Admission bias at Harvard

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Kizmet, May 16, 2015.

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  1. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  2. nyvrem

    nyvrem Active Member

    yeah, read about it elsewhere on medical schools as well.
    asian americans have it harder to enter.
     
  3. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  4. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    This just seems like one of those collectivist ideas where the poor reasoning behind it doesn't survive contact with actual individuals.

    For example, if one of your parents is of Asian descent, and one of them is of European descent, do they still make it harder to get in, but only half as much?
     
  5. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Well, since we all know that Asians are by definition all born naturally superior super-brain genii with photographic memories almost as perfect, smart, and rich as Bill Gates, my two brothers, and even my nephew then naturally we should raise the bar higher for them so that there might be a few token mere mortals studying at Harvard.
     
  6. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

  7. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  8. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    I would like to know the answer for this, I am Asian and my kids are mixed. They are half Irish-American, I am wondering if they are considering as Asian-American under this admission bias.
     
  9. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I expect that they're considered to be whatever box they check on the admission form -- assuming they check any of them, which mine did not.
     
  10. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    In my experience there is not usually a hapa box.
     
  11. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Heh, no, not as such. But some have a multiethnic option, and some allow more than one box to be checked. (That said, I'm perfectly happy my kids all think that sort of thing is passé and just disregard that section.)
     
  12. prloko

    prloko New Member

    If you put another race, how can anyone check? It's all based on how you classify YOURSELF. Are they going to do a genetics test on you? According to anthropologists, we have our origins in Africa, so how is putting African descent wrong?
     
  13. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  14. lifelearner

    lifelearner New Member

    As an Asian with an Ivy League degree, I find affirmative action abhorrent. My father came from a dirt poor family in a third world country. There is no way any black or Hispanic had a harder time. Apparently, I am paying for some historic benefit I received. On a side note, I make it a practice never to see black or Hispanic doctors as they are statistically likely to have gotten into school with less rigorous standards.
     
  15. b4cz28

    b4cz28 Active Member

    I too am of mixed ancestry and I find this form of racism more and more distasteful everyday. Admission standards based on race do nothing but hurt people. When a black person makes "it" its because of affirmative action etc. As a man of mixed race I would never want that for my people.
     
  16. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    Hi b4, it's good to hear from you again. Here's an update on the complaint filed by the Asian groups. The complaint has been dismissed, not because it has no merit but because the issue is a part of a federal lawsuit.

    Education Dept. dismisses Asian groups' complaint
     
  17. 03310151

    03310151 Active Member

    Simple to solve really. Just let more people into the Univeristy. As I'm sure the fair and equitable folks at Harvard have been doing for many decades now...upping how many people allowed to go to school there.

    Right Harvard?

    Harvard?

    *crickets*
     
  18. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  19. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    They really can't. And they never really claimed that they would check.

    My company has an affirmative action program. It doesn't affect how we hire people but it does drive recruitment efforts (for example, three years ago we found that we had disturbingly few female engineers so we began setting up recruitment tables at colleges where the engineering programs had a more balanced gender mix).

    When a person checks "Asian" then that's what's on their form. We have no authority to question, change or challenge that response.

    Granted, checking that box on the form doesn't impact your career. It just changes the big fat report we generate annually (in consultation with our consultant). At a university that response may impact your access to certain financial aid packages so, in that case, a claim might be made that you made a material misrepresentation for financial gain (i.e. committed fraud).

    But yeah, I'm a mutt. If I check "Native American" then you can have a fun time trying to sift through my family (which successfully screwed its way through every gene pool) genealogy to try to prove me wrong.

    My ex had this uncle who married a Cuban woman. The guy was as pasty white as you can imagine. They had two kids. The daughter looked Latina and the son looked remarkably like his father. Compounding matters further, they named the son "Simon" and the daughter "Maria."

    Well, they told me that when Simon and Maria went to college Maria was warmly embraced by various ethnic societies. Simon, on the other hand, was very publicly accused of trying to defraud the school (it's worthy of noting that Maria had opted for Rutgers while Simon went to a very small private school in PA) and lie about his ethnicity. It was serious enough that they were considering disciplinary action against Simon. After all, here you had a white kid with ginger hair and freckles, a name like "Simon" and a very anglo-saxon last name trying to tell people that he was, in fact, hispanic.

    Apparently the episode ended with the mother physically appearing at some unfortunate Dean's office until many apologies were issued and with Simon ultimately joining his sister at Rutgers.

    So people seem content to "self-identification" until said self-identification interferes with others ability to profile you.
     
  20. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

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