
In Admissions, Harvard Favors Those Who Fund It, Internal Emails Show - aaronbrethorst
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/18/day-three-harvard-admissions-trial/
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munchbunny
Isn't this a pretty well known thing?

I suppose it's approximately as "obvious" as the phenomenon that's actually
being litigated, that Asian Americans have to somehow be "extra qualified." By
that I mean that both are taken as given regardless of actual truth.

The "dean's interest list" mentioned in the article is interesting.
Specifically, I'm surprised that it's as secret as it is. I don't think any
highly selective process run by humans _doesn 't_ have a backdoor like that,
to the extent that when you're applying for things like schools, jobs,
incubators, etc. it's just sort of assumed that one must figure out how to get
in via the backdoor.

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trowawee
Short answer: no. If you aren't part of the club, or if you don't go out of
your way to find out these things, this is not particularly well-known. And
honestly, I could flip this pretty easily: there are lots of narratives out
there by people who for whatever reason weren't privy to this fact who made it
into some of the big name schools and saw how daddy's ability to buy a new
building beats out perfect grades, describing their shock at seeing some of
these systems up-close and learning the rules. That should also be
approximately as "obvious". It depends where you're looking, and whether or
not you know to look there and care enough to actually look.

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seibelj
I think it’s a reasonable argument that if Harvard takes society’s tax
dollars, they should take anyone from society that scores highest in objective
metrics.

If they stop taking tax dollars, perhaps making up for the loss of tax dollars
with their $39 billion endowment, then they should be able to discriminate
based on race as they do now.

I live in Boston, my wife is Vietnamese, and I have a lot of Asian friends in
the upper-echelon phd crowd. No one I know is supporting Harvard and their
bias.

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munchbunny
Speaking as an Asian immigrant who grew up entirely in the US system and
competed in this system, I have very mixed feelings about the lawsuit. There
are several problems that I see as common threads in the overarching
discussion.

1\. You will never be able to find a set of objective metrics that feel both
holistically fair and are objective to measure. As an example, most top
universities' admissions processes weigh your achievements against your family
conditions. Single mother, and you grew up taking care of your younger
siblings? Yeah, you won't need as good grades and you won't need to be
president of five clubs.

2\. Let's say you do try to establish objective metrics. What happens is that
the same groups of people who currently do well in the college admissions game
will just learn to play the new "objectively measured" college admissions
game. Once again, the ones who are able to spend money on college consulting
and who are able to practice for the test will do better. That's just status
quo with a different yardstick.

My own opinion... I would have supported having a lawsuit like this in a
different political climate. I do think that Asians get an unfair deal that
should be examined, already discounting for just the fact that with a 6%
acceptance rate and the fact that it's _Harvard_ , you will always feel
shafted for wanting to and not getting in regardless of actual qualification.

However, right now I absolutely detest that people in my community are letting
the conservative segment of America use this issue to drive a wedge between
Asians and other minorities. That's not what Asians in the US need right now
when the fight is more about protecting minority rights in a democracy. Wrong
fight at the wrong time.

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staticautomatic
Shocker!

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coralcross
It's pretty obvious that certain groups are trying to draw the focus of the
public away from the Asian American discrimination scandal at Harvard and
other top schools and instead dangling these stories of preferential treatment
being given to a few children of mega donors as a distraction.

Of course the difference in scale of discrimination between these two cases is
huge, but it's convenient for certain groups to be able to say "hey, hey, look
at how Harvard is favoring these predominately white students! Forget about
how they're discriminating against orders of magnitude more Asian Americans!"

I suspect this is because the uncomfortable fact of affirmative action
policies actually causing discrimination against racial minorities is a
significant source of cognitive dissonance in the minds of many, and it's
easier for them to just focus on preferential treatment being given to
children of the mega rich than focus on the problematic aspects of racialized
admission in the first place.

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Terr_
I'd say that cuts both ways, ex:

"It's pretty obvious that certain groups are trying to draw the focus of the
public away from the socioeconomic rich-get-richer phenomenon at Harvard and
other top schools, instead dangling these stories of preferential treatment
between the poorer 99% as a distraction."

