
Harvard Rated Asian-American Applicants Lower on Personality Traits: Lawsuit - poster123
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollment-applicants.html
======
jogjayr
I can't help but think that college admissions based solely on test scores (as
done in India, Russia, maybe China?), and nothing else, might be the least
unfair way to judge applicants.

Every admission system is unfair in some way but tests are a yardstick
everyone understands and can optimize for. In India they publicly post the
list of admitted students and their marks. Richer students may benefit from
higher-quality test coaching but a) that happens today anyway and b) the
Internet will ensure rapid dissemination of test-prep strategies for cheap or
free

The other downside is it might give you a more, for lack of a better word,
boring student body at the higher levels. Fewer non-academic interests and
achievements because every bit of spare time in high school was spent on
studying.

I thought the American system sounded better when I was a high-schooler in
India with not good but not great marks ("surely _they 'd_ recognize my
specialness despite my lower scores, even if these hidebound colleges in India
won't!") but it does leave more room for implicit bias.

~~~
tlholaday
Single-gate protocols reward investment in gate-deception.

~~~
jogjayr
Multi-gate protocols increase amount of gate-deception investment required,
making it harder only for economically- or socially-disadvantaged students to
subvert them.

With a single-gate protocol gate-deception investments have diminishing
returns, which could (I'm not an expert) put participants on a more level
playing field.

------
danielfoster
"Alumni interviewers give Asian-Americans personal ratings comparable to those
of whites. But the admissions office gives them the worst scores of any racial
group, often without even meeting them, according to Prof. Arcidiacono."

I can't imagine the feeling of working so hard through elementary school,
middle school, and high school to get into an Ivy League school, only for an
admissions panel to declare me "low in personality" or too introverted.

Harvard's admission criteria seem heavily based on outdated stereotypes of
what makes an individual successful. I question if Ivy League schools are
choosing the best applicants and by extension, how much prestige Ivy League
degrees really deserve.

~~~
klipt
America: "we only want highly skilled, highly educated immigrants."

Also America: "these immigrants' children are too skilled and educated, and
it's upsetting our racial quotas. We have to discriminate against them."

America - you can work here, but don't dare dream that your children will be
treated equally if you're from Asia. Of course, if you're from Europe your
children will be lumped into the white demographic. If you're from Africa,
your children may even benefit from affirmative action meant for the
descendants of American slaves. Yay racial profiling!

~~~
Consultant32452
Harvard: there's more diversity between the races than within them.

------
rb808
I read an article a while back that compared admissions process to a bouncer
in a nightclub. Was the best description of why things are done as they are.

As a hazy summary - the prestigious institutions try to have a mix of
different types of people - rich people bring resources, well connected
families bring influence & contacts, people with high test scores bring hard
work and intelligence, achievers in arts/sports/activities bring hard work and
desire to win, alumni children bring culture, loyalty and resources. Its no
coincidence that there are different routes in for these different types of
people.

Its the unique mix that makes places like Harvard great. There are other
schools that choose people with highest test scores - that is a different
approach. Harvard has no obligation to do this. Given the track record of
alumni to achieve, the Harvard approach seems to work much better if you
consider routes to powerful & high achieving jobs to be the main outcome.

~~~
jfnixon
Yes, yes, just look at the world today, built by Harvard graduates. It is the
best of all possible worlds, isn't it?

~~~
sridca
The world is built by Harvard graduates? Who?

------
smsm42
The "character and fitness" criteria has been instituted by Harvard in 1920s
for a very simple purpose - to solve the "Jewish problem", i.e. too many Jews
getting into Harvard. After Harvard's President A. Lawrence Lowell's proposal
of outright Jewish quota met significant resistance, they had to find some way
to keep the Jews out while not having outright ban. So they had "geographic
diversity" and "character" criteria. And it did wonders - Jewish admission
percentage fell to the coveted 15% that was the original quota target. Now the
same old weapon is being deployed against the new "too many people of your
kind here" target.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-
di...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-
discriminating-against-jews-2014-12)

------
dnautics
These sorts of subjective judgements can drive you crazy. My father (who was
asian-american) had a civilian job with the United States government and a
part time job with the United States navy. His civilian job, which was in the
most corrupt branch of the executive branch, rated him as a poor performer
personality wise and as having "no leadership potential". Nobody got the
message, really since after this he took a temporary leave of absence and
activated his us navy job as full time - as a captain (O6), the team he led
delivered the first fully digitized, network inventory system which saved the
navy on the order of billions of dollars. When he got back to his civilian job
those negative reviews kept coming and he was denied promotions on those
bases.

~~~
thomzi12
Why didn’t he leave to the private sector?

~~~
dnautics
It's not a thing (some people) do when you've got a nice pension coming with
value that gets higher the longer you stay.

------
wozniacki
From the horse's mouth:

    
    
      “We could fill our class twice over with valedictorians,” Harvard President
      Drew Gilpin Faust told an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival, sponsored 
      by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic, on Monday. That means admissions 
      officers rely on intangibles like interesting essays or particularly unusual
      recommendations to decide who comprises the 5.9 percent of applicants who 
      get in. 
    
      Faust's top tip for raising a Harvard man or woman: “Make your children
      interesting!”
    
      For parents and students alike, that’s both good news and bad news. The bad 
      news is that of course it’s much easier to say that than to actually make it
      happen, though Faust recommended encouraging children to follow their 
      passions as a way to develop an interesting personality. It’s much easier to 
      complete a checklist, however daunting, than to actually be interesting.[1]
    
    

[1] How to Get Into Harvard

[https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/how-
to...](https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/how-to-get-into-
harvard/373726/)

~~~
ardent_uno
Except being a URM (under represented minority) individual is one of the most
beneficial factors for admission at elite colleges.

The statistics clearly show this.

~~~
dnomad
The "statistics" don't show any such thing.

You do have to admire the intense racial resentment at work here. There's no
evidence at all that these Asian Americans aren't boring cookie-cutter kids
when compared to the broader pool of applicants. The headline literally reads
'Harvard admissions have a broader perspective than Alumni interviewers' ...
duh. But this non-story is enough to summon up all sorts of wild accusations
and intense paranoia that somehow, somewhere the blacks are being given an
unfair advantage.

~~~
ardent_uno
Of course they do. Consider this research:

[https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/04/09/new-
research-...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/04/09/new-research-how-
elite-colleges-make-admissions-decisions)

Among elite Universities that initially do a holistic review of applicants to
narrow down the applicant pool, URM status is viewed as the most important
factor for an applicant by 42% of the universities, equal to the number of
schools that view "exceptional talent" as the most important factor. Being a
URM is basically equivalent to being an "exceptionally talented" non-URM in
the eyes of many elite colleges' admissions boards.

Look up average SAT scores of different ethnic groups admitted to elite
colleges as well. The disparity is glaring.

Now, we can argue that giving URM's a leg up in admissions is justified. I'm
willing to have that discussion. But let's be realistic about the facts here.

~~~
dnomad
> Look up average SAT scores of different ethnic groups admitted to elite
> colleges as well. The disparity is glaring.

Yes, everybody appeals to SAT scores. SAT scores are easily gamed. That's why
more and more colleges are deprioritizing or abandoning them completely.

What American colleges are increasingly uninterested in are excellent test-
takers. Nobody is persuaded that students who are able to grind out excellent
numbers (usually with the help of an army of private tutors) will actually add
anything new to the university. This "anti-number bias" as I've heard it
called is just that -- an anti-number bias. There's absolutely no evidence
that minorities are gaining some extraordinary advantage from this process.

> But let's be realistic about the facts here.

There are no "facts" here. This story and your link introduce nothing new.
You're making a circular argument: "Going by the SAT scores which colleges are
discounting more and more the best test takers are being discounted more and
more." Duh.

~~~
throwaway37585
“Research suggests that the SAT, widely used in college admissions, is
primarily a measure of g. A correlation of .82 has been found between g scores
computed from an IQ test battery and SAT scores. In a study of 165,000
students at 41 U.S. colleges, SAT scores were found to be correlated at .47
with first-year college grade-point average after correcting for range
restriction in SAT scores (the correlation rises to .55 when course difficulty
is held constant, i.e., if all students attended the same set of classes).
[1][2]”

[1] Sackett et al. 2008

[2] Frey & Detterman 2003

~~~
learc83
>g scores computed from an IQ test battery and SAT scores.

That's the problem IQ tests can be gamed as well. There's ample research
showing you can study to improve your score on IQ tests.

~~~
throwaway37585
And yet...

“Psychometricians generally regard IQ tests as having high statistical
reliability.[9][56] A high reliability implies that – although test-takers may
have varying scores when taking the same test on differing occasions, and
although they may have varying scores when taking different IQ tests at the
same age – the scores generally agree with one another and across time.”

“Clinical psychologists generally regard IQ scores as having sufficient
statistical validity for many clinical purposes.[22][57][58] In a survey of
661 randomly sampled psychologists and educational researchers, published in
1988, Mark Snyderman and Stanley Rothman reported a general consensus
supporting the validity of IQ testing. "On the whole, scholars with any
expertise in the area of intelligence and intelligence testing (defined very
broadly) share a common view of the most important components of intelligence,
and are convinced that it can be measured with some degree of accuracy."”

~~~
learc83
None of what you cited has anything to do with sustained practice.

IQ tests are generally accurate across a large population because very few
people are practicing them, not because practice doesn't improve scores.

If you provided widespread incentive for people to practice IQ tests like
colleges do for the SAT, they would cease to be an accurate measure of
intelligence.

~~~
throwaway37585
You admit IQ tests are generally accurate, and I showed that SAT scores are
strongly correlated with IQ. Thus SAT scores are also generally accurate. So
what’s your point?

------
koops
This case is important because many elite American colleges have quietly
copied Harvard's 15% cap on Asian students.

------
baybal2
I wonder if HN news algo reads my mind. In another news thread, I just pulled
out the fact that Xiaomi electronics makes overwhelmingly superior gadgetry,
yet can't break through the stigma of Asian "uncoolness"

Situation for them is pretty much as it was with Toyota in its first decade in
US, and them being greatly puzzled why Americans were so bent on buying Buicks
over "twice as cheap, and twice as better" Corollas, and had total nil
appetite for the supreme Corona.

To authors of comments in line of "being a minority is actually a boon,
statistics wise" I can say this: on the other side of "social invisibility"
lies life of being "trophy" talent/socialite acquaintance/romantic partner,
and, the most dreaded one, the life of diversity hire.

~~~
Grue3
Xiaomi created a stigma for themselves, by shamelessly copying Apple in
everything including presentation style. [1] So I can't really take them
seriously (doesn't help that I don't like Apple either).

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/business/global/in-
china-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/business/global/in-china-an-
empire-built-by-aping-apple.html?_r=0)

------
Karishma1234
This is newspeak for "Asians do not score well on parameters that don't matter
in real life".

Asian student community is remarkably focused on real results instead of
pointless activism and social justice wars. Partly the reason they are high
achievers in real life where as most kids who "do well on personality traits"
turn out to be losers.

~~~
azhu
> "parameters that don't matter in real life"

Asian Americans are the least likely group in the US to be promoted to
management. [https://hbr.org/2018/05/asian-americans-are-the-least-
likely...](https://hbr.org/2018/05/asian-americans-are-the-least-likely-group-
in-the-u-s-to-be-promoted-to-management)

~~~
Karishma1234
This has more to do with age and Chinese Exclusion Act. Most of the
Indian/Chinese people are young and not in the age group where they will
become CEOs. You will see a rapid increase in Indian/Chinese CEOs in next 10
years. As second generation Indians and Chinese would reach the age group of
CEOs.

Asians are dominating US colleges they will dominate US executives by 2040.

Of course some of them might go back to India and China.

------
dtawfik1
The entire tech industry would not exist if we judged people based on this:

In its admissions process, Harvard scores applicants in five categories —
“academic,” “extracurricular,” “athletic,” “personal” and “overall.” They are
ranked from 1 to 6, with 1 being the best.

------
dkural
Well, why discriminate on US citizenship for that matter, if academic merit is
the main criterion. Americans of any kind would be less than 10% of the
student body.

Harvard does not claim to be a purely academic meritocracy.

------
cascom
Just thinking out loud, but I would posit that high grades/scores and
"personality scores" tend to be negatively correlated, regardless of race/or
within a particular race (just as i would hazard that academics and athletic
achievement are often negatively correlated). e.g. the kids with highest gpa's
in a school are often not the most outgoing.

Has anyone tried to control for this?

------
jsilvers
RadioLab ran an interesting episode about the person behind this lawsuit and
other lawsuits against affirmative action in schools. His activism a double
edged sword. [https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/more-perfect-
plaintiffs/](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/more-perfect-plaintiffs/)

------
leemailll
Meanwhile uchicago decides to ditch sat
[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-
univers...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-university-
chicago-sat-act-20180614-story,amp.html#click=https://t.co/rlHyJ6uZFB)

~~~
threatofrain
That doesn't mean they are doing anything in a less evidence-based manner.
They may have simply devised a superior empirical instrument; of course, if
they have done so, then it ought be demonstrable.

------
nmeofthestate
I guess the more woolly selection criteria are there so that racial
discrimination can be conducted, otherwise the student population would be
overwhelmingly asian with a large white minority?

~~~
klipt
Nah it would be more like UC Berkeley, which is forbidden from using racial
quotas by California law. Still less than half Asian.

In fact the Asian numbers at Berkeley are probably inflated due to Asian
students being discriminated against elsewhere (like Harvard) and going to
Berkeley instead, so if _all_ the universities stopped discriminating, the
numbers would average out to lower than Berkeley's current demographic.

~~~
akhilcacharya
Also - Asian Americans comprise a larger percentage of California’s
population.

------
abby_cohen_221
There's a similar issue going on at the NYC elite public schools like
Stuyvesant and Bronx Science. Mayor De Blasio is pushing to drop the entrance
exams for those schools pretty much for the exact same reason. This guy
discusses it in this Youtube video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QixRuK68lk4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QixRuK68lk4)

------
ganzuul
Why does a university have a personality test?

~~~
vinceguidry
The best way I've been able to find to think about this is the fundamental
axiom of geopolitics, which is basically tribalism defined mathematically.
People want to work with and help others who are closer to them, who they feel
are neighbors, brothers. This gets more and more true the more money and
resources you have.

While you and I are more tribally identified with Asian Americans, America's
upper crust considers them a threat. An elite university is a gateway into the
upper crust, so it makes tribal sense for them to limit their access on
grounds that to everyone else looks blatantly racist but doesn't really _feel_
that way to them.

If I had to wager a guess, I imagine that the upper crust justifies this
morally by saying that without Harvard and other elite schools, _no_ Asians
would get to climb that ladder. And also to note that not even the paragons of
democracy, the Greeks, were immune to tribal identification and social
stratification and racist policies to enforce them. Sparta was especially
egregious in this regard.

From Harvard's perspective, in order to maintain their prestigious reputation,
they _have_ to cater to the tribal whims of the upper class, even if they
don't want to. Otherwise Harvard, well, wouldn't be Harvard anymore, the
prestige will move on to other universities that are willing to play ball.
Remember, it's not us that determines Harvard's prestige status, it's the
elites. Expect Harvard to dream up an endless array of subjective metrics that
pay lip service to inclusivity while in practice serving exclusive goals.

I believe that if we succeed in forcing an inclusivity agenda onto the Ivy
League, then it'll just cause the elites to make even more ultra-exclusive
educational institutions and send their kids there, revoking not just
Harvard's, but the whole Ivy Leagues' cool card. While this will democratize
Harvard, it will ultimately increase stratification and inequality.

Tragedy of the commons writ large.

~~~
throw1471
If Harvard admission criteria leave out the best applicants to other colleges,
and they go on to create powerful companies like Google in large number, will
Harvard’s prestige decrease despite continued support from the elites?

Doing well in tech entrepreneurship needs brilliance more than great
personality and political connections (they should be above a level but you
don’t need a very high level of them).

Politics is still the surest route to power but billionaires are also powerful
and have longer influence. If next generation moguls are educated elsewhere,
the colleges with more merit based criteria should emerge as more elite.

~~~
vinceguidry
People that can become successful despite the school they go to are classic
social climbers and obviously the school they go to would benefit from having
those social climbers go there. But the relative benefit to the organization
of one successful alum is miniscule compared to the benefit that the school
has on _every single matriculant_.

A university's entire goal is to empower _anyone_ to succeed. That's the whole
reason they exist. If Harvard's reputation as a gateway to elite society is
lost, society doesn't gain another one elsewhere. It's just lost. People that
could succeed without college will still succeed. It's all those people that
_couldn 't_ have succeeded without college, that went to college and gained
the benefit of having an education there, that will lose that opportunity.

Imagine a world in which Harvard is only slightly better than Georgia State.
That's what's at stake here.

------
efgefgewfe
It is time to phase out Affirmative Action, it not only hurt high achieving
minorities but also those minorities that it is supposed to help.

There are so many times where I have heard indirect comments that so and so
got in only because he is the right minority. I see there is a lot resent
among those who say they would have made it if it wasn't for AA.

Trump is direct result of this resentment, and it will only get worse if we
don't address this issue.

------
ggg9990
What Harvard is trying to do is admit the people who will be national and
global leaders 30 years from now, not the people who will get the best grades
at Harvard. Since the country’s future leaders won’t be 60% Asian it doesn’t
make sense for their class to be either.

~~~
poster123
I don't think we should prejudge what the racial makeup of the country's
future leadership should be and then use de facto racial quotas to match those
assumptions.

~~~
ggg9990
I don’t think there should be racial quotas, de facto or otherwise, but if
Harvard decided to only admit tall men with “upper management written all over
them” that wouldn’t be irrational.

------
poster123
There may be racial differences in personality, but it is implausible that as
the proportion of Asians in the high-achieving student population rises, their
personalities get just worse enough that the fraction of Asian students at
Harvard stays about the same. Harvard admits this when it says that what
brings the Asian fraction down to 18% is "demographic".

Elite universities are often accusing the broader society of racism, when in
fact they are some of the most blatant perpetrators of racial discrimination.

~~~
Alex3917
What always gets lost in this debate though is the fact that grades and SAT
scores aren't especially meaningful or important. Given that we've had Asians
and Jews freaking out all week and making dogwhistle attacks against
blacks/hispanics because of the Stuy admissions issue, the fact that these so-
called metrics aren't inherently any better or more fair than a personality
test or whatever somehow always gets lost in the mix.

That's not to say that schools should discriminate against Asians, they
shouldn't, but people also shouldn't hold up tests and GPA as some sort of
beacon of fairness and meritocracy.

~~~
dnautics
Why do you assume that Asians are only good at posting test scores and grades?

Those scores are being talked about because of all the criteria they are the
measurable ones, so you can use them as a baseline. Asian Americans do
extracurricular activities just like everyone else does.

~~~
Alex3917
> Why do you assume that Asians are only good at posting test scores and
> grades?

Not something I said or implied. I was purely talking about the responses to
the NYC admissions thing on Facebook, the NYC subreddit, etc.

> Those scores are being talked about because of all the criteria they are the
> measurable ones

They're not measurable, they just have numbers attached to them. You can
attach numbers to a personality test just as easily.

~~~
ksk
Two people solving a maths problem draw upon a system of acquired knowledge
that is uncorrelated with their gender, age, ethnicity and sexual orientation.
If they get identical answers, they are graded identically.

>You can attach numbers to a personality test just as easily.

Please, do propose this novel test. Shouldn't take you too long..

------
ardent_uno
>"[Harvard] lashed out at the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, Edward
Blum, accusing him of using Harvard in an effort to orchestrate a challenge to
race-conscious admissions that would go to the Supreme Court."

I feel that in 100 years we will look back on quotes like this and shake our
heads at institutions like Harvard actually defending "race conscious
admissions".

Reward people that do well and hold them up as examples for other people to
follow.

Racial discrimination must end.

~~~
preordained
>Reward groups that do well

And what does that mean? Using GPA or standardized test scores as the _only_
criteria? If I have 10 people in the 99th percentile of test scores but I only
have 5 seats, do I _really_ think the upper 5 who beat the lower 5 by a
handful of points are the "best" fit, or are there other factors that might
influence my decision?

To me, these is like taking NFL players only based on their raw sprint and
lift stats...yah, it's important...but it's in no way a firm indicator of
"best".

~~~
ardent_uno
There are many ways to judge someone aside from "race", whatever race really
means anyway. Race should have nothing to do with it. It shouldn't be part of
the equation.

That's the point. We don't have to restrict ourselves to test scores and GPA.

Just don't be racist.

