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This to me says that assimilation doesn't work. The article states: "boasting higher test scores, better grades, and stronger extracurricular resumes than appl

This to me says that assimilation doesn't work. The article states: "boasting higher test scores, better grades, and stronger extracurricular resumes than applicants of any other racial group, Asian American applicants consistently received lower rankings on those personality traits" The outcome was to move the bar to soft skills: things like “likability,” “helpfulness,” “integrity,” and “courage” This has happened to minority groups of all backgrounds in this country since its inception.

filoleg 6y ago
>This to me says that assimilation doesn't work Even the whole argument about success rates of assimilation aside, this doesn't seem to check out. How does this whole "assimilation doesn't work" argument even flow from the statement? Asian Americans referenced were all born in the US, grew up here, went through the education system here, etc. There is nowhere they need to assimilate to, they were born Americans and grew up here. This is their primary culture, not that of a country where their ancestors were born. I am leaving a big possibility that I completely misunderstood your comment, so please correct me if my interpretation of it was incorrect.
- jhowell 6y ago
  I think you're looking at the problem from your perspective and not theirs.
  - muststopmyths 6y ago
    so you meant to say assimilation doesn't work for them ? Makes me see your statement in a completely different light so you may want to qualify that :)
fmajid 6y ago
Except when alumni interviewed candidates, there was no such difference, only when university staff did. A pretty convincing smoking gun if you ask me. I am glad I studied in France, where admission to elite schools is based purely on objective entrance exams (emphasis on Math). It’s not a perfect system, rich parents can afford tutors and teachers can tutor their kids, but it’s a hella fairer than the system in the US, corrupted by legacy admissions, sports scholarships and racial quotas that purposefully ignore socioeconomic disparity, because it’s easier for the powers-that-be to throw poor rural white kids under the bus than something that might adversely impact their own children.
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  This is ironic because in the U.S. most people believe the S.A.T. is the most biased portion of the college entrance criteria.
  - wittyreference 6y ago
    1) Is that actually "most" people? 2) Is the belief that it's the "most" biased? I've heard the claim that the SAT is biased against lower SES for a while now, but more on the left than the right, and I've never heard "most" biased.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      We need to intervene much much earlier than college admissions if we want to fix that. But it's a really difficult problem because cultures in low SES areas like where I grew up tend to shame and beat the shit out of smart kids, and one culture's "intervention" is another's "unwelcome interference".
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > This is ironic because in the U.S. most people believe the S.A.T. is the most biased portion of the college entrance criteria. I don't see any evidence either that most people believe that or that it's true. I personally find it more likely that high school grades and extracurriculars are probably the most biased portions (grades because a large portion of them usually depends on assignments with loose grading rubrics, which are empirically linked to greater racial and other bias for otherwise similar responses, and extracurriculars because both access and evaluation of them is impacted by cultural factors of both the student, the evaluators, and other members of society.
  - babesh 6y ago
    The SAT correlates more to college performance than high school grades. Also the current SAT has been determined to be not racially biased.
    - 6y ago
causality0 6y ago
The most obvious course of action would be to deny the school any knowledge of an applicants race. Assign them a random number instead of a name and only conduct text-based interviews. When I was in university I remember being somewhat intimidated by the asian students because I knew that while other white students had an even chance of being smarter or dumber than me, the asian ones were all probably smarter than me just to get in.

filoleg 6y ago

>This to me says that assimilation doesn't work Even the whole argument about success rates of assimilation aside, this doesn't seem to check out. How does this whole "assimilation doesn't work" argument even flow from the statement? Asian Americans referenced were all born in the US, grew up here, went through the education system here, etc. There is nowhere they need to assimilate to, they were born Americans and grew up here. This is their primary culture, not that of a country where their ancestors were born. I am leaving a big possibility that I completely misunderstood your comment, so please correct me if my interpretation of it was incorrect.

jhowell 6y ago
I think you're looking at the problem from your perspective and not theirs.
- muststopmyths 6y ago
  so you meant to say assimilation doesn't work for them ? Makes me see your statement in a completely different light so you may want to qualify that :)

fmajid 6y ago

Except when alumni interviewed candidates, there was no such difference, only when university staff did. A pretty convincing smoking gun if you ask me. I am glad I studied in France, where admission to elite schools is based purely on objective entrance exams (emphasis on Math). It’s not a perfect system, rich parents can afford tutors and teachers can tutor their kids, but it’s a hella fairer than the system in the US, corrupted by legacy admissions, sports scholarships and racial quotas that purposefully ignore socioeconomic disparity, because it’s easier for the powers-that-be to throw poor rural white kids under the bus than something that might adversely impact their own children.

JamesBarney 6y ago
This is ironic because in the U.S. most people believe the S.A.T. is the most biased portion of the college entrance criteria.
- wittyreference 6y ago
  1) Is that actually "most" people? 2) Is the belief that it's the "most" biased? I've heard the claim that the SAT is biased against lower SES for a while now, but more on the left than the right, and I've never heard "most" biased.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    We need to intervene much much earlier than college admissions if we want to fix that. But it's a really difficult problem because cultures in low SES areas like where I grew up tend to shame and beat the shit out of smart kids, and one culture's "intervention" is another's "unwelcome interference".
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > This is ironic because in the U.S. most people believe the S.A.T. is the most biased portion of the college entrance criteria. I don't see any evidence either that most people believe that or that it's true. I personally find it more likely that high school grades and extracurriculars are probably the most biased portions (grades because a large portion of them usually depends on assignments with loose grading rubrics, which are empirically linked to greater racial and other bias for otherwise similar responses, and extracurriculars because both access and evaluation of them is impacted by cultural factors of both the student, the evaluators, and other members of society.
- babesh 6y ago
  The SAT correlates more to college performance than high school grades. Also the current SAT has been determined to be not racially biased.
  - 6y ago

causality0 6y ago

The most obvious course of action would be to deny the school any knowledge of an applicants race. Assign them a random number instead of a name and only conduct text-based interviews. When I was in university I remember being somewhat intimidated by the asian students because I knew that while other white students had an even chance of being smarter or dumber than me, the asian ones were all probably smarter than me just to get in.