CNN: Lawsuit: Harvard ranks Asian-Americans lower on personality traits

[zoony]

This is an interesting case.  Im not sure how the specifics will play out, but to the larger issue, Im siding with Harvard.

 

For business hiring, the resume is almost meaningless, the interview is almost everything.  Why should it be any different at our nations highest learning institutions?  There is more to life than being the child of a tiger mom and suffering under a dictator where you were forced to study 16 hours a day, take violin lessons, and build the greatest paper admission standard possible.  Obviously this is not anywhere close to all asians, but i do think its fair to say that this is prevalent in the asian community, much moreso than any other subculture in the US

 

On the contrary, I am also fine with Universities handicapping certain groups, definitely those from low income communities and single parent households.

 

A black kid from Memphis with a B+ average being raised by his grandmother is way more impressive than any tiger parents child with perfect grades etc., or a white kid from Boston whose parents and grandparents attended harvard.  Right?

 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/15/politics/harvard-admissions-asian-american/index.html

[Spaceman Spiff]

[DogofWar1]

If this weren't Harvard they'd probably have an easier time defending themselves.

 

However, when you have stuff like this happening:

it makes it tougher to defend practices like the above one.

 

Will the students prevail?  No idea.  But the fact that this is Harvard makes it very interesting.

[NoCalMike]

It's definitely a difficult subject to find a consensus on. 

 

K-12 education is so uneven across the country it is not surprising that grades alone aren't the only factors that are used.

[TradeTheBeal!]

Harvard is a private institution.  I suppose that indicates that they have the right to admit whom they’d like to admit.  Not sure what else there is to say.

[zoony]

1 hour ago, DogofWar1 said:

If this weren't Harvard they'd probably have an easier time defending themselves.

 

However, when you have stuff like this happening:

it makes it tougher to defend practices like the above one.

 

Will the students prevail?  No idea.  But the fact that this is Harvard makes it very interesting.

 

My guess is that this will ultimately be a case about all universities

 

That being said, i think personality and emotional intelligence are some of the greatest factors that predict future success, much moreso than grades.  With the exception of certain fields, of course

[Springfield]

Just on the title of the thread alone, is anyone really surprised?

[bearrock]

1 hour ago, zoony said:

  There is more to life than being the child of a tiger mom and suffering under a dictator where you were forced to study 16 hours a day, take violin lessons, and build the greatest paper admission standard possible.  Obviously this is not anywhere close to all asians, but i do think its fair to say that this is prevalent in the asian community, much moreso than any other subculture in the US

 

 

 

Do you have something to back this up as a fact as opposed to racial stereotype?  Would that kind of parental meddling in a child's life be more prevalent in asian students applying to Harvard as opposed to other racial groups?

 

26 minutes ago, zoony said:

 

That being said, i think personality and emotional intelligence are some of the greatest factors that predict future success, much moreso than grades.  With the exception of certain fields, of course

 

I tend to agree. But if that's what this is about, Harvard can probably screen for that using a test rather than the factors they use now.  I wonder if other racial groups applying to Harvard are actually better emotionally adjusted compared to asians or if there is some underlying bias of the admission process at play.

[redskins59]

Well, to be honest, visit a discussion board that is talking about Thomas Jefferson High School.  So much whining from Whites because these days TJ is like 80% Asian.  Some want affirmative action to include Whites.

I agree with whatever Harvard is doing though.  You want as much diversity as possible.You all realize that if Harvard is forced to change, it will become 60 or 70% Asian? That would not be good IMO.

Although, do people realize that Asian is not just East Asian (e.g. Chinese)  but also South Asian( Indian) and South East Asian(Philippino)? 

People need to realize that Asia itself is very diverse. Not evry group is successful. 

[SkinsHokieFan]

For once I agree with Zoony. 

[zoony]

27 minutes ago, bearrock said:

 

Do you have something to back this up as a fact as opposed to racial stereotype?  Would that kind of parental meddling in a child's life be more prevalent in asian students applying to Harvard as opposed to other racial groups?

 

http://time.com/88125/the-tiger-mom-effect-is-real-says-large-study/

 

There is a lot more out there

25 minutes ago, redskins59 said:

Well, to be honest, visit a discussion board that is talking about Thomas Jefferson High School.  So much whining from Whites because these days TJ is like 80% Asian.  Some want affirmative action to include Whites.

I agree with whatever Harvard is doing though.  You want as much diversity as possible.You all realize that if Harvard is forced to change, it will become 60 or 70% Asian? That would not be good IMO.

Although, do people realize that Asian is not just East Asian (e.g. Chinese)  but also South Asian( Indian) and South East Asian(Philippino)? 

People need to realize that Asia itself is very diverse. Not evry group is successful. 

 

China is incredibly diverse, too.  Really, the term chinese is not fair

[Busch1724]

Somewhat serious question...obviously in the U.S., we categorize every group of person we can. So in China, what are their categories? Is it based on wealth, region they're from, etc.?

[redskins59]

21 minutes ago, Busch1724 said:

Somewhat serious question...obviously in the U.S., we categorize every group of person we can. So in China, what are their categories? Is it based on wealth, region they're from, etc.?

 

I thought they were mainly the so-called Han Chinese?  They also have ethnic minorities like Tibetans, Tajiks, Uygurs etc.  

[bearrock]

1 hour ago, zoony said:

http://time.com/88125/the-tiger-mom-effect-is-real-says-large-study/

 

There is a lot more out there

 

Quote

That leaves the work ethic, which Hsin and Xie found accounted for almost all of the grade gap between Asian-American and white students. And that was driven by two factors, both of which have more to do with social and cultural factors than racial ones. Among the more than 5200 Asian-American and white students from two large datasets that followed them from kindergarten into high school, Asian-American students were able to take advantage of social support systems that helped to translate their effort into success. In their communities, families are surrounded by ways to enhance education – from word-of-mouth advice about the best school districts to resources like books, videos and websites, to cram schools for after-school classes. “The Tiger Mom argument neglects these social resources and forces that sustain and reinforce the work ethic,” says Hsin.

 

Are other racial groups getting into Harvard not working as hard and getting the same grades?  Or are the best grades and test scores a desirable trait except for asians?  

 

And that title and content doesn't really seem to match.

2 hours ago, redskins59 said:

Well, to be honest, visit a discussion board that is talking about Thomas Jefferson High School.  So much whining from Whites because these days TJ is like 80% Asian.  Some want affirmative action to include Whites.

I agree with whatever Harvard is doing though.  You want as much diversity as possible.You all realize that if Harvard is forced to change, it will become 60 or 70% Asian? That would not be good IMO.

Although, do people realize that Asian is not just East Asian (e.g. Chinese)  but also South Asian( Indian) and South East Asian(Philippino)? 

People need to realize that Asia itself is very diverse. Not evry group is successful. 

 

Totally agree that diversity is important and you wouldn't want an ubiquitous student body with singular background and history.  But that would be a better justification for limiting asian admission, rather than saying that asian students with high grades and test scores somehow are inferior applicants.

[Riggo-toni]

1 hour ago, Busch1724 said:

Somewhat serious question...obviously in the U.S., we categorize every group of person we can. 

Do we?

We lump Japanese, Indian, Filipino, Chinese, Korean, Iranian and a dozen other ethnicities/nationalities as simply Asian.

[Springfield]

1 minute ago, Riggo-toni said:

Do we?

We lump Japanese, Indian, Filipino, Chinese, Korean, Iranian and a dozen other ethnicities/nationalities as simply Asian.

 

Oriental though

[Riggo-toni]

When I was young, East Asians were "Orientals," and just "Asians" referred to Pakistanis, Indians, Iranians, etc.

 

When I referred to someone as being Oriental, my wife reacted like I had just said the n word and called me a racist.

[ixcuincle]

Watch out, these days "Oriental" may be considered "offensive"  

[Springfield]

19 hours ago, ixcuincle said:

Watch out, these days "Oriental" may be considered "offensive"  

 

I agree, I think it is.  I’d argue that “Asian” is coming up on that as well.  It’s not too much to ask to call someone by their correct nationality, in my opinion.

[Mooka]

21 hours ago, Riggo-toni said:

Do we?

We lump Japanese, Indian, Filipino, Chinese, Korean, Iranian and a dozen other ethnicities/nationalities as simply Asian.

 

Its under the larger Asian category, but in my lifetime there have always been distinct options for Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Indian/etc.

 

Iranian is considered white. They were going to add a MENA  (Middle-Eastern-Northern-African) to the census in 2020 but instead its going to be White with clarifications like, White- German/Irish/Lebanese/Etc

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

Oriental has been considered offensive for a long time. Obviously in Riggo's case, he wasn't intending for it to be offensive. He just didn't know, But like ixcuincle, why does it bother you if a word is considered offensive?

[Destino]

20 hours ago, ixcuincle said:

Watch out, these days "Oriental" may be considered "offensive"  

There’s no maybe about it.  Unless your talking about an inanimate object, it is considered offensive.  If you need to be more specific just say East Asian or something similar.  

[Corcaigh]

In any attempt to have a "balanced" student body some demographics will get preference.

 

Taking race entirely out of the picture ... if you look at colleges with low admission rates, you often now see males admitted at a higher rate than females at the same academic standard. There was a big noise about a decade ago when the admissions director at W&M made an off-hand comment that went viral "We want it to be the College of William & Mary, not the College of Mary & Mary".

 

Almost everyone will think a reasonable balance and a diverse student body is a good idea until their kid misses the cut because of preference shown to a different segment of the population.

 

And sort of related to the "tiger parent phenomenon" ... in my own college admissions experience in very white, public-school educated Ireland there was a repeated history of academic superstars coming in from some particular schools run by priests where the kids attended long days and many Saturdays. Less than excellent academic performance was not tolerated. It was not uncommon for someone who won a national scholarship in high school to fail the first year of college. It was actually known as the '[Insert School Name] Syndrome'. The Irish admissions system was 100% based on results of a test taken in your final school year, but the college admissions folks felt some more subjectivity would have given a better class balance with a lower percentage of 'zombie students' in the classes that had the most demanding entry score. The admissions folks also weren't thrilled with the balance in some classes such as my electrical engineering undergraduate group which had 3 women out of 45 (in significant part because the nuns in their schools didn't even offer the advanced math classes which were a 'de facto' admission requirement for the most competitive classes because they awarded more points in the Irish scoring system).

 

[ixcuincle]

1 hour ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

Oriental has been considered offensive for a long time. Obviously in Riggo's case, he wasn't intending for it to be offensive. He just didn't know, But like ixcuincle, why does it bother you if a word is considered offensive?

It doesn't. In fact I find it non offensive at all as an Asian. Got into an argument with someone else on it and I honestly don't see how it's offensive. 

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

18 minutes ago, ixcuincle said:

It doesn't.

If you’re arguing with people about it, it kinda does though, right?