Asian American Discrimination in Harvard Admissions [pdf]

Here's what annoys me. This analysis is showing that race-based factors are being factored into "personal ratings" and in how rec letters are being interpreted etc. Just make there be an overall admission penalty for being Asian and release the exact level of that barrier like they do for med school admissions. You can see for med schools exactly what the average GPA and MCATs needed are for white, black, Asian, Latino, etc. Stop trying to hide it in obviously discriminatory ways like lowering people's personal ratings. Just make an affirmative action penalty without perpetuating stereotypes about Asian American applicants being math-loving robots with no other well-rounded characteristics.

What annoys me even more frankly is that the burden for fixing centuries of institutional racism and discrimination apparently needs to be born by hardworking immigrants and children of immigrants, not the people that most directly benefitted from generations of injust social structures. Legacies are OK, and the percentage of students at ivy league schools from the top 1% can be sky-high, so rich wealthy white students with connections and successful parents don't have to sacrifice anything. Legacy admissions, a structure explicitly created by many schools to keep out Jewish students[0], is OK because "school spirit" and increased donations. People that benefit from generations of inequity totally deserve their spots at these schools. However, the hardworking student who's a child of immigrant parents, without connections or networks, parents working in everything from laundromats to tech jobs building generational wealth from the ground up? Students who studied hard to get good grades and do everything the admissions officers could want? No, they have to sacrifice their admissions to fix the legacy of slavery. They have to pay the price and are discriminated against compared to white folk. What a brilliant way to breed lateral violence between minorities and create a system that continues to perpetuate classism and racism while pretending that keeping out a deserving Asian student in favor of a rich white student is helping a disadvantaged black student.

[0]https://www.businessinsider.com/legacy-admissions-originally...

Part of the reason that those numbers aren't explicitly or obviously available is due to the tenuous legal nature - while it may technically be legal, quotas certainly aren't - so better to obfuscate a bit.

I'm not sure the "personal ratings" were an intentional way of enacting affirmative action here, I think that was actually more a product of racist alumni interviewers.

The paper actually mentioned that alumni interviewers tended to give asian applicants personal scores that were better than what the admissions officers gave them (page 5 first paragraph). Which I personally find worse. The student does their best to prepare for the interview to represent who they are as a multifaceted individual. The interviewer that actually meets the student and talks to them gives them a high personal rating and shows that these students are actually not stereotypical math robots. Then the admissions officers lower those personal ratings, negating the work the students did for the interview (and essays and the truth of who they actually are) to find a way to get their admissions statistics to work out. They're discarding the students, the interviewer, rec letters from teachers that knew them well. And, they're doing it in a blatantly racist way that perpetuates deeply harmful stereotypes. An "Asian: -10 points" line would be less damaging than this. We have to live with these stereotypes, we have to see them be perpetuated as we fail to pass "holistic" application processes, we face these barriers in employment, in getting promotions to management, in every step. As you can tell, it really pisses me off, and hey, maybe you are right and it is just actual racism that's seeping through instead of a way of burying affirmative action ratings. I'd almost prefer that - plain and clear racism rather than a perversion of affirmative action (something meant to help end structural inequality) in a way that perpetuates racism.