Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination • Hacker News Board

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#621

Post by busterarm » Wed, Mar 09, 2022, 10:28 PM UTC

csa wrote: post #620

busterarm wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can still deny you even then. The Asian discrimination was already heavy in the early 00s when I was finishing high school. A close friend of mine had perfect scores in basically everything and Harvard turned him down on the basis of "we already accepted your older brother and it wouldn't be fair of us to take two of you".

> A close friend of mine had perfect scores in basically everything and Harvard turned him down on the basis of "we already accepted your older brother and it wouldn't be fair of us to take two of you". I will go out on a limb and say that this is a narrative he shares to avoid embarrassment, and it’s probably not true from the Harvard perspective. SAT scores and grades are only one part of the admissions evaluation…

He got into every other elite school. I can't say for certain given the passage of time but he wasn't the type of person to bullshit people no matter how big the issue. He didn't have pride like that.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#622

Post by csa » Fri, Mar 11, 2022, 7:42 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #621

csa wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A close friend of mine had perfect scores in basically everything and Harvard turned him down on the basis of "we already accepted your older brother and it wouldn't be fair of us to take two of you". I will go out on a limb and say that this is a narrative he shares to avoid embarrassment, and it’s probably not true from the Harvard perspective. SAT scores and grades are only one part of the admissions evaluation…

He got into every other elite school. I can't say for certain given the passage of time but he wasn't the type of person to bullshit people no matter how big the issue. He didn't have pride like that.

I see.

If he got into another major school (e.g., Yale or Princeton), the admissions folks or the school counselor may have decided that he was a better fit at one of those.

Good for him for getting into other elite schools.

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#623

Post by zer0-c00l » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 3:19 AM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #614

zer0-c00l wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. So many people in this thread are out here acting like going to an Ivy League school is a guaranteed right afforded to those who score well on tests. That’s never been the case. These institutions have been discriminatory from the start and IMO more or less historically exist to provide a path to success for privileged, mediocre, old money scions.

Just saw your nick. Hack the planet!

hack the planet!!!!!

Re: Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination

#624

Post by lukas099 » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

AniseAbyss wrote: post #368

lukas099 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is creating a purely merit-based institution really an identity policy though? I see it as an identity-blind policy, unless you define identity to include merit.

The fallacy of meritocracy. You stand on the shoulders of your parents. If you come from a family of crackheads on the bad side of the rail tracks you already lost the race long before 8th grade.

Merit, by definition, is what you deserve. I could see the case for merit-based applications that take into account how far you've come relative to where you started.