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Comment by crazypyro | Hacker News Reader

Harvard has a 25%+ Asian American undergrad class, (edit)~~2.5x (Harvard's is ~60% of UC's) more than the latest number listed on that wiki page, so your final statement is factually incorrect`~.

I quoted wrong number. It's 25% vs 40%.

https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics

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We all know that number should probably be higher if we're actually caring about academic performance.

Affirmative action doesn't actually bother me as much as legacy based admissions. Just absolutely idiotic that it's accepted.

Indeed, Harvard's own internal study determined that if academics were all that mattered, 43% of admitted students would be Asian.

The major factors pushing down that percentage are legacy admissions and the vague "personal rating," which seems to be the knob Harvard admissions turns to get the demographic ratios it desires. Asians are systematically given a far lower "personal rating" than other demographics.

Source: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/harvard-admissio...

"Well it's simple you see, Asians are simply less personable, as a group, than white folk. No no no, it's not blatant discrimination at all, I assure you! It's just science, I swear!"

I really don't see how anyone justifies this kind of thing in 2019. This is like the barest possible fig leaf over obvious prejudice. They could rename it to "Cromulence Factor" and it'd make as much sense.

It's a personal rating not a personable rating.

The smoking gun is that Asians were doing just fine on personal ratings given by Harvard alumni, but were doing poorly specifically on the personal ratings given by Harvard admissions officers.

I don't see why academic performance, beyond an institution's decided-upon base threshold, should be the sole or even dominant admissions factor. Especially at a liberals arts college like Harvard.

It shouldn't be. Admission should be a lottery passed a base SAT score. That score should be based on analysis of how capable of Harvard's existing course load a student who receives a given score is, rather than, say, calibrating it specifically to cause the rejection of the majority of a given protected class. Suddenly, you achieve demographic near-parity.

Kid didn't get into Harvard? Donate to the school he or she did get into.

The wiki says the UC system has about 40% Asian American students. This suggests race conscious admissions do indeed (as the name suggests) discriminate based on race, at institutions like Harvard.

I quoted wrong number. Sorry.

Nitpick: Comparing UC to Harvard isn't that straightforward. The UC system is California's, it disproportionately takes people from California, and California does have more Asians than the country as a whole, as well as more than the Northeast region in which Harvard is based.

If Harvard did not race balance then every year the race % would be different - there should be enough of all races to pick a class of competent people. Why is it that 1 year a class can’t be primarily black or Asian? Before the lawsuit EVERY year the race ratio was almost exactly the same.

Secondly, why doesn’t Harvard just admit Asian Americans that score poorly to bring the Average down and chalk it up to amazing character?

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