Top Colleges Discriminating Against Asian Students:Thoughts?

[ArmorPierce]

The 'discrimination' against asian students is how affirmative action in schools work. It is to promote diversity.

Asians in America actually have a higher average income than white Americans so there's that. Lets not pretend that being raised in different upbringings, different schools, and racism does not play a role in academics.

The existing power structure wants to make an academic education hard enough to limit the pool by excluding blacks and hispanics..., but they don't want it so hard that they really actually have to work hard at it outside of the normal stuff they learn from being exposed to white society in a day-to-day basis.

See here for an example how folks opinions on selection criteria changes based on whether it benefits them or not.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/colleg ... eritoc.php

New sociology research indicates that while white people generally say they favor pure test-based admissions for colleges, this really only seems to be true when they think standardized test-based measures will favor white people. Or, more specifically, their views change a little when confronted with evidence about Asian-Americans, who tend to do well on standardized tests.

When he told them that Asian Americans made up a greater portion of the University of California student body one might expect given the Asian-American population of the state and then choose various criteria to determine college admissions, something interesting happened. White people started to favor admissions less forced on grades and standardized tests.

[Coop D'etat]

The root issue is likely that the American undergraduate system is itself unnessarily hierarchical, with large number of tiers of perceived value from Harvard/Yale/Stamford/MIT etc. going downward. This creates an intense competition for the top spots between students of mimimal observable difference in their applications. Getting into those highest tier schools is seen as the gateway towards getting into America's ruling class so they are a very big deal.

[Gandalf]

Why do US universities place so much emphasis on extracurricular activities anyway? If I would be looking for a good classicist, why should I care that he plays the piano or the guitar?

In terms of the more competitive colleges, I believe it is to further narrow down college applicants. Nowadays, there are simply far too many accomplished students who are simply stellar in an abundance of subjects. Because admissions officers are presented with many qualified students, to weed out the application pool further, they turn to extracurricular activities in order to further gauge the quality of an applicant. I suppose that they infer that a student who is a good classicist, to use your example, but is also superb at playing a musical instrument or a specific sport, is even more talented or possesses even more remarkable traits than a student who is only good in schoolwork alone.

That's just disgustingly stupid and punished people with more occult hobbies.

It also screws over children whose parents can't afford for them to have application friendly hobbies to act as a tiebreaker between applicants.

I remain grateful for the Australian UAI/ATAR system. Imperfect, but better than the mess I've seen whenever this comes up.

[Ralin]

Then it seems to me one needs to get the curve changed so that fewer students get a 4.0.

Indeed, but that's well past the pay grade of the people writing college admissions policies. Until the shitty system can be overhauled or replaced the stopgap is needed.

I mean, I would far more value somebody who has work ethic and is committed to his field of study and doesn't waste his time playing the guitar and some other hobbies than somebody who does.

The fact that he can learn to play guitar or some other hobby well IS being used as a roundabout way to judge his work ethic and general ability to get things done. Or at least of his ability to persuasively pass off said hobby as evidence of the same. And if nothing else that serves to weed out however many dozen or hundred or thousand applicants with otherwise similar records who couldn't.

There are many, many things wrong with the American education system. This is relatively low on the list of them.

[bilateralrope]

That's just disgustingly stupid and punished people with more occult hobbies. All that should matter for a university to make a decision are:
1. The quality of your highschool education
2. Your GPA
Everything else is just bullshit. For fucks sake, one of the most brilliant guys I know has no hobbies whatsoever besides drinking beer and watching football. If a university wants to weed out students application, just administer a general test and then take the ones who perform best on the test.

I agree with you if the university has enough places for everyone. But what do you think a university should do if they do not have enough places and have to choose between people who look identical if you only compare the quality of their highschool and GPA ?

Invite them for a special test (or an interview, but that might not do due to the number of people involved). THen use the special test results to differentiate. This is how German universities do it in some highly competitive fields already.

Who pays for the travel required for the interview or special testing ?

[Ralin]

Who pays for the travel required for the interview or special testing ?

Bearing in mind for context that my state's flagship university just got its funding cut something like 82%!

[Channel72]

The "general education" curriculum of US colleges is a total joke, as far as I'm concerned. Racism is definitely a factor in every facet of American society, but at least in the business world when a candidate applies for a technical position, nobody gives a fuck about their "extracurricular" activities - if the applicant can demonstrate skill and accomplishment within his/her field that's all that matters, accounting for whatever percentage of racist interviewers/HR personnel are involved.*

But anyway, at least in my field, the "general education" students get is a complete joke. I work at a large technology company, and seriously - finding qualified candidates for anything right out of college is a miracle. I've interviewed CS degree students coming out of Princeton, Stanford, etc. and I'll be lucky if 1 out of 10 is qualified. The problem is that a huge chunk of course work is not related to the students' major, meaning most students are essentially forced to waste their fucking time and stress out over learning material which will not help their career at all, and actually hurts them because it takes away precious experience and studying of the material that actually does matter, and will land them a job. Anyway, the result of this is that I'd rather hire some punk kid who writes software for fun or contributes heavily to major open source projects (like the Linux kernel) for fun, rather than a 4.0 GPA Princeton grad who got an A in organic chemistry, plays the piano, and can't write code for shit.


* As a side note, Asians (or at least Asian males) also tend to be over-represented in technology companies.

[Channel72]

That's just disgustingly stupid and punished people with more occult hobbies. All that should matter for a university to make a decision are:

Occult hobbies? Like what, demonology, witchcraft, or summoning Chthulu? That would look awesome on a resume. Do you mean "obscure" hobbies?

[madd0ct0r]

as a second point - if we accpet that there is racial bias in the system, I'm not sure interviews would lead to a better outcome...

[Thanas]

The fact that he can learn to play guitar or some other hobby well IS being used as a roundabout way to judge his work ethic and general ability to get things done. Or at least of his ability to persuasively pass off said hobby as evidence of the same. And if nothing else that serves to weed out however many dozen or hundred or thousand applicants with otherwise similar records who couldn't.

There are many, many things wrong with the American education system. This is relatively low on the list of them.

That is beyond backwards. Over here, if you got too many hobbies, people will say that:
a) Your program is not designed very well, because you have that much free time or
b) You must not be very dedicated to your field of study
University should be designed to occupy at least 80% of your time as a serious student. Whether that be through homework, lectures or self-study, who cares. But you can't tell me that one can seriously study and have several hobbies.

Who pays for the travel required for the interview or special testing ?

Are you really saying that travel to one test is more expensive than a piano and several years of piano lessons?

That's just disgustingly stupid and punished people with more occult hobbies. All that should matter for a university to make a decision are:

Occult hobbies? Like what, demonology, witchcraft, or summoning Chthulu? That would look awesome on a resume. Do you mean "obscure" hobbies?

Both. I know enough people who dabble in the occult but are decent students/teachers. And obscure hobbies - sure, those too.

as a second point - if we accpet that there is racial bias in the system, I'm not sure interviews would lead to a better outcome...

No, but it wouldn't waste time and energy - energy better spent on a serious high school and its curriculum - doing something kids hate and just do because the kid has got to get into a serious school.

[bilateralrope]

Are you really saying that travel to one test is more expensive than a piano and several years of piano lessons?

I don't see why it would be travel to a single test. Instead I'd expect having to travel to take multiple tests at different universities. Because my understanding is that people in the US apply to multiple universities in case they get rejected by their preferred choices.

Plus it's a cost that happens all at once. Instead of being spread out over years like the piano lessons. Probably on top of whatever hobby the student is involved in.

[AniThyng]

It just strikes me as odd that Europe with its strict labor laws on how long one must work has university course loads so heavy hobbies are hard to sustain...

That said, if I had to pick between two candidates that can code and think their way out of a problem, I'd pick the one who had a demonstrable passion for something, be it the work itself or his hobby over the one who just does something because it looks good on the resume

[Thanas]

I don't see why it would be travel to a single test. Instead I'd expect having to travel to take multiple tests at different universities. Because my understanding is that people in the US apply to multiple universities in case they get rejected by their preferred choices.

Plus it's a cost that happens all at once. Instead of being spread out over years like the piano lessons. Probably on top of whatever hobby the student is involved in.

I don't see the problem. If it is about one subject, then one can pool it into one test. Or take the test online.

Besides, it is not as if such a system is not already in place all over Europe.

It just strikes me as odd that Europe with its strict labor laws on how long one must work has university course loads so heavy hobbies are hard to sustain...

That said, if I had to pick between two candidates that can code and think their way out of a problem, I'd pick the one who had a demonstrable passion for something, be it the work itself or his hobby over the one who just does something because it looks good on the resume

How would you know the difference without an interview?

[Grumman]

It just strikes me as odd that Europe with its strict labor laws on how long one must work has university course loads so heavy hobbies are hard to sustain...

I agree. If Thanas's view of European universities is anything like accurate, that sounds quite unhealthy.

[AniThyng]

I don't see why it would be travel to a single test. Instead I'd expect having to travel to take multiple tests at different universities. Because my understanding is that people in the US apply to multiple universities in case they get rejected by their preferred choices.

Plus it's a cost that happens all at once. Instead of being spread out over years like the piano lessons. Probably on top of whatever hobby the student is involved in.

I don't see the problem. If it is about one subject, then one can pool it into one test. Or take the test online.

Besides, it is not as if such a system is not already in place all over Europe.

It just strikes me as odd that Europe with its strict labor laws on how long one must work has university course loads so heavy hobbies are hard to sustain...

That said, if I had to pick between two candidates that can code and think their way out of a problem, I'd pick the one who had a demonstrable passion for something, be it the work itself or his hobby over the one who just does something because it looks good on the resume

How would you know the difference without an interview?

Yeah I was referring to without quoting Channel72 talking about jobs where the interview part was already implicit, sorry about that.

Insofar as mass university admissions are concerned, given the 3 rough options

1) Pure academics

2) Academics + 'hobbies'/extracurricular activities/volunteer work

3) interviews

Both 1 and 2 would I think already tend to favor the privileged, and in fact pure academics I think will still favor the privileged, who can afford tutors and such, while (2) helps people who aren't all that academically gifted but can actually do broad work, with the caveat the the system must be weighted to allow people with less than perfect academics but good extracurriculars through the filter.

I agree it still also favors people who naturally have more time or parents who can support them.

3) would just be incredibly expensive to do en masse, I think, though I know it's done for scholarships and more elite programs, but not general university education, at least here in my country.

[Thanas]

Insofar as mass university admissions are concerned, given the 3 rough options

1) Pure academics

2) Academics + 'hobbies'/extracurricular activities/volunteer work

3) interviews

Both 1 and 2 would I think already tend to favor the privileged, and in fact pure academics I think will still favor the privileged, who can afford tutors and such, while (2) helps people who aren't all that academically gifted but can actually do broad work.

I think everything will favor the privileged in the end. But at least with a focus on pure academics, you focus on the one thing that really should matter to academic institutions - academics.

It just strikes me as odd that Europe with its strict labor laws on how long one must work has university course loads so heavy hobbies are hard to sustain...

I agree. If Thanas's view of European universities is anything like accurate, that sounds quite unhealthy.

As always, it depends on the subject and how much time one puts into it. What I am heavily against however is punishing someone because he is too dedicated to his studies.

[Terralthra]

The "general education" curriculum of US colleges is a total joke, as far as I'm concerned. Racism is definitely a factor in every facet of American society, but at least in the business world when a candidate applies for a technical position, nobody gives a fuck about their "extracurricular" activities - if the applicant can demonstrate skill and accomplishment within his/her field that's all that matters, accounting for whatever percentage of racist interviewers/HR personnel are involved.*

But anyway, at least in my field, the "general education" students get is a complete joke. I work at a large technology company, and seriously - finding qualified candidates for anything right out of college is a miracle. I've interviewed CS degree students coming out of Princeton, Stanford, etc. and I'll be lucky if 1 out of 10 is qualified. The problem is that a huge chunk of course work is not related to the students' major, meaning most students are essentially forced to waste their fucking time and stress out over learning material which will not help their career at all, and actually hurts them because it takes away precious experience and studying of the material that actually does matter, and will land them a job. Anyway, the result of this is that I'd rather hire some punk kid who writes software for fun or contributes heavily to major open source projects (like the Linux kernel) for fun, rather than a 4.0 GPA Princeton grad who got an A in organic chemistry, plays the piano, and can't write code for shit.

I'm glad the corporatist point of view is being so well-represented in this discussion. We should abandon the liberal arts university, cornerstone of knowledge and learning since essentially the Enlightenment forward, because it purportedly makes hiring more difficult. Hint: there's a reason they're called universities, not technical schools.

[AniThyng]

If you got an A in organic chemistry and can't write code for shit though, applying for a job in IT is probably not the best idea regardless.

[Simon_Jester]

The "general education" curriculum of US colleges is a total joke, as far as I'm concerned. Racism is definitely a factor in every facet of American society, but at least in the business world when a candidate applies for a technical position, nobody gives a fuck about their "extracurricular" activities - if the applicant can demonstrate skill and accomplishment within his/her field that's all that matters, accounting for whatever percentage of racist interviewers/HR personnel are involved.*

But anyway, at least in my field, the "general education" students get is a complete joke. I work at a large technology company, and seriously - finding qualified candidates for anything right out of college is a miracle. I've interviewed CS degree students coming out of Princeton, Stanford, etc. and I'll be lucky if 1 out of 10 is qualified. The problem is that a huge chunk of course work is not related to the students' major, meaning most students are essentially forced to waste their fucking time and stress out over learning material which will not help their career at all, and actually hurts them because it takes away precious experience and studying of the material that actually does matter, and will land them a job. Anyway, the result of this is that I'd rather hire some punk kid who writes software for fun or contributes heavily to major open source projects (like the Linux kernel) for fun, rather than a 4.0 GPA Princeton grad who got an A in organic chemistry, plays the piano, and can't write code for shit.

I'm glad the corporatist point of view is being so well-represented in this discussion. We should abandon the liberal arts university, cornerstone of knowledge and learning since essentially the Enlightenment forward, because it purportedly makes hiring more difficult. Hint: there's a reason they're called universities, not technical schools.

In which case we should at least give the students at the university a realistic appreciation of what jobs they can and cannot expect to secure. If a student "can't code," they should know they do not have enough experience and knowledge in computer programming to land a job in that field. They need that, if only so they can get feedback... because if their dream IS to become a great computer programmer, or to achieve great things in a field that requires programming skill, then they might fail to achieve that dream due to lack of preparation. Better for them to be given the chance to remedy that while still in university, than to find out their degree isn't worth what they thought it would be.

Then it seems to me one needs to get the curve changed so that fewer students get a 4.0.

Indeed, but that's well past the pay grade of the people writing college admissions policies. Until the shitty system can be overhauled or replaced the stopgap is needed.

Ultimately, a big slice of the problem is that we keep trying to get the high school graduation rate up to 100%. Much effort is applied to accomplish this.

The problem is that the only way to accomplish this on a finite budget is to make "graduated from high school" a meaningless distinction that anyone can pick up no matter how little they do and no matter how horrible their work ethic or commitment to the process are.

As a side-effect, high school becomes something almost anyone with a brain can "ace," because if you're giving some of the real clowns a pass-with-a-D option, then almost any functional human being can expect at least a B and even vaguely intelligent is good enough for an A.

The fact that he can learn to play guitar or some other hobby well IS being used as a roundabout way to judge his work ethic and general ability to get things done. Or at least of his ability to persuasively pass off said hobby as evidence of the same. And if nothing else that serves to weed out however many dozen or hundred or thousand applicants with otherwise similar records who couldn't.

There are many, many things wrong with the American education system. This is relatively low on the list of them.

That is beyond backwards. Over here, if you got too many hobbies, people will say that:
a) Your program is not designed very well, because you have that much free time or
b) You must not be very dedicated to your field of study
University should be designed to occupy at least 80% of your time as a serious student. Whether that be through homework, lectures or self-study, who cares. But you can't tell me that one can seriously study and have several hobbies.

If the test results indicate that they CAN learn the material they're supposed to learn, and do unusually well at it, while keeping up these other hobbies... who am I to argue?

Of course, many of the children who try to do this are working themselves to the brink of psychological collapse and burnout, but it's certainly possible.

Also, bear in mind that this is about university admissions, not university itself. These are admissions officials looking at applicants' transcripts from high school. You can argue that the high school program should be as rigorous as university... but if you do that in the US then a huge fraction of all students simply will not graduate from high school. Because we don't have anything like the German system of selectively cherrypicking the "university-bound" fraction of our population and putting all of them into special preparatory high schools.

[Ralin]

That is beyond backwards. Over here, if you got too many hobbies, people will say that:
a) Your program is not designed very well, because you have that much free time or
b) You must not be very dedicated to your field of study
University should be designed to occupy at least 80% of your time as a serious student. Whether that be through homework, lectures or self-study, who cares. But you can't tell me that one can seriously study and have several hobbies.

Undergraduate admissions. We're mostly talking about teenagers. Hobbies are potential ways to show their ability to learn or show initiative or whatever since they generally don't have a much else.

As always, it depends on the subject and how much time one puts into it. What I am heavily against however is punishing someone because he is too dedicated to his studies.

I think you have a distorted view of this. Hobbies and extra curriculars covers a lot of ground and can take a lot of forms, including things like "Became fluent in Latin as part of an after school debating group run by the Classics professor at the local community college." Your highly intelligent and dedicated friend with boring hobbies would be able to find some other way to make his application stand out as something other than another 4.0

[Adam Reynolds]

If you got an A in organic chemistry and can't write code for shit though, applying for a job in IT is probably not the best idea regardless.

What else would you do if you majored in computer science but wasted your time getting an A in chemistry in order to inflate your GPA? If it were a four unit class, it would have a larger impact on your GPA than the presumably 3 unit programming class.

I think you have a distorted view of this. Hobbies and extra curriculars covers a lot of ground and can take a lot of forms, including things like "Became fluent in Latin as part of an after school debating group run by the Classics professor at the local community college." Your highly intelligent and dedicated friend with boring hobbies would be able to find some other way to make his application stand out as something other than another 4.0

His friend also presumably went to a much more rigorous German school. American students aren't really challenged enough by their normal schooling to not have spare time for other things. Hence we have applicants who must brag about getting varsity letters in sports and volunteering at soup kitchens so that it doesn't appear that they spent their free time playing video games rather than something productive. But I agree that the academics of a decent college prep program should be good enough to take up virtually all of a student's time.

Though there are also intellectual extra curriculars offered by the school that are potentially available. I personally was on my school Academic Decathlon Team(though annoyingly it required a certain percentage of students to have less than a 3.5 GPA). So you thus end up with a handful of great all around students paired with intelligent slackers. It does at least make the group dynamic more interesting. And the slackers often do better as they are less focused on regular classes.

A question for Thanas. Are college athletics much of a thing in Germany/Europe? I wonder how much that is part of the problem with American academia.

[Thanas]

I think you have a distorted view of this. Hobbies and extra curriculars covers a lot of ground and can take a lot of forms, including things like "Became fluent in Latin as part of an after school debating group run by the Classics professor at the local community college." Your highly intelligent and dedicated friend with boring hobbies would be able to find some other way to make his application stand out as something other than another 4.0

How? He doesn't have any hobbies at all. The only thing he does is drink beer and watch football. Honestly, the guy can name any player in Europe, but that is about it.

His friend also presumably went to a much more rigorous German school. American students aren't really challenged enough by their normal schooling to not have spare time for other things. Hence we have applicants who must brag about getting varsity letters in sports and volunteering at soup kitchens so that it doesn't appear that they spent their free time playing video games rather than something productive. But I agree that the academics of a decent college prep program should be good enough to take up virtually all of a student's time.

In German schools it is not unusual to have at least three afternoons completely free (after you did your homework, of course). We don't really challenge our kids that much (though I will admit US High school was very unchallenging and boring for me when I did my exchange year in the USA).

A question for Thanas. Are college athletics much of a thing in Germany/Europe? I wonder how much that is part of the problem with American academia.

No, not at all. Every university has free sports for everybody, but there is nothing like the student athlete culture in the USA. Heck, we don't even have universities competing with each other in most sports. And sports are mostly done on the local level anyway, so you get the local sports teams where people might be students, but the teams are mostly mixed with all kinds of people who enjoy sports.

[AniThyng]

If you got an A in organic chemistry and can't write code for shit though, applying for a job in IT is probably not the best idea regardless.

What else would you do if you majored in computer science but wasted your time getting an A in chemistry in order to inflate your GPA? If it were a four unit class, it would have a larger impact on your GPA than the presumably 3 unit programming class.

My proposed answer was...look for a chemistry job?. seriously though this was hyperbole I hope because I can see an inorganic chem class as part of a computer *engineering* degree but it really is irrelevant to comp sci...

[Gandalf]

Undergraduate admissions. We're mostly talking about teenagers. Hobbies are potential ways to show their ability to learn or show initiative or whatever since they generally don't have a much else.

Unless you're not too well off in which case those potential hobby times can be filled with a job or other duties their better off classmates may not have.

[ArmorPierce]

Yes, hobbies is a indirect way to choose students from a certain class (and hence race). Opportunities to pursue hobbies is related to disposable income of the family.

Anyone can be good at a hobby when you have one-on-one coaching and support along the way since there is no objective standardized differentiator.

You can argue that this is a necessary skill in a real life job because career growth and promotions is largely dependent on whether other support, empower, and push for you along the way too. Of course this also results in classism/racism occuring.