Harvard Rated Asian-American Applicants Lower on Personality Traits: Lawsuit

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollment-applicants.html

by poster123 • 8 years ago

102 153 8 years ago

ardent_uno5• 8 years ago

"[Harvard] lashed out at the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, Edward Blum, accusing him of using Harvard in an effort to orchestrate a challenge to race-conscious admissions that would go to the Supreme Court."

I feel that in 100 years we will look back on quotes like this and shake our heads at institutions like Harvard actually defending "race conscious admissions".

Reward people that do well and hold them up as examples for other people to follow.

Racial discrimination must end.

uncletaco• 8 years ago

Reward people that do well and hold them up as examples for other people to follow.

FTFY

Also, I think that quote speaks more to what Edward Blum is trying to do. Blum wants to challenge "race-conscious admissions" at the level of the Supreme Court. But Harvard will probably try to prove that being "race-conscious" is only a small part of their admissions process, and not a make or break aspect of a candidate's application.

preordained• 8 years ago

Reward groups that do well

And what does that mean? Using GPA or standardized test scores as the _only_ criteria? If I have 10 people in the 99th percentile of test scores but I only have 5 seats, do I _really_ think the upper 5 who beat the lower 5 by a handful of points are the "best" fit, or are there other factors that might influence my decision?

To me, these is like taking NFL players only based on their raw sprint and lift stats...yah, it's important...but it's in no way a firm indicator of "best".

ardent_uno5• 8 years ago

There are many ways to judge someone aside from "race", whatever race really means anyway. Race should have nothing to do with it. It shouldn't be part of the equation.

That's the point. We don't have to restrict ourselves to test scores and GPA.

Just don't be racist.

ganzuul4• 8 years ago

Why does a university have a personality test?

Someone1234• 8 years ago

That's how you maintain a certain reputation, create a harmonious atmosphere where nobody who would rock the boat gets in.

Nimitz14• 8 years ago

Seems to me they're doing it to achieve the opposite effect (Asians are stereotypically the most docile).

_jal• 8 years ago

Because they want something that provides a subjective element for making decisions.

Admissions is high-stakes for everyone, including Harvard. Having some opaque, non-mechanical criteria lets them pick and choose without giving as much of a lever to lawyers.

ed_balls• 8 years ago

But why they need it?

xapata2• 8 years ago

Many organizations create processes that are essentially random number generators. It allows bureaucrats to insert their personal preferences under a veneer of technocracy. Hang out at a corporate budget allocation meeting sometime.

ganzuul4• 8 years ago

I wonder if the processes are created for that purpose, or if that is just how they end up getting used.

tozeur• 8 years ago

Because every applicant has the best grades and extracurriculars in the world, the only thing left to use for admissions is “How pleasant of a person is this student to be around?”

ganzuul4• 8 years ago

That is an acceptable answer, even if not a self-consistent one. Truly pleasant people would not have problems with the less socially adept ones.

rb8082• 8 years ago

Because future leaders aren't the ones with the best academic test scores.

ganzuul4• 8 years ago

In light of how academic testing is done, that might not be a bad thing on its own.

throwaway375859• 8 years ago

And who are?

vinceguidry5• 8 years ago

The best way I've been able to find to think about this is the fundamental axiom of geopolitics, which is basically tribalism defined mathematically. People want to work with and help others who are closer to them, who they feel are neighbors, brothers. This gets more and more true the more money and resources you have.

While you and I are more tribally identified with Asian Americans, America's upper crust considers them a threat. An elite university is a gateway into the upper crust, so it makes tribal sense for them to limit their access on grounds that to everyone else looks blatantly racist but doesn't really feel that way to them.

If I had to wager a guess, I imagine that the upper crust justifies this morally by saying that without Harvard and other elite schools, no Asians would get to climb that ladder. And also to note that not even the paragons of democracy, the Greeks, were immune to tribal identification and social stratification and racist policies to enforce them. Sparta was especially egregious in this regard.

From Harvard's perspective, in order to maintain their prestigious reputation, they have to cater to the tribal whims of the upper class, even if they don't want to. Otherwise Harvard, well, wouldn't be Harvard anymore, the prestige will move on to other universities that are willing to play ball. Remember, it's not us that determines Harvard's prestige status, it's the elites. Expect Harvard to dream up an endless array of subjective metrics that pay lip service to inclusivity while in practice serving exclusive goals.

I believe that if we succeed in forcing an inclusivity agenda onto the Ivy League, then it'll just cause the elites to make even more ultra-exclusive educational institutions and send their kids there, revoking not just Harvard's, but the whole Ivy Leagues' cool card. While this will democratize Harvard, it will ultimately increase stratification and inequality.

Tragedy of the commons writ large.

fapjacks6• 8 years ago

I agree with you, but this is not a tragedy of the commons.

throw1471• 8 years ago

If Harvard admission criteria leave out the best applicants to other colleges, and they go on to create powerful companies like Google in large number, will Harvard’s prestige decrease despite continued support from the elites?

Doing well in tech entrepreneurship needs brilliance more than great personality and political connections (they should be above a level but you don’t need a very high level of them).

Politics is still the surest route to power but billionaires are also powerful and have longer influence. If next generation moguls are educated elsewhere, the colleges with more merit based criteria should emerge as more elite.

threatofrain2• 8 years ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/books/review/the-chosen-g...

poster1233• 8 years ago

There may be racial differences in personality, but it is implausible that as the proportion of Asians in the high-achieving student population rises, their personalities get just worse enough that the fraction of Asian students at Harvard stays about the same. Harvard admits this when it says that what brings the Asian fraction down to 18% is "demographic".

Elite universities are often accusing the broader society of racism, when in fact they are some of the most blatant perpetrators of racial discrimination.

pishpash2• 8 years ago

Institutions like Harvard play the same role for the aristocratic elites as Trump does for his base: keep things more or less the same as the good old days.

lainga3• 8 years ago

How is "accounting for a category called 'demographic,'... [pushing] up African-American and Hispanic numbers, while reducing whites and Asian-Americans" maintaining the "good old days"? Or are these stodgy elites just incompetent bunglers?

Alex39176• 8 years ago

What always gets lost in this debate though is the fact that grades and SAT scores aren't especially meaningful or important. Given that we've had Asians and Jews freaking out all week and making dogwhistle attacks against blacks/hispanics because of the Stuy admissions issue, the fact that these so-called metrics aren't inherently any better or more fair than a personality test or whatever somehow always gets lost in the mix.

That's not to say that schools should discriminate against Asians, they shouldn't, but people also shouldn't hold up tests and GPA as some sort of beacon of fairness and meritocracy.

dnautics3• 8 years ago

Why do you assume that Asians are only good at posting test scores and grades?

Those scores are being talked about because of all the criteria they are the measurable ones, so you can use them as a baseline. Asian Americans do extracurricular activities just like everyone else does.

poster1233• 8 years ago

Studies have shown grades and test scores are predictive of college graduation rates and grades. Where is the research showing that subjective assessments of personality do so?

throwaway375859• 8 years ago

“Research suggests that the SAT, widely used in college admissions, is primarily a measure of g. A correlation of .82 has been found between g scores computed from an IQ test battery and SAT scores. In a study of 165,000 students at 41 U.S. colleges, SAT scores were found to be correlated at .47 with first-year college grade-point average after correcting for range restriction in SAT scores (the correlation rises to .55 when course difficulty is held constant, i.e., if all students attended the same set of classes). [1][2]”

[1] Sackett et al. 2008

[2] Frey & Detterman 2003

Karishma12343• 8 years ago

Look no further than this video.

Hispanic and Black populations in USA are consistently painting themselves as victims. As a result there are many Hispanic and Black organisations focused activism and their membership counts as "personality development" at Harvard.

Asian students on other hand are busy getting successful instead of painting themselves as victims.

How an Indian student faked to be African American and get admission https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwMzZtU5H7I&t=4s

leekh• 8 years ago

What you suggest sounds like the model minority myth.

evanlivingston2• 8 years ago

It's hard to determine if this comment is racist or just ignorant. If it wasn't 2018 I would give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it was just ignorant.

"Asian students on other hand are busy getting successful"

What does that mean? How do I get successful? It's a thing I can just will into existence? When you so profoundly reduce success to something a person can just "get" you're painting a picture of a level playing field on which everyone plays. There's loads, and loads, and loads.....and loads more of studies, books, theory, film, music, poetry that all very clearly articulate systemic inequalities that make it difficult for a person to just simply "get successful". There are good conversations on HN about this very point. If you truly feel Hispanic and Black populations are painting themselves as victims in a way that doesn't reflect their reality I urge you to spend time talking to people from these groups. Get to know them, ask them their stories, learn about their families, have meals with them and understand them. Read about Hispanic and Black civil rights movements and struggles and see what of your beliefs come out on the other side.

evanlivingston2• 8 years ago

I agree with you up until your last point.

It's important to not confuse accusations made by the student body of a university with accusations made by the administration.

whatok2• 8 years ago

Don't know about racial differences but there are absolutely cultural differences that probably correspond with race.

wozniacki• 8 years ago

From the horse's mouth:

  “We could fill our class twice over with valedictorians,” Harvard President
  Drew Gilpin Faust told an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival, sponsored 
  by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic, on Monday. That means admissions 
  officers rely on intangibles like interesting essays or particularly unusual
  recommendations to decide who comprises the 5.9 percent of applicants who 
  get in. 

  Faust's top tip for raising a Harvard man or woman: “Make your children
  interesting!”

  For parents and students alike, that’s both good news and bad news. The bad 
  news is that of course it’s much easier to say that than to actually make it
  happen, though Faust recommended encouraging children to follow their 
  passions as a way to develop an interesting personality. It’s much easier to 
  complete a checklist, however daunting, than to actually be interesting.[1]

[1] How to Get Into Harvard

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/how-to...

mlthoughts20183• 8 years ago

“Make your children interesting,” Faust said, while rubbing her thumb against her index and middle fingers and winking at the audience.

ythn• 8 years ago

I thought it was funny

JackFr2• 8 years ago

The thing is Harvard doesn't need your money. If your non-legacy family has the resources to make a big enough donation to move to move the needle, your likely to either: 1) get in anyway just based on who you are, or 2) not really care whether you go to Harvard or not because you're the scion of generational wealth.

ardent_uno5• 8 years ago

Except being a URM (under represented minority) individual is one of the most beneficial factors for admission at elite colleges.

The statistics clearly show this.

dnomad2• 8 years ago

The "statistics" don't show any such thing.

You do have to admire the intense racial resentment at work here. There's no evidence at all that these Asian Americans aren't boring cookie-cutter kids when compared to the broader pool of applicants. The headline literally reads 'Harvard admissions have a broader perspective than Alumni interviewers' ... duh. But this non-story is enough to summon up all sorts of wild accusations and intense paranoia that somehow, somewhere the blacks are being given an unfair advantage.

baybal22• 8 years ago

On the other side of "social invisibility" lies life of being "trophy" talent/socialite acquaintance/romantic partner, and, the most dreaded one, the life of diversity hire.

koops• 8 years ago

This case is important because many elite American colleges have quietly copied Harvard's 15% cap on Asian students.

jogjayr11• 8 years ago

I can't help but think that college admissions based solely on test scores (as done in India, Russia, maybe China?), and nothing else, might be the least unfair way to judge applicants.

Every admission system is unfair in some way but tests are a yardstick everyone understands and can optimize for. In India they publicly post the list of admitted students and their marks. Richer students may benefit from higher-quality test coaching but a) that happens today anyway and b) the Internet will ensure rapid dissemination of test-prep strategies for cheap or free

The other downside is it might give you a more, for lack of a better word, boring student body at the higher levels. Fewer non-academic interests and achievements because every bit of spare time in high school was spent on studying.

I thought the American system sounded better when I was a high-schooler in India with not good but not great marks ("surely they'd recognize my specialness despite my lower scores, even if these hidebound colleges in India won't!") but it does leave more room for implicit bias.

tlholaday• 8 years ago

Single-gate protocols reward investment in gate-deception.

johan_larson4• 8 years ago

Multi-gate protocols do that too. The investment just gets more complicated.

ksk3• 8 years ago

Any examples that are applicable here?

jogjayr11• 8 years ago

Multi-gate protocols increase amount of gate-deception investment required, making it harder only for economically- or socially-disadvantaged students to subvert them.

With a single-gate protocol gate-deception investments have diminishing returns, which could (I'm not an expert) put participants on a more level playing field.

acomjean• 8 years ago

The supreme court ruled that you can use a variety of metrics for admissions. Like hiring you have to try and make a transparent decision, not just "I feel like this person would work well", so everything gets measured and quantified.

Harvard hired an analysis of their admissions: 196 page analysis of the admissions process. It seems like they rank 4 things: Academics/ extracurricular/ personality / athletics.

You can see some comparison rankings on page 36 of Harvard's report -

https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/diverse-education/file...

From https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/diverse-education

I didn't go to harvard, but I work there.

jogjayr11• 8 years ago

Thanks for providing that information. I respect that the admissions office at Harvard have a tough job and they've made it tougher, for the worthwhile goal of increasing diversity of student life experiences, for themselves by taking into account all these extra factors. And I know that the admissions office at every college is 100% committed to doing their jobs to the very best of their ability.

But extracurricular activities and personality seem like things that are fundamentally incomparable. What's better, 3 years at a local soup kitchen or 2 summers in a developing nation teaching arts and crafts? Cello or acting? Public speaking skills or organizational ability? Ambitious go-getter or diplomatic consensus-builder? For all I know Harvard has a rubric for judging what's better or worse but at some level they all seem like subjective judgments prone to some sort of bias. My mental model of the implementation details of this system is most likely flawed but I don't see how you can get around this problem. Happy to learn more though.

perpetualpatzer• 8 years ago

I can't help but think that college admissions based solely on test scores [...] might be the least unfair way to judge applicants.

Intentionally provocative question: is "least unfair" the right goal to solve for in college admissions?

If a change to an admissions system makes it less "single-input->single-output" from the perspective of an applicant, but produces a positive effect elsewhere, what is the right standard to decide whether it was a good or bad change?

jogjayr11• 8 years ago

I think optimizing for the lowest total unfairness in the system is a worthwhile goal. Fairness is the ideal that we strive for in every other part of society. The second part of your question is pretty vague so I don't know how to answer it.

johan_larson4• 8 years ago

The more I read about the contortions US colleges go through in the name of social justice, the better scores-only admission looks to me.

jogjayr11• 8 years ago

I'm genuinely curious to know if scores-only admission would deliver a more economically-diverse student population. I don't know how you'd investigate that though.

My hypothesis is, if there's no benefit to doing expensive extracurricular activities, hiring a personal essay coach or college counselors, getting recommendation letters, and all the other ceremony, elite colleges might become more accessible to students of limited means. There's only so much of an advantage that expensive test coaching can give you, right?

akhilcacharya6• 8 years ago

My undergrad was basically scores only (gpa/SAT grid) and I’m in America. This is only an issue at the very elite schools.

dhruvarora013• 8 years ago

I think the Indian system seems fairer on the outset and more merit-based but there are definitely conditions attached to the entrance examinations. For instance,

- It’s more than just a Boolean to get into the right school. Your score dictates what major you’ll study for the next 3-4 years. This idea single-handedly ruins it for most students as they try and game the system because they want to study what they’re interested in. On the flip side you’re training students in majors that they personally may have no interest in

- The Indian system adds “quotas” for minorities but these percentages are fixed and don’t fluctuate over time. To make it worse they very publicly lower the bar for admissions since there’s two different scores that can now get you into the same university. This again leads a lot of students to try and game the system and forces the general populace to think of the system as unfair.

- There is no age barrier and combined with the above reasons, you’ll see a lot of students take the entrance exams many years in a row after graduating high school to land the right school and major. A lot that don’t succeed settle for a major/school or worse - commit suicide.

I think there’s a midpoint somewhere between the West’s opaque approach to college admissions and the East’s transparent yet rigid approach.

crooked-v• 8 years ago

Your score dictates what major you’ll study for the next 3-4 years.

Do you have more info available on that? That sounds really bizarre to me.

cascom3• 8 years ago

I don't know much about the Indian system but what is missed in the discussion is that Harvard is NOT a technical university - it is a liberal arts program, and as such, one would expect a broader set of admission criteria than some other institutions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education

jogjayr11• 8 years ago

Most Indian technical and medical colleges have common entrance exams administered at the state or national level. Other specialized degrees - film & TV, fashion design, advertising & journalism - have their own entrance procedures which take into account high school final marks (a state-level common examination that all high-schoolers take) and possibly aptitude tests and interviews.

Arts, commerce, and science (non-engineering and technical) students (all of which sort of map to a liberal arts education in the US, albeit with different specializations) are admitted solely on the basis of high school final marks. Since a high school education is already pretty broad, wouldn't performance there be predictive of performance in a liberal arts institution? Obviously this is more of a problem in the US because you don't have common high-school final exams at a state or national level so it's hard to compare an A from High School Foo and an A- from High School Bar.

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 8 years ago

I thought the American system sounded better when I was a high-schooler in India with not good but not great marks

You would probably have been lumped in and compared to the other Asian high-performers and would not have even gotten an interview.

jogjayr11• 8 years ago

I wasn't a "high-performer" though. My high school marks were top 20%, my entrance exam scores were maybe 70th percentile if I'm generous with myself (I honestly don't remember). I was academically good, but not a standout performer.

Like teenagers everywhere else I rationalized my laziness and underachievement by saying to myself "Oh but I have other hobbies, and I write well, and I'm not like those swotty scholars with their noses in schoolbooks all the time. An enlightened education system like America's with their personal essays would take all those other intangibles into account and therefore value me just as much!".

Now that I'm older I'm starting to see the dark side of an admissions system with squishier, more malleable standards. I think it's possible that the current system, even with all its evils, is the most corruption- and bias-proof system possible in India. The only way to "hack" it is by outright fraud or other crimes - fake documents, leaking exam papers or otherwise tampering with the examination process. Otherwise everyone has to write the same exams, and study whatever their marks earn them (let's leave the additional complication of reservations out of this for now).

gspetr2• 8 years ago

I can't help but think that college admissions based solely on test scores (as done in India, Russia, maybe China?)

Russian here, this is not entirely correct. Instead of race you have region and when that region is 80-90%+ single ethnicity then a region division serves as "race-by-proxy".

You can also get a certain region overrepresented (with regards to it's total population) and by extension certain ethnicity as well.

jogjayr11• 8 years ago

I'm sorry I don't think I understood. I didn't mention race anywhere in my comment.

You're saying that students from certain regions in Russia do better on tests and are therefore overrepresented in colleges?

danielfoster• 8 years ago

"Alumni interviewers give Asian-Americans personal ratings comparable to those of whites. But the admissions office gives them the worst scores of any racial group, often without even meeting them, according to Prof. Arcidiacono."

I can't imagine the feeling of working so hard through elementary school, middle school, and high school to get into an Ivy League school, only for an admissions panel to declare me "low in personality" or too introverted.

Harvard's admission criteria seem heavily based on outdated stereotypes of what makes an individual successful. I question if Ivy League schools are choosing the best applicants and by extension, how much prestige Ivy League degrees really deserve.

klipt2• 8 years ago

America: "we only want highly skilled, highly educated immigrants."

Also America: "these immigrants' children are too skilled and educated, and it's upsetting our racial quotas. We have to discriminate against them."

America - you can work here, but don't dare dream that your children will be treated equally if you're from Asia. Of course, if you're from Europe your children will be lumped into the white demographic. If you're from Africa, your children may even benefit from affirmative action meant for the descendants of American slaves. Yay racial profiling!

Consultant32452• 8 years ago

Harvard: there's more diversity between the races than within them.

akhilcacharya6• 8 years ago

I can't imagine the feeling of working so hard through elementary school, middle school, and high school to get into an Ivy League school, only for an admissions panel to declare me "low in personality" or too introverted.

And yet, hundreds still get in.

I went to a public school, not elite in the least, but I also worked hard throughout my K12 education like the folks you mention - and I’ll be honest, this continual focus on the tiny percentage of folks that didn’t get into Harvard but got into institutions of equivalent pedigree (one of the plaintiffs in an earlier NYT article goes to Duke) while my classmates have to struggle with a lack of opportunity and poor perceptions as a result of a lack of pedigree, even if they are hard working and talented. To me, it feels like a slap in the face. Am I wrong in thinking this?

eric-hu2• 8 years ago

You're not wrong. It's an insightful observation. It's a meritocratic system, but with fuzzy rules around the merits for reward.

There are few people I know whose parents would have treated them according "the most performant of you will get the best of our resources. Ready, set go.", instead of say, trying to help each child grow as much as they need.

leemailll• 8 years ago

Meanwhile uchicago decides to ditch sat http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-univers...

threatofrain2• 8 years ago

That doesn't mean they are doing anything in a less evidence-based manner. They may have simply devised a superior empirical instrument; of course, if they have done so, then it ought be demonstrable.

jsilvers• 8 years ago

RadioLab ran an interesting episode about the person behind this lawsuit and other lawsuits against affirmative action in schools. His activism a double edged sword. https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/more-perfect-plaintiffs/

baybal22• 8 years ago

I wonder if HN news algo reads my mind. In another news thread, I just pulled out the fact that Xiaomi electronics makes overwhelmingly superior gadgetry, yet can't break through the stigma of Asian "uncoolness"

Situation for them is pretty much as it was with Toyota in its first decade in US, and them being greatly puzzled why Americans were so bent on buying Buicks over "twice as cheap, and twice as better" Corollas, and had total nil appetite for the supreme Corona.

To authors of comments in line of "being a minority is actually a boon, statistics wise" I can say this: on the other side of "social invisibility" lies life of being "trophy" talent/socialite acquaintance/romantic partner, and, the most dreaded one, the life of diversity hire.

randyrand• 8 years ago

My Xiaomi Yi 4k has numerous basic issues. I'm really not sure they're superior. They're just cheaper. And cheap is rarely whats "cool". In fact it's usually the opposite.

Grue3• 8 years ago

Xiaomi created a stigma for themselves, by shamelessly copying Apple in everything including presentation style. [1] So I can't really take them seriously (doesn't help that I don't like Apple either).

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/business/global/in-china-...

nmeofthestate• 8 years ago

I guess the more woolly selection criteria are there so that racial discrimination can be conducted, otherwise the student population would be overwhelmingly asian with a large white minority?

Jagat• 8 years ago

It's possible. Controlling for grit and time spent not resting, being the best at anything demands a significant time investment in that activity. If you had just one hour a day, you could spend it either playing basketball or doing math. I'm not saying one is better than the other; just that if you do the former, you'll get better at basketball. If you do the latter, you'll do better at math.

(I'm fully aware of studies that show that being athletic leads to sharper mind and better neuronal circuitry. But moderate physical activity is sufficient to have that effect. Being the best at football requires a lot of practice beyond just staying fit. Yes there are those who are really good at doing both. But that's an exception I'd surmise.)

klipt2• 8 years ago

Nah it would be more like UC Berkeley, which is forbidden from using racial quotas by California law. Still less than half Asian.

In fact the Asian numbers at Berkeley are probably inflated due to Asian students being discriminated against elsewhere (like Harvard) and going to Berkeley instead, so if all the universities stopped discriminating, the numbers would average out to lower than Berkeley's current demographic.

akhilcacharya6• 8 years ago

Also - Asian Americans comprise a larger percentage of California’s population.

cascom3• 8 years ago

Just thinking out loud, but I would posit that high grades/scores and "personality scores" tend to be negatively correlated, regardless of race/or within a particular race (just as i would hazard that academics and athletic achievement are often negatively correlated). e.g. the kids with highest gpa's in a school are often not the most outgoing.

Has anyone tried to control for this?

dnautics3• 8 years ago

These sorts of subjective judgements can drive you crazy. My father (who was asian-american) had a civilian job with the United States government and a part time job with the United States navy. His civilian job, which was in the most corrupt branch of the executive branch, rated him as a poor performer personality wise and as having "no leadership potential". Nobody got the message, really since after this he took a temporary leave of absence and activated his us navy job as full time - as a captain (O6), the team he led delivered the first fully digitized, network inventory system which saved the navy on the order of billions of dollars. When he got back to his civilian job those negative reviews kept coming and he was denied promotions on those bases.

thomzi12• 8 years ago

Why didn’t he leave to the private sector?

dnautics3• 8 years ago

It's not a thing (some people) do when you've got a nice pension coming with value that gets higher the longer you stay.

rb8082• 8 years ago

I read an article a while back that compared admissions process to a bouncer in a nightclub. Was the best description of why things are done as they are.

As a hazy summary - the prestigious institutions try to have a mix of different types of people - rich people bring resources, well connected families bring influence & contacts, people with high test scores bring hard work and intelligence, achievers in arts/sports/activities bring hard work and desire to win, alumni children bring culture, loyalty and resources. Its no coincidence that there are different routes in for these different types of people.

Its the unique mix that makes places like Harvard great. There are other schools that choose people with highest test scores - that is a different approach. Harvard has no obligation to do this. Given the track record of alumni to achieve, the Harvard approach seems to work much better if you consider routes to powerful & high achieving jobs to be the main outcome.

fapjacks6• 8 years ago

Yes, yes. But what brings in the research dollars?

jfnixon• 8 years ago

Yes, yes, just look at the world today, built by Harvard graduates. It is the best of all possible worlds, isn't it?

sridca• 8 years ago

The world is built by Harvard graduates? Who?

akhilcacharya6• 8 years ago

I agree with this assessment. We need to focus on improving class mobility for all hard working folks, not just those that win the HYPSM+Ivy lottery.

Karishma12343• 8 years ago

This is newspeak for "Asians do not score well on parameters that don't matter in real life".

Asian student community is remarkably focused on real results instead of pointless activism and social justice wars. Partly the reason they are high achievers in real life where as most kids who "do well on personality traits" turn out to be losers.

azhu• 8 years ago

"parameters that don't matter in real life"

Asian Americans are the least likely group in the US to be promoted to management. https://hbr.org/2018/05/asian-americans-are-the-least-likely...

perl4ever2• 8 years ago

If that's so, it's interesting how many prominent CEOs there are. Just off the top of my head, Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella come to mind.

Karishma12343• 8 years ago

This has more to do with age and Chinese Exclusion Act. Most of the Indian/Chinese people are young and not in the age group where they will become CEOs. You will see a rapid increase in Indian/Chinese CEOs in next 10 years. As second generation Indians and Chinese would reach the age group of CEOs.

Asians are dominating US colleges they will dominate US executives by 2040.

Of course some of them might go back to India and China.

ggg99903• 8 years ago

What Harvard is trying to do is admit the people who will be national and global leaders 30 years from now, not the people who will get the best grades at Harvard. Since the country’s future leaders won’t be 60% Asian it doesn’t make sense for their class to be either.

poster1233• 8 years ago

I don't think we should prejudge what the racial makeup of the country's future leadership should be and then use de facto racial quotas to match those assumptions.

ggg99903• 8 years ago

I don’t think there should be racial quotas, de facto or otherwise, but if Harvard decided to only admit tall men with “upper management written all over them” that wouldn’t be irrational.

linuxkerneldev• 8 years ago

the country’s future leaders won’t be 60% Asian

huh? what? what scientific reason do you have for believing such a thing?

ggg99903• 8 years ago

It’s not a scientific reason, it’s historical reasons. Look at the history of the US. 30 years from now it isn’t going to be a country run by its 5% Asian population.

dkural• 8 years ago

Well, why discriminate on US citizenship for that matter, if academic merit is the main criterion. Americans of any kind would be less than 10% of the student body.

Harvard does not claim to be a purely academic meritocracy.

efgefgewfe• 8 years ago

It is time to phase out Affirmative Action, it not only hurt high achieving minorities but also those minorities that it is supposed to help.

There are so many times where I have heard indirect comments that so and so got in only because he is the right minority. I see there is a lot resent among those who say they would have made it if it wasn't for AA.

Trump is direct result of this resentment, and it will only get worse if we don't address this issue.

smsm42• 8 years ago

The "character and fitness" criteria has been instituted by Harvard in 1920s for a very simple purpose - to solve the "Jewish problem", i.e. too many Jews getting into Harvard. After Harvard's President A. Lawrence Lowell's proposal of outright Jewish quota met significant resistance, they had to find some way to keep the Jews out while not having outright ban. So they had "geographic diversity" and "character" criteria. And it did wonders - Jewish admission percentage fell to the coveted 15% that was the original quota target. Now the same old weapon is being deployed against the new "too many people of your kind here" target.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-di...

dtawfik1• 8 years ago

The entire tech industry would not exist if we judged people based on this:

In its admissions process, Harvard scores applicants in five categories — “academic,” “extracurricular,” “athletic,” “personal” and “overall.” They are ranked from 1 to 6, with 1 being the best.

abby_cohen_221• 8 years ago

There's a similar issue going on at the NYC elite public schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science. Mayor De Blasio is pushing to drop the entrance exams for those schools pretty much for the exact same reason. This guy discusses it in this Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QixRuK68lk4

Harvard Rated Asian-American Applicants Lower on Personality Traits: Lawsuit

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