How Harvard discriminates against Asian Americans in college admissions

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:When I read that Harvard rated Asians lower on personality, it sounds like they found them robotic devoid of unique traits, like students who have been trained to study and regurgitate on tests. Harvard wants unicorns, not robots.

Harvard has bent over backwards to increase the number of minority students, so much so that now the the last two classes have been majority-minority. I find it churlish beyond belief to sue them because this group believes it should have more than a 22% share of the class. This does reflect on their judgment and single-minded obsession with getting onto the most prestigious college.

BTW, any data on the percent of Asians at Princeton and Yale? I'm going to assume it's maybe higher at Stanford.

Again, very insensitive to lump all minorities into one pot and saying: "look, we've got so many non-whites!". That's the perspective of a racist white person.

And again, this is a conversation about qualified minority applicants being rejected in favor of LESS qualified applicants, who also happen to be white. This stinks to high heaven whichever way you slice it.

SAYS WHO? Harvard like most privates practices holistic admissions. You're going to have an impossible time proving those admitted were less qualified. They're all highly qualified or they wouldn't be looked at.

Wrong. Read up on the legal concept of Disparate Impact. Life's such a bitch when this ridiculous theory is now targeted against minority population.

I agree it's ridiculous. But Asians are proportionally represented so under that theory they will lose.

Nope, if any policy that Harvard institutes "such as the way they practice Holistic admissions" disproportionately impacts Asian Americans even if Harvard is not intending to be racist or discriminatory, then that policy would come under the umbrella of "Disparate Impact", because without it Asian Americans would be 40+% of Harvard's class.

This is completely wrong. If 22% of the applicants are Asian and 22% of those admitted are Asian there can be no disparate impact, obviously, because they weren't disparately impacted by whatever selection device was used.

If you're arguing that under fair procedures 40% would have been picked, but under the method Harvard used only 22% were selected - that's a disparate treatment argument.

That's not how disparate impact works. You cannot use the 22% number in the applicant pool to swat away disparate impact.

Disparate impact prohibits Harvard "from using a facially neutral admission practice that has an unjustified adverse impact on Asian Americans. Even though Harvard's holistic process does not appear to be discriminatory on its face; It is one that is discriminatory in its effect because Harvard's own findings show that without it, Asian student's would be 40%+ of its incoming class. The question is can the plaintiffs prove "disparate impact" because once they show it they can prevail without the necessity of showing intentional discrimination unless Harvard demonstrates that their way of conducting holistic admissions has a demonstrable relationship to the requirements of education. Could they? maybe....

[Anonymous]

Here's Harvard's defense study:
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/diverse-education/files/expert_report_-_2017-12-15_dr._david_card_expert_report_updated_confid_desigs_redacted.pdf

It is a bombshell in a lot of ways. But not about Asians, in my reading, but about athletics and privilege.

Harvard admitted 1,756 US kids to the Class of 2019, with a 6.61 acceptance rate. International kids aren't addressed in the report. Of those, there were:

331 legacies (including 72 double legacies)
180 recruited athletes
44 children of Harvard faculty/employees

That's 31 percent of the admitted students. The number of "special" admits (i.e., super rich kids, children of celebrities, etc.) was redacted. So you can figure basically one-third of the very few American kids to get into Harvard come from those very privileged categories.

Also interesting, the SAT mean was 2242 (on the old 2400-point scale) and the ACT mean was 33. Little lower than I would have thought based on the 25-75th percentile scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's a pretty biased summary, but I'll bite.

As a Chinese-American parent, I want my DC to be evaluated as an individual based on his own achievement and characteristics. When you focus on group claims that Asian-Americans are "better" on average because they have higher test scores and grades, then you also might have to accept that the group on average may have personality traits that are "lesser" too. There is a cost to immigrant parents who insist that their children follow a narrow path of grinding at grades and test scores and playing a classical instrument. Often that cost is not developing the ability to "play well with others" which is at the core of empathy, respect, and leadership.

I've met dozens of really smart Asian-American college applicants who could not or did not know how to talk about how to persuade or lead others. And I've met many others who were great at it. The ones who are leaders and have great grades and scores get in to Harvard and other elite schools at many times their representation in the population. As a group, we're still grossly over represented after screening out the followers. As I tell new immigrant parents all the time, there is no gaokao in the US and getting a perfect GPA and SAT score is not sufficient to get into the top colleges.

This argument is a red herring. Harvard consistently devalues "Asian personal traits" so that they can reduce the number from a possible "46% to approx 18% to 20%. That is clear in the data. That is the problem, not that Aisan Americans are one dimensional. They are looking for ways to reject Asians to keep their numbers low

WTF is an "Asian personal trait?"

Asian personality trait is how people when get when they never had a childhood due to excessive studying and pressure from domineering parents to get good grades. They lack imagination, original thoughts and interpersonal skills. = APT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To put it in the language of Chinese intellectuals -- Lu Xun would say many of these high scoring kids (and it seems their boosters) are just a modern version of Ah Q. They lack the ability to see beyond their personal perspective, how they are perceived by others, or understand how others might see things differently. Just because you did well on the SATs you deserve priority to get in to Harvard and damn the consequences for anyone else. And, ignore that others might include different measure of achievement and success than the ones you are good at.

Bingo.

Tiger Moms study this message and take it seriously.

Guys, from one white person to another, posting and congratulating each other on this kind of crap actually bolsters the Asians’ case. You’re demonstrating so clearly that white people are all programmed to see Asians as test-taking robots with tiger moms and no amount of extracurricular achievement or personal characteristics can change your perception.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It is blatant discrimination and racism to say that Asians have robotic personalities.

If you think East Asians have somewhat immobile facial features, that DOES NOT mean they are unfeeling.
Just as being darker-skinned DOES NOT mean that someon eis dirty.

You see where that leads?

maybe Harvard is thinking about the sexual satisfaction of its female students? URM men are better in bed than ORM men and for many women of a certain class, college is the first time where they are really exposed to URM men of a certain profile.

I think women would really hate it if Harvard became 30%+ Asian.

Most Harvard girls are unattractive, and likely not picky

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's Harvard's defense study:
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/diverse-education/files/expert_report_-_2017-12-15_dr._david_card_expert_report_updated_confid_desigs_redacted.pdf

It is a bombshell in a lot of ways. But not about Asians, in my reading, but about athletics and privilege.

Harvard admitted 1,756 US kids to the Class of 2019, with a 6.61 acceptance rate. International kids aren't addressed in the report. Of those, there were:

331 legacies (including 72 double legacies)
180 recruited athletes
44 children of Harvard faculty/employees

That's 31 percent of the admitted students. The number of "special" admits (i.e., super rich kids, children of celebrities, etc.) was redacted. So you can figure basically one-third of the very few American kids to get into Harvard come from those very privileged categories.

Also interesting, the SAT mean was 2242 (on the old 2400-point scale) and the ACT mean was 33. Little lower than I would have thought based on the 25-75th percentile scores.

If you go back to the NYT article

12% Asian drop due to Legacies and Athletics split out looks like about 7% legacies and 5% athletics

5% drop due to subjective personality (the most troubling due to quotes from people making decisions while never meeting the students)

8% drop due to URM benefits

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To put it in the language of Chinese intellectuals -- Lu Xun would say many of these high scoring kids (and it seems their boosters) are just a modern version of Ah Q. They lack the ability to see beyond their personal perspective, how they are perceived by others, or understand how others might see things differently. Just because you did well on the SATs you deserve priority to get in to Harvard and damn the consequences for anyone else. And, ignore that others might include different measure of achievement and success than the ones you are good at.

Bingo.

Tiger Moms study this message and take it seriously.

failed bingo.... read the article. Asian Americans also excelled in e.c's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's a pretty biased summary, but I'll bite.

As a Chinese-American parent, I want my DC to be evaluated as an individual based on his own achievement and characteristics. When you focus on group claims that Asian-Americans are "better" on average because they have higher test scores and grades, then you also might have to accept that the group on average may have personality traits that are "lesser" too. There is a cost to immigrant parents who insist that their children follow a narrow path of grinding at grades and test scores and playing a classical instrument. Often that cost is not developing the ability to "play well with others" which is at the core of empathy, respect, and leadership.

I've met dozens of really smart Asian-American college applicants who could not or did not know how to talk about how to persuade or lead others. And I've met many others who were great at it. The ones who are leaders and have great grades and scores get in to Harvard and other elite schools at many times their representation in the population. As a group, we're still grossly over represented after screening out the followers. As I tell new immigrant parents all the time, there is no gaokao in the US and getting a perfect GPA and SAT score is not sufficient to get into the top colleges.

This argument is a red herring. Harvard consistently devalues "Asian personal traits" so that they can reduce the number from a possible "46% to approx 18% to 20%. That is clear in the data. That is the problem, not that Aisan Americans are one dimensional. They are looking for ways to reject Asians to keep their numbers low

WTF is an "Asian personal trait?"

Asian personality trait is how people when get when they never had a childhood due to excessive studying and pressure from domineering parents to get good grades. They lack imagination, original thoughts and interpersonal skills. = APT.

I hope that was sarcastic.

[Anonymous]

Don't you understand that the people behind this lawsuit are using the model minority as a front to end affirmative action?

[Anonymous]

If they are successful in this suit, the losers will be other under represented minorities.

[Anonymous]

This is the guy - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-casemaker/special-report-behind-u-s-race-cases-a-little-known-recruiter-idUSBRE8B30V220121204

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It is blatant discrimination and racism to say that Asians have robotic personalities.

If you think East Asians have somewhat immobile facial features, that DOES NOT mean they are unfeeling.
Just as being darker-skinned DOES NOT mean that someon eis dirty.

You see where that leads?

maybe Harvard is thinking about the sexual satisfaction of its female students? URM men are better in bed than ORM men and for many women of a certain class, college is the first time where they are really exposed to URM men of a certain profile.

I think women would really hate it if Harvard became 30%+ Asian.

Most Harvard girls are unattractive, and likely not picky

The plaintiffs are all incels

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to Harvard met many students with high test scores and high school GPAs. Many of them added absolutely nothing to the overall educational and social experience of the incoming class. I love that Harvard is looking at the "whole student" when making admissions decisions.

There ya go! This is exactly why Harvard should win this lawsuit. It's their job to predict which students, based on their entire record and accomplishments, will contribute the most to to the college's overall educational mission.

Do you think that there are many Asian families that feel that since "certain" high schools are mostly Asian (TJ as an example) - that those same parents believe colleges should be run the same way? Because most white people don't have a chance at (again, just an example) the TJ type high schools. If that is the case, TJ admissions of Asians will decrease, won't it? That is, if it were ruled that not enough Asians are admitted to Harvard, couldn't it also be ruled that not enough white kids are admitted to the TJ type high schools? Anyone?

It seems like challenging Harvard would be a really bad move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't you understand that the people behind this lawsuit are using the model minority as a front to end affirmative action?

"Between Dec. 29, 2012 and Feb. 12, 2013, members of OIR and the Admissions Office exchanged over 100 emails as the office gathered information on the College’s admissions procedures, according to court filings.

Both Harvard and SFFAprovided accounts of the institutional review—as well as hundreds of pages of other information related to Harvard’s admissions process—in court filings over the course of the day Friday. The University and SFFA filed the documents as part of SFFA’s ongoing lawsuit alleging Harvard discriminates against Asian Americans in its admissions process.

SFFA pointed to the OIR reports as evidence supporting its discrimination charges—charges Harvard has repeatedly denied. Edward Blum, president of SFFA, wrote in an emailed statement that “today’s court filing exposes the startling magnitude of Harvard’s discrimination against Asian applicants.”

In its own filings, Harvard strongly contested SFFA’s version of events and called the internal review inconclusive and incomplete.

In one 2013 report, OIR concluded that “Asian high achievers have lower rates of admission.” The office’s analyses formed part of broader study modeling the roles various factors—including gender and socioeconomic status—play in the College’s admissions procedures.

High-up Harvard administrators reviewed the OIR findings, according to court filings. On separate occasions, Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67, and senior members of the Admissions Office all examined the reports.

But the report itself argues against sharing its findings with the public.

“We imagine that sharing any analysis of admission weights will draw attention to the variety of factors that compete with one another in the admission process,” one of the OIR reports reads.“While we find that low income students clearly receive a ‘tip’ in the admissions process, our descriptive analysis and regression models also shows that the tip for legacies and athletes is larger and that there are demographic groups that have negative effects.”

The only demographic group which saw “negative effects” were Asian Americans, according to the OIR analyses.

Following a period of information gathering in late 2012 and early 2013, OIR wrote a report titled “Admissions and Financial at Harvard College.” In addition to examining issues of gender and early action admissions, the report was specifically meant to address the question: “Does the admissions process disadvantage Asians?”

Using 10 years of admissions demographic data and logistic regression models, OIR created a model that estimated the probability of admission for individuals based on certain characteristics.

This model included estimated demographic breakdowns of classes admitted given different weighting of various characteristics used to evaluate applicants. One of the breakdowns considered the demographics of a class that would be admitted if Harvard judged only by rankings and ratings of academics success.

Under this scenario, “the percentage of Asians would more than double to 43 percent,” according to SFFA’s Friday filings. SFFA’s document alleges representatives from OIR met with Fitzsimmons to present its findings and that Fitzsimmons took little—if any—further action to address the report.

“Following this presentation, Dean Fitzsimmons did not request any additional work from OIR into whether Asian-American applicants were being disadvantaged in response to the February 2013 Report,” the document states. “Dean Fitzsimmons did not share or discuss the February 2013 Report with anyone else in the Admissions Office or any senior leaders outside the Admissions Office.”

In early 2013, following the first report, OIR produced a second document titled “Admissions Part II” which specifically focused on differences in admission rates between Asian American and white applicants. The report solely compared admissions rates for “non-legacy, non-athlete” students.

The report found that Asian American applicants performed significantly better in rankings of test scores, academics, and overall scores from alumni interviews. Of 10 characteristics, white students performed significantly better in only one—rankings of personal qualities, which are assigned by the Admissions Office.

The report also found that, for students with comparable academic rankings or SAT scores, white students were generally admitted at higher rates than were Asian American students. The second report was also presented to Fitzsimmons and also spurred little further action, according to the SFFA filings."

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/6/15/admissions-internal-report/

[Anonymous]

Well, well, well, Here it is right in the early paragraph of the article:

"Asian-Americans scored higher than applicants of any other racial or ethnic group on admissions measures like test scores, grades and extracurricular activities, according to the analysis commissioned by a group that opposes all race-based admissions criteria."

So in order to get more Asians into Harvard this group opposes the use of race as a factor in admissions decisions. That is not the law at the present time, so it will have to be decided by the Supreme Court, but the implication is they have no interest in diversity or equal opportunity for black and Hispanic students. Only themselves.