December 21, 2012
Asians: Too Smart for Their Own Good?
Carolyn Chen in the New York Times:
Asian-Americans constitute 5.6 percent of the nation’s population but 12 to 18 percent of the student body at Ivy League schools. But if judged on their merits — grades, test scores, academic honors and extracurricular activities — Asian-Americans are underrepresented at these schools. Consider that Asians make up anywhere from 40 to 70 percent of the student population at top public high schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science in New York City, Lowell in San Francisco and Thomas Jefferson in Alexandria, Va., where admissions are largely based on exams and grades.
In a 2009 study of more than 9,000 students who applied to selective universities, the sociologists Thomas J. Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford found that white students were three times more likely to be admitted than Asians with the same academic record.
Sound familiar? In the 1920s, as high-achieving Jews began to compete with WASP prep schoolers, Ivy League schools started asking about family background and sought vague qualities like “character,” “vigor,” “manliness” and “leadership” to cap Jewish enrollment. These unofficial Jewish quotas weren’t lifted until the early 1960s, as the sociologist Jerome Karabel found in his 2005 history of admissions practices at Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
More here.
Posted by S. Abbas Raza at 09:47 AM | Permalink
Comments
Here is an in-depth piece about this issue over at The American Conservative by Ron Unz:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/
Interesting throughout.
here is his response to the nytimes article:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/new-york-times-asian-american-quotas-in-the-ivy-league/
Posted by: jon | Dec 21, 2012 6:05:04 PM
The piece by Prof Chen is fairly benign. It simply points out the numbers. The chart in the American Consertive piece is compelling: It gives lots of support to the beleif there is a 'de facto' quota.
Unfortunately, the magic word, 'holistic' is incantatory. It summons up ghosts. In other words, given that the Ivies will not permit anyone to do research on how the ideology behind the philosophical and moral belief system may be less than fair or even useful, it will take a court to settle the matter. I posted this graph on my blog over a week ago and asked for someone to explain how this could be anything but what it surely seems. No takers. No surprise. The topic is not in the defined best interests of most groups who seek to enter the Ivies. To address the issue would create even more problems at selective colleges and universities already awash in applicants and lobbyists. Why would they want to have yet another way in which they have to divide up spaces? Justice?
As the great William Gaddis wrote in the opening sentence to A Frolic of His Own: "Justice? -- You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law."
Posted by: Parke Muth | Dec 21, 2012 9:15:23 PM
The piece by Prof Chen is fairly benign. It simply points out the numbers. The chart in the American Consertive piece is compelling: It gives lots of support to the beleif there is a 'de facto' quota.
Unfortunately, the magic word, 'holistic' is incantatory. It summons up ghosts. In other words, given that the Ivies will not permit anyone to do research on how the ideology behind the philosophical and moral belief system may be less than fair or even useful, it will take a court to settle the matter. I posted this graph on my blog over a week ago and asked for someone to explain how this could be anything but what it surely seems. No takers. No surprise. The topic is not in the defined best interests of most groups who seek to enter the Ivies. To address the issue would create even more problems at selective colleges and universities already awash in applicants and lobbyists. Why would they want to have yet another way in which they have to divide up spaces? Justice?
As the great William Gaddis wrote in the opening sentence to A Frolic of His Own: "Justice? -- You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law."
Posted by: Parke Muth | Dec 21, 2012 9:17:41 PM
The piece by Prof Chen is fairly benign. It simply points out the numbers. The chart in the American Consertive piece is compelling: It gives lots of support to the beleif there is a 'de facto' quota.
Unfortunately, the magic word, 'holistic' is incantatory. It summons up ghosts. In other words, given that the Ivies will not permit anyone to do research on how the ideology behind the philosophical and moral belief system may be less than fair or even useful, it will take a court to settle the matter. I posted this graph on my blog over a week ago and asked for someone to explain how this could be anything but what it surely seems. No takers. No surprise. The topic is not in the defined best interests of most groups who seek to enter the Ivies. To address the issue would create even more problems at selective colleges and universities already awash in applicants and lobbyists. Why would they want to have yet another way in which they have to divide up spaces? Justice?
As the great William Gaddis wrote in the opening sentence to A Frolic of His Own: "Justice? -- You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law."
Posted by: Parke Muth | Dec 21, 2012 9:18:08 PM
The piece by Prof Chen is short and clear. It simply points out the numbers. The chart in the American Conservative piece is compelling: It gives lots of support to a 'de facto' quota.
Unfortunately, the magic word, 'holistic' is incantatory. It summons up ghosts. In other words, given that the Ivies will not permit anyone to do research on how the ideology behind the philosophical and moral belief system may be less than fair or even useful, it will take a court to settle the matter. I posted this graph on my blog over a week ago and asked for someone to explain how this could be anything but what it surely seems. No takers. No surprise. The topic is not in the defined best interests of most groups who seek to enter the Ivies. To address the issue would create even more problems at selective colleges and universities already awash in applicants and lobbyists. Why would they want to have yet another way in which they have to divide up spaces? Justice?
As the great William Gaddis wrote in the opening sentence to A Frolic of His Own: "Justice? -- You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law."
Posted by: Parke Muth | Dec 21, 2012 9:32:00 PM
Professor Chen didn't really say much in this article. Just a quick look at some statistics to lend her piece a bit of credibility, followed by what basically amounts to "I reckon this, this, that, and that are true." Kind of disappointed this made it onto 3QD.
Posted by: Chris | Dec 23, 2012 11:04:11 AM
Re: Asians-Too Smart for Their Own Good? Carolyn Chen, Op-Ed NYT 20 Dec 2012
Carolyn Chen argues barriers are being unfairly raised to stem the tide of Asian-American student admission into prestigious universities. However measurable selection criteria such as exceptional high school grades, test scores and academic honors do not necessarily predict future college academic performance, course completion, successful and satisfying work lives.
Although objective, these parameters cannot gauge how well-suited an applicant is for their intended profession. Gaining a sought after college place is only the beginning of a long journey. In health care, patients want to be cared for by a competent, empathetic doctor who communicates well. Although at risk of bias, subjective judgement and personal leanings, the medical school interview is crucial in gaining insight into an applicant’s maturity and suitability for a life of caring for the sick. These desirable human qualities cannot be distilled into set of scores, which are necessarily only part of the story. Dr Chen offers no reliable evidence that Asian-American applicants are being systematically disadvantaged by interviews that aim to assess communication and life perspective
Posted by: Joseph Ting | Dec 23, 2012 4:24:07 PM
Joseph Ting - I think it's fair to ask you what reason we have to suppose that Asians are proportionately less likely to possess what you call "desirable human qualities." Chen summarizes some evidence for her claim. You essentially say 'scores aren't everything.' Well yes. But they are something, and the question is whether the rest, comparing Asian and white applicants, outweighs scores so completely as to justify a reversal of the score-based expectation.
Posted by: prasad | Dec 24, 2012 5:34:50 PM
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