Rejected applicant alleges bias against Asians

Parent Cafe
581

<p>DStark, I thought it was pretty clear that the answer to your question was included in my original statement. Mr. Reider mixed up his tenses quite a bit in order to elevate what I call a prehistorical event in admissions’ years to … today. And despite presidential attempts to revisit its definition, IS means today!</p>

<p>Further, in his desire to make the point, he only used selected part of the study by opting to discuss the bias and stereotypes. For balance, he should have added this little tidbit: “In 1985, a student charged the admissions office with discriminating against Asian American students. A subcommittee of C-UAFA tried to determine why Asian Americans were admitted at rates consistently and significantly lower than the rates for whites. The panel found no evidence of conscious bias and noted that Asian Americans were less likely than whites to enjoy preferences for legacies or varsity athletes.” </p>

<p>A bit different from:</p>

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<p>This is all part of a pattern: people quote studies but fail to use the MAIN conclusions of the studies but prefer to use parts of it. This happens to the claims of discrimination at Stanford, at Harvard, and at the Math department at UCLA. While the FINAL outcome established that NO discrimination took place, some researchers prefer to dissect the studies for the sole purpose of making a point that was NOT established in the conclusions of the report.</p>

<p>Yep, misleading and intellectually dishonest!</p>

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<p>Xiggi, I never thought for 1 minute he was talking about today. He doesn’t work for Stanford anymore.</p>

<p>Well, maybe the key word is “conscious”.</p>

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<p>Xiggi, do you think there is zero discrimination against Asian students when it comes to college admissions at any of the top schools? </p>

<p>That’s a yes or no question.</p>

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<p>Dstark, anyone remotely familiar with multiple choice tests knows that answers that contain terms such as zero, ever, never, always … should be marked as incorrect. </p>

<p>How would I possibly know that there is ZERO discrimination at any school in the country? It all depends on your definition of what constitutes discrimination. It is obvious that, for instance, you and I would not agree on this simple definition.</p>

<p>PS Regarding Reider, it was clear he no longer works at Stanford (his previous job) but that did not stop him from using IS and NOW. A subtle but blatant attempt to muddy the waters. Visibly, some fell for it!</p>

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<p>Then give me your definition and answer the question.</p>

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<p>LOL! Check the OCR site for it!</p>

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<p>Dstark; you’ve given Xiggi an impossible - and unfair - choice to make, particularly when coupled with the last sentence of your previous post. Who is perfect? Who has no “unconcious” biases? Can anyone guarantee that no Adcom who ever said, “Gee, this kid just looks like a grind” wasn’t subconsciously affected by the Asian sterotype? I don’t think so, even if there is no official, or formal, or even “concious” thumb on the scales.</p>

<p>(And as an attorney I recognize a gotcha! question when I see one. Objection sustained!)</p>

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<p>Xiggi, I don’t need to know your definition because you said mine would be different.</p>

<p>But under your definition, there hasn’t been any discrimination, correct?
And you know that the top schools aren’t discriminating under your definition, correct?</p>

<p>Do those questions pass Kluge?</p>

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<p>It’s ludicrous to suggest that the admissions committee at Princeton, or Harvard, or Yale, or practically anywhere sits around and applies an Asian quota, or does such near-relatives of that as compare Asian students only to other Asian students or dismiss a student’s ECs as “typically Asian”. I firmly believe that you could never get everyone in the room to go along with that; the whistle would get blown before the next bathroom break. For that reason, I doubt the OCR will find any discrimination at Princeton. I have also said in the past that my strong guess is that Asians are proportionately (or better) represented in students admitted from the applicant pools to which they belong as a practical matter. That is, if Asians make up 35% of the pool of non-legacy science-focused applicants, they probably make up 35% or more of that type of kid accepted.</p>

<p>But in the various discussions on CC in the past month, I have seen two examples of some real cultural misunderstanding involving ethnic Chinese students that, while subtle, could easily affect the admission prospects of Asian students at the margin.</p>

<p>The first was when a father was trumpeting his daughter’s ECs, and the centerpiece for him was the daughter helping her mother start and run a business. Many posters here cautioned him to play that down because admissions officers look askance at parent-generated activities and jobs in family businesses (with exceptions, I presume, if you are Lachlan Murdoch, Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Brian Roberts, or Abigail Johnson). He was taken aback by that; for him, working with her mother had shown his daughter’s loyalty and economic realism, and had involved much more effort and initiative than having just any old job. The daughter had been a real participant in the entrepreneurial enterprise. I thought this was an interesting example of the different weights Chinese culture and American elitist culture accord to filial piety vs. independence. Both cultures value both to some extent, but with radically different weights. If admissions officers in fact responded the way people here thought they would (or if some of them did), and stuck the applicant in the same pile as kids whose “job” was to update the web-page graphics of Dad’s law firm, that would probably be a misperception of who that girl is. Or if the poster took the advice he got here and soft-pedaled that aspect of his daughter’s record, that would distort the picture, too.</p>

<p>The second was a girl with great grades, scores, etc., one of whose main leadership activities had been to start a Gay-Straight Alliance chapter at her school. Her parents were upset by that and wanted her to leave it off her applications altogether. The CC Parents Chorus pretty much thought it was a very positive admissions factor, and might make her a shoe-in at Wesleyan (which, unfortunately, was not on her list – she had thought about it, but she said, “After all, I’m Chinese.”) If her parents had prevailed on her not to get involved with GSA, or to leave it off her application, I think her application would have looked much weaker than it will. But, at the same time, it was clear the family had an “Ivy or bust” mentality (specifically, Ivy or SUNY-Binghamton), and were not even thinking of fabulous colleges where the kid would be a great fit.</p>

<p>What I take away from these anecdotes is that there’s some work for everyone to do. On the dominant-culture side, we need to remember that other cultures may weight values like “independence” differently, or may express the qualities we value as “independence” differently. We also need to remember that people who are somewhat outside the dominant-culture mainstream may not be totally clued in to how best to market themselves in dominant-culture terms. So you have to look more carefully to see the real kid behind an application. At the same time, it’s fairly clear that many (not all) Asian families vastly overvalue some schools relative to others, and thus close off a pressure-valve that’s tremendously important to the rest of us with academically ambitious kids. Many (not all) Asian families would also do well to educate themselves better about what the schools they like really value – which includes, as mini points out, 300-lb. left tackles – so that their children can do a better job of looking like the kinds of people those schools want.</p>

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<p>kluge, I understand your point, I’m just not so sure that any of us can say with convincing certainty that that’s the case. There are several people here who DID make the exact argument that I referred to - ie that Asians should not be any more overrepresented in their enrollments than they already are.</p>

<p>Why not just put it all to the test, as I suggested? Eliminate any reference to race or ethnicity for any group that is not of URM or international status. If you wanted to be really fair about it, eliminate even the name of the individual under consideration and have generic names or number assigned as the admissions panel reviews applications instead? </p>

<p>Maybe there is pervasive discrimination here, and maybe it’s isolated and all overblown for the reasons you are suggesting. But why not try to find out? Isn’t this kind of discrimination worth investigating ( and I’m not talking about the specific Li case when I say this) ? Why is there all the resistance I’m seeing on this thread?</p>

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JHS, I would put the work to be done in the hands of Asian parents, though. To most Americans who have fully asssimilated and embrace American independence and a bit of a maverick streak, it is pretty obvious that families outside the dominant culture mainstream are not clued in. We are aware of the disconnect. We are aware that it is very difficult to twist around your world view to accept a reward system with which you may have strong disagreement. (Americans like me whose families have been around for a few generations have a tough enough time deciphering it & adapting to it. Never mind if we agreee with it!) In my experience, the message is simply one many Asian families refuse to believe.</p>

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<p>StickerShock:</p>

<p>I would agree with you, except that I think there are a bunch of kids with a lot to offer out there. My kids have had lots of ethnic Asian classmates, and the closer you look the more independent and non-stereotyped they are. If I were King of Harvard, I would not be happy with missing out on some of these kids because my minions didn’t pay close enough attention to figure out who they were, even if the “blame” for that could be assigned to the kids and their parents who didn’t know how to market them correctly. </p>

<p>I’m not talking about Title VI lawsuits here. I’m assuming that what the King of Harvard (or Stanford, etc.) wants is the “best” of a diverse bunch of applicants, and it may make sense to put some effort into learning how to discern “bestness” in a class of applications that may come from a different cultural angle. </p>

<p>Sure, the problem would work itself out on its own over the next 20 years or so, just as it did with the Jews (my people). But I don’t think the King of Harvard wants to sit back and wait for that to happen. (Like all of us, he knows that Asia is going to be darn important in the 21st Century. He isn’t about to pander or beg, but he wouldn’t mind staying ahead of the curve and making certain that his institution continues to be seen as THE center of the world.)</p>

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[quote]
To most Americans who have fully asssimilated and embrace American independence and a bit of a maverick streak, it is pretty obvious that families outside the dominant culture mainstream are not clued in.[/quote</p>

<p>Well, I hope that Asians don’t assimilate into the currently dominant culture too much. I was kind of hoping that the mainstream would adopt some of their attitudes during the assimilation process – starting with the one that says “Of course girls can do math.”</p>

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<p>Ah. Here is a stereotype: Asian parents telling their kids: “of course, girls can do math.” As can boys. And the end result? Lots of Asian kids applying to be math/science majors.</p>

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<p>And, they’d be shoo-ins at Wesleyan. :)</p>

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<p>I can’t believe that it is so difficult for people to understand that elite colleges are actively recruiting minority students: African American students, Latino/a students, and Asian American students. They want to increase their campus diversity and that includes Asian American diversity!</p>

<p>Let’s cut through all the BS and look where colleges are putting their money. Here’s an example: the special diversity recruiting days during which colleges spend a fortune flying minority prospects to campus for overnight visits and special events. If colleges were trying to discriminate against Asian Americans, would they be sending potential Asian American applicants plane tickets?</p>

<p>Swarthmore’s diversity recruiting event is called Discovery Weekend. They fly in 150 prospects. To put that into perspective, the freshman class at Swarthmore is only 375 students. So this event is a big deal.</p>

<p>Here is the newspaper article on this October’s Discovery Weekend. I would invite you to please click on the photograph to enlarge it and see for yourself:</p>

<p><a href=“The Phoenix - The Independent Campus Newspaper of Swarthmore College since 1881”>The Phoenix - The Independent Campus Newspaper of Swarthmore College since 1881;

<p>Xiggi asked the best question of this entire thread: Haven’t you walked around some of the campuses that we are talking about? So much of this thread bears no resemblence whatsoever to the reality of these schools.</p>

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<p>Re Post #595:</p>

<p>Yes, especially since Wes is trying to beef up its math/sciences offerings!</p>

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<p>Interesteddad, why are you so opposed to this filing?</p>

<p>What are the negative outcomes from this filing that you see occuring that disturb you?</p>

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<p>I’m rather lost as to why so many on these boards so vehemently defend universities.</p>

<p>"Haven’t you walked around some of the campuses that we are talking about? "
That’s a bit of a non sequitur. Say, given a universally applied standard, Canadians would occupy 40% of the university but instead occupy 20% due to preferences for everyone else over Canadians. This is still discriminatory, to the extent that the standard was fudged for others, no matter that Canadians are only say, 5% of the population. I repeat, all else ignored, over-representation is no evidence of innocence. There were Jewish quotas well above their proportion of the population; but it constituted discrimination because the quota was far below the numbers entailed by a fair, standardized admissions policy.</p>

<p>Mr. Li’s point (or if it isn’t, mine then) is that there is a higher standard for Asians than for whites, all else equal, to the extent of the equivalent of 50 SAT points, according to the study he cited (<a href=“Affirmative action in the United States - Wikipedia)%5B/url%5D”>Affirmative action in the United States - Wikipedia)</a>.</p>

<p>"It’s ludicrous to suggest that the admissions committee at Princeton, or Harvard, or Yale, or practically anywhere sits around and applies an Asian quota, or does such near-relatives of that as compare Asian students only to other Asian students or dismiss a student’s ECs as “typically Asian”. "
Yes, it’s improbable, but the studies show it goes on; it’s surely far more subtle than your caricature. It is almost assuredly tacit. It could be effected by use of select phrases and euphemisms, as things of such a delicate nature usually are. I couldn’t say why they do so(though I have some suspicions).</p>

<p>JHS, you seem to conclude that there is the 50 point difference I cited because basically, Asians don’t know how to package their children (as well as whites). Sappy stories do not make for an accurate portrait of reality. The Princeton authors of the study cited above claim to control for such details (though I can’t say how). Even so, it’s not much of a consolation that this treatment stems from mere packaging, from Asians not knowing how to properly kneel before admissions officers.</p>

<p>If admissions officers wanted to avoid discrimination (while upholding affirmative action), they could have the race and even name stricken from white and Asian applicants (and I suppose any other non-beneficiary of AA). Granted, the race of an applicant might still emerge from other details, but it would help reduce the possibility and thereby the extent of discrimination against Asians in favor of non-“URMs”.</p>

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<p>Large numbers of applicants do not state their ethnicity; it’s optional. It is, however, easy to conclude that an applicant with a Chinese name must be of Chinese origins, that someone with an Indian name is from India, etc… </p>

<p>I don’t know whether it is possible to conclude categorically whether Asian-Americans are held to higher standards or not. The studies that are adduced are usually based on “objective standards.” But colleges do not admit students based on such standards alone. They take into account essays, ECs, geographical origins, gender, and their own need to build a class. One would have compare the exact same applications by Asians and non-Asians to be able to discern a pattern (or lack thereof) of discrimination. </p>

<p>If the college has decided that it wants to admit more prospective majors in the humanities, it may well choose an applicant with somewhat lower stats who is interested in the humanities than one who has higher stats but is a prospective premed or economics major. Is that discrimination? Well, yes. Selection involves discriminating among applicants. But is is deliberately aimed at disadvantaging a particular ethnic group? I don’t know how one could prove that.
I am mindful that my S, a math major, decided he preferred to attend a college that had an academically diverse student body because he did not want to be surrounded by people just like myself. This meant he did not apply to some schools that had far higher proportions of Asian students than the college he is now attending. But that was a decision made on the basis of academics, not ethnicity.</p>