<p>The onus is on Li to prove he was discriminated against.
I am curious to see how he goes about it. </p>
<p>He may fail.</p>
<p>What I don’t get is people saying he can’t try.</p>
<p>Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin” </p>
<p>There is no exception for Asians</p>
<p>Li’s complaint (it’s not a lawsuit) is filed through the Dept of Education - Office for Civil Rights -which is the admininstrative administrative agency having jurisdiction in these matters in regards to the fact that Princeton (like nearly all colleges and universities) uses federal funds directly or indirectly via the various college loan programs</p>
<p>Li’s issue is (w/o much doubt) really in reference to Harvard, however he’s complaining against Princeton because the available statistics (in ref to the Asian issue) are more unfavorable in the case of Princeton</p>
<p>My experience is consistent with Garland’s. This past year a Chinese-American kid from my daughter’s high school with combined SATs under 2150 applied to Harvard, Yale & Columbia and was accepted at all 3; he was active in theater strong on leadership skills. (Class Prez, participation on many community boards & committees, various service awards, etc.). </p>
<p>The bottom line is that a 50 or 100 point differential is insignificant in terms of elite college admissions, especially at the top end of the scale. An ad com is not going to favor a kid with a combined CR/math of 1560 over one with a 1510 – at that level, both kids are equally in the running and the decision will be made on other factors. </p>
<p>One of the biggest factors in elite admissions – where almost all candidates have qualifying grades and test scores - is the answer to the question, “what will this kid contribute to our college?” Admission to elite colleges is not a reward for a job well done in high school, nor is it a numbers game: all kids with 2100+ SATs and 4.0+ weighted GPAs are clearly in the running (as well as many with lesser scores).</p>
<p>Oh, he can try. But alas, after all is said and done, he will fail. BTW, I wonder how Mr. Li would have faired in his college admissions bid, had he stayed in his native country, where ALL that matters are one’s raw GPA, and the results of a single test sitting. Interesting, that he would choose OUR system of college admissions to complain about (one which gives him an advantage that he would probably NOT enjoy at home). No dummy, this kid. He knows that he would get absolutely nowhere pulling such shenanigans in Communist China. Just ask the survivors of Tiananmen Square…:(</p>
<p>He has lived in this country since he was 4.</p>
<p>What do the professors at Princeton have to say about this issue? Do the people teaching the classes and conducting the research–in other words, the people who are responsible for the reputation of the institution–think it is important to make such fine-tuned distinctions among extra-curriculars? There is an assumption on the part of many posters that each student must bring something unique to the school. I don’t know anything about P-ton, but most professors I know just care if the students are smart, hard-working, easy to get along with, honest and enthusiastic about the subject matter. Brains and character. I really don’t think most care if every single kid in the class played tennis instead of baseball, violin instead of trumpet. </p>
<p>If admissions committee members are passing over high testers because teachers or counselors indicate student X is a pain in the rear, widely disliked or distrusted or has no true claim to being an intellectual, then that can be shown to investigators. If they are passing students up because too many have the same out-of-class interests, that is less defensible, it seems to me, from the point of view of faculty looking for students who can succeed at the highest level.</p>
<p>I have not read every post on this thread so correct me if I am wrong but it appears that what Li is asking for is to have Princeton replace its current admission policies with new policies that will not even effect white student applicants, and instead, will result in replacing 80% of the spots held by URMs with Asian Americans (and I guess this includes Asians who are permanent residents but not US citizens) and the basis for his claim is the conclusions from a study done by 2 Princeton professors (perhaps because he believes that whatever they say reflects the practices at Princeton?) that was based on a combination of 1997 data and hypotheses.</p>
<p>It sounds like Li is accepting an assumption that all other URMs are at the bottom of the applicant pool and all Asian Americans are at the top as reflected by test scores/grades. And that admissions decisions are or should be solely based on test scores/grades. I am not sure how else the number of white students would not increase? It does not even seem to be the case that he is asking Princeton to apply the same - higher - academic standards to all applicants that some posters claim are being applied to Asians, but rather is focusing only a change that would exclude other URMs.</p>
<p>Aside from being based on assumptions that may be flawed and not even valid with respect to Princeton’s current admission practices, this sure sounds like more racism to me…</p>
<p>Midmo, I’m sure the profs in the humanities departments would be complaining if they had no students because the ad com only accepted higher scoring kids to fill the ranks of the math & science departments… and I’m sure that the biology profs would be complaining if their freshman class sizes doubled because everyone admitted that that year was pre-med.</p>
<p>The whole point is that it is the job of the admissions committee to bring in a class with a balanced range of interests.</p>
<p>Simba:</p>
<p>You are aware that Linda Chavez’ organization, CEO, is the leading anti-African American enrollment political action group in the country, right?</p>
<p>They are the organization that funds the legal challenges and threats forcing colleges to roll back their African American enrollment and African American scholarships and African American orientation and enrichment programs.</p>
<p>Their studies are about as impartial as the Bush White House doing a study that finds we should stay the course in Iraq.</p>
<p>Post 467:
I love this. Now Li is not only a one-dimensional math grind and an ungrateful foreignor, he is a racist because he states that different standards are being applied to different ethnic groups, as well as athletes and legacies. </p>
<p>It is not “racist” to disapprove of affirmative action at the university level as a fix for the unequal distribution of income and educational achievements among various ethnic and racial groups. Some of us believe that a far more effective and less cynical means of improving the dismal prospects of our poorest children is to radically overhaul the K-12 educational system so that every child has a decent opportunity to present herself at Princeton’s door with the same qualifications. Fix the problem; all the camoflauge employed in admissions offices just distracts attention away from the underlying problem. Not to mention that the resultant tendency to view everyone as a representative of a group instead of an individual is divisive and destructive.</p>
<p>Calmom, agreed that profs want a class with a balanced range of academic interests. Note the word academic. Your first line is a little strange; are you really implying that no high SAT scorers are interested in the humanities?</p>
<p>At any rate, I am wondering what the Princeton profs are saying. I know what the admissions office is saying. For all I know, it is the same thing. I don’t really know how closely profs work with admissions deans, and that is what I am curious about.</p>
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<p>It’s not that hard to understand. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the study you continue to cite deals with a hypothetical world, an imaginary universe if you will, where colleges admissions are based solely on SAT scores AND NOTHING ELSE.</p>
<p>Of course, white admissions would remain unchanged. As the dominant group at Princeton, white SAT scores ARE the median SATs at the school for all intents and purposes. </p>
<p>In a pure test based system, you would replace low SAT students with high SAT applicants. You would obviously replace some low SAT white students with high SAT white students, but not that many. You would clearly reduce African American enrollment and replace it with high SAT enrollment based solely on test scores: an admission approach that would favor Asian Americans.</p>
<p>Again, I’ll quote Homer Simpson, “Doh!” I mean this is hardly surprising stuff. It’s also totally irrelevant because Princeton has never, does not now, and will never use a pure SAT driven admissions process. If you want a school that practices mechanistic test-based admissions, you can surely find one – maybe even somewhere in the United States. But, it ain’t Princeton…or any other highly selective college I can think of with the possible exception of CalTech. Thank God, IMO. A pure SAT driven admissions process would be a truly abominable one. Some of the most singularly unattractive applicants in College Confidential have had high SAT scores. Frankly, I can’t think of a better definition of an unattractive college student than someone who gets into Yale and then tries to sue Princeton because he didn’t get another trophy for his wall as a result of discrimination. Puhleeze.</p>
<p>Congress could placate the LEFT by legislating a new law amending the CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964</p>
<p>NEW PROPOSED LAW</p>
<p>Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (as modified) “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin, except in the case of Asians or Caucasians where such discrimination against such groups shall be deemed lawful”</p>
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<p>There is an exception for college admissions, most recently confirmed in Gratz vs. Bollinger. The Supreme Court of the United States has unambiguously (although certainly not unanimously) agreed that there is sufficient compelling community interest in diversity to allow consideration (but only as one of several factors) in college admissions. Under the current Supreme Court precendent, the standard Mr. Li would have to meet is that Princeton rejected him solely because he is Asian American. It is perfectly legal for Princeton to consider his ethnicity when evaluating his academic transcript, his SAT scores, his ECs, his recommendations, his essays, his geographic diversity, his potential major, his family background, etc. As long as the college is not using race as a sole or automatic criteria for admissions decisions, they are legal.</p>
<p>The only way Li could win a case would be to take it to the Supreme Court and convince the Court to overturn very strong precedent. That is NOT going to happen in his case because it’s a lousy case from the viewpoint of the anti-African American legal lobby. The minority opinions in Grutter vs Bollinger and Gratz vs Bollinger gave the anti-African American legal lobby a road map for the next incremental challenges they should target. This case ain’t one of the areas the dissenting justices invited them to attack next.</p>
<p>“anti-African American legal lobby”</p>
<p>You have persuaded me for once and for all that you have nothing to say. I oppose affirmative action in education, and for you that means I am anti-African American. Won’t my son’s Ethiopian girlfriend be amused to hear that?</p>
<p>Just borrowing a trick from the Karl Rove playbook, using terminology to elicit emotional responses. </p>
<p>The fact of the matter is quite simple. If you abolish affirmative action, you reduce African American enrollment at selective colleges. So let’s call it what it is.</p>
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<p>No. Not just academic. At a residential college, professors have multiple interests, both academic and otherwise. For example, the chair of the linguistics department at my daughter’s school is one of the most respected authors of childrens book, translated into dozens of languages around the world. A math professor is one of the cutting edge statisticians modelling professional baseball productivity. A bio professor is a leader in the effort to attack the school districts prohibiting the teaching of science and evolution. A poli sci professor is the leading expert on Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction black voting statistics in the South. The last thing these professors want is pure academic grinds. They want students with a high degree of curiousity about a wide range of academic and non-academic topics. At the end of the day, there is no distinction between academic and non-academic. An intellectually curious kid is intellectually curious whether the topic is children’s books in Farsi, on-base percentage statistical analysis, or studying organic chemistry.</p>
<p>Midmo, I was just positing an example, but my guess is that math & science oriented kids probably tend to have higher combined SAT scores both because of high math SATs, and because kids with analytical thinking styles probably do better on standardized, multiple-choice tests than kids with artsy, creative thinking styles. The reported SAT score range at MIT, Cal Tech, & Harvey Mudd would tend to support that hypothesis. I think if you compared average combined score ranges of schools with heavy math/science/engineering emphasis with those of colleges that are tilted more toward humanties and liberal arts, you would probably see the correlation borne out.</p>
<p>" but only as one of several factors"</p>
<p>subjective and meaningless</p>
<p>gee I forgot the Justice O’Connor rescinded the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and color-coding in college admissions is now the law of the land</p>