Reply to Harvard's odd quota on Asian-Americans

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] [i]posts taken out for brevity[/i]
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[quote=Anonymous]
The 2,100 cutoff is arbitrary and it is your standard. Why shouldn't it be some other number like 2,200, 2,250 or 2,300 or some other number? 2,100 may work for your argument but higher number does not.

[quote=Anonymous]Re: differences in acceptance rates - the only data we have suggests the same acceptance rate for each race as the % admitted of each race mirrors almost exactly the % applied[/quote]

No they do not. According to the links:

AA Applied Accepted
      10%      12.1%
Hispanics Applied    Accepted
                12.5%     13.3%
Asian American  Applied  Accepted
                         21.1%       19.7

Even though Asian Americans generally and as a group have significantly higher GPAs, SAT/ACT test scores, number of AP courses etc. (and other studies showing more activities, leadership positions, awards/recognition, individual talents, overcoming hardship etc.) they are the only minority group whose acceptance rate declined looking at the percentage of the applicant pool and the percentage of accepted applicants. Therefore, your links actually support the point that Asian Americans experience different admission rate compared to other groups despite higher stats.  
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I used 2100 for two reasons

-The College Board's data is given in increments of 100 so I knew what the percentiles were
-That is approximately the lowest SAT you see accepted in those college confidential threads and Naviance for unhooked applicants

If the higher number were the standard than the argument would still work. No matter where you cut it off, Asian's SAT scores skew higher and the mean of randomly selected Asians would be higher. It's a correlation vs causation thing, the Asians who are accepted have higher SATs because they had higher SAT scores when they applied, not necessarily because they needed the higher SATs to get in.

...

A 1-2% difference is not significant. If use the data to figure out acceptance rates for each race:

Black - 3,731 applied - 241 accepted - 6.4% accepted
Hispanic - 4,663 applied - 265 accepted - 5.7% accepted
Asian - 7,871 applied - 392 accepted - 4.9% accepted
Overall - 37,305 applied - 1,990 accepted - 5.3% accepted

These are tiny differences. It's still ridiculously competitive for any race.

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As for your last point:

Just saying something does not make it true. Asian SATs are higher, yes, but the rest of what you say is fairly irrelevant. I'd like to see the data saying Asians who get into Harvard have better GPAs, very few people get into Harvard with less than a 3.8, no matter the race, and, as reiterated over and over again on this thread, academics are a starting point, not an ending point, and a 4.0 will not give you any marked advantage over a 3.9 or a 3.8. The average number of AP classes taken by Stanford admits are 4, and I can't imagine it would be much different at Harvard, they are looking for more than a long list of APs. And I'd like to see the studies showing that Asians perform better in all your other categories. FYI, saying that Asians have better "individual talents" is quite racist, and undermines your argument. [/quote]

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