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Comment by vgtheone | Hacker News Reader

They make up 25.3% of the admitted class but would probably make up 75-80% of the admitted class in a system truly based on merit. 4 out of 5 strong applicants are rejected simply because they're Asian American.

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Let's not exaggerate things. Comparing UC or Caltech is probably best (granted they use less controversial socioeconomic factors). Caltech is 43% Asian American vs 27% at MIT. Note that the race-neutral number is somewhere in between (Asians disproportionately yield to schools that don't use racial preferences because they are discriminated against elsewhere)

The competitive admissions high school I went to (which has an SAT average similar to Ivy League universities) has a completely race/SES-blind admissions system and is now 70% Asian.

That's a function of local demographics as well though. Lowell high school in San Francisco has those numbers but that's in part due to (more affluent than average) whites long fleeing the SF public schools.

But whites still are the majority in SF by a huge margin.

? Have you ever been to SF? That's not true for the general population and even less true for youth. And the white youth that are there tend to go to private schools

https://priceonomics.com/where-are-all-the-white-people-in-s....

I live in SF, i grew up in the bay.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Demographics_of_San_Francisco#:~....

>Asians disproportionately yield to schools

No Asians go big or go home. They yield to all schools that are prestigious regardless of race-neutrality because all of these school (on the surface) appear to be race neutral.

Maybe, but students also want a diverse student body if they're going to an institution like Harvard. I doubt that the top X% of students who get into Harvard want to be surrounded by people just like them. They want diversity and different perspectives from people who are creative intelligent. That's the appeal of institutions like Harvard.

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