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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid is at UChicago.  From what I’ve seen over the past several years, the test-optional decision is part of a long-term, multi-faceted campaign to attract more first gen and lower income students to the school.  Odyssey Scholars, the Coalition App, Metcalf fellowships, the No Barriers financial aid initiative, summer outreach programs like Adelante, scholarships for the kids of local public school teachers, cops, and firefighters have been other aspects of this concerted effort.

Simultaneously, the school has also done things to increase the numbers of very high income students admitted (investments in new dorms and athletic facilities, ED 1/2, scaling back merit aid, expanding the size of entering classes) as well as to enhance the school’s profile/desirability more generally.

You can agree or disagree with the various goals (and/or the means used to further them).  And I do, LOL!  But I don’t see the test-optional move as motivated by a desire to avoid (or win) a lawsuit like the one Harvard is currently facing.  OTOH, timing of the announcement could certainly be opportunistic.[/quote]

Based on your information it appears to me that the strategy of UChicago is to change its entering student profile in the near future into a dumbbell shape (squeezing the middle of a balloon to have the ends bulge with a narroew middle).  It will have more students at both ends of the economic spectrum and fewer students in the middle class, upper middle class ranges compared to the current profile.  It will affect negatively the number of hardworking, striving Asian students (since they predominantly belong to MC and UMC economic categories) entering UChicago.  It can not be anything but a conscious decision on the part of UChicago leaders.[/quote]

I agree with you re the dumbbell shape (so, in that sense, I may have biased your perception by my presentation).  But I’m not sure I agree with your assessment re the effect of these policies on Asian students, for a series of reasons.  First, hard-working Asian American students do/will continue to qualify for first-gen and low income programs (which includes free tuition for families earning up to $125K.  And in other parts of the country that’s indisputably middle class).  Secondly, I think Asian (immigrant?) families are more likely to prioritize/save/make sacrifices for their childrens’ education than native-born whites in the US.  Thirdly, there are a substantial number of UMC/rich Asian and Asian American families who can afford UChicago tuition — they’re paying it now — and I can’t see that changing.  To put this a different way, donut hole families in MoCo or NoVa won’t benefit from these programs, but that’s a narrow and relatively privileged subgroup of Asian Americans.  And, of course, it’s a demographic that includes lots of white families as well.  It’s an economic rather than a racial barrier and it already exists.

Asian students at UChicago are diverse in many respects. I don’t know the extent to which their diversity reflects (or how it deviates from) Asian America as a whole.  That said, I don’t know whether “Asian America” is a lived reality for anyone.  Certainly there’s a media/pop cultural construct that transcends local experience, but identities/allegiances/demographics/experiences/migration histories can vary dramatically in different parts of the US.

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