<p>
</p>
<p>While the Kidder article appears in the Journal of race and law, the article discusses and challenges the Espenshade and Chung’s study regarding the removal of race as it pertains to undergrad admissions.</p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad, the problem with your analysis of the UC changes is that it doesn’t account for demographic changes within the state. Between the 1990 & 2000 census, the Asian American population in California increased by 35% – whereas the number of whites dropped by almost 2%. See:
<a href=“http://www.apiahf.org/programs/accis/accis_slideshow.htm#slide6[/url]”>http://www.apiahf.org/programs/accis/accis_slideshow.htm#slide6</a></p>
<p>Affirmative action was dropped in 1998. In the meantime, the criteria for admission to the UC’s has undergone some other significant changes, such as the introduction of the ELC (top 4%) rule. So basically, you have a lot of variables in play. </p>
<p>I think the dot com boom in the 90’s would also have had the effect of bringing many more highly educated, math & technology Asian families (and their offspring) to Silicon valley and other areas of the state – this would also have had a significant impact on the applicant pool to the UC’s, particularly to Berkeley. It is important to look at socio-economic variables like this, because you would probably find a very different profile in terms of education level & employment for other growing demographic groups (such as hispanics, which grew by 42%).</p>
<p>
College admissions officers look at SAT scores in context; the test is useless otherwise. It is known that african-americans have a 200-point disadvantage coming in to the test – that is, that is how their scores compare to whites, even when accounting for socio-economic factors. So basically, the test itself is a biased instrument - the only way that it can be rendered accurate is to take into account relevant factors – including socioeconomic and geographic factors as well as race. That is, the hispanic kid coming from a small rural school iln New Mexico cannot reasonably be expected to have scores that compare to the white kid coming from an east coast private prep. </p>
<p>I’ll bet that if all American students were required to study Spanish and college entrance was based in part on their scores on the SAT II in Spanish, there would be a very different take on the idea of “affirmative action” and the way test scores were viewed. You may think that’s a crazy example, but given the changing demographic in our country it would not be unreasonable to expect Americans to be bilingual. Historically language proficiency has often been a college entrance requirement - for example, there was a time when applicants to Harvard needed to demonstrate proficiency in Latin and Greek. In China, all students are required to pass a rigorous test of English language proficiency in order to gain entrance into Chinese universities – so it is only our own ethnocentric cultural bias that prevents foreign language proficiency from being deemed an important entrance requirement to elite colleges.</p>
<p>calmom:</p>
<p>A few points -</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The percentage of Asians at the top UCs is far above the percentage of Asians in the general population of the state - around 3 times as large last time I checked. The percentage of whites dropped significantly. Check the before and after non-AA to see the large difference (or walk around one of the campuses). The percentage of Hispanics at the schools is way lower than the percentage in the population. The change was dramatic and not linear with the change in demographics in the state.</p></li>
<li><p>The ELC guarantees admission to the UC system but not to the UC of choice. I don’t see how you think the ELC affects this other than it should introduce more diversity by admitting the top 4% of each HS including in areas with few Asians. The biggest change since 1998 is that the top UCs are getting more selective - it’s more difficult to get into them than it used to be.</p></li>
<li><p>Basically, I think the demographics of the UCs were clearly affected AA/non-AA change. Don’t you agree?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>
Leaving your math aside, we know from one of the news articles that the kid who did get into Princeton is Asian, so I think that right there defeats the lawsuit. Looks like Princeton chose one Asian over another… hardly evidence of bias. Or is Li’s complaint that the other Asian kid was a legacy? </p>
<p>As to the possible legacy advantage: my understanding is that whatever advantage now exists for legacies now only exists during ED round. In other words, unless the application comes in early with a commitment of the student to enroll, the ad coms simply don’t care.</p>
<p>
What language would you say is the one it should be or should it be ‘any’? For some foreign colleges to require proficiency in English makes sense since is at the moment the universal language of business, technology, science, etc.</p>
<p>I got interested in this and tried to follow through on mini’s claim. Unfortunately – I wish it were otherwise – I think he has it wrong. The UC data apparently shows that the old SAT I underpredicted college GPAs for whites and women, and tended to overpredict college GPAs for both African-Americans and Hispanics (and, of course, men in general). For Asian-Americans, previous studies tended to find underprediction, but the UC data apparently shows overprediction (i.e., lower college grades than expected based on SAT scores). Mini is right that, in general, the UC studies showed that the old SAT I had very little predictive value, and what predictive value it had may have been equivalent to the predictive value of knowing family income and parental education. I.e., SAT scores tended to reflect class differences, and to predict college grades in almost the same way class differences did.</p>
<p>Anyway, here is a link to one recent study that does a decent job both of summarizing the original study and critiquing it based on further analysis:</p>
<p><a href=“Publications | Center for Studies in Higher Education”>Publications | Center for Studies in Higher Education;
<p>Read carefully, even the Fair Test people don’t go so far as to make mini’s claim that the SAT underpredicts URM college GPAs. They say that the SAT is not “reliable” in predicting them, which could mean underprediction or overprediction. (And, as the above study shows, both types of prediction bias occur for URMs.)</p>
<p>“The UC data apparently shows that the old SAT I underpredicted college GPAs for whites and women, and tended to overpredict college GPAs for both African-Americans and Hispanics”</p>
<p>"Read carefully, even the Fair Test people don’t go so far as to make mini’s claim that the SAT underpredicts URM college GPAs. "</p>
<p>No. I said exactly what the original UC data study said. Why would I ever claim that the SAT underpredicts URM college GPAs when I cited the UC data noting that it OVERpredicts it?</p>
<p>At any rate, the Zwick study you cited is NOT the original study (which you’d pick up in the abstract on page 1.)</p>
<p>At any rate, the CollegeBoard for years has noted the impact of family income on aggregate scores. How that holds by race/ethnicity is less clear. </p>
<p>Of course, none of this has much of anything to do with “merit” as measured by prestige private colleges. By definition, college admissions officers will tell you that they admit “the most qualified candidates”, and by inference then, those rejected are “less qualified”. So if you want to know how to be included in the “most qualified” group, copy 'em.</p>
<p>Adopting new parents is the first step.</p>
<p>
I agree that is one of many factors that have affected campus demographics. There were a large number of Asians on campus when I was an undergrad at a UC campus in the 70’s, though of course not as many as there are now. I would want to see a chart showing enrollment levels year by year before ruling out a trend that began before 1998. (Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find one). </p>
<p>I think the elimination of AA clearly hurt the minorities who had been beneficiaries of the AA policies, but I am not so sure that it impacted Asian vs. overall enrollment. That is, there clearly are students taking spots that would have gone to minorities, but the fact that more of them are Asians may be a reflection an applicant pool that has a growing number of Asians as state demographics change.</p>
<p>Also, FWIW, ELC is a tremendous admissions boost at Berkeley, which admits 65% of all ELC applicants.</p>
<p>I read the first half of this thread and a couple of other pages and got…well…nauseous. </p>
<p>I am white. I have a kid who went to a NYC public magnet school , a top college, and is now a law student at a top law school. When the results of college applications came out when my kid was in high school, my kid came home, really, really, really upset …and said…“The Asian kids got screwed. It’s so unfair!” If you aren’t an ostrich, it’s self-evident that Asians ARE discriminated against in college admissions. Believe me, any half-way objective student or parent at Stuyvesant or Bronx Science will tell you that if their records are the same, a white kid is going to do better in the college admissions process than his Asian classmate will. (Remember: I am a white parent of a white kid.) </p>
<p>Yet, posters here assume that Mr. Li is a “jerk” and Yale “made a mistake.” I guess CalTech made a mistake too. He was accepted there. Publicly, CalTech says that it doesn’t have an affirmative action policy. I think that’ s actually true. And it proves the point–when schools don’t discriminate in favor of African-American and Latino kids, Asian-Americans do better in the admissions process. </p>
<p>I read the posts interesteddad made and almost threw up. Jews are less than 5% of the population of the US. If top schools were 5% Jewish in the 1950s and early 60s, would that prove that Jews weren’t discriminated against in admissions during that time period? Of course not! Several colleges–including my own beloved alma mater–have ADMITTED that they DID discriminate. They ADOPTED A QUOTA designed to insure that the percentage of Jews in the student body would not be more than 200% of those in the population of the US. According to interesteddad’s line of reasoning, that’s hunky-dory. It’s not discriminatory. WHAT!!!</p>
<p>They did not say “No Jews admitted”–they just adopted admissions policies designed to insure that good old WASP-y alma mater didn’t become “too Jewish.” (It was to insure that, BTW, that the “wholistic” approach to college admission was adopted. ) </p>
<p>It may be politically incorrect to say them, but a few points stand out. First,if you look at people as members of racial groups–which is not a practice I advocate–it’s simply untrue that each such group has the same percentage of kids who are qualified to attend elite colleges. That doesn’t mean there’s some “racial superiority”–a concept I think is laughable. It does mean that ethnic/racial/cultural groups who value learning will have a higher percentage of students who are QUALIFIED to attend top schools. The NYC public magnets are overwhelmingly Jewish and Asian–I’m neither. Does this mean that these schools discriminate in favor of Jews and Asians? NO. These schools use test scores to make admissions decisions and they don’t care what color your skin is and/or whether or how you choose to worship G-d.
My understanding is that’s how Mr. Li thinks college admissions should work.</p>
<p>You are free to think he’s wrong—but not to think he’s a jerk for advocating his position. </p>
<p>When you give a bigger slice of the pie to one group --lets call this affirmative action–other groups lose. </p>
<p>In the abstact, I support affirmative action. Slavery is a terrible, terrible stain on the soul of this nation. But every study that has been done shows that affirmative action based on race ends up hurting Asian-Americans. If race is eliminated from consideration in admissions, the # of Asian -Americans admitted soars. If affirmative action is based on socioeconomic status, the number of Asian-Americans admitted also soars. </p>
<p>Why should Asian-Americans suffer because the US had slavery? I have never heard of an Asian-American slave owner. I’ll admit that, though I am white, I’ve often wondered why my kids should be “taxed” for slavery, since most of my ancestors arrived long after slavery ended and the few who didn’t got off a boat and were pressed into being Union soldiers during the Civil War. But still, there’s an argument to be made that as a white person, I benefited from the racial attitudes of the 1950s and 1960s.But Asians? Give me a break!!! The “whites only” signs applied to Asians. </p>
<p>I went to an Ivy League college a LOT of years ago. The number of African-Americans in my college class was substantially higher than the number of Asian-Americans. Legacy preferences benefit whites FAR more than they benefit any other group. But, the truth is they also benefit African-Americans more than Asian-Americans. The first wave of “affirmative action” admissions benefited African-Americans in the early to mid 1960s, at a time when there were few Asians in the U.S. </p>
<p>Go to any magnet public high school in NYC when the college decision letters come in. The African-American kids of doctors, lawyers, and investment bankers with 3.5 GPAs and 1400 SATs and few, if any, ECs will get into colleges that reject Chinese-American kids who arrived in the US at age 5-10, have parents who work in the garment industry’s sweat shops and as waiters in Chinese restaurants and are therefore forced at an early age to become their parents’ interpreters, and nevertheless–like young Mr. Li–learn to speak English without an accent. That’s true even when–like Mr. Li–the Asian kids have near-perfect test scores and LOTS of ECs. (Mr. Li wasn’t exactly weak in ECs, folks. ) </p>
<p>And as for the claim that Mr. Li’s case would be stronger if he hadn’t complained about the white kid from the same high school who got into Princeton with a lower GPA and SAT…he ONLY asked his white classmate for those scores because he was told his complaint would NOT be investigated UNLESS he gave the government that information!!! He’s made it VERY clear that he felt VERY uncomfortable providing this information. BUT, he did it because he was told that his complaint wouldn’t be pursued UNLESS he did so. </p>
<p>According to interesteddad’s reasoning, the NBA is racist. It hires a MUCH higher percentage of African-Americans than the percentage of African-Americans in the US as a whole. If someone with a name like Larry Swan who is white gets paid one and a half times as much as an African-American player with equal stats, we are all “jerks” to think racism MIGHT be an issue. The fact that African-Americans are a higher percentage of NBA players than they are of US citizens PROVES that Larry Swan’s salary had nothing to do with the color of his skin. (And, yes, I do know there wasn’t a Larry Swan. I just am trying to make it self-evident that using a test of % in the US vs. % in any particular activity as “proof” that there is no discrimination is invalid.)</p>
<p>As I understand it, all Mr. Li is saying is that race shouldn’t be considered…and he thinks it was.</p>
<p>I think this whole lawsuit is ill-founded. MY father arrived to the US as an immigrant. Post-WWII, HIS dad (my grandfather) was recruited by both the USA and the USSR because of his scientific background. Luckily, he chose the US! 
</p>
<p>When my father was applying to college back in the days of anti-Semitism for top colleges, he was still a foreign citizen ( he wasn’t of age to declare citizenship), he had a German surname that was common among both Jews and Christians, and he attended a hs with a lot of Jewish students. We don’t know if the school to which he applied thought he practiced a certain religion. In any case, this did not preclude him from attending his school of choice (MIT). His ECs were not the stereotypical of the time.</p>
<p>If certain groups “know” what the EC stereotypes are for their ethnic group, then they should ensure their kids are involved with other activities. Harvard et. al. doesn’t need ANY violin/tennis virtuosos. The school may take several
applicants with these skills, but it also wants others to field its teams and man its clubs.</p>
<p>Even back when I was in hs in the early 80s, the ontheball over-represented minority kids made sure they were involved in activities that were atypical.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Jonri, it is one thing to become nauseous and another to let it cloud your judgment. As politically correct as your first statements may sound, there isn’t a stretch of RELEVANT evidence to support your position and your entirely specious arguments. While you might OPINE that any half-objective person would admit to the discrimination or that schools where asians do better must not discriminate, you simply cannot elevate your opinion beyond … the level of a mere and unsubstantiated opinion. The reality is that you are SUBJECTIVELY selecting a small number of elements --probably math test scores-- all the while avoiding the entire issue that admissions decisions are typically generated via holistic reviews. Simply stated, you cannot demonstrate that asians are better candidates or better qualified, despite the constant attempt to rely on the tiny --and mythical-- crutch of higher test scores. </p>
<p>Since you are comparing asians students to jewish students, could we ask ourselves how the asians are discriminated in comparison to jewish students when it comes to SAT scores and grades? Oops, that is a LOT harder than jumping on the blame the URM bandwagon, isn’t it? </p>
<p>Checking the real numbers and real statistics might help the stomach! Checking the absolute number of high scoring students or checking the SES numbers might be helpful! Oh well, since that probably won’t happen, there is always the pink stuff at the Kmart pharmacy.</p>
<p>PS And yes, thank G-d for Mr. Li. The outcome of his complaint should bring a halt to all this non-sense.</p>
<p>calmom:</p>
<p>I agree that ELC is a boost but it’s not tied to race - it’s simply the top 4% academically from each HS. It allows kids from small schools that don’t have all of the APs and honors courses to still attend a UC.</p>
<p>I dug up a few metrics from UCB’s website indicating the number of freshman admits by a few ethnicities. Note the break between 1997 and 1998 that I believe is related to prop 209 non-AA:<br>
2005:
Asian - 3920
White - 3377
AfAm - 301</p>
<p>1998:
Asian - 3123
White - 2780
AfAm - 247</p>
<p>1997:
Asian - 3666
White - 3751
AfAm - 688</p>
<p>1996:
Asian - 2993
White - 3026
AfAm - 605</p>
<p>fwiw - I don’t have any problem with the increased numbers of Asians on the campuses. If they as a group do better academically than some other groups, then I’d expect them to be on campus in larger numbers than the other groups as long as race isn’t an admissions factor. </p>
<p>As far as Mr. Li goes - who knows why he was accepted to one Ivy and not another? I assume it’s not unusual for one to be admitted to one ivy and not another but I don’t follow it closely. I assume Marite would know more on this. I think don’t think there’s a specific formula that guarantees one admission to most ivies.</p>
<p>Xiggi:</p>
<p>I think a whole lot of folks need to read “The Gatekeepers”. Severe nausea would be rampant, but once it subsided, at least readers might understand that SAT scores are not the Holy Grail of admissions.</p>
<p>I’m starting to get a much better feel for why people erroneously believe that admissions is “random”.</p>
<p>BTW, the AZN network ran a special documentary following four Asian American applicants and their families through the process of their applications to member schools of the Ivy League football conference.</p>
<p><a href=“http://azntv.com/ivydreams/[/url]”>http://azntv.com/ivydreams/</a></p>
<p>I felt horrible for the four kids, only one of whom seemed to be a legitimately good applicant. If anyone should be sued, it should be the parents. It was painful to watch.</p>
<p>Marite does not know anything more than anyone else and considerably less than others posting on this thread.</p>
<p>Rereading the OP, I find it interesting that Li decided to sue the university that waitlisted him (Princeton) rather than those which rejected him outright (Harvard, Penn and others). </p>
<p>My guess as to why he was admitted at Yale and not at Harvard or Princeton: Yale, which is already extremely strong in the humanities, is making a huge push to strengthen its sciences offerings; but for would-be science majors, it is seen as less desirable than Princeton and Harvard. So the latter two have no dearth of strong math/science applicants and reject highly qualified applicants in droves (including Intel finalists). </p>
<p>NB:Sheer speculation on my part. I have absolutely no inside knowledge and have not done the research that other posters have done.</p>
<p>Xiggi, I find your response to Jonri extremely arrogant and you’ve also failed to provide any relevant stats in opposition to her comments.</p>
<p>marite:</p>
<p>Sorry - maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned your name but you seem to know quite a bit about the Ivies so I thought you might have a feel for acceptances in general to one but not another - i.e. that one can’t assume that just because they were accepted to some Ivies that it’s the norm that they’d be accepted to all of them.</p>
<p>
<br>
jonri: Do you think holistic review is kept on at colleges simply to retain the power to discriminate against or give a boost to the ethnic group that is deemed undesirable/desirable at any given period of time?</p>
<p>I’m wondering if colleges discovered that cutting kids a break on their scores if other qualities were strong was creating strong, dynamic student bodies. </p>
<p>Of course, holistic sounds great until your kid gets passed over, I guess. I just think Mr. Li’s case is hard to make because so much subjectivity goes into admissions. </p>
<p>Motherdear: I have a black friend who refuses to let his sons play basketball. They swim. He is quite blunt with them, saying “Being the top n****r won’t get you anywhere.” He’s a bit too controlling for my taste, but he’s obviously a believer in the atypical activity idea.</p>
<p>UCSD:</p>
<p>I do have something of a feel for Ivies since we investigated some along the way (not all!), I’m writing this on the day of the Harvard-Yale game, and the Crimson and Yale Daily News have been full of articles, hard to ignore!</p>
<p>But CC is full of stories of applicants of all ethniticies admitted at one and not at another of the Ivies–which, as we all know, are NOT interchangeable in terms of curricular requirements, size, location, general social scene. Every once in a while an applicant applies to most and gets accepted at most (Bandit Tx’s D comes to mind), but the more common pattern is for an applicant to be either rejected by all or accepted by one but not by others. And it is not obvious to outsiders why that should be so.
Perusing the data posted by admitted/rejected students, it is obvious that students with perfect SATs and high class rank/high GPA are not automatic admits by any means, just as many applicants with less perfect objective stats often have truly impressive extra-curricular achievements.
Researchers who go by stats alone and don’t read the whole application packages just cannot duplicate the process whereby adcoms reach their decisions. Finally, we need to bear in mind the ofte-repeated statement that it is entirely possible to set aside the cohort that has just been admitted and admit a totally new cohort with practically the same profile. In other words, there’s a bit of randomness in the application process. It does not have to do with individual prejudices, necessarily. It can be that a folder was read when the admissions officer was tired and cranky; or that the reader somehow sees something of his or her young self in the essay of a particular applicant; or has the same sense of humor. </p>
<p>That Mr. Li was waitlisted at Princeton shows that he was eminently admissible at Princeton and that Princeton recognized that. It was not a polite deferral as is practiced by Harvard, where he was rejected outright. But just because he was deemed eminently admissible does not mean that he should have been admitted.</p>
<p>I am thinking of all the people waiting to buy PS3s. They have the qualifications–enough money; but like colleges with limited spots, the stores have limited numbers of PS3s. Just because many would-be buyers have more than enough to buy a PS3 does not mean they will get one.</p>
<p>“Just because many would-be buyers have more than enough to buy a PS3 does not mean they will get one.”</p>
<p>Apparently, if you have $16,000 to spare, you can get one. :-)</p>
<p>More seriously, you make some good points, Marite.</p>