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Comment by RigelKentaurus | Hacker News Reader

Indian-American father here, living in the Bay Area. My wife and I came to this country with a few hundred dollars between us and have worked hard to reach where we’re at. We're far from privileged.

I am 100% against affirmative action on the basis of race. I think there should be some measure of AA on the basis of economic status. It's quite personal for me this year.

My 17-year old is applying to universities to study CS for fall 2023. We live in a highly competitive school district. He's hardworking and studious, as reflected in his 4.0 GPA and perfect 1600 SAT score (thankfully, some schools like MIT have brought back the SAT.) He has always taken the hardest possible AP and college-level classes and has strong extracurriculars. In a normal world, his chances of getting into top-ranked CS programs (Stanford, Berkeley, MIT) would be decent, but we're Indian-American and are considered over-represented on elite college campuses.

Our school counselor and other parents we've have spoken with have flat-out advised us to: Apply to more lower-tier schools. Amongst the elites, target "hard STEM" schools like MIT, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, where he’s more likely to get a fair shot (Asians are 40+% of the incoming class at these places.) Forget the Ivies — the last thing they want is “another smart Indian male” (the counselor's words, not mine.) You see, that won’t help with “diversity.”

Also — we use a system called Collegevine to keep track of applications. Applicants can input their GPA, SAT scores, extracurriculars etc. to understand their acceptance rate at specific universities based on historical data. For my son, keeping everything else the same but simply changing his race from Asian to Black/Hispanic increases his chances of getting in at the above elite schools from 4-8% to 60+%. I am not making this up — you can test this yourself.

Is it fair to penalize my son for working hard and being an excellent student?

View on HN

It's interesting that Mike Burry of the Big Short fame just did a post on this on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/michaeljburry/status/1587420720644214799

The post is this since he famously deletes all his Twitter posts:

If you are denying or justifying discrimination against Asian applicants for colleges or jobs, you know exactly how all the most oppressive racists of the past felt.

By the way did you ever consider having your child apply to schooling in other countries that are purely exam and test based and somehow produce the engineers that FAANG companies love to hire? The education in those countries are almost free compared to the US and they graduate with minimal or zero debt and get hired for very high salaries by FAANG companies. Just look at the number of foreigners at FAANG companies with undergraduate STEM degrees from the rest of the world. They often do a masters or PHD (for free usually with TA or RA responsibilities) to get acclimated to the US and its nuances which your child does not need.

Presumably it's in reference to the case against Harvard currently before the Supreme Court: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/31/1131789230/supreme-court-affi...

Among other things, Harvard is accused of adding a "personality" metric to admissions, covering likeability and attractiveness, and consistently scoring Asians low on it, to cancel out less important things like GPA, AP credits and SAT scores. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/15/politics/harvard-admissions-a...

What makes you think he’s only going to get a great CS education at the Ivies, Cal, Caltech, Stanford, etc.? Very few of the best graduates I’ve worked with in my ~30 year career studied at those schools - it was places like UW, UBC and Waterloo that stood out to me as producing a high number of high quality, socially adapted graduates.

[edit] and before anyone asks, no I’m not Canadian

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I know he will get a fantastic education at most schools. But he truly is a special kid who gets inspired by super smart people and thrives on challenges, and will do better at Cal, Caltech, Harvey Mudd etc. We're not looking at non-STEM schools and Ivies -- I guess they don't want us and we don't want them.

My point is that he’ll be surrounded by super smart people giving him real challenges at many schools beyond the ones you’ve listed.

There is a massive gap between top schools and middle schools in terms of the quality of education, the connections you make, and the opportunities you get. The density of smart people is far higher at those top schools he mentioned.

Downplaying that doesn't do anything for anyone.

Connections sure, but what advantage is there in quality of education? It's not like winning a nobel prize makes someone better at teaching organic chemistry, during the one class they teach (aided by a team of assistants who actually deal with the students). If anything I'd say the places with the worst students have the best teachers by both necessity and by experience level. What are you defining as "middle schools"?

Sure, but he’s fixated on ~1% of the “top schools”, and seems closed to the possibility that the other 99% will be just as good (and in some cases better) for his son than that list.

That’s before we even unpack your claim that there’s a clear line between “top” and “middle” schools. I see it as more of a spectrum myself, ignoring “brand recognition” (which is a mostly meaningless metric).

Just one anecdote but, FWIW, I found that my peers at UBC were significantly smarter and harder-working than my peers at MIT.

Many schools have honours programs or especially challenging degree programs, which will be filled with excellent and ambitious students, even if that school is not an ivy league.

A (perhaps funny) anecdote of my own: I had just started as product manager for a remote engineering team, and it had been briefly mentioned in passing that one member of the team was an intern from UBC. I quickly got a feel for the work ethic and output of the team members (and they were generally great), and just jumped to the conclusion of who the intern was.

Fast forward to the first time I meet them all in person, and I say to who I thought was the intern something like “how have you enjoyed your internship?”. Cue horrified looks, and my engineering manager counterpart swiftly moving in to smooth things over. Turns out the worst performing, least engaged engineer on the team was an FTE, and the UBC intern wasn’t even remotely who I thought it was (they were awesome)!

>> Very few of the best graduates I’ve worked with in my ~30 year career studied at those schools - it was places like UW, UBC and Waterloo that stood out to me as producing a high number of high quality, socially adapted graduates.

> But he truly is a special kid who gets inspired by super smart people and thrives on challenges, and will do better at Cal, Caltech, Harvey Mudd etc.

As opposed to UW, UBC and Waterloo, which are filled with less intelligent people? It is laughable.

My theory - you have precisely zero idea what those schools even are.

BTW, I've worked with a number of people from UBC and UToronto, and they were all awesome!

For engineering degrees for working within industry, the IVYs don’t get you much. There’s lots of highly ranked STEM universities that’ll open the same number of doors.

Where IVY undergrad matters is if they plan to pursue a PHD. And even that is debatable.

You might find this previous discussion informative. The Ivies matter but not as much as you'd think.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30448083

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05222-x

Most relevant: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05222-x/tables/3

Hi, UBC guy here.

The top ranked schools only help with getting your first job, and that's only if you want to work in big tech. Unlike some other industries, you can over compensate by networking or doing side projects if you don't have a high pedigree degree.

It's not really about the education. If it were, there wouldn't be a lawsuit about this. This is a pretty simple thing to solve if the goal were just about education. The Jewish Quota that the Ivies did probably led to the rise of MIT and NYU, etc.

The reality is that the most elite universities create kind of a petite noblesse (necessary for moving into the upper nobility) that is very appealing to the middle class. I think the context here is that each race wants to keep the prestigious aspect of these schools in place but have it benefit their own group. We would probably all benefit if we got rid of this bottleneck by creating more stellar universities so that four or five universities don't have a monopoly on cachet but no one is interested in doing that.

I don't see how you could eliminate the bottleneck in prestigious universities since if they are widely accessible, by definition they would no longer be prestigious.

IMHO, the best way forwards is for folks to push for the expansion of the size and power of the middle class by any means possible (government policies as well as simply patronizing small businesses with our money). We don't need a ruling elite that holds power partially by their common participation in 'prestigious' educational institutions. Those institutions demonstrably do not provide the best education, they should not serve as gatekeepers to power.

ya I agree that they shouldn't be the gatekeepers to power. My thought was to make elite universities more competitive against each other. That way maybe the distinction between the top 0.001% and the top 1% matters a lot less because there are lots of elite schools that are all roughly equal. Maybe making more universities or encouraging other schools to step up to compete so that the bottle neck is less so would work. But it's still an education bottleneck.

I am kind of disgusted with the whole thing though. I don't like all this zero sum competition over a name on a piece of paper.

I think in some other countries they have a system where if you make it past a threshold you have a guaranteed spot in their top tier school system. We should do that. We should educate people who have the talent and want to be educated, the specific name should be less important. I think this would ease a lot of tension, make things more fair, and provide the best outcome. But I don't even know if people would want this because the appeal of a super elite degree seems to be pretty enticing.

I have to think about the expansion of power of the middle class. Buying from small businesses would lessen the incentives to have these degrees to some extent. But I have to think about how to apply that to tech. The exact pedigree of a CS degree seems to be extremely important for example even if this is probably meaningless.

I agree but this is besides the point. Race based affirmative action is still unfair.

> My wife and I came to this country with a few hundred dollars between us and have worked hard to reach where we’re at. We're far from privileged.

Define privileged. You came to the U.S. which means you had the means and impetus to do so. Doesn't that already put in the top 50th percentile of world population? 50 is wild speculation on my part and it could be higher or lower.

I'm almost positive you are more privileged than someone born into a modern indigenous South American or African community. But what does it even matter? "Privileged" is completely relative and irrelevant because anyone who makes it past about the age of 18 is in some sense fortunate.

> Is it fair to penalize my son for working hard and being an excellent student?

No. You're son will have to overcome unfair and unfortunate circumstances just like you did. Hopefully he has been prepared to do so.

It's odd that the focus of your post is mainly an analysis of whether he is privileged enough to ignore the injustices against his son. All of us have to overcome adversity, but waving the "life is not fair" wand at unjust practices is less useful than advocating for change to a more fair system.

> Berkeley

If it makes you feel better, public California colleges cannot employ affirmative action as documented by https://ballotpedia.org/Affirmative_action_in_California, so your son's chances in the UC system should be unaffected by race based quotas. Best of luck to your son on college admissions. Having recently gone through that myself, it's a hell of an undertaking.

If I were a college application reviewer, I would filter for helicopter parents in an attempt to find kids genuinely seeking education as opposed to parents pushing their kids to unhappy places.

And I would only look at test scroes like SAT. Nothing else. Maybe few exceptions on relevant competitions like math olympics medalists.

Yeah that’s a terrible approach. All you’d get are kids who are good at testing and nothing else.

Or kids whose parents could afford a prep course or private tutoring.

Where do you think grades come from? Standardized tests are better because they are standardized (of course), and more fundamental to get at basic problem solving and reading comprehension.

I would argue it is impossible to be good at testing and nothing else. Even with a relatively poorly-designed test, there are valuable skills needed to be "good at it". and the current standardized tests have years of development and constant updating behind them.

Sure but grades aren’t all that indicative of anything in the real world. Some of the worst hires I’ve made were graduates who, on paper, should have been outstanding ICs.

Well they might've cheated. There's a lot of that around.

But if it's a pattern you see from STEM majors from a US school, you could complain to their dean. They usually have industry advisory boards also to get feedback about how students are performing and what is needed.

Or they could have been excellent test takers and not much else. Unless you’re trying to say that cheating on standardized test is commonplace, which would be yet another black mark against them.

This is false. You should read MIT's very helpful blog on why they decided to bring back the SAT. Tl;Dr - the SAT is not a perfect indicator, but in combination with GPA, it is the best predictor of success in advanced education, especially in STEM disciplines. There is very high correlation between grades and SAT scores. Anecdotally, this aligns with my observations too.

I am quite familiar now with the SAT, and have taken the GRE and GMAT myself, and don't understand why any of these standardized tests are considered unfair to certain groups. I think they are a good measure of cognitive ability for advanced studies. People are shooting the messenger.

I think you probably have a different idea about what constitutes success in higher education than the commenter to whom you're replying, and possibly also to admissions officers at prestigious universities.

It can be true that the SAT is a good predictor of university grades, and also that there is more to university life, and life in general, than grades. The parent comment is suggesting that optimizing for grades may not produce the ideal set of university students/graduates. But if you think that graduating with high grades is the whole point of the endeavour then obviously you'll disagree.

Certainly I enjoyed spending my time at university surrounded by people who had more going on than just academic excellence.

Of course there is more to university life than grades. But I strongly disagree with the comment that "all you get are people good at testing, and nothing else". I know a bunch of very high SAT scorers, many of them my kid's friends, and they are not just "good at testing". In general, they bring excellence and hard work to everything they do, including athletics, music and art. In fact, I'd argue that it's almost impossible to be "good at testing, and nothing else".

My experience was otherwise, but you might be right in general.

My money’s on you being right tbh.

My father also came to this country with nothing and built himself up, but as someone else mentioned, my father was born in a high caste, he got an education to become an engineer when most people didn't even complete secondary school. There is something to be said about generations of cultural knowledge and success that makes you rise up from "temporary poverty". This is true of most of my family, due to a bad generation of parents they became poor but they used to be pretty wealth a couple generations ago, this is a stark difference in attitude from people who've always been in multi generational poverty, they don't know any succesful people, they don't have any role models, the color of their skin / caste makes them not confident in their abilities to succeed, realistically those people are the ones who need affirmative action. i'm sure your kid is smart enough to succeed in this world even if he went to berkeley instead of stanford.

> Is it fair to penalize my son for working hard and being an excellent student?

No its not fair which is why its controversial. The real problem is that famous schools are too prestigious right now and there aren't enough of them. Perhaps over time the newer schools who accept all the smart, hardworking students will become recognized for having the best grads.

City University of New York had an incredible line up of world-class genius graduates, because they took the Jews who were excluded by the Ivies. For some reason that never translated to prestige status for the university.

At this point, I don't think much of famous schools, and might even find them a -minus- on hiring criterion. I'd be much more likely to hire someone from a tier-2 school who doesn't have any of the negative baggage — the wealth and "connections" are kind of a big risk factor to my mind.

Same. I've had two oxford graduates completely crumble in interviews recently who then dared bring it up after flunking the test. That they both did it says alot to me.

Vote accordingly. I know many Indian-Americans who do not jive with the Democratic party even in progressive places like California. The system is stacked against them and hard-work / perseverence can only go so far when you need to dodge systemic racism (literally, that's what AA is) that benefits one group over the other based on skin pigmentation.

Asian immigrant class of US is probably the most inspiring story of the American Dream.

Most asians will resign themselves to their low rung in the BIPOC hierarchy and keep voting Democrat--against their self interest--because they won't be able to bring themselves to vote with "country people" in the GOP who didn't go to college.

I have mixed feelings about this. The issue is that there aren't enough elite seats, maybe applying to those schools is a good idea because it starts to create more elite seats. I seriously doubt there would be a serious detriment to your son's education for going to Harvey Mudd for example. I think that the subtext here is the brand name of Stanford and MIT and the Ivies is very desirable and this is less about education.

The brand is real though. Those top tier schools are gateways to power and money. I read through the law suit made against Harvard and other schools and it blames white people, not affirmative action in general. It compares the test scores of white people against Asians and argues that there should be fewer white people. The % of Harvard that is white is 33%. The % of the US is 57.5%. Whites are being shut out of the premier gateways to power in the US. I think AA based on race makes sense in some way because of what these schools mean in reality. It's not just about education.

The test score gap between Asians and whites is not even very broad. So on the one hand, I think all this focus on race is detrimental to life if we use it to judge the most elite people in the country. On the other hand, I think this lawsuit is just more squabbling between races to be the #1. This is a fight about prestige and power and not education, at least in my opinion.

It's not fair, and it's messed up in my opinion. But then I'm an engineer and I highly value meritocracy over everything else. Other people have different values, like racial diversity, whatever they think that means. I think they're idiots, but they think I'm racist. Unfortunately for you and me, the "idiots" are currently running the show.

Ostensibly to you it isn’t “fair” in the way you have described it. But from a different view, your son is very privileged to be in the position he is, I’m sure he will do well wherever he goes for school. You’re in the South Bay bubble that has put so much hype and pressure on these things. Of course, education is important to you as a cultural value and practical matter; but consider that students who are capable can even flourish better in, for example, the community college setting for a few years before transferring (also more financially savvy).

Anyways affirmative action for mostly white people (“legacy admits”) already exists. Removing AA based on race may not result in great outcomes for the underrepresented minorities. Huge disparities exist that cannot be corrected at the university level in entirely; but AA gives the opportunity for URMs to enter these spaces at higher rates than they would at a so called “level” playing field (it is never is the problem).

It’s time to start considering that there is far more to life than what “elite” colleges will have people believe.

Anyone who gets into a top tier school, by preference, legacy, or whatever, is already on a course to do well. They could have settled for the 2nd tier just as well.

The different perspective you are referring to is groups versus individuals. to the degree that they differ, whatever is most fair for one will be less fair for the other. It is objectively true that a group preference will be unfair on an individual level to some people. For example, on an individual basis, legacy admits only benefit legacy applicants. Yet you're using this argument to support penalizing people who are not legacy applicants.

Side point, but I wonder if how many people who are opposed to AA are actually in favor of "legacy admits". Both smell very fishy to me. (No clear academic motive for either....)

It is not fair to penalize your son. The system needs adjustment.

Thank you for coming to America and for raising your family here. We are collectively richer for it.

Your comment went straight to my heart. Thank you.

I can't tell if these counselors are giving bad advice or the college admissions landscape really is that competitive now compared to 15 years ago. 4.0 and 1600 are perfect scores and trivially, higher than the average scores of admitted students, let alone all applicants.

Every applicant needs stuff on their application besides academics as well, so try to stand out there. They look for unique talents. If they believe that someone is the best X at Y niche that the admissions team likes them they're getting in no matter what.

Also... these schools admit a number of Indian-American males every year. Your son does have a chance. Unfortunately the competition is higher for him due to these unfair rules.

As long as we're talking about fair, is it fair that your son, who was given every possible advantage by his well-educated and affluent parents, is graded on the same blind rubric as a kid whose father is a felon for possessing a couple ounces of marijuana and whose mother has to work 3 shitty retail jobs? Wouldn't it be reasonable to argue that the second kid getting, say, a nearly (but not quite) perfect SAT score and a 3.9 GPA is at least as impressive, or arguably more impressive, than your little darling keeping his train on the tracks that you and your wife have laid out for him?

That’s an argument for basing admissions decisions on economic status not race.

>is it fair that your son, who was given every possible advantage by his well-educated and affluent parents, is graded on the same blind rubric as a kid whose father is a felon for possessing a couple ounces of marijuana and whose mother has to work 3 shitty retail jobs?

That's the exact case I made. The kid with the absentee father has worked hard, and deserves to be helped. But it's independent of race.

>little darling keeping his train on the tracks that you and your wife have laid out for him

I caught the condescending tone here. We live in a good, safe school district but nothing else has been laid out for him. He found all the APs, college courses, internships and applied on his own. The one thing he's not is an entitled, spoilt brat -- he's the exact opposite who takes nothing for granted and works very hard to make full use of his opportunities. It's sad that some people can't see the difference.

> It's sad that some people can't see the difference

Some people don't want to. There's an entire political movement devoted to removing individuality from the equation and seeing people only as oppressed or oppressor races. The heroes and villains are conveniently identifiable by their appearances and any details or personal history deviations from the storyline are disregarded.

Doesn’t your argument only highlight how appalling it is to consider something as crude as the race of the applicant?

Even if you disregard how crude the official government racial classifications are (black Americans have much more in common with white Americans than with black Africans, for example, and Pakistanis have much more in common with Afghanis than with the former have with Japanese or the latter have with Swedish, contrary to what the governments racial groupings specify), if you are interested in recognizing hardship and overcoming the obstacles, why not just ask about those directly? When you read the students essay about his jailed father and mother working three jobs, what more do you learn from the mere race checkbox?

I’ll be very explicit here: the universities practicing the policies currently discussed in the Supreme Court don’t care about hardship even close to as much they care about visual diversity. They really are, indeed, trying to achieve a certain color balance among their students, and they really do not care a lot about the diversity that’s more than skin deep. This is really as simple as that, and it’s disgusting.

> I’ll be very explicit here: the universities practicing the policies currently discussed in the Supreme Court don’t care about hardship even close to as much they care about visual diversity.

This is the part that bothers me, they want all the colors of the rainbow but do not care if they are actually helping their students move up in the world.

I went to an ivy, and sure the student body was "diverse" by race but I did not encounter many people from lower classes.

> We're far from privileged.

Indian-American father here as well.

You came to the US from India. You are probably upper caste. You almost certainly got a good quality education in India for cheap. Your parents probably had servants.

You are privileged.

End of story.

not to mention he must have come here 20+ years ago for an education, back then it was even rarer for an indian to come to us to study.

Bangladeshi-American father here. “Privileged” compared to who? It would be one thing if Ivy League universities accepted Appalachians and rural Georgians stuck in generational poverty. Ironically, people like Clarence Thomas—minorities who grew up in real poverty—are not the main target of AA. The whole reason this is a problem here is that these policies aren’t actually based on privilege. It’s racial gerrymandering—seeking privileged people from overall disadvantaged groups.

Privileged compared to most around him? I'm not comparing OP to the Kennedys but just because he came to the US with a few hundred bucks and worked hard does not mean he is not privileged.

The generational poverty thing is a disingenous distraction. Hypercompetitive environments like the bay area is rife with OP-like cases, the parents go after the boxes to check to get into the top schools, the kids check them. OP's son worked hard and will almost certainly go to a good school, but... Sharma's son went to MIT! All that has happened is that the gaming Indian parents do doesnt work as well as it once did because others wised up to it. I see nothing wrong with promoting someone who has "unforced" talent, and in some cases race may be a poor way in some cases to base that upon, but in general it is not so bad.

The real tragedy is that the most unfair thing these colleges do, which the article mentions, legacy admissions, gets a pass in all the AA talk.

> All that has happened is that the gaming Indian parents do doesnt work as well as it once did because others wised up to it. I see nothing wrong with promoting someone who has "unforced" talent, and in some cases race may be a poor way in some cases to base that upon, but in general it is not so bad.

So what you’re saying is that it’s “not so bad” for colleges to pick the upper middle class Hispanic kid over the upper middle class Indian kid, because you think Indian parents are “gaming” the system.

I’m going to say no, that’s racism, and it should be illegal. If you want to give kids a leg up because they’re from a poor family, fine. But it shouldn’t matter what race they are.

1. Yes.

2. Affirmative action is not racism.

Justifying affirmative action based on stereotypes of Indian parents "gaming" the system is absolutely racism.

> Affirmative action is not racism

Can you share the definition of racism that you're using?

If gaming the system means cultivating good study habits, taking rigorous classes over 4 years, generally pushing yourself to realize your potential, maintaining balance through sports and exercise, we're guilty. These are good habits that will serve him well no matter where he goes.

I think you may be projecting your own thoughts and insecurities here.

In that case you should not be too hung up about him getting admission into a "lesser" (according to you) school. But here you are.

Oh absolutely I am projecting my thoughts. I was lucky but I know many Indians who have been pushed by their parents and are miserable. I also dont think a university environment dominated by such kids will be good either for the school or for them down the line. I am pretty positive your son will have a great experience in whatever school he goes to vs whatever ideal school you had in mind for him. Diversity to me is ipso facto a good thing.

Your comment is quite revealing of the cultural conflict underlying this debate. The dominant liberal white culture--which is adopted by many assimilated desis--holds that people should “follow their bliss” and disapproves of how Asians raise their kids. They view that as part of "gaming" the system, don’t like the incentive structure and competitiveness created when educational institutions are “dominated” by Asian kids. For them, capping the percentage of asians to preserve the culture of the institution is valuable in-and-of itself.

It's not about preservation necessarily - I mean these institutions used to be all white Christian male and we obviously dont want that. But yes, the capping is of value, and in fact even a hedge against the ranking slipping. I guess even people like OP would balk at sending their kids to the #1 school if it had 90% Asians, and then that school wont remain #1 for long. The diversity is of value in other ways - experiences outside of your comfort zone and ones that dont come with a quantifiable meric are wonderful things about a college education.

> I guess even people like OP would balk at sending their kids to the #1 school if it had 90% Asians, and then that school wont remain #1 for long.

Why? Harvard was 90% WASPs when it became #1. Universities in India and China do just fine with 99% Indians and Chinese. What difference does it make?

> The diversity is of value in other ways - experiences outside of your comfort zone and ones that dont come with a quantifiable meric are wonderful things about a college education.

And you can't have those things if you have too many Asian students?

>I was lucky but I know many Indians who have been pushed by their parents and are miserable.

We hang out in different circles. Looks like your default position is that Asian American kids have been pushed to study by their parents. Did it ever occur to you that many kids like to push themselves and test their mettle?

>I also dont think a university environment dominated by such kids will be good either for the school or for them down the line.

You're making up stuff about "university environment dominated by such kids." That's right, let's admit unprepared kids by lowering the bar. We'll act puzzled when they drop off from STEM programs into easier majors (which is a well known phenomenon, BTW.)

I have a huge problem with people looking at the world through the lens of "privilege". Seems like "privilege" is what they're looking for all the time.

Also, you watered down the term "privilege" to such an extent that it has lost any practical meaning. I came to the US as it is the land of opportunity, and still believe that is the case. In my view, anyone born here, including black and brown people, has sort of won the lottery already. But they're so concerned with "fairness" that they miss taking advantage of the opportunities right in front of them.

It's really clear that most Americans have very little idea about what life is like anywhere else in the world. Getting US citizenship is a golden ticket for people in most developing countries and the immense government support in housing, state welfare/support programs, small business support, etc. is incomprehensible to those of us that weren't with born with it.

I understand a big part of the problem is that many US citizens don't understand what's available, but some almost everyone has smartphones and Google these days, even infrequent attempts to casually browse the internet for self-improvement will yield very large returns for most US citizens in poverty.

Setting aside an obvious problem with AA, if your son is really interested in CS, MIT or Caltech will serve him better than any Ivy League establishment nursery.

> In a normal world, his chances of getting into top-ranked CS programs (Stanford, Berkeley, MIT) would be decent, but we're Indian-American and are considered over-represented on elite college campuses.

Let me help put your concerns to rest.

If Harvard et al changed their admissions policies to race blind tomorrow, your son still would not get in.

How do I know this? You are talking about his prospects as an applicant in a way that does not reflect a successful applicant (“another smart Indian male” or otherwise).

I assure you that Harvard and Stanford reject approximately zero “strong admit” applicants. Your son, based on what you have stated here, is not a strong admit applicant.

1. In academics, has your son done anything impressive at a national or international level? Think Westinghouse award, international science fair, or something similar. If not, has he published any academic papers (co-author ok)?

2. In sports, is your son a recruited athlete? Is he a HS varsity athlete who is competitive enough to compete at the university level? If so, has he expressed interest to the school and in the application?

3. In arts, has your son won a spot in a regional or national arts group (like youth symphony), or has he won a regional, national, or international arts competition?

4. In leadership/community, has your son started a successful business or group that has accomplished something meaningful?

5. In terms of non-racial diversity, is your son in a state and school that is under-represented in elite schools? We know that this answer is “no”, and quite the contrary, his school is probably highly-represented, so the school has a ballpark quota (range, not an absolute number). This is probably why his counselors have a good idea where he is in the school pecking order for school references.

Check out this article:

https://www.hispanicoutlook.com/articles/15-tips-minority-st...

Focus on #3. What is your son’s hook?

> but simply changing his race from Asian to Black/Hispanic increases his chances of getting in at the above elite schools from 4-8% to 60+%

Well, I am guessing that those numbers are correct, but I think that some of the story is being left out.

Some (many?) black or Hispanic students with your son’s profile will be actively courted by organizations that will give them the experience they need to stand out (their “hook”).

This may exist for Indian-Americans as well (I have no idea), but that wasn’t really reflected in anything you wrote.

Anyway, most if not all of the black and hispanic undergrads I’ve met at ivies have had a very compelling hook, typically in leadership or sports (iirc, 20% of Harvard’s entering class are varsity athletes, and maybe half of those are recruited, so sports being their “hook” is not rare).

> Is it fair to penalize my son for working hard and being an excellent student?

He is being “penalized” for having too narrow of a focus. That focus may work in some elite schools that have an all or nothing admissions exam (like some schools in India, Japan, China, etc.), but that type of focus is too narrow for many elite US universities.

The Ivies plus Stanford could fill their classes many times over with students who are very comparable to your son in terms of grades and SAT scores. They are looking for something more (the hook).

If the guidance counselors at your son’s school didn’t share that with him or you early in his high school career, then that’s really on them. They should know better assuming that they knew he had ambitions for an elite school.

Many of your points are valid and I don't disagree with them. But you're assuming too much by saying that he has too narrow of a focus. You don't know him. My kid is strong in some areas, not as strong in others. He's realistic and knows that Harvard, Stanford are lottery schools for almost everyone. He has no feeling of entitlement, and neither do I, but I do know that he's being held to a much higher standard than almost anyone else because of his race. And as a dad, I don't like it.

> but I do know that he's being held to a much higher standard than almost anyone else because of his race

No offense, but this is almost certainly a false narrative that you are telling yourself and your son. It’s not healthy.

You summarized everything else outside of his grades and SAT scores as “strong extracurriculars”.

Show me an impressive hook and a few rejections from elite schools, and I will agree that there is likely discrimination of some sort somewhere in the process (possibly his high school, possibly at the elite schools).

I somehow doubt that there is an impressive hook, otherwise you would have mentioned it.

Elite school admission is totally not a lottery for someone with your son’s scores and a strong hook. Quite the contrary, admission to at least one elite school is almost a lock, even as an Indian-American.

That said, most families with really smart kids don’t focus on the strong hook, often because they don’t know that they need to do so. As such, they are left grasping for explanations. Race is an easy crutch to lean on (especially these days), but it is likely not the actual reason.

If you really think that he’s almost there, I recommend throwing in at least one application to an elite school. If he’s not at least wait listed, then he wasn’t even close, and no amount of race blind admissions would change that.

What can "strong extracurriculars" mean if not the things you described? I would expect significant things like sports (which wouldn't be "strong" if not at least varsity which isn't very special anyway, and some awards), and competitions with awards in other areas.

Though I do agree the odds are quite insane lately, with the top schools receiving applications from the top students of the entire planet. Basically everyone has to shift their sights down the rankings as a result.

> What can "strong extracurriculars" mean if not the things you described?

In my experience, a typical parent thinks that a student with 4-year varsity sport participation (more than one doesn’t help if it’s just participation), president of a school club, and member of some group or two (one probably being a local community service group) as being “strong”.

I would call this nice, but similar to 10k-20k other applicants, mainly because it’s fairly easy to manufacture this.

Some sports teams take anyone who is willing to play. It’s often trivially easy to start a club with your friends and declare yourself president (and essentially do nothing). It’s trivially easy to join a group or two and tag along. I have heard of and seen all of these examples that were done precisely to game elite school admissions.

Is this what happened with OP’s kid? Who knows?

What strong in one or more of these same categories might look like:

- all-state first team in a sport, and/or talented enough to be recruited in a sport. If it’s not a school sport, then winner of a regional or larger competition (depends on sport).

- started a club/group that went on to do something meaningful, with “meaningful” roughly being that it was probably worthy of being written up in a local or regional newspaper.

- participated in a group (like a music group or academic group/team) that was highly competitive to join and won regional, national, and/or international competitions.

- participated in a group (like an existing service group) that did something incredibly unique, most likely led by the applicant (e.g., some sort of decent-sized development project, local or international).

One or more of the above, substantiated in recommendations and/or supporting materials (e.g., newspaper articles, bulletins, etc.) will make an applicant much more unique.

> Though I do agree the odds are quite insane lately, with the top schools receiving applications from the top students of the entire planet. Basically everyone has to shift their sights down the rankings as a result.

This is largely not true.

Outside of covid years (those years are outliers), the main reason the acceptance rates are lower is because more people are applying. In general, the overall quality of those additional applications is relatively low — it’s just much easier to apply now (especially with a mediocre application) than it was in the past, and it’s getting easier every year.

Harvard had 60k applicants last year, and about 13k 30 years ago. The strong applicant pool has not increased 4x-5x over the past 30 years.

Is it tougher? Yes, but only slightly, imho. I think the internet has allowed some students who are not in elite university feeder schools to get info on how to be a strong candidate. This info was much tougher to access 30 years ago.

As a simple example, Cal Newport has written some good blog posts and books on how to be an outstanding applicant.

That said, many people don’t avail themselves of this information and still stubbornly think that grades and SATs are the main criteria for elite school admissions.

> Many of your points are valid and I don't disagree with them. But you're assuming too much by saying that he has too narrow of a focus. You don't know him. My kid is strong in some areas, not as strong in others. He's realistic and knows that Harvard, Stanford are lottery schools for almost everyone. He has no feeling of entitlement, and neither do I, but I do know that he's being held to a much higher standard than almost anyone else because of his race. And as a dad, I don't like it.

You are displaying an amazing sense of entitlement.

The reality is that the race is not independent from economic means and social status. Students who are applying who are black or native are at a major disadvantage. In terms of how they were treated personally, how their schools were likely funded, their family wealth, etc. So when someone toggles the race entry, the probabilities factor in the fact that their background is going to be much more compelling.

You have an average wealthy family, without major hardships, in a wealthy area. Your son is doing just ok for his background; not great, not bad. I have seen thousands of such applications and the poster you're replying to is spot on.

Even if the Supreme Court kills race-based affirmative action, universities will use hardship and economic means instead. And that will not change your son's statistics one bit.

Stop blaming underrepresented less well educated poorer people for what your limitations are. That's how you become a racist.

>but I do know that he's being held to a much higher standard than almost anyone else because of his race. And as a dad, I don't like it. >You are displaying an amazing sense of entitlement.

This is how I objectively know he's being held to a much higher standard. A kid of any other race, to have the same chance of admission to these schools, will need an SAT score 250-450 points lower (depending on race), and a GPA 0.2 - 0.9 lower (again, depending on race), than him. To use Harvard's own statistic, "An Asian American in the fourth lowest decile has virtually no chance of being admitted to Harvard (0.9%) but an African American in that decile has a higher chance of admission (12.8%) than an Asian American in the top decile (12.7%)" They tried to explain it on the basis of soft metrics like "personality". Funnily enough, interviewers didn't judge Asian Americans as low on personality and sociability. Only the admissions staff did. Go figure.

> This is how I objectively know he's being held to a much higher standard. A kid of any other race, to have the same chance of admission to these schools, will need an SAT score 250-450 points lower (depending on race), and a GPA 0.2 - 0.9 lower (again, depending on race), than him. To use Harvard's own statistic, "An Asian American in the fourth lowest decile has virtually no chance of being admitted to Harvard (0.9%) but an African American in that decile has a higher chance of admission (12.8%) than an Asian American in the top decile (12.7%)" They tried to explain it on the basis of soft metrics like "personality". Funnily enough, interviewers didn't judge Asian Americans as low on personality and sociability. Only the admissions staff did. Go figure.

Other posters who understand this tried to explain it to you. Even if this law were to change, it would make zero difference. You don't understand what changes these statistics. Race is a shorthand for them. Those people come from a much more disadvantaged background.

Your child comes from a wealthy family with every opportunity and is doing ok for it. Other people come from very far behind and got nearly to the same place. Their gap is much much larger, their effort is much much larger, as a consequence their achievement is higher.

These statistics will not change substantially after the lawsuit.

Moreover, you're totally being blinded by this to blame the wrong people: poor black kids.

Do you realize that the vast majority of applicants at Harvard aren't getting in by merit? They go in through programs related to wealth and legacy. That's where people should be upset.

Instead, you're just walking down a racist path that is obviously false.

> "An Asian American in the fourth lowest decile has virtually no chance of being admitted to Harvard (0.9%) but an African American in that decile has a higher chance of admission (12.8%) than an Asian American in the top decile (12.7%)"

I absolutely love this stat

Take a minute, and think about what non-AA, non-racist reason this might be true?

I don’t know the exact answer for the 4th decile, but I can make a good guess.

Of all of those folks in the fourth decile across all races, what do you think sets them apart?

It will without a doubt be that they are very highly rated in some other area.

The most likely answer statistically is… wait for it… recruited athlete.

There are other possible answers like child of faculty member, or child of person of interest, or child of key donor. We don’t really know unless we see the specific applications of the folks who were accepted in the 4th decile.

If you want to criticize schools for their policies on recruiting athletes or granting preference to deans/directors lists, you won’t get much pushback from me. That said, it’s very much the reality now and probably for the foreseeable future.

Turning this summary data into a race issue without knowing the details of the specific applicants is simply irresponsible.

> ...but I do know that he's being held to a much higher standard than almost anyone else because of his race.

Your measuring stick is 90% blank. How you measure "higher standard" are table stakes in the Ivies.

csa already did a good job explaining this which apparently didn't sway you, so I'm going to try a different tack.

If you ever get the opportunity to meet in person face to face in an intimate setting with Bill Clinton, Barack Obama or Arnold Schwarzenegger, I encourage you to avail yourself, and observe as detached as you can. The change in the room is palpable and electric. Their charisma is off the charts powerful.

I'm familiar with Clinton's charisma, and it is stunning to watch at work. It isn't just his extraordinarily comprehensive recall, but also how he deploys it. You can observe the mechanics, like warmly restarting a thread of conversation with someone he last met a few years ago as if he simply turned around from another party guest a few seconds ago. But even among top politicians who employ the same technique, he stands out in the refined fashion with which he delivers it.

Think how many people regularly in your life have that kind of charisma. The Ivies still reject candidates with that level of magnetic personality because they lack in other dimensions.

By using the metrics you use, you are limiting your son and yourself. Those metrics come with a hard ceiling. Where the Ivies are going, there are no ceilings, there are no metrics in the first place. World class admissions means being open to von Neumann-scale, I-didn't-believe-that-possible possibilities to surprise the admissions committee and delight in that.

You don't achieve that surprise and delight with what you have mentioned so far.

Your son sounds like a terrific human being and you are rightfully fiercely proud of him and what you have accomplished as a parent and successful immigrant. Keep pushing forward on that trajectory, for college is not the pinnacle, just another foothill towards that summit reached at the end of our life. He can (and I'm sure will) still achieve incredible heights in his life, Ivy or not, as long as he continues to improve himself and the little part of the universe around him that he can personally make better. Successful dents in the universe have rarely historically come stamped with Ivy diplomas, and I wish someday to read about a dent your son makes and delight in my surprise at where that dent shows up.

I'm not naive. Places like Harvard select the best of the best, and that students like my son will be common in their applicant pool, etc. The original point I made and stand by was that, AA should be based on economic conditions, not race. Race should not be used as a short-hand for economic adversity. I think colleges just want to see more "black and brown" faces, and Asian Americans (including brown-skinned Indians, like my son) are not the right shade of brown.

Thanks for your sentiments in the last paragraph. He will make a dent!

> By using the metrics you use, you are limiting your son and yourself. Those metrics come with a hard ceiling. Where the Ivies are going, there are no ceilings, there are no metrics in the first place. World class admissions means being open to von Neumann-scale, I-didn't-believe-that-possible possibilities to surprise the admissions committee and delight in that.

This is worded extremely well.

I think many people grossly underestimate what a motivated and talented high schooler can do, largely due to the conceptual ceilings that are pervasive in our society.

You forgot to mention two very important points:

1) The ivy leagues (and many other colleges of the US) shifted from a purely meritocratic assessment to an "all rounder" vetting process of potential candidates simply to eliminate the "undesirables" (at that time, mostly jews).

> The first thing to understand is that everything we know about selective college admissions today is less than a century old. So if you go back to 1910 or 1920, the Ivy League schools were not particularly expensive. They were not particularly desirable, in that they didn't have five or 10 or 20 times as many applicants as there were spots. And they weren’t particularly rigorous about vetting students ... So how did we get from there to here today, when these schools are desirable, expensive, and have a very rigorous vetting process?

> The answer is that most of those measures came about as part of the effort to limit the percentage of Jews in the student body. The extensive college application of multiple pages came about because they added questions to figure out if an applicant was Jewish, including What’s your religion? What is your father’s occupation? What is your mother’s maiden name? Where were your parents born? At some schools, they asked you to attach a photograph. Some began to require an interview. And that was in part so they could try to suss out if you were Jewish or not.

(Source: America’s most prestigious universities became elite through policies designed to keep Jews out of them. - https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/deep-shtetl/632c8ea068f6... ).

> ... the Ivy League didn't really want them. Being first-generation students, these applicants didn't have rich alumni parents who would be likely to donate big bucks. Being from an ethnicity not associated with America's governing class, they didn't help the Ivy League with its biggest selling point — that going to college there provides an opportunity to rub shoulders with America's governing class. And they were seen as boring grinds who studied too hard and weren't much fun.

> The result was a change in admissions criteria to reward "leadership," and "well-rounded" candidates — a thin disguise for "WASPs" — and, following closely on, actual quotas for Jewish students, so that no matter how many applied, their numbers on campus would stay just about the same.

Source: Asians get the Ivy League's Jewish treatment: Column - https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/11/23/ivy-league...

Yeah, it looks like they are doing the same thing with the Asian-Americans today (who have a similar immigrant cultural values like the jewish immigrants of the early 20th century - strong family ties and cultural importance to getting a good education).

2) If you are rich and have money to bribe these colleges, the "minimum qualification" will be "adjusted" to accommodate you. (Source: How elite US schools give preference to wealthy and white 'legacy' applicants - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/23/elite-school... ).

Let me give a less Monty Burns-esque take on things (with one very valid wart):

1. A good history of the SAT and ACT can be found here: https://www.erikthered.com/tutor/sat-act-history-printable.h...

2. Here is another very solid source on the wart (Lowell): https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/10/27/opinion/harvard-presi...

3. One goal of standardized tests in the early 1900s was to get the better students and a more diverse group of students into the better schools rather than lean very heavily on feeder WASP private schools (which had been standard up until then). There were societal needs that the the existing admissions processes did not address on a number of levels.

4. Eliot, Harvard president in the early 1900s before Lowell, embraced diversity. "Eliot was bragging to The New York Times about Harvard’s racial, ethnic, and religious diversity as well as its economic class diversity."

5. A racist Lowell became president and implemented a Jewish quota in the 1920s.

6. In the 1930s, Conant, Lowell's successor, gradually eased these quotas and focused on using the SAT as less-biased assessment tool. "Eight years after rejecting the SAT for use in admissions, Harvard begins requiring all prospective scholarship students to take the SAT. The president of the university, James Conant, feels that the test provides an accurate assessment of a student's intelligence. (Conant reasons that the SAT could then be used by Harvard to select scholarship candidates from among students other than those from well-known East Coast private schools.) By 1938, all of the College Board member schools will be using the SAT to evaluate scholarship applicants."

7. In summary, Lowell's Jewish quota was only in place for a decade or so (a dark time to be sure). Prior to and after that, diversity found via various forms of merit were aggressively sought after.

8. Some of your quotes seem to suggest that academically strong students are also boring grinds. It is possible to be strong academically while also being well-rounded, regardless of your race. The definition of "well-rounded" may have been tailored during Lowell's time to exclude Jews, but a modern day definition definitely does not exclude any race by design (e.g., it is possible to be an acclaimed Asian athlete, leader, artist, etc.).

9. There are book-length treatments of the subject of Harvard's history of seeking diversity that are quite compelling (noting that Harvard never was and never has been perfect). Rather than read and quote click-bait articles about the topic, I would encourage folks to read one of these books. Student Diversity at the Big Three: Changes at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Since the 1920s is one possible book, but I'm not sure it's the best (I read a very good one in the 00s, but I cannot remember the title or author). The Chosen is another.

I will close with a quote from the Boston Globe link above:

"Don’t be fooled by those using the Jewish quota of the mid-20th century or charges of discrimination against Asian Americans (also despicable when true, but which the lower courts convincingly found was not the case here) as an excuse to limit the inclusion of Black and Latino students at selective universities. We should be celebrating, not ending, the policies of diversity and inclusion that opened universities to Catholics, Jews, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, women, and other outsiders."

I would add that those CollegeVine calculators (and any acceptance rate calculator) are not based on any real data - extracurriculars really make or break applications at top schools when every applicant is in the 95th percentile. You can't really use that as data, although a lot of the data sets for top schools do support those acceptance rates you mention. If your child's school uses Naviance, that is a far more useful tool in my opinion for looking at acceptance rates since it takes data from your school district.

@thejman5200 That used to be the case, but for the last 2 years, CollegeVine's chancing calculator is pretty close (+/- 4%) to the real acceptance rates (https://www.collegevine.com/admissions-calculator)

Our HS uses both CollegeVine and Naviance. FWIW, Naviance shows my kid's chances ~2% higher on average.

Since race is a social construct with no objective definition, your son can select whichever value he likes in the race field without legal penalty. Or just leave it blank.

> Since race is a social construct with no objective definition

That does not mean it is not a thing.

If you suffer no consequences from lying then it's not a thing

I suggest, if you can afford it, to try go for a European university. There's great ones in Germany, Netherlands, England, Ireland (my home)

I just wanna say… apply to Harvey Mudd! Way better than those ivies anyway!

We're definitely applying there!

Someone asked why he has to apply to elite STEM schools -- he will get a great education anywhere. That may be true, but he's one of those kids who love to be surrounded by people smarter than him and be inspired by them. It's weird but the harder the class, the more fun he seems to have. He wants to be challenged in college. He will thrive at Mudd.

the problem with HM is the population is so small that it's insignificant compared to the other schools. it's much more impacted, so even if their numbers align more with what you want, there are only a few hundred spots

> I am 100% against affirmative action on the basis of race.

The problem with your statement is that affirmative actions is not based solely on race, so it appears that you are attempting to or have mistakenly fallen into perpetuating an offensive myth that the main beneficiaries of it are Black/Hispanic.

The group that has benefited the most from affirmative action are White/Non-Hispanic women.

White Women and Affirmative Action https://www.racismreview.com/blog/2014/03/11/white-women-aff...

White women benefit most from affirmative action https://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11682950/fisher-supreme-court-...

> My wife and I came to this country with a few hundred dollars...

That's a great story, how you came up, after immigrating to America from India and were able to take advantage of the opportunity. However, very important points that you have glossed over is the history of slavery, redlining, Jim Crow (and other laws), voting suppression, etc... of Black Americans who are the descendants of slaves. They (and other ethnic groups) were being shut out of opportunities, and the courts were attempting to alleviate this in some way. The original purpose of affirmative action, was to help those that were being actively and consistently discriminated against.

As a more recent immigrant, you are benefiting from laws and polices, which are the result of historical issues, court battles, and actual battles in America. Many Americans fought, died, and were jailed to get laws changed.

The context of why affirmative action was created, should not be skipped over, as if it applies simply to one person's situation and benefit. That you don't need something, is great for your situation, but that doesn't mean that's true for other ethnic groups and their situations.

"Affirmative action laws are policies instituted by the government to help level the playing field for those historically disadvantaged due to factors such as race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. These laws typically pertain to equal opportunities in employment, education, and business."

What is Affirmative Action and Why Was it Created? https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/what-is-affirmative-action...

> For my son, keeping everything else the same but simply changing his race from Asian to Black/Hispanic increases his chances...

That's gaming the system, for personal benefits, and contrary to the purposes for which affirmative action was created. That would be like a guy saying that if he writes down he's a different gender, he can now cheat his way into getting something he should not (by pretending to be female). If anything, you should arguably be against people falsifying documents or trying to present themselves as something they are not.

We agree on the big picture but not the details. Instead of race, why not look at economic position? I think the white family living in poverty in rural Appalachia is probably more deserving of AA than the middle-class Black family in Atlanta today. If there's a kid with a lower GPA/SAT than my son, but he's worked throughout HS, didn't have the same resources we have, he deserves acknowledgement and assistance. Colleges should definitely consider that as a factor. But that is irrespective of race.

I don't think you are seeing the historical context. Race is very much a part of it. America had to overcome slavery, redlining, Jim Crow, etc... These were based on race, not economic position. Affirmative action is an attempt to rectify the long standing American issues of discrimination based on race and other attributes (sex, color, etc...).

Economic position or being at an economic disadvantage is a different argument than what you had originally presented and the attack on affirmative action. America did not develop as, and still is not, a society blind to race, color, or sex. Better that you had made that argument, which would possibly be along the lines of better loans, scholarships, free education, etc...

From what I understood of your comment, a black person in a rich neighbourhood should get preferential treatment over a white person in a poor one? Because historically black people were mistreated?

What if white people are, in the future, treated as second class citizens, should AA then be for white ones?

IMO using racist policy to fight racism is just not going to end well.

Ideally yes, the economic situation should be taken into account as well. But what's the use of enforcing this at college level, when for underprivileged kids (any kind - wrong race, low class, bad neighborhood) the ship of chances sailed away already when they couldn't get through a proper primary school? The OP situation will happen again and again, kids with lower scores will get pushed ahead so the average "smartness" of that school will decrease. Because what is good for one individual can be detrimental in general, and what is positive in general can be detrimental for one individual. Just about any policy will have holes through some people will fall, and even if I propose a quality education starting from grade 1, I'm sure some people will point out somebody getting a hit from it.

In my opinion, a possible solution would be to get rid of district based funding for schools and instead fund schools mostly based on student amount. One problem of that model is that it can result in teachers avoiding certain schools because that school having a bad rep and thus that school having to pick worse teachers.

Another solution I could see working is making it much easier for students to go to other schools than the default one assigned to them. Altough, that runs into issues of areas where there isn't any "wealthy" school nearby.

I get that it's an incredibly difficult problem to solve and that, tbh, I don't really have much of a clue how to solve it either. So the best I can do is throwing ideas at the wall to see what is workable, while opposing policies I see that I deem to be actively harmful.

Thinking more about my ideas, I think there is a link, altough can't really argument that one atm, behind "no child left behind" and "bad" schools getting worse.

The problem with getting rid of district-based funding is that the worst schools often already get the most per student funding because the state (at least that's the case where I am!). Ultimately the problem is that more money doesn't necessarily result in better outcomes

I have no idea of specific numbers but this does not seem to fit the anecdotal experience of my city. :/

It is a complex multifaceted situation that might differ based on region, but in my moderately large mid-west city, the difference in curb appeal of the public schools in the wealthy suburbs vs the more urban schools closer to where I lived was wild (and I would expect curb appeal to be the easiest needle to move with just money). Forget the academics and the student environment. The suburb districts were best-in-the-state experiences while some of the high school kids I worked with from the more urban schools just wanted to make it through the day without a knife fight....

In my city, the curb appeal of the wealthy suburbs with good schools is absolutely there too. But the inner city knife-fighting schools actually get more total money per student (because the state makes up the difference and then some). That translates into generally newer school buildings in the city, but generally worse outcomes. Which points to the fact that money isn't everything. Good administration matters. Teacher-student ratios matter. Home life matters. Without those things, more money doesn't solve education problems! Money helps on all those fronts, but it in itself isn't sufficient without good execution

You need to remove insane policy of funding public schools from local taxes.

Are we sure that we wouldn't have the exactly same discussion in that situation? Because your son would be - again - pushed aside, just by a different underrepresented group.

>That's a great story, how you came up, after immigrating to America from India. However, very important points that you have glossed over is the history of slavery, redlining, Jim Crow (and other laws), voting suppression, etc... of Black Americans who are the descendants of slaves. They (and other ethnic groups) were being shut out of opportunities, and the courts were attempting to alleviate this in some way. The original purpose of affirmative action, was to help those that were being actively and consistently discriminated against.

And not one of those things is in the least bit his fault or responsibility, least of all the fault or responsibility of his son or many other kids in the same situation. It's a pernicious, grotesque notion that people with no personal or ancestral fault in a specific historical context should be punished for its existence as a compensation to others. The idea is in fact little better than the implicit punishment-through-bias accorded to other minorities because they or their ancestors were at one time considered inferior. A society can alleviate past wrongs without creating new ones of a similar if softer flavor against yet other collectively defined groups.

>As a more recent immigrant, you are benefiting from laws and polices, which are the result of historical issues, court battles, and actual battles in America. Many Americans fought, died, and were jailed to get laws changed.

And so what? Does he somehow owe a personal debt to a country because it, for reasons of its own, decided to fix and fight against internal historical wrongs that its own people had created in the first place? Another idiotic and ugly idea: that a country makes itself better and then is right to foist part of the cost onto people who later come to it specifically because it's supposedly become a better and more just place, as if they'd had a part in its previous wrongs.

That you make such absurd arguments shows how much the ideological aspect of affirmative action (vs. its practical, carefully balanced merits) has contaminated much progressive thinking.

Every generation inherits the debts of the past and a duty to pay it down. Just because I was born into this world and personally did not endorse the use of CFCs or the petrodollar system doesn’t mean I’m absolved of being a participant in finding solutions to the nth-order effects these technologies introduce into the world.

I’m doubtful the majority agree with you on that!

> It's a pernicious, grotesque notion that people with no personal or ancestral fault in a specific historical context should be punished for its existence as a compensation to others.

Yeah, affirmitive action kinda warped into something akin to the biblical original sin IMO.

> And so what? Does he somehow owe a personal debt to a country because it, for reasons of its own, decided to fix and fight against internal historical wrongs that its own people had created in the first place?

Yes. He owes a personal debt because the average wealth of white families is vastly higher than that of black families because they were exploited for 300+ years.

The black student who worked even harder but started much further behind, with far fewer resources, deserves a shot too. Even if they didn't get as far.

You're comparing an ultra-privileged child with a child who comes far behind. So course you need to factor that in!

Otherwise you might as well just look at their net worth and only admit children of the rich, because look, they're so far ahead in life already.

> That you make such absurd arguments shows how much the ideological aspect of affirmative action (vs. its practical, carefully balanced merits) has contaminated much progressive thinking.

You have been contaminated by racism and a lack of caring. You want to live in a world where black people are an endless underclass that you can exploit.

Truly, what the hell? First, the guy in question is from India and isn't an Anglo/European white man who "benefited" from centuries of exploitation of blacks in the United States. Secondly, many white people in the United States today also managed to build a life for themselves without having done so. Your notion of historical guilt really is more like the absurd religious idea of original sin than a realistic or genuinely fair minded concept of justice and blame.

Furthermore, nothing I said is about continuing to exploit black people or advocating racism. It's specifically about redressing past wrongs against African Americans and other minorities without creating new ones against other arbitrarily assigned groups, particularly if they're immigrants who have also had to suffer for their forward movement and have no personal fault in the past racial tensions and injustices of a country they're not originally from.

Why would you completely misinterpret a fairly straightforward argument in the most emotionally charged, simplistic and negative way possible?

> Why would you completely misinterpret a fairly straightforward argument in the most emotionally charged, simplistic and negative way possible?

Why would you ignore basic facts? White families in the US stole from black families for centuries. Today the average white family has more than 10x the wealth of the average black family.

This must be fixed. It is not a "historical wrong". It is a wrong that is occurring now. Today. To real people. By the wealthy in the US toward minorities who are much poorer.

> the guy in question is from India and isn't an Anglo/European white man who "benefited" from centuries of exploitation of blacks in the United States

What nonsense.

He moved to a country where white people stole from black people for centuries. Then said "Well, we're rich now, and the theft happened a while ago, so.. good luck!". And now he shares in that stolen wealth. He is as responsible as everyone else.

> Furthermore, nothing I said is about continuing to exploit black people or advocating racism. It's specifically about redressing past wrongs against African Americans and other minorities without creating new ones against other arbitrarily assigned groups, particularly if they're immigrants who have also had to suffer for their forward movement and have no personal fault in the past racial tensions and injustices of a country they're not originally from.

How can you redress a wrong against black and native people if it's illegal to look at whether someone is black or native when giving life-changing opportunities?

Come on.

Just admit it. You enjoy your racism and have zero desire to help anyone. Stop hiding behind "I totally want to help people, as long as literally no one is inconvenienced, without any plan, outcomes, or goals." Please.

> Just admit it. You enjoy your racism and have zero desire to help anyone.

Please refrain from senseless personal attacks as per HN commenting guidelines:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsgu idelines.html

I cannot help recalling a quote that my grandfather repeated to me earlier this evening: "when you run out of reasons, your argument gets louder."

I think you have an extraordinarily skewed idea of how wealth is usually created, how productivity works and how legal redress should handle these things in a functional society. All this aside from your very emotional, contextually ignorant claims about me being racist and other people being guilty of exploiting African Americans because those other people happen to have been successful in some way.

An immigrant from India (or anywhere really), who arrives to the US and then works hard to exchange some sort of value for voluntary compensation from others is most definitely not making themselves better off by sharing in "stolen wealth" from some previous century. They're doing what all of us (of any color or creed) do every day to stay mutually economically solvent. By your logic, even modern African Americans would be guilty of the same thing because their increased standard of living is a part of the same economic participation in exchange of "stolen" wealth.

Too much to unpack here in further argument, but i'd suggest more carefully considering these positions.

>That's gaming the system, for personal benefits, and contrary to the purposes for which affirmative action was created

It should have been abundantly clear to anyone that I mentioned CollegeVine to show how the system works, not that we intend to apply as another race. Sheesh.

TL;DR: According to you, an Indian teenager born in the 21st century should be treated as less desirable during a college admission process, because of things that some white people did to some black people in the 19th and 20th century.

Sorry, this is textbook bigotry to me, and I am dismayed by the fact that this way of thinking infested the American academia and half of its political system.

As a young guy in the 1990s, I knew a few old bigoted Polish Catholics who disliked the Jews because they "killed Christ". Being naive, I was thinking back then that this kind of heritable guilt was on its way out. Nope, I was wrong. The ideology that you describe is arguably even more nonsensical, classifying totally unrelated ethnic groups as "white-adjacent" and assigning them the same or even greater level of malus points.

The most absurd thing about your argument is that OPs ancestors probably lived under British colonial rule more recently than American blacks under their masters, and approximately at the same time when Jim Crow was rampant. And in 2022, white liberals treat them as undesirables once again, and once again for racist reasons; only the details have changed, but not the principle: Sorry, there is too much of your people on the campus already. Begone.

> According to you, an Indian teenager born in the 21st century should be treated as less desirable during a college admission process, because of things that some white people did to some black people in the 19th and 20th century.

Nowhere did I state that. You are putting words into my mouth and making up fake arguments. You are doing a classic straw man. Just stop, with that, and argue actual points that I made.

For the record, I have zero bias against young smart Indian Americans trying to get into college, nor against their parents who have done their best to raise and provide for them.

> Nowhere did I state that. You are putting words into my mouth and making up fake arguments. You are doing a classic straw man. Just stop, with that, and argue actual points that I made.

But that is exactly the result of your preferred policies. You don't just get to push for a policy and then walk away from the consequences claiming they have nothing to do with you.

If you defend race-based affirmative action that lowers chances of Asian youth to get into certain spots - and this is what current affirmative action obviously does - you are fine with the larger picture, even without stating it explicitely.

You cannot disawow the consequences while supporting the mechanism that produced them. It is like saying "I hate reeducation camps and cultural revolutions but I support Maoism".

its all about you and your son apparently?

You're totally missing the point. If it's happening to me, it's happening to many thousands of other families too, and it's not OK.

Why not? His son appears to have put forth the effort and sacrificed plenty, far more than 99% of students, and looks like his son has the smarts and grit for it as well. This should be about these people in this world.

Why are you making it out like it isn't? This is quite literally THE subject. Why is his son being penalized for his skin color?

There is no logical stance for Affirmative Action as it currently stands without admitting that you are for racist policies.

Racism by definition in the English language asserts racial superiority of one race over another. A policy being race aware isn’t necessarily asserting any form of superiority, and is therefore by definition not racist. I realize people want to use the word “racist” because it implies something bad being done related to race, but they fail to realize that the “bad” of racism is racial supremacy - not the “race” part.

Injustice tends to work on personal level.

Would you happily sacrifice your son's wellbeing for the Greater Good, or whatever some talking heads say that the Greater Good is?

In that case, think hard about yourself, because you just might be sliding into fanaticism, or that kind of suckership that keeps tyrants afloat and fills their armies with cannon fodder since time immemorial.

Let's talk numbers, then. How many cases like this would you consider an acceptable price to pay for the sake of remedying other discrimination?

When the Supreme Court strikes down legalized discrimination against asians, I hope you remember who put those judges there.

Politics is about people voting in their self interest. If you're Asian, that calculus is simple. Trump might be boorish and say mean things, but his side wants to maintain a system that has worked extraordinarily well for Asians. Poor Asian kids have more than double the income mobility of poor white kids. Vietnamese people came to Reagan’s america in poverty, and closed the gap within a generation. The numbers are irrefutable.

Sure, the other side will make an elaborate show of learning how to pronounce your name. But they want to create a system where your kids (and my kids) will be left holding the short end of the stick simply because they're "not the right kind of diversity." Just consider the phrase they love to use "BIPOC." Non-white people all lumped together, our distinctions erased, except for two groups listed as "first among equals." They are telling you who they are, believe them!

And don't think for a second it will stop at college admissions: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-affirmative-action-had.... In Kamala Harris’s America, Asians will be 7% of the engineers at Google and Facebook, instead of 40%. That’s “equity.”

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