect he/she was in upper math and had taken on something like robotics or science bowl? (Not to mention, that he or she actually understands what engineering is about?!)</p>

<p>No, I don’t think undecided is as high as 50%. And my tip is that makes it much harder for an adcom to assess.</p>

<p><a href=“The Harvard Crimson | Class of 2018 By the Numbers”>http://features.thecrimson.com/2014/freshman-survey/academics/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I can’t find undecided in this list. Go down to at Harvard and click on concentrations.</p>

<p>“They are not declaring a major, just an area of interest, kind of like applying to a specific school”.
Except that there is no process to switch “schools”, Anyone could write “humanities- 90%” on that, but then eventually choose to major in Biological Sciences, with no process or “transfer application” involved. (at my alma mater anyway).</p>

<p>In such situation, if I were the adcoms i would not just take the applicant’s word for it, I would also
independently decide what made sense based on what the totality of the application was saying. Which
is what they probably do with that other 50% that writes “undecided”. Because they have to have some idea of what their distribution of majors might look like. Seems to me.</p>

<p>“I recommend all the kids that I advise to choose undecided …”
I don’t know who you advise, but iit seems to me some folks might be better served indicating their actual area of interest. Lest the adcoms just assume something that is less favorable to the applicant’s chances. But maybe that’s just me.</p>

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<p>What would you expect is a kid came to you and said that she wants to major in philosophy and Sanskrit? (Which, by the way, I may encourage some of my kids to write in. Extremely hard to see what high school or EC can map to this.)</p>

<p>I want to live in the world that Kenzaburo lives in. Obviously not watching what is going on in America these days. Race, right or wrong, is a factor in everything from how you are dealt with by law enforcement, where you live, how you are schooled, and what job you get. I guess you really do want higher education to be above the fray. Sorry, its not.</p>

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<p>I completely agree, and I want all racism gone from any aspect of US life. Who doesn’t?</p>

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<p>Thank you for stating that higher education seems to be just as racist as the rest of society. I guess that’s why H is getting sued.</p>

<p>Here ya go. Class of 2018 <a href=“Admissions Statistics | Harvard”>https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics&lt;/a&gt;
Undecided 8.3%.</p>

<p>Look, for a “most competitive” level school, this stuff is high stakes. The kids who stand the best chances think, test themselves, put the pieces together and can state clearly and appropriately. It’s a reflection of many attributes. The whole app is. </p>

<p>H is getting sued because Blum wants to go after someone, anyone.</p>

<p>I stand corrected then. However, I will keep advising kids to not volunteer their race and major. I do not see any upside to doing that, unless some H adcom here tells me otherwise.</p>

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<p>Unless only those undecideds also refused to do a survey, none of them seem to be getting admitted.</p>

<p>We can speculate, of course. Personal experience tells me that Asian STEM kids who say undecided have a better shot (anecdotally speaking) than those with similar background who say STEM. (You yourself alluded to the same, so we should have no quarrel here.) </p>

<p>From where I sit, H seems to want Asian kids who conform to the typical North East Liberal perspective (humanities and social sciences) rather than being themselves and doing things they themselves like to do, like math. So be it. </p>

<p>Majority has always wanted the minority to assimilate and lose their own cultural and social norms, this is a generations old anthropological truth. Nothing new here. Organizations like conformists.</p>

<p>Then H will just have to guess. What’s the practical difference between submitting an application listing math as a probable major and submitting an undeclared major application listing linear algebra, math tutoring and USAMO competitions among one’s courses and EC’s?</p>

<p>As for that Sanskrit major, she or he’d better show some linguistics or at least classics in her or his background or H is never going to take the application seriously.</p>

<p>texaspg Why do you think that “Blum wants to go after someone, anyone” ? Have you prejudged these cases before the evidence is presented? Sounds like it. Harvard and UNC are parties because that data stinks. I keep hearing the repeated arguments that the data is “wrong” or the data does reflect other important factors for which none can provide any data to help support these types of arguments.</p>

<p>The problem is that many believe that Harvard or any school for that matter that has “holistic” admissions is administering it fairly without bias. The only problem is the data seems not to support this. If Harvard et. al wants to dispel these points of the complaint, it just needs to be more transparent about how the admission process works and how they come to the decisions that they do. </p>

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<p>None. If someone got to USAMO, they should flaunt it, as the H math department would like it. If they are merely competing, it is far better for them to not mention it as an EC at all. Math is not an EC anyway, or it should not be. It should either be a passion, or people shouldn’t do it. But a mediocre performance in the AMCs will do no good, and hurt a lot as the kid will get grouped as a robot Asian.</p>

<p>If the kid is non-Asian and has tried out the AMCs, then the kid should write all about it though.</p>

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<p>My typical advice is 4 years of Latin. The kid has to take foreign language anyway, so why not Latin? It helps to do a summer course in Classical Greek too. Not extra effort at all compared to say taking French or Spanish. </p>

<p>No, kids who are clearly STEM oriented who state undeclared have zero advantage. </p>

<p>Kenzaburo, you have any kids who’ve been through the app cycle and gotten results? You’re throwing out things that don’t balance what I see. Nothing says these colleges want kids in some box. That’s high school.</p>

<p>Adcoms don’t like to guess, Sue, especially not at this level. They’ve got other thousands of other kids applying who can clearly state their interests. Don’t apply to Harvard all confused and in a dither. </p>