Princeton answers to Jian Li claims

Parents Forum
701

<p>Bay,</p>

<p>I’m sorry if I appear too defensive and close-minded.</p>

<p>I recognize that most supporters of affirmative action do not support the punishment of non-Blacks in this nation for historical sins. Thus, Drosselmeier expresses views which place him in a very small subset of affirmative action supporters, and I should not treat his beliefs as mainstream.</p>

<p>I think that most supporters of affirmative action do have good intentions. By that, I mean that they want to promote equal opportunity for all.</p>

<p>Stop here. I also wish to promote equal opportunity for everyone in this nation. I just don’t agree with using racial preferences to do so. I think that is the core of our disagreement.</p>

<p>If Princeton can definitively show that there is no systematic bias against Asians (e.g. it’s a coincidence that Asians are consistently rated lower in personal qualities (*)) and release all necessary and requested data to do so, then I’ll be very satisfied.</p>

<p>(*) This actually happens at Harvard, not Princeton.</p>

702

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<p>–Actually, CCer’s and many others have been vocal about Asian ‘discrimination’. Thus, your point, is moot. By stating that Asians are the only ones who can be discriminated against without verbal reprisals, you are infering that in all other cases, and with respect to other ethnicities, that verbal rebuffs always take place. It does not.</p>

<p>–As for quantifiable test scores, it usually favors those who are from families that have higher incomes and those that are in the majority. Without social, economic and political, considerations I’d agree that different groups would perform the same.</p>

<p>–Economic AA, without considerations for ethnicity, can hurt Southeast Asians, because it equates a poor, white experience in the U.S. with that of a low-income Southeast Asian applicant. By virtue of being in the majority, the white kid would be able to blend, while the Southeast Asian would have more difficulty in doing so, unless their community has a large number of Southeast Asians. Likewise, within the Asian community, Southeast Asians sometimes experience discrimination at the hands of East Asians. Thus, just because one belongs to the same economic category does not mean that everyone is treated the same. If you are in the majority, you are capable of oppressing those that are not. Thus, treating the low-income White or East Asian applicant the same as the Southeast Asian applicant without regard to the community they grew-up in can result in greater inequity.</p>

<p>–The problem with the story is that sometimes AP classes teach to the test. So, it could have also been the method used by the teacher. It could have been the material itself. It could have been the level of funding given to the AP program in that school. It could have been many things. What school was it? Was it a suburban school or a city school? Who is served by the school? Without knowing the context, it is difficult to assume that the grades were earned/not earned based on an AP score.</p>

<p>–Selecting a particular definition most favorable to your cause and treating that definition as the only one (implied by form, use, etc…), which it most clearly is not (thanks to Bay), can be seen as sketchy. Your use of straw man tactics, btw, are just as evolved as mine.</p>

<p>I’m glad that you said that you were biased because of you group affiliation. Usually, you couch your stance by arguing for “fairness” in the college admissions process by not taking into consideration one’s ethnicity. The odd thing is that advocating for economic AA and using test scores as a reliable qualifier to admissions (which does favor East Asians), can lead to oppression of Southeast Asians and other minority groups. Choosing your group over another, and advocating for the use of test scores as a more important characteristic than others is discrimination by your earlier definition (even if you ignore Asian performance–which is impacted less by some social, economic, and political practices by the majority). I disagree that you’re being discriminatory, I think you’re just being prejudicial–assuming that you do not live in a community with a large Asian population.</p>

<p>Likewise, my position is prejudicial in the sense that I believe in a different method than what is currently in place. If I had the power to change it or implement socioeconomic AA, then I would become, by definition, discriminatory.</p>

<p>BTW–Fab, you do not offend me. I like debating with you, actually. You’re passionate. I’m not sure it comes across in the posts.</p>

703

<p>Gays are the only minority that can be discriminated against without reprisal. Not Asians.</p>

704

<p>Hmmm…depends on the community you live in.</p>

705

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Can you elaborate? I haven’t heard of Harvard rating Asians lower on personal qualities.</p>

706

<p>It has been a noted issue that Asian students are often described in ways that do not excite top schools. These descriptions come from the teachers that the students select for recs and the counselor who does the college recs for the school. Apparently, many Asian (AND other students, but it seems like a large percentage of Asians) fall into description catergories that imply obedience, docileness, diligence, lack of creativity, does not take chances, little intellectual curiousity and not particularly interesting. That does tend to lower personal quality ratings. I don’t know if Harvard uses interviewer’s assesment of personality in their ratings. Actually I don’t know if there is even a personal quality rating for Harvard, but if there is on, I can see that many Asians do fall into a quiet, don’t rock the boat, non exciting personality category. Jian Li does not seem to fall into this grouping, however.</p>

707

<p>Pages back, Fabrizio raised UT-Austin admissions policies. Coincidentally, today (12/6/2006), UT released its latest post-Hopwood report on the diversity of its freshmen classes 1996-2006 (together with some stats on historical performance relative to SATs and other interesting data). </p>

<p>For those who may not recall, UT’s affirmative action practices were outlawed by the Hopwood decision, which rocked the admissions world in 1997 and forced greater transparency in admissions policies. Texas’ response to the AA ban was to grant automatic admission to the top 10% of Texas high school graduates. (Naturally, that system has drawn a whole new set of critics.) Effective 2005, when the Grutter Court said it was okay to consider race as a factor, UT resumed the use of AA as a “special circumstance.”</p>

<p>The full report with tables upon tables of stats is here: <a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/HB588-Report9.pdf[/url]”>http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/HB588-Report9.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Most relevant to this discussion is the following paragraph:</p>

<p>“Beginning with the entering class of 2005, race/ethnicity was added to the list of special circumstances. Test scores and class rank are still considered, but the ambition to tackle rigorous high school coursework, the production of quality prose, the desire to make a difference in one’s school, home, or community, evidence of employability (work), and some sense of having excelled in any number of areas are also considered. Moreover, admissions officials place these attributes in the context of the circumstances under which the student lived. Since 1997, the rational, thoughtful, and reasoned judgments of people complemented prediction formulas. Throughout the United States this is called the “holistic approach.” The University of Texas implemented an admissions routine that analyzes the qualities each applicant would bring to an entering freshman class.”</p>

<p>Describing the process as being focused on <strong>what the applicant brings to the freshman class</strong> is consistent with the conclusion reached by some of this thread’s most ardent participants, to-wit: </p>

<p>Admissions is all about selection, not rejection.</p>

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<p>If that is the case, then the responsibility lies with the teachers and GCs, not with the colleges. Presumably, however, unless there is massive and systematic inaccuracy on the part of the same teachers and GCs, their assessments of the students are not too far off the mark.
Profs who have confronted roomfuls of silent students may like more assertive, vocal students (though perhaps not the Jian Li type!)</p>

709

<p>Fabrizio-Why would Li apply to Princeton if he did not want to attend if he got in? If he never intended to go in the first place, then he was definitely trophy hunting. I agree with cptofthehouse’s assessment. I suspect that if he got into P but not Y, he would have gone to P. He must have realized admission to the elite universities is dicey even with a 2400 SAT and hedged his bets by applying to a number of them with the hopes that he would be accepted by at least one of them. To me, the fact that a number of other schools also rejected him would suggest there was something lacking in his application, whether it be his recommendations or relatively unimpressive ECs. If Princeton were the only elite school to reject him (as in the case of Caldad’s daughter), he would have a stronger case. As it stands now, he would have to argue that Princeton and five other elite schools discrminated against him. Very unlikely. There must have been a fundamental weakness in his application (besides being just Asian-which I still think a bit far-fetched).</p>

710

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That makes no sense in the context of elite school admissions. It’s like saying that if the odds that you will roll 7 with a pair of dice are 6/36 (16.6%) and you roll 5 times, and 4 times it comes up 7, and the 5th time it doesn’t, then something went wrong the 5th time. </p>

<p>College admissions are more based on predictable criteria than a crap shoot, but Ivy-level admissions is still so selective that more often than not, a highly qualified applicant will have mixed results in applying to numerous Ivies. </p>

<p>Li has a weak case either way: the evidence as to what happened at other schools is irrelevant – just as when you have rolled a 7 five times in a row, your odds of rolling 7 the on the 6th try are still 16.6% - the odds are neither increased nor diminished by the results of other throws.</p>

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<p>Just a side note - there was a comment that gays are the only group that is discriminated against openly. That’s not exactly true. Children are systematically discriminated against in all kinds of public venues (restaurants, amusement parks, housing - communities that require residents be 55 or over).</p>

712

<p>I have seen many, many cases where someone was accepted to a number of colleges and not accepted to a like or even less selective school for no apparent reason. When the school is Princeton in a mix, you cannot come up with a reason as to why you were accepted. Many, many kids not accepted to P that were accepted to H and Y and everything else. Just off the top of my head I can come up with 10 such kids in the last few years. In one of my son’s schools, the kids accepted to P were Asian and the 2 I know rejected were URMs, one of whom is at H.</p>

713

<p>I agree cpt. Since private college admissions are by its nature subjective, the whole concept of suing Princeton is a little ridiculous for me.</p>

714

<p>I hope some are visiting the Columbia ED thread & noticing the number of imperfectly scoring Asians accepted ED. For example Post #148, 161, 163, 197, 213, and 180 (that one South Asian). No, Jian Li’s complaint was not agst. Columbia. However, note this difference between Columbia applicants & Princeton applicants:</p>

<p>In a recent talk we attended, by Columbia, it was stated that only 30% of their applicants are qualified to attend. That should be contrasted with HYP, where 85-90% of applicants are qualified. Thus, there is a guarantee of a pool of higher-stat applicants to HYP to begin with, going in. (Merely reinforcing the fact that the Princeton acceptees in the “study” didn’t “have” to have higher SAT scores, they merely did have them, as did many applicants who were rejected from Princeton, some of whom were not Asian.) So while scores are not the deciding factor, they can be an admit-tip to an applicant WHERE OTHER ASPECTS OF THE APPLICATION ARE ALSO SUPERIOR. Other posters have also said this.</p>

<p>Notice also that several of this week’s Columbia acceptees, including Asians, including a variety of score reports, are mentioning their essays, unusual life circumstances, location, & initiative. These are the ways that applicants distinguish themselves from each other, and the way colleges distinguish them. This is a much more penetrating way to read an applicant than through a score.</p>

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<p>I don’t see why. Asians have argued that they face discrimination across the board. The real question is why did Yale accept him? I think the mix of acceptances and rejections suggests that all the schools thought him a good enough candidate lacking the spark to make him a definite acceptence. </p>

<p>While I don’t think that there is a system by which Asians need to score 50 points higher than whites (as I’ve seen one CC poster assert), I do think that there may well be some subtle biases at play. I don’t even know if they are intentional. I don’t see how this could be proved without some sort of double blind studies at all the top schools though.</p>

716

<p>But if the biases exist at the level of the high school, eg. in the type of recommendation letters teachers and GCs write, how can and why should colleges compensate for biases not of their own making?
Are colleges wrong to not find very attractive even though highly qualified applicants who may be described as “quiet, compliant, hard-working” when what they really want are some students who are lively and creative?</p>

717

<p>Calmom-While the statistical odds for each individual school are unaffected by other applications, the chance to get into at least one of the elite schools (assuming one is qualified) goes up additively. The odds of getting into a top 10 school go up if you apply to all 10 compared to applying to just one. That is why I think Li literally hedged his bets by applying to a large number of elite schools since they all have low acceptance rates. The fact that he was not accepted by more of them is somewhat surprising (and to me, revealing) since admissions, even to top colleges, is not a totally random process as someone scoring 750-800 has a much higher chance that someone scoring 600-650 all else being equal.</p>

<p>To me, Caldad’s daughter’s multiple acceptances at the majority of schools she applied (presumably similar to those of Li) suggests that she had a stronger application in the eyes of multiple admissions committees at elite shcools. It may not be just purely SAT scores but her intellectual passion or interests, ECs, leadership, or special talents that got their attention. Hard to predict. It also may be due to certain intangibles that Li or her would have have no control, e.g., a guidance counselor with whom he or she clicked with or not, relative strengths of other candidates from h.s., region student is applying from, etc. and not necessarily whether the candidate is Asian. I believe if there is any bias, however unintentional, it is a small, rather than a large factor in Li’s case. </p>

<p>My contention is that there are so many variables, many of which are intangible, that it is difficult to predict admission to any particular one or a group of elite colleges in which the acceptance rates are 10-20%. The only exception may be elite private schools that have strong traditional ties to an elite university. Where I live, one prep school typically sends 10 out of its 60 graduates to Princeton each year. The guidance counselor probably could predict the likelihood of admission for the student to Princeton (but perhaps not Harvard or MIT), particularly if he/she applied ED to Princeton. </p>

<p>One solution to this issue would be to have more Asians on the admissions committees of elite schools. At least Asian applicants would feel their applications were read “sensitively.”</p>

<p>Although I have never worked with undergraduate admissions, I have served on the admissions committee of a top medical school. As I recall, we rejected several summas from HYP and someone from a top LAC with perfect MCATs. In most cases, it was the interview that ended up being decisive. Although, the situation is not identical, I want to point out that the admission process to elite colleges is ultimately a subjective one. At a state university, perhaps all “qualified” students who have GPAs and scores above certain cutoffs are admitted. At elite private universities, they have a choice from a large pool of “qualified” candidates. The whole process is imprecise, reasonably fair, and unfortunately untransparent-hence the mystery and our debate.</p>

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<p>Oh yeah, my husband recently was sitting in front of a med school application with glowing recommendations, top grades, great MCAT scores and both interviewers at the med school loathed the applicant. It can happen.</p>

<p>I agree that there are too many intangible variables. In fact I bet if you gave an admissions committee the exact same applicants two years running they would probably end up making different decisions.</p>

719

<p>I didn’t read the whole thread, but I would like to comment on taxguy’s first post:
PRIVATE colleges as the ivies can admit whomever they want because they are private. And as the United States are a free nation one cannot or at least should not “prevent the ivys from only taking kids” that meet certain criteria. Or to the other extreme: you are argueing for equal chances of admission based on what? If wealth should not be taken into account, or your race, maybe your ECs and your academics shouldn’t either to achieve a state of maximum diversity. So let’s just create an “admission lottery” for Harvard.</p>

720

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OK, I’m going way off topic here, but I am quite suprised by that statement. Given that their ED acceptance rate is fairly high compared to RD, that would suggest that Columbia is a lot easier to get into for a qualified student then the stats would suggest — but given the posted stats of the students who were rejected ED in that thread I kind of doubt that.</p>

<p>Maybe Columbia has a more restrictive view of the word “qualified”? I can see why as an urban university it might draw a larger percentage of unqualified applicants, but at the same time I find that 30% figure very difficult to believe given the overall admissions rate. It would really reflect a dismal failure of their marketing department to get the message across as to their Ivy League credentials and degree of selectivity.</p>