> She found that “the majority of the disparity” in the personal ratings was “more likely caused by race-affected inputs to the admissions process” (such as high-school recommendation letters) or “underlying differences in the attributes” of Asian American and white applicants (meaning that the scores accurately reflected the groups’ qualities). Her bottom line was that Asian Americans’ low personal ratings were “not the result of intentional discrimination” by Harvard.

I suspect this is true, but also shows why subjective evaluation is bad. I have no doubt that, on average, white applicants (socialized into American culture) are better able to persuade some college administrator that they care about something other than getting a job at McKinsey or Goldman than an Asian applicant (who is likely socialized into Asian culture even if born here).

I’m reminded of Barbara Walter’s awful speech at my brother’s graduation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7llYZ2XqLX4. In my experience this is both a common way white Americans think and also bizarre to most Asians. We shouldn’t force Asian kids to go along with this silliness just to get into school.