NYT article: Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, "gifted" alone is not a qualification for Harvard. Necessary but not sufficient, as my boss would say.

Being "gifted" is neither necessary nor sufficient for a Harvard admission. There are plenty of Harvard students who are not "gifted". The are bright to be sure, but the work their asses off. That's not "gifted".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

If race is the predominant factor, can anyone tell me why minorities are not the majority in HYP and others and representation is usually in the low percentage?

Even if you were to fill every seat with white and Asian students with perfect gpa and test scores (disregarding other holistic factors), there would still be arguments over qualifications. The best university in Shanghai has to turn away thousands of students from the SAME ethnic group. So what would the rational argument be? I would think so many qualified students and just not enough seats.

I am a proponent of holistic admissions but I also realize that no premier college is going to admit someone who can't do the work. HYP (not the only game in town) is not going to risk their reputation of being academic powerhouses by admitting subpar students who can't handle the work.

There just aren't enough seats for everyone wanting HYP et al but with over 3000 colleges, there ARE seats available.

Because there aren't that many black students that are even remotely qualified to be at Ivy League schools. They give URMs big boosts, but even with that there just aren't that many who are close to Ivy League caliber.

This isn't for the Ivy League, but it's relevant WRT affirmative action: https://www.nas.org/images/documents/report_affirmative_action_at_three_universities.pdf

From the report: "The odds ratio for blacks compared to whites at NCS is 13 to 1, but at UVA it is 106 to 1 and at William &Mary 267 to 1. In other words, at UVA the odds of a black student being admitted is more than 100 times the odds of admission of a white student with the same qualifications. The odds of admitting a black applicant at William & Mary is more than 250 times the odds of admitting an equally-qualified white applicant."

It's interesting that as the university gets more selective, the odds ratio increases. I'd be very interested to see what it was at Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

If race is the predominant factor, can anyone tell me why minorities are not the majority in HYP and others and representation is usually in the low percentage?

Even if you were to fill every seat with white and Asian students with perfect gpa and test scores (disregarding other holistic factors), there would still be arguments over qualifications. The best university in Shanghai has to turn away thousands of students from the SAME ethnic group. So what would the rational argument be? I would think so many qualified students and just not enough seats.

I am a proponent of holistic admissions but I also realize that no premier college is going to admit someone who can't do the work. HYP (not the only game in town) is not going to risk their reputation of being academic powerhouses by admitting subpar students who can't handle the work.

There just aren't enough seats for everyone wanting HYP et al but with over 3000 colleges, there ARE seats available.

Because there aren't that many black students that are even remotely qualified to be at Ivy League schools. They give URMs big boosts, but even with that there just aren't that many who are close to Ivy League caliber.

This isn't for the Ivy League, but it's relevant WRT affirmative action: https://www.nas.org/images/documents/report_affirmative_action_at_three_universities.pdf

From the report: "The odds ratio for blacks compared to whites at NCS is 13 to 1, but at UVA it is 106 to 1 and at William &Mary 267 to 1. In other words, at UVA the odds of a black student being admitted is more than 100 times the odds of admission of a white student with the same qualifications. The odds of admitting a black applicant at William & Mary is more than 250 times the odds of admitting an equally-qualified white applicant."

It's interesting that as the university gets more selective, the odds ratio increases. I'd be very interested to see what it was at Harvard.

AA daughter at Harvard with 3.96 unweighted GPA from local private and 2380 SATs. Probably not remotely qualified, but carrying a 3.95 in college as a math major. Fact.

[Anonymous]

I was merely curious so I went to the Harvard admissions page for the Class of 2020 and compared to US census information for 2015. Stats below are % of Harvard students compared to national %.

African American: 13.7% versus 13.3%

Asian American: 22.1% versus 5.6%

Hispanic or Latino: 12.6% versus 17.6%

Native American or Pacific Islander: 2.6% versus 1.4% (combine NA and PIslanders in the census).

*Harvard did not state what % was white, but let's assume it's the remainder: 49%, versus 77.1%

Source: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/00
https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics

Judging from the above it seems that Harvard has done an excellent (and most likely deliberate) job of keeping the AA population comparable to the national average. The under-representation of whites at Harvard is probably due to Asian Americans.

Note: the following article from JPost states that Harvard's undergraduate is 25% Jewish, compared to 2.2% of the American population.

http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/The-most-heavily-Jewish-US-college-and-other-facts-about-Jews-at-American-colleges-437701

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/us/poll-shows-major-shift-in-identity-of-us-jews.html

Jews are for all practical purposes white with the exception of a tiny handful (I am Jewish FYI), so it doesn't take much to realize that no more than 25% of Harvard's students are from white American backgrounds of Christian heritage, which means that this group is substantially underrepresented. And likely by a higher margin given that Harvard admissions link states 11.4% of the students are international, meaning it's likely white Americans of Christian heritage are around 15% of Harvard student body. The most overrepresented demographics at Harvard are Jews, followed by Asians. The most underrepresented are basically the WASPs.

Just putting this out. It's interesting. Provides fuel for everyone who's posted on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

If race is the predominant factor, can anyone tell me why minorities are not the majority in HYP and others and representation is usually in the low percentage?

Even if you were to fill every seat with white and Asian students with perfect gpa and test scores (disregarding other holistic factors), there would still be arguments over qualifications. The best university in Shanghai has to turn away thousands of students from the SAME ethnic group. So what would the rational argument be? I would think so many qualified students and just not enough seats.

I am a proponent of holistic admissions but I also realize that no premier college is going to admit someone who can't do the work. HYP (not the only game in town) is not going to risk their reputation of being academic powerhouses by admitting subpar students who can't handle the work.

There just aren't enough seats for everyone wanting HYP et al but with over 3000 colleges, there ARE seats available.

Because there aren't that many black students that are even remotely qualified to be at Ivy League schools. They give URMs big boosts, but even with that there just aren't that many who are close to Ivy League caliber.

This isn't for the Ivy League, but it's relevant WRT affirmative action: https://www.nas.org/images/documents/report_affirmative_action_at_three_universities.pdf

From the report: "The odds ratio for blacks compared to whites at NCS is 13 to 1, but at UVA it is 106 to 1 and at William &Mary 267 to 1. In other words, at UVA the odds of a black student being admitted is more than 100 times the odds of admission of a white student with the same qualifications. The odds of admitting a black applicant at William & Mary is more than 250 times the odds of admitting an equally-qualified white applicant."

It's interesting that as the university gets more selective, the odds ratio increases. I'd be very interested to see what it was at Harvard.

As a parent of a black ivy league student student, I am not sure what point you are making. My kid graduated from a well known local private with about 20 other black students. I think 7 or 8 are now in Ivy League colleges or at Stanford. I think my son is pretty typical: high GPA, near perfect SAT, won international fellowship, etc. Doing well acdemicallly at college and has made black and white friends at school. No major differnces between the kids that I can perceive. All very bright, and fascinating people. One friend is a third generation legacy. This kid is brilliant and funny. My point is if you sepnd time with kids at an ivy they are uniformally impressive young people regardless of their race, legacy status, etc. And so are many of the kids who didn't get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

If race is the predominant factor, can anyone tell me why minorities are not the majority in HYP and others and representation is usually in the low percentage?

Even if you were to fill every seat with white and Asian students with perfect gpa and test scores (disregarding other holistic factors), there would still be arguments over qualifications. The best university in Shanghai has to turn away thousands of students from the SAME ethnic group. So what would the rational argument be? I would think so many qualified students and just not enough seats.

I am a proponent of holistic admissions but I also realize that no premier college is going to admit someone who can't do the work. HYP (not the only game in town) is not going to risk their reputation of being academic powerhouses by admitting subpar students who can't handle the work.

There just aren't enough seats for everyone wanting HYP et al but with over 3000 colleges, there ARE seats available.

Because there aren't that many black students that are even remotely qualified to be at Ivy League schools. They give URMs big boosts, but even with that there just aren't that many who are close to Ivy League caliber.

This isn't for the Ivy League, but it's relevant WRT affirmative action: https://www.nas.org/images/documents/report_affirmative_action_at_three_universities.pdf

From the report: "The odds ratio for blacks compared to whites at NCS is 13 to 1, but at UVA it is 106 to 1 and at William &Mary 267 to 1. In other words, at UVA the odds of a black student being admitted is more than 100 times the odds of admission of a white student with the same qualifications. The odds of admitting a black applicant at William & Mary is more than 250 times the odds of admitting an equally-qualified white applicant."

It's interesting that as the university gets more selective, the odds ratio increases. I'd be very interested to see what it was at Harvard.

Again, these arguments betray a sad lack of knowledge. IN THE ENTIRE country, you don't think there are that many black students who have high enough test scores and GPAs to make them qualified? Do you know how many black students there are nationwide? About 3.5 million kids are expected to graduate from high school this year. The top 10% of these would number 35,000. Harvard enrolls about 1900 in its freshmen class.

In addition, you don't seem to know what "qualified" means. It means being able to do the work. Ivy League schools have some of the highest graduation rates in the country. They don't admit anyone they don't think is able to do the work. Nor, for that matter, does UVA or W&M.

--white parent who doesn't think her white children are disadvantaged in any meaningful way by university affirmative action policies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

If race is the predominant factor, can anyone tell me why minorities are not the majority in HYP and others and representation is usually in the low percentage?

Even if you were to fill every seat with white and Asian students with perfect gpa and test scores (disregarding other holistic factors), there would still be arguments over qualifications. The best university in Shanghai has to turn away thousands of students from the SAME ethnic group. So what would the rational argument be? I would think so many qualified students and just not enough seats.

I am a proponent of holistic admissions but I also realize that no premier college is going to admit someone who can't do the work. HYP (not the only game in town) is not going to risk their reputation of being academic powerhouses by admitting subpar students who can't handle the work.

There just aren't enough seats for everyone wanting HYP et al but with over 3000 colleges, there ARE seats available.

Because there aren't that many black students that are even remotely qualified to be at Ivy League schools. They give URMs big boosts, but even with that there just aren't that many who are close to Ivy League caliber.

This isn't for the Ivy League, but it's relevant WRT affirmative action: https://www.nas.org/images/documents/report_affirmative_action_at_three_universities.pdf

From the report: "The odds ratio for blacks compared to whites at NCS is 13 to 1, but at UVA it is 106 to 1 and at William &Mary 267 to 1. In other words, at UVA the odds of a black student being admitted is more than 100 times the odds of admission of a white student with the same qualifications. The odds of admitting a black applicant at William & Mary is more than 250 times the odds of admitting an equally-qualified white applicant."

It's interesting that as the university gets more selective, the odds ratio increases. I'd be very interested to see what it was at Harvard.

As a parent of a black ivy league student student, I am not sure what point you are making. My kid graduated from a well known local private with about 20 other black students. I think 7 or 8 are now in Ivy League colleges or at Stanford. I think my son is pretty typical: high GPA, near perfect SAT, won international fellowship, etc. Doing well acdemicallly at college and has made black and white friends at school. No major differnces between the kids that I can perceive. All very bright, and fascinating people. One friend is a third generation legacy. This kid is brilliant and funny. My point is if you sepnd time with kids at an ivy they are uniformally impressive young people regardless of their race, legacy status, etc. And so are many of the kids who didn't get it.

Having attended 2 Ivies, I agree with your statement. There are equally impressive kids of all backgrounds. I think what the previous pp was trying to show was that given the same set of qualifications, it is statistically easier for kids of certain races to be accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

If race is the predominant factor, can anyone tell me why minorities are not the majority in HYP and others and representation is usually in the low percentage?

Even if you were to fill every seat with white and Asian students with perfect gpa and test scores (disregarding other holistic factors), there would still be arguments over qualifications. The best university in Shanghai has to turn away thousands of students from the SAME ethnic group. So what would the rational argument be? I would think so many qualified students and just not enough seats.

I am a proponent of holistic admissions but I also realize that no premier college is going to admit someone who can't do the work. HYP (not the only game in town) is not going to risk their reputation of being academic powerhouses by admitting subpar students who can't handle the work.

There just aren't enough seats for everyone wanting HYP et al but with over 3000 colleges, there ARE seats available.

Because there aren't that many black students that are even remotely qualified to be at Ivy League schools. They give URMs big boosts, but even with that there just aren't that many who are close to Ivy League caliber.

This isn't for the Ivy League, but it's relevant WRT affirmative action: https://www.nas.org/images/documents/report_affirmative_action_at_three_universities.pdf

From the report: "The odds ratio for blacks compared to whites at NCS is 13 to 1, but at UVA it is 106 to 1 and at William &Mary 267 to 1. In other words, at UVA the odds of a black student being admitted is more than 100 times the odds of admission of a white student with the same qualifications. The odds of admitting a black applicant at William & Mary is more than 250 times the odds of admitting an equally-qualified white applicant."

It's interesting that as the university gets more selective, the odds ratio increases. I'd be very interested to see what it was at Harvard.

You do know that the number of white kids that are not even remotely qualified for HYP is greater than the number of African-American kids. Simple math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

If race is the predominant factor, can anyone tell me why minorities are not the majority in HYP and others and representation is usually in the low percentage?

Even if you were to fill every seat with white and Asian students with perfect gpa and test scores (disregarding other holistic factors), there would still be arguments over qualifications. The best university in Shanghai has to turn away thousands of students from the SAME ethnic group. So what would the rational argument be? I would think so many qualified students and just not enough seats.

I am a proponent of holistic admissions but I also realize that no premier college is going to admit someone who can't do the work. HYP (not the only game in town) is not going to risk their reputation of being academic powerhouses by admitting subpar students who can't handle the work.

There just aren't enough seats for everyone wanting HYP et al but with over 3000 colleges, there ARE seats available.

Because there aren't that many black students that are even remotely qualified to be at Ivy League schools. They give URMs big boosts, but even with that there just aren't that many who are close to Ivy League caliber.

This isn't for the Ivy League, but it's relevant WRT affirmative action: https://www.nas.org/images/documents/report_affirmative_action_at_three_universities.pdf

From the report: "The odds ratio for blacks compared to whites at NCS is 13 to 1, but at UVA it is 106 to 1 and at William &Mary 267 to 1. In other words, at UVA the odds of a black student being admitted is more than 100 times the odds of admission of a white student with the same qualifications. The odds of admitting a black applicant at William & Mary is more than 250 times the odds of admitting an equally-qualified white applicant."

It's interesting that as the university gets more selective, the odds ratio increases. I'd be very interested to see what it was at Harvard.

As a parent of a black ivy league student student, I am not sure what point you are making. My kid graduated from a well known local private with about 20 other black students. I think 7 or 8 are now in Ivy League colleges or at Stanford. I think my son is pretty typical: high GPA, near perfect SAT, won international fellowship, etc. Doing well acdemicallly at college and has made black and white friends at school. No major differnces between the kids that I can perceive. All very bright, and fascinating people. One friend is a third generation legacy. This kid is brilliant and funny. My point is if you sepnd time with kids at an ivy they are uniformally impressive young people regardless of their race, legacy status, etc. And so are many of the kids who didn't get it.

Having attended 2 Ivies, I agree with your statement. There are equally impressive kids of all backgrounds. I think what the previous pp was trying to show was that given the same set of qualifications, it is statistically easier for kids of certain races to be accepted.

I would think if it was statistically 'easier' to be accepted, the percentage of African-Americans with high comparable stats would be higher than the 4-7% range which is well below the percentages for other groups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

If race is the predominant factor, can anyone tell me why minorities are not the majority in HYP and others and representation is usually in the low percentage?

Even if you were to fill every seat with white and Asian students with perfect gpa and test scores (disregarding other holistic factors), there would still be arguments over qualifications. The best university in Shanghai has to turn away thousands of students from the SAME ethnic group. So what would the rational argument be? I would think so many qualified students and just not enough seats.

I am a proponent of holistic admissions but I also realize that no premier college is going to admit someone who can't do the work. HYP (not the only game in town) is not going to risk their reputation of being academic powerhouses by admitting subpar students who can't handle the work.

There just aren't enough seats for everyone wanting HYP et al but with over 3000 colleges, there ARE seats available.

Because there aren't that many black students that are even remotely qualified to be at Ivy League schools. They give URMs big boosts, but even with that there just aren't that many who are close to Ivy League caliber.

This isn't for the Ivy League, but it's relevant WRT affirmative action: https://www.nas.org/images/documents/report_affirmative_action_at_three_universities.pdf

From the report: "The odds ratio for blacks compared to whites at NCS is 13 to 1, but at UVA it is 106 to 1 and at William &Mary 267 to 1. In other words, at UVA the odds of a black student being admitted is more than 100 times the odds of admission of a white student with the same qualifications. The odds of admitting a black applicant at William & Mary is more than 250 times the odds of admitting an equally-qualified white applicant."

It's interesting that as the university gets more selective, the odds ratio increases. I'd be very interested to see what it was at Harvard.

As a parent of a black ivy league student student, I am not sure what point you are making. My kid graduated from a well known local private with about 20 other black students. I think 7 or 8 are now in Ivy League colleges or at Stanford. I think my son is pretty typical: high GPA, near perfect SAT, won international fellowship, etc. Doing well acdemicallly at college and has made black and white friends at school. No major differnces between the kids that I can perceive. All very bright, and fascinating people. One friend is a third generation legacy. This kid is brilliant and funny. My point is if you sepnd time with kids at an ivy they are uniformally impressive young people regardless of their race, legacy status, etc. And so are many of the kids who didn't get it.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

If race is the predominant factor, can anyone tell me why minorities are not the majority in HYP and others and representation is usually in the low percentage?

Even if you were to fill every seat with white and Asian students with perfect gpa and test scores (disregarding other holistic factors), there would still be arguments over qualifications. The best university in Shanghai has to turn away thousands of students from the SAME ethnic group. So what would the rational argument be? I would think so many qualified students and just not enough seats.

I am a proponent of holistic admissions but I also realize that no premier college is going to admit someone who can't do the work. HYP (not the only game in town) is not going to risk their reputation of being academic powerhouses by admitting subpar students who can't handle the work.

There just aren't enough seats for everyone wanting HYP et al but with over 3000 colleges, there ARE seats available.

Because there aren't that many black students that are even remotely qualified to be at Ivy League schools. They give URMs big boosts, but even with that there just aren't that many who are close to Ivy League caliber.

This isn't for the Ivy League, but it's relevant WRT affirmative action: https://www.nas.org/images/documents/report_affirmative_action_at_three_universities.pdf

From the report: "The odds ratio for blacks compared to whites at NCS is 13 to 1, but at UVA it is 106 to 1 and at William &Mary 267 to 1. In other words, at UVA the odds of a black student being admitted is more than 100 times the odds of admission of a white student with the same qualifications. The odds of admitting a black applicant at William & Mary is more than 250 times the odds of admitting an equally-qualified white applicant."

It's interesting that as the university gets more selective, the odds ratio increases. I'd be very interested to see what it was at Harvard.

AA daughter at Harvard with 3.96 unweighted GPA from local private and 2380 SATs. Probably not remotely qualified, but carrying a 3.95 in college as a math major. Fact.

Senior AA daughter who I guess isn't remotely qualified either with an unweighted 3.95, local private school also. 35 ACT. Her posse possesses similar stats. We'll have to see how her 'remotely unqualified' stats are reviewed by the nine colleges she's applying to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

If race is the predominant factor, can anyone tell me why minorities are not the majority in HYP and others and representation is usually in the low percentage?

Even if you were to fill every seat with white and Asian students with perfect gpa and test scores (disregarding other holistic factors), there would still be arguments over qualifications. The best university in Shanghai has to turn away thousands of students from the SAME ethnic group. So what would the rational argument be? I would think so many qualified students and just not enough seats.

I am a proponent of holistic admissions but I also realize that no premier college is going to admit someone who can't do the work. HYP (not the only game in town) is not going to risk their reputation of being academic powerhouses by admitting subpar students who can't handle the work.

There just aren't enough seats for everyone wanting HYP et al but with over 3000 colleges, there ARE seats available.

Because there aren't that many black students that are even remotely qualified to be at Ivy League schools. They give URMs big boosts, but even with that there just aren't that many who are close to Ivy League caliber.

This isn't for the Ivy League, but it's relevant WRT affirmative action: https://www.nas.org/images/documents/report_affirmative_action_at_three_universities.pdf

From the report: "The odds ratio for blacks compared to whites at NCS is 13 to 1, but at UVA it is 106 to 1 and at William &Mary 267 to 1. In other words, at UVA the odds of a black student being admitted is more than 100 times the odds of admission of a white student with the same qualifications. The odds of admitting a black applicant at William & Mary is more than 250 times the odds of admitting an equally-qualified white applicant."

It's interesting that as the university gets more selective, the odds ratio increases. I'd be very interested to see what it was at Harvard.

AA daughter at Harvard with 3.96 unweighted GPA from local private and 2380 SATs. Probably not remotely qualified, but carrying a 3.95 in college as a math major. Fact.

Congrats. There were probably 20 AA students (if that many) in the US with stats that high the year your daughter got in. I looked it up once and there were three AA students that got a perfect ACT score a couple of years back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was merely curious so I went to the Harvard admissions page for the Class of 2020 and compared to US census information for 2015. Stats below are % of Harvard students compared to national %.

African American: 13.7% versus 13.3%

Asian American: 22.1% versus 5.6%

Hispanic or Latino: 12.6% versus 17.6%

Native American or Pacific Islander: 2.6% versus 1.4% (combine NA and PIslanders in the census).

*Harvard did not state what % was white, but let's assume it's the remainder: 49%, versus 77.1%

Source: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/00
https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics

Judging from the above it seems that Harvard has done an excellent (and most likely deliberate) job of keeping the AA population comparable to the national average. The under-representation of whites at Harvard is probably due to Asian Americans.

Note: the following article from JPost states that Harvard's undergraduate is 25% Jewish, compared to 2.2% of the American population.

http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/The-most-heavily-Jewish-US-college-and-other-facts-about-Jews-at-American-colleges-437701

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/us/poll-shows-major-shift-in-identity-of-us-jews.html

Jews are for all practical purposes white with the exception of a tiny handful (I am Jewish FYI), so it doesn't take much to realize that no more than 25% of Harvard's students are from white American backgrounds of Christian heritage, which means that this group is substantially underrepresented. And likely by a higher margin given that Harvard admissions link states 11.4% of the students are international, meaning it's likely white Americans of Christian heritage are around 15% of Harvard student body. The most overrepresented demographics at Harvard are Jews, followed by Asians. The most underrepresented are basically the WASPs.

Just putting this out. It's interesting. Provides fuel for everyone who's posted on this thread.

^this!!!! Take your other arguments and hold them us to the numbers. Every race gets denials, and affirmative action is still a legal basis for college denials at this time. It has successfully withstood legal challenges for the now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I realize that this thread was originally about Harvard, but this is obviously not representative of a typical college student.

Most white people attending Harvard are from, at a minimum, upper-middle class backgrounds, with parents that both have degrees from very good schools. This is NOT typical of white people (or asians).

Legacies hurt everyone except for well-off white people. Lower-middle class, working class and poor white people don't have this advantage and are typically hurt by affirmative action programs because they lack financial advantages that are often incorrectly attributed to them, while still being forced to defer to other races.

Participants of the oppression olympics need to read that bolded sentence and read it again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

If race is the predominant factor, can anyone tell me why minorities are not the majority in HYP and others and representation is usually in the low percentage?

Even if you were to fill every seat with white and Asian students with perfect gpa and test scores (disregarding other holistic factors), there would still be arguments over qualifications. The best university in Shanghai has to turn away thousands of students from the SAME ethnic group. So what would the rational argument be? I would think so many qualified students and just not enough seats.

I am a proponent of holistic admissions but I also realize that no premier college is going to admit someone who can't do the work. HYP (not the only game in town) is not going to risk their reputation of being academic powerhouses by admitting subpar students who can't handle the work.

There just aren't enough seats for everyone wanting HYP et al but with over 3000 colleges, there ARE seats available.

Because there aren't that many black students that are even remotely qualified to be at Ivy League schools. They give URMs big boosts, but even with that there just aren't that many who are close to Ivy League caliber.

This isn't for the Ivy League, but it's relevant WRT affirmative action: https://www.nas.org/images/documents/report_affirmative_action_at_three_universities.pdf

From the report: "The odds ratio for blacks compared to whites at NCS is 13 to 1, but at UVA it is 106 to 1 and at William &Mary 267 to 1. In other words, at UVA the odds of a black student being admitted is more than 100 times the odds of admission of a white student with the same qualifications. The odds of admitting a black applicant at William & Mary is more than 250 times the odds of admitting an equally-qualified white applicant."

It's interesting that as the university gets more selective, the odds ratio increases. I'd be very interested to see what it was at Harvard.

AA daughter at Harvard with 3.96 unweighted GPA from local private and 2380 SATs. Probably not remotely qualified, but carrying a 3.95 in college as a math major. Fact.

Senior AA daughter who I guess isn't remotely qualified either with an unweighted 3.95, local private school also. 35 ACT. Her posse possesses similar stats. We'll have to see how her 'remotely unqualified' stats are reviewed by the nine colleges she's applying to.

You are missing the point.

Your daughter will probably be admitted to every school she applies to because she is AA and has stellar grades. If she was an asian female, she might not be accept to any, despite her stellar grades.