Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 166 posts

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

#131

Post by jogjayr »

cascom wrote: post #88
jogjayr wrote: post #11

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-quali…

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

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.

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

#132

Post by jogjayr »

perpetualpatzer wrote: post #45
jogjayr wrote: post #11

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-quali…

> 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 sta…

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.

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

#133

Post by akhilcacharya »

johan_larson wrote: post #48
jogjayr wrote: post #11

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-quali…

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.

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

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

#134

Post by akhilcacharya »

danielfoster wrote: post #14

"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…

>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?

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

#135

Post by akhilcacharya »

rb808 wrote: post #33

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…

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.

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

#136

Post by akhilcacharya »

klipt wrote: post #84
nmeofthestate wrote: post #27

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?

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 demographi…

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

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

#137

Post by randyrand »

baybal2 wrote: post #20

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" Corolla…

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.

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

#138

Post by jogjayr »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #133
johan_larson wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Interesting. Thanks for providing that additional viewpoint. My impression, based on my experience navigating the American grad school admissions process, was that the undergrad process was the same thing turned up to 11. I read about personal essay writers and interview coaches and the right set of extracurricular activities.

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

#139

Post by akhilcacharya »

jogjayr wrote: post #138
akhilcacharya wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Interesting. Thanks for providing that additional viewpoint. My impression, based on my experience navigating the American grad school admissions process, was that the undergrad process was the same thing turned up to 11. I read about personal essay writers and interview coaches and the right set of extracurricular activities.

Not at all, only for the top schools. I got into 2 of my state schools (1 of which is also being sued for this) and I was a very average student (#2 in class, 1500/1600, 66 college credits).

You only need a fancy resume if you apply to the T20 schools, some of which are more selective if you’re from out of state.

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

#140

Post by vinceguidry »

fapjacks wrote: post #112
vinceguidry wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

> The tragedy of the commons is a term used in social science to describe a situation in a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action.

The Ivy League is a resource shared by both the commons and the elites. The belief stated at the end of my comment, that collective action taken to make Harvard more inclusive will inevitably strip it and all the other Ivy League schools of its vitality, will spoil that resource, forcing the elites to stop sending their kids there and snuffing the Ivy League's social ladder aspect out of existence.

That's a classic case of a tragedy of the commons. It's both a tragedy, in that nobody wanted that outcome, and it's driven by the collective action of the commons.

Post reply on HN