<p>After seeing the abc clip posted by College Grad, I think he just wants to take a stand to correct a perceived injustice. And according to the clip, Golden, who I think is the one who recently wrote one of the books about elite college admissions, seems to support his view. (At least that is how it was presented.)</p>
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<p>As I pointed out earlier, as of now, I don’t think that very many students at Yale have heard about this yet. As far as I know, there has been no article in the Yale Daily News, and it has not received enough attention in the national media to be widely known that way. That said, I can’t certainly see it becoming something that people who don’t know him very well will hold against him.</p>
<p>sval…my apologies. I certainly never intended imply that you were completely naive. I don’t doubt that you have sophistication.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, I believe idad is within his rights to label the bearer of this suit ‘a jerk’. That label certainly falls well within the defining standards for our boomer generation. idad does not need to personally ‘know’ Mr Li to label him a jerk as Mr Li has put himself in the public realm for review. idad’s label might not be a ‘contribution’ in your mind, but the candor of the parent’s board is one of the reasons it draws such interesting participants. Why does his opinion bother you so?</p>
<p>You may not like it but he is entitled to his opinion.</p>
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Whoops. Sorry, but I believe that is a naive statement, sval. Wait and see.</p>
<p>I bet Yale is regretting it’s decision to accept him. Clearly, he is not happy enough with his experience at Yale. How engaged can he be if he has the time to mount a major lawsuit? </p>
<p>All of the HYP papers are writing articles on this story, that’s my guess.</p>
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I don’t think it’s at all clear that he is not happy at Yale. I don’t think this lawsuit has anything to do with him wanting to attend Princeton instead, because he is not planning to transfer there if he is accepted. As far his involvement in Yale life goes, he doesn’t seem noticeably less engaged than most people here.</p>
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Sorry, that was a typo. I meant “can.”</p>
<p>Looking at stats for our school - three times as many kids get into Harvard as Yale. Four got into Yale and only one to Princeton, but the number who applied to Princeton was one third that of Yale. Who knows why universities often seem to like one school better than another.</p>
<p>This whole situation seems to fall into a one word issue/problem - ENTITLEMENT - which is running amock in our society - in health care - medicare - now education - no-one is ‘‘entitled’’ to anything under assumption - sure makes life a mess - and unfair in some folks eyes.</p>
<p>The complaint filed requires investigation??!! but I doubt very much it will go anywhere - this student feels ‘‘entitled’’ to an acceptance that he did not get - and as a result felt he needed to make a statement somehow.</p>
<p>Wow. I was going to say something about how I disagreed that this action would hurt Li’s future. I mean, in this day and age, what people would resent a member of a racial minority for filing a grievance against a rich, stuffy old institution for their apparent discrimination against his ethnic group in favor of whites? This should have happened forty years ago! But apparently this makes him “graceless”, “entitled”, and a “jerk” in the eyes of the generation who will be reading his job applications in four years. Truly unfortunate.</p>
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Hogwash! This is a ridiculous statement.</p>
<p>Couldn’t all of the conjecture and contention have been avoided if the applicants’ race wasn’t requested and noted on the application in the first place?</p>
<p>I am not sure this story is analogous to Mr. Lis situation but Id like to explain how we select our work study students. Every fall we receive applications for one or two work-study positions in our department. The applicants submit their grades, letters of recommendation, and resumes. The applicants grades are categorized as either ** +1<a href=“gpa%20%3E%203.0”>/b</a>, **0<a href=“gap%203.0%20to%202.5”>/b</a>, or **-1<a href=“gpa%20%3C%202.5”>/b</a>. A student with gpa <2.0 is not permitted in work-study. </p>
<p>An applicant with a gpa of 4.0 is not placed higher in the the applicant pool than one with a 3.0 gpa. Although, we clearly state our selection process; every year there are students who think their near perfect gpa is enough to secure them the job and are upset when another student (w/ lower gpa) is selected. </p>
<p>anecdotal observation The letters of rec for 4.0 students frequently have some undercurrent of negativity.
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<p>I know several people who have been plaintiffs in ideological lawsuits. In general, it has not affected their lives much. Of course, this case concerns Mr. Li’s personal qualifications, and so if it goes very far it has a 100% chance of being extremely embarassing to him, since among other strategies Princeton will surely want to argue that he is a loser.</p>
<p>(I also note that, as far as I remember, he’s not “suing” Princeton yet, and he’s not a plaintiff. He filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights, and they are investigating. That may someday give him the right to file a lawsuit, but I don’t think he has yet.)</p>
<p>Usually, it is a very bad idea to become a plaintiff. But the fact that becoming a plaintiff is a bad idea actually distorts the law. Good race discrimination cases are few and far between, because most race discrimination plaintiffs ARE losers, with no other option than to roll the dice on a baseless lawsuit. The people with good race discrimination cases ARE the people who get into Yale when Princeton rejects them, or who steal your clients and kick your ass professionally after they don’t make partner at your firm. Those are the people who have actually been discriminated against. Luckily for them (and us), the varied, competitive American system and economy give them lots of ways to succeed despite discrimination in one corner or another. But the fact that they succeed doesn’t mean there was no discrimination.</p>
<p>As is very clear on this forum, many ethnic Asians believe strongly that elite colleges set a higher hurdle for them than for people of other ethnicities. I doubt that’s true everywhere, but there’s plenty of somewhat disturbing indications that it’s true some places. And it’s hard to say that it’s an outrageous, ridiculous claim (although I think it’s outrageous and ridiculous to suggest that elite schools actually engage in any explicit effort to minimize Asian enrollment). Princeton’s and Yale’s numbers ARE low relative to what we know the pool looks like, and relative to their peers.</p>
<p>I’m kind of glad this is being investigated.</p>
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<p>No, the numbers are NOT low relative highly-selective colleges and universities. To say that Princeton has low Asian enrollment is as illogical as saying that Warren Buffet doesn’t have much money because he’s not as wealthy as Bill Gates.</p>
<p>By any imaginable measure, Asian Americans are highly overrepresented at Princeton.</p>
<p>You don’t have to imagine a measure. Just consider the one that was already mentioned- the number of applications. If Princeton accepts a lower percentage of applications from Asians than from whites in order to conform to their idea of what a properly balanced freshman class at an elite college looks like, then that is (basically by definition) a racially discriminatory quota.</p>
<p>I remember this article being discussed last year on the Penn forum:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2NjQ2ODE1[/url]”>http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2NjQ2ODE1</a></p>
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<p>In The Price of Admission, Golden compares what is going on with Asian admissions today today with the blatant discrimination that was leveled against the Jews years ago. Back then, nobody wanted to use the word quotas either. The schools simply changed their entrance requirements, shifting from a meritocratic system to one that greatly favored certain talents and pursuits that Jewish kids generally didn’t pursue. Same can be done here, ie there are just too many kids with the same profile of the Asian kids (the stereotype being kids who are high scoring academic and music geniuses) to admit all of them. Rather than call it a quota, schools can look to fill slots with kids who are involved in a diverse range of activities and interests. </p>
<p>Similarly, nobody is willing to say that a college puts a quota on ANY group, whether it is how many students are likely to be admitted from the same high school, or from an overrepresented region of the country, but admissions people are the first to say that they don’t have the room to admit all the qualified applicants. So a quota by any other name…</p>
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<p>I doubt it will be possible to prove any sort of quota. It will be fairly easy to make the case that Asians have a lower rate of acceptance considering the size of the applicant pool (not the ethnic make-up of US society more generally). But it will be easy to argue that Princeton wants to diversify in terms of majors, geographic origins, ECs, and so on, and that relatively few Asian applicants fulfill these aims. For example, the difference between Princeton and Yale and Harvard admission rates for Asians could be explained by the relatively greater focus on sports at Princeton with a smaller student body. I don’t know many judges or juries who would want to tell colleges to accept fewer athletes.</p>
<p>I’m willing to bet that an analysis of the Princeton data will indicate that once athletic, legacy, developmental, and “special” slots (published novelists, holders of major patents, offspring of Senators and Ambassadors) are taken off the table, Asians will have a HIGHER rate of acceptance than everyone else, and Li is going to look very foolish. I know that is the case for ID and my alma mater.</p>
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<p>Yeah, you can compare if you overlook one teensy weensy little difference: the colleges have not acted to reduce or even slow the growth in Asian American enrollment.</p>
<p>For example, Swarthmore’s acceptance rate for Asian Americans is signficantly (50%) higher than its acceptance rate for white students.</p>
<p>If the acceptance rate at Ivies is lower, it is only because there are so many Asian American (“Ivy or family disgrace”) applicants who never had a prayer of being accepted. It’s difficult to fault the schools for that.</p>
<p>People: Asian Americans make up 4.2% of the US population. They comprise 13% to 20+% of the enrollment at the schools in the Ivy League football conference. How do you get around that extreme overrepresentation in an allegation of discrimination?</p>
<p>Mimi: Li isn’t just talking about a simple acceptance rate comparison. He is referring to a study done by a Princeton sociology professor that shows that even when controlling for athlete and legacy status, Asian applicants are at a significant disadvantage relative to white applicants.
Interesteddad: If applicants are being rejected because the school thinks that too many of their race are already enrolled (even if the school’s definition of “too many” is as generous as 3-5 times that race’s share of the overall population), how can you call that anything but discrimination?</p>
<p>But is the school deciding that too many Asians are enrolled? Or are Asians under-represented in certain majors, sports, etc…?</p>