Yeah. And why did he put it there?

The bias against Asians? Nobody has shown any evidence that this is true when accounting for athletics and legacies. Where's the evidence?

They definitely get discriminated against in some fashion. The most likely explanation, imo, is that legacy slots and, to a lesser extent, Affirmative Action takes away spots.

Tien put AA in the title because he is against it, sort of misses the point IMO
Your statement assumes that Asians get silo'd from the start. Otherwise non-athlete, non-legacy whites would be much lower than currently. IMO the lottery system (advocated by UNZ though mine would be different) would be the most fair way to proceed, sort minority candidates who qualify for AA (poor whites should prob get a quota as well) first and raffle off the quota to qualifying applicants, then dump them the remainder into the general pool. Separate names from applications and then pick qualified apps then raffle them off.

The main thrust of his piece is that Jews are over-represented at Harvard and other Ivy League schools despite "The Strange Collapse of Jewish Academic Achievement"--but his statistics are off. He overestimates the number of Jews enrolled at Harvard and he underestimates the number of high performing Jewish high school students.

And he's not really going to bat for Asians either:

He does claim that there is some sort of "quota" at around 16% for Harvard Asian enrollment, but I'm not sure where he gets that number. Recent Asian enrollments are above 20%.

He also claims that Asian enrollments at the Ivies peaked at ~20% in 1993 and that Asian enrollment declined at all schools. Is it possible that all of the Ivy League schools got together that year and agreed to cut enrollment for Asians? Yes. But that seems pretty unlikely.

So let me guess this straight, are you disowning your position that Asians aren't "hollistic" enough?

Its now legacy, and then to lesser degree actual racism?

Talking about jumping backwards especially when your actual position when this thread started was "Harvard or Browns so IDGAF".

Because it's a standard term?

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate...-qualification

Edit: the question here isn't why is Tien using the term, but rather why Harvard and Co are using the term to describe their admissions process. They are trying to use the political goodwill associated with the term, which has to do with helping those who are disadvantaged, to support a process that's explicitly designed to perpetuate privilege.

Your contention is that despite a massive increase in Asian students of college age and applicants over the last couple of decades, Asian enrollments declined or stagnated because ... legacies and athletes?

Admission officers absolutely do talk to one another and they also closely monitor statistics at other schools. Coming up with a desirable demographic profile is absolutely a huge deal for these guys.

It wasn't my contention at all, but it was (and still is) a possibility. Racial quotas are a possibility too, but no one has shown much evidence for them.

There's just as much evidence for that conclusion as there is for an Asian quota.

The statistical evidence is not very reliable. If you look at Unz's Appendix B you see the make up of elite schools by race. One major problem is that the category "unknown race" fluctuates wildly. There is some evidence that Asians began not responding to the race question on applications, but I don't know how true that is.

What stands out is that Black and Hispanic students aren't increasing much as a share of enrollment, but international students are.

Again, maybe, but there's no real evidence and it sounds slightly implausible.

They basically dial up and down score adjustments until desired demographics of incoming freshmen are achieved. (and it's not a secret they settled on about 20% for Asian Americans, 10% for African Americans and 10% for non-white Hispanics)

In order of importance:
Class rank
SAT score
GPA

This is not a secret at all. Admission consultants, many of whom are former admission officers, stragith up tell Asian American children to get an Anglo Saxon (Kevin instead of Kai-wen, real example) name and decline to check Asian/Pacific Islander.

The evidence is overwhelming. The ivies even admit to it in various forms without calling it affirmative action or discrimination.

Where is this overwhelming evidence?

Source

This is what wanting looks like

What we have here, at minimum, is the appearance of impropriety. For myself I believe in the level playing field but recognize that for a long time the playing field was not level and some accommodation should be made. The big problem is is that a lot of ppl are going to be impacted negatively and take it to be discrimination against them, then there are bad feelings and likely increased racism. There's no super-fair one size fits all solution and the social experiment is going to have to play out over a substantial course of time otherwise a significant portion of the population is going to feel jettisoned and that's very bad.

I don't like it that Asians may feel this way having been Tiger Mom'd for 18 years but, let's be real: They are going to do just fine w/o getting into Harvard. Tiger Mom might have a very serious case of fury but the kid's going to be ok.

Prima facie evidence is all the former admission officers straight up telling Asian applicants (unless you're international applying to state school) to hide their race if at all possible.

Yeah, i heard this once from some dude on the internet so obv it passes my bar for overwhelming.

The kid that gets straight As will be ok.

Just like the women that works for fortune 1000 companies that get paid less than men will be ok.

I just don't see how that's an acceptable argument. I can understand Harvard not wanting the university to become 40% Asian but I'm just not convinced that argument is strong enough.

Then what kind of evidence do you want? Colleges to straight up admit they adjust based on race? That's never going to happen for obvious reasons. They already admit "diversity" is a goal in the process. What else do you want them to say? Admit there is a de facto quota despite a SCOTUS ban on such a quota?

There are scores of articles, especially starting in the early 2000s when it began to get out of hand, from pretty much every single major news source in US about quotas at prestigious universities, many of those articles written by admission officers and professors involved in the admissions process at said schools.

How about UC schools (Berkeley and UCLA) accepting way more Asian American students as soon as they became legally bound to be race blind after Prop 209?

It's not an unknown phenomenon and even the college admission officers readily admit they are in the awkward position of either making their colleges 50%+ Asian or make it harder for Asians to get in.

The numbers and anecdotal evidence overwhelmingly suggest Asians are discriminated against in the college admission process.

I'm glad someone seems to understand this, because I certainly don't. Can you explain it. Why would having 40% Asians, but presumably higher quality students be bad?

Because many people recognize that's not what America looks like. People don't want their kids going to a non-diversified school. America simply isn't 40% Asian, and I'd feel a bit uneasy sending my kid to a school that was. The same if a school was 95% white. I want them to experience a very diverse student body, because that's what the workplace will be like.

Actually, the workplace isn't that diverse, but that's a different discussion.

40 % Asian, sounds horrible!

This appears to be false. Prop 209 was 1996. According to Unz's numbers Asian enrollment at Berkeley was about 39% in 1994 and 1995. It gradually rose to 42% by 2007 but was down to 37% by 2011, the last year of his data.

As for your anecdotal evidence, I don't find it convincing in the least. What some former admissions officers supposedly tell people to do isn't proof of anything.

It sounded worse than I meant it to be. I guess I wouldn't have an issue sending my kid to a school that was 40% Asian, or any other race. I do have a concern if it was, say, 90% of one race.

I was trying to make the point that if the percentages are way out of whack it just doesn't reflect our society.

It really depends on where you live. Iowa schools are pretty much all 90%+ white.

Well there are certain profession/branches which members won't reflect your society as a whole. I would just go for the good schools and not to limit alternatives based on races.

The effects aren't small. Even adjusted for population changes, higher enrollments persisted for years. The decrease in enrollment has a number of factors, not the least of which is de facto AA has been slowly creeping back into UC system.

Current admission officers say the same, at least in private, and occasionally in public forums.

ps: there is no way Harvard is only 20% Asian or Berkeley 40%. its a pretty good bet most of the unreported is Asian and decent chunk of mixed opted to check only the non-asian box.