> "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

> "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.