Reply to Insider Perspectives from a Highly Selective Admissions Office

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, what do you (and those in your office) think about the higher standards being placed on Asian American applicants? [/quote]

It's a difficult topic. We receive thousands of applications from Asian Americans who score a 2200+ and who have a 4.0 UW or close to it. We know these students have worked immeasurably hard to achieve these goals. The reality is that our purpose is to bring people from all walks of life, and [b]unfortunately, when Asians are already over-represented at campus, it's hard to admit more students without compromising the diversity we aim for.[/b] Our white % is already noticeably lower than the US Census; the Hispanic and African-American numbers are a little lower or around the same, but the Asian American number is much higher than the US Census. Most of our international students are Asians as well. I know that sounds hypocritical when our campus is so privileged socioeconomically, but our admit pool is ultimately a  microcosm of the larger applicant pool- no matter how many adjustments we try to make- we receive a lot (and I mean a lot) more applications from rich students, we receive more applications from Asians than Blacks or Hispanics and just a few more Caucasian applications than Asian applications.

I see the value of a meritocracy similar to the UC system- admitting students on the basis of their objective measures. My personal stance is that subjectives are as key to bringing the best and brightest. Were we to rely on just numbers, we'd exclude the student who graduated summa cum laude in our college but had only a 1750 SAT from her inner city background (real story, just happened last May). We'd exclude the valedictorian who had to work full time to support their family, and thus didn't have the ability to do test prep. Relying on objectives alone means eliminating the richness and complexity that is part of these students' lived backgrounds and experiences, and we just don't want to do that. We also want to make sure the students ARE capable of handling the work, hence the minimum expectations for GPA, test scores, etc. and a heavy consideration of academic potential by LORs. 
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isn't this the same argument used to hold jews down before?

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Interesting point, so riddle me this.  I'll use Yale as an example but the numbers are comparable at any top school.  At Yale, jews represent 28% of the student body, asians represent 21%.  Jews represent 2% of the US population, asians represent 5.6%  So jews are represented 14x the expected rates while asians are represented under 4x the expected rate.  Yet the college is concerned with over-representation of one group and not the other.....why is that?  Could it be because Asians look different from others and thus are easily identifiable?  And i like how the admissions officer effectively lumped the international asians in with asian-americans in his calculation of asian representation on campus.
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