Yes and i'm sure many in the 1% that make it to harvard also do have excellent grades and extra-cirriculars, but if it were an even playing field the attendance would be more evenly spread throughout the income distribution. You may ask, well of course richer people generally have better grades and apps but i will counter that i'm sure out of the 294 million you could easily find an equal number if not more competitive applicants.
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Asian groups file complaint over Harvard admission practices
- Thread starter ponpo
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Yes and i'm sure many in the 1% that make it to harvard also do have excellent grades and extra-cirriculars, but if it were an even playing field the attendance would be more evenly spread throughout the income distribution. You may ask, well of course richer people generally have better grades and apps but i will counter that i'm sure out of the 294 million you could easily find an equal number if not more competitive applicants.
I agree but that's not what's being debated, Harvard is being accused of quotas.
Oh, I misread. There are people in this thread though accusing these asians of attacking blacks.
It's Kite, the dude is a confirmed racist.
Littlefang
Member
I really don't understand this. Are they saying both white students and Asian students are getting rejected because of their race or are they arguing that Asian students are getting rejected over the white students because of their race? I mean they certainly don't admit anyone based on grades alone so of course they're going to pass over the people that don't have the extracurriculars or who don't interview well.
I don't see anything wrong with having a broad racial representation among students that are admitted. It just seems to me that people assuming they are getting rejected because of their race since they aren't getting in on their high test scores alone. It's hard to make a judgement though because the article doesn't provide any examples of the students who are being rejected.
That's the crux of the argument, though, and always has been. Asian (or white) kid doesn't get into some random school, sees black and/or hispanic students on campus, and automatically assumes "that's 100 Asian (or white) students that had their spots stolen".
old
Member
Nobody would give a shit about Harvard's admission policies if it wasn't such a gateway to opportunity and success. Our first mistake was allowing these--often private--institutions to assert themselves as gatekeepers to success and opportunity. Our solution should start there.
What can we do as a society so that people don't need a stamp of approval from an ivy school to have a fair shot at a six-figure salary or a chance at fully funding a business venture? We fix that then we don't have to bother with managing the actions of a few "gatekeepers to success" because there won't be any anymore.
What can we do as a society so that people don't need a stamp of approval from an ivy school to have a fair shot at a six-figure salary or a chance at fully funding a business venture? We fix that then we don't have to bother with managing the actions of a few "gatekeepers to success" because there won't be any anymore.
GameAddict411
Member
Your first sentence contradicts what you just wrote.
They're saying Asian and white applicants are held to higher admission standards than other ethnic groups, which is true for most major universities and certainly Harvard. The question is, is it wrong?
*sips tea*
Byakuya769
Member
Be a model minority, brehs.
Hasphat'sAnts
Member
This is so fucking embarrassing.
Mr. Blonde
Member
I think admissions based on test scores, grades, and activities is the most fair. UK schools such as oxford and cambridge are the best example of this imo.
the former
There are plenty of people that go to state schools and earn six figures in their 20s or 30s as engineers, doctors, etc.
the former
There are plenty of people that go to state schools and earn six figures in their 20s or 30s as engineers, doctors, etc.
They're a "gatekeeper to success and opportunity" because businesses, governments, grad schools, etc. view them as "superior" options. So if you want to change that, you have to change the hiring/recruitment/etc. practices of just about every entity out there that looks at what college you went to. Good luck with that.
Mr. Blonde
Member
the part of the comic with the "far away state" kid is about how being from montana, instead of say, new york, gives you a leg up on admissions since part of harvard's diversity goal is geographic diversity
GoldenEye 007
Member
Test scores are complex. Generally they are more indicators of economic success versus college success.
My school is new for example. We found that SAT was completely useless when it came to first semester success. But of course higher SAT numbers look cool because people seem to care about competitiveness and rankings. ACT offered a better correlation with Calc 1 success but I think more data is needed.
HS GPA is also largely useless. Essays can't be trusted and recommendation letters are just as bad.
My school is new for example. We found that SAT was completely useless when it came to first semester success. But of course higher SAT numbers look cool because people seem to care about competitiveness and rankings. ACT offered a better correlation with Calc 1 success but I think more data is needed.
HS GPA is also largely useless. Essays can't be trusted and recommendation letters are just as bad.
not psycho
Member
I misunderstood you then.
But I'm fairly sure that race is never a "sole defining reason" determining acceptance. It could be a deciding reason, but that's not the same thing.
Like what? What "non-binary" method are you talking about that will make sure race is never the deciding factor between two candidates?
If a factor is considered at all, there is always the potential that it will be the deciding factor between otherwise equal candidates.
edit: You're right, they are accusing Harvard of that. And I agree with you that hard caps, if they existed, would be bad. There are other kinds of quotas than hard caps though.
For example, a quota might be a general minimum for a certain group. Even then it would not be a hard minimum, especially given Harvard has no shortage of qualified applicants.
Another system would be combining quotas with a "plus" system. Give applicants in a group needed for diversity a "plus" unless and until you reach a minimum. You can't automatically assume "quota" means "hard cap."
This is a good line from the article: "Nor do we believe that test scores alone entitle anyone to admission at Harvard. Students are more than their test scores and grades."
We are being presumptuous to speak of it in terms of "less qualified applicants." Affirmative action can be seen as an attempt to address historical and current wrongs, true. But you could also look at it as a way to find more qualified applicants. If someone succeeded in spite of their society, location, wealth class, school, etc, all having less opportunity than the average Harvard candidate, couldn't we consider that person to literally be more qualified, aside from the benefit they bring to diversity?
Getting into any school is a competition because there's a limited number of people they can take. You're competing with everybody else.
There are multiple criteria that can be for or against your favor. Yea, race is one of these many criteria, because we're trying to improve society as a whole. Just because you're X smart doesn't mean you automatically get in.
There are multiple criteria that can be for or against your favor. Yea, race is one of these many criteria, because we're trying to improve society as a whole. Just because you're X smart doesn't mean you automatically get in.
It reads as if out of the 2000 accepted students, they believe the spots filled with blacks or Hispanics (about 240 each) just riding on the 2.0 train
Littlefang
Member
Thanks for clearing that up for me! Here's the ethnic breakdown of people who were admitted last year. So I guess the assumption they are making is that the African-American and the Hispanic/Latino students are taking spots away from the white and Asian students. But the thing is, at this top level I'm sure the differences between applicants are quite minimal. The top applicants are going to get in regardless of race.
So the problem is going to wedge itself with the students that aren't qualified enough to be a guaranteed acceptance into Harvard. Now because Harvard only has x amount of spots and since it's at such a high level, the differences between who gets accepted and who gets rejected are going to be minimal. I don't have any moral qualms that an African-American student with a 3.6 gpa (pulling this number out of my ass) has a higher chance of getting in than a white student with a 3.8 gpa (again just making up a number) because I think racial diversity is a good thing.
tearsintherain
Member
Does Harvard ignore income when doing their race adjustments? ie say there are two black applicants for Harvard medical school, one has a 3.9 gpa and comes from rich parents. The second has a 3.5 and is from a single poor mom. If there is only one spot, who gets in? I don't know how they weigh all this stuff but it definitely sounds like it could be a minefield of trying to "fix" society with admissions.
Life is definitely unfair and most people only realize far, far, far too late how important education and social networking (the most important part of college) is.
I also wonder if some parents are going to start name tweaking as things get even more competitive. I mean, its obvious sometimes what race someone is but with more and more mixed races who the heck makes that judgement call of "well, I think this kid looks black... but his moms name sounds asian... and he is a bit fair skinned... " I remember that shitstorm from when Mindy Kaling's brother claimed to be black when applying to medical schools.
darkhunger
Member
I already know Filipinos who pass themselves off as Hispanics because they have Spanish last names. It happens for sure.
Think Asian groups should be more concerned about their lack of leadership positions in U.S. businesses. Besides Tony Hsieh of Zappos and Satya Nadella I can't think of another Asian CEO of a large business. Satya was born in India and went to the Univ of Wisconisn and Chicago so take that you Ivy League wanna be. Most of the other CEO types I can think of are Indian with degrees from India.
The 2nd thing they should be concerned with is lower pay.
The 2nd thing they should be concerned with is lower pay.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Jen-Hsun Huang, Taiwanese-American and co-founder of Nvidia.
And yeah, I can't think of many others either.
They aren't getting into the White House or the supreme Court though. They aren't getting similar access to the best internships in Silicon Valley or Washington or Wall Street.
There are many avenues into upper middle income tax brackets. There are fewer into political power corridors. Especially ones that aren't bought through corporate lobbying.
Edit :
Wisconsin Madison and Chicago are bothj highly selective schools. The opportunity & access problem applies to all selective colleges not just ivy. Hence suing the Carolina school.
Yoda
Member
High ed is usually only one of many factors in being a successful executive, I'd argue its not a big one it determining who end up being "the boss", despite it normally being a sure pre-req to becoming any form of executive (in most cases).
I'm not really a fan of affirmative action, but arguing score on X ought guarantee me on a spot in <insert university here> over someone else who score < X is really shallow-thinking. The admission process if more than just GPA/test-scores at most places and if an institution thinks its working for them; they shouldn't be mandated by someone else on how to admit new students.
Dreams-Visions
Member
*nods*
Littlefang
Member
I'm all for college's using income affirmative action as well as race affirmative action policies, but statistically isn't it more likely that the African-American and the Latino/Hispanic students would be the ones who would be more likely to fall into this low income category? Which is well kind of why we need race affirmative action to minimize these disadvantages. I guess I really don't understand why the Asian groups think this will be more beneficial to them. I mean in a perfect world everyone has equal opportunity, but the world doesn't actually work like that so I think it's a good thing to give a small leg-up to those that are statistically disadvantaged in order to level the playing field.
Climbing the coporate ladder is totally different league. That require almost everything. Race. Connection. Brain. Oppotunity. Etc. It is likely that the business that is created by white people will be dominate by white. At least in the high position. Since most of the time , people still hang out with their own race.
Same for business in Asia. Hence asian people will find more success building the business and become the leader in their home rather than abroad.
Racial quotas are fine by me if they prevent the homogenization of the population of a campus, trust me it's not good when the majority of a college campus is of one general ethnic group...
Part of what keeps universities worth attending is a diverse group of students. Entitled and whiny is what this sounds like, you aren't guaranteed shit in terms of being accepted to a university.
Part of what keeps universities worth attending is a diverse group of students. Entitled and whiny is what this sounds like, you aren't guaranteed shit in terms of being accepted to a university.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Scores and grades are only part of the value you bring to a university
Hyperactivity
Banned
Yeah, but I do actually feel off-put by the idea that even whites have the better end of the deal when it comes to AA. I understand the need for AA, but that part of it makes no fucking sense, as it assumes that Asian kids (the broadest term in the world) don't just have an equally easy time getting into college/experiencing issues and that they never deal with racism in this area, they actually have an easier time. Again, I'm saying that AA definitely should be there, but that, in the example of SAT scores (which is likely a flawed comparison in any case), Asians shouldn't have a higher score being counted equally to a Caucasian person's lower score.
Legacies and big donors in colleges are a much bigger issue. It shouldn't be a thing, but there's alot of retarded shit in the US college system
I would say that if an Asian person and a white person had the same economic standpoint, the white person would have an easier time getting in. And it feels like AA is meant to help ensure this while trying to give as few concessions as possible to other minorities.
I just feel that AA is something that needs to be there, but is currently very flawed.
We had a thread in this a while ago.
Do you really think Ivy Leagues are accepting that many poorer students?
This is probably true, but imo income based AA is still a bad idea, because income levels aren't the only obstacles minorities face and AA is supposed to take this into account
The worst part of this all is defining what an Asian is. When people think the well-off Asian, in my experience they typically think Korean, Chinese, Indian, often-times Pakistani and other part of East Asia and the Sub-Indian Continent. Even in those communities, depending on exactly what area someone's coming from, the average economic and social status can be VASTLY different. Being from the Middle-East counts as being Asian, but you think Muslims don't face any racism in the admissions process
Pls numble, getting into the grandes ecoles or university of tokyo do have a their fair share of nepotism but it's hardly at the level and magnitude as Ivy leagues imo(i'm confident the statistics will confirm this). Correct me if i'm wrong french gaf, but to get in the ENS you need to take batteries of tests which pits you in direct competition with other people and people are chosen on a relative scale rather than absolute(none of that 1000 applicants with 4.0s shit).
arglebargle
Member
Race is not a sole defining reason. number or percentage based quotas are unconstitutional according to the supreme court in the bakke case. This has basically been settled.
Time to update the info.
CEO of Pepsico, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Cognizant, Mastercard, Adobe, Nokia, Google Android/Chrome head, Chief information officer of Verizon, Google, President of berkshire hathaway reinsurance, founder of Sun Microsystems... are all Indians.
Indians are actually doing better than any other Asian group when it comes to top level positions.
Black Republican
Member
so what happened to the " i dont see race" folks then?
arglebargle
Member
Pandit hasn't been Ceo of citi since 2012.
Yes, that's what Harvard is saying and the group in the OP is accusing the administration of violating that mandate. That's why they're being sued.
arglebargle
Member
I think you have to be crazy to think Harvard is either unaware of the court's decision or intentionally violating it.
EatinOlives
Member
The problem is Harvard has more than enough applicants to fill their incoming class, not to mention children of alumni or "generous" donors. AA was put in place to ensure diversity, because people along the way figured that not doing that would lead to most schools being insular in the demographics they admit, as well as the fact that having a diverse group of ethnicities and backgrounds is integral to a rich college experience meant to broaden your mind.
When it comes to schools like Harvard, admission will never be merit-based. It simply isn't possible to offer a position to every single candidate who has a perfect SAT score and 10,000 extracurriculars. They have to integrate more criteria to ensure that the group they accept is a well rounded and diverse bunch and yes, that includes looking at demographics.
The only thing the Supreme Court ruled against is that schools cannot use a hard-line percentage to base their admissions on. There's nothing in the ruling about ensuring a diverse incoming class or even Affirmative Action as a whole. Unless it's discovered that Harvard is explicitly using percentage-based admissions I don't see this suit going anywhere. It just feels like the suit's claim is unsubstantiated, calling for an investigation simply because a lot of high-scoring Asian candidates were rejected.
When it comes to schools like Harvard, admission will never be merit-based. It simply isn't possible to offer a position to every single candidate who has a perfect SAT score and 10,000 extracurriculars. They have to integrate more criteria to ensure that the group they accept is a well rounded and diverse bunch and yes, that includes looking at demographics.
The only thing the Supreme Court ruled against is that schools cannot use a hard-line percentage to base their admissions on. There's nothing in the ruling about ensuring a diverse incoming class or even Affirmative Action as a whole. Unless it's discovered that Harvard is explicitly using percentage-based admissions I don't see this suit going anywhere. It just feels like the suit's claim is unsubstantiated, calling for an investigation simply because a lot of high-scoring Asian candidates were rejected.
Much like the Bakke case, it's not a matter of whether or not they have affirmative action policies which are legal and instead a case of whether or not they're taking it too far. I empathize with the plaintiffs but whether or not Harvard has discriminating admission policies isn't something that we can clearly prove or disprove from a cursory glance. I don't think it's crazy at all to think a powerful, long standing organization would intentionally violate a law. I don't know if Harvard is in violation of anything though and am not commenting to that effect. It's easy to pick sides here but the fact of the matter is we're all commenting without much evidence available for review. It's certainly probable this whole thing is a big fuss over perfectly legal policies. Conversely, it's much less likely, though still a possible, that discrimination is actually taking place after all.
RubberJohnny
Banned
I can see why Asians feel slighted by this, black graduates have better acceptance rates than then regardless of GPA.
I always thought it was weird how the US boils down talk of race to just white people and black people, and its solutions always involve giving special treatment to black people but not other minorities.
I always thought it was weird how the US boils down talk of race to just white people and black people, and its solutions always involve giving special treatment to black people but not other minorities.
Good. This has been going on for a long time. I really wanted into a few out of state schools and graduated with a high SAT and GPA over 3, much better than my friends. They were all accepted to their schools of choice, I had to settle for Old fucking Dominion U. Everyone told me I should claim my white side and not Asian, but I actually thought it would help back then! Hah.
Because that's not true. Most of these programs like Affirmative Action help white people first and foremost, then everyone else down the line. The problem is that people frame Affirmative Action as something that guarantees unqualified black people jobs/scholarships/whatever, when that isn't even close to reality. Plus, when it comes to school acceptance, a lot more goes into it than gpa + test scores but because people have no idea what the criteria is for acceptance, they use out of context charts like the one you posted as some kind validation of their incorrect beliefs.I can see why Asians feel slighted by this, black graduates have better acceptance rates than then regardless of GPA.
I always thought it was weird how the US boils down talk of race to just white people and black people, and its solutions always involve giving special treatment to black people but not other minorities.
I can see why Asians feel slighted by this, black graduates have better acceptance rates than then regardless of GPA.
I always thought it was weird how the US boils down talk of race to just white people and black people, and its solutions always involve giving special treatment to black people but not other minorities.
I'm pretty sure as a hispanic I get "Special treatment" in upper education admissions as well. It isn't just black, but Underrepresented minorities(which includes hispanics and Native Americans) in general.
How can Asians expect to get into Harvard when Method Man got that magic weed that give him great grades?
Shit's unfair.
Yep.There was a wonderful editorial cartoon for this, wish i could find it.
Pfft found
But hey, getting underprivileged groups to fight each other is how those in power stay in power.
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