Here's how much legacy/athlete preferences matter at Harvard

[Anonymous]

Does any of this really matter?

Harvard can admit who they choose as far as I'm concerned and yes I have white children who are not legacy or athletes and so may well be less likely to get offered places, despite being academic high flyers with unusual and high-brow ECs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I don't get is this:

Let's say that we did your math and removed both athletes and legacies. The breakdown by your method, I believe, would be 4295 whites and 2669 Asians. That's roughly 1.6 whites getting in for every Asian. This is based solely on whatever standards are left, presumably 'merit'.

so why, when you remove race, does the ratio suddenly shift to .72 white students for every Asian? It doesn't make sense that the ratios are so far off. If anything, according to your logic, more whites applying should mean that more whites are admitted in both groups. If more Asians are admitted in the second group because they are more qualified, then what explains the first group? I'm not saying the ratios need to be the same, but does it make intuitive sense that they are so far off?

Imagine you were able to line up every applicant to Harvard from 1-40000 in order of merit (which is what people who want to blow the system up think will magically happen). If that was the case, your analysis suggests that the front of the line be predominantly white but this one section of the line (spots 7000-8000) would be predominantly Asian. These are the students who are replacing the 'less qualified' AA and Hispanics who are now not getting in? does that make ssense to you, especially when the raw numbers of Asian to white applicants is so low?

Removing athlete and legacy preference, but keeping racial preference, total admits by race: 4,295 whites and 2,669 asians.

This is a white to asian admit ratio of 1.6 as you said.

Removing all preferences, total admits by race: 4,947 whites and 3,564 asians.

This lowers the ratio from 1.6 to 1.4. I'm not sure where the .72 number comes from.

The overall ratio in the end is lower because the incremental change of 900 Asians and 600 whites changes the ratio. That’s the .72 ratio. Why is this subset so different from the existing ratio. Wouldn’t you expect that this group would be divided in the same ratio?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I don't get is this:

Let's say that we did your math and removed both athletes and legacies. The breakdown by your method, I believe, would be 4295 whites and 2669 Asians. That's roughly 1.6 whites getting in for every Asian. This is based solely on whatever standards are left, presumably 'merit'.

so why, when you remove race, does the ratio suddenly shift to .72 white students for every Asian? It doesn't make sense that the ratios are so far off. If anything, according to your logic, more whites applying should mean that more whites are admitted in both groups. If more Asians are admitted in the second group because they are more qualified, then what explains the first group? I'm not saying the ratios need to be the same, but does it make intuitive sense that they are so far off?

Imagine you were able to line up every applicant to Harvard from 1-40000 in order of merit (which is what people who want to blow the system up think will magically happen). If that was the case, your analysis suggests that the front of the line be predominantly white but this one section of the line (spots 7000-8000) would be predominantly Asian. These are the students who are replacing the 'less qualified' AA and Hispanics who are now not getting in? does that make ssense to you, especially when the raw numbers of Asian to white applicants is so low?

Removing athlete and legacy preference, but keeping racial preference, total admits by race: 4,295 whites and 2,669 asians.

This is a white to asian admit ratio of 1.6 as you said.

Removing all preferences, total admits by race: 4,947 whites and 3,564 asians.

This lowers the ratio from 1.6 to 1.4. I'm not sure where the .72 number comes from.

The overall ratio in the end is lower because the incremental change of 900 Asians and 600 whites changes the ratio. That’s the .72 ratio. Why is this subset so different from the existing ratio. Wouldn’t you expect that this group would be divided in the same ratio?

Ah I see what you mean now. Yes you'd expect the ratio to remain the same if the racial preference were applied equally and formulaically to each group. This may show that Asians are even more harmed by racial preferences than the initial data would suggest. The data set the feeds into the "no preferences" model is probably imperfect, i.e. is it just based on GPA and test scores? Of course Harvard looks at other factors (quality of high school, ECs, essays, recommendations) in addition to grades and test scores. The move from 1.6 to 1.4 could reflect that as a racial cohort Asians have higher GPAs and test scores but a lower score for "everything else". One must note that ranking a group of folks lower in these subjective areas can be fertile ground for institutional bias to fester and I believe the lawsuit notes this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does any of this really matter?

Harvard can admit who they choose as far as I'm concerned and yes I have white children who are not legacy or athletes and so may well be less likely to get offered places, despite being academic high flyers with unusual and high-brow ECs.

You’re right. It’s one of ~10 schools that accept less than 10% of their applicants. They are anomalies that shouldn’t get so much time in discussions about college because the majority of our kids will ever interact with those schools in any way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I don't get is this:

Let's say that we did your math and removed both athletes and legacies. The breakdown by your method, I believe, would be 4295 whites and 2669 Asians. That's roughly 1.6 whites getting in for every Asian. This is based solely on whatever standards are left, presumably 'merit'.

so why, when you remove race, does the ratio suddenly shift to .72 white students for every Asian? It doesn't make sense that the ratios are so far off. If anything, according to your logic, more whites applying should mean that more whites are admitted in both groups. If more Asians are admitted in the second group because they are more qualified, then what explains the first group? I'm not saying the ratios need to be the same, but does it make intuitive sense that they are so far off?

Imagine you were able to line up every applicant to Harvard from 1-40000 in order of merit (which is what people who want to blow the system up think will magically happen). If that was the case, your analysis suggests that the front of the line be predominantly white but this one section of the line (spots 7000-8000) would be predominantly Asian. These are the students who are replacing the 'less qualified' AA and Hispanics who are now not getting in? does that make ssense to you, especially when the raw numbers of Asian to white applicants is so low?

Removing athlete and legacy preference, but keeping racial preference, total admits by race: 4,295 whites and 2,669 asians.

This is a white to asian admit ratio of 1.6 as you said.

Removing all preferences, total admits by race: 4,947 whites and 3,564 asians.

This lowers the ratio from 1.6 to 1.4. I'm not sure where the .72 number comes from.

The overall ratio in the end is lower because the incremental change of 900 Asians and 600 whites changes the ratio. That’s the .72 ratio. Why is this subset so different from the existing ratio. Wouldn’t you expect that this group would be divided in the same ratio?

Ah I see what you mean now. Yes you'd expect the ratio to remain the same if the racial preference were applied equally and formulaically to each group. This may show that Asians are even more harmed by racial preferences than the initial data would suggest. The data set the feeds into the "no preferences" model is probably imperfect, i.e. is it just based on GPA and test scores? Of course Harvard looks at other factors (quality of high school, ECs, essays, recommendations) in addition to grades and test scores. The move from 1.6 to 1.4 could reflect that as a racial cohort Asians have higher GPAs and test scores but a lower score for "everything else". One must note that ranking a group of folks lower in these subjective areas can be fertile ground for institutional bias to fester and I believe the lawsuit notes this.

Right. It could also suggest that something else is at work that favors white applicants and thus that it’s not so simple to assume that things would play out as the simple math suggests. It’s odd to think that for the first 7000 applicants you get one result but for this group you get a wildly different result. If Asians have a lower score for everything else it should manifest itself consistently throughout the process I think. I just don’t understand the disparity, which is why I think the simple subtraction methodology must be off somehow. That seems the simpler explanation than anything else.

I suppose the most obvious answer is that an unspoken cap exists on Asian admissions so even if you got rid of these preferences the ultimate beneficiaries would be white kids.

[Anonymous]

white families?

Court documents show that Harvard maintains a list of candidates of special interest to the admissions dean, and accepted 42.2 percent of them. The dean’s interest list includes “all applicants who the Dean of Admissions wishes to keep track of during the admissions process, whether they be children of donors, or an applicant the Dean met at some point in their high school career and wished to keep an eye on,” said Harvard spokeswoman Rachael Dane.

For example, Harvard accepted Jared Kushner despite an undistinguished high school record after his father, who was not an alumnus, pledged a $2.5 million gift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:white families?

Court documents show that Harvard maintains a list of candidates of special interest to the admissions dean, and accepted 42.2 percent of them. The dean’s interest list includes “all applicants who the Dean of Admissions wishes to keep track of during the admissions process, whether they be children of donors, or an applicant the Dean met at some point in their high school career and wished to keep an eye on,” said Harvard spokeswoman Rachael Dane.

For example, Harvard accepted Jared Kushner despite an undistinguished high school record after his father, who was not an alumnus, pledged a $2.5 million gift.

Copy and paste error...

Does the table take into account preference for affluent white families?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right. It could also suggest that something else is at work that favors white applicants and thus that it’s not so simple to assume that things would play out as the simple math suggests. It’s odd to think that for the first 7000 applicants you get one result but for this group you get a wildly different result. If Asians have a lower score for everything else it should manifest itself consistently throughout the process I think. I just don’t understand the disparity, which is why I think the simple subtraction methodology must be off somehow. That seems the simpler explanation than anything else.

I suppose the most obvious answer is that an unspoken cap exists on Asian admissions so even if you got rid of these preferences the ultimate beneficiaries would be white kids.

If you remove all preferences, Asians would be the primary beneficiaries with whites behind them. The Asian admit rate increases more than 2 absolute points from 6.5% to 8.6%. The white admit rate increases 1 absolute point from 6.9% to 7.9%. Asians have both a relative and absolute advantage in this case. Of course both groups gain at the expense of African Americans and Hispanics.

There may be an unspoken cap on Asian admissions as there was for Jews and other ethnic groups at certain times in the past. Evidence for such a cap prompted the lawsuit in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right. It could also suggest that something else is at work that favors white applicants and thus that it’s not so simple to assume that things would play out as the simple math suggests. It’s odd to think that for the first 7000 applicants you get one result but for this group you get a wildly different result. If Asians have a lower score for everything else it should manifest itself consistently throughout the process I think. I just don’t understand the disparity, which is why I think the simple subtraction methodology must be off somehow. That seems the simpler explanation than anything else.

I suppose the most obvious answer is that an unspoken cap exists on Asian admissions so even if you got rid of these preferences the ultimate beneficiaries would be white kids.

If you remove all preferences, Asians would be the primary beneficiaries with whites behind them. The Asian admit rate increases more than 2 absolute points from 6.5% to 8.6%. The white admit rate increases 1 absolute point from 6.9% to 7.9%. Asians have both a relative and absolute advantage in this case. Of course both groups gain at the expense of African Americans and Hispanics.

There may be an unspoken cap on Asian admissions as there was for Jews and other ethnic groups at certain times in the past. Evidence for such a cap prompted the lawsuit in the first place.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right. It could also suggest that something else is at work that favors white applicants and thus that it’s not so simple to assume that things would play out as the simple math suggests. It’s odd to think that for the first 7000 applicants you get one result but for this group you get a wildly different result. If Asians have a lower score for everything else it should manifest itself consistently throughout the process I think. I just don’t understand the disparity, which is why I think the simple subtraction methodology must be off somehow. That seems the simpler explanation than anything else.

I suppose the most obvious answer is that an unspoken cap exists on Asian admissions so even if you got rid of these preferences the ultimate beneficiaries would be white kids.

If you remove all preferences, Asians would be the primary beneficiaries with whites behind them. The Asian admit rate increases more than 2 absolute points from 6.5% to 8.6%. The white admit rate increases 1 absolute point from 6.9% to 7.9%. Asians have both a relative and absolute advantage in this case. Of course both groups gain at the expense of African Americans and Hispanics.

There may be an unspoken cap on Asian admissions as there was for Jews and other ethnic groups at certain times in the past. Evidence for such a cap prompted the lawsuit in the first place.

How did you arrive at those numbers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right. It could also suggest that something else is at work that favors white applicants and thus that it’s not so simple to assume that things would play out as the simple math suggests. It’s odd to think that for the first 7000 applicants you get one result but for this group you get a wildly different result. If Asians have a lower score for everything else it should manifest itself consistently throughout the process I think. I just don’t understand the disparity, which is why I think the simple subtraction methodology must be off somehow. That seems the simpler explanation than anything else.

I suppose the most obvious answer is that an unspoken cap exists on Asian admissions so even if you got rid of these preferences the ultimate beneficiaries would be white kids.

If you remove all preferences, Asians would be the primary beneficiaries with whites behind them. The Asian admit rate increases more than 2 absolute points from 6.5% to 8.6%. The white admit rate increases 1 absolute point from 6.9% to 7.9%. Asians have both a relative and absolute advantage in this case. Of course both groups gain at the expense of African Americans and Hispanics.

There may be an unspoken cap on Asian admissions as there was for Jews and other ethnic groups at certain times in the past. Evidence for such a cap prompted the lawsuit in the first place.

How did you arrive at those numbers?

My mistake, those numbers are actually if you move from ONLY racial preference (no athletes or legacies) to no preferences at all. If you remove ALL preferences, then the benefit to Asians is amplified and the benefit to white students almost entirely disappears:

Applicants: 62,586 white and 41,258 asian

Model (all preferences remain) admits and admit rate: 4,802 white (7.7%) and 2,358 asian (5.7%)

No-preferences admits and admit rate: 4,947 white (7.9%) and 3,564 asian (8.6%)

If you remove all preferences, the chance an Asian applicant is admitted to Harvard increases more than 50%. The chance a white applicant is admitted increases 2.5%. The chance an African American or Hispanic applicant is admitted presumably falls dramatically.

I cross-checked this with a few other data points and they all seemed to line up. For instance, Harvard's freshman class is about 43% white while the US under 18 population is about 50% white, so whites are not demographically over-represented. While some posters seemed to want to make this about the over-representation of white students, the data doesn't support that conclusion in any way. When Harvard shows a preference for well-connected white applicants, it appears to be at the expense of less well-connected white applicants, not minority applicants.

This does therefore appear to be a story about Asian admission capped to open up seats for other minorities. It will be fascinating to watch how SCOTUS - a court without any Asian American member, I will point out - handles this one.

[Anonymous]

^ One last thought. Asians represent about 5% of the under 18 y/o population in the US. Harvard's c/o 2023 was about 25% Asian. If Harvard went to an admissions policy mirroring national demographics, closer to what DeBlasio wants to do in NYC, then the admit rate for Asian students to Harvard would drop from 5.7% to 1.1%. If that seems ridiculous, well, open your eyes because that is the system that many people are advocating for as we speak.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ One last thought. Asians represent about 5% of the under 18 y/o population in the US. Harvard's c/o 2023 was about 25% Asian. If Harvard went to an admissions policy mirroring national demographics, closer to what DeBlasio wants to do in NYC, then the admit rate for Asian students to Harvard would drop from 5.7% to 1.1%. If that seems ridiculous, well, open your eyes because that is the system that many people are advocating for as we speak.

Would it also seem "ridiculous" to you if they greatly increased the admit rate for blacks and Hispanics? Because that would also be the result of a "mirror national demographics" admit policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ One last thought. Asians represent about 5% of the under 18 y/o population in the US. Harvard's c/o 2023 was about 25% Asian. If Harvard went to an admissions policy mirroring national demographics, closer to what DeBlasio wants to do in NYC, then the admit rate for Asian students to Harvard would drop from 5.7% to 1.1%. If that seems ridiculous, well, open your eyes because that is the system that many people are advocating for as we speak.

Would it also seem "ridiculous" to you if they greatly increased the admit rate for blacks and Hispanics? Because that would also be the result of a "mirror national demographics" admit policy.

Due to affirmative action, Harvard already admits a mirrored % of African Americans (15%). Hispanics would benefit (and so would whites, ironically).

Personally, I'd rather address the problem at its source which is the criminally negligent public education system in many parts of the US, especially poor minority communities. But that's a lot harder to do if you're a politician focused on the next election.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know that the math is that easy since the author doesn’t explain how the table is created - I don’t know how they get any of the numbers in the table so forgive if me I’m skeptical that your simple math is the right methodology. I’d prefer to see the author of the table had reached the number, assuming they are intellectually honest.

But assuming you are correct that Asians see more of the gains when all preferences are removed, why aren’t Asians at a higher raw number than whites when legacy and athlete preferences only are removed? It doesn’t make sense that the first group of admits are skewed towards whites but that the second group is skewed towards Asians.

I'd like to answer your question but I'm not sure exactly what you mean. There is no scenario where Asians become a higher raw number than whites due to the fact that so many more whites apply.

If legacy preference is removed: Whites -204, Asians +100, AA -56, Hispanics +63. As I mentioned previously, some of this imbalance reflects the racial makeup of the last 50 years of Harvard alumni and will naturally correct itself over time. I am certainly in favor of either removing legacy preference altogether (even though my kids would benefit from it) or imputing an equal advantage upon historically under-represented groups as a form of affirmative action.

Anonymous wrote:I too am appalled at the culture of victimhood in this country, especially that perpetuated by middle class whites.

I don't see it in middle class families where I live, but I do see it in poorer communities. Both black and white. It is not an ideology confined by race. Where my family hails from in the rust belt, the traditional values of discipline and self-reliance are slowly being replaced by the same culture of victimhood that much of our african american inner city populations suffer from. Both populations have been criminally neglected, although inner city african americans have suffered longer and more visibly than others. I wish we had politicians who could inspire society to start to fix some of the real underlying systemic causes but unfortunately I see the opposite: politicians who want to amplify feelings of victimization. I won't name names but they lead on both sides of the aisle. What we are left with is the simple fact that if you want to improve your lot in life, the only person really interested in helping you is yourself.

Your posts on here have been really outstanding, PP, and your thoughtful approach is unusual for this place. I hope you stick around.