I was part of a program that changed to graduate admissions based solely on subject GRE score. The first such resulting class was 88% Chinese, 4% Taiwanese, and

I was part of a program that changed to graduate admissions based solely on subject GRE score. The first such resulting class was 88% Chinese, 4% Taiwanese, and 8% white American. Did they do that well as a class in graduate studies or in academia? No. Some were great, some were terrible, just like every other year. The years where admission was done based on prior math research instead resulted in a more interesting group of students, although again some were great, some were terrible. It's well-known that in subject GREs Chinese students score very well compared to American students of any racial or ethnic background. (As a Chinese friend asked, "Why don't you Americans just study for it, like we do?") However, subject GRE scores are not that predictive of success in a graduate program. Research skills, writing ability, grit, and the simple capacity to get stuff done are not well-predicted by multiple choice exams. It is useful to know that students who do well on, for instance, the math subject GRE can do triple integrals quickly. That's about it. So, since subject GREs don't predict graduate success, and SATs are not that well-correlated with college success either [1], admissions committees use other factors to evaluate students. In fact, a number of schools do not require any standardized test [2]. These other factors range widely and include high school grades, which are most predictive of college success, volunteer work, interestingness, etc. And they do include race and geographic origin. Small colleges in the Midwest are currently targeting California, Texas, and Florida for recruitment because of their huge numbers of graduating seniors, and the coastal schools let in some token Midwesterners to provide some leavening to their provincial views of flyover country. There is discrimination against Asian Americans in admissions in the US. It's not written into policy explicitly: it's just like discrimination against women and blacks today, taking the form of discussion of "fit" or subjective evaluation of how interesting someone's work is. It should stop, and the comparison to the "Jewish quotas" is apt. At the same time, test-based admissions are ludicrous, and evaluation of extracurricular activities and accomplishments given the student's environment are necessary. I had friends at Caltech who went to high schools that didn't offer calculus: smart people come from all sorts of backgrounds. [1] https://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/Validity_of_the_SAT_for_Predicting_First_Year_College_Grade_Point_Average.pdf https://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/Validity... [2] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/02/19/study-finds-little-difference-academic-success-students-who-do-and-dont-submit-sat https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/02/19/study-finds-l...