<p>^ where in my post did you see anti-white bias? let us not be paranoid here. don’t try to look for something which is not there.</p>
<p>The Chosen by Chaim Potok?</p>
<p>Adjusting a Formula Devised for Diversity
by Joseph I. Berger
New York Times, 13 December 2006</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Just thought this would be interesting…</p>
<p>In another forum, someone pointed out that Rapelye had two children accepted in Princeton. If that is true, it would be interesting to compare her children’s qulifications with that of Jian Li. Let’s see how holistic Princeton’s admission policy is.</p>
<p>To Post 57- Rapelye has no children at Princeton.</p>
<p>People here just don’t seem to get it: Princeton isn’t interested in pure academic brilliance. It is interested in producing the leaders of tomorrow - whether that be in academia, politics, social change, business. Why? Because alumni not only carry the name and prestige of Princeton into the world, but they can support the university through large donations and/or connections. In academia, Princeton wants innovators and future deans. It wants to educate the Meg Whitmans, Gordon Wus, and James Bakers of the next generation. How to maximize those chances? Identify excellent students whose activities go beyond the ordinary in creativity, initiative, willlingness to give freely to the community (volunteer service), and charisma to lead others. Of course, not all accepted students have these qualities, but those who do have the greatest chances of being offered admission. An Ivy education is never purely academic, and so those who think so are usually left trying to figure out what happened when they are rejected.</p>
<p>I know two freshman at Princeton right now – and both are first generation Asians. Both are women. Both applied saying they wanted to study in the sciences, although one’s true talent lies in writing. (Her essays were supposedly fantastic.) Both women did the “standard Asian” activities, mostly at the insistence of their parents, but they ALSO pursued some surprising passions. Breaking the stereotype, both ethnically and within the entire applicant pool, is the true key to admission for top students. The academic credentials are only the beginning.</p>
<p>It’s not that difficult to understand. You may not like it, but it doesn’t change the reality.</p>
<p>The idea of Asian-Americans being discriminated against on account of their ethnicity is apparently so ingrained that on the Harvard Board, an Early Admitted Asian-American listed as his perceived weakness “being Asian!” If an admitted student can list being Asian as a negative, one has to wonder about students who are not admitted. Incidentally, I did not see any trend among those who described themselves as Asians, either in terms of academic interests and qualifications, ECS, or admission success.</p>
<p>I’ve seen this “weakness” listed on many threads, Marite. While I’m not sure Li’s complaint has merit, the posts on CC have convinced me that it should be investigated. Either way, people will get an answer.</p>
<p>But how can admission success square with the ingrained idea of weakness? Will any adcom say “Well, you were sooooo strong in other areas that your strengths overcame the fact that you were an Asian-American nerd?” Or will they say instead “Ethnicity did not enter into it,” as I suspect they would?
How can one prove a negative? How can Jian Li’s complaint/suit settle anything?
Looking at the posted results, it is clear that stats alone were not decisive, so a statistically driven study will not prove anything. I don’t know how many apps Princeton got the year Jian Li applied, but nothing short of looking at ALL apps and reconstituting the deliberations over every single app would come anywhere near yielding some information. I doubt that there will be a smoking gun </p>
<p>"How can one prove a negative? "</p>
<p>You can’t, but you can dispel the mythology of the Asian disadvantage. If Asians can be convinced that there is no racial bias against them, then they will no longer perceive their ethnicity as a weakness.</p>
<p>The amusing part of this argument is that I’ve heard many whites say that the system is biased in favor of Asians.</p>
<p>But that’s precisely my point. Even admitted students buy into this mythology! They saw their ethnicity as a weakness that had to be compensated for, even though I detected no sign of it from the information provided on the Harvard Board.
That’s the stuff of myths: they continue to be held in the face of contrary evidence (sidenote: here’s one for the Faith and Reason requirement that’s just been eliminated as a gen ed requirement in Harvard’s Curricular Review!)</p>
<p>’ "How can one prove a negative? "</p>
<p>You can’t, but you can dispel the mythology of the Asian disadvantage…'</p>
<p>You can’t even do that, mwfn, unless you proceed as Marite suggested (comprehensively), which is also the way I suggested many times on this thread & other threads. Otherwise the data is insufficient & incomplete. And the problem is, those (complete) records cannot be released & are not available.</p>
<p>I saw the same thing on the forum that others saw – the business about Asian being a “weakness.” Given the numbers & proportions of Asian admits, that claim cannot be made. They are still being admitted in high numbers INCLUDING in Early Rounds, where it is often assumed that being a non-URM is a disadvantage unless one is economically disadvantaged as well.</p>
<p>No particular group has a lock on admissions, or a disadvantage in admissions. That is because the private Universities have determined that they do not want a vast imbalance ethnically but wish to be maximally inclusive; therefore, the admission value of each candidate will continue to be looked at relative to the value of the whole class, & will NOT be limited to an ethnic “valuation” or even weighted according to ethnicity. (Marite has it right.)</p>
<p>I do not know Jian Li’s stats aside from what appear to be perfect SAT scores and grades on his part. But I do know that Princeton needs to be consistent. If they are going to not admit someone with his caliber in one year, then they certainly shouldn’t start admitting people with stats similar (and other qualities that could only be far inferior) to his in the next. Maybe Jian didn’t have specific passions or hooks to his name, and that is why he didn’t get in, but at least his personality and drive are well-demonstrated and appear to be something Princeton might/should want (Yale and Harvard obviously did).</p>
<p>Compare that to a girl from my school who has nothing but the numbers: 2400 and a near-4.0. But she has no passions, no hooks, she doesn’t excel at anything (aside from whining, hiding the fact that she cuts herself from her parents, making cruel fun at the mentally/physically disabled, and acting in a haughty “center of the universe” manner), and she certainly deserves no top college in no way whatsoever. Obviously, I have never encountered more disturbed personality or harsh character in anyone than in her. I (and many people in my school) have half-a-mind to petition Princeton to retract their decision of acceptance. It is baffling, as, in further inconsistencies, this girl was chosen over another had not only numbers, but passion and wholesome personality to boot. </p>
<p>And in going back to our original subject, I certainly hope the fact that there was already a “Jian Li” in the Princeton Class of 2006 had nothing to do with anything. :D</p>
<p>Frankly, I am in favor of holistic admissions. I do think that having a wide variety of students and interests benefit a university. HOWEVER,
I am very much against set quotas as existed in the 1940s and 1950s such as against Jews. How do we determine what schools like Princeton are or not doing correctly? How do we know they aren’t using a quota system?</p>
<p>My question, and I am simply asking a question and not making a comment, is: should statistics that show that “Asians are required to have 50 points more in SATs and higher GAPs” be used in evlauting proper holistic admission vs. improper racial discrimination? If not, what should be used in ensuring that universities and colleges don’t practice discrimiation against any group based on racial or religion grounds?</p>
<p>How do we reign in discriminatory or illegal practices in admission to schools? This seems to be the crucial question that Jian Li is raising.</p>
<p>Taxguy:</p>
<p>It may well be that a statistical analysis will show that admitted Asian students have, on average, 50 points more than some other group of students. Equally, however, another statistical analysis might show that math/science students have 50 points more; that students from certain regions have 50 points more, and so on. The latter kind of analysis does not seem to have been made. So even one showing that admitted Asian students have higher stats would prove inconclusive as to discrimination.</p>
<p>Students from certain elite schools absolutely must have higher GPAs and SAT scores to even get a look.</p>
<p>Everyone seems to misunderstand Jian Li issue. What we need to know is ‘would the student be accepted to Princeton University if his application did not include any information that indicates his ethnicity?’ If He would be rejected even so, then this would not be a problem. If he would be accepted without any indication of his ethnicity, then Princeton University is responsible for this issue.</p>
<p>I disagree. As stated so succinctly by Drosselmeir in another thread (sorry I don’t have the link), without considering an applicant’s race, you are not considering the whole picture of the applicant.</p>
<p>Even if Jian Li left off race, he would have had to list Chinese as his nationality–as he is not a US citizen. US Citizens do get preference in US schools–over and above Chinese national green card holders.</p>
<p>While relying heavily on stats-based merit–US tertiary schools also consider other factors and this distunguishes the US system from the Asian and European tertiary systems.</p>
<p>It is doubtful that the US system will ever be 100% merit-based–and I for one think that is a good thing. I think our teritary system is more elastic and more innnovative because of that very factor–and I believe the elite US institutions agree with my assessment.</p>
<p>Are you sure about the preference against green card holders? It’s certainly not that way at the (admittedly nonselective) school I work at. And Federal financial aid and other school-based federal support programs like Student Support Services (which I work for) treat green card holders as totally equal to citizens.</p>
<p>Well, cheers, I can never agree with you on that one.</p>
<p>I don’t support the idea that underachievement should be rewarded.</p>
<p>A meritocracy is a very worthy ideal. It states that you can achieve your goals through hard work as opposed to begging for handouts.</p>