March 22, 2019

"She bristles at the notion that Students for Fair Admissions represents Asian Americans."

"[Edward] Blum, the group’s founder, had previously challenged affirmative action at the University of Texas. For that case, he recruited a white female plaintiff who said she was rejected from UT because of her race. When that suit failed, Blum tried again, this time arguing race-conscious admissions policies penalize Asian Americans.... He found support for his crusade among well-educated and wealthy Chinese Americans in places like Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay area, people who had grown suspicious when their high-achieving children were rejected from top-flight schools. They spread the word of their fight through WeChat, a Chinese messaging program. In Lee’s eyes, it is Students for Fair Admissions, not Harvard, that doesn’t recognize socioeconomic diversity among Asians. 'It’s very specific groups filing this lawsuit, and yet we’re all being clumped together,' she said. She is skeptical that eliminating race from college admissions decisions will benefit Hmong students, young people who, like her, grew up poor and in households where no English was spoken. 'It will definitely hurt them,' she predicted."

From "The Forgotten Minorities of Higher Education/What affirmative action means for low-income Asians" in The Washington Post Magazine.

But if using race as a factor were forbidden, I think schools would pay more attention to "young people who... grew up poor and in households where no English was spoken." So why shouldn't those who champion the interests of less well-off Asian groups support the lawsuit? I see that there's an estimate that 43% of Harvard students (instead of 23%) would be Asian if only GPA and test scores were used. Maybe the idea is that if there were a higher proportion of Asian students, the Asian students attempting to rely on low economic status would be discriminated against, because the schools would be afraid of looking too Asian. Asian, as the article points out, is a very large category, comprising many subgroups, but if school are concerned about looks, the question is whether these subgroups are visually distinguishable to... who?... white Americans. And that's the problem with using economic deprivation (rather than race) as a factor: It's doesn't show. Not vividly anyway.

62 comments:

mikee said...

I'll go with the saying that the way to stop racism is to stop using race to differentiate people. Government and the academy are the two largest practitioners of racial grouping in the country. Get them to go 1950's "colorblind" in all legislation and admissions, and the vast majority of racism (grouping and treating people differently based on skin color) will be eliminated immediately.

Then the issues of socioeconomic differences can be addressed, to get rid of the rest of the class-based racism in the US. A bit harder, but probably only about 10% as pernicious as having the feds or Harvard group you as pink, yellow, or brown.

Fernandinande said...

young people who... grew up poor

That issue is mostly addressed by testing, but the tests didn't result in the answers They wanted. Solution: practice racism.

Henry said...

I referenced this issue of Asian diversity in the Stuyvesant story.

Meanwhile, rh thinks IQ by Country is a meaningful fact.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Well, if optics matter, then you have to consider the question of admitting Asian-Asians versus Asian-Americans. At the Pacific Rim universities there’s a shitload of the former. Or is affirmative action even considered when admitting non-citizens? Are we judging by the color of their skin or the contents of their passport? Holy shit, what if they’re Hispanic-Asian-Americans who exist in no small numbers in Southern California?

The absurdities are obvious and almost trite now. In an increasingly multiracial society, at some point you either have to ditch affirmative action or set strict quotas. Life was so much easier when this was mostly about White and Black folks.

Lucien said...

The interesting thing about education is that it’s not just a prize handed out to those who show “merit”, but a pen experience that takes a good part of its value from the mix of students admitted. The character of the consumers feeds back into the value of the thing consumed. So there is a certain (romantic, at least) appeal to the notion that going off to college to meet people from all walks of life and all over the world is better than spending four years with a homogeneous bunch of drudges, with great test scores. In other words, diversity might have real value in addition to being a fig leaf hiding racial discrimination.

Dave Begley said...

Other than D-1 athletes, musicians and a certain percentage of legacies, just make it a lottery. Establish a 32 ACT cutoff for the rest of the class and make it a lottery.

Both my daughters earned a 32 ACT, but thank god they didn't go to Ivy League schools.

Rick said...

She is skeptical that eliminating race from college admissions decisions will benefit Hmong students, young people who, like her, grew up poor and in households where no English was spoken. 'It will definitely hurt them,' she predicted."

Once again race preference supporters reveal they understand their own policies do not have the outcomes they claim. Race preferences rarely go to poor blacks from lousy schools which are used to protect the program. They most often go to wealthy and middle class blacks who attend the same schools as the white and Asian counterparts they are discriminated in favor of.

Race preference supporters reveal when this distinction works against their interests they are quite able to identify it as in the case cited. This shows their silence about the beneficiaries of race preferences is deceitful rather than ignorance.

Lance said...

But if using race as a factor were forbidden, I think schools would pay more attention to "young people who... grew up poor and in households where no English was spoken.

Grammar check: Missed the closing quotation mark, I think.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Well, I suppose the ball got rolling back in the 60s, when administrators wanted to make elite universities look less like all white & Jewish clubs. It really does not look good for a nation with a population of 17% Blacks Latinos to have a purely white & Jewish ruling class. If elite colleges had gone strictly by merit back in 1960, that is what they would have had (maybe apart from sports).
It's a different situation, now. I imagine that if Harvard went strictly by grades and test results, the student population would be vastly over represented by East Asians, whites, and Jews.
There is no reason to expect that people who self-identify as Asians, whites, Blacks, and Hispanics will all express merit at the the same level (however defined). It is crazy to think that they would, but the Leftists have been bat shit crazy for decades.

Meade said...

@Lance, thanks! Commenters are great.

AlbertAnonymous said...

Be interesting to see how Harvard views the Hmong (whether they’re just lumped into a bigger group as “Asians”). My hope is that this will finally show race based admissions (whether part of the BS phrase “wholistic approach” or not) as the racial discrimination that it is, plain and simple.

Thomas has written about this (in dissent) multiple times. The arguments used to defend this discrimination are the same arguments (unsuccessfully) used to defend racial segregation. Can’t wait for him to write the majority opinion finally saying, once and for all, that discrimination on the basis of race for “good” is still discrimination on the basis of race. Period. Full stop.

If you want to get a sample of how much the supreme court’s precedent on race based admissions is gobbledygook (no pun intended), read up on their view of when race based admissions must end - when there’s a “critical mass” of diverse students. Whoever can define that concept wins the internet for the day.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"Race preferences rarely go to poor blacks from lousy schools which are used to protect the program."
In one of his few writing examples from his period as president of HLR, Obama claimed to benefit from Affirmative action.
Obama's mother and father were academics with advanced degrees. He was raised by his business-owner grandfather and his bank VP grandmother. He attended Punahou academy, an expensive prep school on Maui.
I suppose it is racist for me to point that out.

Lewis Wetzel said...


David Begley wrote:
"Establish a 32 ACT cutoff for the rest of the class and make it a lottery."
You do not understand the bourgeois. They need to believe that their merit entitles them to membership in the managerial class (e.g., the people that tell the workers what to do). They also need to believe that their merit will result in their progeny being members of the managerial class. They wouldn't bother having children otherwise.

Dave Begley said...

I think it was Charles Murray who expressed a debt of gratitude to the SAT. He lived in some small town in Iowa and got a very high or perfect score. He then went to an Ivy. His whole life changed. Without that merit test, he would have ended up at a state school.

With my lottery idea, every kid has a fair chance.

Creighton had a walk-on basketball player with a perfect ACT and from a county with fewer than 1,000 people. Kids like that should get a shot and not be subjected to the admissions committee. That being said, he was WAY BETTER OFF at Creighton. Harvard is the Creighton of the East. And we would NOT have lost to Harvard in the NIT.

William said...

Some prestige schools gain their prestige from having the children of prestigious people attend them. That's their glamour and why smart kids want to attend them. This simple minded insistence on academic excellence will, if unchecked, cause these schools to lose their raison d'etre.

Wince said...

...yet we’re all being clumped together.

Wouldn't the appropriate term be "lumped together"?

Isn't clumping the result of things sticking together as a result of internal properties, versus lumping which would indicate things grouped together by an outside force?

cubanbob said...

Considering there is federal funding and federal charitable tax exempt status in the mix perhaps schools with endowments of over $5bn should be required to only (or at least 70%) accept low income but otherwise merit qualified US nationals students. I suspect that would pretty much cover the Ivy's.

Mike Sylwester said...

We are developing into a society of racial quotas.

The universities are leading the way -- just as the universities are leading the way in the suppression of free speech.

------

In the meantime, we are flooding our country steadily with colored immigrants -- legal and illegal.

Therefore we are developing into a society where, in general, the more wealthy people are White and the more poor people are colored.

The Last Dragon Slayer said...

[It] doesn't show. Not vividly anyway.

There is the rub.

Some people would rather appear to slay dragons than to actually slay dragons. If you have the right showmanship skills or willing promoters, you can gain quite the reputation in dragon slaying without actually having to face any dragons.

The sad part is, there are so many willing fools who will cheer you on while real people are being victimized regularly by the real dragon.

It takes almost as much courage to oppose the poseurs than to fight the dragon. But the optics are just too good and people would rather feel good about their opposition to dragons than to admit the fact that they are complicit in the problem.

Gahrie said...

I've been told that this problem goes away in 9 years anyway.

Gahrie said...

Get them to go 1950's "colorblind" in all legislation and admissions, and the vast majority of racism (grouping and treating people differently based on skin color) will be eliminated immediately.

Actually, the grouping issue will get worse, as the natural demographics will reassert themselves, especially in education.

traditionalguy said...

Chinese Privilege. Do they get their preferred pronouns too.

Achilles said...

The problem is that we have these schlerotic government protected institutions who staff the government that protects them and massively subsidized them.

To get a government job you just need to get into the Ivy League.

State governments are all staffed the same way with some chosen government school.

The entire college system is a corrupt money laundering fraud used by the political class as a gatekeeper to benefit their kids and protected groups of people.

They want to completely removed merit from the system.

That is invariably what government does.

n.n said...

Another national emergency. The State-established Cult has ruled that we need not decide these hard issues, even when their judgment and consequences are self-evident to a reasonable person.

MD Greene said...

The reason parents want their children to attend elite colleges is to affirm that those parents -- and only by extension, their children -- are indeed Elite. Education is at best a distant second-order concern.

Everybody wants to be the French aristocracy during the reign of the Sun King.

Meanwhile, every small state college in the land enrolls students whose talents and drive are equal to or better than those of the anointed winners. After graduation and without the benefit of lofty "networks," a surprising number of these hitherto unrecognized students manage to come from behind and do quite well in life.

This is America, after all.

Amadeus 48 said...

If race were forbidden as a factor, there would not be more Asians in the Harvard entering classes, because now we would have a black box and inside the black box would be the X factor. The X factor would result in Harvard entering classes that look strangely like they do now. Is the US Supreme Court (full of people that went to Harvard and Yale) really going to to want to act as a super admissions committee for the Ivy League? Nah.

If race were forbidden as a factor, the Ivy League would rely on character, with "character" defined to mean many things, including athletic abilities, intelligence, formative experiences of every kind, achievement potential, response to adversity (including minority status), and prior connections with the school through parents and grandparents. But no race.

As we knew in the practice of law, you can get wherever you want to go with the right definitions. It all depends on the meaning of "is". And sometimes, it's not "rape-rape", depending on who is accused.

narayanan said...

Why the "limited" number of slots open for admission?
Do you even need to be on Campus in the digital age?

Enrollment can be as open as they want it to be.

If test scores do not matter for admission why should GPA count for anything as accomplishment at graduation?

mockturtle said...

Racial discrimination in all its forms should be banned. If Harvard ends up with a student body of 100% of Asian ethnicity, then so be it. And if I were black and accepted to a prestigious university I'd like to think I earned it and that the other students and the professors couldn't assume I'd been 'diversified' in. A black woman I knew in high school who was an honor student and accepted to Stanford before affirmative action was incensed at the advent of AA for that very reason.

It's what they say about the road to hell and its well-intentioned surface.

Dave Begley said...

Gahrie, "I've been told that this problem goes away in 9 years anyway."

No, 12 years. We are all dead in 12. Act now!

Steven said...

Establish a 32 ACT cutoff for the rest of the class and make it a lottery.

A 32? I scored a 32 ACT in the eighth grade in 1992. (I took it as part of Northwestern University's Midwest Academic Talent Search.)

Mike Sylwester said...

Correction to my comment at 9:51 AM

I inadvertently wrote the expression colored immigrants.

I meant to write Immigrants of Color.

Please make the mental correction.

Birches said...

The truth is that all People of Color are just as racist as everyone else. They just have different targets.

cubanbob said...

Crazy Jane said...
The reason parents want their children to attend elite colleges is to affirm that those parents -- and only by extension, their children -- are indeed Elite. Education is at best a distant second-order concern."

I beg to differ. My daughter is going to be a double Ivy in May. The education she received was for the most part excellent. Could she have received a comparable education at a lesser ranked school? Probably. The point of her getting into an Ivy wasn't to affirm her mother's and mine status but rather to deal with the reality of how the game is played today in the US. All else being the same an Ivy degree will get you the interview and the Ivy will get you the job. Beyond that it's up to the graduate.

Gabriel said...

Under the current diversity regime you can't do anything for Hmong or other economically disadvantaged Asian groups because Asians are already over-represented. In my career in higher education I explicitly asked this question this way and it was explicitly answered in this way.

At the time I was teaching in area with a sizeable Hmong population.

Bay Area Guy said...

The entire leftwing racial spoils system was based on the premise that since we once discriminated against blacks, we should allow more blacks into Harvard - to show that we feel bad about it.

Nice sentiment, but pretty shallow. Allowing unqualified blacks into highly competitive schools is bad for the schools, and bad for the blacks who flunk out, and probably woulda done better at Rutgers.

But that didn't stop the Left. They switched from the "black reconciliation" angle to the "multi-cultural diversity" angle. We want Harvard to have as many non-straight white males as possible! Diversity!

But, of course, this hasn't really helped blacks either, but has provided a pathway for a group of really, really, really driven people of color (Asians) to fill the ranks at Harvard, and Berkeley, and Stanford. The Law of Unintended Consequences writ large.

Ethnic diversity is bullshit. We should treat people as individuals, and let the cards fall where they fall.

Gabriel said...

The hard truth about higher education is that learning is free. It's the stamp certifying that one has learned which costs. Anything taught in any university course can be learned at any public library.

They don't have secret courses at elite schools. They have no knowledge there that is hidden from the other universities. What they have is a brand, and the opportunity to form networks with people who are powers now and will be powers in the future.

A degree from Harvard in say, physics, does not imply that you know more physics than a degree holder from Directional State University. In practice it almost certainly means that the quality of your instruction was lower at Harvard; the same is true even for MIT.

What it means is that you were set apart by someone whose opinion carries weight. Anyone can get into Directional State and get a degree in physics if they are smart and apply themselves. But not everyone can get into Harvard or MIT.

Steven said...

They switched from the "black reconciliation" angle to the "multi-cultural diversity" angle.

Because they had to. The restitution-for-discrimination rationale was explicitly held to be illegal by the Supreme Court in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, but "diversity" was upheld as a legitimate ground. Thus, since 1978, any university that wants to admit extra black students to make up for anti-black racism had to very carefully hide that motive behind a smokescreen of diversity talk.

Ray - SoCal said...

I wonder if they will do an article about admission for 1st and 2nd generation immigrants from Africa and Ivy League admission...

The article should also include discussions of overmatch, graduation/dropout rates, earnings, and mismatch.

tcrosse said...

""She bristles at the notion that Students for Fair Admissions represents Asian Americans.""

Nothing you'd want to brush with.

MD Greene said...

cuban bob said:

"The point of her getting into an Ivy wasn't to affirm her mother's and mine status but rather to deal with the reality of how the game is played today in the US. All else being the same an Ivy degree will get you the interview and the Ivy will get you the job. Beyond that it's up to the graduate."

I don't doubt that your daughter is a fine scholar. But acknowledging that the point of her admission to an elite school was to give her an edge anytime she applies for a job is giving away the game. So yes, you did it for her.

Bay Area Guy said:

"Allowing unqualified blacks into highly competitive schools is bad for the schools, and bad for the blacks who flunk out, and probably woulda done better at Rutgers."

Sorry, no. Maybe unqualified students would have a hard time at MIT or Johns Hopkins, but not at, say, Harvard, where they occasionally would receive B grades. The competition ends with admission, and since all the admitted students are known to meritorious, all receive high grades and honors at graduation. Rutgers and other state schools still maintain some vestiges of grading curves, but now that USNWR takes student satisfaction reports into its college ratings analyses, even those schools have loosened their standards.

What aspirational students and their families seek is the validation of an Elite School diploma. If this were the truest path to success in life, it would be depressing. But it is not. Over time, high-quality people tend to do very well, wherever they went to college.

Given that the US is the richest nation ever and has higher economic growth than it did in the 70s, 80s, 90s and since 2008, it's a little hard to credit the current obsession with status as meted out by a few fancy-pants colleges and universities.

If we really wanted to improve the preparation of our children, we'd be paying more attention to our elementary and high school systems, which have been losing ground for at least the last 40 years.

Yancey Ward said...

Ms. Althouse wrote:

"But if using race as a factor were forbidden, I think schools would pay more attention to 'young people who... grew up poor and in households where no English was spoken.'"

This is exactly what would happen in the absence of what are all but explicit racial quotas of today- the tilt of admissions would favor the poor more than see, and would certainly mute the backlash you see against racial quotas. Right now, colleges and universities at the highest levels are basically skimming the cream of the crop when it comes to African Americans, the highest performing of which come from the those with the highest family incomes within their racial cohort. If you don't take race into account, many of those might not be admitted at all, but it would still permissible to admit based on merit/financial resources, which would favor those with low family incomes. In short, Ms. Lee's real complaint isn't that people like her would not be admitted- I think she knows this- her real complaint is that she doesn't like people judging her based on what they think of these lawsuits, and her response is to condemn the lawsuits, not the jury of her peers.

Fernandinande said...

"How Much Does Getting Into an Elite College Actually Matter?"

NYT says: "Certain kinds of students — but not the privileged and the wealthy — benefit greatly from a selective university" so that's probably false.

Salier says: "Okay, but in the case of this 19-year-old girl who is definitely a full-grown woman, getting her into the right social sphere fast before she falls in love with some loser in Arizona could be a priority."

mockturtle said...

If we really wanted to improve the preparation of our children, we'd be paying more attention to our elementary and high school systems, which have been losing ground for at least the last 40 years.

So true, Not-So-Crazy Jane. I believe that many of us who are older received more actual 'education' in middle and high school than many receive today at the university level. The 'no child left behind' program has meant, in essence, 'lowest common denominator'.

Bay Area Guy said...

Also, it's important not to ignore the bigger problems at American universities, then the racial identity racket.

That problem is general Leftism, anti-Americanism and political correctness.

They don't read Shakespeare or study Greek or study Latin.

They study gender studies, take on oodles of student loan debt, and graduate with no marketable skills.

In contrast, several decades ago, I went to a prestigious university, which cost a mere $1300/year in tuition (easy to earn in the summer), and where the girls were very pretty and enjoyed a good shagging, provided you were a reasonable gentlemen.

The professors were great too -- learned a lotta good shit. All my peers got good jobs and good wives, and nice kids and successful careers.

That's how college once was and should be.

Francisco D said...

Sorry, no. Maybe unqualified students would have a hard time at MIT or Johns Hopkins, but not at, say, Harvard, where they occasionally would receive B grades. The competition ends with admission, and since all the admitted students are known to meritorious, all receive high grades and honors at graduation.

I believe that the average grade at Harvard is A-.

A colleague earned a Ph.D. at Stanford (likely the best Psychology faculty in the country). When I was impressed, he told me, "It's a lot harder getting into the program than getting out." There is a strong confirmation bias at elite schools.

Rick said...

The 'no child left behind' program has meant, in essence, 'lowest common denominator'.

Once you define the problem as a "gap" it is inevitable the solution will be to decrease the high end performance. Increasing the low end is hard (or even impossible), and every stakeholder in the system is resisting. Reducing the top end is far easier.

This works for anything. Socialism "solves" inequality by bring the top down. People at the bottom are worse off than they were before but the people they hate have lost more. This seems like a good trade to people whose core character traits are envy and greed.

iowan2 said...

Things have been dumbed down so much, I can't see a liberal arts degree from the most prestigous school is worth anything.

What you do with your child outside of school is invaluable to their success as adults. Broad exposure to ideas, teaching them how to think and reason. Instilling honor, honesty, and work ethic. Communication skills, with an emphasis on keeping your mouth shut. Teaching them what it means to add value to their job. You will be successful in any endeavor as long as you personally add value to the task before you.
This is all stuff that was common pre WWII. Somehow the boomers ignored what the WWII and depression era parents taught them.
All of this comes from the hearth, not the government. Government makes horrendously bad parents

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

43% of Harvard being Asian, whew

Since the Asians are so smart why is Harvard not in Asia?

Bay Area Guy said...

In Oakland public schools, the high school graduation rate is slightly below 60%.

Think about it-- 40% of the Oakland kids don't even graduate high school.

What race are these dropouts? Well, they're likely not white - white kids in Oakland don't go to the public schools.

What economic future does a black kid have if he can't even graduate from high school? Bleak at best -he's gonna be a Greek scholar.

We should abolish all college level "diversity" programs, and re-direct that time and money into tutoring inner city black kids so that they graduate high school in greater numbers.

Wince said...

She bristles at the notion that Students for Fair Admissions represents Asian Americans... 'It’s very specific groups filing this lawsuit, and yet we’re all being clumped together,' she said.

LUMP
...according to the Presidents of the Unites States

She's lump, she's lump
She's in my head
She's lump, she's lump, she's lump
She might be dead

Lump lingered last in line for brains
And the one she got was sorta rotten and insane
Small things so sad that birds could land
Is lump fast asleep or rockin' out with the band?

fivewheels said...

"She bristles at the notion that Students for Fair Admissions represents Asian Americans."

Yes! Keep going! You're almost there! The group doesn't represent Asian Americans, because? ... Because people are individuals and not just members of groups? Do you see it yet? Come on, you can do it! Think!

Leora said...

I think most Americans would support affirmative action for the economically disadvantaged while remaining against race based discrimination. I know I would.

Earnest Prole said...

California does not use affirmative action in college admissions (the voters outlawed it in 1996). Asian enrollment in its elite schools approaches 45 percent, three times their percentage of the California population. Black enrollment is around three percent, less than half their percentage of the California population. White enrollment is somewhat less than their percentage of the population. Eliminating affirmative action in other elite schools across the country would produce similar results.

John henry said...

Who is "Asian"?

Are Filipino's "Asian"? Or are they "Hispanic"? Or both?

Alberto Fujimori's grandparents emigrated to Peru from Japan. He and his parents were born in Peru. He was identified as Peruvian enough to be elected president.

Is he "Asian"? "Hispanic"?

Now that he has returned to Japan, does that change the answer?

Are Brazilians "Hispanic"? By one, US Govt definition yes since their forbears came from the Iberian peninsula. By another US govt definition, they are not since their forbears did not come from Spain.

Are Dominicans "Hispanic"? Most of their forbears came from Africa as slaves. Hispaniola is as close as any of them ever got to Spain.

This whole race naming thing is bullshit.

As I said in another note the other day. There are at least 6 legal and/or widely accepted definitions of Hispanic. I qualify under 3-4 of them. I don't think it is possible for anyone, no matter what their lineage, to qualify under all of them.

Give it up already.

Juan Enrique

John henry said...

Earnest and others:

One of the reasons for the high level of Asians in many schools is that any are not Asian-Americans but Chinese-Chinese.

They get no scholarships, no tuition aid, no student loans, nothing. They pay full list price for the education.

If you were a business or a college or a university which one would you jump to the head of the line?

A perfect student (800SAT, Straight As, Honor courses etc) who wants a discount (in the the form of scholarship or such) or a mediocre Chinese who will pay the full list price without blinking an eye?

It is a serious question.

It is a serious problem.

mockturtle said...

When I attended the University of WA [eons ago] the Asian students represented 25% of the student body. I'm sure it's much, much higher now. I was thankful, as my female Vietnamese classmate helped me get through Calculus. My Calculus professor was also Vietnamese and had studied in Paris. Asians have always been accepted as a major part of Seattle culture. Seattle wouldn't be Seattle without them.

n.n said...

re-direct that time and money into tutoring inner city

Affirmative action, not zero-sum, yet selective, political games. I would leave out the diversity angle, and just focus on the children.

wwww said...

I've been confused by the stories and scandals about admissions to highly rated colleges and universities. First of all, when did Southern Cal University become elite? Why are all of these kids cheating to get in there? Why did all the stories write about the school as if it's a big name? Yes, there are good professors at the school, like there are at Irvine or Santa Barbara, but I don't classify it with Princeton or even Berkley. Assuming the kids cheated to get in there for the beach culture & parties & sunny weather.

Second of all, who are all these high achieving kids who can't get into selective colleges? Is this about California public universities that have more difficult admissions because of the budget crunch? It's public rationed education; are these fights over the rationed limited spaces? But I know plenty of students who can get into University of Cal schools. Furthermore, if these kids have good grades, they can likewise be admitted into Vanderbilt, or University of Chicago, or Northwestern, or Duke, or Dartmouth, or Wesleyan, or Haverford, or Amherst, or Smith, or Pomona, or Stanford, or Williams, or Duke, or Colorado College. Don't put all of your eggs in one basket, and apply to a variety of schools. But I have yet to meet anyone with fairly good grades and scores who did not get into at least 1 elite school after they sent out their applications.

Do students and parents not understand that students can attend Haverford for undergrad, major in economics, and get admitted to Wharton MBA? Elite higher education is not in short supply in the USA. Students have a plethora of elite institutions which they can attend. If students wish to go outside the USA, there is McGill or the University of Edinburgh. Bottom line, an excellent record at any of the above schools opens up elite opportunity and grad schools. These articles make it sound like it's hard to get into an excellent school with extraordinary opportunities and the side bonus of an elite social network. Any above average student can go to amazon and order a SAT study book.

MD Greene said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MD Greene said...


Colleges have replaced reports of minority enrollment with announcements of the percentage of admitted students who are the first in their families to attend college. Which is nice but basically more hide-the-ball.

The New York Times reported recently that 38 "top" schools (including five from the Ivy League) have more enrolled undergraduates from families are in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than from the bottom 60 percent.

Several years ago I attended the general undergraduate commencement ceremony at UCLA. One of the administrators asked all new graduates who were the first in their families to earn BAs to stand. There was no official count, but it looked like several thousand to me.

The UC system admits some students as freshmen and others after they have completed two years of community college. This is economical for families and efficient for crowded campuses. The public colleges and universities of this country have made higher education more broadly available than the elite colleges ever could be or even cared to be.

The Ivies could double their undergraduate enrollments, offer much more financial aid and not miss a step, but none has done so as the national population has doubled and tripled and quintupled, as women became eligible for admission in equal numbers and as international students have been enrolled in much larger numbers. Those schools probably are of some use, but mostly to people who would have been elites in any event.

Joanne Jacobs said...

When the Vietnamese "boat people" made it to San Jose, they moved to low-income neighborhoods with low-performing schools. Soon, their kids were making honor roll: Most of the valedictorians were named "Nguyen."

Some from that generation are now middle- and upper-middle-class dentists, accountants, engineers, etc. (I think a girl I interviewed 30 years ago, when she was a straight A student in middle school, is now a pharmacist, but I could be googling the wrong Nguyen.) But there remain plenty of low- and moderate-income Asian families with hard-working, high-achieving children.

The University of California contemplated affirmative action based on poverty when race-based AA was under attack: The analysis concluded it would help Asian-American students, but would not help blacks or Latinos. The idea was dropped.

MB said...

The US always were an ethnic/racial democracy, with one or several ethnic groups on top and other ethnic groups on the bottom.
In the 60s and 70s there was some small chance to get rid of that past, for good. But, of course, that was never the point. The point was putting a different ethnic group on top, not getting rid of ethnic democracy.
Same as in Kenya, same as in India, same as in South Africa. There is no ethnic group or party that can set things right by winning elections. It's just various ethnic interest groups competing against each other.
Short of partition (which could lead to millions of deaths, in the US), there is no straightforward way out of this situation.
If, by radically reducing migration, increasing assimilation, and reforming the media and the education sector, Trump manages to erase ethnic distinctions and unite Americans around a common goal, it'll be a true miracle.