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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

No, because SAT scores don't determine admissions. A schoolmate of mine with straight A's who scored a perfect 1600 SAT was rejected from Harvard, because he had essentially zero extracurriculars.

Schools like Harvard and Princeton look both for well-rounded students ("future leaders" they call them), as well as diversity in their student body. This means they won't accept, for example, 100 top violin players in the same class, no matter how impressive their individual applications are. Instead, they want a complete and balanced orchestra, for example.

So if, hypothetically, Asians tended to disproportionately cluster in the same extracurricular activities, or have less extracurricular activities, then there would be a very valid non-race-based explanation for the SAT gap.

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> 100 top violin players in the same class, no matter how impressive their individual applications are. Instead, they want a complete and balanced orchestra, for example.

I agree that SAT scores shouldn't be the only factor, I disagree though if you are saying race can and should be factor. Where it's legal and appropriate to discriminate on say what instrument you play it is illegal (and most would agree immoral) to discriminate on race. Proving racial discrimination may be tricky in this case though.

it is illegal (and most would agree immoral) to discriminate on race

It is actually not illegal to discriminate based on race in educational admissions -- you just need to meet certain criteria (serve a "compelling interest" and not use quotas) to be able to do so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grutter_v._Bollinger

http://www.npr.org/news/specials/michigan/

The violins are not a metaphor for race. He is saying that if every asian applicant plays violin as an extracurricular, and the university only wants five accomplished violinists (because they also need some cellists and flutists et al), then being a violinist effectively stacks you up against all the other violinists vying for a spot.

This is relevant taken in light of the reputed homogeneity among asian applicants.

The remedy is nothing you haven't heard before, either. Stand out. Take up falconry instead of piano. There aren't many falconers.

> because he had essentially zero extracurriculars.

You have no way of knowing how true that is.

Distribution of talents (as you mention) among the applicants, and luck (a larger factor every year that the US population grows but the firstyear class doesn't) are the main factors.

Maybe not in his particular case...but as an alumni interviewer, I can tell you that personality and extracurriculars matter a lot.

"well-rounded students"

You're begging the question of whether or not Asian students are well-rounded. You just assume that, for the most part, they are not, and that it makes perfect sense to throw most of them out because they're all the same.

I don't think anyone's assuming anything of the kind -- or if they are, they're both wrong and offensive.

Go up a couple of posts, and the question was whether a gap in average test scores is sufficient to determine that there is bias. If there are other non-quantitative criteria such as being "well-rounded", then the answer is no -- we can't make any sort of statement about bias from test scores alone.

Whether the subset of Asian students that applies to a particular school is more or less rounded and displays a more or less diverse array of talents than the subset of students of another ethnicity that applies to that school is an empirical question that I don't think any of us should hazard any guesses on without seeing some actual data. If there is data available on the topic, I would love to be able to review it.

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