22

Once again yesterday the most active thread was the one about the Democratic National Convention and, once again, I will skip the thread because I've already discussed it. After that, the most active thread was titled, "MIT releases post-affirmative action class of 2028 data" and was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a New York Times article reporting on admissions results at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT is the first highly-selective university to release statistics regarding the composition of its freshmen class since the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited using race as a factor in college admissions. The topic of race and admissions has been the subject of many lengthy and heated discussions in DCUM's college forum. The results at MIT were almost exactly what critics of race-based admissions had predicted. The number of Asian applicants admitted increased while the number of Black and Hispanic students decreased. Both the NYT article and posters in the thread noted that the MIT results defied expectations by some that universities would use information gleaned from student essays to advantage Black and Hispanic students as a way around the Supreme Court restrictions. MIT, at least, does not appear to have done this. Posters in the thread described that sort of work-around as "cheating" and the Times article suggested that schools that engaged in the practice might expose themselves to legal action. Still, colleges seem to want to recruit diverse student bodies. Even Sally Kornbluth, MIT's president, seemed to lament the loss of diversity in a quote reported in the Times article. However, the MIT data would seem to present a significant roadblock to maintaining diversity. By being the first out of the gate, MIT's results set the benchmark by which other universities will be judged. If the admissions statistics of other top universities do not show similar drops in Black and Hispanic admissions, the schools will be accused of having "cheated". While many of the posts in this thread mention "Asians" and make broad generalizations about them, what comes across if you are paying attention is the significant diversity in that community. On the one hand are Asians who, despite the MIT results showing increased admissions of Asians, seem to feel that everything is stacked against them and, as a minority, they are prejudiced against. On the other hand are posters who seem to believe that the MIT results show that Asians will soon dominate. As one poster writes, "in 10-20 years most of these institutions will be led by Asian Americans." But, in the middle are Asian posters who value diversity and are not thrilled with the MIT results. Given that the term "Asian" encapsulates both east and south Asians, we might want to begin using other designations. China and India are the world's two most populous countries. That's a lot of people to identify by a single label. This issue is a topic of dispute in the thread. The missing element from the MIT data is the demographics of those who applied. Apparently, MIT did not collect that information. There seems to be general agreement among posters that the vast majority of applicants to elite schools have the academic qualifications required and are separated by other factors. Therefore, a drop in the number of Black and Hispanic applicants might explain their drop in admissions. It would also be interesting to see if those groups have higher or lower rejection rates. But we simply don't have those numbers.