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Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

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Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#171

Post by tokenadult »

sirclueless wrote: post #152
forensic wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true. Lots of people don't look their race for one thing

Not to mention how politically incorrect it would be to try to call someone out on it: "Hey, aren't you Louis Smith? You said you were black on the application, but you don't look black at all!" I can't imagine it happening.

Not to mention how politically incorrect it would be to try to call someone out on it: "Hey, aren't you Louis Smith? You said you were black on the application, but you don't look black at all!" I can't imagine it happening.

I saw it happen, back at my law school in the 1980s. (I have no comment about how generally this might happen today.) The classmate of mine who was called out about his "race" self-identification had a dad who almost anyone in the United States would identify as "black" (who definitely had African ancestry, along with European ancestry) and a mom whose historically traceable ancestry was all European. He (the student) himself looked "white," so much so that he could pass as my brother. According to a report in our university's daily newspaper, after his presence in the Black Student Association (to which new students who had indicated that they were black were automatically invited by the law school) became noted, when he filled out his application forms, he checked the boxes for both "white" and "black." (This was before "choose one or more" was the standard language next to race categories on admission forms.) He stayed in law school, and he graduated, and he still practices law. But the other members of the Black Student Association ostracized him, even though he shared many aspects of the black experience in his daily life, and would have legally been classified as black in any southern state during segregation. (Our state, Minnesota, has never had de jure "race" segregation nor has it ever had a law against "interracial" marriage.)

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#172

Post by tokenadult »

rdl wrote: post #165

I'm curious how carefully these things are checked. Like many white people with ancestors from Appalachia, I'm sure I'm at least slightly Native American. Is it fair to mark Native American (and white?) on these forms?

As is mentioned in the official federal definitions, mentioned in the online FAQ linked to from a comment above,

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3309338

the federal definition of "American Indian or Alaska Native" is "A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment." In other words, if you don't have community attachment to an Indian tribe, or formal legally recognized tribal membership, you are not a Native American or Alaska Native.

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#173

Post by abracat1 »

barrkel wrote: post #53
reinhardt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the myth of equality across racial and cultural lines must be protected at any cost.

The myth of equality of opportunity is indeed to be protected; but it is a myth, because uncountably more opportunities are afforded to the children of the privileged - things like affirmative action are tiny in the overall scale. I really don't like what you are insinuating. You appear to be implying that some people are inferior due to the ancestry of their parents, or the daily practices of their parents. You shou…

> You should learn something: that variance within groups is far larger than variance in the averages of groups; and thus race and culture are poor signals for use in judgement. To protect against this bias, we do hold to equality across racial and cultural lines; to do otherwise, is to be racist and simply morally wrong.

I don't want to take sides in this debate, but I often see your above post appearing on debates about this issue.

Can you explain what your first three sentences even mean? It is basically vague, ambigiuous and devoid of any meaning (while sounding academic - perfect for online debates).

That spiel is known as Lewtonin's Fallacy (please look it up).

PS: typed from cellphone so please forgive typos.

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#174

Post by willyt »

BlackJack wrote: post #25

Full disclaimer: I'm a sophomore at Yale, my adviser last year was an admissions officer, and a friend of mine works in the admissions office. I'm also friends with the girl photographed, but that's irrelevant :) This is roughly how admissions works at Yale: 1. An officer reviews your application for 20-25 minutes. 1a. Some kids are clear rejects. 1500/2400 SAT and a 2.7 GPA, with no activities usually does the trick…

I have heard that the admissions procedure is similar for top UK universities, Oxford, Cambridge etc. Except that they have a policy to openly discriminate against privately educated pupils. You need better exam results to get through the first filters if you come from a private school than if you come from a state school. This is because private schools drive their students harder, have better facilities, lower staff/student ratios, less problems with disruptive behaviour etc. However, they also tend to produce lots of stereotypical 'public school boys' (A British cultural meme). Universities prefer diversity. So, if you are privately educated, to do well in the admissions procedure you need good grades and a distinctive resume / personality.

But this is quite different to discriminating on grounds of race, as patio11 describes. If it's really true that Asian pupils are discriminated against purely because of a tick box then this is clearly racist even if it's because of the supposed 'hothousing' effect of Asian attitudes towards studying. Is this kind of discrimination not illegal in the US? In Britain and probably most of Europe it is illegal to discriminate on grounds of race, sex, religion, sexual orientation and disability.

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#175

Post by jpdoctor »

rdl wrote: post #164
jpdoctor wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me: I believe in Feyman's day, Jews were fighting a similar problem to Asians now. I'm pretty sure that SAM (a Jewish frat?) was gone by the 80s at MIT, as a calibration point. Edit: I was a little confused, he was turned away from Columbia for being Jewish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota

SAM disappeared at MIT due to reasons specific to the chapter; it got overrun with non-frat members living there, and various other weirdness in the 1970s, and the house voted to leave the fraternity, then become an MIT co-ed independent living group, Fenway House. It sort of became the GLBT place at some point too, and was generally both small (15-30 students) and weird. I lived there as an undergrad in the 1990s. T…

Thanks for the history of Fenway house, I didn't know it. (I was EC, of 80s vintage. Ashdown in the 90s.)

> it got overrun with non-frat members living there

Presumably because they couldn't fill the beds and needed the money?

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#176

Post by reader5000 »

I think the basic thing is, if you are of race X, you would prefer it if race X continues getting admission in reasonable numbers to the status-branding factories of America (i.e. colleges). That preference is thoroughly, whole-cloth racist, but I think it is valid.

If it happens to be the case that race Y dominates admissions (or race Z can't seem to get a leg up), whether that domination be through genetic or cultural factors (or both), it is arguably racist to handicap admissions by appeal to soft factors. But consider:

Let's imagine (e.g.) global warming has destroyed US agriculture so all the gringos in the US have to migrate south to Mexico. The University of Mexico is (say) the premier university of Mexico, the Harvard all the best Mexican students want to attend. Historically, whites outperform latinos on admissions numbers (SAT and GPA). Would it make sense then for the University of Mexico to cease accepting latino-Mexicans (or substantially decrease their admissions rates) in favor of the new white-Mexicans with higher numbers? Would that be the fairest thing to do? Or would the U of M admissions board say things like "yeah whites have good numbers but they all kind of look the same to us. All from the same middle class families, all played tennis and hockey in high school, all want to be business/psych majors and join greek fraternities. We look at other things than just numbers."

I'm not entirely sure it's unfair to handicap asians, or assist blacks, if we've essentially industrialized the production of status-signalling - fixing the recommended amount of prestige and job offers a person should receive for the rest of his life at age 18 - and have to determine some means of doling it out.

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#178

Post by OstiaAntica »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #141
camz wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i definitely agree with patrick. every school clearly remarks similar policies and reviewing the statistics is pretty self-evident. i don't see why everyone is making an issue to explain away the current standards when they're pretty clear. i'm asian and it doesn't really bother me, since i've experienced similar situations in the "real world" during my career. i've dealt with the principals and superintendents in ny…

How is race irrelevant? If the goal of a University is to recruit those with the highest SAT scores, then yes its irrelevant. But if its to foster a diverse and intellectually stimulating environment, while preparing future leaders of the world, then race (as a proxy to diverse cultures and experiences), is very relevant.

The problem is that these universities receive federal funding, and it is (rightly) unconstitutional to discriminate on the basis of race.

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#179

Post by dalke »

lywald wrote: post #142
albemuth wrote: post #6

> "Not to really generalize, but a lot of Asians, they have perfect SATs, perfect GPAs, ... so it's hard to let them all in" Why is asking for ethnicity even legal?

It's not, at least in my country France and probably most of Europe... I've never seen a form asking me if I'm white. Was kinda shocked to realize it's common practice in US.

Employment information is tracked this way in order to judge if there is a systemic imbalance in employment. We can say (in the US) that certain minorities are over- or under-represented in different fields. Hopefully that knowledge can help reduce the imbalance. Some places (voluntarily or under court order) also track the ethnicity of people involved in police incidents because across the country, ethnically discriminated minorities are more likely to be stopped, frisked, and/or cited than non-minorities. Tracking this information helps reveal the effect of that discrimination.

As I understand it, France also has systemic discrimination - grand-children of guest workers from the 1960s have a hard time finding employment, for example, and the official state position is that "there are no ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities." The Human Rights Committee disagrees with that view, and I think it's a bizarre viewpoint.

The French Constitution and Penal Code prohibit the collection of data based on the origin, race or religion, so of course you haven't seen such a form. On the other hand, it's widely believed that the lack of such information makes it hard to determine if there truly is wide-spread discrimination or not. The view of the French government is that there is no discrimination and so there's no need to measure it. While I say that without measurements, you don't know if it exists or not.

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#180

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Willwhatley wrote: post #157
hackinthebochs wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is race irrelevant? If the goal of a University is to recruit those with the highest SAT scores, then yes its irrelevant. But if its to foster a diverse and intellectually stimulating environment, while preparing future leaders of the world, then race (as a proxy to diverse cultures and experiences), is very relevant.

What a pity (well, not really) that race, whatever that is, is a false proxy for the diversity of outlook desired. What a shame it is far more likely to be shown by e.g.: personality type, communication style, preferred role in group dynamics, rich/poor, city/country, literate/numerate/ten other things, musical/not, and so on.

Um, many of those are pretty commonly clustered by race. In America we have a diverse pool of folks, so we make up 'races' by skin color or whatnot. Under that system we see that race doesn't matter much; people vary all over the map.

But race in other parts of the globe correlate pretty much to culture, and personality, communications style, even socioeconomic group correlate strongly.

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