Asian American Discrimination in Harvard Admissions [pdf]

This is typical, Harvard did it for Jews back when they were discriminated against. In order to discriminate "tastefully" (Ivies are all about "is it a good look"), Harvard did a population study and learned that most Jews came from upstate NY. Thus began Harvard's mission of broadening access to elite education to the Midwest and Pacific West, where there are almost no Jews.

While in college, I heard a very fascinating story of how Harvard retaliated when confronted with evidence. There is a linguistic professor at Penn who went to Harvard and is Jewish. While at Harvard in the 70s, he suspected discrimination and broke into the admissions office, unearthing documents proving his case. Harvard responded by sending him to Vietnam, presumably to die. Long story short, he lived to tell the tale. After the war, he went to MIT and received a doctorate. He has all kinds of interesting stories about 'Nam too, but this Harvard story is really something else.

All Ivies/Stanford discriminate, they can fill the school 10x over with Valedictorian/Chess champions if they want to. But they have to mindful of their corporate customers as well, companies want a diverse menu of people. Some studies have been done around how they discriminate now: presently the tasteful instrument of discrimination is extra-curricular activities. You'd be hard pressed to find too many Asian Americans doing Lax or Crew.

Remember, these are private institutions so strictly speaking, they could do what ever they want (Disclosure: I am Asian). The bigger issue is that many people do have to go to one of these colleges for upward mobility. These schools are like oligopolies that have taken captive the American dream.

What is this linguistics professor's name?

Uh I feel bad outing the man on HN consider it's really his story to tell. But I think if you guys are motivated enough, you'd be able to track his name down :)

Your story is missing a piece. Harvard is not in the military chain of command. They weren't able to send people to die in Vietnam.

Oh, I thought it was part of his public story. Never mind. I'm happy to let it lie. I'll look it up myself. It probably lost some details in the telling because I can't see how Harvard can send someone to Vietnam.

There's more to it than that. The professor was actually kicked out and then subsequently drafted. The way he tells the story, there is a clear implication that had he stayed, he would have avoided the draft.

It must be Prof. Mark Liberman.

> hard Pressed to find asian americans doing lax

Stop with these generalizations. I personally know plenty of asians who played Lacrosse in high school, myself being one of them. Some of these people even committed to play in college. The stereotypes just aren't true, go to a lacrosse game on the west coast.

Yes, these colleges help, but stop thinking of college as the thing that defines your life. It can define your life, but it definitely doesn't have to.

> that most Jews came from upstate NY

A little OT, but does anyone have any good resources on this (online or even books), i.e. abut the Jewish presence in upstate New York? I've never been to the States and as such I had though that the strong Jewish presence would have been limited to city areas, looks like upstate New York is mostly comprised of small towns and such, that's why I'm curious about the communities in there. I tried google it but I can only get resources about Jewish presence in New York City.

Many Asians look up to the Jews and see them as an example. The Jews had been discriminated for centuries through out the world, and are one of the most successful minorities.

Eh, I don't think these schools offer much upward mobility given their extreme cost. Almost all their students should be better off financially going to community college for 2 years then transferring to state school 2 years. These colleges are more so about brand, it's an elite,an Ivy, a Porsche.

Is a Porsche 911 the car offering the best mobility? Surely its fast, but at the end of the day, a thousand other cars get you to the finish line nearly as quickly for a fraction of the investment.

If you save 200k on education costs and it grows reasonably in the stock market, you'd need Harvard to make a diff of over a million dollars by age 45-50, as that's what your investment will do in the market.

Harvard does not cost $200k for families with income less than $100k. And even if it does, the network you make at Harvard and the doors their brand opens is well worth it in the long run.

There is a reason it’s so competitive, and it’s because it’s so competitive that it’s so worth it. Same for MIT/Stanford/CalTech/etc.

And I rowed in college, and yes met a few Asian people who played lacross in HS. All of these generalizations are true at some point in time. As people pick up on these criteria and start competing for them, the admission office will change the "measure of well-roundedness" again. That's the point I'm trying to make,"wholistic" judgement is arbitrary and well within their control, that's one source of power.

And not it doesn't define your life, but in some parts of the world it does give you a leg up.

Management consulting firms don't recruit from most state schools.

These schools feed graduates into very lucrative companies.

Investment banks, hedge funds, private equity, management consulting, white-shoe law firms, and the list goes on. Sure - most of these don't say "We only want to hire top ivy-league grads", but they a good chunk of their recruiting happens at those school. Most firms have gotten better at casting a wider net - but having the "correct" background does still pay off, if you plan on a career in those places.