
Asian-American Students Suing Harvard Over Admissions Win Justice Dept. Support - yodsanklai
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/us/politics/asian-students-affirmative-action-harvard.html
======
40acres
This argument, while important, is the low hanging fruit of the affirmative
action debate in my opinion.

We would not need affirmative action if legacy based admissions wasn't so
prevalent in top schools.

We would not need affirmative action if every school district in America
recieved proper funding to support teachers and enable smaller class sizes,
test prep for students to take specialized exams, and after school
extracurriculars, both academic and non-academic to prepare them for college.

The best elementary schools in the nation are driven by property taxes, how
many people do you know bought their house because of the school district? You
probably did. Yet we really don't take these things into account when having
these discussions. Everyone wants a fair and equitable opportunity for
students to get a quality education but to really do so we need drastic reform
to really enable that. There's enough political will to tackle the symptom
that is AA but very few people want to tackle the causes.

~~~
nostrademons
"The best elementary schools in the nation are driven by property taxes, how
many people do you know bought their house because of the school district?"

Sometimes I wonder how much of this is everyone mistaking causation vs.
correlation. School districts with high property taxes tend to have a number
of other features in common, like: stable 2-parent households; high incomes;
ability to afford private tutors and enrichment opportunities; highly-educated
parents; exposure to a wide social network of high-achieving peers; lack of
environmental stressors; and probably genetic endowments for health &
intelligence.

Does anyone know of studies that have tried to tease out how much effect the
educational system actually has on student outcomes, once you've controlled
for parental wealth/intelligence/education/etc?

~~~
2bitencryption
Anecdote time:

The high school I went to served two neighboring communities, one uber
wealthy, the other lower class.

As such, the uber-wealthy income taxpayers allowed our district to pay
teachers in excess of $150k. I think our gym teacher made $200k. Several of my
high school teachers were former university professors. And besides being
qualified, these teachers were in general top-notch educators of high school
students.

I didn't notice any difference in achievement between the portion of students
from the lower-class area and the portion of students from the wealthy area.

~~~
nostrademons
I was looking more for studies than anecdotes, like the one mirajshah posted.

My anecdote is that I went to a charter school that served 23 different
communities across basically half the state of Massachusetts. Median family
income from these communities ranged from $54K (Leominster) to $202K
(Lincoln). And there were _very_ noticeable differences in both behavior and
academic achievement between students from the Fitchburg/Leominster/Ayer
region (poorer and more blue-collar) vs. wealthy Boston exurbs like Lincoln,
Carlisle, or Bolton. Almost everyone at the school was white, so this wasn't
much of a conflating factor (aside from some Asians & blacks adopted into
wealthy white families, and half-Chinese like me who also were in relatively
well-off and well-educated families).

Granted, it's a charter school, and my class was the first year they were
legal in Massachusetts. This tends to exacerbate differences because you don't
go to an experimental charter school unless you're unhappy with your existing
school, and top reasons for being unhappy include falling behind classmates or
being so far ahead that you're bored. But interestingly, a large number of
those who struggled from poor districts went _back_ to their home district,
perhaps because they struggled even more when going to a school with a wide
mix of backgrounds. This despite my school having a radically individualistic
instruction method (every student had a personalized learning plan) and an
enviable 1:12 teacher:student ratio.

~~~
sjg007
Did your charter school have entrance requirements?

~~~
nostrademons
No, it was all by lottery, with preference given to students from the school's
home town and to siblings. That was mandated by the state's charter school
laws.

------
dunpeal
The key facts of this story is that Harvard has been discriminating against
Asian-Americans based on race, which is illegal in the US.

Harvard knows they've been acting unlawfully, which is why they desperately
try to resort to evasive tactics, such as claiming their admission process is
a "trade secret" and should never be discussed in court:

[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/harvard-university-is-
figh...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/harvard-university-is-fighting-to-
keep-its-secretive-admissions-process-under-wraps-2018-06-28)

The DoJ is right to conclude that Harvard has been acting illegally.

~~~
bobmarley1
It's actually not at all clear if it's legal hence the court battle. In fact
AA is literally legalized discrimination that benefits Minorities so you
really don't know what you are talking about.

~~~
sdinsn
The use of gender and racial quotas in University admissions is
unconstitutional, decided by the Supreme Court case Gratz v. Bollinger in
2003.

~~~
dunpeal
Indeed. Harvard's legal argument isn't that they are racially discriminating
and that it's legal. They know it's not.

Their argument is what you'd expect from an institution that is racially
discriminating, but trying to weasel out of its culpability: they try to hide
their systematic bias in the most subjective and ambiguous candidate score -
the "personality" ratings.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/opinion/harvard-asian-
ame...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/opinion/harvard-asian-american-
racism.html)

> The report by the plaintiff’s expert witness, the Duke University economist
> Peter Arcidiacono, revealed that Harvard evaluated applicants on the extent
> to which they possessed the following traits: likability, helpfulness,
> courage, kindness, positive personality, people like to be around them, the
> person is widely respected. Asian-Americans, who had the highest scores in
> both the academic and extracurricular ratings, lagged far behind all other
> racial groups in the degree to which they received high ratings on the
> personality score.

> “Asian-American applicants receive a 2 or better on the personal score more
> than 20% of the time only in the top academic index decile. By contrast,
> white applicants receive a 2 or better on the personal score more than 20%
> of the time in the top six deciles,” wrote Mr. Arcidiacono. “Hispanics
> receive such personal scores more than 20% of the time in the top seven
> deciles, and African Americans receive such scores more than 20% of the time
> in the top eight deciles.”

> Even if the very worst stereotypes about Asians were true on average, it
> beggars belief that one could arrive at divergences as dramatic as the ones
> Mr. Arcidiacono documents by means of unbiased evaluation.

~~~
bobmarley1
>Harvard's legal argument isn't that they are racially discriminating and that
it's legal. They know it's not.

Grutter v. Bollinger 2003 Sandra Day O'Connor wrote the majority opinion that
the Constitution "does not prohibit the law school's narrowly tailored use of
race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the
educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."

------
nradov
Harvard (and some other schools) used to apply similar subjective criteria to
limit the number of Jewish students.

Since there is no real legal definition of race, applicants who might be
disadvantaged by this policy are free to select whichever answer on the "What
is your race?" question they want. If the system is unfair, there's nothing
immoral about gaming it.

~~~
samangan
Almost all the ivy leagues have in person interviews... Also are people
supposed to fake their names?

~~~
cma
Is Elizabeth Warren a traditional indigenous name?

~~~
thaumasiotes
No, but then again neither is "Sitting Bull".

English wasn't common in pre-Columbian America.

------
creaghpatr
Notably, the comments section of the article is overwhelmingly in favor of
schools not discriminating based on the color of the applicant's skin.

~~~
aaaaaaaaaab
How about not discriminating _at all_?

~~~
creaghpatr
Personally, I'd love to see Harvard set aside 75% of their spots for a lottery
of students who meet an insanely high threshold (98% percentile in the SAT,
for example, or some other objective measurement), and then use the other 25%
for athletes, legacies, diversity, etc.

That way you may not get in, but you know you won't get cut because you got
assigned an arbitrary 'personality' score if you scored high enough; enables
kids to save face with friends/family too.

Not a fully baked idea here, just a potential avenue.

~~~
opportune
Over half of all students accepted to Harvard already have test scores in the
top 2%

~~~
jessaustin
Lots of people dislike the current situation. They might very well prefer a
random sampling of the 2% to the weighted-against-asians portion of the 2%
that Harvard "already" admits.

------
Jyaif
"Harvard does not discriminate against applicants from any group, and will
continue to vigorously defend the legal right of every college and university
to consider race as one factor among many in college admissions"

translation: "We don't discriminate, but we discriminate."

How can somebody write something that stupid?

~~~
jessaustin
Start off with four years of Ivy League undergraduate education...

------
Brozilean
I think a lot of this boils down to where the problem can be solved.

With AA, universities and companies have decided that rather than wait for
education reform to streak across the US and guarantee proper funding and
adequate education regardless of income, they will seek out those with the
potential to do great things regardless of their test scores etc.

They have decided to solve the problem in the portion that affects them: aka
not solving the root but simply getting different types of applicants in that
they think are valuable.

I think the grand solution is to go back and reform education, which I think
most agree on. But for now, companies and universities are doing really the
only thing they can, which is give students and applicants opportunities that
they have not been given earlier in their lives.

Also in the end I believe that most people can do most jobs once you get
training. Most jobs are specialized enough to train someone directly and
college is meant to learn anyway so if Harvard wants to admit people of
various socio economic backgrounds in favor of not admitting solely the top, I
think that'd be better for them in the long run. Especially since the metrics
for success are measured as if everyone is in the white top-middle class.

------
camjohnson26
There's obviously an inequality problem between races in America but why don't
we just provide affirmative action to low income people of all races? It could
be as simple as boosting the chances of admission for all low income
applicants by 5%. Just because systematic racism has lead to the oppression of
black people in the country doesn't mean that race is the only factor we can
look at to encourage diversity.

~~~
SenseiMaster
I'm guessing that the poor students that are academically decent enough for
Harvard are mostly Asian with some children of European immigrants and a few
of African immigrants.

I think that Asians are even more represented in the set of poor students that
can academically fit into Harvard than the set of upper middle class and above
students that can academically fit into Harvard.

------
TangoTrotFox
I think this, and many similar issues, all come down to the need to clarify
one's desire for equality of opportunity, or equality of result. If you are in
support of equality of opportunity, then this is obviously a good thing. If
you're in support of equality of result, then this is obviously a bad thing.

In my opinion, equality if result is not really a tenable position. I suspect
even if we were all completely and absolutely genetically identical, we'd
still see different groups perform differently. The reason in this case would
be emergent cultures. The culture in area like Palm Beach is going to diverge
from the culture in e.g. Nome, Alaska. When Nomians then have, perhaps, better
results than Palm Beachians does that mean we now need to start making it
harder for Nomians to get into schools? It just doesn't make any sense. And of
course this is all built on top of a false premise of each and every group
starting with genetic equivalence to each and every other group. Ultimately I
don't see any realistic way you can achieve equality of result without turning
society into a dystopia.

------
hackinthebochs
The subtext of the hand-wringing over this case is that somehow Asians have
earned or deserve their spot in Harvard for having X GPA or Y SAT scores, and
thus it is "unfair" for people with lower GPA/SATs to be admitted over them.
But this is just flat out wrong.

The issue is that admissions to top universities isn't strictly meritocratic.
Or to put it another way, "merit" in this context isn't simply GPA and SAT
scores. Harvard as an institution wants to increase its prestige over time,
and so they want to admit students who will go on to be CEOs, Senators,
Presidents, etc. They want to pick the future leaders of society, but this is
only correlated with GPA/SAT up to a point.

This is where race-aware admissions is perfectly warranted by Harvard. They
want students who are outliers as those people will go on to do great things.
But being an outlier of your cluster is important signal. And race is a very
important cluster in society. That they structure their admissions to make
sure they're getting the outstanding people from a broad range of races and
circumstances is Harvard just working in their best interest. If Asian
applications are very similar to each other, then they have a good reason to
weigh such applications lower because you're no longer an outlier in the sense
that is valuable to Harvard.

This isn't a moral issue like some are trying to make this out to be. If there
is a moral issue here, its whether any institution should have such an
outsized influence on the outcome of a person's life, not whether Asians are
being unfairly barred from the king-maker institution.

~~~
SenseiMaster
It most definitely is a moral issue when students are racially discriminated
against. There is a trade-off between racial diversity and racial
discrimination.

What you're saying here is that non-Asian leaders who are individually worse
leaders take the spot of Asian leaders who are individually better leaders
because the race of non-Asian leaders makes them better leaders.

~~~
hackinthebochs
>racially discriminated against

But we haven't settled whether they're being racially discriminated against.
If some legitimate feature to discriminate or filter against correlates with
race, then it will look a lot like racial discrimination when it isn't.
Harvard wanting to maximize their future prestige by carefully constructing
the makeup of their student body is such an instance. Maximizing leadership
potential of their student body will look like racial discrimination. It's
similar to how the distribution of housing loans can look like racial
discrimination if you didn't already know that income correlates with race.

> non-Asian leaders who are individually worse leaders take the spot of Asian
> leaders who are individually better leaders

No. I'm saying GPA and SAT scores only correlate with leadership potential _up
to a point_. Once you've passed that threshold, other factors start
contributing more, e.g. your background, interests, etc. It is not the case
that the person with the higher GPA/SAT necessarily has more leadership
potential.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _It is not the case that the person with the higher GPA /SAT necessarily has
> more leadership potential._

And somehow these "lacking in leadership potential" students happen to be
Asian more often than the norm? Year after year? Seems like a convenient
coincidence.

~~~
hackinthebochs
You're missing the point. There is no way to quantify leadership potential and
so they have to come up with various heuristics. One heuristic is being an
outlier in some socially/politically relevant cluster. That is, group people
by various factors such as race, income, region, etc. Those who are outliers
of those groups are likely to have leadership potential: whatever drove them
to succeed where others failed in similar circumstances is a strong signal for
leadership potential.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _One heuristic is being an outlier in some socially /politically relevant
> cluster. That is, group people by various factors such as race, income,
> region, etc._

Then, pray tell, which lack of "being an outlier in some socially/politically
relevant cluster" is common to Asian applicants, year after year? I'm sure we
would all be fascinated to hear the specific areas in which Asian applicants
are failing to match these heuristics where other minority applicants do.

~~~
hackinthebochs
Your responses seem to indicate you don't understand the points I'm making (or
you're just very invested in the narrative you're pushing). It's hard to see
what I can say that won't invite a further response such as this.

But to put a very fine point on it, Asians with stellar scores, similar
backgrounds, similar interests, similar extra curriculars lack diversity in
backgrounds, interests and extra curriculars by definition. There's nothing
deeper to be noted about this. Whether Asians that apply to Harvard actually
have similar backgrounds, interests and extra curriculars is certainly up for
debate. But it is plausible.

The issue is that the distribution of leadership potential in the applicant
pool is not equivalent to the distribution of top GPA and test scores (past a
certain threshold). So when you use your GPA/SAT metric to analyze something
that doesn't follow the same distribution, you will conclude there is bias.
_But it is your metric that is wrong._ If your argument is that they
_necessarily should_ use your GPA/SAT metric, then you have to argue for this
directly. It is not self evident.

------
dustinmoris
Diversity quotas are the dumbest invention of the 21st century. All they do is
create racial discrimination against a group of people. If you want to have a
balanced admission process, which isn't biased towards a certain group of
people (good schools, parents with money, Asians, etc.) then simply change the
entry exams from tests which require someone being very book smart (= coming
from a privileged background with access to higher education) to someone who
just generally is very (street) smart. Smart people will always pick up what
they need in order to succeed university, with or without a previous academic
background.

A blind process wouldn't discriminate and doesn't need quotas. Instead of
asking questions with the hope for the right answer, ask questions to explore
the right thinking which can be equally achieved no matter what someone's
background is.

~~~
rhcom2
"Smart people will always pick up what they need in order to succeed
university, with or without a previous academic background." is just a
reframing of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and ignores the entire
history of inequality in the US.

~~~
dustinmoris
No it's not. It means if you are smart then you are still smart even if you
haven't visited a private school and entry exams should be changed in such a
way that it actually measures the potential of a candidate instead of their
current education history. Also years of inequality don't have an effect on a
blind process, because no student today had to live through a century of
inequality. People of today have been born into a better world and if we
design a blind application process then there is no reason why anyone
shouldn't perform well. Quotas are only making it worse, by trying to apply a
flaw in order to fix another flaw, which might not even exist anymore.

~~~
rhcom2
Inequality is systematic and generational, "because no student today had to
live through a century of inequality" is a ridiculous statement when we still
have major problems with inequality in schooling, health care, criminal
justice, the list goes on and on. Just because things are better than they
were 50 years ago doesn't erase 300 years of history.

There is no such thing as a completely "blind" process that can somehow
"measures the potential of a candidate" outside that candidate's socioeconomic
history and outside the history of inequality in the US. It's the dream of a
pure meritocracy which is completely impossible in reality.

------
tartoran
This is totally against "test takers". Knowing the rules will make them better
at taking tests but Harvard wants to be about something else. I may sure be
downvoted to say that from my experience asians are the great test takers, and
gotta also add that they have amazing rote memory, one of the best imho.

~~~
uhohnotgood
Please don't perpetuate stereotypes like this. This sentence has a clear
discriminatory undertone implying that asians are less capable of
creative/critical thinking.

~~~
tartoran
You just said this in one of your comments : "Unless one is going to argue
that there are no genetic differences between individuals in the brain, it
seems unlikely to me that different races don't have different brains in some
fashion."

Then I may ask, if you think different races have different brains , how can
you argue against statements on traits by calling them stereotypes? I wasn't
implying creativity, It was more general than that, and there's no better one
than other.

------
lainga
Equivalent Bloomberg article [0] mentions that the ACLU has taken Harvard's
side, and they state [1]:

 _While the DOJ’s brief does not challenge Supreme Court precedent granting
universities the right to freely select their own student body—presumably
because it cannot do so at this stage of the litigation—the Trump
administration has advocated for “race-blind” policies, which Harvard and
virtually all other universities have found are demonstrably insufficient to
achieve meaningful diversity, given the reality of historic and continuing
racial discrimination in this country._

[0] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/doj-
backs...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/doj-backs-asian-
americans-in-harvard-discrimination-lawsuit)

[1] [https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-statement-department-
justice-...](https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-statement-department-justice-
filing-harvard-university-admissions-lawsuit)

~~~
castlecrasher2
I'm not sure I understand the ACLU's statement. Is Harvard's discrimination
against Asian-Americans for their race not racial discrimination to the ACLU?
Or is it OK because it benefits worse-off races? I'm open to alternatives, I'm
not trying to establish a false dichotomy here.

~~~
mberning
Yeah, that is bonkers. Let’s use some actual racism to fix some other
deficiency, which we assume is the result of some previous racism.

~~~
vkou
If the deficiency is not the result of previous racism, what is it the result
of?

~~~
TangoTrotFox
Take a completely random sampling of 1 million people from populations all
across the world. And in fact, take them from the day of birth to avoid any
sort of early biases (actually 'harbor' the parents from the day of conception
to avoid any sort of prenatal differences). And now put all of these million
people on a completely homogenous and equally fertile chunk of land on an
island. Raise each and every single one of them identically until they are of
an age to take care of themselves. Give each and every one of them the exact
same amount of starting 'capital' and set them free to achieve as they will.

200 years later, with a population that's multiplied several magnitudes over -
would you expect to still see a completely equal people? I wouldn't. _People
are different_. And each child that is born is different, even when born to
the same parents. Even identical twins are no longer completely identical by
the time of birth. These differences express themselves in different ways (and
wow was that the most tautological statement ever), but the point is that I
think it's highly illogical to expect to see equality.

Out of genuine curiosity, do you disagree?

~~~
vilmosi
> 200 years later, with a population that's multiplied several magnitudes over
> - would you expect to still see a completely equal people? I wouldn't

I would. South Koreans are 2-3 inches taller than North Koreans, plus a miriad
of other biological differences, in a relatively short span of time. This is
for the same ethnicity, yet alone race.

For me, that alone is proof we are much more similar than we think, and
environmental factors, which your hypothetical scenario accounts for
perfectly, has a much greater impact on us compared to genetics.

Which is why, for perfectly randomly selected humans raised identically for
200 years, I would not expect significant differences.

------
topynate
Setting the racial aspect to one side, is there anything of value in
"admissions readers" in a gargantuan administrative bureaucracy rating young
kids on their "likability"?

~~~
tabtab
People skills are helpful to success. I can testify to that as someone with
insufficient amounts.

~~~
drak0n1c
The parent comment seems to be emphasizing the point that bureaucrats who have
never met/interviewed the students shouldn't be the ones deciding which
students have the potential to develop positive people skills. Their alleged
leaning on stereotypes to make those decisions is unsurprising given such
constraints.

~~~
Symmetry
Especially since the alumni interviewers who actually meet the candidates give
Asian candidates basically the same marks for personality as White candidates.

~~~
hackinthebochs
But are the students who meet with alumni a representative sample? If I were a
socially inept applicant I would take my chances without the interview.

~~~
uhohnotgood
It's not just alumni. Asian applicants were rated basically the same on
"Personality" scores from teacher letters, counselor letters, alumni
interviews, etc. Everything except their final grade (which is the only place
that includes essays, I believe).

However, I find it incredibly unlikely that asian applicants are so bad at
writing essays that it's singlehandedly tanking their personality score that
drastically.

------
toomuchcabbage
Can someone point out the material difference(s) between the Asian quotas,
which Harvard is stridently defending, and the Jewish quotas which were
repealed and roundly reviled?

------
DrJaws
On 2016 Abigail Fisher sued the university of texas for the same reason, the
supreme court stood with the university.

Can anyone tell me why not here and what's the difference?

~~~
uhohnotgood
Well, to be clear, the Supreme Court has not ruled on this case yet. The
Department of Justice is part of the executive branch, responsible for the
enforcement of the law.

As for what the difference is, I'm no expert on law, and can't confidently
provide an answer.

To me, the difference seems to be that while white students may be slightly
discriminated against through affirmative action, asian students face _much_
larger hurdles.

The Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action have not decided anything as
clear cut as "affirmative action is completely allowed", nor "affirmative
action is not allowed". From my understanding, explicit quotas are not
allowed, but if a school can reasonably argue that their use of affirmative
action serves its "education goal", then it's allowable.

~~~
DrJaws
thanks

It's pretty weird everything, on my country nothing outside "this is your
score, this is your admission" would be allowed.

------
risto1
Why do people think affirmative action is a good idea?

It's not meritocratic. People should be judged based on their skill, not based
on their gender, race, or ethnicity. We should be striving for a fair society,
not equality of outcome

It's insulting to those minorities, it implies that they can't be smart enough
to make it without this kind of leg up, and they will never know the extent to
which this played a role in their success even if they're absolutely solid at
what they do. And I think there's definitely a negative psychological effect
to minorities by doing these kinds of things

If a student gets into a school which is above their skill level or general
academic interest, they could burn out and loose interest in a profession that
otherwise would've been a good fit for them. A similar lack of motivation can
also happen for someone who can only get into a school that's below their true
skill level because they don't feel that their being valued fairly

It isn't all encompassing -- it's not just gender and race, there are
ethnicities that are widely discriminated against and they don't get a similar
leg up. I don't think AA should be applied at all, just pointing this out

There are problems in some minority communities struggle with for sure, but
this isn't the right way to solve it at all

One of big reasons why asian and jewish communities do better here is just
culture -- their cultures highly value intellectual pursuits. I knew an asian
guy that went to Harvard and they were so poor they lived in the ghetto, which
should've messed up his chances because the public school sucked, but he was
raised to highly value academic pursuits. And an asian girl I knew that went
to Columbia, her mother told her that if she doesn't achieve academically she
won't love her anymore. While harsh, they punish their kids for an A- the way
other cultures would view an F. But it's a big reason for their academic
success

I also knew a girl that was very rich, but she basically didn't have to pay
tuition because of her minority. I'm sorry but that's really annoying for
someone that had to take out insane amounts of student debt. There were times
when I thought I had to drop out because I couldn't even get approved for a
loan, and the interest rates were insanely high

The better solution is to find out why some minorities aren't doing well
academically in proportion to others in the first place and change that. If
it's financial or cultural or whatever else, the underlying cause should be
addressed, not this BS

Relevant:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVvnTByzTmA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVvnTByzTmA)

~~~
Jyaif
Your initial question is linked to your final remark.

People think affirmative action is a good idea because they think that
minorities aren't doing well academically because they don't have role models
to identify with. To be clear affirmative action is supposed to be temporary
until the culture of minorities that do not do well academically as changed
enough.

So paradoxically the goal of affirmative action is to reduce cultural
diversity.

------
bitxbit
Asian-Americans should be fighting the Chinese natives not the schools because
that's where all the spots have been going to for the past decade.

~~~
logrott
That's not the point. Let's fight the schools with BS vague "personality"
tests.

------
univalent
I think the problem lies with SATs/GREs/GMATs. The tests (especially SAT, GRE)
are ludicrously simple. I'm your run of the mill IIT-an and placed 98th and
99th percentile without breaking a sweat in the GRE when it came time for grad
school. I think I maxed 2 of the 3 sections and was 98th percentile in both.
What's the point of a test like that? Thousands of people max/get to the
highest percentile and it becomes useless as a variable. Why not follow the
model of the JEE exam instead of the SAT (a different variant of the exam for
each specialization). If the exam is harder, the distribution of students is
more spread out. You can rank them nationwide. Not being a jerk, I'm honestly
curious why people like middle school math problems in a grad school exam?
[https://jeemain.nic.in/webinfo/Public/Home.aspx](https://jeemain.nic.in/webinfo/Public/Home.aspx)

~~~
jessaustin
The SAT, which is the more relevant test for this discussion, was
intentionally made easier years ago, so that it would be better suited to
measuring the vast majority of USA college applicants. That made it less
suited to Harvard's needs, but not as much as one might think. Plenty of
Harvard students had less than the maximum SAT scores. Some might prefer that
admission be based solely on test scores, but that is not Harvard's
preference.

~~~
SenseiMaster
Or it works in Harvard's preference by potentially hiding the academic
disparities of the different ethnic groups studying at Harvard.

If everyone's score is truncated at 800 on a test out of 1200, then you can't
tell the difference between a group that averages 800 vs one that averages
1100

