A question on the new Harvard admissions application, quoted in
"Colleges Want to Know More About You and Your ‘Identity’/With affirmative action banned, application essays ask about 'life experience,' the one place in admissions where discussing race is still explicitly legal" (NYT).
Johns Hopkins carefully explains what is allowed in its essay, which asks students to write about an aspect of their identity or life experience that has shaped them. “Any part of your background, including but not limited to your race, may be discussed in your response to this essay if you so choose,” Johns Hopkins notes on its website. But it adds a caveat: the information “will be considered by the university based solely on how it has affected your life and your experiences as an individual.”
Sarah Lawrence College, outside of New York City, saucily incorporates a quote from the official summary of Chief Justice John G. Roberts’s majority decision in its prompt: “Nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life.”
Then the school asks applicants to “describe how you believe your goals for a college education might be impacted, influenced or affected by the court’s decision.”
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89 comments:
Way back when, I did not apply to schools that asked for personal essays. I imagined the person reading them would not know of my humor, or of my writing style, to appreciate how I wrote.
CJ Roberts allows the camel to get his nose under the tent.
Somewhat inversely related, I know several people who own AirBnB properties here in South Florida. When determining whether to accept an application from a prospective renter, they are shut out from a picture of the renter, or even their name, city or credit history. Can't discriminate you know.
They all have horror stories about unwittingly renting to AA thugs in their 20s (who somehow have the $$ these properties go for) who destroy and damage the rental and interfere with neighbors quiet enjoyment of their property. No one objects to renting to people of any race who are reasonable people. Likewise no one wants to be forced to rent to anti-social haters.
And no one dares bring this up in public.
Quality students may wish to contemplate the ultimate value of a degree from university that prioritizes political sass in its applications...
Write the essay in Ebonics. Shoo-in City.
I have done a lot of work in prisons, especially juvenile offenders. This cleaving and segregation pushed by the identitarians will result in the same prison cliques I saw there all the time. That's what they're turning the country into, a real life version of the videogame "Tribes". Everyone fights to capture each other's flag, but the only flag that matters is the one that's not in the game.
Ask not what Harvard can do for you - ask what you can do for Harvard.
How can you contribute to Harvard seems to lose track of who's paying.
If you blatantly lie about your life as an oppressed minority, not only are they unlikely to notice, but once you're in, there's nothing they can do about it.
so, something like?
As a rich Black person, i have experienced hardship my Entire Live.
At the private schools my parents sent me to, i experienced hardships BECAUSE I AM BLACK..
At the test prep centers m parents sent me to, i experienced hardships BECAUSE I AM BLACK..
At our country club, our gated community and our private island, i experienced hardships BECAUSE I AM BLACK..
Even while riding one of our thoroughbred horses, i experience hardships BECAUSE I AM BLACK
like that?
Roberts encouraged the subterfuge, as noted immediately in the comments on this blog when the opinion came out.
Progs fight. They won't stop. They mean to deploy their racism to enforce their ideology and serve elite reproduction.
Reihan Salam envisions the end of progressive elitism in The Atlantic. It's a good piece, but he's too optimistic.
Lots of mountains gonna be made out of lots of molehills.
DoD promotion boards think it's easier to discriminate with photographs of the candidates. After all you really only want the blacks that look authentically black rather than some Octoroon
Is Sarah Lawrence trying to build a case against the recent decision blocking race discrimination? They’re looking for victims, not students.
Bah. These elite universities are boring. And pompous. And conceited.
Diversity by indiv... color. That said, there is a not so nuanced difference between affirmative action and affirmative discrimination. #HateLovesAbortion
The recent decision will only get enforced if those discriminated against can do so with class action lawsuits. SCOTUS' decision puts the disparate impact shoe on the other foot- can they force the lower courts to act accordingly? I don't know.
USA! You can still be a victim!
“I was born a poor black child”
Everything old is new again.
Everything will be the same, except the essays will be even more phony and insincere. The admission counseling business will boom. Whither the ACT, SAT, and the College Board?
Here's a question for the historically prime candidates, particularly well-rounded, intelligent, white males: do you want to be a member of this club? What values are being glorified? Is victimhood the necessary precondition for distinction? There was a time when intelligence, vigor, honesty, and moral courage were at a premium.
There is not a wholesome principle that cannot be perverted. Yesterday's stories in the UK press about outcomes from grade inflation post-COVID are an example. As many as 30% of students in some university programs are dropping out. Those inflated "A levels" did not reveal sufficiently those who could do the work.
Ctrl-F "4H"
Imagine a guy writing, "I keep hearing about how white males are responsible for most of what is wrong with the world and that really bothers me. It seems sadly lacking in perspective. Women and non-whites have done lots of bad things, too. And white men are responsible for most of the technology that makes us worry more about too much food than about starving to death. Lots of people seem to think discriminating against people like me is a good thing. The hatred I have found, often expressed obliquely, makes me worry about the future. [detail various things heard from teachers or read]"
I doubt many 17-year-olds have the courage--or the independence to even think things through enough to articulate them.
The hatred these schools have for whites and Asians is simply astounding
No longer shocking that racist institutions will continue to find ways to circumvent law in order to retain their racism in ways they call legal. It is so much of who they are now; how could anyone think they would act any differently?
Racists everyone of them, and at war with the accursed American white men on the grounds that European Kings bought stolen Africans and shipped them over here to sell at huge profits to Southern Aristocrats. The Guilt that never ends.
We all knew that the colleges would find ways around the SCOTUS ruling. Still it is wonderful to have outright use of race banned. I suspect that Harvard and others will find that trying to end run the ruling will eventually mean that they are not getting the students they really need/want and they will have to return to their former holistic methods without explicit consideration of race.
Rich people north of Richmond and east of the Appalachians.
A Rose by any other name...
It needs to be said out loud. These so-called elite colleges are plainly lawless. They are the new Confederate states. They ignore the laws that they don't like and continue with their racial discrimination.
President Vivek ought to send in the National Guard and open the Harvard schoolhouse doors to qualified candidates.
Please, tell us how you are a victim requiring a remedy.
They really are dedicated to racial discrimination, aren't they?
Massive Resistance in action. Somewhere George Wallace smiles.
Correlation, misinformation, and disinformation. The issue is diversity (e.g. racism) but it's not. The issue is class and affirmative discrimination. A person of black from Martha's Vineyard in America is treated disparately from a person of black from Ivory Coast from a person of brown in California, and a person of yellow which motivated bypassing the civil rights organizations in order to escape the back... black hole... whore h/t NAACP of Diversity, Inequity, Exclusion (DIE).
How about this for a question:
The containers for milk are always square boxes, containers for mineral water are always round bottles, and round wine bottles are usually placed in square boxes. Write an essay on the subtle philosophy of the round and the square.
Especially applicable at UW Stout or MSU.
John Henry
"But it adds a caveat: the information “will be considered by the university based solely on how (The University wishes to determine how, in its sole discretion) it has affected your life and your experiences as an individual.”
Bonus points for using current terms of intersectionality in your answer.
Keyword = Contribute.
Ok, Harvard. Here ya (sic) go:
I was assigned my whiteness at birth. Despite that, I have emerged at least more than tan in my triumph over adversity. In fact, now I love adversity. Adversity should be my middle name. But I have humbly settled for “X”. As in canceled, but so what?
My parents actually were cancelled. As in jailed for weird beliefs. Like, there are only two sexes. And you can’t change them? Like WTF. But hey, they’re my sperm and egg donors (not sure who provided what, FYI) so what are ya gonna do? After all, they grew up in that era when everyone believed in that crazy free speech. Can you blame them, with all that disinformation and misinformation they were exposed to? I visit them. They’re cool. They’ll be out in 10 more years. On good behavior.
Anywho, I now know why the caged bird sings. Believe me, I have spread my wings. I have read and followed the writings, the lives, and The Way of others who have shed their assigned whiteness to great heights through skins of many colors. Like Senator Warren, the first of her tribe to teach law at Harvard. And our sister, Jessica Krug, who transcended her whiteness to make it as a black professor of African studies at George Washington University.
Yes, through such models of adversity transcendence through higher education, I too have learned to shed. Hell, my motto now is “Shed happens!” And with your further guidance, I know you can help me really make the shed hit the fan.
I humbly submit my life experience statement and look forward to joining your community of shedheads at Harvard University.
Couldn't a university, if so inclined, use the same gaming technique for favoring white students? If not, why not?
The second most radical option would be for the Ivy League to abolish what is called “ALDC” — athletics, legacy, dean’s list and children of faculty and staff. 43% of Harvard’s intake come from one of these groups.
Investment banks only hire from Ivy League schools, that's their idea of diversity. I had a long career at a top tier US bank yet I graduated from a Midwest public university (I "got in" via an acquisition). Despite that, one of my bosses would love to tell me he would never had even interviewed me because of my university. The McKinseys are trying to select for the same type of personality as the Ivys. Not necessarily the smartest, but the ones with the greatest need for approval from others. The people willing to fine tune power points until 5am are the same people who work for 5 different charities in high school to get into an Ivy. So it makes some logical sense.
There are a lot of excellent universities and colleges outside the Ivy League. The cachet of the Ivy League appears that they are grossly over-represented in the elites in Washington DC and wealth-managing Big Finance. I suspect that the alienation of large swaths of the broader American public from the Washington DC establishment and Big Finance results from this sense that so much of the rest of America is excluded from these two power centers.
If you're never invited to the first interview, ...
One rather obvious feature of the Harvard essay question is that it smokes out any Clarence Thomas types who might talk about overcoming their impoverished circumstances with religious or self-reliant values instilled by a traditional grandfather. Who needs someone like that, harshing the victim minority cult as well as making the legacies uncomfortable?
Except for the networking, I don't think the Ivy League, including Harvard, provides a better undergraduate education these days than do many "second tier" colleges. Much of the reputation of schools like Harvard rests on the famous faculty, most of whom an undergraduate will never meet. The bulk of their classes will be taught by unknown newly-minted associate and visiting professors, some of whom can be quite good but others not very good classroom educators. So I am not worried about a family member getting into the Ivy League. A long time ago in my time, it was important and I did that thing, but it no longer matters so much.
If people have never been students at Harvard how would they know or presume to know how they would contribute to Harvard? I guess I am admitting I am so out of the loop because I can't even imagine how to write such an essay. My story of overcoming adversity would inspire students who have nothing to complain about because they have been given everything? IDK
Schools that are determined to maximize the number of AA students in their incoming classes will get some mileage out of questions like these. But it won't make up for their inability to use race per se as a plus factor that in effect added a couple hundred points to a black student's SAT score relative to Asians and whites. The old way helped schools like Harvard to bring in a lot of relatively affluent, middle- and upper-class black students whose grades and test scores wouldn't otherwise gain them admission to an Ivy League school. The schools aren't going to have any easy time admitting those same students in large numbers under the rubric of "overcoming adversity" while at the same time keeping out disadvantaged whites and Asians who have a more compelling claim of having overcome adversity, but with better academic credentials. The schools will succeed to some extent in admitting blacks in higher proportions than non-blacks under this rubric, but it won't serve as a complete workaround.
Damn, AA is dead, but the dream lives on.
Where's that next loop hole?
Why are you a special snowflake??
"Sarah Lawrence" and "saucily."
Words not often seen together.
Pretty soon, the campus will be nothing but purple haired people wondering where their genitals went
I'd like to overhear the discussion if a prolifer explained that she needed a Harvard degree to enable her to work effectively for prolife since it was a social custom to treat all prolifers as ignorant Yahoos as she had found in her high school experiences. More generally, I'd like to hear how admissions committees at Harvard and elsewhere are excluding people based on political preferences. This is illegal but this is clearly happening since in most universities 98% of donations go to the left candidates even in states where the majority of tax-payers are on the right. Are such institutions entitled to tax breaks since they seem intended for only half the public?
The basic problem is that Conservatives say that the Ivy League is overrated and that credentials mean nothing, but they do not really mean it. At the same time, the explosion of NIL money and the crziness with conference realignment has made it clear that big time college football has any educational component. Yet, Red State fans still pretend otherwise.
It is time for Conservatives to treat woke colleges like Facebook and Bud Light: Rather than trying to convince their supporters to change their ways, just say "No."
"Racial quotas now. Racial quotas forever." Was George Wallace saucy when he stood in the University doorway?
"The Asian Problem." How about Abbot Lawrence Lowell, perhaps he was saucy?
What relevance does this have to an academic environment?
Harvard, in particular, has been signaling pretty clearly that they will try this gambit as a work-around. But the problem with a work-around is that it doesn't work if the end result (in terms of the class make-up) is the same as it was under the prior discriminatory scheme. And the entitled kids of doctors and lawyers (who were the real beneficiaries of the now-discredited Harvard system) won't really have much of a victim story to tell.
Of course, academics are very arrogant, convinced as they are that their brand of racial discrimination is right and just. Alas, there are too many people -- too many lawyers enticed by the fee-shifting provisions of 42 USC Sections 1983 and 1988 -- who will be watching and waiting for the right case to sue again.
Lawfare is a nice start, and congrats on Republicans for figuring out the need for it, but it's a fool's errand to think that people who view you as an enemy will stop doing so simply because you've legally barred them from doing specific A, specific B, specific C.
So long as the assumption is that hostile people and institutions are still fundamentally on your side even when you disagree, the smug failing upwards will continue (for some.)
Everyone apply as a negro! Problem solved.
My early life was marked by all kinds of harsh experiences. From what I can tell none of them made me a better person. To the extent that I'm a decent person, it's despite those experiences rather than because of them.... It seems that the more pleasant experiences of life are what molds character and leadership qualities. Harvard would be well advised to steer clear from students whose childhoods were too dire. They should offer scholarships to the children of millionaires with the further stipulation that those millionaires be in stable marriages. This type of home life predicts the future leaders of America and the Democratic Party.....Remember that preternaturally beautiful young woman who lost admission to USC because her movie star mother had fudged some items on the admission application? The young woman was already making millions as some kind of You Tube influencer....The real scandal is that USC didn't go out of their way to recruit this student. Who wouldn't want to go to college with a preternaturally beautiful young woman as opposed to someone who scored over 600 on their SAT's? It's just so unfair.
So in other words, flat-out admissions from both that JUST race is considered a significant enough "factor" to warrant an acceptance.
Instead of writing about how they will "contribute" to Harvard, perhaps applicants should think about how Harvard will contribute to them. After all, the students are the real customers, not Harvard.
Harvard - "Please tell us if you are Black or not *wink wink*"
When will people applying to Harvard and people running admissions to Harvard finally realize that the best application ever was Elle's video essay to Harvard Law, and make all admissions applications be just a swimsuit video of the applicant? Immediate ability to admit based on observed skin color, plus T&A or beefcake!
Best of luck with that. Obvious attempts to discriminate are not going to be appreciated by SCOTUS.
Is this a new kind of question? I seem to remember answering something very similar to this when I applied to Wheaton College back in 1992. Were Christian schools more attentive to these sorts of things? Curious.
"I was born a poor black child".
- Steve Martin
Asshole institutions run by assholes for the indoctrination of future assholes.
Q- "How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard?"
A- "I walk in the forest. I try to count 10,000 steps to be healthy..."
What a pompous bullshit question. Harvard is 450 years old and it needs 18 year olds to say what they can contribute ? How about you teach them something instead. You know, because you are the 450 year old college.
Huh— do MIT or Caltech ask for junk like this?
That wording ("contribute to Harvard") makes it clear the admissions process is connected to the fundraising process.
The BIG QUESTION is: Is it OK to discriminate on the basis of "race" if your intentions are benevolent? Not that long ago, college admission personnel wanted to know the race, ethnicity, religion, etc., of applicants so they could EXCLUDE Jews (not all of them, just enough to keep WASP predominance).
The bigger question is: Who decides what discrimination is benevolent?
Actively recruiting underqualified whiners.
Sounds like a surefire plan for excellence.
It seems, MS Althouse, if you are going to post an article and insist upon screening all of the comments prior to publishing them, you should time the publishing so that the screening occurs as soon as the comments start coming in. Those who visit and take the time to comment shouldn't have to wait 24 hours for you to get off the dime.
"contribute to Harvard?" Isn't the shoe on the wrong foot??
I've heard Elizabeth Warren on the campaign trail.
I once heard her advocate for a windfall tax on the 2% profit at the grocery store,
THAT BITCH IS JOE-BIDEN STUPID. She could have been Joe Biden's VP, but those pesky "high cheekbones" got in the way.
She's currently the face of Harvard. I'm surprised Harvard doesn't shut her down. She's got that unique ability to keep talking until everyone realizes she's an idiot.
"enable you to contribute to Harvard".
Maybe I am stupid, but I thought college was about developing the individual, and through that process/growth, society benefits. And Harvard would therefore benefit indirectly. I wish an applicant who thought likewise had the balls/ovaries to say that, but few if any would.
It is important to realize that the Times appears to have left off the first sentence in that Harvard prompt. The full prompt reads:
"1. Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard?"
It is clear they have set this prompt up to elicit race-related stories as much as possible. They appear to think they are being clever in seeking to undermine the SCOTUS decision by misusing Roberts' comments even though he himself warned them not to. Harvard's lawyers will have a lot of work to do yet.
How to maintain legacy admissions without saying you're maintaining legacy admissions.
"If admitted, I will contribute to Harvard in the same way that my family has contributed through the centuries."
F*ck John Roberts.
Again, they position themselves as private clubs you need to prove worthy of membership.
Blogger BlackjohnX said...
It seems, MS Althouse, if you are going to post an article and insist upon screening all of the comments prior to publishing them, you should time the publishing so that the screening occurs as soon as the comments start coming in. Those who visit and take the time to comment shouldn't have to wait 24 hours for you to get off the dime.
Shut up ! she explained. Are you a law professor ? If not shut up.
“Are you black?”
Blogger William said...
"My early life was marked by all kinds of harsh experiences. From what I can tell none of them made me a better person."
I like it.
Jon Burack: "It is clear they have set this prompt up to elicit race-related stories as much as possible. They appear to think they are being clever in seeking to undermine the SCOTUS decision by misusing Roberts' comments even though he himself warned them not to."
John Roberts knew exactly what he was doing and what real message he was sending when he gave the green light to the ivies and others to keep doing what they were doing even though the "ruling" went against the school(s).
Roberts often narrows and renders useless years long legal battles "won" by conservatives.
Just look at the CO baker.
I'm just surprised Roberts didn't go Full Roberts and simply rewrite the ruling into a complete dem/left win the way he rewrote the obamacare bill.
Serious Question..
Considering how little value a college education has these days.. WHAT is the value of an elite school?
Of the people that i knew at Iowa State, the one making the Most money now;
dropped out his sophomore year. (2002?)
He has been working at Facebook as a new machinery evaluator teamleader (or something) at one of their datacenters. Before that he was a network (something) for facebook, and before THAT a network (something) for a local ISP.. Before THAT he was a help center person.
Meanwhile, my nephew (that graduated from NYU about 9 years ago) is working at McDonalds..
It's McDonalds HQ in chicago, where he is a store renovation account auditor (or something). I don't know what he does; but i DO know that last year he was making in chicago what a Database Admin made in Des Moines. In Other words.. Not much..
OH! and he has about a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS in School Loans.
So, Again.. My Serious Question is: WHAT is the value of an Elite School?
WHY would you want to spend MONEY to go to Harvard?
"do MIT or Caltech ask for junk like this?"
Caltech has gone test blind. They don't want test scores and will not look at them if sent. Yow.
MIT, in the other hand, tried going test optional, decided that that was a bad idea, and went back to requiring scores.
Would that question work on a job application to drive for UPS?
Fuck the Constitution and the Supreme Court. What color are you?
Paddy O -- if you applied to Wheaton in 1992, that makes me think you may have started there in 1993, in which case you were in my wife's class. It's (potentially) a small, small Althouse-blog world after all.
Paddy O -- if you applied to Wheaton in 1992, that makes me think you may have started there in 1993, in which case you were in my wife's class. It's (potentially) a small, small Althouse-blog world after all.
"I was born a poor Black child...."
Steve Martin, The Jerk
Nothing would enable me to contribute more to Harvard than a Harvard degree.
The more diverse these schools become, the less value the degrees they issue will have.
So it's sort of a self correcting problem.
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