4 ms·

If culturally-discriminating WASP admissions officers were the main barrier, one would not expect non-Jewish whites to be the most underrepresented group in the

If culturally-discriminating WASP admissions officers were the main barrier, one would not expect non-Jewish whites to be the most underrepresented group in the Ivy League. Circa 2019, looking at non-international students only: Ivy League US Ratio Mean SAT score [1] Jewish 17.2% 2.4% 7.16 n/a Asian 19.6% 5.3% 3.71 1216 White (incl. Jewish) 50.3% 61.5% 0.82 1148 Hispanic 11.4% 17.6% 0.65 1043 Black 7.8% 12.7% 0.61 966 White (non-Jewish) 33.1% 59.1% 0.56 ~1141 (lower estimate) Percentages don't sum to 100 because multi-ethnic students, a few minor ethnicities (American-Indian, Pacific Islander..), and students categorized as "unknown"/"other" by the universities were excluded. Data on university undergraduate demographics was taken from the universities own diversity reports. Jewish representation was gathered from http://hillel.org/college-guide/list/ http://hillel.org/college-guide/list/, https://forward.com/jewish-college-guide/ https://forward.com/jewish-college-guide/, and https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/how-many-jewish-undergraduates/ https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/how-many-jewish-undergraduat..., taking the lowest estimate when sources conflicted. ejewishphilanthropy.com (eJP) points out flaws in Hillel's data gathering (e.g. showing Harvard as 30% Jewish, when eJP found it only 16%) Hillel seems to have since fixed these flaws, as the estimates they now give are in-line with those of eJP. [1] https://www.ednc.org/eraceing-inequities-the-influence-of-race-on-sat-scores/ https://www.ednc.org/eraceing-inequities-the-influence-of-ra...

rayiner 4y ago
Sure you would. WASPs don’t like Jews and never have. Only the justifications have changed.
- pannSun 4y ago
  It's the opposite. In a poll, WASPs gave Jews the 2nd highest rating (69, higher than Catholics, rating only themselves higher at 82), while Jews rated themselves at 89, and gave Evangelical Christians the lowest rating, 34. In other words, WASPs have a positive view of Jews, while Jews have a very negative view of WASPs. Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2014/07/16/how-americans-feel-about-religious-groups/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2014/07/16/how-american... 2nd table In fact, no country has a more positive view of Jews than the US (at least among those polled by Pew research): https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2008/09/17/chapter-1-views-of-religious-groups/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2008/09/17/chapter-1-view... - 2nd graph But this sampled all US residents, not just WASPs.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    That’s counting evangelical Protestants, which aren’t “WASPs” in the context of elite northeast educational institutions.
  - lupire 4y ago
    Random Americans feelings of "warmness" isn't the same as admissions officers decisions.
    - pannSun 4y ago
      There's no evidence of anti-Jewish bias in Ivy League admissions (the opposite, in fact), and polls also show friendly attitudes towards Jews among the general population, so I don't know what it would take to convince you. On the other hand, Ivy League students are only 33% non-Jewish white, and 4-5 of the 8 presidents are Jewish, per their wikipedia pages (Martha Pollack is listed as Jewish, but the citations in support of that claim are ambiguous, hence the uncertainty), so what makes you think that admissions are the exception where WASPs reign?
  - Rebelgecko 4y ago
    I wonder if the college administrators who enforced quotas on Jewish students would answer similarly (not being sarcastic, I generally wouldn't be surprised if they said in a survey that they had warm feelings towards the Jews)
- deleted 4y ago
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samatman 4y ago
Well, and there's the rub, right? Jews and Asians are overrepresented because they give the hard signal. Some absurd double-digit number of Asian students at Harvard have a perfect SAT score. What's taking assessment tests out of that picture likely to do to the percentage? It's not more WASPs, there are exactly twenty of those matriculating per year and they all drink blood out of a skull†. It's less Asians and more, heartfelt college essays about: you can fill that in, I'm sure. †I'm not actually blood-libeling WASPs, something about how conversations have gone here recently compels me to point this out. Remember the 2004 election? Me neither.
- pannSun 4y ago
  > Jews and Asians are overrepresented because they give the hard signal. Some absurd double-digit number of Asian students at Harvard have a perfect SAT score. That is why I included the SAT score in the table. Non-Jewish whites don't benefit from a higher score - they get admitted at approximately the same rates as Hispanic and Black students, despite 100-180 points higher mean SAT scores. On the other hand, the smaller, 70 point lead of Asians gives a 6.6x higher admission rate, and the unknown lead of Jewish students a 12.8x higher admission rate. Strange, isn't it?
  - samatman 4y ago
    If you don't know how linear changes in a score map to rarity of that score, then yeah, that's strange. If you do, you probably did ok on the SAT.
    - pannSun 4y ago
      Why don't you teach me? How are SAT scores distributed, that raising the mean by 175, from 966 to 1141, does not change the area above the Ivy League admission cutoff, but raising it by another 75 points to 1216, increases that area by a factor of 6.6x? Certainly not by the normal normal distribution - unless there were truly dramatic differences in the standard deviation. Do you have any evidence that there are, and are in the correct direction for your argument? Or you could look at e.g. Harvard's own documents and see that they required higher SAT scores for whites, and highest for Asians [1]. Of course they do not count Jews separately in those figures. [1] https://www.thecrimson.com/widget/2018/10/21/sat-by-race-graphic/ https://www.thecrimson.com/widget/2018/10/21/sat-by-race-gra...
polynox 4y ago
Why would you take U.S. population rather than world population?
- SamBam 4y ago
  This is a very good point. In particular, it completely throws out the "overrepresentation" ratio for Asian students. What's the actual ratio by number of applications?
- pannSun 4y ago
  A very good point! We can also ask why whites are underrepresented at Addis Ababa University, and why there are so few Latinos attending Osaka University. Because each university belongs to the whole world, and none were founded to serve their country.
deleted 4y ago
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rayiner 4y ago

Sure you would. WASPs don’t like Jews and never have. Only the justifications have changed.

pannSun 4y ago
It's the opposite. In a poll, WASPs gave Jews the 2nd highest rating (69, higher than Catholics, rating only themselves higher at 82), while Jews rated themselves at 89, and gave Evangelical Christians the lowest rating, 34. In other words, WASPs have a positive view of Jews, while Jews have a very negative view of WASPs. Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2014/07/16/how-americans-feel-about-religious-groups/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2014/07/16/how-american... 2nd table In fact, no country has a more positive view of Jews than the US (at least among those polled by Pew research): https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2008/09/17/chapter-1-views-of-religious-groups/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2008/09/17/chapter-1-view... - 2nd graph But this sampled all US residents, not just WASPs.
- rayiner 4y ago
  That’s counting evangelical Protestants, which aren’t “WASPs” in the context of elite northeast educational institutions.
- lupire 4y ago
  Random Americans feelings of "warmness" isn't the same as admissions officers decisions.
  - pannSun 4y ago
    There's no evidence of anti-Jewish bias in Ivy League admissions (the opposite, in fact), and polls also show friendly attitudes towards Jews among the general population, so I don't know what it would take to convince you. On the other hand, Ivy League students are only 33% non-Jewish white, and 4-5 of the 8 presidents are Jewish, per their wikipedia pages (Martha Pollack is listed as Jewish, but the citations in support of that claim are ambiguous, hence the uncertainty), so what makes you think that admissions are the exception where WASPs reign?
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  I wonder if the college administrators who enforced quotas on Jewish students would answer similarly (not being sarcastic, I generally wouldn't be surprised if they said in a survey that they had warm feelings towards the Jews)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

samatman 4y ago

Well, and there's the rub, right? Jews and Asians are overrepresented because they give the hard signal. Some absurd double-digit number of Asian students at Harvard have a perfect SAT score. What's taking assessment tests out of that picture likely to do to the percentage? It's not more WASPs, there are exactly twenty of those matriculating per year and they all drink blood out of a skull†. It's less Asians and more, heartfelt college essays about: you can fill that in, I'm sure. †I'm not actually blood-libeling WASPs, something about how conversations have gone here recently compels me to point this out. Remember the 2004 election? Me neither.

pannSun 4y ago
> Jews and Asians are overrepresented because they give the hard signal. Some absurd double-digit number of Asian students at Harvard have a perfect SAT score. That is why I included the SAT score in the table. Non-Jewish whites don't benefit from a higher score - they get admitted at approximately the same rates as Hispanic and Black students, despite 100-180 points higher mean SAT scores. On the other hand, the smaller, 70 point lead of Asians gives a 6.6x higher admission rate, and the unknown lead of Jewish students a 12.8x higher admission rate. Strange, isn't it?
- samatman 4y ago
  If you don't know how linear changes in a score map to rarity of that score, then yeah, that's strange. If you do, you probably did ok on the SAT.
  - pannSun 4y ago
    Why don't you teach me? How are SAT scores distributed, that raising the mean by 175, from 966 to 1141, does not change the area above the Ivy League admission cutoff, but raising it by another 75 points to 1216, increases that area by a factor of 6.6x? Certainly not by the normal normal distribution - unless there were truly dramatic differences in the standard deviation. Do you have any evidence that there are, and are in the correct direction for your argument? Or you could look at e.g. Harvard's own documents and see that they required higher SAT scores for whites, and highest for Asians [1]. Of course they do not count Jews separately in those figures. [1] https://www.thecrimson.com/widget/2018/10/21/sat-by-race-graphic/ https://www.thecrimson.com/widget/2018/10/21/sat-by-race-gra...

polynox 4y ago

Why would you take U.S. population rather than world population?

SamBam 4y ago
This is a very good point. In particular, it completely throws out the "overrepresentation" ratio for Asian students. What's the actual ratio by number of applications?
pannSun 4y ago
A very good point! We can also ask why whites are underrepresented at Addis Ababa University, and why there are so few Latinos attending Osaka University. Because each university belongs to the whole world, and none were founded to serve their country.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]