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Business Insider reports:
With a perfect ACT score and 13 Advanced Placement courses under his belt, Michael Wang applied to seven Ivy League universities and Stanford in 2013.
As an Asian-American, Wang suspected his race might work against him. But but he was still shocked when he was rejected by Stanford and every Ivy League school except for the University of Pennsylvania.
Wang says he worked incredibly hard and excelled in every area possible. But it still wasn't good enough.
"There was nothing humanly possible I could do," Wang told us, explaining that he felt utterly demoralized after his rejections.
After Wang was rejected from most of the Ivies, he says he filed a complaint with the US Department of Education alleging Yale, Stanford, and Princeton discriminated against him because he was Asian-American.
[...] Wang isn't alone in his belief that the Ivies discriminate against Asians. A coalition of Asian-American groups filed a lawsuit against Harvard University last month alleging the school and other Ivy League institutions use racial quotas to admit students to the detriment of more qualified Asian-American applicants. The more than 60 Asian groups are coming together to fight what they say are unfair admission practices.
[...] He also stressed that he was not just academically driven, but also a well-rounded applicant who maximized his extracurricular activities. He competed in national speech and debate competitions and math competitions. He also plays the piano and performed in the choir that sang at President Barack Obama's 2008 inauguration.
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Informative) by bradley13 on Wednesday June 03 2015, @11:16AM
It depends on what, exactly, you think universities are about. Personally, I thought that they were primarily educational institutions. In which case, an elite university should generally accept those applicants with the best academic backgrounds.
You say this guy isn't well-rounded, but why? The only thing he may be missing is sports - and I'm not seeing why an elite academic institution should care about high school sports activities. If I'm going to ride in an autonomous car, I'd rather that the programmers understood boolean logic - I don't care about their football skills.
But what I really take from your comment is that you're feeling outcompeted. Asians are, on average, 5 IQ points smarter than European whites (and more than that compared to the other groups). Add to that a cultural emphasis on hard word and education, and - on average - they are going to dominate the academic scene. Tough. If it's important to you, maybe you should skip football practice and study harder...
That said, I offer up the following statistics from Harvard and Wikipedia. The ethnic groups are defined by Harvard, I've adapted the population stats to match. The groups are listed in order of their average ACT scores, as near as I can manage.
- Asians are 5 % of the US population, and 20% of Harvard admissions. Is this over-represented, or fair given their generally better academic qualifications?
- Others (mostly white) are 66% of the US population, and 53% of Harvard admissions. The majority and hence the baseline (although actually a mix of ethnicities)
- Hispanics are 16 % of the US population, and 13% of Harvard admissions. Slightly over-represented, due to poor level of academic performance
- Native Americans / Pacific Islanders are 1 % of the US population and 2% of Harvard admissions. Numbers too small for significance, but probably over-represented.
- Blacks are 12 % of the US population, and 12% of Harvard admissions. Over-represented, given the very poor level of academic performance.
Just for completeness: one shouldn't forget that - the Ivy League schools being what they are - some portion of admissions go to people with political connections. The best way to get into the 1% - the upper political and economic elite - is to be born to the right parents.
Links:
Harvard admission statistics [harvard.edu]
US population statistics [wikipedia.org]
ACT scores by ethnicity [act.org]
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:02PM
Asians are 5 % of the US population, and 20% of Harvard admissions.
Ah but way more than 20% of the planets population is asian, and party leaders and business leaders want to send their kid to Harvard and are corrupt enough to easily afford full list price, and are not interested in sending their kids to "podunk nowheresville U" so frankly I'm surprised only 20% of the Harvard population is Asian given the international demand.
It would seem statistically by your own numbers a lot easier for a rich white dude in the USA to get his kid in, than a rich Chinese dude in China to get his kid in.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Wednesday June 03 2015, @02:13PM
All of your assumptions about me are incorrect.
Although thanks for the psych report. Waking up with a laugh is a great way to start the day.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday June 03 2015, @03:53PM
That's just what I read in your comment...no problem either way...
What you can read from mine is that I object to these secret admissions criteria. Seems to me that the admissions process should be open and objective: We rank students by X, Y, and Z and the best T-thousand applicants each year will be admitted.
I know a bit about Harvard's process, or at least what it used to be like: when I applied there for a graduate program, I was required to provide a hand written copy of all information from my transcripts, and I think my CV as well. I found the process so absurd that I withdrew my application. I suppose that's a selection criteria as well: admit those people willing to put up with a BS admissions process.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.