<p>“It’s easy to explain why Jian Li was accepted at Yale but not elsewhere: He filled a need at Yale , but not at the other schools. He’s special for Yale, and not for the other schools.” </p>
<p>So, this need that he fulfills implies that he has some kind of special distinction then?</p>
<p>Is it possible to get into Yale on merits alone?</p>
<p>If by merit you mean test scores and grades/rank alone, the answer is no.</p>
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<p>That would be very difficult to prove. The reality is the exact opposite. Asian Americans are overrepresented in elite college admissions precisely because of high academic achievement.</p>
<p>Since you’ve raised the issue, I notice that, although Mr. Li was eager to tout his perfect SATs scores, he did not similarly volunteer his class rank information. Given his large number of rejections, one would have to entertain the possibility that his class rank did not match his lofty SAT scores.</p>
<p>So, would you say that Mr. Li has some special quality that made him stand out in the applicant pool? And that this distinguishing quality could have helped him get into the other schools had he applied in a different admissions cycle (when the need for this special quality is greater)? Perhaps it was simply random that he was rejected to the other schools… that, in a different year, he could’ve been accepted to several more or even all? </p>
<p>Is he the type who would’ve sabotaged his applications to the other schools believing that his academic qualifications alone were enough or did he see the value in essays, teacher recs, etc? Do you think he was clueless as to how the college admissions process works or did he bother researching how to improve his chances by reading books on the subject? Perhaps Mr. Li’s dormmate could respond to this question.</p>
<p>Do you parents believe that one who deliberately tried to make his or her application interesting (in other words, one who “crafted” an application) deserves to be accepted over one who is genuinely passionate and interesting but who wasn’t aware of this tidbit of information (and whose application came across as less interesting, therefore)?</p>
<p>Why doesn’t the media divulge this special quality that helped him earn admission to Yale?</p>
<p>Why doesn’t the media ask Mr. Li what, in his opinion, makes him special aside from his academic qualifications?</p>
<p>Mr. Li’s case would’ve been strengthened had he not referred to the white applicant from his school who was accepted to Princeton.</p>
<p>To add to Curm:</p>
<p>Test scores and grades/rank alone won’t do it. There are many many other applicants with similar academic profiles. But if Yale is looking to increase the number of math/science students, applicants with a strong showing in these areas will be given an edge over other types of applicants. If Yale decides that it needs to recruit more oboe players for its orchestra (s), then students who can play the oboe will be preferred to students who cannot play an instrument or who play another kind of instrument. If Princeton wants to support its football team, it won’t be seeking to admit someone who shines in science competitions but has never stepped foot on a football field. And so on and so forth. This is why the same applicant can be rejected at Princeton but admitted at Harvard and vice-versa. </p>
<p>There is indeed discrimination at Ivies: in favor of facbrats (children of faculty), legacies, and athletes. But this is not the concern of Jian Li, apparently.</p>
<p>To interesteddad: His class rank was in the top 1%, according to the media.</p>
<p>Hepstar,
“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>Unfortunately, we don’t live in a color blind society. This attachment shows that AA isn’t just a program for blacks and hispanics–albeit it is called a different name, i.e., development admits or legacies. I find it interesting that you choose to call AA so vicious and vile, as if the few black/latino kids who get to go to a top school an attack on the virtues of America. That is funny! I tend to think that it is the racism that is so embedded in our society, which requires us to have AA programs, to be the culprit. </p>
<p><a href=“ABC News Videos - ABC News”>http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2625731</a></p>
<p>In any event, I think that people are calling Li a jerk because his complaint does presume that he is entitled to admission to Princeton, along with everywhere he applied by virtue of his perfect SATs and near perfect average. He fails, however, to realize that admissions at these schools is ZERO-SUM. As a result, there will always be losers because of the limited seats at these schools. I graduated from Columbia and would not have been interested in attending a school where everyone had perfect SATs and were valedictorians. This, for me, would not have made for an enjoyable and dynamic experience, both in the classroom and on campus.</p>
<p>Well, he was still unqualified, relative to other candidates at the schools at which he was rejected, because, by definition, admissions offices will say they accept only the “best qualified candidates”. Perhaps Yale made a mistake.</p>
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<p>OK. With “perfect SAT scores” and a top-1% class rank, the large number of rejections strongly suggests that something made him an unattractive applicant. That could be any number of issues: lukewarm recommendations (such as “Mr. Li shows an unusual drive to maximize his GPA and test scores”), an unimpressive portfolio of EC interests, poor essays, hints that he was trophy hunting, etc.</p>
<p>The fact that all of the colleges who rejected him enroll very large numbers of Asian American students each year suggests that his ethnicity did not prevent him from collecting more Ivy League pelts for his wall.</p>
<p>“This is why the same applicant can be rejected at Princeton but admitted at Harvard and vice-versa.”</p>
<p>I understand. So, he still has some distinguishing quality that made him stand out in the pool. I asked this question because people make the assumption that he’s all about academic stats and nothing else.</p>
<p>"OK. With ‘perfect SAT scores’ and a top-1% class rank, the large number of rejections strongly suggests that something made him an unattractive applicant. That could be any number of issues: lukewarm recommendations (such as ‘Mr. Li shows an unusual drive to maximize his GPA and test scores’), an unimpressive portfolio of EC interests, poor essays, hints that he was trophy hunting, etc.’ "</p>
<p>Why did Yale accept him then? Do you think Yale accepts such students? Perhaps there’s something about this applicant that we simply do not know and for whatever reason, is not divulged. Yale took a risk, perhaps.</p>
<p>If Yale made a mistake, and the admissions officers admit that they made a mistake in admitting this applicant, do you think they can be sued? How many times is an application read at Yale? Surely, the director of admissions could have disagreed with the readers and denied this applicant, yet he did not.</p>
<p>“I asked this question because people make the assumption that he’s all about academic stats and nothing else.”</p>
<p>I have to agree with the many posters that said his rejections at all his other schools is a good indication that his application was lacking something. If anything he might have just fallen on the right side of the line with Yale. It seems like he was very lucky.</p>
<p>“So, he still has some distinguishing quality that made him stand out in the pool. I asked this question because people make the assumption that he’s all about academic stats and nothing else.”</p>
<p>Actually, he did stand out in the pool - apparently as an undesirable candidate, relative to others with similar stats.</p>
<p>“Actually, he did stand out in the pool - apparently as an undesirable candidate, relative to others with similar stats.”</p>
<p>And he was admitted to Yale on this ground?</p>
<p>I was talking about the Yale applicant pool.</p>
<p>“Why did Yale accept him then? Do you think Yale accepts such students? Perhaps there’s something about this applicant that we simply do not know and for whatever reason, is not divulged. Yale took a risk, perhaps.”</p>
<p>There may not have been anything wrong with his app at all. Remember that places like HPY select from an outstanding pool of applicants those studetns who best will create a well rounded, diverse class in all meanings of those words.</p>
<p>The student may have filled a need in Yale’s class that Princeton didn’t need.</p>
<p>Just because someone has great scores and gets into one Ivy doesn’t mean that they’d get into all.</p>
<p>Of course, there’s also the chance that the student somehow did do something on his Princeton application that turned off the admissions officers or his interviewer. But, we’ll never know, and my guess is that even the Princeton folks won’t remember how they made their decision on him. After all, they make decisions on thousands of excellent students.</p>
<p>sval:</p>
<p>Point taken. We do not know him. You are very close to Mr Li. You are young. I can understand how hard it must be for you to anticipate the broad consequences of his suit. Having known others who have made similar suits in the workplace, I believe there will be far-reaching consequences for Mr Li–negative consequences. He will be categorized as a litigious student-employee etc. Future institutions and employers will be very wary.</p>
<p>I also believe the suit will not sit well with the Yale faculty. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, he will not get the opportunity to explain his position in depth. However, while I take your point, you might also credit my intelligence and the intelligence of the public. They do know something about these matters. </p>
<p>For example, I know a current junior Eurasian student (at HY or P). She was rejected from her dream school (HY or P) but accepted by the other two–and a legion of other schools. Though she made no attempt to publicize her rejection, her community was interested in her extraordinary success–as I am sure your community is interested in your success at Yale. </p>
<p>As she had two HYP acceptances, the community felt she was bathed in riches. They found her hurt laughable–though it was quite real to her. I’m not sure if she felt race was a factor.</p>
<p>In any event, she did not seek revenge or ‘justice’. She accepted, as I do, that the American tertiary system is not based SOLEY on merit. She did so with grace, I might add.</p>
<p>Cheers- though I certainly appreciate the implication that I am totally naive, it seems to me that saying that the criticisms leveled against him are unfair is very different from saying that he should be immune to criticism. I am well aware that his lawsuit could turn out to have been a bad decision. Since I think it has no chance of winning, to me it seems nearly useless, but none of what he has done makes it fair to categorize him as a jerk unless one actually believes that Jian Li is so self-obsessed as to risk making a lot of people angry in order to get extra acceptances that he has no use for. One could argue that he is deluded in seeing bias against Asian applicants (though it would be a common delusion), that he is naive in thinking that numbers can reflect how deserving someone is of acceptance to an elite university, or even that he is crazy to think that his lawsuit has a significant chance of success or will benefit anybody. Yet I think interesteddad lacks a legitimate reason to call him a jerk, and fails to contribute anything to the discussion by doing so.</p>
<p>“Since I think it has no chance of winning, to me it seems nearly useless, but none of what he has done makes it fair to categorize him as a jerk unless one actually believes that Jian Li is so self-obsessed as to risk making a lot of people angry in order to get extra acceptances that he has no use for.”</p>
<p>I don’t think he is doing it to gain acceptances. He could simply be so self-obsessed that he wants the world to know that he should have been offered admission.</p>
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<p>This is something that he (and his parents) ought to be seriously concerned about. It’s something potential litigants should think about even when they have an obviously meritorious discrimination claim, which this, to put it charitably, is not. This is going to smack of entitlement, and of an unwillingness to “settle” for a seat at Yale that tens of thousands of students would be ecstatic to get.</p>
<p>Call it fair or unfair, future Googlers will find out about this, likely before they find out anything else about him. And believe me, interviewers–for everything–Google applicants. But maybe he weighed his options and made this choice with full awareness of the possible consequences.</p>
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<p>This is my strongest reaction. The lawsuit has very little chance of succeeding on the merits, but if his goal was to attract national attention to his position, it was well chosen to achieve that goal. The underlying issue is that publicizing his “plight” is only meaningful if others are sympathetic to the idea that grades and test scores ought to equal acceptance. And very few decision-makers, including the Supreme Court, think that’s the case when it comes to private schools.</p>
<p>As a side note, how embarrassing for Yale. He doesn’t come off as a very enthusiastic freshman. I wonder if he’s getting the cold shoulder from his classmates now…does anyone know?</p>