Rejected applicant alleges bias against Asians

Parent Cafe
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<p>Yale freshman Jian Li has filed a federal civil rights complaint against Princeton for rejecting his application for admission, claiming the University discriminated against him because he is Asian.</p>

<pre><code>The complaint, which was filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Oct. 25, alleges that the University’s admissions procedures are biased because they advantage other minority groups, namely African-Americans and Hispanics, legacy applicants and athletes at the expense of Asian-American applicants.
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<p>The case, first reported this weekend by The Wall Street Journal, injects new life into a longstanding debate surrounding affirmative action and whether race can or should be a factor in college admissions. Li’s minority status adds a new twist to the story, however, since previous complaints about universities’ racial preference policies have been filed by white students alleging bias.</p>

<pre><code>Li cites a recent study conducted by two Princeton professors as evidence for his case. The study, published in June 2005, concluded that removing consideration of race would have little effect on white students, but that Asian students would fill nearly four out of every five places in admitted classes that are currently taken by African-American or Hispanic students.
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<p>In Li’s case, however, “you have a minority candidate, but a minority candidate from a category that is not regarded by the [court] as an underrepresented category,” University politics professor and noted constitutional scholar Robert George said. "This is a minority candidate who is saying, ‘I don’t want my race to be counted for me or against me, but for my race not to be counted against me, it is important that no race be counted in any way that reduces my chances of admission.’ "</p>

<pre><code>“So you have two different categories of minority whose interests are allegedly in conflict.”
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<p><a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2006/11/13/news/16544.shtml[/url]”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2006/11/13/news/16544.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>The interesting part of the case is that it alleges “affirmative action” for legacies and athletes. (Hmmm.)</p>

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<p>Oh gee, life isn’t fair. When did you figure that one out!</p>

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<p>I think the case has merit, and I am sympathetic, but to me the really funny part is…</p>

<p>“Yale freshman…”</p>

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<p>Poor kid! Having to “settle” for Yale must be really bruising to his self-esteem.
:(</p>

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<p>What is sad here is the perception. Without discussing the merits, as I don’t have enough facts to comment on them, I can only share with you a lesson I learned in a job very early in my career (actually while in the army):</p>

<ul>
<li> For something to be truly fair, it must be perceived as being fair.</li>
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<p>How does this apply here? Well, the fact that the perception of unfairness is so widely held in the asian community tells me that, even if the admissions process is fair, elite college admissions office have done a terrible outreach job to the asian community about what that process is and why it is, indeed, fair.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, I think the admissions folks have done a rather poor job with everyone in communicating what the process is. Other groups don’t perceive it as unfair, just random. But I think the underlying problem is similar.</p>

<p>Then again, it’s possible the process is unfair to asians. I don’t know.</p>

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<p>I was wondering when people would comment on the WSJ article. I thought (a) it was pretty news-free (but I did not realize that this lawsuit was news), and (b) it was basically fair.</p>

<p>One of the things that’s very curious to me is that the percentage of ethnic Asian kids differs very, very widely among schools that are really very similar. As I remember, there was a big gap between Princeton (17%) and some of the other Ivies and Stanford (up into the 30s%), not to mention Cal (in the 40s%). Even if we disregard Cal (probably a greater percentage of Asians among applicants, the football team represents a trivial percentage of the class), Princeton seemed very low. I’m actually glad someone made a complaint and that it’s being investigated.</p>

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<p>You would have to look at the percentage of Asians who applied to Stanford and the other schools vs. Princeton to see what is going on here - the number of students enrolled doesn’t really tell you anything because it is possible that fewer Asians applied to Princeton. Stanford is in California, which has a large Asian-American population, and that may impact the number of Asians who apply there.</p>

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<p>Maybe. And I think I over-characterized the data before. But Princeton and Yale have hung around 13% for the past several years, while Harvard and Penn are more like 18-19%, Stanford 22-24%, and MIT 28%. It’s hard for me to believe that the proportion of Asians in Penn’s applicant pool is 150% of what Princeton and Yale see, or that the difference between those schools and Stanford is close to 200%.</p>

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<p>Asians are not a minority in college–probably the opposite.</p>

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<p>But Princeton and Yale have hung around 13% for the past several years, while Harvard and Penn are more like 18-19%, Stanford 22-24%, and MIT 28%. It’s hard for me to believe that the proportion of Asians in Penn’s applicant pool is 150% of what Princeton and Yale see, or that the difference between those schools and Stanford is close to 200%."</p>

<p>Some of it may be due to class size. Princeton and Yale (I think) field the same number of sports teams (where Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Indian/Filipino/Vietnamese students are grossly underrepresented), but from smaller student bodies. This would likely account for at least some of the disparity.</p>

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<p>Princeton’s percentage of Asian American students isn’t low at all. For East Coast schools 14% to 18% is at the high end for Asian American enrollment.</p>

<p>There are a few schools with more (Wellesley and MIT at 27%), but these tend to be the outliers.</p>

<p>You can’t really compare to California schools. The underlying make-up of the regional populations is very different. For example, there are more Asian American students at UCLA than caucasian students.</p>

<p>The interesting part of the legal complaint is whether or not the Bush Justice Department will pursue a complaint brought by a minority student has fiercely as they have pursued discrimination complaints brought by white students.</p>

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<p>BTW, it is going to be a hard case to make based on the numbers. The Asian American population is only 4.2% of the total US population. This group is significantly overrepresented in the enrollment at most highly selective colleges and universities.</p>

<p>No East Coast state is more than 6% to 7% Asian American. California is the only state in the continental US with double-digit Asian American population (12+%)</p>

<p>The other problem, statistically, is that acceptance rates for Asian American applicants are quite high. I don’t have widespread data, but Swarthmore’s acceptance rate for Asian Americans last year was in the 36% to 38% range – roughly the same as for African American applicants. In both cases, these rates are signficantly higher than the overall acceptance rate (19% to 22% in recent years).</p>

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<p>So is the term ORM, for “Over Represented Minority”?</p>

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<p>“There are a few schools with more (Wellesley and MIT at 27%), but these tend to be the outliers.”</p>

<p>I suspect that MIT’s numbers are due at least in part to the fact that a disproportionate number of Asian kids major in the sciences. No idea about Wellesley though! MIT also cares less about sports.</p>

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<p>

Cal’s (and UCLA, UCSD, UCI, …) large Asian population has more to do with the fact that these schools don’t use race as a factor in admissions. The percentage of Asian attendees is several times that of Asians in the population in the state. I’m sure that if these Universities practiced AA as the other colleges indicated here are, the Asian population would be much less and eventually someone would cry fowl and file lawsuits over it.</p>

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<p>Madame Chiang Kai-shek graduated from Wellesley in the early 1900s, paving the way for a strong tradition of Chinese and Asian students that apply there to this day.</p>

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<p>Wouldn’t it be great to live in a world in which we are rewarded based on our merits, not based on who we know and what the color of our skin is. Sure it would be great, but the story of Jian Li reiterates everything that is wrong with affirmative action, a truly vile and unnecessary evil that makes it impossible for the aforementioned statement to ever come to fruition. </p>

<p>Li had an outstanding GPA and rank and perfect SAT scores for goodness sakes. And what happens? He gets rejected from schools that need people like him, people who are the brightest of the bright. Anyone who thinks this had nothing to do with his race or lack of “connections” is na</p>

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<p>So what? Princeton rejects a lot of students with outstanding GPAs and perfect SAT scores. </p>

<p>Believe it or not, perfect SAT scores really aren’t that exciting to the most selective colleges and universities.</p>

<p>When your applicant pool has nearly the same median SATs as your enrolled freshman class, SATs aren’t really that much of a determining factor of who gets accepted and who does not.</p>

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<p>“When your applicant pool has nearly the same median SATs as your enrolled freshman class,”</p>

<p>Perhaps, but the study Li is refering yo also showed that if you are black you have 230 point (old scale) advatage. I am sure they were talking about the deviation from the median or mean.</p>