[danielna]

While it is a very easy "excuse" to hide behind, I believe in holistic admissions qualifications. I think charts of SAT score x race x admissions are as good of a metric of assessing a potential student as college GPA are of assessing a potential employee. To some degree there's a baseline expectation for the practical purposes of filtering (with lots of outliers for various reasons), but at the end of the day it doesn't say much about how intelligent or capable someone really is. Intelligence and capability can't be reduced to a test-taking skill.

I am Asian-American and I went to an ivy league university. I think (hope) that essays hold particular importance for admission to the most competitive schools because academically there's very little variability between most serious applicants. Everyone was the valedictorian, everyone had a 4.0+, everyone had 1500+ on the SAT (out of 1600). Everyone played an instrument, everyone was in every honor society, everyone performed hours of community service. When you get that far as an applicant you know how to play the academics "game." So in the midst of a lot of redundancy -- "“Another piano playing, hard working kid, with perfect SAT scores" -- you have to stand out for other reasons. Like the passions that will ultimately lead to a student body that enriches itself rather than one where everyone is constantly holed up in their room studying non-stop for the next exam.

[freyr]

It's an interesting counter-point. The allegation is that admissions committees are looking at intangible factors in order to discriminate against Asians. But it's possible that they're forced to consider these factors because so many students have "maxed out" the traditional metrics.

But the question remains, are admissions committees negatively weighting stereotypically Asian activities (e.g. violin) to reduce their enrollment? Anecdotal evidence is insufficient.

[aetherson]

If the problem is simply that too many students are getting 1600s on the SATs (and similar criteria), it surely should not challenge the collective minds of the elite 1% of US universities to devise a more difficult test that has more room on the top end. As a matter of fact, as I recall, I took a number of such tests in high school.

[Steko]

This isn't the problem. In fact SAT scores were "re-centered" in 1995 to boost scores.

One problem is that too many people think the SAT is some amazing indicator of applicant quality. In fact it has biases. In fact it can be coached and responds to test prep and experience.

Another problem is that it's easy to lose the forest for the trees when you feel you're being discriminated against. There is a great society wide wrong that affirmative action is meant to partially redress. Some Asians having to go to Columbia instead of Yale is not an equal wrong to kicking in the doors to provide opportunity.

Finally, diversity does matter. I learned a hell of a lot from the hispanic and black students I lived with. And they certainly would not have been there without affirmative action. The same thing in classes (although there's less certainty on whether they were beneficiaries of AA).

[bromang]

It cannot be coached very easily. See http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/Briggs_Theeffectofadmissionst....

"Does test preparation help improve student performance on the SAT and ACT? For students that have taken the test before and would like to boost their scores, coaching seems to help, but by a rather small amount. After controlling for group differences, the average coaching boost on the math section of the SAT is 14 to 15 points. The boost is smaller on the verbal section of the test, just 6 to 8 points. The combined effect of coaching on the SAT for the NELS sample is about 20 points."

[Steko]

"It cannot be coached very easily."

(1) This is not a universal conclusion.

(2) Many forms of "coaching" are lumped together here. In fact some may only add 30 pts or less while others add over 100.

(3) Controlling for self-selection is self-defeating here since poor black/hispanic/native american kids don't have the same opportunity to self select into say private schools with test prep programs.

(4) Taking post PSAT gains ignores coaching received prior to this.

(5) This only measures indirect coaching. The effects of a superior school itself could be large.

[bromang]

The effect "could be large". Do you have any data to support this?

Some forms of coaching "add over 100". Do you have data to support this?

Poor black/hispanic kids don't have test prep programs in school. So they are unable to get privately provided test prep or have no incentive to do so, and therefore receive a smaller amount of test prep than other racial groups. Do you have any data to support this?

The effects of a superior school "could be large". Do you have any data to support this?

You also say that you learned a lot from black and hispanic pupils. Would you have learned less from white pupils?

[newnewnew]

Participating in "red state" leadership activities in high school among white students such as ROTC or 4-H have been shown to reduce admissions rates in Ivy league by about 50%[1], all else being equal. More important than being smart is to be the right race (non-Asian, non-white). And most important of all is to be an urban liberal.

[1]Espenshade (2009) pp. 92-93.

[Steko]

And here's Espenshade himself tearing down his research being used like this:

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/the-white-anxiet...

In a recent article, Ross Douthat claims that America’s elite private colleges and universities are discriminating against white, rural, working-class applicants, especially those from “Red” states, and he cites work that Alexandria Radford and I did on college admissions to support his argument. Douthat seizes on one relatively minor finding in the entire book to push an interpretation that goes far beyond the bounds of the actual evidence.

We find that applicants who demonstrate a strong commitment to career-oriented extracurricular activities while in high school have a slightly lower chance of being admitted to a top school. This outcome affects only students who have won awards or assumed leadership positions in these activities, not those known for their extensive involvement. These extracurriculars might include 4-H clubs or Future Famers of America, as Douthat mentions, but they could also include junior ROTC, co-op work programs, and many other types of career-oriented endeavors. Participating in these activities does not necessarily mean that applicants come from rural backgrounds. The weak negative association with admission chances could just as well suggest that these students are somewhat ambivalent about their academic futures.

... students who apply from “Red” states appear to have an advantage in the process. Compared to otherwise similar applicants from California, those from Utah are 45 times as likely to be admitted to one of our elite colleges or universities. The advantage for applicants from West Virginia or Montana is 25 times greater, and nearly 10 times greater for students from Alabama. Because top private schools seek geographic diversity, and students from America’s vast middle are less likely to apply, it stands to reason that their admission chances are higher. On the other hand, coming from such “Blue” states as Virginia or Colorado lowers the odds of admission.

[seanmcdirmid]

Many state schools have geographic quotas also, which then heavily biases towards kids from rural areas (red states, or red parts of blue states). Being "urban liberal" is actually not that useful, since so many other applicants are "urban liberal." The only advantage to being "urban liberal" are better schools and more opportunities for academic enrichment, but as we all know, applicants in such a category are a dime a dozen these days.

I have no idea if the Ivy's aim for geographic diversity; since they are not taxpayer funded, they probably don't have that mandate.

[niggler]

>Participating in "red state" leadership activities among white students such as ROTC have been shown to reduce admissions rates in Ivy league by about 50%.

ROTC was only allowed on campus recently:

"Yale, Harvard and Columbia all signed agreements this year [2011] to bring back ROTC"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/23/rotc-ivy-league_n_1...

It's tough to do ROTC when you have to go to another campus every week.

[jff]

He was referring to JROTC, the high school activity.

[argonaut]

ROTC is also a high school activity.

[Nrsolis]

Uh, LOTS of folks in the admitted class at Harvard Business School each year is military officers.

Ivy League admissions for both undergrad and graduate programs is NOT what most people think it to be. There are MANY factors they consider and it's not all about grades/test scores/sports.

[argonaut]

Are you seriously going to 1) extrapolate graduate admissions to undergrad admissions, and 2) go against hard data with an anecdote?

For #1, grad schools are looking for extremely different things than undergrad. In fact, the plurality, if not majority, of grad admits at top schools are internationals. As another example, most PhD programs care about your research almost to the exclusion of all other factors. Extracurriculars? Don't matter very much.

Business school programs most heavily weight your work experience (followed by test scores, essays, and extracurriculars), which is why a lot of military officers get in, because of their impressive leadership-related work experience.

[Nrsolis]

My point was to answer the comment that red-state extracurriculars serve as a black mark in the Ivy League. I think it's clear that they don't.

And data is not what you're basing your argument on. It's an interpretation of some data that might be flawed in collection methodology, reporting errors, false conclusions from over fitting and other common errors that occur in studies.

For the record, I served in the military, and earned an undergraduate degree from Harvard and know of many others who did the same. Painting the Ivies as somehow anti-military kinda rubs me the wrong way.

[rdouble]

ROTC is a plus at elite engineering schools like MIT, though.

[rossjudson]

What do you think made you stand out? What does the list of "other reasons" look like?

[pullo]

your argument hardly talks to the bias laid out in this article. The problem is not that a white student with perfect SAT's will gain an admission, but that the same student with a lower score can gain admission while an asian with perfect scores cannot. Essays are important , but they are a tool to hide behind. if the existing tests are not good markers of excellence, why dont harvard and stanford have their own entrance examinations? it is a common practice in universities around the world.

[namdnay]

Wouldn't an easier solution be to re-balance the SAT? Or to follow the french/british model, and add competitive exams for admission to the most prestigious universities.

[sopooneo]

Everything you say rings true to me. However, the notion of "well rounded and compassionate because that's what it takes" makes me feel a little queasy.

[tobylane]

Asian-born student life sounds like it involves a lot of after school classes, and group cramming sessions. Maybe this leaves less time for community service and class representative. If Asians do less of this they'd not be chosen compared to all the other 'equally' 'perfect' applicants.

[jlgreco]

The question I think is how we are weighting extra-curriculars. How does piano compare to... say.. windsurfing? I'd put both about on the same level as far as merit goes (one taxes the mind and dexterity, the other taxes the body and dexterity, both are fairly out of reach for the underprivileged).

If the "holistic admission" thing is being used to disqualify Asian candidates I would expect that two students with equal grades would be disadvantaged if they played piano rather than windsurfed.

From my anecdotal experience, I find this very plausible. (I'm a white guy who had extraordinarily poor grades in highschool yet was accepted to the school of my choice. My Asian peers almost universally far outclassed me in academic skill (proper student discipline in general); if you told me that I was accepted because I was on the swim team instead of another student with better grades who played the piano (both forms of self-improvement, not community service), I would not be surprised. Very disappointed, but not surprised.)

[Torgo]

What about diversity of extra-curriculars? I don't know how it breaks down, but maybe they felt they had enough Asians (or anybody) who play the piano. Maybe you got in because they didn't have that many people who swam as an extra-curricular.

[jlgreco]

As far as I am concerned, a sport is a sport. I primarily swam, but I did some track as well, and did and continue to do casual weightlifting. They work different muscle groups but they are all fundamentally the same (all have very low leadership/teamwork opportunities, all require a decent amount of drive and dedication, etc. These are all fundamentally "selfish" sports; most participants will spend most of their time competing against themselves). The other class of sports, the "team sports", are fundamentally different of course but also essentially all the same.

So do universities honestly think they have too many classical musicians, but not enough casual athletes? I don't think so. That seems incredibly implausible. I don't think they are thinking anything at all along the lines of "we better introduce some athletic viewpoints into our student body, lest all the musicians dominate discussion."

I think they are arbitrarily classifying hobbies as "well rounded" or "square" to allow themselves to shape their student body demographics to their liking.

[argonaut]

The problem is now you're stereotyping. It's like as if I said something patently untrue like "Black student life is just playing basketball" [and that's too "black" and not well-rounded] or something like that.

EDIT: Agreed with jlgreco, added [] to what I said earlier.

[jlgreco]

As I understand it, the assertion is that admissions people are, in order to unfairly disqualify Asian applicants under the guise of "holistic application", negatively weighting stereotypical Asian extracurriculars.

If we are saying "Black student life is just playing basketball", then that is clearly an unfair stereotype. If however college admissions start disqualifying anyone who has ever played basketball, then I think it would be prudent to ask if perhaps the admissions people are attempting to disadvantage black applicants (particularly so if the "has played basketball" metric is accompanied by a series of other metrics that have a relationship to stereotypes).

[vineel]

As an Asian-American: no, it doesn't involve those things.

[radiusq]

Oh, I guess you speak for all of them

[n09n]

He doesn't need to. He only needs to speak for one to show that tobylane doesn't speak for all of them.