So THAT'S how you get into Harvard, Update page 2

[Pea-n-Me]

Lawsuit exposes Harvard's admission secrets:

https://www.boston.com/news/education/2018/07/30/harvard-admissions-secrets

 

[DeniseJH]

I don't even want to know.

 

[DeniseJH]

I broke down and read it, but I'm not surprised. Very sad.

 

[Hikergirl]

I guess I always assumed that this stuff is happening, and not just at the university level.
Surely Harvard is not the only institution where this goes on.

 

[cabanafrau]

One of the worst kept secrets in regards to a lot of schools.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Does it have to do with a horse?

 

[mnrose]

Gee is anyone surprised that being the son/daughter of a wealthy alumni donor gives you a boost? Explains Jared Kushner, for example, who his classmates etc describe as, at best, an average student. Must be nice.

 

[ShirikiUtundu]

Be white and rich is not a secret.

 

[mnrose]

Be white and rich is not a secret.

Exactly. There's a reason that so many white, rich kids end up at Harvard and it's not because they are all super smart and talented. And, here they think it's because they "deserve" it and poor people are poor because they are lazy.

 

[gina2000]

The lawsuit brought by Students for Fair Admissions (President -Edward Blum) is to end affirmative action in colleges. Mr. Blum is a conservative who has a long history of challenging affirmative action legislature in the US.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/us/affirmative-action-lawsuits.html

 

[Sanchez]

Gee is anyone surprised that being the son/daughter of a wealthy alumni donor gives you a boost? Explains Jared Kushner, for example, who his classmates etc describe as, at best, an average student. Must be nice.

Did you read the article or are you just trying to get political jabs in? It mostly deals with the boost given to minorities other than Asian Americans. Others, including legacies, relatives of major donors, children of politicians (including the daughter of the immediate past President of the U.S.) and athletes are also given a boost. Since the make-up of the last few classes remains stable and the last class is 23% Asian American, 16% African American and 12% Latino (that is 51% of the class) plus whatever the international student make-up is (likely around 15%), it appears that Harvard is approximately one-third caucasian American.

The less qualified "rich white people", African Americans, Latinos and athletes are likely to be admitted to the detriment of unconnected caucasian Americans and, as the lawsuit indicates, Asian Americans.

The real question is whether all of these preferences (or "tips" in the Harvard vernacular) are acceptable or whether there should not be any.

From the article:

Harvard says it also considers “tips,” or admissions advantages, for some applicants. The plaintiffs say the college gives tips to five groups: racial and ethnic minorities; legacies, or the children of Harvard or Radcliffe alumni; relatives of a Harvard donor; the children of staff or faculty members; and recruited athletes.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Exactly. There's a reason that so many white, rich kids end up at Harvard and it's not because they are all super smart and talented. And, here they think it's because they "deserve" it and poor people are poor because they are lazy.

Well, hey how else do you think the big corporations can control who gets hired if they don’t stack the deck early on?

Getting an Ivy League education was never about education. It’s about making sure the haves & have nots maintain their proper stations.

 

[NotUrsula]

All of these things are pretty standard for elite private schools; they live and die by their endowments, so job #1 is always ensuring the health of it, and that means making sure that the preferences of donors are top of the list. Those schools play a very long game in Development terms.

Now, what I'm going to say next is NOT my personal opinion, but it is something that I have heard over and over again in academic circles for years. That is that upper middle class Asian-American kids are "cookie-cutter drones who lack imagination" and that "if we let in everyone who had perfect grades and perfect SAT's the class would be 95% Asian-American, which won't do because we also need to admit X# of full-freight foreign students from Korea & China." Is it fair? Not in a million years. Is that viewpoint common in elite academic circles? You bet. Well-qualified first-gen Asian-American kids from poorer backgrounds are far more likely to survive "lops" because they check multiple "diversity" boxes: ethnicity PLUS socio-economic status and first-gen in college.

Leadership at elite private schools are deathly afraid of being seen by donors to allow the schools to become majority-Asian, because of a widely-held belief that if that happens, the social-connections value of having gone to school there will diminish, and that is what many large donors most value as their ROI.

PS: I highly doubt Malia Obama was Z'd in the usual sense, (because she graduated from Sidwell with excellent grades, and the child of a US President is very much a valuable social connection of the sort that Harvard highly values) but there was probably some discussion about the disruption caused by a Secret Service detail. In her case, a gap year that coincided with her father's leaving office (and largely leaving behind the glare of constant press coverage) would allow for a better sense of normalcy both for her *and* for the University.

 

[bcla]

Now, what I'm going to say next is NOT my personal opinion, but it is something that I have heard over and over again in academic circles for years. That is that upper middle class Asian-American kids are "cookie-cutter drones who lack imagination" and that "if we let in everyone who had perfect grades and perfect SAT's the class would be 95% Asian-American, which won't do because we also need to admit X# of full-freight foreign students from Korea & China." It is fair? Not in a million years. Is that viewpoint common in elite academic circles? You bet. Well-qualified first-gen Asian-American kids from poorer backgrounds are far more likely to survive "lops" because they check multiple "diversity" boxes: ethnicity PLUS socio-economic status and first-gen in college.

There was a book written by a parent of a girl from mainland China would attended Harvard. The translated title is "Harvard Girl". I guess what was kind of disappointing to the girl in question was that it was released while she was still at Harvard and it brought her a lot of attention. This was at a time when very few kids from China were attending US colleges as undergraduates. I remember lots of grad students from my time at UC Berkeley, but the vast majority of kids from Asia attending US colleges got a degree first, then went on to grad school in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Girl
https://harvardmagazine.com/2002/07/harvard-girl.html

 

[Chocolate Cake]

I will read the article later. But I can bet the secret is: Don't be Asian.

Harvard (and many other colleges) discriminate against Asian Americans. That is a known fact.

 

[Kitty 34]

Gosh and I just watched Legally Blonde the other night!

 

[DopeyDame]

I will read the article later. But I can bet the secret is: Don't be Asian.

Harvard (and many other colleges) discriminate against Asian Americans. That is a known fact.

That, and be really rich or a legacy.

 

[BadgerGirl84]

Those were secrets?

I guess the only thing that surprised me was how they discriminated against certain Asian ethnicities and promoted others.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Did you read the article or are you just trying to get political jabs in? It mostly deals with the boost given to minorities other than Asian Americans. Others, including legacies, relatives of major donors, children of politicians (including the daughter of the immediate past President of the U.S.)and athletes are also given a boost. Since the make-up of the last few classes remains stable and the last class is 23% Asian American, 16% African American and 12% Latino (that is 51% of the class) plus whatever the international student make-up is (likely around 15%), it appears that Harvard is approximately one-third caucasian American.

The less qualified "rich white people", African Americans, Latinos and athletes are likely to be admitted to the detriment of unconnected caucasian Americans and, as the lawsuit indicates, Asian Americans.

The real question is whether all of these preferences (or "tips" in the Harvard vernacular) are acceptable or whether there should not be any.

From the article:

Harvard says it also considers “tips,” or admissions advantages, for some applicants. The plaintiffs say the college gives tips to five groups: racial and ethnic minorities; legacies, or the children of Harvard or Radcliffe alumni; relatives of a Harvard donor; the children of staff or faculty members; and recruited athletes.

Re bolded - perhaps that explains the gap year; maybe she was Z-ed.

Court filings also explore Harvard’s little-known Z-list, a sort of back door to admissions.

Harvard is reticent about the Z-list, and much of the information pertaining to it in court papers has been redacted. The list consists of applicants who are borderline academically, the plaintiffs say, but whom Harvard wants to admit. They often have connections. They may be “Z-ed” (yes, a verb) off the wait-list, and are guaranteed admission on the condition that they defer for a year.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

Nothing wrong with Harvard's or any other private school's admission standards and practices.