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Comment by deogeo | Hacker News Reader

It's illuminating to also compare Harvard demographics vs the US. Sorted by most to least represented:

    Jewish: 14.0% vs 2.6% (5.38x)
    Asian American: 25.3% vs 5.3% (4.77x)
    Native Hawaiian: 0.6% vs 0.2% (3.00x)
    Native American: 1.8% vs 0.7% (2.57x)
    African American: 14.3% vs 12.7% (1.13x)
    Hispanic or Latino: 12.2% vs 17.6% (0.69x)
    non-Jewish white: 33.0% vs 58.9% (0.56x)

Sources:

https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics from 2019

https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/how-many-jewish-undergraduat...

https://features.thecrimson.com/2016/freshman-survey/lifesty...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews, upper estimate used

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That is very helpful, a lot of inclusivity discussions are undermined because many people feel intentionally excluded, while the historically disenfranchised groups feel like they are only just gaining proportional representation. This leaves people very confused to what is going on, if they are not familiar with the historically disenfranchised group's perspectives and get blindsided by something that doesn't match their worldview and personal experience of struggle.

So in this case, white hispanic and non-Jewish white majority (which can be one in the same, to some of the people self identifying) do feel short changed and this can be accurate in this case, if they are not "legacy, athletes, staff/donors".

Obtaining support and resources for a more productive and inclusive society would need to not marginalize the power group capable of changing it.

I assume that's Harvard vs US population demographics and not US college demographics? Both would be interesting as comparisons, and interesting in relation to each other.

Edit: To provide a little myself: “In 2017, only about half (49.9 percent) of elementary school students and 54.7 percent of college students were non-Hispanic white,” said Kurt Bauman, Chief, Education and Social Stratification Branch.[1] So Harvard seems to be more diverse than other colleges, at least slightly. I suspect the census is combining the Jewish population into the non-hispanic white category, but haven't looked close enough to know. Even with that, Harvard is slightly more diverse than the average.

1: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/school-e...

That is correct.

The combination of these numbers and the article produce an interesting conclusion: The non-Jewish non-ALDC white population is the most impacted by the over-representation of ALDC students (followed by Hispanics/Latinos).

The original implication was ALDC white kids getting in at the expense of minorities, but what appears to be really happening is ALDC white kids getting in at the expense of non-ALDC white kids, who were significantly under-represented to begin with.

I remember reading somewhere that Harvard had a ton of black international students, so "African American" may not be accurate in that case.

Not very many international Harvard College students and I'm not sure their race is even included in the statistics

It looks like 24% of Harvard undergrads are international students.

https://datausa.io/profile/university/harvard-university

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23764630

You didn't make any value statements with this data, but it should be noted that disparities in representation have nothing to do with whether or not groups should or deserve to be represented more or less.

Why is this comment being downvoted?

WrongThink.

Very interesting - it would be even more so to understand the financial/class background within those groups.

Is there a reason to compare the demographics to those of the US, when many Harvard students aren’t US citizens?

I have a feeling the stats make a bit more sense if you just assume Harvard is country-of-origin blind, and so compare Harvard admissions to the racial make-up of the entire global population (perhaps weighted by how much of each country’s population declares intent to attend a university.)

Sure: it's still a school in the US.

Many employees of US companies are not US citizens, but that doesn't stop people from evaluating Google or FB or whoever that way.

For there to be a representation disparity you need a baseline. You could choose a different population as your baseline, but usually when talking about racial disparities in American institutions they use the American population

The "Asian American" stat presumably doesn't include international students (just like "African American" wouldn't include someone from Africa)

Oh, it might well do that. It's a somewhat common American tic to use "African American" to mean "black" even when talking about people who are definitely not American.

Only 12% of Harvard students are international: https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics

" if you just assume anyone from anywhere in the world has an equal chance of getting into Harvard" is just not true really. It's fundamentally an American school. 20% foreign students.

The better numbers (assuming that's not what these are already) would be the statistics for Harvard students who are from the US, because the international numbers are obviously going to be confounded by the demographics of the non-uniform source countries. Nobody's going to be enlightened by the revelation that substantially all of the admissions from Asia are Asian.

Asian Americans are Americans. It makes perfect to compare Asian American admits to Asian Americans in the American population

I think I remember reading that 10% of Harvard College students are international

[snarky retort redacted]

I do apologize, and I appreciate the helpful clarifications.

That non-Jewish whites are the most under-represented group at Harvard, despite many of them being "legacy, athletes, staff/donor relatives". Whereas this submission would seem to suggest that whites are being unfairly admitted to the detriment of other groups.

In reality, it's the other way around. And the fact that almost half of the few whites that do get in do so through some loophole almost makes it worse -- it means a white kid who is a brilliant student but isn't born into the right family or is an athlete has almost no chance of being admitted.

non-jewish whites are the most underrepresented group at harvard.

paradox.

Affirmative Action.

Illumination

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