What Harvard Owes Its Top Asian-American Applicants: Stephen Hsu
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Re: What Harvard Owes Its Top Asian-American Applicants: Stephen Hsu
#2Another post and discussion on this topic today.
Re: What Harvard Owes Its Top Asian-American Applicants: Stephen Hsu
#3Re: What Harvard Owes Its Top Asian-American Applicants: Stephen Hsu
#4Here's what I think should be done: split the application into two parts after the university receives it; one part being the one with person information such as name, race, location etc. and the other being the one with the actual application, such as marks, extra circular activities etc. The admissions officers receive the second, to ensure a unbiased decision. Both will have a common unique tracking id, to link them back to each other after the decision is made. This is the system used for marking the PATs (provincial achievement tests) in Alberta, as they are marked by the teacher of the the student and another teacher in the province, to ensure there is no bias.
Re: What Harvard Owes Its Top Asian-American Applicants: Stephen Hsu
#5There is one huge factor this article is overlooking: Do Asian-American students take more SAT training than other students. In China and Taiwan there are strong traditions of after school "school" where student basically go to another school to train for tests like the SAT or to study their regular class work in order to get ahead.
If it is true that Asian-Americans take this kind of SAT training more often than others then their SAT scores may be higher then the level of the rest of their application. In other words they might be getting A+ SATs but the rest of their applications may only be B+s. The SAT is not the only factor.
Re: What Harvard Owes Its Top Asian-American Applicants: Stephen Hsu
#6Could it be that they are being screened out based on "intended major"? Attending Berkeley for my BA, where 20-30% of the school was Asian or Asian American, it seemed like a huge percentage of the Asian students were solely set on STEM and Bioscience majors. Maybe admissions realize that if they want to keep the Humanities, Arts and Social science depts around they need to admit fewer Asians.
Re: What Harvard Owes Its Top Asian-American Applicants: Stephen Hsu
#7I've read too many stereotypical comments today on this topic that I'm just going to unload my thoughts.
If you want to argue that racial diversity is important for your 'elite' universities, that's fine. I can't argue with that since it's really a matter of opinion.
However, if you argue that Asians as a group do not have leadership qualities, diverse extracurriculars, or do anything besides study, you're really just promoting more stereotypical views towards Asians.
I'm Asian, I want to an Ivy League. I played football and basketball in high school. I also took Piano, scored a 1500+/1600 on SATs, and I love snowboarding, riding my motorcycle, and skeet shooting. So I don't believe I fall into any single category.
Yes there are many Asians who study a tremendous amount who love badminton, there are also plenty who enjoy football, snowboarding, and other, more strenuous activities. I'm also sure plenty of you here would be categorically "Asian" purely based off your interests and habits. By saying that colleges refute Asians due to their strong focus on academics is really missing the issue. We're not all the same despite what the Tiger Moms out there would suggest. And I strongly do support a blind college admissions process where race, sex, religion, income, etc wasn't a factor.
Re: What Harvard Owes Its Top Asian-American Applicants: Stephen Hsu
#8The author is failing to take into account the distribution of the applicants themselves. Discrimination can be interpreted many ways. In this scenario I prefer to word it as 'if you are in this class, you will have less of a chance to be accepted.' Thanks to Bayes' rule, we know that we can't ignore a priori probabilities - they are the only way to get a true probability without 'confidence intervals' and other junk. Classiscists avoid Bayes because the a priori distributions are often inconvenient or uncomputable. By measuring scores we can get a rough estimate of these probabilities and work with them. Thus, simply being born in a certain class dramatically alters your SAT scores without you performing a single action.
It's an unfortunate reality that race and gender based inequalities exist and affect real people. Attempting to build a 'meritocracy' without considering all factors creates a cycle that only exacerbates this effect. Chances are you think this way already and don't even know it: who in your opinion works 'harder:' the poor immigrant who builds a business, or a trust fund child who builds a business of equal size? Both are equal on your 'meritocratic' measure but chances are you'd have a strong preference to choose one over the other to run your own business. This isn't some kind of charity, it's recognizing that this person applies a much larger multiplier to what they are given than other people. Therefore, giving them a 'proper' base to work on would have an even greater effect.
Re: What Harvard Owes Its Top Asian-American Applicants: Stephen Hsu
#9Could it be that they are being screened out based on "intended major"? Attending Berkeley for my BA, where 20-30% of the school was Asian or Asian American, it seemed like a huge percentage of the Asian students were solely set on STEM and Bioscience majors. Maybe admissions realize that if they want to keep the Humanities, Arts and Social science depts around they need to admit fewer Asians.
I believe there is a similar story used in statistics courses (based on a true story) of a possible case of gender discrimination. The university (or universities) basically appeared to be discriminating against females (maybe lower overall acceptance or higher scores). Further analysis shoed that females were applying to more competitive majors. I wouldn't be too surprised if something similar was going on here.
Re: What Harvard Owes Its Top Asian-American Applicants: Stephen Hsu
#10What university admissions choose to do is the university's own choice, particularly if the university is private, like all the Ivy Leagues are. If they want to accept lower quality applicants in the name of diversity, that is their choice. The highly talented students they reject can go elsewhere and raise the quality of the universities that do accept them. The brand of the undergraduate school is overrated anyway.