So by every objective measure Asian Americans are the best qualified applicants for Harvard. If someone by virtue of a brief interview decides your not as "likable" as another candidate you may not gain admission. So much for merit and hard work
75
How are they defining Asian Americans? Does it include East Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis? As the impact similar across the different Asian groups, e.g. Japanese versus Vietnamese?
30
I love all the commenters giving their opinion about the Harvard process, especially since none of them ever attended....
18
This leaves Harvard's white students at 49.6%. Is the white % also now less than 50 at the other Ivy league schools? That would be news.
5
It’s OK to discriminate against Asian Americans and Whites. How dare we study, work hard, excel and succeed! We must be punished!
54
When you apply race to anything all you do is further promote racism. When I hear folks exclaim how far we have left to go in our society I am often reminded that these are the same folks that hold on to race as their primary identifier.
Progress starts at home.
31
Isn’t the real issue here not whether or not Harvard is racist but that we give institutions like Harvard so much power to determine educational and social values?
More public universities!!
48
this data is indisputable ; Harvard has been caught with its pants down, and this will have to be litigated all the way to SCOTUS. Look for there to be some concrete limits imposed on "holistic" admissions (discrimination)...but expect powerful forces to become strange bedfellows in this debate; urban poor black athletes and wealthy suburban white legacies most likely . Harvard cant compete in the Ivy League or raise anywhere near the money it does if admissions become completely based on academic standards. Ironically , at a school that that is at the vanguard of diversity, inclusiveness and progressive politics is caught in a hard place. Few tears will be shed by Harvard leadership for white affluent students who will no longer be able to attend their parents alma mater, and effete disinterest academic administrators may well be be able to endure occupying the Ivy League cellar as badge of honor (U Chicago east anyone ?) , but Treating Asian american applicants more "fairly" will result in ending positive discrimination for URM applicants. ...that's going to tie Harvard and its ilk up in knots. Unfortunately admission to highly selective colleges is much more of a zero sum game than we like to admit. Treating Asian applicants "fairly" could result in some ugly backlash..
20
Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than others on traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being 'widely respected'... "
From the perspective of traditional Western desirable attributes such as "sociable," "extroverted" "ageeable," I can imagine how more Confuscian values (humility,respectful,soft-spoken) may not be appreciated and even devalued.
If this is (implicltly) calculated into some equation that rewards these former traits as an asset to society by selecting and graduating these "desirables," it makes total sense. Is it "right?" It depends how you do the math.
23
According to the 2010 U.S. Census (self-identified race):
White alone: 72.4%
Black or African-American: 12.6%
Asian: 4.8%
Native Americans and Alaska Natives: 0.9%
Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders: 0.2%
Two or More Races: 2.9%
Some Other Race: 6.2%
Total = 100%
Hispanic and Latino Americans (of any race): 16.3%
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States
Harvard Class of 2021 (Source: Harvard website):
(White: 60.7%)
African-American: 14.6%
Asian-American: 22.2%
Native-American or Pacific Islander: 2.5%
Total = 100%
Hispanic: 11.6%
o At Harvard, Asian-Americans are the big winners by percentage, and the runner-ups are Native-American/Pacific Islanders.
o What if Harvard used purely “objective” criteria for admissions: grades, test scores, and extracurriculars/community service/job participation and leadership roles? *And then 100% of the class became Asian?* Would that be a good idea? Should there be more diversity; would it matter? And if so, who decides? A national ballot initiative by popular vote? The Supreme Court? Harvard (after all, it is a private school)? It helps to consider the extremes …
41
Harvard is a business, pure and simple. They follow a carefully tuned method which is designed to perpetuate Harvard and grow its endowment. Everyone knows the undergraduate class is just a feeder for lifelong school spirit and donations, while the heavy academic lifting is done by the graduate programs. Look at DONATIONS to Harvard by race. I would bet (but I don’t know) that whites donate more money than Asians. Always follow the money.
43
These are private institutions; they should be able to use any criteria. Top many ‘Asians’ [Chinese, Indians, mostly] are the bookish type and you should only have maybe 20-30% of ‘that type’.
The most important traits need to be selected and a simple series of ‘trick’ multiple choice questions can help narrow the pool. Trick questions where responder cannot tell what is the ‘right answer’ in competing ‘role-playing type ‘contrived’ situations]. Such as ‘when is it OK to lie - give 4-6 ‘difficult’ sutuations to choose from.
I agree that ‘interviews’ are not a decision criterion - ONLY to check that the applicant is a live-breathing organism.
6
I find this world view in which we divide the world's population into "white, asian, black, hispanic, native" too narrow. Based on science we (humans) all originated from early humans that migrated from Africa. So if we go back in time, in essence we are all Africans. The current classification throws up questions like (a) are people of Russian descent "White" or "Asian". Russia is a country in the Asian continent. (b) are people from Israel "White" or "Asian" or "Middle Eastern"? (c) is someone black from a Latin American country "Black" or "Hispanic"? This whole "race" based construct is too narrow and needs to go.
The next point I see that is clear from this article is that Harvard is suppressing "Asian-American" (if we work with the current definition of race) admission by about 13 percent of the entering class (bringing down from 31% to 18%) by using the fig leaf of "personality."
The question that comes to mind is what are these schools trying to achieve through their current "affirmative admission" policies? What are we as progressives trying to achieve here? My answer would be a more just society in which we are trying to level the playing field so that kids that lacked opportunities are not held back. If that is the goal then wouldn't an "affirmative action" admission policy based on financial means be the right way to go? "Financial means" criteria will capture a large majority of disadvantaged "Black" and "Hispanic" kids.
17
Harvard should be asked to do a blind admission experiment. Take the names and ethnic background off the application, put them through the process, and see what the diversity of the admitted students looks like.
55
Having been on both sides of the decision at the graduate level, there is definitely a bias against Asian Americans in admissions.
Faculty often use words like "strong" and "hard-working" to describe Asian American applicants, but they "worry" that these applicants lack "imagination" and "leadership ability." Those that benefit from this bias are not African Americans, women, Latinos, or white students from public universities. The beneficiaries are white male students from elite universities like Harvard.
This bias as the undergraduate level feeds into decisions at the graduate level. It also impacts recruiting at elite employers who recruit from elite graduate schools.
What does this mean? It means that there is a vast pool of driven, accomplished, and under-placed Asian American men and women with degrees from public universities. Employers ignore them at their own peril.
34
I have two Asian-American children who will be soon be attending college. While, I believe that Harvard and other private universities should be allowed to use policies for admissions that meet their institutional goals, I am bothered by their lack of transparency and apparent dishonesty. Why does it take a lawsuit to get this information? This runs counter to what I thought these esteemed and revered institutions represented.
I would also like to know if Asian applicants who are not US citizens or permanent residents are grouped with Asian-American children when reviewed by the admission officers. If so, it would make the admission rates for Asian-American applicants even lower.
I ask that these institutions allow their admissions representatives to offer more meaningful and truthful information about their race-influenced policies, so that applicants like my children do not waste valuable resources or suffer negative emotional consequences for an extremely small chance at acceptance. I recently asked a Brown admissions director, what would happen if my son left his race check box blank on his application. He gave a very non-meaningful and oblique answer.
Lastly, I applaud the persons who made the play Admissions possible. This play showed me how complicated and impossible this issue has become in our society.
18
Could another reader explain to me why private universities don't use a decision-rule that admits people based on their demographic share of the population in the country? For example, if you are of x "race" and x represents 25% of the country's population, why not then hold 25% of the seats for students who claim to be of the x group? In these highly polarized times where every policy is seen through what seems like a "tribal" lens, isn't that a fairer way to allocate a scarce resource? At least then a private university can at least brag that from a race standpoint, their student body reflects the real diversity of the country.
But is it illegal to do that, to have a race-based definition of 'diversity'? Would that be a type of racism?
Not trying to be provocative here, I just trying to get some background on how the courts have treated this issue before.
9
It does seem to me that there is pernicious discrimination happening here. However, to those arguing in favor of weighing academics more heavily in the admissions process to resolve this, I’d like to say this: I suspect that there are at least several thousand American high school seniors each year that all have perfect GPAs and perfect scores on ten AP tests (perhaps it would be interesting for some researcher to get a hard number here?), and many of them apply to Harvard. An academics-only admissions process offers no way to distinguish between these students, and Harvard doesn’t have room for all of them.
The real solution, I think, is to reduce the discrimination against Asian American applicants that is occurring in the other parts of the application process.
7
The problem with having an admissions process that is based solely on test scores, grades and "bankable" extracurricular activities is that you will end up with a student body made up of people who are willing to devote their entire lives as teenagers to nothing but jumping through hoops set up by somebody else. I remember going to a BBQ in Long Island, and listening to the (white) parents explaining that their son wasn't there because he was doing some Boy Scout thing -- he doesn't really like the Boy Scouts anymore, they explained, but it will look good on his college admission package. I was appalled.
And a lot of students don't really write their own personal essays anymore, either --they are so massaged by consultants that they tell you nothing. Similarly with the test prep industry. When I took the SAT, I looked through the review book for a few hours and then took the test the next day. Now people spend literally months in test prep programs.
31
Fascinating. Trying to dictate which customers a private institution must service.
If the government tries to invoke the Federal student loan card to say the school must abide by its policies, then the school won’t accept those with financial needs that it can’t satisfy with its own resources.
Go look at California UC colleges with 39-50% Asians. Getting accepted based only on Numerical factors. Does this benefit American Society? How does America track increased productivity by student as a result of a college education?
Perhaps all college students should be Asian. Or perhaps none. Where’s the facts that shows what a student does with that education?
Is it income after 10 years of graduation?
4
Having attended Harvard and other elite schools I wonder if these kids aren't prepared for what this article really describes -an unvarnished look into the real world. I did get an email from president Faust defending the school and began to wonder. Harvard and elite schools give a head start and a network, but in the workplace the same paradigm exists. Even with a pedigree and accomplishments followed up with excellence and success, and although there are many examples of Asians who do get to the top, mostly white C-suites promote those who are like themselves. Schools and achievement, even success may not matter. In businesses I've been in the hard work and execution, creativity and discovery, even selling and networking is done in great part by unrecognized Asians yet the ceiling remains to enter partnerships and serious elevation, recognition, and equity. This may be changing slowly as demographics and the world becomes more global but as this article illustrates it evolves at its own snail's pace, controlled by the self-concerned gatekeepers of power and access.
62
What would happen if an institution of higher learning started accepting only the students with the highest academic ratings? They may want to consider how many times the potential student took the SAT, and give greater consideration to those who took it fewer times, or focus on the entire body of academic accomplishment to make it fairer to those who cannot take the SAT a dozen times or so. But if they eliminated the personality part of the evaluation, how much would it change the student body? Studies have shown that ivy league schools usually do not provide a better education than the average state university, but do provide far better social networking advantages. Is Harvard a college, or a club? I think it should be a college and it should quit 'cherry-picking' the students that are more favorable to its social climate.
21
"Studies have shown that ivy league schools usually do not provide a better education than the average state university...."
How do those studies measure that? Where are those studies conducted?
8
It's always interesting to me that people are rightfully offended when there is discrimination against any specific ethnic group, but at the same time don't stop to consider the explicit discrimination against people with disabilities they are so often endorsing when they argue for "meritocracy". Not everyone's "merit" is expressed the same way. Cognitive skill tends to be severely over-valued in most people's conception of "meritocracy", while traits like altruism and compassion are not even measured, yet they too lead to certain types of achievement. I was once a professor at an urban public university with an open admissions policy. We had true diversity in our student body, including some students with disabilities like Downs Syndrome. Were those particular students going to get a traditional college degree? No. But they were going to benefit from being on campus and they benefited other students who came to learn people with developmental disabilities were also their peers. Race and ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation are not the only forms of human difference that contribute to a diverse community. Yet, it's acceptable to treat certain forms of disability, or human difference, as undesirable on campus. It's taken for granted by virtually everyone that such exclusion is necessary because colleges, after all, aren't supposed to include THAT kind of diversity. Take a few steps back and the hypocrisy becomes more apparent.
16
It's too bad Harvard and other elite universities don't prize honesty, compassion for others, a sense of fairness and justice and a stronger desire to preserve and protect democracy and a healthy society in their admission process.
Our nation's leaders and influential citizens might be of a much higher caliber of human being than we are seeing now.
45
why is % of student body being compared vs % of US population? % of student body vs % of applicants of said ethnicity is much more relevant.
16
Was Harvard rating the Chinese students applying for admission or the Wait Staff at the local family owned Chinese take out?
3
" After accounting for Harvard’s preference for recruited athletes and legacy applicants, the proportion of whites went up, while the share of Asian-Americans fell to 31 percent. Accounting for extracurricular and personal ratings, the share of whites rose again, and Asian-Americans fell to 26 percent."
Ironic that someone by the name of Edward Blum files a lawsuit on behalf of Asians. The fact is if legacy, athletic abilities, etc. are removed the the percentage rate of whites admitted would drop precipitously. But when you read some of the comments on social media they make this case about affirmative action for blacks and Latinos. Harvard is not going to have its campus mostly made up of Asian students. Asians already make up about 23% of the admission even though they're 5.6% of the U.S. population. If Harvard did not have a legacy program in place that allows for admission to be 50% whites then the lawsuit would make sense.
If Blum cares so much about Asian admission he should stress that Harvard get rid of its legacy that favors mostly whites thereby decreasing the admission of white students to about 35% while increasing the admission of Asian students to around 50%. Be careful of what you ask for you might get it.
6
Another form of racism. The Asian-American are being penalized for an intangible, a subjective assessment highly variable. If Harvard is selecting on the basis of personality and likability and not academic and extra-curricular activity, then every car-salesman has a chance to get into Harvard and all the other Ivy League schools!
19
These discussions fail to note that America is a segregated society based on race and ethnicity. Minority parents are frequently single parent families. Fathers are frequently in prison based on zero tolerance for the same minor offense that whites commit. . Title 1 schools are by definition segregated schools and the children predominantly Black and Hispanic. The schools are in high crime neighborhoods. The schools have high suspension and expulsion rates based on targeting minority behaviors. White parents move their children to white middle and upper class neighborhoods and into predominantly white schools. They engage their children in extracurricular activities which enrich them. Yes the students have access to white teachers who start in the minority schools and move to the suburbs as soon as they have seniority. Their language and demeanor is polished. They apply to the Ivies and some are selected.
Minority students do not pick their parents. Indicators of social mobility in the USA and UK show that opportunity is not evenly distributed. The parents of affluent students want to pass on their benefits of class to their children and gain access to the social networks of the Ivies.
So where does this leave disenfranchised minority students? At the back of the educational bus. And Asian parents could care less about this and the idea of fairness.
14
To say or even to assume that different cultural, ethnic, or racial groups do not have different overall characteristics or tendencies, is lunacy. Of course they do, and thank goodness. To say that an institution may not benefit by regulating these characteristics is further lunacy. I teach at a HS with a large number of Chinese students, and everyone on campus, including (especially) the Chinese students and their families, expresses a desire for more students who bring more of what the Harvard admissions folks refer to as "personality" (I would prefer it be factored into the admissions process as "originality," "emotional range," and "social engagement," all of which can be assessed, however imperfectly, by personal essays, recommendations, interviews when applicable, and overall applicant profile). As other commenters have said, this lawsuit is a clear underhanded attack on Affirmative Action for African Americans, which functions in the exact OPPOSITE manner--namely, to increase representation of students at a cultural disadvantage--whereas this lawsuit proposes to actually decrease diversity, by over-emphasizing academic criteria at the detriment of the texture and vibrancy of the student body, the lifeblood of any university. When the racists don the mask of civil rights, beware: we are being hoist on on own petards.
26
Thanks for the thoughtful article. There is nothing new here that the Asian American community has not known for a while. What’s different about the “model minority” is that they have been quiet about this for a long time. It’s good that they are finally coming forward to expose these double standards. Then again, throughout its history Harvard has been discriminatory towards minorities. At the turn of the 20th century it was the Irish, and then for decades they had a Jewish Quota. In fact John Nash and Herbert Simon (Nobel laureates in Economics) have mentioned the discrimination towards Jews that was exhibited by Harvard. Eventually, other schools ended up with way more Nobel laureates than did Harvard. The University of Chicago, which was mush less prestigious those days, cashed in on Harvard’s discrimination towards jews and ended up with the maximum Nobel laureates in Economics. Today however, Chicago is the same as Harvard and wields a harsh bamboo ceiling. Another school will emerge. The Bright students will always flourish in the long run.
31
As the parent of high achieving students who had near perfect SAT scores but had the bad luck to attend a small public high school, I’d like to complain about the discrimination Harvard (or in our case, Penn) demonstrated toward my children. You know what, though, you can have Harvard, Penn, and the rest. It ends up being those schools’ loss. But hey, you know you gotta keep the riffraff out of those upper echelons of achievement.
8
I find Harvard’s desire to control the number of various ethnic groups in control a prefectly reasonable approach. It is a private university and should be allowed to make student percentages as they believe best for the school. Yawn. Whine. They remain one our best university. They are doing something right.
30
Not if they accept federal funds, which they do.
19
The current graduation rates at Harvard according to the U.S. Dept. of Education are as follows:
American Indians 100%; Asians 96%; Blacks 97%; Hispanics 96%; Whites 97%; Non-resident aliens 97%.
The actual outcome of results does not show that their being discriminated against has resulted in others not performing at the same level or better than they do. But you can draw you own conclusions. https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=harvard&s=all&id=166027#...
5
I find the results of these comments pretty conclusive. Those who support Harvard's admission process site proof of Asian's lack of individualism,lack of giftedness, lack of personality, lack of creativity, their submissivness, unfriendliness,not smiling enough, being study drones, and their dullness all due to tiger mothers and cultural norms. All stereotypes and blatant racism. Those who oppose Harvard's methods share data and stats, a more humanistic view, and the view that Asians are like all races, of many kinds, cultures, personalities and gifts.
Racism is racism and it's pretty clear that's what the issue is about.
107
Here’s an idea. Don’t admit anyone, regardless of race, creed, color or political beliefs, who is not academically qualified to be there....
24
I am first generation Chinese American, graduated high school with top SAT scores, GPA, was an artist and president of multiple clubs. During college, I was president of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Club and brought my club thousands of extra dollars of funding, magna cum laude and won a Fulbright and spent a year in Colombia. I was rejected or waitlisted by every Ivy I applied to.
I don't think how I was judged or the way we talk about Asian kids not being "well rounded" is fair, but I am not going to complain about that for fear of minimizing the achievements of kids who may have been black or brown or from lower income families who deserve spots more than I did, regardless of SAT scores.
What still makes me angry is that colleges post their incoming class grades and scores as if they should be the targets for everyone. Be honest, for students who are not legacies or don't go to fancy private schools, they need to aim higher. As one of less than 10 Asian students in my class of 450 seniors in a middle class public school, I didn't yet understand privilege, that white people have it easier or that in reality, getting into Harvard isn't the most important thing in the world.
Having an Ivy League education isn't the most important thing you can do, and I would like to think I have been successful without it, however it does real psychic damage to children to be told they are not smart enough, not "well rounded" and personable enough. Be honest about different standards.
102
The number of comments making sweeping negative generalizations about Asians' personalities is very depressing.
I guess racial stereotyping is still acceptable against some people.
55
Discrimination against Asians is not limited to Ivy schools alone. During my career as a consultant at Fortune 500 corporations, I hardly came across top Asian executives (Executive Director, VP & up). Corporate meritocracy is a myth.
34
Here is where it all is heading. My friends son is an Engineering major at UC Berkeley (not Asian BTW). He is taking some math and science classes as he should. In all of his classes the test averages hover around 50/100, while he gets grades in the 90s (he is a product of very rigorous HS + smart). Engineering is the hardest major to get in at UCB and still tries to enforce academic rigor but justice warriors are in full force. You should watch youtube video of UCB students demanding A's from the professor because of their suffering.
17
A personality test? What could possibly go wrong..... Hey, that shy, brainy kid who got bullied didn't get into Harvard... But their bully schmoozed their way right in! Are we now operating college admissions the same way we do presidential elections? What message does this send kids? How is a culture supposed to survive with this kind of incentive system?
36
The economic rationale behind the Asian cap is donor money. It is likely that Harvard receives most of its donations from wealthy White individuals. If the school became seen as "too Asian" these donors would stop giving. Why give money to an institution they see as not benefiting "their" kind?
If there was no cap at the Ivy League schools, America's elite could become predominantly Asian American within a few generations. This sudden demographic change would receive major backlash and resentment from the White majority. The United States, whether you like it or not, is still a White, Western country that primarily serves this group's interests. No group relishes in seeing themselves become a minority in their own country.
Suppose the top universities in China became overwhelmingly White. Do you not think there would be backlash and attempts to limit their numbers as well? Of course there would.
59
I must admit Harvard did better than most when it came to a new justification for racism. Well done!
21
Curious. Hillel, a notable Jewish organization, lists that Jewish students constitute 67% of the Graduate student body at Harvard, presumably at the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS).
http://www.hillel.org/college-guide/list/record/harvard-university
Comparable figures for Asians at Harvard GSAS are not readily available, and will be interesting to review comparative historic profile of Asian student body at Harvard GSAS.
10
Some of the commenters here seem to believe that Harvard can accept a vast number of students with perfect grades and SAT scores and that they should just "let 'em all in."
My (so-called) elite alma mater receives applications in the high 40,000s for an entering freshman class numbering in the low thousands. That class will include foreign students, pre-selected athletics and yes, legacy applicants, a statistical fact that reduces the odds of anyone getting accepted to near zero. The truth is that almost everyone who applies from within the continental United States will not succeed.
As an alum interviewer of many years, I've met countless ambitious young people who've swotted for three long years, maximizing the number of AP courses they take and the lines on their resume of extra-curricular activities. Based on the guidelines outlined in my university's interview form, I'm expected to signal that unique applicant who stands above the crowd for initiative, drive, self-awareness, maturity and humane go-get-it-ness. You can be under-privileged and still have that spark. You can be over-privileged and still be a grind.
Given the numbers, the real scandal in higher education is that public universities, America's once golden path to the middle class, are being gutted at the state level It's easy to scapegoat Harvard and the Ivies for their elitism, but they gate keep a minuscule percentage of acceptances in the real world of college as a path to the future.
21
When I worked at Purdue, I was part of a task force to discuss and evaluate how well the Asian, and Asian-American population was acclimating to Purdue. The institution is about 22-25% Asian, and that's enough so many still speak their native languages, separate themselves in housing, restaurants, and even in what class sections they choose to take. So yes, I understand why Harvard is a little concerned. It takes significant effort on BOTH sides to create a diverse community, so regardless of test scores or graduation rates, colleges want to try and create an integrated student body.
21
I understand limiting ESL, because it does impact ones ability to succeed in the US. But a lot of these Asian American students were born here with English as a first language.
5
Is 22% considered a low percentage in relationship to the overall demographics of the population?
8
Which group of "successful Ivy-alumni" have contributed the most for the uplift of the "common good" in last 25 years? Or to put it more directly, who leads in altruism?
7
As a graduate of Harvard College I don’t need a study to know that certain groups are favored in the admissions process. The real outliers are the multi-generation legacies. They simply lacked the intellectual horsepower and unique talents of the other kids.
That said, I never lost sight of the fact that their presence allowed this poor student to attend Harvard for less than the cost of community college.
21
The question is also should those from ethnic groups without a history or willingness to subject kids to cram school culture from an early age make way fir over represented racial groups? America owes it to all citizens to ensure equal opportunity despite the influence of luck of which ethnic group or class one is born into.
6
This is besides the point, but I have a problem with the term Asian-American. Asia is a vast and diverse continent. Language, religion, culture vary greatly across the region. However the term 'Asian' in the college context usually means students whose heritage is from only a handful of countries. When I was a student, this always offended me because I wasn't that kind of 'Asian'.
9
At last year's Harvard commencement, Harvard president Drew Faust proudly declared that Harvard's new incoming class was minority majority. As a white person, that made me feel very unwelcome at Harvard.
The stat's in this article show minorities for incoming Harvard freshman in 2018 were 50.9%. Given that whites make up about 65% of the U.S, population, Harvard must have worked very hard to deny white applicants admission in order to achieve that racial make-up.
Several years ago I applied to grad school at Harvard. When I went for an interview with the professor I had applied to work with, the first thing he said was, "Well, you're not black, so that's not going to help you." I was stunned to hear him say that. I suspected minorities got preference in college admissions, but to hear a renowned Harvard professor actually say that shocked me. He said he was able to take only one student that year out of about 40 people who applied to work in his lab. He chose a black applicant. The applicant may have been the most qualified applicant, but based on the professor's comment to me I was left wondering if he was chosen in part based on racial preferences.
23
It surprises me that the Chinese government or Chinese billionaires don't open a University and recruit the best students on the basis of academic merit period.
13
"In court papers, Harvard said that a statistical analysis could not capture the many intangible factors that go into Harvard admissions."
Nonsense. So, Harvard, is anyone on your statistics faculty willing to say that under oath?
4
Discarding the angle that this is race related, don't you need a bit of gumption, compassion, inventitiveness and interest to succeed for your client?
I live in Tokyo. These things are in short supply. Rule of thumb: don't stand out. Nails that are sticking out get hammered in.
2
I am an Asian Indian. I have a son who was valedictorian in his junior class in high school this year. He got a score of 1490 on his SAT the first time he took it, which was last year, in the beginning of his junior year. His overall GPA is 4.5. Even after all this accomplishment, I am seriously doubtful that he would be admitted right away into Stanford or UC Berkeley, his top two choices mainly because of his ethnicity. If I was white, I would not be so worried. This is so sad.
17
As a 19 year Head of an independent school, I’ve observed the admission wars from the other side. I support affirmative action, as a remedy for historic disadvantage and as a means of creating a diverse class for educational vitality. The Abigail Fisher lawsuits were nearly frivolous, claiming damage where there was none. I contributed to a brief in support of the University of Texas.
But Harvard might well be hoist on its own petard and they deserve it.
While not alone in creating the elitist game, Harvard is certainly a prime player. Harvard and other “highly selective” universities have driven a near-manic chase for high SATs, stratospheric grade point averages and Advanced Placement classes. A generation of students is riddled with high stress, depression and eating disorders, chasing the ideal profile. Harvard and others not only drive the process, they capitalize on it by providing their glittering statistics to schemes like the annual U.S. News and World Report rankings. It is a vicious circle.
If Harvard and others want to craft diverse classes without being sued, then get out of the game. Defy the College Board craziness. Be test optional. Don’t reward the AP chase. Don’t participate in the annual U.S. News and World Report beauty contest.
As long as they are explicitly and implicitly setting the rules – and bragging about their own success in the game – it is reasonable to expect that they will follow them. They can’t have it both ways.
19
This is what comes of the obsession with ethnicity rather than merit. So is the idea that we can someday balance income genetically in a world where genes are constantly being mixed. The inclusion of "personality" as a factor, which is either intentionally phony or idiotic.
Stop basing admission on race and ethnicity completely, which means the courts, state/federal gov't also would have to stop allowing/making schools judge people by their genes. I'd rather see schools rate applicants as blind as possible to genetics, which would have to exclude their names and any pictures. It's not that hard. It should only be about merit, which could include extra-curricular activities like sports, music, art, etc. I realize, of course, that many people will say that doing that is inherently racist because historic discrimination will favor certain groups over others if you actually make it fair. But, looking at all of the years of focusing on diversity and it seems it has exacerbated the problem, caused more litigation, divisiveness and bitterness. This has been long debated. As many others have said, the only way to stop racism is to stop racism. Parents of young children should be emphasizing education, not victimization. States can and should help less financially successful neighborhoods with education, but not based on ethnicity. The so-called civil rights movement now has killed Dr. King's dream over and over and made ethnicity the prominent factor.
8
Wait.
The economist working for the plaintiffs excluded legacies, athletes, and children of faculty and staff from the analysis because it would complicate the racial focus of the analysis?
Since when do economists working in education analyses ever admit that they cannot model anything?
5
As an Asian-American who knows many friends and relatives who went to Harvard, I fully agree that we do have “lower” personality as defined by western culture. But, I see that as an advantage in certain situations, such as workplace harmony and efficiency. The same reason Americans don’t do well in Asian schools and corporations.
That being said, I think Harvard is a private institution and can admit anyone based on any standard they want. I would not necessarily hire a Harvard graduate over a local community college graduate.
22
I don’t think it’s unfair. In most top colleges including Harvard, Asians already dominate admissions.
It is a testimony to their hard work and dedication, but at the same time I regret how the bar keeps getting raised. We can fool ourselves and believe these model children are real leaders and examples, while in reality they have been robbed of much of their teen years while their parents pushed them relentlessly, carefully crafting their curricula vitae from a young age. There should always be room for spontaneous, creative, surprising candidates.
22
For goodness sake, why has it not been made limpid to Asians and Asian Americans, that there is more to Harvard, Yale, Princeton than grades alone, test score or the various memorization schemes. These are not a good indicators of intelligence, doing well in school , high grade and preppy school does not mean zilch There is a whole new approach to college acceptance; this new approach is driven by today’s competitive global market. College admission committees have come to recognize the differences between linear and abstract intelligence. Linear which is solely driven by memorization and test taking which has been dismissed as having zero correlation to later success or core intellectual benchmark; typically linear students possess none of the essential quality or life skills needed to succeed in today’s global marketplace. Recently Jeff Bezos of Amazon spoke in depth on the subject stating, “ I do not care whether someone went to college or has been awarded a degree, I am looking for really smart people, I am looking for result”. Case in point Steve Jobs an average to mediocre student at best. Wile on the subject, the great Jack Welch G.E former boss, who kept us all glued with his (4 E’s) most notable ones ability to (E)xecute. Asians need to mature and get a grip, admission councils look for well rounded people with leadership qualities, social and inter-personnel skills, ability to get alone with various people,
12
It's hard to measure the importance of the marginal cases of the academic elite of the elite.
On the one hand, we are talking about the marginal cases at the top 6% of high school students applying to the Ivies: those rejected from Harvard, for whatever reason legal or illegal, are not going to a life of crime and destituteness, they're going to Columbia or Princeton, so now they've "fallen" to the top 7% instead.
What difference does that make?
Even if all the Ivies are in on it, discriminating against Asian-Americans, are Asian-Americans as a group suffering?
On the other hand, marginal cases do make a difference, at least for individuals who may have a wider impact on society.
Take Obama, he got into Columbia (and presumably not Harvard undergrad), which got him eventually into Harvard Law. What if he didn't get into Harvard Law, and another presumably more academically qualified (on paper) Asian-American took his place instead?
Would Obama never have become president?
Even if Harvard Law was the only way by which America could get its first Black president, did African-Americans as a group in fact benefit from the Obama's presidency? (Cornell West would argue no.)
What if Clarence Thomas never got into Yale Law? Would we have a better black justice on the Supreme Court today?
6
Here's a proposal.
In order to make strides in this debate, what if all colleges agree to this, for a 10-year period?
1) Delete the part of the application where an applicant checks the box(es) for race/ethnicity.
2) All applicants will be given an "applicant number" only—so that their names don't give away their race/ethnicity
In the real world, no college would ever agree to this, so let me remind all college applicants:
You do NOT need to check off any box when asked to identify your race or ethnicity. You can leave it blank. If the Common Application online, or a college's online application, forces you to pick a box, pick "Other."
11
This suit is absurd, and the group behind it is a right wing cabal whose goal is to embarrass the Ivy League colleges. They have always been against what they see as liberal, progressive education institutions. This has nothing to do with Asian representation at these colleges. The fact is that the best rounded student is more likely to succeed and be beneficial to society as a whole. Test taking skills, and rote memorization have been proven to quench creativity and individuality.
10
Just eliminate race as an admissions factor and let the chips fall where they may. If education is the mission, academic performance should be the criterion.
"The mission of Harvard College is to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society."
Just do that. It will be fine.
9
I am "Asian American" - born in India and graduated from CALTECH.
I definitely would not want to come to America and study with 45% of students from Asia or as is the case, it seems, Chinese.
I would want to be in a multi racial, well rounded, and with different perspectives - as heterogeneous a group as there can be.
Speaking for myself, I was much enriched at CALTECH - NOT just because of education, but other American "things" I picked.
Who would have thought that a kid who had never seen baseball is now a baseball nut - having been to all MLB parks, World Series, and College World series.
It's all because of a kid (at that time) called Carl - an Oakie from Muscogee.
To me, this lawsuit is especially insulting because these Asian Americans have so much more choice.
Think CALTECH.
23
Obvious and now, with these new disclosures, transparent discrimination against better qualified candidates.The Ivy's will not survive these revelations. The best State Universities will eclipse the Ivy's as the most sought after educational positions. As our burgeoning tech company giants have clearly demonstrated,exemplary performance is the primary, if not sole, criterion for success in this economy. Affirmative Action of any kind, favoring any race or gender, is shortly destined to be obliterated by sheer race and gender blind meritocracy. The market is brutal and does not care about your skin color, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, etc. It only cares about your performance.
3
Having seen so many commentators who claimed they studied in Harvard hypocritically defended the school’s blatant discriminatory practices against Asian Americans, I am determined not to send my daughters to Harvard, because the school failed to teach their students the basic value of justice. Their notion that any private university can freely discriminate against a race for a pleasant “diversified” class is really troubling.
20
Hispanic Americans are the most under-represented group in these stats. Let's be real, student qualifications are as much a product of the educational background of each individual student, which is highly attributable to income; as school district funding is usually linked to where the student lives geographically. Since academic performance is highly linked to income, not innate ability, then these admission criteria should be seeking a balance akin to national demographics and thus, Asian Americans have little room for complaint as they are far over-represented. Should children of Anesthesiologist be more represented at Harvard than children of single mothers in blue collar jobs? Because that is a huge contributor to income and thus school district and thus quality of education.
6
"Minority" vs "Underrepresented minority"
Fine distinction that shows up in academia. If the institution wants its freshman class to have a specified demographic profile, ethnic groups will necessarily be judged differently from eachother.
Many policies that are necessary on a population-level are inherently unfair on an individual level. Insurance companies do it, too.
7
The bottom line problem isn't how diverse Harvard is. The problem is the belief that a few select schools are so superior that the importance of their admission policies are obsessed upon. I leaned this lesson the hard way. I got a free ride to go to an excellent New York
City school and a regular invitation to go to Harvard. My mother pretty much ordered me to go to Harvard. In retrospect, going to the New York City school for free was the better option, particularly in light of my eventual career.
What I didn't know when I was a Massacusetts kid was that the top schools draw largely from the two coasts and those in between make different kinds of decisions -- whether for the elite schools, top small schools, state universities, or other schools. And their parents are much more laid back about it than those on the coasts.
If Harvard accepts 3% from New York and California, they probably accept close to 10% from the landlocked states, suggesting that self-selection works a lot better than parental pressure. Without pressure, kids can look at their applications and make their best decisions about where they want to go applying to fewer reach schools. I'd say that the kids from Illinois to Nevada tend to reach for what they can attain, while too many in New York and California all want the same thing.
8
I'm only being mildly sarcastic when I say that the next generation of Asians will be less successful than this cohort. As a music teacher of elite students, most of them Asian, I have started to see the decline in preparation and commitment to music study. I believe a lot of it has to do with Harvard's own positioning of athleticism as a criterion for admission. We start to see, in recent years, 5'5" junior high school kids trying to compete in basketball and track and field, wearing themselves out, trying to do everything wonderfully, even when the result cannot be stellar. In a few years, the Asians applying to the Ivies will be just like the American kids: "Well-rounded" and without any particular exceptional performances in any categories. There are only 24 hours in a day, and even at Harvard, you can't be great at everything.
13
All top students have the same background: High gpa, extracurriculars, volunteerism, travel (often), artistic and creative endeavors. Personality via the personal interview and essay often is vital to the acceptance process, and many students will not fare as well as others. Harvard is creating a new town each year and it is looking for good citizens. Empathy, kindness, courage, and communication skills are essential to making that town thrive.
8
Under that rationale the race makeup should be pretty volatile and sporadic, some classes should have 80% Asian, maybe some others 5%. But conveniently Asian Americans make up 20% year after year.
And how do you determine personality without even meeting the applicant, like the article says? Looks like a quota to me
13
This lawsuit is totally misguided. A lot of learning in a place like Harvard occurs outside of the classroom in peer interactions with students of different backgrounds in the immersive culture of a residential college. The University can and should be able to consider the total student and their backgrounds in the admissions process. GPAs and SATs are just two data points. Geography, leadership, volunteer, work history and many other factors, and even ethnicity, if used to make a diverse student body, are legitimate.
12
Yes but racial discrimination and quotas are illegal. Supreme Court ruled family and cultural background can be a factor in admissions, but you cannot have race quotas. Theoretically every graduating class should have a volatile makeup in terms of race under Supreme Court ruling, but Harvard’s class is 20% Asian American every year conveniently.
Asian American applicants scored negatively on personality traits without admissions staff even meeting them. What does that tell you?
13
I believe there is also a "private school bias" in admissions at the elite colleges. The elite private schools have special relationships with the elite colleges and know how to get their favorite students admitted. They can spend more time on their students recommendations and they probably know their students better because of their smaller class sizes.
It is a complex situation and needs a lot more study; it is not enough to just use broad statistical measures.
18
About time. Bias against Asian-Americans, implicit or otherwise, is used to deny top positions in many schools and many industries. And we all miss out when real talent is pushed aside.
54
Economic 101:
With China determined to overtake the US, by 2025, the US needs the smartest minds she can find.
We are in a global competitive world. You do not win global competitions on personality traits. You win, by having smarter knowledge workers than others.
91
True, the US is no longer the biggest manufacturer and exporter of the globe, a position held for very a century. China is.
3
As an asian american, I find it unfortunate that this particular plaintiff filed this suit - it makes it so easy for everyone to dismiss valid findings because of this guy’s supposed agenda.
Let us be very clear - Harvard’s “criteria” to get the “best student body” is a big sick joke. There is absolutely no objectivity to the process - it is very easy to game the system to the exact racial proportions they want. It is all driven by the need to increase the size of their already large endowment, and a mix of other factors (rankings, reputation, reaearch grants etc.). While there’s nothing wrong in itself - I believe as a private institution they are entitled to do whatever they want short of blatant racism - pretending that it is all for the best student experience is demonstrably wrong. Where is the evidence that ~20% asians etc. leads to the best student outcomes?
Call it what it is - capitalism and supply/demand at work. Maybe asian americans who don’t agree should boycott applying to such institutions - better yet, maybe we should establish new institutions of higher learning that admits students solely based on objective criteria... it would be an intereting experiment for sure.
136
Using objective criteria only inevitably leads to bias for what is easily measured, resulting in only those candidates with the strongest analytical skills and an obligatory sauce of extracurricular activities pushed by the parents that my generation didn’t need yet to get in. It’s a good thing to allow discretion in the admission process to let in some non-conventional students who stand out in different ways.
4
If Harvard is biased, then go where you would be treasured, and make a valuable contribution there, using all the resources at your disaposal, cultural, ties, being the sons and daughters of 2 great cultures ( East and West)!
A collective decision when made together is like that saying about the chopsticks, bunched together. In time, the effect will be clearly felt.
3
Ipot, those "institutions of higher learning" you speak of exist...they are the U of California schools. Two of the best universities in the country (Berkeley and UCLA) admit without regard to race, looking at test scores and grades and HS curriculum. And they both have about 40% Asian American students. Harvard knows that would be the outcome if it did not weight race (its own 2013 study predicted 43% Asian American students if only academics were considered). Harvard has decided it does not want to be 40% Asian American, hence they use the falsely low "personality" scores which intentionally bring the percentage of Asian Americans to about 20% every year.
6
Linked is the definitive article on the logic of Ivy League university admissions:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in
12
Bias--seeing things from a skewed angle or POV--conceptually--is hard to prove statistically. Though it would be a form of wrongful discrimination like pre-judgment and conflict of interest--letting irrelevant facts count or not counting all relevant ones.
It's not unlike racial profiling. Statistically some group have have a higher incidence of crime. But that does not prove that the individual accused committed the crime as charged. Certainly not beyond a reasonable doubt.
At best it justifies suspicion--and further investigation--provided the suspect is not harassed, detained or otherwise interfered with.
And it may even be that the stats are the result of fair--good discrimination--in each case.
This sounds like pure and simple discrimination, and it's not the only aspect of the admissions process that is such: almost every school in the country (save a few engineering-dominant campuses) has a much more favorable acceptance rate among male candidates than for female ones. Many colleges have stated that they do not want to go much more than a few percentage points off the 50/50 point, but to keep the ratios at, say, 55%female/45% male, they must admit a much higher percentage of the male applicants than the female ones. The argument that is made is for a "balanced" campus environment, but until that same balance is sought and achieved by upper echelons of all institutions - education, commercial, non-profit, government - this strikes me as discrimination as well. From their own data, it was almost 30% easier to get into Brown as a male, over 25% easier to get into Amherst as a male, and over 20% easier to get into Middlebury and Georgetown if you are a young man versus a woman. This is being borne out throughout higher ed, and should be, like the discrimination against Asian Americans, corrected.
68
We know for sure that the Asian academic achievement is not some innate, genetic characteristic that Asians have. Otherwise the world order would look quite different. More likely it is a consequence of family support, a focus on academics, personal responsibility. In addition the tendency to immigrate across an ocean to a country with a completely different culture, language, etc implies a higher intelligence, tolerance of risk, and a deep desire to improve one's future.
113
In Rachel Torr's book, Admissions Confidential, she mentions that Asian Americans often scored poorly in the recommendations category of Duke's application process. She states that this was due to many teachers describing Asian students as being quiet in class. When a school can afford to be very particular in their admissions policy, it is hard to say if this is racial bias. Toor also states that they looked for teacher recommendations that described a student as "the best student I've seen in twenty years of teaching", rather than someone bright, dedicated and diligent. The whole process has gotten out of hand.
19
Once one gets over a certain age, one realizes that the idea of "objective criteria" when it comes to college admissions (particularly at the top schools) or selecting job applicants (again, particularly at the most sought after employers) is pure fantasy. The concerns of the people suing Harvard are legitimate. At the same time, in my personal life, I have met kids who come from Asian/White/Black/Hispanic upper middle class families who see their children as their most valuable investments and put them through all sorts of preparation for college admissions. I have also met Asian/White/Black/Hispanic kids from poor families who don't have the same access to college preparation opportunities. This is the reality of the United States in 2018 and will be 20 years from now. Is it possible to speak of "purely meritocratic admissions" under these circumstances? Hardly. At the same time, admitting students who haven't gone through the hard college admission preparation process is risky, even though many will adjust to the rigor of a top university after some time. In short, the whole thing is a mess. My opinion is that the cure to these problems is something the US has been doing well throughout the years: maximize opportunities for access at different levels, for example continue to admit in graduate school students who don't come from top schools and make an extra effort to reach out to them.
17
One additional observation: Perhaps Harvard's problem is that it does not have enough "resources" dedicated to Diversity & Inclusion. A page from the playbook of the University of Michigan might help. This university has 93 employees in the Diversity & Inclusion department at a total cost (wages & benefits) of over $11 Million annually The head of this department makes $396,550 not including benefits.
This is one of many examples of how out of control this obsession with diversity has become.
77
A majority of Supreme Court justices went to Harvard. If this case went to the highest court and they had to recuse themselves, it would be decided by three Yalies with Clarence Thomas the swing vote. If they all recused themselves because they were all Ivy Leaguers, they would have to dig pretty deep amongst appellate court judges to impanel impartial jurists.
21
Rick,
Which is why I should be nominated and approved
by the Senate whenever the next opening
occurs on the Supreme or Federal Court(s).
3
I care far less about the percentage of Asians being admitted to elite schools like my alma mater than I do about the percentage of low-income and first-generation students being admitted. And in that regard, Harvard is doing better, unlike the 38 colleges (including 5 other ivies) with more students from the top 1 percent than the bottom 60 percent.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have...
27
Let's be serious. How can an 18-year old distinguish himself or herself in being kind, courageous, and warm?
91
"Positive personality," "likability,", and "widely respected" are subjective to racial, ethnic, and cultural bias. Boasting, exaggerated confidence, speaking loudly, and projecting an air of individuality may look positive to some, but negative to others. And then there's the issue of balance, which is difficult to score, but more important that "how much of x does someone have, assuming the the higher score is better."
I'd like to know more about the demographics and backgrounds of the interviewers, not just the interviewees.
44
There is a simpler alternative to the current quagmire. We can simply use annual income of the applicant's parents. Since being poor is a major handicap, this will level the playing field.
28
High quality, accessible and low cost education is a basic social right of every person. Trillions must be spent on it. That is the only fight worth fighting here.
20
This doesn't seem all that difficult to understand. Just as the GOP is attempting to stem the rising tide of a non-white population and voting constituency, Harvard is trying to stem the tide of non-white intellectual superiority in it's admissions policy.
16
the solution is simple. For every application received, remove the names and ethnicity. and judge only what's on it.
176
What's interesting to me, is the last paragraph in this article that indicates 3 groups that are over-represented relative to their percentage of the U.S. They are African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Native Americans/Pacific Islanders.
The NY Times writes, "Harvard’s class of 2021 is 14.6 percent African-American, 22.2 percent Asian-American, 11.6 percent Hispanic and 2.5 percent Native-American or Pacific Islander, according to Harvard’s website."
This is how much each of those 3 groups are over-represented (with % of U.S. population in parentheses): African-Americans only slightly (13% of the population), Asians by more than 4 times (5%), and Native Americans/Pacific Islanders by about 50% (1.5%).
Not shown or mentioned: 49.1% of people accepted into Harvard non-Hispanic white, even though they're 63% of the U.S. population.
What's true is that Asian and non-Hispanic white Americans do the best on SAT scores, and other statistical measurements.
My conclusions: Harvard is possibly the most elite school, so the fact that other elite schools can't draw more than 5% African Americans, for example, indicates Harvard is trying exceptionally hard to boost their racial diversity to match the U.S. demographics -- and even exceed them.
Is that a bad thing? I'm not sure. Will some students on the margins who are white or Asian not make it into Harvard? Absolutely. SFFA said based on pure academics Asian-American students would be 43% of the Harvard student body.
25
Or maybe Harvard is pulling in all the highly-qualified AA applicants it can find by taking advantage of its huge endowment, and offering fantastic financial packages.
Oh, and many of the black students are in fact recent immigrants from Africa, not descendants of slaves in the US. They look just as good in the glossy brochures....
19
As an Asian-American student who just committed to a college, I struggled a lot with this issue. The sense within the community is often that the cards are heavily stacked against Asian students; the data available to the public so far - as detailed in the article - certainly seem to support that conclusion. It is unsurprising that many students feel slighted. As a high-achieving student and citizen, I wondered for awhile - along with many students like me - if not being an “overrepresented minority” would have netted me admission to a top-10 school like Harvard. Yet, there is far more nuance to it, as with all racial issues in this country.
I was fortunate enough to grow up in a upper-middle class household in a good school district, with access to many critical college-prep resources at school and at home. Many economically disavantaged students - disproportionally represented by the racial minorities purportedly favored in the college admissions process - aren’t as lucky. At its core, AA is designed to help the disadvantaged, those that are still feeling the effects of decades of oppression. In this regard, perhaps it is doing its job. Who am I to decide that leveling the playing field is unfair when many students never had the opportunities I have? Then again, plenty of Asians are from similarly disadvantaged backgrounds. Perhaps that speaks to the true solution - maybe the fair way to improve representation is to consider family income and location, not just race.
75
The standardized tests can be gamed. More preparation and the buying of study services matter. Please note that anyone with a perfect score on any of these tests actually does not have a perfect score because a question or group of questions can be misleading or actually have an answer that is not logical. There is almost no differential in ability between a 33 or 34 or 35 or 36 on the ACT. I applaud U of Chicago for making a change in admissions. People ask how that can do that and all one has to reply is take a statistics course or two and you will see why other predictors do just as well as the ACT or SAT. Overly weight these test also add a level of bias.
12
"It is well documented that these scores [PSAT and GPA] vary by race."
Details about test scores and their correlation with race would be interesting. The scores might indicate that academic ability and/or performance varies by race and thus could serve to justify discriminatory practices. Some people just aren't suited for college and yet many of these get into college anyway, especially into the lower-rated colleges.
4
Ultimately problems always surface when any criteria is used other than competence (with competence relative to the specific situation. In other words anything less than a pure meritocracy, whether in business, film or university admissions is a recipe for some type of failure. (And yes, a pure meritocracy would also eliminate legacy from being an admission advantage).
8
Give it up people, holistic admissions are lame. They provide too much cover for questionable behavior. It also give the students who are accepted the impression that they somehow deserved to be admitted over similarly qualified candidates, when they actually very similar to students who get into most other elite colleges. Just set an transparent academic bar and make it a lottery. This is IF we really consider these institutions to be bastions of the best and brightest. I don't have any illusions they are given they continue to have legacy admissions, z-lists, and preferences for children of the rich, famous, and powerful who are able to donate significant amounts after their children graduate. It's bad enough we have to deal with the idea that a school like Harvard is a signal for being the best and brightest given the issues that have been written about elite college admissions, it's the song and dance we have to endure where Harvard wants to be seen as having the best, when in fact they are seeking to create a student body with a certain make-up. I don't have a problem with this if they were up front about this. If they were up front about this then we could revoke they tax-exempt status.
Anyway I know where the best and brightest go: Caltech.
40
Another demonstration of deep-seated, perhaps unconscious bias influencing supposedly "neutral" human systems, and the damage it does to targets of the bias. The "us" and "them" differentiation, a subtle form of tribalism, is everywhere we look but especially pronounced where physical attributes - skin color, shape of features, etc. - signal "their" presence in the feared or belittled population of "others". We won't overcome it, despite the best of wills, unless each of us sees it at work within oneself, moment by moment, reaction by reaction, and negate its operation on the spot.
7
All of this begs the question of what agenda selective universities are serving through the admissions process. Is the agenda to identify students who can thrive at the university, or is the agenda to build the reputation, prestige and power (and money) of the institution by cultivating an alumni body with power and prestige? It ought to be the former, but it seems the latter is more likely.
Here's a crazy idea: Use the admissions process to identify a large pool of students who can hack the work (e.g., 5x the number of the incoming 1st year class) and then select applicants from within that pool at random.
21
What I would be more interested is in the diversity of evaluators of applicants. By diverse, I don't necessarily mean apparent diversity (as in ethnic, racial, religion) but more pertinently diversity of culture and politics that often determine what is considered the "norm" for an applicant. If the evaluators are less diverse, at any of the level of admission decision making, the argument put forth has wheels.
8
It's fairly simple. To avoid admitting Asian-American students based on the only relevant and knowable criteria of grades, test scores, teacher recommendations, application essays, and extra-curricular activities and accomplishments (these latter categories tell Admissions a great deal about character, by the way), Harvard has created "soft" categories (the character traits listed at the beginning of this article) in order to produce a numerical total that counters the effect of high scores in relevant categories. In like manner, it uses those character-trait categories to raise the scores of students whom it wishes to admit.
36
yes. basically the movement is to go away from tangible criteria, to make it so it is more difficult to prove discrimination.
11
This just in: Harvard introduces 3 new categories with which to rank applicants:
1) the swimsuit competition
2) the evening gown competion
3) Olympic figure skating ("artistic" scores only)
3
I worked at Harvard for a year and was amazed. Harvard students are incredible, not just because of their raw intelligence as judged by standardized test scores. Most of them have some other talent or skill or something to contribute, whether it is playing violin in the orchestra, athletics, or building robots. Harvard's educational community is outstanding because of the diversity created by the admissions process. The diversity is not just racial but geographic (national and international), male, female, and talent-based. It would be a significant downgrade in what this great institution can provide if admissions were force-fit into some kind of judgment on IQ or whatever. The last paragraph says a lot...this is already a more diverse environment than almost any, but within those statistics are many of our best young people, ALL of which deserve to be there. This is how you create success through synergy.
46
Any rating of applicants' personalities will be closely tied to the preferences of the raters, something always affected by cultural biases. Different cultures even have different concepts of what a "personality" is, and often a trait valued positively in one culture is valued negatively in another. Any attempt to rate applicants' personalities as factors in determining admission "fairly" is doomed to failure unless these inherent biases can be avoided. It is unclear this is even possible.
A better idea is to never allow vague personality factors to enter into admissions decisions.
58
Asian-Americans and other people of color are substantially represented on Harvard's admissions committee, but the study doesn't say whether Asian-American admission officers rank the applications of Asian Americans differently from other admissions officers. Certainly it would be valuable to know if the race or ethnicity of an admissions officer informs their judgment of an applicant's personal qualities.
17
What criteria is Harvard supposed to descriminate on? They have 97% who are going to be rejected because of finite supply. Most people won't be happy.
It's all quite easy to say academic performance. But that's a game in and of itself. Who hired the most tutors. Who took the exams the most times. Etc...
An unbiased approach would be to just let families bid and the top 3% of bidders get in. But is a student body filled with trust fund babies worth attending?
As a white male who graduated from an ivy - I don't want to see more white males or more Asians. We're overrepresented already. And frankly, to over generalize, we're boring classmates.
27
"Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than any other race on personal traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected...”
If that isn't racial stereotyping and blatant discrimination, I don't know what is.
105
Glad that Harvard which has preached transparency to all others was caught hiding so much of its own dirt laundries. Harvard has been getting too complacent. Getting caught may make Harvard get better again.
30
As a white female at the University of Chicago I am continually exposed to the disproportionate amount of Asian students and Asian American students that attend the university. While attending Phillips Exeter Academy I experienced the same phenomena.
A vitally important component of the college experience is engaging with people from completely different cultural backgrounds; if Harvard were to admit on a purely merit system and create a class with a 46% Asian student body, the cultural experience of going to Harvard would greatly be diminished. We often misplace selective institutions as being places where intellectualism trumps all other characteristics, however, such a mindset fails to comprehend the multiplicity of intellectualism. Some people express themselves through athletics, artistic endeavors, working on computer programs, or an infinitude of other things—and the value of such endeavors are not inextricably linked to GPA or standardized test scores. From my experience in selective schools, I am a great proponent of creating a diverse class based on a multitude of characteristics, even if they be subjective.
1
Did Jared Kushner have high scores in all categories for
acceptance to Harvard???
70
Hypocrisy enthusiastically practiced by Left-slouching "progressives" ? After decades spent trying to teach their offsprings --- "the future leaders of the world" --- I am not surprised.
(And no, this article and my remark have nothing to do with who is in the White House.)
17
"And no, this article and my remark have nothing to do with who is in the White House."
Oh, I think it does and perhaps a closer look should be taken as to the background of Who is in the White House. The current Commander In Chief is not a "liberal", isn't progressive isn't a Harvard grad and wasn't groomed for high office. Indeed, he has no qualifications to govern. And yet, he's the president of the United States, the highest office in the land which would indicate that the "future leaders of the world" are coming from very different places than "Left-slouching progressive" families. If the trend continues, getting into an elite school will be the least of everyone's worries in the future. Oh, yes.
2
The suit is flawed.
Without a concrete definition of "Asian-American" the term is not meaningful. On one hand, it is too broad both in defining "Asian" ancestry (fifty countries or more) and too imprecise in defining "American". If you read the suit, they seem to waffle on the usage too by citing examples naming "Asians" but extending the harms variously to "Asian-Americans and Asian Americans.
I taught and advised community college students in San Francisco with ancestry from an innumerable number of "Asian" countries, and "Asian" ancestry students from North, Central, South America and Europe. I rarely knew of their status here (it came up only when students volunteered the information) but status could be: tourist or student Visa holder; probationary immigrant; green card holder; naturalized citizen; birthright citizen and undocumented. This is not to mention those who may be of half-Asian ancestry.
For the purpose of Admissions, Were all of them "Americans"? For one thing, Harvard and peers no longer require proof of citizenship for admissions (which washes out any privilege for Americans, it would seem).
Thus, Who, exactly, gets included in the lawsuit, and Who is entitled to protection in a US court? I don't think there is a class sufficiently defined here to constitute a class action, though that should be for a court to decide.
On a side note, all of my students had much by the way of personality and diverse interest. Harvard does make mistakes.
12
Well, Mr. Kox: all schools keep statistics on their students demographics. Maybe to stop racial discrimination is to stop discriminate based on race( Chief Justice Roberts).
And I am a liberal!
1
Someone commented "They choose students among the brightest 20,000 who will best represent the world we live in, will bring the best to MIT, and work well together. Harvard is like MIT they get to cherry pick among the smartest kids in the world.".
And somehow magically the above criteria always keeps the admitted Asian Americans percent around 20.
44
UC Berkeley [better than Harvard] has over 60% enrollment of Asian Americans..It all balances out..
24
Blatant reverse discrimination!
22
Harvard and many other schools are dependent upon the generous donations from alumni. Philanthropy plays a huge part of these institutions. How much are first or second generation Americans willing to give back? Or foreign students? This is part of the selection process consideration. Yes, yes it is.
18
“Intangible qualities” are code words for race in the context of university admissions. The Supreme Court said that race can be one factor in a holistic assessment but not the sole factor. Since it’s impossible to truly evaluate an intangible concept like a holistic analysis, it has become the way for universities to discriminate on the basis of race. As the numbers clearly demonstrate is happening. The way to stop discriminating based on race is to stop discriminating based on race.
47
exactly. this shifting of criteria away from things you can measure is actually quite disturbing, as things like personality are often things that are born and cannot be changed, no matter how much a person works at it. Now you're basically telling college applicants that they are going to be admitted or rejected based on something that they cannot change, just to engineer a desired outcome. How Harvard believe this is a good idea long-term is pretty baffling.
6
It's an open secret that there is a conscious and unspoken effort at Harvard and other elite universities to limit Asian students below some soft quota. What I find to be the saddest thing and most damaging to Asian kids is, in order to do that, the schools give them artificially low scores in subjective traits like personality, courage, likability, leadership etc. That's a smear to their personality, hard work and achievements.
I appreciate the importance of having a diverse student body and giving all ethnic groups a chance to attain better education, but let's at least tell all kids the truth: if you happen to be one of the luckier Americans and not in one of the disadvantaged groups, then the standard to get into Harvard is higher for you. If because of that you don't get into Harvard, you are helping one of the disadvantaged kids and our larger society, you should be proud of it. It's not because you are not good enough, not likable, not courageous or lack leadership etc. Such lies hurt a kid more that not getting into Harvard.
91
An Asian American student must work hard to better then next Asian American student in the class and in the high school to gain admission to gain admission to a competitive college.
An Asian American student competes against other Asian American students as if they live in Asia, but they watch for the criteria for the elite American University standards.
Affirmative action punishes one minority group to favor another minority group. The majority group is largely unaffected by the affirmative action. What a fantastic way!
37
I imagine Harvard made a decision to discriminate against Asians because they did not qualify for standard PC diversity quotas, and then chose the only wholly subjective measure they could find to "justify" their policy
58
An alternative perspective: Maybe the Asian culture overvalues academic achievement at the expense of developing a well-rounded personality. I don't understand why this would be the fault of an American institution such as Harvard. When I was rejected to graduate schools I applied to, I figured that that was my fault. The lesson is that life is not like a vending machine and you will not necessarily reap the rewards of everything you believe you entitled to just because you made the effort. Not everything in life is a commodity to be bought and sold.
36
Things like personality are often innate qualities, and not things that can be changed. A component of every personality test measures a subconscious aspect that cannot be "taught" away. The idea that focusing on academics is going to change your personality is flawed at best. It is just as likely that the applicants at the top of the class got there BECAUSE of their personality, and not vice versa. So you are comfortable telling a kid that they didn't get into Harvard because of something they can't fully control? How is it that any different than discriminating by skin color?
10
I find the notion that Asians have underdeveloped personalities or are somehow all the same to be highly offensive.
6
I would like to know the proportion by race/ethnicity of Harvard tenured faculty. Does Harvard assess its faculty on the basis of the 'the personal?'
17
Vaguely reminiscent of Harvard's previous practice of quotas to limit Jewish admissions. Social engineering is painful and antithetical to merit selection and the presumption of equality.
30
Frankly, the "intangible" qualities are what make the student body at Harvard so unique. There is absolutely nothing wrong with including measures such as leadership potential, commitment to public service, and a demonstrated ability to engage others as criteria for admission. Such measures are likewise used by just about every other institution beyond academia in selecting their employees, members, etc. Why should a college be any different?
16
But were the students in fact selected for such things as leadership potential and commitment to public service, or were they selected to achieve numerical racial targets? That is the exactly the question being asked at trial. Let's see all the evidence.
1
The problem is not that intangibles are included in the admissions process. It's that they seem to be OUTWEIGHING academic performance, such that Asian-American applicants are being significantly weighed down.
2
I read of a Swedish government study (published by the Harvard Business School) of why women entrepreneurs did not win as many venture capital funding as their male counterparts; it was primarily a study of the language of how VC firms evaluated whom to fund. VCs used words like “promising” to describe young male entrepreneurs with little experience, whereas female entrepreneurs of similar age and experience with words like “unseasoned." In describing female entrepreneurs who had presented a lot of research and data for their idea, they used words like “smart but lacking leadership skills,” whereas for males, words like “thorough.”
The point is that a tremendous amount of implicit bias, whether gender or race based, is applied when one group in power judges something subjective as “personality."
This issue has been used by whites to pit Hispanics and African Americans against Asians. But it seems to me from what's reported in this piece that the percentage of white students would certainly go down further, not African Americans and Hispanics admissions, if Harvard didn't hide behind the 'personality' criteria.
I don't think any ethnic group would have a problem with lower percentage of whites on campus if it were merit based... that is, except the people who are in charge of the university and its admissions, who are majority white I'd guess.
The personality criteria is a front for implicit bias and a way to ensure whites remain the majority race on campus.
41
exactly. the spirit of diversity hiring/admissions seems to be "keep the whites where they are, tinker with the other levers".
2
What does personality have to do with academic success? This is so totally unreal! And we can go on and on---what does race have to do with academic success? Gender orientation? Religion? Country of origin?
How would any college know about personality without in-depth knowledge through prolonged relationships with prospective students?
35
So, given that Harvard discriminates in its admissions process, how is it that it has ANY Government contracts, student loans, etc? Time to hit Harvard where it hurts and cancel all of this. Then Harvard can discriminate all it wants without running afoul of any government regulations.
17
The comments that assume the dichotomy between technical score-driven robots and well-rounded individuals, and the assumption that Asian-Americans fall under the former demonstrates bias. The article already states extra-cirricular activities and leadership roles are comparable with White applicants. So what exactly are the personality ratings assessing?
Maybe the so-called negative personality traits would not manifest so often in minority students, as Harvard would like us to believe, if these students KNOW their hard work will be fairly rewarded. However, this is cause-and-effect is only afforded to white males.
The NYTimes recently had an article about imposter syndrome affecting minorities in high-performing areas. Being told you don't fit based on your personality seems directly correlated.
24
I am surprised that anyone is surprised by this so-called revelation.
As long as we have had human beings, human beings have devised new and more creative, more imaginative ways to one-up each other with various stratagems, while putting a couldn't-help-it sheen on it. Nothing new here, despite that Veritas thing somewhere.
To really call Harvard's bluff here, someone needs to ask for data on how they handled the applications of the other minorities, the African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans.
And that will be the real eye-opener...
25
This is why law schools have no interviews. Period. Personality is simply a "like us" evaluation and is totally cultural.
40
It's ironic that today Jewish American students with white skins are now classified as 'whites'. For a very long time in the USA, that was not the case.
And who is this homogenous 'racial group' to whom the NYT and others insist upon referring as 'Asians'? That's the real racism in America: lumping together into one molasses, the thousands of richly diverse, disparate and completely different ethnic groups, social classes, castes, languages and cultures from the Middle East (excluding the Near East) and from the Far East.
49
This kind of pervasive bias is why Asian Americans are so focused on academic achievement. You need prestigious credentials just to get the same opportunity as a lesser qualified but “more likable” job candidate. There have been studies that found the exact same resume will garner twice as many interview requests if it has a White name rather than an Asian name. Resumes that suggest the applicant is Black did even worse. People who think racism against Asian Americans doesn’t exist at Harvard, in the workplace, or in America are wrong. You get tired of having to be better just to get less than everyone else.
107
If you want to not let me into a university because I represent a racial/ethnic group that is 5% of the population and 20% of the student body, just say that. Don't tell me it's because I have a bad personality!
169
Mindy Kaling's brother wrote about how he pretended to be black to get into medical school. When he submitted as Indian, which I believe is still counted as "Asian-American", he was rejected.
https://nypost.com/2015/04/12/mindy-kalings-brother-explains-why-he-pret...
A lot of people talk about how institutional racism benefits white people, but less is said about how blacks and Hispanics are increasingly becoming the recipients of such benefits as well. This needs to be investigated. Discrimination is wrong, period.
44
With all the opportunities that Indian students are getting in higher education, claiming to be black is deceptive, unethical and plain wrong. There is a reason programs were put in place to help black students obtain an opportunity; people trying to skirt the system should be called out. Indians have not been discriminated against; black students have.
20
Mindy Kaling's brother has accepted to only one medical school; Washington University in St. Louis. The school has stated that they do not consider race in their admissions procedure.
Her brother stated that he applied to medical school to make his parents happy but withdrew because he was interested in business school. His personal and intellectual dishonesty deprived another person of the opporunity to attend medical school. No hero here!
2
Harvard may not be meaning to be racist but the facts seem to suggest they have been.
If this situation was about blacks being discriminated against by Harvard you'd probably have the same comments as seen here. Most speaking against it, a few openly racist and some speaking against "political correctness".
Racism is racism whether blatant and violent, or subtle, life altering sterotypes. We need to take it all seriously, and create a truly non racist society.
25
... seeking diversity is a valuable part of student selection.
It should NOT be. Only academic merit should be judged.
On behalf of all the Jewish applicants who were denied admission to Harvard in the 1920s and 1930s, I hope that the Asian-American lawsuit succeeds.
By the way, I'm OK with the overrepresentation of blacks in the NBA and NFL. Blacks are, overall, the best athletes in basketball and football.
70
The problem is that there are a finite number of slots, and many more students with sufficient academic merit exist than there are slots available. So how then do we decide who goes? IMO, the admitted students need to stand out from their peers. That means being among the best of your homogeneous group. Different standards exist for people from different walks of life.
6
Harvard is a private university, Let them admit whomever they want on whatever basis they want.
16
So we can take all of the state and federal funding they get and direct it elsewhere then? I'm cool with that.
40
Imagine how sad this must be like for any particular individual Asian-American student. Say they apply to ten of the leading private and public American universities. A white classmate with a virtually identical application applies to the same schools. Given the actual difference in acceptance likelihoods, if this white student is accepted at most of these schools, it is possible, even probable, that the Asian-American student will be accepted at none of them.
The pertinent Princeton study found that, all other things the same, Asian-American students needed SAT scores that were 150 points higher than white students in order to have the same likelihood of admission at the leading private and public schools. The Harvard data cited here confirms that. In short, the likelihood of acceptance to these schools for white students is, all other things the same, roughly two to six times greater than that of Asian-American students. This difference in likelihoods results in gross inequity.
40
As an Asian-American I have no problem Harvard or any other educational organization discriminating as long as the intention is to maintain a balance in admitting students from different ethnic, racial and religious background. As a progressive nation/country we shall always strive for a balanced representation and opportunity for all.
What is really important is that trust is not lost.
14
depends on what you mean by "balanced". Let's say that 150 out of 200 Asians want to go to college, and 50 out of 200 whites want to go to college. There are 50 total spots available. If you want to balance the two groups in the incoming class based on absolute numbers alone (in order to balance the number of Asians and whites in the general population), 50 asians are admitted and 50 whites are admitted. But wait a minute. If you take this approach, you're basically saying that if every white person who wants to go to college gets in, while only one third of Asians who want to go to college gets in. How is that fair again?
1
It's ironic that today Jewish American students with white skins are now classified as 'whites'. For a very long time in the USA, that was not the case.
And who is this homogenous 'racial group' to whom the NYT and others insist upon referring as 'Asians'? That's the real racism in America: lumping together into one morass, the thousands of richly diverse, disparate and completely different ethnic groups, social classes, castes, languages and cultures from the Middle East (excluding the Near East) and from the Far East.
9
Harvard should come out straight and say the truth.
The discriminated against Asian Americans.
Does "Veritas" mean anything for Harvard?
Don't be hypocritical as so many of your graduates.
24
Lower personality traits on Asian-Americans? Could it be they are humbler that their counterparts, the latter able to advance not on merits but entitlement?
50
I guess we don't act white enough for Harvard.
My sister went to Harvard. I foresee this as my first and only family member that will be able to go there.
18
Great headline. Now Asian student can fight being now classed as "low in personality", boring as well as good in math. That is perfect example of how sterotypes are created, and racism normalized.
46
The question is does Harvard have the right to reject well-qualified Asian-American students in order that other similarly qualified (or perhaps slightly less qualified based upon test scores) other ethnic groups can be more well represented?
I think that Harvard can do this but it has to be limited so that Harvard cannot limit Asian-Americans to an unreasonably low percentage of the total student population (say 5%) if their test scores, grades and other factors would call for a 30% Asian-American representation. But where you draw that line is difficult to say.
Finally, although it's no solace to the plaintiffs, I believe that Harvard's motive is good in that it wants to be more inclusive. It is not rejecting Asian-American students out of an ethnic animus as it did to Jewish students in the last century where the goal then was to keep Harvard a predominately WASP institution.
9
Demographics of the US : 62% Whites, 17% Hispanics, 12% Blacks, 6% Asians.
Demographics of Harvard : 49% Whites, 12% Hispanics, 15% Blacks, 22% Asians.
Taking into account the high proportion of White legacy students, the privileged Whites without a college degree have the fewest chances to send their kids to Harvard.
20
The demographics of the US overall are not the same as the demographics of graduating seniors in high school.
1
First generation college students are SOUGHT after by Harvard and many other elite universities.
5
Where are you pulling your figures from?
1
So Harvard Admissions officers are racists? Nothing new. But at least they are politically correct racists. And they think they are racist for the right reasons.
30
Why are we still talking about race when economic-based admissions, as has long been suggested, would even out much disparity or the perceptions of disparity in admissions. Top schools would be enriched by students who come from lower and low income environments, and that would naturally include a diversity of races.
7
It seems like the largest beneficiaries of the anti-Asian bias at Harvard were overprivileged white students.
21
They did it to Jews, they do it to Asian-Americans. Who is next? Good old Harvard.
20
How is innate intelligence or high SAT scores (unless through the tenacious practice of 6-7 trials) a sign of "merit"? They are a sign of DNA inherited endowments (just like class privilege in top rate educational opportunities since pre-school) not necessarily of effort and merit given the card throw in life. Use intelligence based scores (verbal and math ability and logic) as measures of probable academic success in a given higher education institution, but do not obfuscate the criteria with euphemisms like "merit."
8
how is having the "right" personality any more of a sign of merit?
Also, if you dedicated yourself through K-12 education to get the grades needed to get into Harvard, the hard work itself is very much a sign of "merit".
7
Quite simply, Harvard's subjective factors enable it to discriminate with impunity, as they did against the Jews. Is it not a fact of discrimination law and court rulings that when a protected factor, like race, is taken into account as it is here and has the effect of discrimination, whether or not intended, it is illegal?
9
Stuyvesant and our highly rated New York City public schools should take a good look at this report. Why, only after Asian students consistently rated high in the entrance examination, did our mayor decide to change the admission standards ?
21
Doesn’t the over representation of Asian Americans in test scores indicate a bias too? As though cultures that value competition for test scores are better. So cultures that value, say, arts, commerce, sports, communications, etc. should not be represented? Or a young black/white/indigenous Einstein won’t be accepted? And only hard work that raises test scores should be recognized? Bias has infinite flavors.
12
Asians are discriminated against with abandon in every walk of life. it's not possible to get data on that scale to do analysis so as to why entire foot soldiers of NY Traffic Cops are Bangladeshi and all officers whites...
8
Same with Mayor DeBlasio.
He wants to ‘water down’ Asian attendance at Stuy and BxSci high schools which are two of the NYC’s top magnet schools.
They are two academic and multicultural success stories revered by teachers, students and the nation’s top universities alike.
But hey, forget that. Let’s take the easy road and lower their admission standard, and target Asians, instead of actually raising up the kids who DeBlasio continues let down but not improving standards at their middle schools.
It’s less work right?
30
As a former admissions officer at an equally competitive school, as well as someone who knows a few Harvard alum interviewers, I would not be surprised to hear that Harvard does not give much weight to those interview reports. How could they? Alum interviewers typically meet with only a handful (if that) of applicants; they are not admissions professionals and they have no context. Their reports tend to add very little value and at my school, were essentially irrelevant.
Schools use alum interviewers because they've found it's a great way to keep alums engaged, and engaged alums donate more money!
This isn't the first time that disgruntled applicants have sued a top school. Spoiler alert: they lose about 99.9% of the time.
23
Likability is a funny one. I think we all know Harvard grads who are not very likable.
55
Why is it so hard to suggest racism against Asians is real? I don't think any Asian child growing up in the western school system have any doubts it exists.
Racism is as devastating in its subtle "unintentional" forms as in it's overt one. I hope if this study proves racial bias, Harvard will own up to it, and offer a real apology, and commit to unbiased admission policies in the future.
30
So true. Sometimes, as an Asian American, it feels like we're the only racial group it is acceptable to discriminate against or grossly stereotype by both whites and by other racial groups. Like it's not racism if the target is Asian American.
4
I thought for sure first born left handers got preference.Thanks for the info. Been interviewing for Mother Harvard since 1969, never could figure out the method used.
6
This is tricky because part of me feels that this lawsuit has a hidden agenda in picking on black and brown students, by using Asians, and gives the impression that they have no interest in broader rights, access, or justice for the above underrepresented groups. However, Asians do experience a different type of racism. No one will accuse them of being “unqualified” or “stealing” someone’s admission, but they are still considered “other”, good worker bees but not real leadership material,etc. Let’s face it, Harvard and the Ivies do not want their campus to look like UCLA or Berkeley, and it’s not black or brown students preventing that from happening. The whole thing , along with the elite NY high school admissions fight, leaves a sour taste in my mouth and, worse makes me not care for the plaintiffs. They have other options.
19
What other options!
if Haravard wannabes land up in NYU, they will push out Asians who were targeting NYU, so for and forth....unless all remainders are pushed to University of Phoenix???
Harvard is just an example, every university not following race blind criteria makes sure that their campus stay white enough.
6
Another factor that has not been brought up in these discussions is the big picture, long term. The world is now less so an American oyster and would certainly be even less so moving forward. Recent world educational rankings similarly reflect a rapid rise in number of non-US universities, many of them from Asia. Right or not, universally, selectivity and stringent admissions criteria are the primary factor that drive a school's reputation. Outside the US, admissions criteria consistently tend to be both highly objective and transparent. Quotas, where they exist, are explicitly called out. Legacy preferences are considered akin to favoritism and hence verboten and rooted out through coded entrance exams. While Harvard today is at the top of the heap and tremendously resourced with an endowment fund exceeding the GDP of most countries, such a wide differential is unlikely to be sustained over the longer term. What then? And what about this very wide group of great American schools, who have, over the decades, increasingly (and quite uniquely) relied on 'holistic' admissions criteria? How would this relative lack of transparency impact the wide world of hiring, graduate schools admissions, research funding of the future?
2
it's just like the plans Mayor DeBlasio has in place for NYC's elite high schools. It doesn't occur to him that schools like Stuyvesant got to where they are mainly because of the students that have gone through them, and the historically rigorous admissions standards.
6
What really bothers me is Harvard's blatant discrimination against those who aren't smart. Wouldn't a truly diverse student body include those of all academic abilities?
22
Legacies and most Athletes satisfy this demographic.
10
Do this mental test: what if instead of the actual picks Harvard had selected the "next best" applicants.
I think the "next best" students would have done just as well as those actually admitted.
In other words, final selection was just a "coin toss."
9
I can personally attest to this. When my son was on a "college tour" an admissions officer told me bluntly, if we admitted every Asian, half our incoming class would from "there". (He went to Harvard anyway, I guess his "personality" was good enough, never mind his superb grades and all the extra-curriculars he liked, soccer, violin, the Red Sox and tutoring (voluntarily) our next door neighbor's slightly mentally disadvantaged young son.
I have seen it in my own University. I am not in University.
13
Should all colleges adopt a race-blind, name-blind, and need-blind admission policy?
4
Only when all secondary schools are equally good. Otherwise you have to account for where a student comes from.
9
What Harvard really needs to get rid of is their “legacy” admissions—
Referring to children of faculty and of people connected to the school, children of famous individuals like presidents, etc.
35
But, but, they need an ever bigger Endowment!
Are they looking for people who will study and learn, teach and lead, think and achieve or for people who will make good fraternity/sorority members? This world needs more thinkers, dreamers and doers than it needs party dudes. And I'm not even going down the racial preference path!
15
Let's take the argument that schools should only look at test scores and grades when making admissions decisions a bit further. So kids get into the elite college based solely on their marks.
Let's say they continue to excel and get into a top graduate school using the same criteria. They continue to excel in graduate school.
If that is all they do during their secondary education they could be woefully unprepared for the real world.
No employer is going to hire someone based solely on their academic marks. They will require interviews. If it is an intensely competitive position there will be lots of them and they will be rigorous. They will probe in a way specifically designed to make the applicant uncomfortable and to get the best sense possible of who this person really is. Can they think on their feet? What do they do when they don't know the answer? Do they crumble under pressure? In short, they will test the applicant's character.
If the applicant is not prepared well to perform during that process, they're doomed.
The marks tell the employer you can do the work. The interviews tell them whether they want to work with you. If you don't have a good personality (or ability to fake it) or an ability to demonstrate some type of personal dynamism and potential to rise within the organization, you will be quickly cast aside.
But hey, you'll still have a sweet GPA and the Summa Cum Laude plaque on your wall.
8
If it came out that instead of rating Asians lower on personality Harvard was instead rating African Americans lower on personality this would be the story of the year and the whole nation would be talking about it. We’d see all kinds of calls for resignations and boycotts of Harvard and marches and school walkouts
116
Harvard is nominally a private university but gets billions in federal and state funds. It’s history and origin involves public grants and funding. So arguments that Harvard can do what it wants in admission ignore these basic facts. Harvard has an obligation to avoid the repeat of its discrimination against Jews in early 20th century and not limit any group based on race quotas.
39
Edward Blum has spent his career trying to purge black and latino students from every college in the country by suing to prove that affirmative-action policies have kept "deserving" whites from their rightful places. (He also was behind the suit to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act.)
If he triumphs in this lawsuit on behalf of Asian students (a group that until now didn't interest him) he will win the battle but lose the war. In NYC, admission to elite high schools is by test only. The result has been an Asian student population in those schools of 62 percent.
If Blum, and his enablers get their way, and admission testing becomes the rule at elite colleges, whites might as well start demanding their own affirmative action policy as soon as possible.
16
what's does the data show with regards to gender, the relative scores between asian-american males and females in terms of personality traits?
Is Harvard populated entirely by “likable” students then? Or the obnoxious scions of mostly rich, selfish and entitled professional classes? I’m guessing the latter.
36
Why would anyone want to go to Harvard, or subject their children to this kind of slimy evaluation? Harvard is not heaven, nirvana or any sort of guarantee of eternal reward. Believe it or not, many remarkable human beings -- without whom the world would be a poorer place -- did not go to Harvard.
17
I'm a liberal, which is why I detest racial discrimination against ANYONE (including Asians). Even Harvard acknowledged the discrimination/bias in their internal report. To my fellow liberals: Please wake up, and see that nobody should regret their skin color.
24
My son went to a very top tier private in NYC. We all watched as the top ranked Asian kid (incredibly smart, popular, busy) got rejected by Harvard and other Ivies while the lesser ranked white kids (smart but not as, popular, busy) got in. Legacies. Dads with big banking and law paychecks. The usual. I’m glad Asian students are taking this on. I hope they win and force these schools to admit their “holistic” system is just a sham.
114
I think the first order of business should be to do away with legacy admissions and the separate admissions program/cycle for athletes (many of whom are admitted before their high school classmates have even filed their applications).
I also think that the pressure to attend Harvard (or another Ivy League school) borders on the abusive in some families and communities. People have completely lost perspective.
18
Legacy admissions are not going away any day soon.
7
The concern of applicants and their parents today is not on the quality of education an institution offers, but instead on being able to say they went to a "brand name" school.
Colleges well understand this and have invested billions on creating, perpetuating, marketing their brand and where needed, completely overhauling it. It's their # priority.
Today the Ivies have some cache value but nowhere near what they had even 20 years ago. Schools like Penn State, NYU and USC, formerly considered "safe schools" embarked on billion dollar fund-raising campaigns over the past 15 years. They are now perceived as first-rate institutions while in truth they are still academically average.
5
I don't agree with viewing Harvard as a "sour grape", but you definitely have a point. As an Asian-American, I am glad that I live in California where this policy is illegal. Stanford, UCSF, and UC-Berkeley seem much more attractive than Harvard or Yale these days.
4
The article intimates that only discrimination against whites is justified.
Perhaps social engineering is inhibiting the value of education at top colleges.
4
I like the studies that show the biggest beneficiaries of quotes are.... men!
7
and this doesn't relate to Stuyvesant, HOW?
8
If race has taken out of consideration Harvard would be 50% Asian easily. Asians are the only minority race discriminated against in college admissions. All other minorities get a advantage. Doesn’t sound fair to me.
46
Everybody knows that we all have equal personalities across all the races. For those who suggest Asians have poor personalities, I only have one thing to say: racism! Surely, we need to correct this racial bias in admissions. And we all know we’re equally intelligent. So what is it about testing that is privileging Asians? For those who say blacks don’t study as hard as Asians, I only have one thing to say: racism! Surely, we need to correct this racial bias in testing.
18
Likeability? Positive personality?
Wow, for a bunch of people who are supposed to be really smart, the Harvard people sure came up with an indefensible way of discriminating against Asian Americans that was bound to explode in their faces.
Does this system date back to the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act, or perhaps Japanese internment during WWII, when discrimination against Asians was virulent? Or have we not come as far as we think?
43
I worked at a test prep center. The Asian students, including those in South Asia, were test and grades centered. Perfect practice test scores mattered.
If they did not score perfectly on a practice test, they, along with their parents, appeared in my office. I told them that the score was good enough to get into an Ivy League school. I asked them about their extracurricular activities. Unlike the other ethnic groups, the majority of them did not do anything outside of school work.
I did my best, as a parent myself, to convince them to broaden their horizons. Both of my children were accepted into elite institutions, without a perfect score, or a perfect 4.0. One of them is an introvert. They both participated in extracurricular activities, in different ways. Both had experiences as leaders.
There is no perfect answer when it comes to the admission process. There will always be someone who is disgruntled, because they felt they should have been admitted. However, that is life. There will be times when someone else got promoted, or were offered a job. You believed your qualifications were superior.
Elite colleges can select students based on scores alone. However, future success depends on more than intelligence. The admissions team, at each school, attempts to select students based on a number of factors. Teacher recommendations, interviews, and essays also count. There is nothing inherently wrong with attempting to have a freshman class, with a broad background.
19
These parents went to your office because they knew very well that with anything less than a 4.0, they were going to be rejected, due to the implicit bias in the admissions system. If you truly think Asians would have an easier time getting into Harvard with 3.8 GPAs but more "personality", you would be sorely mistaken.
13
A weak link in the chain is the interview with a local alumna/us.
Beware of that stage in the application process. If you felt the person interviewing you didn't like you, call the admissions office as soon as possible after the interview and ask for a second chance. (They will do this.)
2
I am an alum interviewer for an Ivy League. The primary purpose of the interview is to recruit students and tell them about the school. At most you provide some local context about your region to the admissions office. You have no access to their applications and are not allowed to ask any questions relating to grades, test scores or the like. The admissions office makes no bones about largely disregarding the interviews... they are really just for when they are on the fence about something to see if they can glean a little more information. I enjoy doing them because I like meeting the students. Some of them are very interesting and it’s heartening to talk with such promising young people. Of course, most don’t get in. There are definitely students who come across as status seeking, unethical, or highly materialistic. But I don’t suppose admissions needs interviewers to ferret those out.
As others have said, admissions is just a coin toss and is a highly imperfect process. Success is based on networking, the strength of your high school, etc... the same things that help you get a job. The sad part is that high school kids are devoting their time to building resumes. They have to if they want to get into these types of universities. If they are coached by savvy parents, they will be more successful.
1
You may have misunderstood what I said, or I may have explained it poorly. I didn't mean the presentations that alumnae/i make to high school seniors early in the year, before they send in applications.
I was talking about the one-on-one interviews that come late in the application process. At the point where the student's admission is almost assured. A local alumna/us meets with a student and then send her/his impressions of the student to the admissions office.
(I missed the comments where people said "admissions is just a coin test." Have to disagree with that, too.)
Maybe it's time corporations and society stop fawning over these brand-name institutions and give others a chance based on their potential, not where they graduated from. Value is in the eye of the beholder. Anecdotally, I know ivy league graduates who turned out to be entitled and less willing to do work they consider "beneath them" ended up being fired.
If we want equality, maybe we should practice it. Give public schools, city and state universities enough resources so parents and students aren't at each others' throats like black friday.
12
My white collar business does not offer positions to graduates of elite schools. Elite schools graduate elite people. We don't offer safe spaces.
11
I suspect not too many elite school grads would be inclined to seek work at a business run by a small-minded individual such as yourself.
8
I have a theory that discrimination against Asian students is a driver behind the arms race for college admissions among UMC parents. Instead of making a stink when they were denied admissions because of "not enough extracurriculars," Asian-Americans instead quietly ramped up their children's extracurricular activities on top of stellar academics - which in turn forced everyone to ramp up these activities. It is an admirable response to discrimination, but for kids with less talent and energy, it's exhausting and stressful -- it has even spurred a backlash in some school districts where parents have tried to impose top-down limits on achievement (e.g., a limit on AP courses) so they don't have to compete. Ending discrimination in admissions might help all parents return to a slightly saner approach.
16
The fact is that it's become clear that no matter what the criteria, those who strive to achieve a goal will inevitably come up with a way to make themselves qualified. This is why they are shifting to screening for personality, because personality is something that is at least partially innate, and thus cannot be "conditioned" in the same way. Of course, this brings up the ethical question: is admitting based on personality any different than admitting on skin color?
5
That’s why it pays to smile more. Like I would know, but statistics don’t lie.
3
"Asian-Americans scored higher than applicants of any other racial or ethnic group on admissions measures like test scores, grades and extracurricular activities.... But the students’ personal ratings significantly dragged down their chances of being admitted...."
I don't see how, in the nature of things, grades, test scores, or extracurricular activities entitle someone to admission to a school. It is a matter of what the school values. Discrimination on the basis of grades, test scores, and extracurricular activities works in favor of Asian-Americans, as a group. Discrimination on the basis of personal ratings works against them. I fail to see why one kind of discrimination is legitimate and the other is not. What would be illegitimate would be to treat people who meet the criteria equally differently because of their race.
It may be that the personal-ratings component to some extent counteracts the effect of valuing grades, etc., but the latter is helping Asian-Americans in the first place. No individual is entitled to be admitted to any particular school.
6
personality cannot be completely "fixed" to someone's liking, as a large portion of it is in the subconscious. This is opposed to things like grades, activities, scores, which can be honed by hard work and initiative. They are not comparable.
4
Alex, what difference does it make? It is not necessarily unfair for a school to select on the basis of a quality that the person cannot change. Plausibly, intelligence is such a quality.
But I've thought again about what I said in the second paragraph, last sentence. It is not so clear to me that it would be wrong of Harvard to make race itself a factor in admissions criteria. Say they have a set of prima facie criteria. And, by those criteria, the profile of the class admitted would be way out of kilter with the actual population. Then possibly Harvard could have a reason to adjust the numbers to make it look more like the country as a whole. (It might also give a boost to applicants from Nebraska, if kids there are less likely to apply than ones from Massachusetts.) I'm not crazy about affirmative action and I don't say it would be right, but I think it's Harvard's business to determine whether they think it's right, or the right thing for them to do.
1
We are all Americans and should unite to act like that. Giving preference to any race is just unfair and discriminatory. College admission should be based on merit although I think taking the social-economical status into account would be fine. However it should never be based on race. Remember what Martin Luther King said..."not be judged by the color of their skin"? It seems we as a nation have forgotten this.
14
Correction. Jewish quotas were in effect in through the 50's and 60's for Ivy League schools. Quota was 10% of entering class. The quotas were removed not for noble reasons but because inherited old money had been squandered by later generations and "nouveau riche" Jews had the money to pay full price for their children and were known to be excellent philanthropic givers. This lead to "parents of graduates" being treated like alumni when it came to fund raising. Remember, private education is a business.
19
I have commented and objected to DeBlasio interfering with NYC selective school admissions process. The test is fair and diversity shouldn't be the ultimate goal.
However here I'm with Harvard. I think Harvard has a vested interest in considering more that academic results. Harvard was founded to instruct clergy. In modern day America leadership is more than simply being the best academically.
While I know Harvard takes in federal money it is a private institution and should be allowed to admit whomever it likes.
8
If they take federal money they are NOT truly a private institution.
1
Lets see:
1. Alumni interviewers rate the Asian American applicants higher than the admission officials who have never interacted with the applicants in real life.
2. According to Harvard's 2013 internal review, Asian American percentages:
Academics is the only criteria: 43 %
Academics, Legacy and Athletes: 31 %
Academics, Legacy, Athletes and "Personality": 26 %
Actual: 19 %
Just looking at the numbers and Harvard's redacted review makes me think that Harvard is going to lose the case.
40
So "Likeability" is an admissions criterion for Harvard? I've never met a Harvard student I liked. I wonder how they are defining this construct.
52
Hilarious!
8
@ tintin, Midwest " I've never met a Harvard student I liked."
And how many Harvard students have you met, tintin?
If the "n," or magnitude of your sample population, is in the single digits or the low double-digits, it's not a sufficiently large sample from which to draw any statistically significant conclusions.
And though the "Midwest" is a pretty big place, most of it is also pretty far from 02138.
2
Johannes,
I'm going to put you down on my "Do Not Like" list as Harvard student #323. Oh, and you are correct: Minneapolis is a long way from 02138. That's one of the many reasons I prefer to live here.
1
The evidence suggest that Harvard and other elite Universities practice race based decision making on Admissions. Egregiously unfair to the academically and otherwise qualified who were denied admission. This case will surely get to the Supreme Court and they will decide unequivocally for the plaintives.
9
This articles makes me wonder: how can we uplift the historically disenfranchised without encouraging ethnic/racial tribalism, which this lawsuit certainly will do.
The only solution I can think of is an affirmative action grounded strictly in socioeconomics, which should inevitably capture a larger than average portion of African Americans and Hispanics due to current economic realities.
7
Eventually, in the world stage of competition, whoever cross the 100 meter line the first is the winner, it doesn't matter if you have a lovely personality or not, it doesn't matter what color you are, it doesn't matter how much money you can contribute. It is the same in all other competition including scientific, business or other fields, purely pursue any of these non critical measurements is non-realistic and hypocritical, it is like a group of dolphins trying to get into the swimming school, and the admin has to bring some cute puppies in instead so that they have diversity checked. It is just naive.
3
True for SOME specialties and careers. But I guarantee you that if you look closer at successful people in your life who are in positions other than law, medicine or science (eg journalism, public affairs, poltical consulting, Wall Street, writing, and in some ways the technology field) the best people, the most successful and fulfilled people were not the top GPA crowd.
7
If Asian-American kids and their families are now setting a much higher bar for academic excellence in America, then maybe it’s time for other students to work harder instead of expecting special privileges. Otherwise, we end up with a race to the bottom.
37
The best college education I ever enjoyed was at a local state
school brimming with young, enthusiastic teachers. It was a gas! Then I transferred to a west coast giant university and from then on was bored to tears by professors yawning with tenure. Flocking to big name schools, thinking that's going to make your life more successful, is kinda stupid really.
8
Ok, here's the deal....put all the applications in a barrel and pull out the requisite number. No test scores, no recommendations, nada. Easier, faster and much cheaper. You'll still have a diversified class.
7
That has been seriously studied and proposed after an initial screen of minimal standards. Made sense to me.
1
In my experience at boarding school and a large private university, I recall many Asian students. Very few chose to make any effort to assimilate (even modestly) into their host country culture. Honestly, I don't blame any of them and I personally would do the same if I was pursuing my education in their countries.
10
I wonder how Albert Einstein or Nicholas Tesla would have done on a personality test like these.
Bill Gates and Barack Obama went to Harvard and neither one has a personality - BORING!!
And how on earth does one person decide what is a favorable personality trait? An applicant may come in full of confidence and bluster which to some is annoying while to others is desirable.
Once upon a time when I heard someone went to Harvard, I was impressed that they must be super-intelligent to get in. Now? I assume their parents are rich, are a former president or first lady and have pull.
21
While some institutions (especially in other countries) admit students to university level based only on numbers (performance on exams, grades, tally of activities) this is not a pure meritocratic system. Exams can be crammed for, grades get better with tutoring, prosperity equals lessons and extracurriculars, and some intellectual gifts do not register with standard gatekeeping methods and metrics. Numbers are not a secure proxy for genius or innate intellectual gifts.
For many applicant pools, metrics on average have to be higher for admission. Resident of New York or New Jersey? Proportionally fewer of you will be accepted, and the ones who are will have higher-than-average scores, etc., because elite universities also strive for geographic diversity, and will accept an applicant from Iowa with slightly lower scores ahead of you. Should New Yorkers be suing?
The glimpse into confidential admissions files is disturbing - and the system should be generating serious soul-searching about how applications are parsed in future.
But the greater point is that it is a positive imperative, as well as something that benefits all students, for admissions offices to be looking beyond tests-plus-grades-plus-extracurriculars, in terms of background, overcoming hardship, and virtues that by nature can't be objectively quantified. Striving for heterogeneity, and recruiting disadvantaged minority students, these are actual ethical values.
14
So much can be learned by an in depth analysis of why Asian students seem, as a group, to excel beyond other racial or ethnic groups. Yet, we never seem to talk about it. Why?
I can only offer my observations based upon personal experience. I was raised in a single parent household in a working class area of Brooklyn. We had government assistance. My grandmother worked in a sweat shop. Yet, from my earliest memories, I knew I was going to college. My family, despite their struggles, somehow communicated an expectation to me that I would do so.
Expectation, is, I believe, a core motivating factor that explains much of the disparity in achievement. Raised in the context of such expectation, I knew, as a given, that I would go to college. Cost was met by a combination of assistance, scholarship and part time work. There was never a question of "if", just "how".
At the risk of generalizing, I believe many Asian students excel because they are motivated by expectations drilled into them from a very young age.
If we can somehow harness this principle, we may be able to accomplish naturally what quotas force upon us. In situations where, for whatever reason, a child is not subject to the motivation of expectation by his or her family or peers, we must find a way of providing surrogates who will provide such expectation, whether in school, mentoring, social programs, parental education or otherwise.
Maybe this tool is the ultimate cure for the disparity which plagues our society.
23
Gino, that sure sounds like the K. I. P. P. school philosophy and practice!
2
I am reminded of the pledge scene from Animal House, where new rejects are asked to join the other losers: Mohammet (Sikh), Jugdish (Indian), Sidney (Jewish), and Clayton (blind).
"Grab a seat and make yourselves at home. Don't be shy about helping yourselves to punch and cookies."
I wonder if the admissions folks at Harvard have ever seen Animal House, and if they recognized themselves?
13
I think colleges should strive for diversity - in ethnicity, economic status, gender, test scores, etc. - in numbers generally equal to the proportion of the population each is. This has to be an almost impossible task - each grouping has a different share of the population, so the diversity can only be as close as possible while keeping to each university's own mission as a place of higher learning.
It's hard to reconcile non-discrimination with diversity when both are essential in their own ways - non-discrimination is justice, while diversity includes the unique abilities and outlooks of various ethnic, gender and economic backgrounds.
All I can come up with is using population share as a base, and then adapt and adjust from there. If admissions depend largely on grades and test scores, well, Asians are #1 hands-down. But I can't imagine that Cal Tech benefits from having such a large proportion of Asians because that means the exclusion of other groups, and it seems that Harvard's 20 percent is more or less fair, given that Asians comprise only 5 percent of the population.
We don't want to deprive ourselves of the contributions Asians (or any other group) can make, but we also suffer if we deprive ourselves of what all other groups have to offer. This country is far less than it could be because of its long history of racism and sexism.
From my POV as a white male, how to divvy up college admissions (and that's just one institutional example) is a real conundrum.
9
I should have noted that I don't think personality is a legitimate group when it comes to non-discrimination and diversity. I'm kind of stunned that Harvard has been using that in rating applicants.
5
Sounds like you’re advocating for quotas, which is unfair and inherently discriminatory.
3
Racial quotas are generally illegal. They should be illegal in college admissions as well.
24
"For instance, Asian-Americans make up about 43 percent of the enrollment at Caltech." I am an Chinese immigrant, I moved to SF when I was 15. I went to one of the UC school and in my life i have never experienced any discrimination in school or in life. I got majority of my tuition covered by financial aid because its a state school. Majority of the UC school has high % of asians. All my friends went to college and now they are able to build a much better life than their parents. And UC are all very outstanding schools. As annoying and snobby as Californian can be, maybe the rest of the America can learn something from California. 3 years ago, I moved to Boston and I starts to understand what it means 'subtle racism'. There is no obvious example I can give to say O they are racist, but you can feel it. The way my co-workers dont invite me to happy hour. The way they don't include me in the networking event. The way they have personal connection with each out but only professional with you. The way they arrange your seating, and the way they reach out to certain people when there is an opportunity. I worked in a start up company in SF with majority of my coworker being white male, so the demographic didn't change much but I keep wondering what did? Is it me? I am just glad I have enough experience in me to tell me im not crazy.
88
Zuckerberg and Gates both dropped out of Harvard early. I guess the diploma and education have less value that getting accepted and then dropping out to do computer coding on someone else's software.
2
If you're really smart going into to Harvard then you will be really smart leaving Harvard whether it be after Year 1 or Year 4.
4
Harvard and the other Ivies are basically a secret cartel. I would love to see DOJ invoke the Sherman Anti-trust Act and go after the lot of them.
7
Hey, you can be smart and have a boring personality too.
11
At the end of the day, I trust Harvard to do the appropriate thing much better than these pretend "racial equality" crusaders. I just hope that Asian Americans won't let themselves be used by these pretenders.
3
Any ideas about why Asian Americans do better on the academic side?
4
There are two reasons, both intertwined: parenting and culture. The parents of Asian students invest everything into their children's education and will accept nothing less than exceptional work and grades, and in doing so are adhering to a deep respect for education in many Asian cultures.
9
to some extent, their family cares more and invest more in education. almost all the asian students I met in my class have immigrant parents working low paying jobs( restaurants, dry clean, house clean, driver, all those typical immigrant-dependent industries), and they invest a huge chunk of their income and time on their kids. they essentially substitute for the mediocre public education system with their own money and effort.
12
@ Abigail and Sandy,
Both of you present a similar hypothesis, one I suspect is correct. So the question is why is that approach not universally promoted in the US?
Fendi, Hermes, Versace, Burberry. High end fashion brands in a world filled with so many beautiful clothes. So many beautiful items made by companies you've never heard of.
Harvard and the like are excellent schools, but they aren't the only schools. Do they have secret books no one else has access to? Do they have access to a secret internet?
There are plenty of great schools in this country and around the world. The need for brand name recognition by education consumers is often just as silly as it is in high fashion.
You have to feel a little sorry for the students, families, and universities that don't quite understand this.
6
It's not all racial. Another element that lurks below the surface here is the severe geographic and cultural discrimination that takes place in these "elite" northeastern institutions...a disproportionate number of admits come from the northeastern US, an area of the country that has a lower percentage of Asians than, for instance, California. Along the same lines, there is an ingrained favoritism for high schools that have sent their graduates to these institutions for generations. These, too, are concentrated in the northeast, and have lower Asian concentrations than other excellent high schools in other parts of the country.
I don't mean to belittle the very real discrimination that Asians face, but many admissions officers truly believe that "merit" has magically been parked in a very small portion of our country, where it's even more magically concentrated in a handful of schools.
Meanwhile, schools like UC Berkeley, UCLA and Cal Tech have become bastions of true academic excellence, the likes of which would be impossible but for this discrimination. The level of achievement there is astounding.
13
My son graduated from Harvard. He's not Asian or Asian American. White. He was admitted because of his many accomplishments, varied and unusual even by Harvard standards. Great grades and test scores. Great letters of recommendation.
My suggestion to parents of little children: plan for the application YEARS in advance. (A book called Scaling the Ivy Wall helped us, and there are probably many similar guides available today.) The thing they stressed: get a career for your child outside academics. Theater, boys choir, languages, tennis, gifted programs, math contests, etc.
Do NOT rely on the teachers and administrators at school to help with any of this. If anything, they will obstruct your efforts to help your child build a resume. (The prejudice against gifted children is particularly noticeable in administrators. Double check things like school identification numbers on documents. A head-of-school put the wrong one on an application to a summer program for gifted kids. I caught it in time.)
The prejudices against Asian-Americans, like the prejudices against gifted kids, require diligence from you and constant advocacy. Good luck.
13
Harvard vigorously defended its admissions process on Friday, saying that its own expert analysis showed no discrimination and that seeking diversity is a valuable part of the admissions process.
What truly is the value of diversity? It's a question you're not supposed to ask. Does it really bring rewards to an organization? The chief benefit of enforced diversity is that it protects an institution from charges of bias, so it's "value" is really a circular argument. I once worked as a records clerk in a hospital that, for whatever reason, hired a Diversity Director - seriously, that was her title. I'll never forget the stink-eye, raised eye brow look she gave me when she toured my department. She later showed up on some strange pretext to inquire something and I was polite and helpful to her as I could be, but still heard that she'd remarked to a higher-up in my department that I had an "unfriendly presentation" whatever that meant. My supervisor took me aside and said "look, be as nice to her as possible, she sees your job as an easy no-brainer slot she can fill with [a minority female like herself]." Well, that opened my eyes.
But this story shows you don't have to be a white male to be a threat to diversity. As long as diversity is an official goal instead of what it should be - something merely nice to have if it just happens - it will be a tool of bias in and of itself. The targets will simply shift.
10
I would think that most job applicants are also judged on likability. Just saying.
8
Harvard graduates eventually return to the communities from which they came fulfilling the University mission: "to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society." In fact, not limiting overrepresentation, especially in our diverse society, would betray the University mission. Virtually (all) Harvard students are talented academically. Marginally higher test scores doesn't entitle you to anything - especially Harvard.
9
I just don't think that college admissions should be based exclusively on grades and test scores. Grades only measure one type of intelligence and talent. Surely there is room for a brilliant clarinetist or a terrific soccer player with somewhat lower academic scores? A hilarious future comedian or a courageous military veteran with somewhat lower academic scores? A writer of glowing prose or a painting prodigy with somewhat lower academic scores? A driven entrepreneur or a highly skilled mountaineer with somewhat lower academic scores? A fantastic chef or a charismatic student leader with somewhat lower academic scores.
It is completely appropriate for colleges to want a well-rounded student and a well-rounded class. The country needs scholars, yes, but also smart people with diverse skill sets that go well beyond the ability to do well at standardize tests and homework.
6
I'm sure that China universities are adapting their application process to accommodate American-Asians!
5
China is not a nation of immigrants from all over the world.
2
Recently, the University of Chicago ditched SAT/ACT for good. Harvard should follow them too. Then what? No basis to sue. My child took SAT several times with an excellent tutoring company and was admitted to an ivy school with a score in the 99 percentile range. Is that fair for those who could not afford the fees and special tutoring. Assessing the totality of the student is fairer and more sustainable than excelling in coached multiple choices tests.
9
Why are they rating any applicants on personality? How can such ratings not reflect personal bias?
18
Asian Americans have found a way to succeed in the system that is stacked against us and yet we are punished for it . We are told that there are too many of us at these institutions when we worked so hard to get there and at the same time we are disqualified for our efforts because it is assumed that Asians will do better on test scores anyway. Affirmative action is needed, but when the remedy unjustly discriminates against a particular race-as it does in this case-then we need to re-evaluate our system.
18
THIS COULD BE WHY...
The vast majority of Harvard’s $36 billion endowment is restricted, meaning it can only be used for donor-authorized purposes.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/06/05/400-million-gift-harvard-...
1
The fact is that admissions at competitive private schools like Harvard is corrupt and completely opaque. Special allowances are made for the super-rich and children of alumni—above all, children of super-rich alumni. Athletes are admitted despite uncompetitive academic records. Graduates of private schools are vastly over-represented. (In 2011, half of Princeton undergrads went to private schools; 10% from boarding schools alone.) This leaves little room for everybody else, including most Asian-Americans, few of whom fit any of the above categories. The opacity also allows Harvard and other schools to shape their classes in such a way as to attract the maximum number of future applicants, by discriminating against Asians if need be. Harvard could easily fill its entering class with high-achieving Asians, but I’m guessing that they think having “too many” would make them less attractive to future applicants, including Asian ones. And they may actually be right about that, although applications to Berkeley and UCLA suggest otherwise. But that doesn’t justify discrimination. Unfortunately, these lawsuits are usually directed against affirmative action, which actually serves a positive purpose, even if it is little more than a band aid. What would happen if they kept affirmative action but got rid of preferential treatment for the highly privileged? Surely more Asians would get in.
16
"Accounting for extracurricular and personal ratings, the share of whites rose again, and Asian-Americans fell (from 31) to 26 percent."
- I can see the need to account for legacy, athletes, and racial diversity. If the potentially racist "personal rating" only contributes to a <5% enrollment difference, then as an Asian-American Harvard alum, I'm okay with that.
6
The people who got accepted to Harvard are generally not too concerned about the people who were rejected.
6
Undoubtedly true, but not necessary to point out.
It seems rather obvious that Harvard has a quota as
the percentage of students from each "Ethnic Group"
is about the same - year in and year out.
If I were the Judge I would have the Admissions Committee
at Harvard sit down in the Court Room and have to evaluate 100 applicants when all they are given is their grades/scores - no names, no addresses, no names of their Secondary Schools, no ethnic/financial backround. Then compare the
percentages for the students admitted from the various Ethnic Groups to the reality...
I thought "Veritas" was the motto on the seal of Harvard.
If it is, then why doesn't Harvard admit the simple truth ?
11
This is manipulation meant to make people think "oh see if Asians were ranked correctly on personality then more of them would get into Harvard" but what is actually going on is this, "personality" is subjective and the Harvard ratings are simply a mirror on society, same as the subjective judgments that result in fewer women pursuing engineering careers or fewer men pursuing nursing/teaching. The ratings are, in the context of our society, correct. It's another aspect of - and supporting evidence for - "white privilege." As such, the "solution" is not to artificially inflate Asian personality ratings, but to completely overhaul society in ways that further reduce the advantages of white males. Which is probably not what the supporters of this lawsuit have in mind.
7
As soon as Asian students realize that other minorities have been receiving much more favorable terms of financial aid, there will be a round of class action lawsuits alleging that elite colleges have discriminatory tuition pricing. The torts could be as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars per student. While students may have varying opinions about the intrinsic value of "diversity," everyone on the wrong end of racial tuition discrimination will want to collect whatever monetary damages they can.
7
All demographics should be worried about what Harvard and others do to massage acceptances into a quota system.
There is an increasing academic gap between males and females. In 1975, females were about 42% of undergrad enrollment. In 2017, it was 56%. It is projected to be close to 57% in 2026. Will schools decide that is too many females?
9
But who writes the test questions? Learning how to predict what will be on an SAT test is not the mark of the kind of individual that is valued in this country. Of course imagination, energy, and willingness to serve the University are all important criteria.
Also, are admissions officers influenced by their development office brethren: do Asian-Americans contribute as alumni as much as do others? Do they feel a lasting relationship to the school, or is it just one more milestone in their progress?
3
The college admissions process is seriously flawed.
The personality grade may very well have come from a survey presented in Naviance, or some other software, as a tool that helps the student determine a major or school to consider- but that is not the way the corporation may be using the data. The survey appears to be a personally test- unproven and very unscientific. The survey creates data, which is than sold- Competitive high schools create the picture of themselves doing a great job of educating- and some do. But many are serving the same education and "playing the game" better- by having all student apply to college, by requiring AP Exams, by requiring all student stake the SAT, etc.. the schools earn rankings because they bully students into doing what gets the most points for US News.
Get private third parties out of the college application. Harvard wants a personality test- let Har
AI will be dictating what college you will go to in the not too distance future.
1
"The Oriental Mind"
"The Inscrutable Oriental"
These have been common in the Western World for more than a long time. Could it be that there are different personality/social interaction traits? Of course there are. And I am sure that the inverse is also true.
Different cultures act differently within their own groups and in interactions with "outsiders". Some are distinctly rigid. Others are expansive/welcoming. This is a fact and it is tiring to hear the constant beat of the drum regarding discrimination. Different culture, different ways.
The determination of how one fits into the institutional culture is but one one piece of the admission process, but needs be considered.
3
How can you defend your ranking if it is based on intangibles?
If I did not want to pick someone who excelled when evaluated by objective, tangible metrics, I could use subjective intangible metrics.
John
5
The top universities and colleges in the USA are like every other institution here: they exist to entrench privilege. Kids of poor parents from poor schools can’t compete with the resources brought to bear on kids of rich parents from rich schools. Academic transcripts are not neutral, they represent a return on investment.
Education is a major factor behind the poor economic mobility record here verses countries that invest more equitably.
8
And yet, the children of impoverished dishwashers and launderesses just off the boat from Vietnam or Fujian show wildly higher academic achievement than even the wealthiest and most privileged memebers of other minority groups. Money counts for less than culture.
15
I am an Asia-American living in US and have had experiences in educational systems both in US and one of the Eastern Asian countries that put a lot of pressure on kids to get in the top notch colleges. There must be several different ways to know about the personality of the applicants not only from the interview but also from essays, teachers' recommendation letters, and activities other than academic abilities. The University has the right to choose the students that most fit in its educational philosophy. Most of the applicants who applied for the elite schools have already proven that they are academically capable from their long list of academic achievements. The difference in the academic ability among them must be just sheer. So, personality traits like resilience, leadership, positive thinking, and many others could be used as important factors during the admission process. However, one thing always missing in this kind of argument is why we see a growing obsession with the admission into elite schools. Why not we think about a way of investing our resources on nurturing future leaders and innovators from more diverse groups of universities and colleges nationwide?
12
IF Harvard is actively discriminating, Asian-Americans should stop applying to Harvard. At the end of the day, you will be fine and Harvard will be fine. Why would you want to buy a product from someone who doesn't want you? I get all the reasons why people might want to go but there are plenty of fine institutions for you to attend.
The admissions board doesn't think you have a personality or courage. Why would you want to go somewhere where people think you're dull and a coward?
- From an Asian-American who went to great schools including an Ivy (not Harvard) and I ended up just fine. My friends all think I have plenty of personality, btw. ;-)
23
Would you feel the same if this issue was systematic and that most of the top universities engaged in the same practice?
8
I believe that there's probably some rigging going on everywhere -- maybe even the Ivy that I attended but how could I know for sure?
In the case of Harvard, what the admissions office did (as opposed to the alumni interviews) is quite unsavory. Which is why I am speaking out here in the way that I am. It's not me standing down but standing up. I'm sure there are plenty of colleges that a Harvard want-to-be can attend if they're that smart. Is Harvard really the only option?
Now if same thing happening at others, I would say the same but I won't accuse until there is reason to do so.
I also would rather not be complicit with this Blum guy. No one looks good here. Neither Harvard nor Blum.
2
Harvard is done for--personality scores, evidence of clear anti-asian bias. Hopefully the courts craft a solution that places whites and Asians on the same footing, while leaving room to assist disadvantaged groups.
Big picture-public colleges need to be better supported. Tax the endowments at Harvard to pay fo more tenured faculty.
8
Plenty of Asians, especially those of Southeast Asian background, are disadvantaged by any measure. In many cases, far more so than the privileged Cosby kids and blue-eyed Spaniards who are given admission and tuition preferences that are completely foreclosed to the Asian students. And yet they succeed out of all proportion to their numbers, with less than zero assistance from the diversity-obsessed educrats.
7
Asians, the wrong minority group.
Harvard doesnt want to celebrate success and hard work TOO much.
22
Harvard and liberals in general want their cake and to eat it too.
They want a quota system, they want equal outcomes, but they don’t want to admit it. So they say it is fair, they hide the process, and they make up a bunch of clumsy rules.
What could go wrong?
31
I went to Yale. I'm Asian American. And I think that the protests by Asian American groups are an effort to get a bigger slice of the elite education pie.
Asian Americans take an outsized share of the seats at top universities. This trend is merited - meaning that these students have stronger academic records than their peers.
But this argument has a limit. Academics alone would put the Asian American share up to 43% at Harvard. Such a high percentage undermines the university's goal of a diverse classroom. Diversity has shown to enhance the quality of education for students of all demographics and to widen the worldview of the students, which is critical to the university's mission.
In addition diversity initiatives are important to our nation by lifting up underrepresented groups. Many in these groups have little access to competitive schools prior to college, and have limited educational support from parents etc. Few of them could compete for spots at good colleges were it not for demographic considerations.
The diversity argument is hard to grasp for parents and students who didn't score as high in admissions as the top people in their own demographic, but did better than people in other demographics. But were you not born into a family or a culture that gave you a leg up in school? I know I was.
Admissions officers should not be biased against an Asian Americans though. They should just be honest about their diversity considerations.
29
You wrote a long post but the last point you make is what really counts.
"Admissions officers should not be biased against an Asian Americans though. They should just be honest about their diversity considerations."
You are implying the schools should be upfront about racial quotas for the sake of racial diversity but they are illegal. And if Harvard is 'OK' to do this, then racial diversity should be applied across the board: sports teams, etc etc. But all of it is illegal anyway.
1
Diversity has shown to enhance the quality of education for students of all demographics and to widen the worldview of the students, which is critical to the university's mission.
I am not sure I understand the idea here. Isn't the mission of education to transmit foundational knowledge (Shakespeare) and to teach kids how to do hard stuff (STEM)? Waht is this nonsense about widening worldview?
I attended a prep school that was 93% white. I got a terrific education. I read Joyce, Yeats, TS Eliot, Shakespeare, and Emily Bronte. I studied French. I vote Democrat. Why would my world view need to be wider? are you saying that it is the mission of higher education to be anti-Eurocentric or to combat Eurocentrism? To my mind, diversity is a fact, but not a virtue. Honor is a virtue. i doubt Aristotle would classify diversity as a virtue. therefore, why is it enviable. I understand that it is INEVITABLE. But why is it a goal, an objective? Shouldn't be strive for a post-racial and post-identity society? If I have kids, I will ground them for worrying about identity. To my mind, diversity means some people like Brahms and some people prefer Monteverdi.
The foal of college is to educate kids about stuff in books or labs. The goal of college is not to produce more liberals. I am a liberal, but I hate to see higher education as a factory that manufactures liberals.
7
I think you find it easy to say this after having gotten in. Now imagine yourself being denied to all the Ivy Schools you applied to and tell me what you think.
8
It is ironic that liberals are defending a lawsuite brought by a conservative group against liberal ideals and a liberal institution.
5
Racism isn't liberal.
8
For all those outraged by affirmative action at play here keep in mind that totally doing away with it would drop African American acceptance rates through the floor. That’s not a racist comment, it’s a statistical one.
Do you really want that? I absolutely don’t.
4
But why is it Asian students and not white ones who have to relinquish their positions? The required load should surely be spread evenly; otherwise there is blatant discrimination involved. At Californian colleges, this kind of thing is illegal, and the percentage of Asian students is correspondingly much higher, as it should be.
8
White students have been relinquishing their positions for years. Go ask any white guy trying to get into a top business school. They are way over-represented in the application pool and therefore disproportionately bear the cost of affirmative action.
The Asians have now just joined that new club. In a sense they are victims of their own success-there are too many of them that are too good and therefore crowd out space for other groups the university (institution) wants represented.
I still support affirmative action but this is undeniably and unavoidably a direct result. Like so much else, everyone is for something until they are the ones who have to bear the cost.
And yes, I’m a white guy, and I fully support affirmative action. In my mind, the benefits to society outweigh the costs. But those who oppose it have many legitimate arguments.
4
Statistics don't lie. Harvard should have a difficult time getting out from under these accusations.
15
Are there any Asian schools of higher learning comparable to Harvard? If not, perhaps there should be one or two started.
Harvard is only so big and can only accommodate so many students. There are a lot of students in Asia. They can't all go to Harvard or the other Ivy League schools. Where are their Ivys?
7
You “kit”, unless you are a Native American”, should go to school to where ever your family came from.
5
as compared to 'whose ' ivy's
But Asian-American's live in the US. Are you suggesting they go to Asia to study? What are you implying?
6
Harvard is not the only school that does this. Many others discriminate against Asians as well, particularly in the STEM fields. You actually see reverse affirmative action in the STEM majors. So even if an Asian picks a field that requires an enormous amount of work that many American kids do not want to do, and they prepare themselves to be better at this work than other students, they still will not get in because their last name is Patel or Li. These are not foreigners. These are American kids. This is the definition of discrimination.
26
It's not reverse affirmative action. It's just affirmative action. You can replace a handful of words in your post and you're basically making the same argument so many white people did about affirmative action.
"Harvard is not the only school that does this. Many others discriminate against [whites] as well, particularly in the STEM fields. You actually see reverse affirmative action in the STEM majors. So even if a [white person] picks a field that requires an enormous amount of work that many American kids do not want to do, and they prepare themselves to be better at this work than other students, they still will not get in because their last name is Smith or Johnson. These are not foreigners. These are American kids. This is the definition of discrimination."
1
Harvard's bigotry is now apparent to all.
18
California state colleges cannot discriminate by race. Proposition 209 in effect since 1996. Looking at the UC berkeley admission stats
https://opa.berkeley.edu/uc-berkeley-fall-enrollment-data
close to 40% admits were Asians. Compare that to Harvard whose most recent admits were 22% Asians and you can easily see that somethings amiss.
Year after year you look at admission stats across non-california universities and you can almost see a mathematical certainity in admissions by race and gender. Affirmative action has become a means of discrimination and admission by quotas and "perceived" disadvantages.
Time for an overhaul where admissions are blind to race and gender. If there really needs to be any affirmative action it should be towards first time college attendees in a family. The racial quotas are hurting and its becoming blatant that there are quotas.
33
Which demographic group faces the steepest admissions odds at elite colleges given their academic achievement, test scores and extracurriculars? White suburban girls from the northeast corridor.
Look at the Common Data Sets for Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Oberlin, Middlebury etc. You'll find that less qualified young men are consistently admitted at higher rates than young women. Further, this white suburban girls have a much higher financial burden at these colleges than any other group.
Why? Because top colleges are flooded with applications from highly qualified girls. Asians too, both domestic and international, overwhelm admissions offices with mind-numbingly similar application profiles. I have great sympathy with the admissions officers that have to choose among the Asians and the suburban white girls.
But here's the difference: the white suburban girls wouldn't stoop to suing, or to being used by conservative activists to dismantle affirmative action.
3
"But here's the difference: the white suburban girls wouldn't stoop to suing, or to being used by conservative activists to dismantle affirmative action."
In the best known case on affirmative action, Fisher v. University of Texas, the plaintiff, Abigail Fisher, was literally a suburban white girl from Sugar Land, TX.
Edward Blum was one of the "conservative activists" behind that case, as he is in the case against Harvard.
7
Your assertion is almost certainly factually wrong. White suburban girls on average score lower than Asians (male and female) on GPAs, tests and extra-curricular activities, and have better odds of being accepted than Asians with comparable profiles. White suburban girls also have better odds of being accepted than white suburban boys. And the reason why white suburban girls - and white suburban boys, and indeed any other affluent group, including, yes, Asians - pay full freight is because the top ranked schools charge affluent students more than the average cost of providing their services in order to subsidize the students who receive assistance. That's also the reason why legacies are crucial - their oversized contribution subsidizes aid recipients and keeps overall fees down for everyone.
2
The white suburban girls "wouldn't stoop" to suing...? The last big affirmative action case was in 2016, where Abigail Fisher sued to stop University of Texa's affirmative action policies. This case is just adding to what Abigail Fisher started.
2
Or. And hear me out. Maybe these individuals just don’t have good personalities! Why is it when it’s black people who are suffering unjustly it’s “dont talk about race.” But the minute any other group has an issue they pull that race card out so fast I get whiplash.
3
Oftentimes there is truth in stereotypes. It's obviously beneficial to look beyond stereotypes, but it's also likely that a critical mass of Asian applicants have a similar profile.
Places like Harvard look for outliers. Unless a Jewish kid from the Northeast is a valedictorian with near-perfect test scores and has distinguished him or herself in other unique ways as well, the Ivy League is pretty much out of the question. These schools can fill their classes several times over with top-flight Jewish and Asian students who have very stereotypical upper-middle-class profiles, but this reality doesn't mean they should go that route.
Universities are communities and, like all communities, they benefit greatly from having ethnically and socioeconomically diverse, well-rounded populations, which is not the same thing as well-rounded students.
I do wonder, though, how they go about assigning "personality" and courage scores to 18-year-olds. Sounds a like a fraught endeavor that is two cute by a half. Does a kid with clinical depression, anxiety or social phobia, who powers through with excellent grades, test scores, get props for her courage should she address her debilitating condition in the all-important essay? Or is mental health a taboo better left unmentioned? As recently as the late-90s, Wesleyan's student health service used to ask the admissions office to avoid accepting kids if mental illness showed up somewhere on the application.
5
Maybe the personality score data is real? Let's test it.
There tends to be a lot of applicants out there who did everything they did in high school purely for the sake of getting into an elite college and not because they were genuinely interested or passionate about what they did. This is not by any means limited to asian-americans, but it does suggest that we should, ceteris paribus, expect a negative correlation between measurable acheivements (test scores, GPA, excurricular hours, etc) and the chance that an applicant can convincingly speak from the heart about the things they claim to care about on their CV. I've seen this many many times in interviews I've conducted for merit scholarships at the college where I teach.
It strikes me as plausible therefore that a demographic who has, on average, higher academic achievement would be judged lower on some personality traits. It could be simply a somewhat natural trade-off expressed in aggregate data.
There should be a way to validate the personality scores and test for correlations with race and or academic achievement by, for example, having at least a good random sample of students interview with people who are blind to the applicants race (audio only).
6
“Audio” only, really?
Anyone who read the opinions of the Supreme Court Justices in Grutter v. Bollinger, which affirmed the use of race in admissions at the University of Michigan Law School, knows that the days of race in the admissions process is doomed. First, the majority itself stated that the use of race would only be valid for a period of twenty-five years, ending in 2028. Second, the minority opinions clearly demonstrated that notwithstanding claims to the contrary, the University of Michigan Law School used a quota to determine the makeup of the admitted class. By all accounts, Harvard appears to be doing likewise, and will find a less hospitable Court given the retirements that have occurred since 2003.
11
Setting aside race considerations, how can a person with a serious disability compete when "athletics" and "extra-curricular activities" are included? Their disability often requires doctors visits, physical therapy and periods of illness. If they can keep up their grades at the same time, shouldn't that count for something? How about determination, a positive attitude, and willingness to persevere despite a disability? Does Harvard's admission process discriminate against people with disabilities, too?
9
No. Overcoming that kind of challenge is given weight as playing on a team would be given weight. Harvard admissions is looking for a diverse student body. They're not looking to discriminate.
2
Why does diversity matter?
People competing to get into Harvard and not competing for the education Harvard can offer. They are competing for the job offers that having a Harvard degree will win them. It's not about the college education. It's about the job offers AFTER college. If candidates were ensured of the same job offers later in life, manywouldn't care whether they attended Harvard or BU. College is a resume item. If the USA had some other job testing process that allowed teenagers to show high IQ and aptitude to future employers, the entire college application scenario would look different. I guess that the LSAT and GMAT sort of serve that purpose, but those still pertain to getting into school.
The problem seems to be that a college education in the USA now serves two purposes: It educates and it, by reputation, determines a persons employment options. A Harvard grad has a ton more employment options than a SUNY grad. If we could disconnect employment from education/college reputation, the situation would change.
15
A modest proposal: set a range of objective criteria that all candidates have to meet. For example, SATs above 1400, GPA above 3.5, etc. From that large group, select students by lottery.
6
@ Northern NJ, Northern NJ "set a range of objective criteria"
I assure you (having devoted my life and career to raising -- by considerable measures -- the scores of well over 10,000 students on exams such as the SAT, PSAT, GRE, GMAT, and LSAT) that performance on these exams is anything but "objective."
You are, of course, hardly alone in buying into that demonstrably nonsensical theory, however.
And that is a considerable part of the real problem underlying all such discussions and debates.
This is racism in its purest form. The same things were said about Jews: too intellectual (lacking in “feeling”); devoid of personality (“devious and underhanded”); lacking the “warmth” of the native born. If you cannot compete against a smart and gifted minority, use your power to turn their advantages into defects. Affirmative action has to stop; it has become a tool of racial discrimination, much like Jewish quotas used to be. If diversity means giving preferential treatment to a candidate because of the color of his skin or the shape of her eyes, how is this different from Jim Crow?
42
"How is affirmative action different from Jim Crow?" Because one policy gives people in need a helping hand up, and the other policy gives people in need a derogatory push down. Duh. How can you even ask this question?
3
Racism, plain and simple. By the people who hold themselves to be superior human beings to us deplorables. Guess what, Harvard? My son turned down his acceptance to Harvard because he believed in meritocracy. He went to a much better university just down river. Affirmative action and letting in less qualified students doesn't work too well when you are an MIT physics major.
23
Panicking Civil Rights Organizations will pressure Harvard into quiet behind the scenes generous monetary settlement knowing full well if/when case reaching Supreme Court Affirmative Action dies.
11
Just like the Miss America Pageant got rid of the swimsuit category, it is time Harvard drops theirs for Miss Congeniality.
24
Amazing to see the casual bigotry targeted towards Asians over and over again in the NYTimes comments sections. Despite the fact that Asians comprise a large swath of peoples from many different countries, can all Asians have the same personality? Really? So they are studious, quiet, smart, not courageous, don't have personality.
Oh ok, so that old stereotype of the nerdy geeky Jewish guy who only studies proves that Jews are all boring and have no personality, right? Such a presupposition would negate the existence of Sasha Baron Cohen, Larry David and too many others to even name.
Why are so many supposedly "smart" people so shallow?
65
If Harvard wants to preserve its right to conduct admissions using a "holistic" approach, and not just based on test scores, then they should drop the SAT and ACT as requirements. Standardized test scores are a good measure of how well someone is able to take a standardized test, not necessarily a good measure of other equally, if not more important, factors like resilience, creativity and adaptability, which I believe are more determinative in achieving success in life. And before anyone says I only hold that opinion because I don't "test" well...this is coming from a former National Merit scholar who also scored a "4" and a "5" on my two A.P. tests, made the dean's list in law school and passed the nation's most difficult bar exam on the first try. Yes, I studied hard, but I also know that some people are just better at taking tests.
5
Meanwhile, Mayor De Blasio has now targeted Asian American students who attend Stuyvesant HS. But since it hurts Asians, it is not racist.
103
In addition to this damning evidence, simple common sense tells us that Harvard practices discrimination. Given the dramatic advances of Asian Americans throughout the national education system in the last two decades, who in their right mind would accept the fact that Harvard's admission rate of Asian Americans has stayed flat? C,mon man...REALLY??!!
9
It's easy to maintain these racist policies against Asians. Harvard, de Blasio and others promoting anti-Asian policies know the Asian community is strangely in the pocket of these liberal groups. They won't protest much.
8
Well when Asians protest, they're "greedy". When they don't protest, they're "meek". You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. I don't think either Republicans or Democrats can take Asians' votes for granted in the future. Just google it, quite a large number are not registered as any party.
Most Asians were opposed to the dog-whistle racism of the GOP but if they're going to suffer from racism under either party, which one should they choose?
8
Absolutely infuriating. It's shameful that Harvard is practicing racial quota in admission by denigrating Asian applicants' character and personality traits.
19
So, let me get this straight... Either Asians have awful personalities or Harvard is manipulating the system to discriminate against Asians...
70
No Surprise!
3
Edward Blum continues to be a dirty, irremovable stain on human society.
1
Kick all the troublemakers out! Let the groves of academe be free.
1
Ha! Can't have all those brilliant valedictorian Asian kids from Flushing. who work summer jobs at their parents' shops/restaurants, showing up little Barrington Pureblood Whiteguy the 3rd, legacy applicant whose daddy contributes millions to Harvard every year. Why, they'll stink the place up AND break the grading curve if you let them in.
92
COMPLETELY accurate. Thank you!
3
Is this a case of affirmative action and political correctness beginning to run amuck?
10
Harvard of course had a long and disgraceful history of discrimination against Jews.
Now its the Asians.
When will they ever learn?
52
Yes, those Chinese and Indians, they scare me !
3
Depending on how things with that apparently idiotic and all-sorts-of-trouble-causing 'personality' criterion proceed, one day Harvard might be 90% Asian Americans ...
8
Systematically disfavoring one group is the definition of discrimination. If we as a society accept that is wrong on its own, which we seem to have with regard to women, LGBT, religions and blacks & Hispanics, then we need to know if there is some offsetting benefit to discrimination in this instance.
My question is, is there a good reason we as a society accept racial discrimination against Asians at Harvard?
I see arguments of diversity, but no one complains there are "too many whites"--is the presumption that white people contribute more to diversity than Asians?
I see arguments of balancing against systemic racism and historical injustice, but I find it hard to argue that Asians have benefited from systemic racism or not been the targets of historical injustice (from the Chinese Exclusion Acg and Japanese internment to modern-day fetishization, emasculation and small penis jokes). Even if Asians have not “had it as bad” as other groups, certainly they have had it worst than white Americans.
Lastly I see the argument that Harvard is a private institution and could be as racist as it wants. I can’t find an analogy in any other area of our society though—we do not allow our private companies, restaurants, airlines, etc. discriminate. Why Harvard?
Reflecting on all of this it’s hard for me to justify discriminating against Asians at Harvard. This open secret speaks much more loudly about how our society has disenfranchised Asians than anything else.
28
HARVARD , shame on you
12
Whites are more "likable" than Asians? And you can determine this without meeting the student? Just off a last name and a box checked on an application?
What a bunch of racists. Let's call it what it is.
Ugly.
And they want to bring this ugliness to Stuyvesant High School?
I hope not.
50
Why is personality an admissions factor? Omit serial killers, sure, but "personality"? It definitely sounds like 1920s/30s bigotry against Jewish applicants.
26
And this is why so many Asian Americans change their names and conceal their race on college applications. Can't blame them.
12
When are we going to move beyond the use of the word 'race' as conceived by Samuel Morton the father of scientific racism in the first half of the 19th century. In 2000 Craig Venter a pioneer of DNA sequencing observed," The concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis." Lets intellectually and emotionally move beyond the imagination of the late 19th century and begin to proven scientific results of DNA. Our backstory as homo sapiens is truthful, unique, fascinating and creates possibilities of a deeper understanding of ourselves and others. All of this is information is based on the National Geographic Special Issue of April 2018, Black and White.
And I am writing this because I am mad as hell that colleges are using "lop list" in their admissions process as a Scottish-English grandmother of Scottish-English-Asian teenages who are about to apply for admission to US colleges.
and opens worlds of possiblities
3
"Alumni interviewers give Asian-Americans personal ratings comparable to those of whites. But the admissions office gives them the worst scores of any racial group, often without even meeting them, according to Prof. Arcidiacono."
If true, this is damning evidence. It means Harvard is cooking their applicant evaluations to attain a desired outcome.
41
Charlie don't surf.
How can a college fill sports teams if all the students are short Asians and Jews? Doesn't "likeable" mean "tall"?
4
One person's affirmative action is another person's reverse racism. The principle of reverse racism is reliant on the idea of the meritocracy--and that merit can be determined by "objective" measures like grades and test scores. This is an argument that completely ignores the reality of lived experience in this country, and the lie of "objective" measures. Which kids have access to the good, highly-funded public elementary, middle and high schools (not to mention private or prep schools)? What resources have enabled students to do well on standardized tests? Which children in this country have had access to the healthcare that ensured their asthma was under control so they could even get to class? Harvard could twice fill its freshman class with students with perfect SAT scores, but that wouldn't mean it had the best students, or the ones who would create a rich environment most conducive to creativity, intellectualism and leadership. This means that not every Asian American student with 1600 SATs will gain acceptance, but it also ensures that some Hispanic, Black and Native American students who have exhibited gifts beyond just a perfect score will.
5
Generally, I agree with your sentiments. But please read the article again. The issue is that admission is made more difficult for Asian students to ensure enough white students are admitted, not the under-represented minorities that you mentioned.
5
You're right, that is the article's point; 'm referring to the underlying purpose of the suit, which is to eliminate affirmative action from consideration in all admissions processes.
Some people can't accept that there is no objective way to say if one person will get into Harvard/Yale/etc and one person won't. You can't just take the applicants in the top 5% of test scores and say yes, all of you are in. That is not how this works. It always comes down to the individual judgments of lots of people with different biases weighing different factors, often in the form of free-response paragraphs on alumni interview sheets.
I really think the lack of simple, straightforward, objective criteria is what underpins all of this. In the absence of simple, straightforward, objective criteria, you have lots of room for all kinds of claims of bias, and people can do all kinds of statistical analyses and say well based on XYZ factors this group should be 9.5% but instead it's 6.6% so therefore someone is doing something wrong.
I really don't know the solution to this.
2
On standardized tests, Asian kids as a group consistently score at the top on average, followed by white kids, Hispanic, American Indian and black students. I‘d guess that’s a subset of Asian kids, maybe those of East Asian or Indian descent. Is a Hmong student at an equal disadvantage applying to Harvard compared to aaa Chinese student? How about a bright German American farmer’s kid from North Dakota compared with a bright Jewish doctor’s kid from Massachusetts, both of whom are white? Diversity is about more than race. Kids from the same racial group are going to have had different experiences. Introverts contribute different things than extroverts. Why penalize someone for a quitter personality? It sounds like there are a lot of problems with Harvard’s admissions policy.
6
Sorry. “Quieter personality.” Autocorrect is a curse.
All these “prestigious” schools failed the public so far. They produced more self enriching behaviors and practices than serving the public. So, debating about which race gets better or worse treatment should come after debating whether these institutions are really serving THE PEOPLE. I doubt that. These institutions keep creating and maintaining the establishment, that is why all these people want to get in. It is time to let these institutions being restructured to serve the people, otherwise dilute them to become public schools.
6
Your idea sounds strikingly similar to what Chairman Mao did here in Shanghai. Guess what? It was a catastrophe.
China's economic rise has involved a struggle to reestablish high-functioning organizations and institutions where merit and high standards prevail. It is a slow, difficult process. And this is the main reason so many Chinese send their kids to US universities. In other words, China has been down the path you are suggesting--disasterously--and its government and people are sprinting in the opposite direction.
2
Please don’t forget to mention that those coming to USA from China are almost all from Chinese establishment. Majority of chinese people can’t even afford to go to any collage in china. It is an interesting point though.. cause these students from overseas have very strong desire to be included to USA Elite societies. Big cash flow to many popular colleges in USA. Comparing to Mao system seems to be extreme. It doesn’t need to be only two ways to understand things. Just a thought.
1
I see a lot of comments talking about how Asian students are seen as too focused on getting into a school or a field, without, perhaps, a personality driven desire to do something.
What these commentators are missing is that Asian students are typically a 1st or 2nd gen immigrant story - and for folks in this situation the highest level of self actualization is all about finding your spot in the hierarchical systems of their new adopted home. And they are smart enough to understand what gets them there (things such as a top education). In other words, that's what they want - just as maybe other so called 'well rounded' profiles of native students want self actualization of a different type that comes through sport or community involvement, or arts, etc., the kind of things that matter to people who are more rooted in existing communities which only comes by being born in families that have a long history of being settled in this land.
And if one might still insist on stereotyping, such as what Harvard has been doing - at least do a better job at it. What these Asian students maybe miss by not having spent time on developing some 'personality' traits they more than make up for it through other traits - mainly those of grit, determination, doggedness & focus. Last I checked this nation built its greatness on the basis of these latter character traits.
24
People love to declare that " Admission should be based on grades, test scores to a greater extent than grades, grades on AP tests," all things that primarily available to wealthy and predominantly white students. A lot of people seem to be laboring under the impression that universities are job training programs, and their sole focus should be on producing the highest possible economic output.
2
There are not enough spots in all of this nation's elite universities combined to accept freshman applicants with perfect GPAs, high test scores, and many extracurricular activities. That's the reality.
4
If I were the plaintiffs I would try and get discovery for all emails, memo's, admissions staff interview notes, etc. I find it hard to believe there isn't massive troves of evidence showing blatant racial discrimination. Negative personality scores without meeting the applicant? Come on!
7
I guess the only option for school admissions is to get rid of all face to face interviews. I mean, aren't the interviews all about personality? My friend's son interview was at a local starbucks. Look, we could make tests harder, a lot harder, make the SAT so hard that no one gets a perfect score, make it 6 hours long too. Then, for admissions, 100 spots, take top 100 scores. Done. And now, imagine the student body. Diversity is not all about race, it includes individuality. You don't want only the top scorers on tests all the time, you need the "rebels;" still high achievers, but something different about them, something that will make a student body rich with life experience. Good luck Harvard.
3
These discussions of Asian American discrimination really don't say much except that the much needed policy of affirmative action is fraught with great difficulties and subject to both evasion and abuse. What else is new? These discussions also lay bare the relentless essentialization and discrimination to which Asians are subjected. Comments speak of "group oriented" cultures versus our own supposedly "individualistic" culture. This is one canard that refuses to die. Anyone who has lived among Asians knows that they value eccentric and rebellious personalities more than we do. Look into the terms "scholars of the bamboo grove" or the "old man who does as he chooses" for a deeply embedded cultural appreciation of individuality. After a time in Asia you always return thinking that Americans are hopeless conformists. As they indeed are.
7
Harvard has no legal obligation to follow any specific admissions criteria. It has been well known since before current applicants were even born that top schools are looking for "well-rounded" applicants. If I were an applicant who was truly interested in Harvard, I would spend a little less time obsessing over a 4.0 and perfect SATs and more time leading a life away from the classroom that will enhance my personality and likeability scores.
6
Since I see comments along the lines of "Harvard is a private institution so it can do whatever it wants" frequently in the comments of this article, I thought I would briefly explain why this reasoning doesn't hold.
Harvard is indeed a private institution. But it receives hundreds of millions of federal funding--taxpayer money--each year. In fiscal year 2014, for example, it received $608 million (https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/1/22/federal-funding-decreases-2....
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits organizations that receive federal funding from discriminating based on race. And rightfully so--we should avoid supporting with our public resources organizations that discriminate. Therefore, Harvard cannot discriminate based on race, even though it is a private institution.
The question is whether the evidence presented in this article--for example, admissions officers' artificially lowering the personality scores of Asian applicants as rated by their alumni interviewers--is enough to constitute racial discrimination.
24
Good point, but do we know that anyone "artificially lower[ed]" any scores? What exactly constitutes racial discrimination? Does discrimination on the basis of any trait that has some correlation with race count as racial discrimination? If that were true, then wouldn't favoring applicants with high test scores count as racial discrimination?
You are right--perhaps calling the lowering of scores "artificial" was unsubstantiated on my part.
As to your other questions, I defer to legal experts who have studied this issue much more closely than I have. My understanding is that the Supreme Court in "Alexander v. Sandoval" said that the relevant section of Title VI (Section 601) does not prohibit policies or practices that would have a racially disparate impact if there is no racially discriminatory intent. Therefore, a policy of discrimination based on a trait that is correlated with race (such as test scores) does not violate Title VI if there is no racially discriminatory intent behind the policy. But, again, my understanding of this is somewhat fuzzy.
Just to be devil's advocate for a moment, don't nerdy types (i.e., those who score higher on standardized tests) often lack in social skills no matter what their ethnicity?
In order to score high in academia, something has to give, and generally, that is time to socialize which would teach better social skills, such as being outgoing or compassionate. It is the rare person who seeks perfection in one area who can simultaneously get it in another area, as well. Something has to give.
5
In National Science Bowl a few years ago was a student that was likely the top Science and Math student in the country. As a sophomore he was the only American to gold-medal at the International Chemistry Olympiad and he finished high in all the other Olympiads. His dream was Harvard but Harvard rejected him. I was mystified but now understand why he struck out. As a white educator I see many examples of Asian discrimination and it is time to end it. Those who work hardest ought to reap the rewards.
54
It’s great that these issues are being discussed. I think about race at least once every hour. I am glad I’m not alone.
1
My father, an Assyrian Christian and son of immigrants from Iran who spoke little English, was denied admission to a private university in the early 1940's, because, as they wrote, they had their "full quota" of Semitic students. The quotas were a system that did nothing but penalize those who were willing to work as hard as they could toward achieving their goals.
My father had no "advantages." His father died when he was a child. His mother - my grandmother - was left to raise him and his two brothers entirely on her own. Employment for my grandmother was out of the picture - she was left to raise three young sons, the oldest of whom was 9 at the time.
My father was raised in a home that was just about as poor as one can imagine. And yet he graduated third in his class of some 350 students, at age 16. He was willing to work that hard. He did go on to a public university and obtain a degree in electrical engineering, but that rejection stung him for the rest of his life. It was then that he learned there were two Americas, and one of them would never fully accept him.
I wholeheartedly support the Asian students pursuing their lawsuit here. My only regret is that it is being spearheaded by the likes of Edward Blum. But their concerns are very real. I have Asian friends who've recently been advised to have their children change their names, so as to disguise their ethnic identity on applications. Apparently the two Americas my father experienced is still alive and well.
128
Don't go to Harvard. There are excellent American and German large state universities.
8
Okay y'all, as a recent college graduate who is friends with a lot of Asian-Americans,and even dated one... I'm not surprised at this finding.
I don't agree, or even pretend to understand, the logic behind "whole-person" admissions. Practically all of my Asian friends all stellar individuals, most of whom would have excelled at Harvard.
But if they're judging on things like courage, popularity, or a gung-ho attitude... They're not wrong. My friends' parents come from cultures where submission is expected, and being subdued is survival from strict and pushy parents. Well, it turns out that's just the opposite of what Harvard is looking for.
If those qualities were determined for the purpose of preventing Asians, then sure, it's racism. But if it's just what they determine are future indicators of success, then I'm only interested in developing those qualities so I can be successful too.
1
Oh, ok, Ammon. The old trope about submissiveness again. Quite a few of my Asian friends are start-up entrepreneurs which actually shows quite a bit of risk-taking and gung-ho attitude.
I wouldn't say they are all risk-taking or that they are all submissive. Do you want me to start talking about what I think all guys named Ammon are like?
5
Let's not use this as an example of the general failure of admittance quotas. We still need to work to ensure a wide diversity of students gets a shot at a good education. As with any problem, sometimes solutions don't work the way we want them to. So yes, solve discrimination against Asian-American students, but let's keep trying for an equitable playing field.
By all means, we shouldn't let the right end of the seesaw be pushed down. But let's keep trying to raise up the left end of the seesaw.
1
What “discrimination against Asians”? You can’t have a diverse outcome without putting your thumb on the scale.
The problem here is that people do not like the way Harvard manipulated the outcome.
Asian students are trying to establish a new entitlement: if you have higher test scores, you are entitled to admission over an applicant with lower scores. Elite colleges have never operated that way. If they are forced to, the quality of undergraduate education at Harvard, and other elite schools will be changed, and not in a good way. Asian students do have higher SAT scores, math more than verbal, but there is no evidence that they will be higher achievers in the long run. People who understand tests know that once you have established a person is bright enough for almost any task, being brighter is not necessarily a positive factor. (Full disclosure: I've been interviewing applicants for Yale for years, and am a retired psychology prof with expertise in measurement.)
4
I think it’s time for the plaintiff to look into Yale’s admission process to see if there is any racial discrimination against Asian applicants.
1
Is this a serious question? Asians are over-represented because they excel at academics, are focused on achievement, and have parents who are willing to sacrifice so that their children can succeed.
If that means they are over-represented, I’m all for it.
And no, I’m not Asian.
126
The only fair system would be to have Harvard set specific requirements like SAT scores and grades. All those applicants that meet the criteria should be subject to a random draw. That way those rejected don't feel bad and those accepted don't feel so arrogant. There is no evidence the selection process improves the outcome. Don't forget Harvard Business School rejected Warren Buffet.
8
There isn't a single elite university or college that I'm aware of that makes available to the public the average grade point averages and test scores of admitted students by their race (gosh, I wonder why?), and this has been the case for several decades now. On those rare occasions that this information has either been leaked or been released as a result of a lawsuit –- for example, at Michigan and Texas -- the amount of discrimination against Asians and whites and favoritism toward blacks and Hispanics has been staggering: In one case, about a three-hundred point SAT score difference between white and black students. There's probably less of a differential at Harvard because it can attract the very best minority students, but it's extremely likely that there is no college that has truly meritocratic admissions. (In fact, just using the term “meritocracy” has been called a “microaggression” on some campuses -- that's how morally and intellectually debased campus culture has become.) Let's call this decades-long corruption of the ideal of fair treatment what it actually is: Institutional racism against whites and (especially) Asians. It's particularly sickening when the black and Hispanic students admitted come from higher socioeconomic classes (they don't tend to be poor at places like Harvard) than first-generation Asian kids.
57
I am of mixed race, as one my parents was from Asia, one was from Europe. My parents were both immigrants to the US and both went on to obtain graduate degrees here. I grew up in the midwest and I believe am more culturally attuned to being a white kid growing up in a small town then "an Asian" person whatever that means. I speak no other languages than English. My kids who are more motivated than I ever was in school, will now face a head wind. I have 2 daughters who are interested in more STEM subjects, but I feel I have to explain to them the realities of college admission. If you want to go to an IVY league school and you do well in math and have to check the "Asian" box on the application, you will be in a special group. That group will not be judged objectively against the kids they grew up with and went to school with, but against a special group of "Asian" applicants who have a much higher relative academic scores, as their is a quota for "Asian" spaces. My kids would probably say that they will just work harder, I applaud that, but explain to them that so will all the other Asian kids, so it will be hard to make much relative progress. As much as I have tried to be a good parent my ethnicity has doomed my children to a more difficult road in achieving their academic goals. Should I explain to them this is fair or should I tell them to fight for their rights as Americans, who I thought believed advancement and achievement should be color-blind?
45
According to the US Dept of Education, self-identifying ethnicity is optional.
College applicants may leave the "race/ethnicity" field blank.
5
My husband and I represent two different ethnic groups (both considered minority groups in the US). Ethnically, our kids are mixed and half-Asian. (Culturally, we cite our allegiance to Real Madrid, although one member of our household prefers Manchester United, but whatever.) The Common App allows the student to indicate more than one ethnicity. When our oldest applied to US colleges and had to decide which which ethnicity box to select in the Common App, she checked the two ethnic groups that she most strongly associated with our joint family history (including the Asian box). If your student has a multi-ethnic background and checks multiple boxes that represent their respective family background, they are being honest. Besides, the college admissions officer is going to guess your student's ethnicity during the interview anyway.
“Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than any other race on personal traits like ‘positive personality,’ likability, courage, kindness and being ‘widely respected’” — There is certain truth to this rating. It is not biased according to my observation of Asian Americans, Chinese Americans in particular, as well as my personal experience and understanding of the nature of Chinese traditional culture and humanity. Courage and especially kindness, for instance, are not indigenous to Chinese personality. I am a Chinese American myself and I am not particularly proud of the lack of these “noble” traits that are more prevalently seen in Judeo-Christian nations or other faith-based cultures (to be clear, China is the biggest atheistic nation in the world; none of its three dominant theologies/ideologies—Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism—is theism)....
This is a much larger and deeper issue, and the Harvard rating has just been a superficial (but truthful) reflection of this deep-seated issue on Chinese personalities observed in this country.
6
If Harvard wants to reflect America, they should admit at least 62% non Latino whites. If Harvard wants to admit on the basis of merit alone, they should not have admission factors that weigh any qualities other than academic achievement. What they have now is an admission process that doesn't seem to know which alternative they are trying to foster.
And if they were truly going for merit, they would have a discount factor for the achievements of students who have been blessed with extra tutoring in academics and test taking, thus leveling the field for those who don't have access to additional help to bolster their applications.
13
If Trump instructs the Justice Department to formally back the lawsuit and the Supreme Court gives the plaintiffs a victory, I think that the GOP will make huge gains among Asian Americans in upcoming national elections, possibly even enough to contest traditionally blue states like California and NY. This has become a key issue for the Asian American community.
11
@ nh, new hampshire "If Trump instructs the Justice Department to formally back the lawsuit and the Supreme Court gives the plaintiffs a victory, I think that the GOP will make huge gains among Asian Americans in upcoming national elections, possibly even enough to contest traditionally blue states like California and NY. "
Because their gains in college / grad school admissions would be more than sufficient to offset their recognition of, and horror at, the Trump administration's blatant (and undeniable, so please don't even try) racism?
I admire your optimism.
"Harvard’s 2013 internal review found that if Harvard considered only academic achievement, the Asian-American share of the class would rise to 43 percent from the actual 19 percent."
What, exactly, would be wrong with it?
It will spur on other groups to study harder - to the benefit of the US
39
When overbearing parents force their kids to work nonstop, do you think it doesn't come at any expense at all? Do you think that it improves the children's creativity, leadership and interpersonal skills, and imagination?
7
Joseph, why do you make these assumptions about Asian Americans at Harvard? My wife and I both graduated from Harvard. She is Korean-American, and I am Chinese-American. She majored in English, got an MFA in Creative Writing at NYU, and is now a poet. Is that creative enough for you?
As for me, my parents never forced me to work non-stop. My parents were too busy working their multiple jobs to make ends meet to be hovering over me. I got a job as soon as I was old enough, even though my parents were against it, to help support the family. I had excellent test scores and grades all the way through high school with minimal studying, and my poor study habits really hurt me in college. How does that fit in with your view of Asian Americans?
Lastly, you didn't mention this but plenty of other people did--just because we are not from a community doesn't mean we won't give back. My wife and I met as volunteers teaching ESL to Somali refugees. We taught at some of the most indigent neighborhoods in Boston all through college and after we moved back to the city.
3
Call it a “soft quota of racial balancing,” or “personal ratings,” it is, what it is, and what it is, is racism.
Harvard University is not alone in perpetuating this covert racism. Similar allegations by civil rights groups representing Asian Americans, have alleged similar discriminatory practices at Brown, Dartmouth, and Yale.
Mr. Waxman believes that even if Asian American applicants were deemed “less personable” than other applicants (which of course, they aren’t at Harvard!), such conclusions would not prove systemic discrimination. But by definition, personable refers to whether a person has a pleasing personality, is pleasant to look at, is pleasantly friendly, etc. But “less personable” by whose standards? Not as pleasant to look at compared to who? Less personable, means less of a person, and is, white supremacy in one of its most insidious, most treacherous forms. Treacherous, because this attitude permeates American culture and sometimes leads to tragic forms of self-hatred among the targeted group.
Harvard does have a right to admit only those whom it sees as “fit” to attend; those who will carry on its mission and purpose. Fine. But it’s also only fair, that all prospective students, including Asian American applicants, know exactly what this school’s mission and purpose is.
7
I think no colored person or Asian should be surprised with such news. I think smart people can see through the manipulation this country, Institutes and majority of people do to immigrants. So called great country has been now separating children from parents especially mothers...
I think every Asian, every colored person should see through every message, everything this country does and be always alert.
3
The article opens with the line, “Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than any other race.” Since when is Asian-American” a race?
Make no mistake, as evidenced by the organization backing it, this lawsuit is a backdoor assault on eliminating the Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity system for underprivileged minorities.
While the admission criteria certainly needs to be made more fair, let’s be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water. Harvard owes it to the community to come up with a better solution.
The UC system in CA favors foreign (mostly Chinese) students who are willing to pay full tuition over other more qualified state/US applicants. Many of these students can barely even speak English.
13
White people want to feel benevolent towards minorities, while also disproportionately reaping the benefits of “their own” institutions. The end result of this being that Asians are thrown under the bus. I feel that racial justice should be a part of the admissions process, but transparently so. Opaque and impossible to gauge categories of personality and character are just excuses to exclude.
The whole system of ethnic classification is by definition racist. I’m especially bothered by the term “Asian”. There is no geographic, genetic, cultural or linguistic justification for 4.5 billion people to be lumped into that one category - in the United States this becomes even more absurd since West Asians are officially classified as “white”. While some East and South Asian American groups earn more than Americans on average, there are other “Asians” - some Southeast Asian communities for example - who suffer from high rates of intergenerational poverty, and should be helped by affirmative action. Instead they are lumped together with other “Asians”, erased and neglected. This brings me to income. It might be useful to switch to income rather than directly race-based affirmative action. Those who need the most help will be helped. While most of these people will be POC, poor Whites will qualify also. Finally, intervening at the level of college admissions will solve the gaping problems of inequality. We need more equity and investment in public pre-K and K-12 education.
23
My father told me of how, in the late 1930's, he was rejected from Columbia for reasons "Not having to do with your academic accomplishment" -- namely, because he was Jewish.
His high school college counselor was so furious that he got on the train, traveled to New York, and reamed the admissions office. They agreed to admit him, albeit he had to wait a year.
What the people at Harvard who arrange these racial and ethnic quotas -- and the legacy admits and athletic admits and what have you -- is that there's a kid at the other end of their decision, a kid who has worked hard and knows he deserves admission but is being excluded because of race, ethnicity, religion, wealth, class, or geographical location.
They can prate all they want about diversity and what have you, but the real message is "Sorry you worked so hard, but you're an Asian and we have no intention of being fair."
27
Except these hard workers are not unique. Harvard (and Yale and Princeton, et al) could fill their classes ten times over with equally qualified students. There are so few slots available that the entire exercise is akin to winning the lottery.
9
Sabrina, if the Asian kids were admitted on the basis of academic accomplishment and even personality assessments in interviews, they would be admitted in far higher numbers. That's the whole point of the article. They are being discriminated against because they are Asian and it's intellectually dishonest to pretend that that isn't happening.
1
At some point, the Ivies and other highly selective schools are going to have to warm up to the notion that after athletes and students of under-served populations are admitted, a baseline level of performance will need to be established for the remaining pool of candidates. Then those remaining slots can be filled by lottery from the pool that meets those baseline requirements. You can even have two pools: one for men and one for women to keep the co-ed balance reasonable.
Because, let's face it: the difference between a kid with a 4.4 GPA and 1500 on their SATs and another with a 4.7 GPA and 1600 on their SATs is rather negligible. So if these schools determine that as long as both verbal and math scores are above 700 and that the students have a 4.2 or better GPA with at least X number of AP classes or equivalent, then picking names out of a hat is probably just as effective as "crafting" a class, and probably a lot less biased.
12
Harvard’s current system lumps all whites into one pot. No one complained that Italians and Irish are under represented in that pot.
If the lawsuit prevails, Harvard will just further reduce the numbers of Italians and Irish.
3
"White applicants would be most hurt if Asian-American admissions rose, the plaintiffs said."
This is the crux of the matter, and I'm glad the plaintiffs mentioned it. It is of the utmost importance for Asian-American to avoid falling into the trap of being pitted against blacks and non-white Hispanics, which I suspect has been the main motivation behind Donald Trump and his followers for wanting to see Harvard's admissions data made public.
Beginning in the 1980s, Asian-Americans as a whole began beating white Americans at their own game in the college admissions process. This obviously alarmed a lot of people like the Bushes and Rockefellers and probably even the Kennedys, who all started wondering how the mostly likable but academically middling 18 year-olds in their families at Phillips Academy, Hotchkiss, and elsewhere would ever get in to Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Princeton.
Asian-Americans must now deal with the humiliation of seeing their country (yes, THEIR country) led by an ignorant white man known to ask Asian-Americans the dreaded "Where are you really from?" question. But eventually the racial power structure of the United States will be fully overturned. It is only a matter of time.
But Asian-Americans, be careful. Remember, a lot of white Americans got quite a kick out of seeing Korean-Americans and blacks fight and shoot at each other in the Los Angeles riots of 1992. Don't forget who really stands to lose if Harvard & Co. have merit-based admissions.
18
This is one of the most racist comments I’ve read in the NYT in quite awhile.
6
I graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in 1964 -- a very large public high school in Brooklyn that served working and middle-class families, about half of whom were Jews like me. I was one of the two students admitted to Harvard. After a short while there, I discovered that dozens and dozens of my high school classmates could have done just fine at Harvard. I also discovered that Harvard's undergraduate population included I don't know how many graduates from schools like Andover, Exeter, and such like places. Many of those scions of the ruling class were dolts -- not all, but many.
My guess is that Harvard was afraid of admitting a freshman class with a high proportion of New Yorkers and Jews. I'm rather sympathetic to that concern. But if Harvard wanted real diversity, then it should have admitted -- not ungodly numbers of preppies -- but a truly diverse group, truly reflecting the American population.
So, speaking just for myself, I'm willing for Harvard to discriminate against Asian-Americans -- but not in order to make room for children of the 1%.
14
Asian-Americans make up around 5% of the population of the US. So Harvard's Asian-American population is 4x the size of the representative population of the United States. It's hard to see how Harvard is discriminating against Asian students with these kinds of numbers.
4
Is this a serious question? They are over-represented because they excel at academics, are focused on achievement, and have parents who are willing to sacrifice so that their children can succeed.
If that means they are over-represented, I’m all for it.
And no, I’m not Asian.
12
Harvard has a right to celebrate diversity how it sees fit and that includes making sure the student body more accurately represents the modern, diverse nation in which it sits. UC schools like Cal struggle with this issue endlessly, especially since Asians make up more than 40% of Berkeley's student body, which is, again, 4x their share of California's population.
Or you might say they're often being tiger-mothered into out-studying the competition at the expense of developing themselves in other ways as individuals. A large number of the parents are from East Asia, and particularly China, where school has long focused on memorizing and rote-learning directed towards one big final test---with no emphasis on extra-curriculars. If you teach in China long-term, you can see the stultifying affects this has had not just on the students and colleges but on the society itself.
It is silly to believe that this cultural-educational orientation would be abandoned by most families who've only lived in the US for 5, 10, 15, or 20 years.
One option is to push back on this racism as this lawsuit is doing to force change on Harvard.
But another option is for the public to just downgrade the prestige of Harvard. We should all know the values of the institution are race and family over academics.
As of late I've found that when I meet someone of Asian or South Asian descent they've been really intelligent, hardworking people. When I've met white men from Harvard, they've tended to come from money and of moderate intelligence and drive. Usually the latter attended Phillips Exeter, Andover, Deerfield, or some other exclusive boarding school.
22
Two pertinent observations.
(1) The entire argument of these people is predicated on the belief that "merit" ("they should be admitted purely on 'merit'" is the standard battle-cry) can be largely boiled down to a GPA and a standardized-test score (or a set of such scores).
But as a teacher who has spent over 20 years raising the test scores of students (and by amounts close to double those of the test-coaching industry as a whole, which are already considerable) on all manner of these entrance exams (GRE, GMAT, LSAT, on all of which I have perfect scores myself, and PSAT, SAT I & II), I can assure readers that those scores are highly malleable, hugely responsive to proper, focused training -- and that such training has less than nothing to do with anything that could legitimately be called "academic merit."
And though I myself do need-based sliding-scale tuition, that is not the norm for the field.
Perhaps this is why it is well-known that the #1 predictor of someone's SAT scores is her parents' incomes.
(2) Given the ethnic skews in test-scores that this article noted, if the people behind this movement are hoping to be rewarded with greater access to these "elitist" institutions for their white-working-class supporters, they are likely to be grievously disappointed.
Just how happy do they think those working-class parents from "the heartland" will be if Harvard's student body should become 60% (roughly double current numbers) big-city Jews and Asians?
1
Asians are in a catch-22. Harvard doesn't want stereotypical anybody. They want unique individuals. But if you're part of a culture (or even, look like you are part of a culture) that prizes achievement and performance, then achievement and performance are your "stereotype". So you can't get a second glance. It counts for everyone but you. How could Asians possibly get beyond that?
I personally recommend what my family did generations ago: Get yourself a white name and stop checking those boxes.
26
They're onto that game L. They ask where your parents were born now (on the application). It's almost as if they are hunting down Asians...
2
Harvard is not the only university that does this.
We made sure that ethnic origin was nowhere on our kids applications.
8
Didn't President Obama's Justice Dept teach us that statistical analysis showing disparate impact proves discrimination? That was the case for banks, auto loans, real estate (Westchester County), etc. Didn't Harvard learn that lesson? Clearly the numbers proves they currently discriminate again one minority, just as they admitted discriminating against Jews decades ago!
8
It would seem higher education is about as corrupt and deceitful as our media-industrial complex.
20
Affirmative action rests on the subtle lie that it gives a "small" boost to underrepresented minorities.
In truth, the gaps are enormous. Historically, approximately 1% of black students score above 700 in math or reading. In 2005, there were a little over 1,000 such black students. If merit were the sole consideration, 1,000 students would be spread among the top 25 schools for an average of 40 each.
Diversity and merit cannot coexist so long as the discrepancy between various groups remains so large.
15
I don't know about anyone else, but doesn't Harvard's current discriminatory practices against Asian Americans remind you of Diblasio's plan to change the specialized high school admission process to "increase diversity"?
43
As a Harvard graduate I have always been honest to myself that, in good part, I owe my admission to the school in the mid-50's to geographical diversity (I was from Oregon - the wild west in those days).
My experience was very rewarding, in good part due to this very geographic diversity, which actually was world wide.
If we wish to have classes at top universities be overwhelmingly Asian, I guess that's OK, but I think much would be lost were that the case.
5
I am an Asian with immigrant parents who was admitted to Harvard during the period investigated by this article.
It is true that I, and my peers have consistently faced higher academic and personal challenges than other groups, simply because of ethnic heritage, despite the fact that I was born in the United States, and fully identify as American.
I can also see the clear reasoning as to why Harvard's admissions policies can be argued as discriminatory against Asians.
Despite this, I would still strongly defend Harvard's right to admit greater numbers of disprivileged minorities at the cost of my admittance, or other Asian admittance.
What is not mentioned is the many advantages we Asian-heritage students received from parents, community, and even stereotypes ("Asians are smart" so your teacher won't let you slide academically). It is simply unfair to ignore these advantages, yet hold disprivileged minorities to the same standard and then say we are creating an equitable teaching environment.
And as I have gotten older, it has become increasingly clear that the many academic test that students (particularly Asian ones) measure themselves by, are of little value compared to the immeasurable characteristics such as courage, grit, compassion, many of which cannot be forged in college without a truly diverse collegiate environment that represents all walks of life, particularly the less privileged.
31
I salute your view, but what will be the gain if admissions continue to be fragmented into every niche that can be counted? Obviously there is no such thing as race. so are we headed to DNA fragment admissions?
2
Sure you can say anything you want now since you have already been accepted into Harvard. How about you give up your spot that you currently occupy for other less privileged kids?
3
How does having classmates with a different skin color transfer to you courage, grit and compassion? Can you explain that in greater detail?
2
In ranking personality, the single most measure they use is the percentage of Asian Americans contribute to the alumni fund. That percentage is near zero. A private university depends on alumni fund to aid poor students. There is also diversification need to enrich social development. These law suits are about nothing.
2
Just as the Jewish quotas were about nothing, right?
7
There is great merit on both sides of this thorny problem, but I'd like to add to the discussion with this: can a federal judge rewrite Harvard's admission criteria? Does the court rule that Harvard must craft a bias neutral admissions program, and if so what would it look like? Or does Harvard have some say in the type of student body it wishes to admit?
3
Didn't Amy Chua (the author of the infamous "Tiger Mother" book she sometimes claims she wrote ironically) basically admit that there was a problem among "Asian" immigrants of inability to articulate their feelings, of having low self-esteem as a result, and of doing "copycat" type rote achievement work that lacks the innovation, productivity and intellectual integrity of other students?
5
You trot out a publicity-seeking, truth-bending, self-aggrandizing exaggerator to support your argument?
4
Yep.
“Harvard said that a statistical analysis could not capture the many intangible factors that go into Harvard admissions.” If that’s its best defense, that gaining admission to Harvard is a unique, ineffably inarticulable, transcendent experience, and no further questions please, thank you, that’s not much of a defense. Harvard seems to not be “lashing” out at its critics so much as flailing. This is a reminder that Asians remain the last “safe” target for racist stereotyping in our society at large and in academia particularly.
20
The American bias towards extroversion eliminates at least 1/3 of the population. Thank goodness for introverts- they compromise a disproportionate number of engineers, writers, artists, physicians, researchers and scientists, software engineers, and surprisingly, musicians and actors. Susan Cain’s book on the values of introverts has been a long time coming. Introversion is not a trait to be overcome but a trait to be valued. Unless you want only a world filled with salesmen and politicians!
19
do extroverts earn more and donate more to their college?
What would merit-based admission even look like?
"High test scores" and "merit" are NOT the same. Small differences in test scores reflect opportunity more than ability.
Nor do grades and class rank equal "merit." Compare "one of our very best students" at an elite high school with a student with the best grades from a not-so-good high school. The second student has shown the ability to excel, though we don't know his or her ceiling. The first has already shown s/he can't be #1 at a highly competitive school.
The chance to study at Harvard is a rare commodity. The chance to go to a high-achieving high school, though much less rare, is still out of reach for many. Giving that "many" a small leg up doesn't mean neglecting merit.
3
Call me naive, but I had no idea personality traits could even be "rated," much less used as a measuring stick for college admission... And Harvard consistently ranks Asians lower on "personality"? Wow and wow again. The whole idea that people can be ranked on their personality (as perceived by an admissions officer) is bizarre. Why not just check a box for "hot or not"?
147
I disagree. Of course they should include a subjective assessment of intangible qualities like leadership, grit, entrepreneurial spirit, teamwork, creativity etc etc.
among the most interesting/innovative people I have worked with and for, about a third are those who did NOT test in the top 10% or get the top grades in objective measures.
This tempest in a teapot may soon be moot. The elite University of Chicago just eliminated the SAT/ACT as a judgement tool. If things don't work out judicially for affirmative action, or even if they do, many other schools may soon follow Chicago and suddenly Asians won't have a "personality problem," and standards will be so flexible (non-existent?) that diversity will no longer be able to be challenged.
13
Yes, this may be where we are headed. Illiberal progressives are in charge in many universities, both in the faculty and in the middle bureaucracy where racializing and discrimination get implemented and carried out. Part of the ideology is that all knowledge and ability and science itself is simply a form of power--race, gender, and other forms of power. Merit is a sham. The real work is not knowledge and truth but taking power. Standards are just power. Examinations are just a tool of exclusion and therefore oppression.
Somehow the elite progressives who shovel this stuff to students maintain the belief that they belong to a vanguard that somehow knows what the good of society is and how to achieve it. Their contradictions do not bother them because logic itself is just a form of power. And the pay is good.
7
Edward Blum is clearly a troublemaker. He's responsible for the recent challenge to the Voting Rights Act that gutted key provisions of that landmark law, and now he professes to care about Asian Americans--people of color, who were protected by that law as much as African Americans and Latinos.
In this law suit, which alleges conscious / unconscious / institutionalized racial bias, it's shocking that little or nothing would be said about African Americans or Latinos, who are regularly subjected to racial bias in education, work, housing, etc., often under the guise of "character" judgments.
Does Mr. Blum honestly care about Asian Americans? He's a white man who's on the record as staunchly against race-informed decision-making. Yet, the race-blind world Mr. Blum imagines is not a salve to the racist laws and policies that have led to our segregated society. It will only serve to reinforce such divisions.
2
This is pure ad hominem. The issues here go way beyond any one person. And there is, by the way, a huge difference between race-informed policy and practices and racialized policies and practices.
6
I would encourage you to reread my post, because it deals substantially with the issues. The genius of this lawsuit is that its position on a hot button issue appears to be legitimate. Of course there are important discussions to be had about race in education, but if you follow the money here it leads to a person with a questionable track record. Myself an Asian American Harvard alum, I would never want this man representing my interests.
One would have thought that after decades of discrimination against Jews in elite colleges and medical schools that we would have put these miserable times behind us.
For example, Physics Nobelist Richard Feynman was turned away from Columbia because of Jewish quotas attending MIT instead.
Medicine or Physiology Nobelist Arthur Kornberg (whose son also won the Nobel) was one of 3 Jewish CUNY grads out of 200 applying to medicine school accepted.
And yet, nearly 100 years after those first Jewish quotas, we are still punishing people because they belong to an academically successful ethnic group.
When will it end?
120
Well, let's take a look at this: To formulate its preferred ethnic mix among students - while ridiculously and falsely claiming they don't have ethnic ratios - Harvard employed religious quotas in the 1920s, racial quotas in the late 20th century and now quotas based on undefined absurdities such as "courage" and "likeability". And this is supposed to be America's premier institution of higher learning? What a joke.
53
Asians are held to a different standard than whites, who are held to a different standard than blacks, who are held to a different standard than Hispanics, and the list goes on.
The truth is that admission officers want to build a diversified class, which is generally a good thing for schools, but the problem we see here is that admission officers are stereotyping Asians as hardworking students who are not personally compelling. They assume that all Asian students are the same and tend to be academically strong but "boring" students.
As an Asian high schooler myself, I would not want to go to a school that filled with Asian-American students because I want to expose myself to students from different backgrounds. This somewhat justify the soft racial quotas, but it does not mean that I should be labeled boring just because of my race.
11
My nephew is half Asian with perfect test scores (literally 2400, 4.0, etc) and tons of extracurriculars including captain of his soccer team and national science awards (also Valedictorian), very personable and didn't get into Harvard but was accepted to most of the other Ivies. His classmate, despite having blond hair and blue eyes, was part Mexican (legitimately 25%). She was ranked 19th, zero sports, no clubs and no big awards (but smart girl) and was accepted.
Here's the problem. What can you tell my nephew that he could do better next time other than being less Asian?
He was doomed at birth based on his race. Shame on Harvard.
380
How is he doomed? He got into the other Ivies. God forbid he ended up at a mere Seven Sisters school like me. He would probably have hung himself in shame. FYI--these schools have no requirement that they accept all the valedictorians of a school or that they don't accept anyone who was ranked a mere #19 in their class. And it isn't quite clear how you could have found out she got in just because she is 25% Mexican. Did you read her application?
3
Accepted at most of the ivies= “doomed at birth”?
I doubt it. Your nephew sounds like a fine and capable young man and that is what counts.
Why the endless obsession with Harvard?
2
My son is not Asian at all, and also had perfect test scores and tons of extracurriculars, etc. and didn't get into Harvard. He is white, Jewish. He can't get less Asian or less white or less Jewish, nor would or should he desire to. I believe he will do fine at Yale, where he landed, but it was difficult for him to understand the several lesser qualified minority students at his high school who ended up at Harvard. The demonization of white males is not helping anyone.
Maybe it's true - maybe on average they have less interesting personalities. I've worked with plenty of amazing Asian Americans with awesome personalities over may career, and have several Asian Americans in my group of closest friends. But we all know that many are drips, and particularly at that age where they've been browbeaten by their parents to do nothing but schoolwork. I can imagine the overachiever ones applying to Harvard are particularly drippy.
1
What if, in addition to test scores and extra curriculars, the only other criterion were family wealth - i.e., economic diversity? Harvard has traditionally had a low percentage of middle and lower class kids, no matter how they juggle race and subjective criteria like "personality." To be truly diverse, you need the bus driver's daughter from Iowa and the sale clerk's son from Nevada. Use quotas to ensure that say, 15% of the student body comes from students whose families earn 50k or less.
9
I think your comment gets at the essence of what this is really about. The argument over Affirmative Action isn't really about 'race' per se; it is about socioeconomic status and access to opportunity, for which 'race' is used as a proxy. Society has probably arrived at a place where everyone would be better off if we stopped being distracted by the proximate issue (after all, 'race' is a pretty objectionable concept) and started focusing on the heart of the matter.
5
Except that this IS really about "race" and the question of how deeply we are going to racialize our policies and practices. The re-racialization of America is part of the illiberal progressive project. The Asian Americans here are appealing to Martin Luther King Jr conceptions of justice, which progressives have abandoned.
It's good to be aware of the nature of "race" and of the history of racism. That's very different, though, from wanting actually to racialize policies and practices. That is a betrayal of justice for each person--but, then, contemporary progressives don't care much about the inviolate dignity of each person. They care more about group identities.
@ HerLadyship, MA "Harvard has traditionally had a low percentage of middle and lower class kids"
Depends on how you define "traditionally," perhaps -- that is, how far back in time you wish to consider.
The last time I checked (a couple of years ago, but this has been the case for at least 20 years now, as long as I have been working with Harvard undergrads), roughly 60% of the Harvard college student body are receiving financial aid, the overwhelming majority of them need-based (as opposed to, say, athletic scholarships).
Selective schools succeed when they can reduce the likelihood of applicants blossoming into unethical, entitled, abusive jerks. Sadly, in the pool of smart kids from ambitious families (of many backgrounds) these tend to be over-represented. I was grateful at the Ivy League school I attended for at least a few peers - white, non-white, some Asian, many first or second generation Americans - who were not only smart, creative, and motivated, but humble, kind, and able to be questioning about principles and ethics. Those qualities didn’t seem to slow them down! Of course when a school wants more groups to have a piece of the pie there will be fewer of any group at each pie. Schools rich enough to conduct need-blind admissions should be applauded for efforts to offer racial, economic and “opportunity” diversity. It will take constant tweaking for any such process to even approximate “fairness”. Not that any school should be grossly unfair to any group. But this country has a lot of ways to get a good undergraduate education. Where you go for those years matters less and less - what you major in, and what you do with it, especially after undergrad, matters more. As the NYT has ably reported, if you believe in greater opportunity, lobby for more support of city and state funded universities. These tiny private schools may be lovely, and we can hope they pick groups of good citizens to educate, but they should also have some latitude. Their rejects will have other fine choices.
3
unaided by legacy preferences, there would be hardly any white students -- so many other groups try harder
legacy preferences are the ultimate affirmative action and not in a good way
19
A "good personality" equals extroverted in U.S. society.
And what about class, socio-economic background in all this?
16
I'd rather have a doctor who is a good listener and got decent grades than one who is a poor listener and got a 4.0. Harvard's admissions process seems to be trying to account for this, which is laudable. Perhaps the answer, as is so often the case, is to quantify important human traits, publicly discuss their relative merits both generally and specific to certain fields, and robustly define and defend core ideals without sacrificing diversity. Sure, there is much that is subjective about judging someone's ability to listen, work with others, etc. But there is much that is subjective about grading an English literature essay as well. Many very smart people can't even hold a job, let alone succeed, due to significant personality issues. Harvard is right to address this, as is every other university taking the same approach.
5
The trouble is that any sociopath can fake being a good listener. It's awfully difficult to fake your mathematics and organic chem exams.
8
Nathan, I think it's easy to fake just about anything, based on 5 minutes with an interviewer. My point is let's take emotional intelligence seriously. Teach, assess, quantify. The idea that there is nothing empirically verifiable and reproducible about positive human qualities, qualities that are required to function well in many professions, is regressive. I have been fooled by interviewees, I prefer not to be fooled again.
Like "most popular" in high school.
Seriously Harvard?
Someone described this as "unconscious racism."
What about this is "unconscious"? It seems well thought out to me.
126
Amen.
1
I question even the concept of evaluating the personality traits of teenagers to judge their future potential and using that as an criterion for admission. Personality growth occurs at different times in different situations, and one of those times is during attendance at college(! what news !). So institutions who use this criterion are only judging personality traits "pre college". Not everyone comes from the same background, not everyone has had the same opportunities to interact with people.
47
Personality traits are simply a discriminator against groups the school does not want to admit.
11
Not least given that most college admissions personnel are not certified psychologists or any kind of trained analysts, but themselves young graduates who took these admissions office jobs... because they weren't yet prepared or motivated to do anything else.
To realize that "admissions counselors" are made to judge not objective secondary school accomplishments, but the "personalities" of applicants, is outrageous. May the plaintiffs win.
According to diversity-based justifications for affirmative action, having a diverse student body along some dimensions is a good-making feature of that student body, and this serves as a rationale for excluding students on the basis of their demographic membership. That means that the fact that some groups are overrepresented in a student population serves as an acceptable reason to exclude their members.
If affirmative action policies worked well (they don't, because of countervailing policies such as legacy admissions), then this would often be a reason to exclude relatively more white people from universities, since they are likely overrepresented according to whatever criterion you use. But so are other groups, such as Asian-American students, and the diversity-based rationale says to exclude them, too. This rightly strikes people as unjust. I'd suggest this is because society seems to systematically favor white people, but not people of Asian descent.
But this is to rely on a different kind of rationale for affirmative action policies: fairness to correct for injustice. I think that's a good rationale for having a selective admissions policy, and it's one that doesn't automatically have the seemingly-perverse implication of excluding minority groups that have been academically successful. But the Supreme Court has ruled that only diversity-based rationales for affirmative action policies are constitutionally permissible, so here we are.
1
For the last 30 years Harvard and other schools have been changing admission requirements to Make its classes more diverse. That policy directly decreased the number of white students.
Now the Asians are saying that they do not like that policy because it decreases their numbers. This article makes clear that changing the policy to increase the number of Asian students will again decrease the number of white students.
8
Maybe the easiest solution is to "boycott" such universities. In my opinion, it isn't worth it to attend a school with such admission criteria, no matter how prestigious.
14
But it's not just Harvard. It's an ideology that has permeated higher ed and beyond.
5
The school admissions 'conversation' would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. One day, subjective tests & metrics are championed while standardized tests are eschewed (i.e. 'elite' NYC public school). The next day, it's vice versa. Everybody wants their cake... and they want to eat it too.
7
Public vs Private education
To the extent admissions are not based on academics, a school is not an academic institution.
38
The premise of the plaintiff's argument is that admission to Harvard is reducible to a simple algorithm of grades and test scores, as it is at many public universities. If that were the case, and if Harvard was using ethnicity to violate such an algorithm, the plaintiffs would have a much more persuasive argument.
Many students and parents erroneously believe that being academically perfect should be sufficient for admission. Harvard has never said, "We will admit anyone with X GPA and X Board scores." Harvard is pretty transparent about their 'whole person' approach to undergraduate admissions. The plaintiff's argument is a fallacy.
6
As an Asian American, my initial reaction is to react how many in my quiet conservative midwestern State would react...."Admissions should be based on talent not race or ethnicity!" After all, these Asian kids have committed their childhoods to get into the best schools, and to deny them based on race goes against everything America stands for.
However, the one fundamental thing that we like to conveniently forget is that our society is not based on equality, there is a fundamental gap that exists between the haves and have not's. Those who are in poor neighborhoods get a much worse education because they don't live in the right zip codes.
If we were being 100% honest, we should acknowledge that in our decision making process. However, studies have shown that providing an ivy league education for poorer students are often a means of failure, that they are not prepared for the rigors of such an education, so are we really doing the right thing by allowing kids who may not be ready for the "Harvard Life", into their schools?
8
Your argument is flawed, in that you assume that the "poor" and disadvantaged kids that are accepted into Harvard are somehow woefully undereducated. True, affirmative action may be applied, but I can assure you Harvard is not taking in kids that are just "ordinary" - even if they are a minority. These students are ready academically, but it is thinking like yours that continues to perpetuate the idea that the standards are lowered significantly to admit these students.
1
African-Americans constitute about 12.7% of the US population and 14.6% of Harvard's class of 2021. Looking at these and many other numbers, I think it would be difficult to support the hypothesis that African-Americans constitute 14.6 % of the smartest and best educated high school graduates in the US in any year. But Harvard has no obligation to admit students in proportions appropriate to their ethnic representation in the population. Also, Harvard is a private institution and, as I understand the relevant laws, can reject or accept applicants on the basis of criteria that need not be explained or specifically stated in writing.
5
@SPQR:
"Also, Harvard is a private institution and, as I understand the relevant laws, can reject or accept applicants on the basis of criteria that need not be explained or specifically stated in writing."
While that may be true, Harvard through NSF and NIH and other government grants and funding for financial aid is effectively enjoying a large subsidy in federal funds.
If Harvard isn't going to treat Asians and Jews fairly then we probably should withdraw these federal subsidies.
4
A diner is also a private institution. Neither the diner nor Harvard can refuse to sit or seat a person because he is black. Or Asian.
6
The only group we owe any consideration for when it comes to higher education is black students. Brown vs the board of education was decided in 1954. The civil rights act was passed a decade later. Whatever you may feel about affirmative action, 50 years is not enough time to reverse centuries of racism that deliberately disenfranchised and held back an entire group of people and trapped them in a never ending cycle of poverty.
Not being admitted to a college that you feel you are entitled to for arbitrary reasons is frustrating but not the end of the world. There are other colleges you can go to and still receive an excellent education. Harvard does allow transfer students so some students who initially were rejected do have other avenues to eventually get into Harvard at a later date.
Like it or not we don't call schools like Harvard the ivy league for nothing. Not everyone has what it takes to thrive in such a setting. Harvard has set up a system that gives them diversity while ensuring that the students who are admitted will most likely be successful in their environment.
9
Students should be admitted on the basis of academic merit only. The U.S. is the only country in the world that considers such frivolous criteria as "personality," athleticism, or "legacy" status when making decisions on college admissions.
I can relate to the discrimination faced by academically talented Asian students. I'm a 1969 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. It was generally understood that my class at Penn was the first class for which there was not a quota on Jews. Had I been a year older, I probably would not have been admitted.
As for racial and economic diversity: the educational system should prepare disadvantaged black, Latino, or other students from the early stages in their lives so that they can compete for college admissions on an equal footing. I understand that this is more easily said than done.
72
Great post Pam and your solution is the absolute right one. The lazy way out is to enforce quotas. But the right answer is to help Latinos and Blacks do better on the admissions tests (their parents can help the most here).
2
The US lacks a national subject/fact based cap stone high school exam that tests knowledge and not test taking skills like the SAT/ACT. The subject matter sections are not the equivalent. The US does not provide substantial funding to Universities as they do in Europe.
Intellectual curiosity, leadership, creativity and factors of this nature don't show up in standardized test scores. Universities like Oxford still rely on these less quantifiable factors in the interview process.
2
"Athletic" is one of the 5 admissions categories? That alone is shocking!
13
@ K361, Blackmore "'Athletic' is one of the 5 admissions categories? That alone is shocking!"
Welcome home -- so good to have you back!
How was Mars, and how many decades has it been now?
Please make yourself comfy; seems we've got a LOT to catch up on...
1
They don't give sports scholarships. Athletics can build character and leadership in a way academics does not. Students who excel in a sport and have a 4.0 show an incredible ability to balance the demands on their time that much better mirrors the demands of real life and potential for success after college than a student who is more academics only focused. A regular varsity sport is usually a 2 hr 6 day a week minimum commitment and elite athletes probably put in another 10 hrs per week. Strong teams help a University on many levels from alumni giving to student moral. Isn't the perfect applicant for every elite university one who has been blessed with multiple gifts that they have honed while growing up? It is always academics plus something for elite university admissions.
1
bob - do these students have 4.0 GPA in spite or because they are athletes?
The descriptions of "busy and bright" and "standard strong" are not inaccurate. The Asian-American students I teach on a UC campus are exactly that. These kids are authentic and intellectual, but, they do also grow up under the influence of Asian culture that values obedience. That "obedience-ness", I think, can be mis-construed as being lacking in personal attributes.
15
can they dunk? can they sack a quarterback?
1
Unfortunately, none of this is surprising to any Asian American student or parent who has gone through the college admissions process.
And to the commenters who disparage high achieving Asian Americans as products of "cram schools" and "tiger moms" think about this - would you say the same thing about an African American with similar qualifications?
These comments would be inappropriate when aimed at any other racial group, and they should be inappropriate when referencing Asian Americans.
123
This article reminds me of an 8/1/13 NYT column titled "Confessions of an Application Reader: Lifting the Veil on the Holistic Process at the University of California, Berkeley".
The column was written by a writing and ethics teacher who had been asked, in 2011, to help rank the nearly 53,000 students who were applying for admission to Berkeley’s College of Engineering. Even though she had been given 2 days of training in which she was clearly told that race and ethnicity could not be used as factors in the ranking process, while she was in the actual process of ranking applicants, she kept getting non-verbal messages that race and ethnicity were factors of the utmost importance.
Those candidates, who belonged to minority groups which were underrepresented on Berkeley’s campus, seemed to be getting higher rankings than objective analysis would have merited. While the writer was careful not to state that the admissions process was giving higher ranks based on race and ethnicity, she strongly implied that this was the case. And this teacher of ethics ended her essay by saying she had decided against any further participation Berkeley’s process of ranking applicants.
While university admissions departments claim that race and ethnicity do not play a role, behind the scenes, these factors are actually of primary importance.
68
So are we proposing to dictate how a private institution chooses its students? Nobody has charged that there are quotas or explicit discrimination. Are we proposing to dictate the fraction of students that belong to each ethnic group? Where do we think that we're headed here?
5
Harvard annually receives millions of dollars of public funds. That's just one reason Harvard should not promote racism.
8
The racial mix at the nation's most elite schools should probably mirror that of the country's, so of course academic achievement will not be the only consideration. And it wouldn't, anyway, because most of the kids applying to those schools all have the right GPA's and SAT scores already, so you need other factors to select each year's class.
1
Affirmative action was first created in 1964 with the intent to level the playing field for African Americans. Since then, it's been broadened to include more minority groups. But it's been fifty years. Yes, discrimination against minorities is still a thing. I completely get that. But the impacts of affirmative action have changed since then. It's gotten to a point where Asian Americans are suffering by having to work much harder to reach a standard that has been set in an attempt to benefit others. The image that Asian Americans in particular have to present to the world needs to be much, much better in order for them to equal others on this playing field. Affirmative action was made to combat the effects of racism in the sixties, yet it encourages stereotypes against people Asians now in order to determine who is worth it and who isn't. Surprisingly, new discrimination can't counteract old discrimination, even if it's against a different group of people. I wish that there was some sort of balance that could be reached in determining how much affirmative action is too much affirmative action, so letting some more studies be done on the matter would be beyond appreciated. If only Harvard would show a little hospitality.
12
Should colleges, elite and otherwise, be able to use in the admission process subjective considerations, into which racial and other biases can creep, or should they rely solely on test scores and grades? For me the answer is obvious: if we are to produce leaders, teachers and other positive role models reflecting our diversity, and to remedy the significant past and current wrongs afflicting and tearing apart our nation, we must reject the mechanistic approach to college admissions that appears to be the goal of the Harvard litigation reported in this story. The thought of a Harvard or Princeton or UCSB student body composed entirely of students with the highest test scores and G.P.A.s is antithetical to the values and/or importance of diversity, discernment and decency in this melting pot we call the United States of America.
4
What you are saying, in other words, is that racial discrimination is an American value. It is actually true if you consider the dismal history of anti-Semitism, anti-Chinese pogroms, lynching, Jim Crow and the rest but I am astonished that one can so unabashedly defend anti-Asian prejudice by promoting the idea that their hard work and intelligence should take second place to other candidates’ skin color.
3
An admissions process that uses subjective measures of personality traits is going to almost inevitably create a bias in favor of people who look and act more like the person doing the assessment. It is very difficult to overcome unconscious biases.
There is also a well documented tendency in the US to view extroverted personality traits more favorably than introverted personality traits. I think that is a problem in and of itself, but it also creates another potential source of cultural bias.
177
Did you read the report? They INTENTIONALLY lower Asian students' other ratings to keep them down. This is unconscious bias?
9
Man, and look at one of those criteria, "athleticism."
I've nothing against athletes but come on, this is higher education. What sense does it make to give a place at Harvard to some kid who's good at soccer when a brighter student could benefit more from the curriculum, and give more to society in return?
I really don't care whether my surgeon was good at sports.
3
Excellent comment James. Fully agree about the unconscious bias.
There are only two possibilities. One, that Asians are genetically superior which is why they can consistently outscore all other demographics on standardized tests and GPA.
The second possibility is that Asian culture, on the whole, emphasizes academic rigor at the expense of other experiences that might make for an interesting and complete candidate.
Nearly all the "very top" students that I have come across (those who realistically believe they could get into and succeed at a place like Harvard) work insanely hard, and are incredibly competitive, so the notion they are simply being outworked by Asian students is suspect.
Of course, this presupposes that high school students are basically their SAT scores and GPA which is sheer nonsense.
26
Based upon articles I read this week, Stuyvesant High School, the top public school in New York City is 67% Asian. The sole criteria is an admissions test. It would seem Harvard is looking for a diverse student population. The class of 2021 is fairly close to the population by ethnicity of the Country. The merits of this case are problematic at best and one would assume Harvard should win.
14
Why would one expect to find the same population by ethnicity of the country in one of the most elite institutions in the country? Or anywhere else for that matter? "Looking for a diverse student population" through racial discrimination is acceptable?
8
Your statement about the incoming Harvard class being "fairly close" to the country as a whole in terms of ethnicity is not accurate.
According to the U.S. Census estimate of July, 2017 (the latest available) Asians make up 5.7% of the U.S. population. According to the article, they make up 22.2% of Harvard's incoming class-- just under a 400% over-representation.
This is not to say that there is not bias against Asians as a group-- perhaps there is and the percentage of incoming students should be much higher. However, the novel aspect of the discrimination claim is that they are already 400% over-represented on a strictly ethnic basis.
5
What’s amazing is that many American institutions are catastrophically failing. Meanwhile Harvard and other elite schools are producing these institutions “leadership.”
5
Whenever I see an article like this, I brace myself for the same old comments.
"Grades aren't everything. All these Asian kids do is study, study, study. Universities need more well-rounded applicants."
"Asian kids win awards in music/art/mathematics because they're technically proficient, but they're like robots. They have no creativity."
"They didn't get into their dream school so they're suing? Typical. I know a lot of Asian kids and all they care about is getting perfect test scores and going to Harvard."
I'll leave it to the statisticians and courts to decide whether Harvard's admission process contains systematic bias, but the "model minority" stereotype of Asian Americans is a problem far beyond the university system.
243
Comments like these perpetuate negative stereotypes of Asians as studious, hard working but not socially sophisticated, visionary nor creative. Every time I hear this I want to hurl. Ha! It’s more nuanced than thi.
Schools have the right to admit applicants on their own criteria but race based exclusions perpetuating stereotypes are harmful and racist in itself. The message is, “To be Asian (& male) is a liability.”
As an Asian myself (and proud of it), I shudder to think how much inequality and racism still exists. I’m proud of the Asian culture and values and wouldn’t want it any other way.
Luckily, my teens take their college prospects in stride. They realize that life is more than just a prestigious college.
I wish the general U.S. population would view us more positively and realize Asians have much to offer. Indeed, some of the most revered artists, designers and writers, Yo Yo Ma, I.M. Pei, Maya Lin, Billie Tsien, Ai Weiwei, Ang Lee, Ha Jin, Chang-Rae Lee, Jason Wu, Derek Lam, Prabal Garung,Thakoon Panichgul and Alexander Wang are Asian!
And who can resist Jack Ma’s salesmanship? (Alibaba, ICYDK).
To think that Asians are universally quiet, socially awkward, mechanical, heads down people with nothing to offer & little promise to the world is short sighted.
To the schools that deny these extremely well qualified applicants because they’re Asian, it is their loss.
As another reader pointed out, if these kids were another race, the view would be different.
7
As an Asian, I agree with Harvard. Asians are good at studying, they are good at being submissive. They barely have any personality to lead. I work for an Asian boss, and he's very much of a robot. No personality, nothing new to offer, no suggestions. I'd rather have someone who has a strong personality than someone that keeps harping on overwork and no fun. Also, there is barely any room for any change. All change is shut down immediately by him. I have worked with numerous bosses of different race - I prefer working for white/black/hispanic bosses than Asian bosses.
9
Great, thankfully your anecdotal advice will not impact the decisions of the court or any reasonably thinking person at all
3
The Asian boss that you work for may not be representative of all Asians, just as Donald Trump is not representative of all Caucasians.
11
You seem to have self -hatred -perhaps you were Tiger parented? Fortunately not every Asian American is not a victim of tiger-parenting and we have enough self-respect.
3
This is what the privileged population always does: move the goal post.
Ad though there is something SO sacrosanct about being “popular—“ a decidedly white and American concept. Kids in other countries concentrate on studies, not rate each other based on when they lose their virginity.
Moreover, given that the legal, corporate and financial system in this country is choking to the gills with Harvard graduates of your racist program, I ask this, are you really happy about the visionless, short-term obsessed graduates your program has produced thus far? If you are, you are definitely the problem.
58
Why this hysteria over Harvard? Data show that STEM grads from many other schools - including many state universities - do just as well or better in career and earnings. Let Harvard be its own little ivory tower and apply instead to Stanford, Emory, UT - Austin, UC Berkeley, CalTech, MIT, UW - Seattle etc. - so many other options. We should stop the focus on college as a brand name and focus instead on education itself.
31
True, the Ivies have no monopoly on IQ. But they do have a stranglehold on very important positions, e.g., look at the USSC and where the justices went to school and law school.
9
It would be very helpful if the data distinguished between Asians and Asian Americans, and perhaps even more importantly between the different ethnic groups. Most likely the findings reported here do not hold true for less privileged Asians and Asian Americans such those of Cambodian, Laotian, Hmong, and Vietnamese ancestry.
19
It would also be helpful if they break down nationality and years spent in the country. Some mainland students with parents in privileged positions in business/government are heavily coached, sent earlier to American high schools just to fulfill the academic requirements, so their applications might resemble another's to the point of plagiarism. If preferences are given to all-cash rich international students, then that really is a problem, and it hurts Asian Americans.
1
This is an affirmative action case and the courts have rule in favor of it so
I doubt that it spill go anywhere when it reaches the Supreme Court.
If you can discriminate for people who couldn't normally qualify for Harvard then you can discriminate again people who more then qualify for Harvard.
Personally I think a college degree is a learners permit and it is the beginning of of education. And that you can get anywhere. But that can be viewed as "sour grapes" for a guy that couldn't get into Harvard. But Experience tells me that the former is true.
Success is a long road. And it's who finishes first that counts. Not how fast you start. However one views success.
I know a guy who is a Harvard graduate who is a Home Depot greeter. And an MIT graduate who is a City engineer. A job that any engineer from any school could get. You have to decide the value of these things.
6
I didn't choose them; it was just good fortunte. But ALL of my specialist physicians are immigrants from Asia or are Americans of Asian ancestry. I'm glad Harvard didn't have a chance to discriminate against the young Asian-American surgeon who reattached my retina recently, the Asian immigrant who did my plastic surgery after skin cancer, the Asian immigrant who patched my wife's eardrum and fixed her deviated septum, the Asian immigrants who are THE major donors to the university where I worik, or my soon-to-retire Asian immigrant boss, who is the best boss I have ever had by far.
405
Racism.
Immigrants are successful. Nigerians are the most educated people in this country.
Asians refers to half of the world's population. People from Vietnam are doing radically different than people from China. It's a numbers game
So, um, Asians are great? How is this helpful to the issue?
Jay, as you point out, all your doctors are Asians. Asian parents often encourage their children to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) as paths to success. Music can be limited to classical training in violin and piano.
I would expect MIT, Cal Tech, and Virginia Tech to have a higher proportion of Asian students than would Harvard, Yale, Berkeley and Stanford since the latter are liberal arts schools with more diversified majors in the humanities and the social sciences.
If I were a dean of humanities at an institution of liberal arts, I may have as one of my goals the cultivation of the next generation of writers. I may be acutely aware that since 2010, of the 32 first place National Book awards, 11 have gone to black authors, while only one has been awarded to an Asian. I would want an admissions process that identifies and channels the most talented and creative writers of any race into my division. Assessing writing talent is subjective, but it it can be done sucessfully and with tangible, published results.
Also, if I were a dean of humanities, I might preside over a music department that would seek jazz as well as classical musicians. Who knows, I might even have a marching band within my purview! Again the focus on classical music among Asian students, would make them competetive in certain ways and non-competitive in others.
This is just more evidence of that fact that racially based preferential admission is morally indefensible. The idea that Harvard marks an entire ethnic group down on subjective measures to get the end results they desire despite the objective measures is their 1920’s treatment of Jews all over again. Hopefully this will be the beginning of the end of race based preferences. Metrics like economic status, first in the family to attend college, etc could create a much fairer mix.
33
Glad to see asian students taking on the classic use of holistic admissions as a defacto quota system. Unfortunately, they had to use an anti-affirmative action group to bring the case. This case might destroy holistic admissions in the ivies, which would help Asian students, but would also harm black and latino students. Hopefully there is a balance that will end the asian quotas, protect affirmative action for the groups that need it, an reduce the subsidy received by white students that have legacy preferences, big money donor families (e.g. Kushner), or attended the right private feeder school.
18
FWIW, when I do interviews for my Ivy League alma mater, in addition to high intelligence and academic accomplishment, I look for passion and an authentic intellectual voice.
7
Why don't you just come out and say what you are thinking...Asians lack passion and do not have authentic intellectual voices.
6
Me too.
If they had a Chinese person on the panel and that person rated kids quite differently from the non-Chinese, it would be interesting. i have lived next to Chinatown in Manhattan for 50 years and it took a long time for me, a WASP, not from a cosmopolitan area to learn how to interact with Chinese. I suppose I could have been "racist," but it was just a thing of feeling uncomfortable. Now I miss interacting with Chinese (I refuse to say the politically correct, Asian.) when I am not in the city. I would say the admissions people who are not Chinese probably have some cultural bias and it even reminds me of being shut out at sorority rush at my college - Denison, in Ohio. This article reminds me that they had this category, personality, and one was supposed to be "peppy," and some other cliches I can't remember that I am sure I failed on. So this stuff happens within groups as well as across groups.
6
The only way to avoid any kind of racial discrimination in college admissions is to blank out "Name" "Race" and "Hometown/high school" on the application, and base admissions purely on test scores, essays, and letters of rec.
If you go that way of course, you will end up with a racial breakdown of about 60% white, 30% Asian, 5% African American, 5% Hispanic at top schools which is obviously unfair because of structural racism disadvantages against Black/Latino students and families.
What can colleges do other than implement pure racial quotas, and what difference does it make if it's through personality traits or just a straight up quota?
And since whites have a greater advantage over non-whites in America (on average), what is the reasoning for accepting any white students to Harvard at all?
This is a messy issue that has no right answers, colleges are just trying to create generally diverse campuses with relatively intelligent students.
11
White (Hispanic) | White (Non-Hispanic). Hispanics can be of ANY race.
Could it be these Asian-American "character flaws" are the result of social isolation for wont of concentrating on studying? (Yes, whatifism.)
No matter your race, if you have children, would you want them roaming around with their friends among their peers? These are savagely partisan times and their minds are not as mature as their bodies to process the knee-jerk sparks this Administration is creating on a daily basis in the media.
Straight quotas are unconstitutional. Giving everyone in a favored group the same "leg up" is also unconstitutional. That's why colleges have to invent these squishy subjective justifications.
4
@Edmund,
You're suggesting playing the stereotypical race card (i.e., the child of the person who cleans my house v who cuts my lawn v who does my dry cleaning v who owns the convenience store where I buy beer) is subjectively justified?
The frantic hunt for systemic racism in every corner of American life never seems to find any were it is most blatant, in college admission policies. Universities used to strive for academic and scientific excellence. Today they strive only for the right color scheme.
42
Asian-Americans may have reason to complain, but the ethnic group that is really being discriminated against is white Christians. The article implies that non-Hispanic whites make up about 50% of Harvard's undergraduate population. But according to a 2015 article in the Jerusalem Post, Jews make up about 25% of Harvard undergraduates. Presumably Jews are also almost entirely non-Hispanic whites. That means that 25% of Harvard undergraduates are non-Hispanic white Christians. Meanwhile 62% of the American population are non-Hispanic whites and 2% Jewish. That means that for white Christians to be proportionately represented at Harvard, they would have to constitute 59% percent of undergraduates as opposed to the actual number which is 25%. That this has persisted for so long appears to be a concerted effort by Harvard and similarly situated institutions to deliberately suppress the opportunities for white Christians to receive the credentialing that our society seems to require these days to enter the leadership class.
14
It cannot be said enough.
Judaism is a religion, not a race.
Those that practice it can be white,
yellow, brown or black.
Therefor, your statistics and reasoning
are flawed.
The percentage of caucasians is higher than you state.
Are you arguing to base your admissions criteria on religion, i.e
Christian, Jewish, Hindu, etc.
Facts matter
5
Seriously?
4
Is this comment actually serious?
3
Admission to Harvard or any of the Ivies cannot be judged solely on grades or test scores.
At my Ivy alma mater 40% of the applicants had 4.0 or better grade averages, and 50% scored 1400 or more on the SATs; I'm sure it's the same or better (worse?) at Harvard.
To claim that Asian-Americans were prejudiced because Harvard admitted "academically less qualified" candidates makes no sense statistically, when most applicants are clearly fully qualified academically.
7
You are missing the point:
"Alumni interviewers give Asian-Americans personal ratings comparable to those of whites. But the admissions office gives them the worst scores of any racial group, often without even meeting them, according to Prof. Arcidiacono."
7
First, let's admit that the people bringing this suit do not have innocent motivations: they want to eliminate the means by which educational institutions try to achieve diversity. These same people took down affirmative action in California, then had buyers' remorse when the losers were mostly white students, as Asians in the University of California system shot up from 13% to over 40%! Some of them turned around and tried to reinstate affirmative action, which is when Asians, who have been politically silent for too long, finally stood up and said "no".
The problem is that this fight has driven a wedge between Asians and other minorities, despite the fact that we all fight the same kinds of racism and discrimination on a daily basis. For those who don't remember, I give you the Chinese Exclusion Act, Vincent Chin, Japanese Internment camps and the regular shootings of Indian-Americans by white nationalists. Harvard (of which I am an alumnus) deserves to be embarrassed over this latest form of institutional discrimination, but tearing down all efforts at achieving diversity would be a terrible outcome. Rather than a dsetructive all-or nothing lawsuit, there should be a Manhattan Project to solve this problem without unduly punishing any single group. Alas, this is unlikely, given how dug-in the parties are.
53
There are 3 major problems with affirmative action. Here, the focus is on the lost opportunity for Asian Americans, which is certainly a valid point, but not the only one.
The academic reputation of the institution also suffers. For instance, I think that Harvard is already perceived to be less rigorous than U. Chicago, MIT, Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins, Williams, etc., not to mention Oxford, Cambridge, Sorbonne, and the like. The strength of Harvard is the brilliance of its faculty, not of its students body.
But the most sinister negative effect of affirmative action is probably on underrepresented minorities, many of whom might have been admitted even without preferences. These sort of practices make other people suspicious of their achievements. For instance, I've heard people question whether Obama was truly academically qualified for Harvard. In addition, by having these sorts of preferences, you are giving the not-too-subtle message to young underrepresented minority children that they cannot compete academically on equal footing with other racial groups. That sets low expectations.
41
I teach at a school where the plurality of students are Asian American. First, it would be nice if we’d stop lumping all Asians together. When they talk about high proportions of Asians being admitted, who are they actually talking about—I’m guessing the children of Hmong and Cambodian refugees are not there is “disproportionate” numbers. Second, measuring personality is the perfect way to systematically discriminate in favor of your own cultural group. It’s pretty dubious. Third, however, I’ve taught an honors seminar of nearly all Asian American freshmen who had trouble as a group answering the question, “what are you interested in?” They were “interested in” getting into a good college, a professional school, and getting a well-paying job. That’s it. Literally, only one student in the class, when he said he was a chemistry major and I asked why, actually spoke of his fascination for chemistry. I’m far less interested in teaching the honors section now. I’ll take the B students, thanks. I’m thinking Harvard may well get applicants who are the victims of hardcore tiger-parenting.
130
You speak as though you have strong biases against Asian Americans.
What do you mean by "hardcore tiger-parenting"?
I am amazed that you say you are a teacher.
If I were an Asian American parent in that high school, I would definitely make sure you are not assigned to teach my child's class.
2
By hardcore tiger parenting, I mean all of the parenting strategies that Amy Chua so proudly described in her book, focusing on academic success to the exclusion of other goals. It’s not as common a parenting strategy as she made out, but it may well be that applicants to Harvard are more likely to have been raised that way.
And it’s not a high school. These are university students.
1
College admissions are made by humans. Humans are biased. Bias in action is called discrimination. Some discrimination is illegal, including race and national origin discrimination. As Justice Roberts warned, engaging in racial and national origin discrimination to remedy past discrimination is worse than a fool's errand - it is hypocritical illegality. Harvard and its competitors feverishly protect admissions and mismatch performance data to shield their hypocritical illegality. Harvard and its competitors do so with pure, but illegal, motives.
13
While the alleged original intend of affirmative action is somewhat noble, trying to tackle inequality at an alleged start of a people's economical journeys, in hoping that it will help to reduce the problem, it (A) is not addressing the real problem or acknowledging the existence of this problem, and (B) tried to resolve an inequality problem by introducing another type of inequality.
If college admission should be govern by demographic distribution, I would welcome the day that the Olympic medals are granted the same way. But I would not dare to think income and economic well being will ever be governed in the same manner. We would have gone too far if that were to happen.
6
If it was on the level why has Harvard been fighting for months to keep the process secret and never released it's own study showing a rigged system. The answer is fairly obvious.
82
Leave alone Harvard, Chinese students faced similar treatment in private schools in mainland China. The private (international) schools try to limit the number of Chinese in every classroom. The reason in part, to my undertanding when we lived there, is to keep the English language and humanities standards high. This resulted in competitive, racist, corrupt admissions process against Chinese and African students, (even though most of the African students actually strengthened the English language scores - one particular school in Beijing 'lost' our application twice)-
2
Courage? Low on courage?As measured by what? and what does that have to do with predicting academic success or failure? At a loss for further words, and yes I am an Ivy graduate thank you.
43
In the real world there is far more to success than academic success and preparing students for the real world should be central any university’s mission—and I went to an Ivy League school too—not that that matters one iota. It’s probably a negative.
2
How can they even assess personality without meeting the applicants? It suggests that it is a bogus category that is really meant to be used to adjust racial balances. Personality can't be quantified and thus it is harder to refute a judgement of someone on that basis. The telling thing is that the same category - character, personality - was used in the 20th century to limit the number of Jews admitted.
9
In infants its called "failure to thrive."
This really screams out at me:
Alumni interviewers give Asian-Americans personal ratings comparable to those of whites. But the admissions office gives them the worst scores of any racial group, often without even meeting them, according to Prof. Arcidiacono.
Lest this gets lost in everything else...
393
Thank you for pointing this out! This is how discrimination works in our time. It is a kind of silent agreement to be dishonest. You know that this part of the job.
8
"White applicants would be most hurt if Asian-American admissions rose, the plaintiffs said."
That is the part that some people seem quite determined to overlook. Some seem to automatically assume a move to admit based on tests/grades would only affect black and Hispanic people. But that's because they haven't yet realized how it'll really turn out for white students. If and when they do, expect a sea change in attitudes.
"Study finds that when white people are told of the success of Asian applicants, their commitment to basing admissions on grades and test scores drops"
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/13/white-definitions-merit-a...
"...in a survey of white California adults...Half were simply asked to assign the importance they thought various criteria should have in the admissions system of the University of California. The other half received a different prompt, one that noted that Asian Americans make up more than twice as many undergraduates proportionally in the UC system as they do in the population of the state.
When informed of that fact, the white adults favor a reduced role for grade and test scores in admissions - apparently based on high achievement levels by Asian-American applicants.
...When asked about leadership as an admissions criterion, white ranking of the measure went up in importance when respondents were informed of the Asian success in University of California admissions."
23
Harvard used to say the same things about Jews, who were criticized for lacking polish, not bathing properly, speaking too loudly, and a general inability to be "one of us".
90
This is what happens when you reject and abandon the teachings and solutions of Dr. King. What part of "do not judge others by skin color" do progressives not understand?
17
Yes, I agree. But this is exactly what the elite in government and universities have done. There has been a conscious but covert rejection of everything King stood for, and there has been a deliberate and largely successful attempt to re-racialize America. It is endemic in our schools, and it will take a long time to repair.
Those of us who are not racialists, who try not to lie, who do not believe that we are superior in dignity to other people or that they are superior to us, who do not believe that we have the right to twist truth or force our ideology on others--we have to struggle now at every level. From the groundwork of building communities and schools where every child has an opportunity to excel to the return of our institutions to honesty and truth-telling and justice.
4
We should be very leery of this lawsuit. No doubt Asians do face admissions discrimination, and that should be remedied. But this suit was brought by Edward Blum, the driving force behind ending race-conscious admissions in Texas. He is opposed to minority rights in general and is trying to develop a case to overturn all race-conscious admissions, hoping to bring it before the Supreme Court. You can bet he cares nothing about discrimination against Asian Americans.
229
It doesn’t matter if he cares about Asians or not. He cares about ending race-based admission and that’s good enough for me.
22
Mr. Blum favors judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. You think that's a bad thing?
If we want to stop racial discrimination, we have to stop discriminating by race.
8
Asians aren’t fooled. We know that Blum is using Asians to demonstrate racial bias with the hope that eliminating affirmative action will increase admissions for whites while decreasing admissions blacks and Latinos. It is just more persuasive and arguably tasteful to use overachieving Asian minorities than to use whites to make this argument.
2
Who knew that social-engineering would have so much in common with sausage-making?
"No one should see how laws or sausages are made. To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making. The making of laws like the making of sausages, is not a pretty sight." ~ Otto von Bismarck
11
I'd love to see what was on the "blacked out page" mentioned at the end of the article.
29
It’s easier today than in the past but still not easy to completely overcome and change without encountering bias characteristics and circumstances such as race, wealth/poverty, connections, education or lack of education, conforming or nonconforming, etc, some of which we have no control over or would want to change.
1
I have always had a problem with colleges using subjective personality traits as a factor in determining admissions to their institutions. Why does it matter if one is likable or respected? Using these "soft" factors is not effective because any half-witted applicant will feign that they possess these "positive" personality traits for admissions purposes. Personally, I know dozens of people who graduated from these top tier colleges. Yes, they are mostly bright and intelligent, but a good lot of them are not likable nor are they respected.
39
Why is it necessary to do math to figure out the white share of Harvard's class of 2021 (which at 49% is more than twice as high as any other racial group)? This is typically the way that Harvard and other historically white colleges and universities report demographic breakdowns of their student populations.
That which is not "marked" is considered the norm or the standard against which all others are measured and marked. Universities like Harvard that were created for white people will continue to see this particularly advantaged racial group as their primary focus (not even deserving mention) and all other racial groups will be held by some criterion or another to a non-threatening fraction of the student population.
7
So first of all, this is about discrimination against Asian Americans, not whites.
Second, you're right - 49% of the Harvard students are white. In a country where 61.3% of people are white.
7
Matt in Cacophony, if it only mentioned the percentage of Asian-American students (although does that count international students?), that would be one thing. Instead, it says this: "Harvard’s class of 2021 is 14.6 percent African-American, 22.2 percent Asian-American, 11.6 percent Hispanic and 2.5 percent Native-American or Pacific Islander, according to Harvard’s website." It seems bizarre to omit the race with the greatest share of students in a list about demographic information.
I had the exact same issue! It seemed like a really blind affirmation of white dominance in an article ostensibly about the harms of racial discrimination at the flagship institution of elite white culture.
1
About time to end race-based quotas in higher education. But not for the reasons often cited. The problem with these programs is that it *covers up* the systemic discrimination of the American School system--where black and brown children are red lined into inferior schools by whites. Local funding of schools further insures that poor children of all colors are pushed to the back of the bus.
Colleges and universities are contributing to the problem by clumsily implementing these programs which do not achieve the desired goal of equality and justice for all children, and in fact make it worse with the inevitable scandals, like this one.
13
Harvard has partially brought this on itself by creating a cult of exclusivity for its admission process. For many families admission to Harvard is less an educational opportunity than some kind of trophy.
Harvard over-recruits undergraduate applicants to be able to reject most of them to reduce its acceptance rate and enhance its "prestige." Because there are so many highly qualified applicants, subjective judgments make all the difference, as is claimed in this suit. As with any artificially manipulated scarce resource, the very limitation on admission is an attraction for people craving status.
Truthfully, there are hundreds of undergraduate institutions that provide an education that is as good or better than Harvard for many students. The knee-jerk desire for admission to Harvard for ambitious families is short-sighted, and often not in the interest of the student.
This is not to dismiss the claims of admissions discrimination on the part of Asian-American students. However, Harvard should realize that this kind of complaint was inevitable considering the artificial scarcity created by its admissions process, and its cultivation of a prestige image that is separate from the objective suitability of a Harvard education.
50
How very true.
1
Bias, against nearly all ethnic, religious, racial and national groups that are "not us" has always been there. Evolution favored tribal members who viewed people from other tribes as enemies. The Crusades were to convert or slaughter those who differed.
Now we can prove bias with statistical data.
But facing that it is within all of us, and I mean ALL of us,
means struggling with prejudices that have part of the species for thousands of years.
How harder it is to accomplish with a leader who foments biases, declares "America First", disparages immigrants and pretends to be blind to some blatant prejudices, while stoking others with dog whistle comments.
8
C - Speaking of "dog whistle comments" the leader that you mentioned does not "disparage immigrants." He does disparage, and rightly so, those people who gain entry into the United States by illegal and or criminal means.
The "dog whistle" for the left is erroneously calling those who have entered the US illegally "immigrants."
3
Here are the facts of today's filings: Asian-Americans score lower on personal scores when scored by the admissions committee but not lower when scored by teachers, counselors, and in alumni interviews. These lower personal scores decrease their chances at admission. The question is, who's right? The admissions committee, or the other sources? Do Asians really process fewer positive personality trait? or does the discrepancy suggest discrimination and bias?
99
open and shut case. Bias to achieve goal of finding way to limit Asian enrollment
12
Check out who is on the Admissions Commitees for your answer. Alumni not getting employed anywhere else looking to replicating their own character traits.
The admissions processes at elite schools aren't much different from the Vatican's selection of a pope--secretive, politically charged, and done with an eye toward preserving the institution as it is--and the general public would likely be disgusted to learn how they work. Focusing on representation of racial/ethnic groups obscures the ways in which class operates to produce advantage and disadvantage.
5
Merit does not just mean marks and test scores. Otherwise all Ivy Leagues can have a single common one day 10 hour entrance test and done with the admissions for that year like it happens in several Asian countries.
Ivy leagues are supposed to choose and groom future leaders in the different areas of studies. Not just supply work force to the market.
50
I don't disagree with you, but if you read the complaint and the findings, even controlled for the "subjective" factors highlighted by you, there appears to be bias. Interestingly, the data shows that on personality ratings, alumni based interviews show no statistical bias, but those performed by the admissions staff does.
14
Should private universities have the role of "choos[ing] and groom[ing] future leaders?
Why?
3
Harvard's discrimination against Asian Americans is just another metaphor for the Bamboo Ceiling faced by thousands of talented, hard-working Asian Americans in Silicon Valley, the Pharma industry and big law firms across the country.
Disparaging Asian American employees as lacking in personality or leadership qualities is how corporate America has been keeping Asian Americans from entering the executive ranks where the big money is made.
This is nothing new.
3
Wasn't this reported a 10 years ago (2009 book No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal), and ignored as it did not fit a per-defined narrative.
10
In thinking about the recent NYT article about how NYC mayor De Blasio may create affirmative action quotas for the magnet schools rather than using test scores and grades for admissions measurements, I am struck that the meritocratic goals of these schools are being subverted by pitting social equality ends against individual achievements. I am firmly on the side of the students who earn high grades; earn high test scores; and are successful members and leaders of extra-curricular activities. If those high achieving students happen to be Asian-Americans or Jewish or Latino, I think the school system should reward them. By rewarding students who value education enough to study for their classes and their tests, schools and universities will signal to all applicants that their hard work matters not their ethnicity. De Blasio's quota system isn't meritocratic and is reverse social engineering and reverse discrimination. It perpetuates discriminatory attitudes. I do find this country club attitude of "not our kind of people" to be a failing of Harvard's professed emphasis on diversity. "Bad personality" is code for "riff raff" or "nerd" or "egghead" or "not my kind" and Harvard should be rewarding those students who care about education not about creating a university brochure photograph that looks like United Colors of Benetton with students who don't actually value their educations.
227
DeBlasios system, is the exact same one implemented by University of California Regents after California passed Prop 209 outlawing AA. This system is highly touted, and oft cited, by opponents of AA. The apprehension and feelings of unfairness towards a policy that simply states the top students from each school get to attend the top high school belies a fear of having to confront the reality that there is systematic unfairness of undereducating at/underfunding of, certain schools. If not, feel free to send your kid to one of the middle schools with zero representation, it will only improve their odds right?
1
I find it telling that your call out of various ethnic groups to be rewarded based on academic achievement did not include Black students.
I come across many students in higher education that have no other qualities outside of scoring high on tests. Upon graduation, they are woefully unprepared, lacking highly in emotional intelligence-- something that cannot be determined based on a test score.
1
Sorry, your wrong. Admission to UC is nothing at all like de Blasios' rather racist ideas for admission to top NY high schools.
UC admissions:
Unweighted GPA 3.85 or better
Weighted GPA 4.39 or better (AP classes)
SAT or ACT scores (Very, very high)
Essays
http://student-tutor.com/blog/how-to-get-in-uc-berkeley-admissions-requi...
1
Bigots in the admissions office, inventing excuses to justify their bigotry.
The best solution (because bigotry will not go away) is to replace the admissions office with a computer program ranking applicants on the basis of their ACT or SAT scores, the only unbiased criterion (because everyone takes the same test, and grading is objective) of academic suitability. These scores have also, unsurprisingly, been proven to be the best predictor of academic success.
81
SAT and ACT scores have absolutely not been shown to be the best predictor of success. GPA has. And why any school would want to fill their classrooms with people who are good test takers is beyond me. It's such a narrow view of what intelligence is.
5
It's not that simple. High standardized test scores correlate to family income more than anything else.
1
A professor at Columbia told me years ago that they had tried once admitting a class on the basis of SAT's alone, and that it was a disaster.
2
Harvard limited the admissions of Jews for many many years and they've been limiting asian students as well. Their crutch is "diversity" but there's never a shortage of Winklevoss twins, and other children of donors, is there?
413
And Harvard likewise limited admission far more to African-Americans and Native Americans (who were named in the founding of Harvard college cited for education by it). The two racial minorities were discriminated against admission far more than Asians and whites ever were. Indeed, for most of American history, Harvard and other Ivy League schools practiced blatant racial discrimination against American blacks, and they never had a quota such as Jews. The other group the Ivy League schools discriminated against more than Asians were poor whites, particularly from the Deep South.
Nobel Prize winning laureate William Faulkner, for instance, would not have gotten into Harvard College even though he would have been kicked out if he had been.
1
Disagree.
I don’t take my kids to Kumon and drill them every weekend in math.
So, they may not score as well on standardized tests. But I think they are more complete human beings. They are more creative. They are more well-rounded.
That needs to factor into the admissions “equation”
6
TC: Asia encompasses a wide-number of nations that significantly are as different in histories, cultures and genetic heritability from one another as they are from African Americans and American whites. “Asians” as an all-inclusive group would probably not include Australian Aborigines, Samoans, Polynesians, inhabitants of Naru, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Andaman Islanders, not to mention Bangladesh, and Tibetans or Siberians although they could be considered Asian. Shouldn’t black Asians have some representation at Harvard and the other Ivey league schools as well?
This from Harvard, ha! Not surprised. Asians might actually show up and succeed and pay . . . wouldn't want that!
26
You just revealed bias against every other race and the type of stereotyping the suit complains of.
3
Applications could be devoid of any personal identifying features and descriptions...containing only applicant's evidence of academic achievements and objectives. With the application a sealed envelope would be included containing applicant's identification.
The university would choose its class by qualification blindly and then, as in any competition, the sealed envelopes are opened.
35
The fact of the matter is many Asian students for any number of cultural reasons would score as they did on these tests.Why a lawsuit must follow I don't know.
2
So does Harvard have a demographic category , where if you are Asian ( that includes Indians ) , then you are given lowest grades automatically for personal traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected” ?
Institutes like Harvard are grossly over rated and a degree from there seems more like a trophy wife. By that I mean, many state colleges have great quality students, just because they have a larger pool and produce outstanding citizens.
8
Very Good. As the parent of an Asian child, this nonsense has to stop.
'Whole-Person' admissions = we can use an arbitrary measure to ensure not too many Asian-Americans are getting in here.
Shameful.
310
Whole person admissions are essential to a whole person education, which best prepares students for success in the real world. Success in life requires far more than being able to score well on tests. It takes strong qualities of the whole person.
5
John, you’re not getting the point. “Whole person admissions” is a sham; it does not even attempt to judge a whole person; its entire purpose is to discriminate against Asians.
If Harvard believes that race, rather than merit, should decree that 14.6% of African-Americans and 19% of Asians be admitted, why don’t they just say so?
3
Except Asians are the second largest group attending at far greater rate than in the population.
2
Do you suppose this might be the case that converts conservatives into being fans of affirmative action? That is, when it is WHITE people who need protection from overachieving Asians?
Or maybe Neil Gorsuch will suddenly discover that keeping a quota majority of whites at Harvard is a national security issue.
15
Absolutely discriminatory and bigoted against Asian Americans. And I say this as a Black man who is all too aware of discrimination and bigotry in America.
Of course, the real beneficiaries of this discrimination are White, upper-middle class and wealthy students.
America's educational woes at the K-12 system are real but they can't be solved by shameful discriminatory policies at the college entrance stage.
Shame on Harvard. This must end.
558
Bingo.
I agree. Harvard should accept more Asian-Americans, more African-Americans, Native-Americans, and European-Americans!
As a half-white, half-Asian woman, I thank you, Brother, for pointing out that it's white people who continue to benefit from these anti-Asian policies.
Blum is trying to distract.
Asians, blacks, latinos, whites and native americans who want justice should not be pitted against one another by Blum.
We will not take their side against our black and Latino and Native American friends.
This is painful to hear. Apparently institutionalized animus against Asian-Americans, and implicit perpetuation of the "hive-mind," or "automaton" stereotype: just awful. I hope those students Harvard has apparently unjustly turned away find justice should this prove true.
64
This headline could have also said "Harvard Contends No Racial Bias in Filing." So is there bias at the NY Times?
In my view, the appropriate headline should have been: "Parties Submit Briefs Regarding Racial Bias at Harvard." Let the reader decide for himself/herself. Perhaps readers are interested in reading about both sides of the argument and, ultimately, how the court decides.
7
Yeah, the racists are the victims for being called out.
2
It's time schools 'fessed up to those "intangible factors" that allow them to discriminate, to engage in reverse discrimination against academically qualified children in the name of some will o'the wisp "diversity" (that, like the Supreme Court on pornography, can't be defined but "we know it when we see it"). The plaintiffs are forcing these dirty little secrets into the open, secrets Harvard (and others) would "fight to keep" hidden.
91
It can be defined, but the whole purpose of the term "diversity" is to hide the fact that it's synonymous with "reverse discrmination."
As such, it is insidiously different from the earlier principle of equal opportunity.
Affirmative Action was originally intended to make up for the effects of historical discrimination by reaching out to *qualified* applicants from disadvantaged groups. It was not intended to be a system of racial entitlements and de facto quotas.
But somewhere along the line, that principle was lost, and it became a system of race-based preferences.
5
The NYT should wait until this case is resolved. Litigating in the press is not productive -- even if the NYT chooses to report on subsequent filings by the defendant, and even if the NYT gives them the same credibility that it gives to this expert report.
Beating up on Harvard might be fun, but it'd be best to wait for the judge's ruling.
7
Please, if this story was about any other racial group there would be a mob calling for heads, not folks asking for caution about "litigating in the press."
Discrimination against Asians has been overlooked because of their heterogeneity
(diverse from China to Japan to Korean Peninsula to South Asia, etc) and their tendancy to assimilate and "just take it" as a "model minority" (itself a troublesome term). The NYT has to cover this story.
For those who believe they should wait...by that standard is the NYT and Wa Post just supposed to remain silent until the Mueller investigation is complete as well?
18
Yet another mile marker in Edward Blum‘s life mission to maintain racial purity among the privileged classes.
4
It has been clear for years to anyone but those in denial that Harvard and other elite schools act to limit Asian enrollment, just as Jews were treated back when they were insufficiently white. Why else would the administration be so desperate to conceal the evidence? The difference today is that it is not mediocre WASP students alone whom the process is intended to benefit.
249
Awww. It's exactly mediocre white people who are befitting. Trust me. Capable monorities are leaving these schools with an asterisk next to their degree for the crime of not being white
1
So what about qualified WASPs who are rejected by Harvard in order let in more African-Americans and Hispanics?
2
The only way to stop racial discrimination is to stop discriminating by race.
40
I wonder how international Asian students compare to Asian American students in Harvard admissions. How did these studies account for international students? Are those percentages at the end of the article all for American students? I noticed it said Asian and African American, but not Hispanic American.
4
Such a unfair process leads to inefficiency and injustice. In the long run, our society and Harvard itself will suffer.
14
The fact that Harvard practices racial discrimination has been an open secret for many years. They should stop. We need to evaluate people based upon the content of their character, not the color of their skin. A wise man hoped for that in the last century, remember?
Discrimination against Asian-Americans because they work too hard or have too much native intelligence is deplorable. Now Mayor deBlasio wants to bring that kind of backward thinking to the NYCity public schools.
Harvard's not the only one, either. Meritocracy may not be perfect, but it's better than the alternative.
273
Interesting as to why you think allowing the top X% of students to specialized high schools (exactly following the much vaunted --particularly by opponents of AA -- process of the University of California Regents) is not meritocratic.
1
I'm sure that you understand that even the very top students at some schools may yet prove less qualified than those with lower class rank at other schools. If you are at one of the many schools following the Obama command to abandon school discipline ("restorative justice") you have an impossible task to become ready for a specialized high school. Specialized schools need to be for the most talented and motivated students. They are best identified with a single, standard objective test of readiness.
We've been doing affirmative action for more than 5 decades. If it hasn't worked yet, it never will. Institutional iscrimination against Asians certainly is not the answer.
1
Look, it's high time we stopped worshiping these corporations and saw them for what they are: Education Businesses.
7
I mean, look: It's Harvard.
They've discriminated since their conception when they refused to admit anyone who wasn't an Extremist Calvinist Puritan from a well-respected, wealthy family, especially Baptists or, god forbid, Quakers, who used to be executed on the town green.
6
This smacks of social engineering and soft racism of the highest order.
Moreover, the redactions look quite suspicious. Given that it is quite easy to redact indentifying personal information without blacking out the entire page, there is no earthly reason for Harvard to redact the whole summary page of applicant evaluation.
The truth will come out sooner or later. It always does.
100
A lawsuit is not required to acknowledge the reality. Academic institutions’ push for “diversity” is a sham, is racist, is shameful, and is illegal.
26
This is a lot of craziness.
First, this situation is not comparable to those in the past. Harvard didn’t want Italians, Irish, Eastern Europeans, and Jews no matter how smart they were. It blatantly discriminated against them.
Second, elite schools still discriminates against Irish, Italians, and Eastern Europeans, whom are very much underrepresented at elite schools.
Third, liberals seem to think the elite schools can just increase without limit admissions above 100%. You cannot simultaneously increase the number of students with high test scores, number of athletes, number of legacy, and number of poor.
13
Liberals?
What's that got to do with anything in this discussion?
You regressives really need to find another favorite pejorative adjective.
7
"...whom are very much underrepresented..."
"whom" is incorrect. "...who are very...
7
It is precisely comparable to Harvard's discrimination against Jews, although I am not sure about the other groups you reference. They maintained a very certain percentage of Jews for years. It's called a quota. What is not comparable?
5
College admissions criteria are a complex ball of wax. Taking into consideration qualities that complement a student body while also satisfying rigorous academic requirements is indeed a juggling act. When academic accomplishment is essentially identical across all applicants at elite colleges, taking into consideration other personal qualities becomes a necessary criterion. If personalities cannot match or the university would be a poor fit for a student, it is best for all that the student not be selected. The process is considerably more than perfect SAT scores. And that type of diversity can be a good thing.
35
RIP, a rather lame defense of systemic racism and affirmative action. Reality may not rule the day in all places but certainly universities should at least try to educate its student body about what is real. I understand the limitations imposed by political correctness and the dominance of left "thinking" but really how can the present university systems be justified.
6
In other words, Xi Ying and Przemyslaw just are a "poor fit" for Baxter, Herbert Walker, and Muffy (and their guaranteed elevator to perpetuated privilege) and so "it is best for all that the student not be selected."
8
Good explanation. That should make rejected Asian-American applicants feel much better.
Let's hope the Asian American community can work more on their personalities so that elite universities will accept them at a higher rate. We want everyone to have an equal opportunity, after all.
And good for Harvard for sending out a firm message to the slackers: you're not going to get a free ride based on merit and achievement alone.
8
Was this result tested for statistical significance? I do not see reference to such a test but without it there's no inferring bias from the result.
9
I would be curious to know if the personality findings were consistent between, for example, mainland China and Taiwan or the number of generations that the applicants’ families had spent in the United States. If so, then that is clear evidence of bias. Otherwise, there may be other, more subtle factors at work that would still need to be debated but which are distinct from racial bias.
It would be possible to perform this analysis by looking at the Anglicized spellings of the applicants’ names. Chinese and Taiwanese Anglicizations use different letters to replace different sounds.
Knowing the answer to this is personal to me because I have family members in both countries and I have Asian children. But I don’t want to assume that the interviewers were not responding to legitimate issues that they personally perceived until we determine that through a more thorough analysis of the data.
57
The scores Asians receive during their interviews are not lower than Whites. It is the admissions committee that score them lower.
18
Not sure what this comment is trying to say. That if foreign-born Asian students were consistently rated low in personality, that would be okay, but if Asian-Americans are rated the same way, that would show bias?
1
Isn't a null that assumes difference in personality in their country of origin already biased?
Also, a couple other points:
1. Asia is pretty big, even by American definition.
2. There are way more complication in Chinese names than just a set of simple rules. Think Hong Kong, and all those who "fleet" there, who then subsequently immigrated to the US, then petition their mainland relatives. Guess which spelling they use in their documents.
1
This is the kind of unconscious racism I’ve had to deal with ever since attending school in this country - from junior high school onwards; the better my grades, the more it was assumed that I did nothing but study, as if innate intelligence had nothing to do with it; others also assumed that I had no personality, esp since I wasn’t interested in discussing who is cute or other trivia, because, unknown to them, I had already experienced enough of the real world as an immigrant. If I spoke with an accent, it was also assumed I had nothing to say (a French, non-Asian colleague suffered from the same assumptions)
For that matter, any ‘geek’ used to suffer from the same type of discrimination; these days, they are almost cool, portrayed on TV as having more ‘personality’ than ... Asians.
933
Seems like policy, not unconscious. Race is a social construct, as is doing well on current academic tests.
IQ tests would do better because they are the least able to be improved dramatically by studying, and they have a very strong correlation to being successful in school.
2
If "a French, non-Asian colleague suffered from the same assumptions," then how is it racism in your case?
1
Why even call this "unconscious" bias. Harvard admission folks are pretty bright people and they knew very well that what they were perpetrating was bias and it was "conscious".
15
I think Harvard is right to consider more than the output of SAT cram schools and tiger moms, in the same way that NYC is considering wider criteria for its magnet schools. Excellent Latino or Black students should be given the opportunity to play the leading roles that Harvard grants access to, even if their scores are slightly worse than those of Asians. Schools should be responsible for producing well-rounded graduates who are committed to communities, who can find creative solutions to problems, not just technical all-stars.
141
Could we at least strike a deal and let the "technical all- stars" rise according to merit when it comes to science and engineering and medical research? We have a heavy stake in building sound bridges, curing disease, preventing disaster. And, by the way, it is technical all-stars who are often the most creative when thinking about solutions. There is nothing like actual knowledge and ability. At the population tails, there really are people who are a lot smarter than almost all of us. I myself am not there, but I am happy to rely on the knowledge and ability of people who are.
21
You don't need to attend Harvard to have an excellent education and reach the pinnacle in your field. In "Outiers," Malcolm Gladwell listed the undergraduate schools of the prior 25 years of Nobel Laureates in Medicine. Some Ivies were on the list, but so were many, many other schools, including as Antioch, Holy Cross, Hunter, and DePauw.
1
Excellent latino or black students always gets their way into admissions in Ivy league schools; problem is, they are miniscule compared white or asian-american candidates. My SO is a teacher at an urban district where kids are either black or hispanic. Each year they send one or two kids to top schools but that is it. However the place I live, schools are mostly white and asian-american. Each year these two schools send around 20 kids to Ivy league schools.
I agree that college admissions are complex. But the really distasteful thing here, to my mind, is the duplicitous way in which it is done. And some of the comments on the applications are really distasteful. The article clearly states that alumni interviewers rate candidates fairly equitably. The admissions officers override their viewpoints quite arbitrarily. It’s evident that this is why Harvard fought furiously against the release of documents. What can be more telling than the fact that “Harvard’s own researchers cited a bias against Asian-American applicants in a series of internal reports in 2013.”? Harvard ignored the findings and never released the report.
831
Shouldn't we be concerned about the basic principle of educational institutions using nebulous and value-laden personality and social criteria like “positivity”, "likability", "courage", "kindness", and being “widely respected" in their criteria for admission? How do you measure these things? How ought they to be weighted against other criteria and against each other? While I can understand trying to broaden the admissions process by considering extracurriculars, jobs, and the like, criteria like Harvard's seem almost tailor-made to cause situations like this, and having seen this I'm surprised a story like this is only now making the news.
In the UK, the Continent, and most Asian countries, the admissions process is overwhelmingly based on academics, and while a system like this has plenty of problems as well, it doesn't seem nearly as profoundly flawed as the one this article discusses. Why are we the only major developed country whose elite schools use such a labyrinthine admissions process? Who appointed these officers the arbiters of what matters most in these kids' young lives?
How do you earn the right to tell people less than 20 years old who and how they ought to be?
527
That is exactly how Jews were restricted a century ago.
2
I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. Nebulous criteria are a perfect way for autocratic personalities to manipulate others while appearing beyond reproach themselves.
But private universities can set any criteria they please for admission, provided they are not discriminatory as defined by federal statute.
To me, the question is why the graduates of private universities have the influence they do on all facets of society -- from finance to government and politics, to mass media, to how public universities judge their applicants and organize their curricula.
2
Why do we have labyrinthine admissions? Precisely because "legacies", "school ties" and "sports stars" have always been part of the mix. American admissions has always included major nonacademic elements. First those elements preserved the Ivies from immigrants, then a greater emphasis on academics allowed the immigrants in, and later additional elements helped to include racial minorities and the economically disadvantaged. It's always been a messy business.
4
For a limited number of seats, affirmative action benefiting one group on the basis of race is reverse discrimination against another. It's a tautology.
The Supreme Court should take the opportunity that's these reverse discrimination cases present to take note of the demographic state of the U.S. In 2018.
It's a new America. Black and Hispanic voters constitute a large demographic bloc--a majority or near majority in some states.
Affirmative action is most troubling when it benefits politically powerful groups. In that sense it looks more like institutional racism --where powerful groups (now blacks and hispanics) vote for racial preferences that benefit themselves and discriminate against others. This should be given far stricter scrutiny.
345
This is a patently ridiculous comment. What “power” do blacks and Latinos have? If blacks and Latinos had actual political power, would Latinos be continually harassed in border states for “papers”? Would blacks continue to be racially profiled and over-incarcerated? Would both blacks and Latinos continues to be discriminated against in housing and in workplaces? You clearly need a refresher on the definition of the word power.
3
Name the national institutions that Blacks and Hispanics have the most power in? Congress? Where there is the power to create laws? Are most judges in our nation Black and Hispanic, where there is the power to enforce the laws? Are most police forces run by Blacks and Hispanics? Are most of the homes in America owned by Black and Hispanic Americans? What about the Stock Exchange? Heads of corporations? Do they have the highest rate of graduation overall from colleges and universities? The highest rate of employment after graduation? Non-partisan statistics show that the group of people that are identified as white still have tbe majority politically and economically. You may see more minorities in TV and Film, (perhaps too many that you feel comfortable with) but if you want to use monolithic groupings of people to scratch at the itch of your point, in terms of real political and economic power it is still securely in the hands of WASP men in these hear United States. So rest easy and turn your night light off. The big bad boogeyman of Blacks and Hispanics you think are taking over all sacred Anglo-Saxon institutions exist only for those people who fear that the greed and hypocracy of their ancestors is catching up to them.
2
Mmm, white voters constitute the largest demographic bloc, ergo the election of Trump.
On Affirmative Action, this decision largest benefits whites, who in the case are making rationalizations for the finding (that would be categorically denounced in the U of Mich case).
And regarding AA, too often people don't go back far enough in history to account AA:
1) Headright Act of 1618 - that can 50-100 acres of free land to whites per head of person.
2) Homestead Act of 1862 - where 160 acres of free land (previously sold by the French who did not inform the Natives they had done so) were given to whites if they farmed the land for 5 years and set up a 14x12 shed. I personally have several 4th generational farming families who have shared with me the reality of this program.
3) Land Grant Acts - those new immigrants did not know how to farm so the government established State Universities (Ag & Engineering focused) to reach them.
4) Redlining through the HUD from 1930-1964 (not really enforced until 1988) - where by land had a redline drawn around it and in effect kept people out of what is one of the largest transfers of wealth (home ownership, also the means of leveraging which sent kids to college, etc.
5) Social Security & Pensions "Old Age Insurance" (1935) - given to all with the exception of domestic and field workers where blacks were forced to).
1
The admission criteria is not rewarding for a kid who spent 12 years of his/her life in learning, rather they are paying attention to personality that someone judged in just 20 minutes of interview. I dated my wife for 5 years I still don't understand her personality and they think that in 20 mins someone can't fake their real personality.
Its like in a jungle if a lion worked on his required skill of hunting and got the prey, they will say ohh there are other lions in group who were sleeping during their training, but they are gentle to everyone and have good personality. As we need to give everyone equal chance. Leave your hunt for them. The person who worked hard to get something should not be punished.
324
Your argument implies that children who are forced to forfeit social-emotional growing experiences (playing) should be labeled as slackers?
If other cultures make the mistake of equating our children's success with reaching academic excellence at any cost, why must we Americans (colleges, parents, teachers, public school boards...) go along with that flawed logic?
The old saying, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," is also a science-based statement of cause and effect.
1
Most applicants don't even get interviewed. They base their 'personality' assessment on the application essay which is the most gamed, most contrived piece of writing that you can ever find on the face of the earth.
2
The interviews are an hour. The people making the personality judgments are not the interviewers. The judges never met the student even once. That seems bad.
4
In the past, Asians were purportedly rejected because of too few extracurricular activities. Now that Asian students have well-rounded applications with leadership positions, sports, and multiple extracurricular activities, the new mode of discrimination is "poor personality". Michelle Obama made a compelling speech to Tuskegee University but her remarks could just as well apply to any situation of racial discrimination..."they will make assumptions about who you are based on their limited notion of the world...."
801
Personality is a wonderful euphemism, for "they behave like I want". The deep interest in "personality" shows up the ever growing interest in making all America's elites just like Ivy League academics, in outlook and in disciplined adherence to whatever happens to benefit academia. People who try hard in studying actual knowledge are often insufficiently malleable for those who wish to shape them as adherents of a hierarchy like academia in all cases. Should we be surprised??
Academia has been quite deeply self-interested ever since the start of the progressive movement, in which each generation of its "reforms" somehow require the hiring of ever more of their ever-so-precious graduates for the task of guiding whoever has not achieved their august status out in the rest of Civil Society. This was true when racism peaked in the Wilsonian era, and when it shifted against "the malefactors of great wealth", and when it picked up direct disgust at industrial society itself, and today as it begins to make "diversity" of skin the *only* diversity it will tolerate.
3
"Purportedly" is the operative word. Harvard doesn't seem to choose students based on the score of a formula.
Why are underrepresented groups always a target when discussing school admission? What about the legacies? Why don’t people ever mention them? It is because ultimately those schools are a club. People want to go to them so they can access the network. If a school started admitting only on merit, the network would lose a lot of its power if did not die outright. Go ahead kill the goose the laid the golden egg.
447
You have things backwards. The network would be fine; the schools would be in trouble. Legacy admissions make an important contribution to the financial health of most elite universities.
Why pick out legacies whose parents incidentally generally have been financially supportive of the school? Why not add athletes in half a dozen sports? Why not add international students who pay full freight? How about minorities and other diversity groups? Why not add children of political figures? All that said I have no doubt that many Asian and Asian-American applicants are subject to discrimination.
I challenge that though. Who's to say who will be the future goose that lays the golden egg? Who's to say that the network won't continue although it might look slightly different from now? I don't disagree with what you say but who's to say that it will always look this way? Although with the way inequality is ever-widening in this country (the chasm between the 1% and top of 99% is ever deeper), i would probably agree with you that this is the way it will be for a while.
I am an alumni interviewer for one of the Ivies (not Harvard). We are asked to comment on the applicant's interest in the interview process and the school as well as whether/what he/she/they will contribute to the community and the world. I know that what I say in the report makes next to no difference to the odds of acceptance or rejection (unless it is "this person is a sociopath who should not be admitted to any college"--which has never happened) but in decades of doing this, I have always tried to look for the good in the applicant, keeping in mind that this is often a 16 or 17 year old adolescent who may be somewhat inarticulate or really may not know much. In fact, the applicants who present with a high gloss finish often are those whose parents have paid for a fancy consultant, not those who are intrinsically better or more likely to succeed. Thus, commenting on this young person's "personality" during a college interview is silly at best and specious at worst. And generalizing about the global personality type of a construct (What is Asian, anyway?) is ridiculous.
291
When voters in California banned race as a criteria, Asian Americans enrollment at Berkeley shot up, and Asians supplanted White as majority. This is what Harvard is afraid of —it wants to stay mostly White. And yes, Berkeley has a stated “holistic” criteria which considers leadership potential, hardship , etc. — everything that Harvard considers, except race, which it is forbidden to do. So how can it be that two elite universities once had roughly the same percentage of student body as Asian, and at the one (Berkeley) where race consideration was banned, Asian enrollment doubled, and at the other (Harvard) which continues looking at race, Asian enrollment has stayed the same?
286
I find it useful to consider this against the backdrop of the debate in NYC regarding specialized high schools. It seems that people want the admissions process of those schools to be more like Harvard, which was invoked several times in articles as benefiting from a holistic admissions process. Many are claiming the Specialized High School Admissions Test is biased in large part because over 60% of those admitted to schools like Brooklyn Tech and Stuyvesant are Asian, yet now Harvard is being sued because it uses a holistic process and not enough of its class is Asian!
There will never be an admissions process everyone likes. There's no such thing as a holistic process that can "objectively" measure merit.
86
I am amazed at the number of commenters who sincerely believe that test scores are an “unbiased” way of evaluating somesone’s cognitive abilities, and therefore, merit. I promise you that when you get your dream and all American universities base their admissions on test scores only, and army of brilliant and outgoing dyslexics will rise up and crush you at the Supreme Court.
79
After reading many comments, I would like to say of course this is racist as we have come to define racism in the last few years.
White Americans don't want to imagine a future where Asians have slowly but completely come to dominate all the leadership positions in their own country, and to have another culture and tradition supplant what they see as their own. This is what we have defined, however, as pure and simple racism.
Anyone who writes that Harvard is justified because the discrimination is based not on skin color, but on 'personality' and 'Asian culture', you may be correct, they can discriminate on anything they like, and they may feel justified in not wanting a culture/personality unlike their own come to dominate in their country, but if it is Asian culture and personality they don't want, then it is racism!
I don't know what to feel about this.
164
Wait listed @ #2 for Yale in NYC area in 1989. South Asian female, wait listed Columbia and Brown too. Deferred from Harvard early action then rejected. National merit,multiple leadership roles... I wonder if my essay on reverse discrimination against Asians in college admissions had anything g to do with it. Not politically savvy back then. No one to counsel me when the point I was trying to make but didn' mention ( because I was ashamed to let people know about my hardship) was that my family income was $10,000 a year after death of
Breadwinner parent and I was working 20 hours a week to pay for private school, unlike my black and Hispanic pvt. school peers who had 1100-1200 on their SAT without extracurricular but were aggressively recruited and accepted.ultimately transferred into an Ivy with advanced standing. So don't give up
144
it really saddens me that the very criteria they are choosing to discriminate against the Asian-Americans is the age-old systematic bias and stigma against Asian Americans for being not likable, not social, etc.
118
I'm Asian-American, was rejected by Harvard, and accepted into MIT. MIT's admissions process arguably does the same thing but less egregiously (lighter weighting to legacy based on my understanding), although I have been told that I probably got into MIT - by white men typically - because the college needed more women, so go figure. Makes me wonder whether the woman points outweighed the Asian handicap and whether I truly deserved to be there, which is never a fun line of thinking.
I have no good answers on how one might remedy this. Things turned out fine, although I will always have a chip on shoulder for being rejected by Harvard because my parents were so in love with it and anything other than Harvard felt like failure.
My only other observation to this is that the anti-Asian American bias seems to surpass college and into recruiting for choice jobs in finance and consulting; any resume with an "Asian name" appears to immediately lend to extra scrutiny of leadership and extracurricular activity. When helping out with an employer's recruiting process for a fairly analytical (but client facing) job a few years ago I watched an HR colleague of mine reject a Math Olympiad Gold Medalist because he likely lacked social skills.
110