Our HS uses both CollegeVine and Naviance. FWIW, Naviance shows my kid's chances ~2% higher on average.

Asian immigrant class of US is probably the most inspiring story of the American Dream.

No its not fair which is why its controversial. The real problem is that famous schools are too prestigious right now and there aren't enough of them. Perhaps over time the newer schools who accept all the smart, hardworking students will become recognized for having the best grads.

That does not mean it is not a thing.

Someone asked why he has to apply to elite STEM schools -- he will get a great education anywhere. That may be true, but he's one of those kids who love to be surrounded by people smarter than him and be inspired by them. It's weird but the harder the class, the more fun he seems to have. He wants to be challenged in college. He will thrive at Mudd.

Many schools have honours programs or especially challenging degree programs, which will be filled with excellent and ambitious students, even if that school is not an ivy league.

Fast forward to the first time I meet them all in person, and I say to who I thought was the intern something like “how have you enjoyed your internship?”. Cue horrified looks, and my engineering manager counterpart swiftly moving in to smooth things over. Turns out the worst performing, least engaged engineer on the team was an FTE, and the UBC intern wasn’t even remotely who I thought it was (they were awesome)!

Downplaying that doesn't do anything for anyone.

That’s before we even unpack your claim that there’s a clear line between “top” and “middle” schools. I see it as more of a spectrum myself, ignoring “brand recognition” (which is a mostly meaningless metric).

> But he truly is a special kid who gets inspired by super smart people and thrives on challenges, and will do better at Cal, Caltech, Harvey Mudd etc.

As opposed to UW, UBC and Waterloo, which are filled with less intelligent people? It is laughable.

My theory - you have precisely zero idea what those schools even are.

Where IVY undergrad matters is if they plan to pursue a PHD. And even that is debatable.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30448083

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05222-x

Most relevant: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05222-x/tables/3

The reality is that the most elite universities create kind of a petite noblesse (necessary for moving into the upper nobility) that is very appealing to the middle class. I think the context here is that each race wants to keep the prestigious aspect of these schools in place but have it benefit their own group. We would probably all benefit if we got rid of this bottleneck by creating more stellar universities so that four or five universities don't have a monopoly on cachet but no one is interested in doing that.

IMHO, the best way forwards is for folks to push for the expansion of the size and power of the middle class by any means possible (government policies as well as simply patronizing small businesses with our money). We don't need a ruling elite that holds power partially by their common participation in 'prestigious' educational institutions. Those institutions demonstrably do not provide the best education, they should not serve as gatekeepers to power.

I am kind of disgusted with the whole thing though. I don't like all this zero sum competition over a name on a piece of paper.

I think in some other countries they have a system where if you make it past a threshold you have a guaranteed spot in their top tier school system. We should do that. We should educate people who have the talent and want to be educated, the specific name should be less important. I think this would ease a lot of tension, make things more fair, and provide the best outcome. But I don't even know if people would want this because the appeal of a super elite degree seems to be pretty enticing.

I have to think about the expansion of power of the middle class. Buying from small businesses would lessen the incentives to have these degrees to some extent. But I have to think about how to apply that to tech. The exact pedigree of a CS degree seems to be extremely important for example even if this is probably meaningless.

Why are you making it out like it isn't? This is quite literally THE subject. Why is his son being penalized for his skin color?

There is no logical stance for Affirmative Action as it currently stands without admitting that you are for racist policies.

Would you happily sacrifice your son's wellbeing for the Greater Good, or whatever some talking heads say that the Greater Good is?

In that case, think hard about yourself, because you just might be sliding into fanaticism, or that kind of suckership that keeps tyrants afloat and fills their armies with cannon fodder since time immemorial.

Let me help put your concerns to rest.

If Harvard et al changed their admissions policies to race blind tomorrow, your son still would not get in.

How do I know this? You are talking about his prospects as an applicant in a way that does not reflect a successful applicant (“another smart Indian male” or otherwise).

I assure you that Harvard and Stanford reject approximately zero “strong admit” applicants. Your son, based on what you have stated here, is not a strong admit applicant.

1. In academics, has your son done anything impressive at a national or international level? Think Westinghouse award, international science fair, or something similar. If not, has he published any academic papers (co-author ok)?

2. In sports, is your son a recruited athlete? Is he a HS varsity athlete who is competitive enough to compete at the university level? If so, has he expressed interest to the school and in the application?

3. In arts, has your son won a spot in a regional or national arts group (like youth symphony), or has he won a regional, national, or international arts competition?

4. In leadership/community, has your son started a successful business or group that has accomplished something meaningful?

5. In terms of non-racial diversity, is your son in a state and school that is under-represented in elite schools? We know that this answer is “no”, and quite the contrary, his school is probably highly-represented, so the school has a ballpark quota (range, not an absolute number). This is probably why his counselors have a good idea where he is in the school pecking order for school references.

Check out this article:

https://www.hispanicoutlook.com/articles/15-tips-minority-st...

Focus on #3. What is your son’s hook?

> but simply changing his race from Asian to Black/Hispanic increases his chances of getting in at the above elite schools from 4-8% to 60+%

Well, I am guessing that those numbers are correct, but I think that some of the story is being left out.

Some (many?) black or Hispanic students with your son’s profile will be actively courted by organizations that will give them the experience they need to stand out (their “hook”).

This may exist for Indian-Americans as well (I have no idea), but that wasn’t really reflected in anything you wrote.

Anyway, most if not all of the black and hispanic undergrads I’ve met at ivies have had a very compelling hook, typically in leadership or sports (iirc, 20% of Harvard’s entering class are varsity athletes, and maybe half of those are recruited, so sports being their “hook” is not rare).

> Is it fair to penalize my son for working hard and being an excellent student?

He is being “penalized” for having too narrow of a focus. That focus may work in some elite schools that have an all or nothing admissions exam (like some schools in India, Japan, China, etc.), but that type of focus is too narrow for many elite US universities.

The Ivies plus Stanford could fill their classes many times over with students who are very comparable to your son in terms of grades and SAT scores. They are looking for something more (the hook).

If the guidance counselors at your son’s school didn’t share that with him or you early in his high school career, then that’s really on them. They should know better assuming that they knew he had ambitions for an elite school.

No offense, but this is almost certainly a false narrative that you are telling yourself and your son. It’s not healthy.

You summarized everything else outside of his grades and SAT scores as “strong extracurriculars”.

Show me an impressive hook and a few rejections from elite schools, and I will agree that there is likely discrimination of some sort somewhere in the process (possibly his high school, possibly at the elite schools).

I somehow doubt that there is an impressive hook, otherwise you would have mentioned it.

Elite school admission is totally not a lottery for someone with your son’s scores and a strong hook. Quite the contrary, admission to at least one elite school is almost a lock, even as an Indian-American.

That said, most families with really smart kids don’t focus on the strong hook, often because they don’t know that they need to do so. As such, they are left grasping for explanations. Race is an easy crutch to lean on (especially these days), but it is likely not the actual reason.

If you really think that he’s almost there, I recommend throwing in at least one application to an elite school. If he’s not at least wait listed, then he wasn’t even close, and no amount of race blind admissions would change that.

Though I do agree the odds are quite insane lately, with the top schools receiving applications from the top students of the entire planet. Basically everyone has to shift their sights down the rankings as a result.

In my experience, a typical parent thinks that a student with 4-year varsity sport participation (more than one doesn’t help if it’s just participation), president of a school club, and member of some group or two (one probably being a local community service group) as being “strong”.

I would call this nice, but similar to 10k-20k other applicants, mainly because it’s fairly easy to manufacture this.

Some sports teams take anyone who is willing to play. It’s often trivially easy to start a club with your friends and declare yourself president (and essentially do nothing). It’s trivially easy to join a group or two and tag along. I have heard of and seen all of these examples that were done precisely to game elite school admissions.

Is this what happened with OP’s kid? Who knows?

What strong in one or more of these same categories might look like:

- all-state first team in a sport, and/or talented enough to be recruited in a sport. If it’s not a school sport, then winner of a regional or larger competition (depends on sport).

- started a club/group that went on to do something meaningful, with “meaningful” roughly being that it was probably worthy of being written up in a local or regional newspaper.

- participated in a group (like a music group or academic group/team) that was highly competitive to join and won regional, national, and/or international competitions.

- participated in a group (like an existing service group) that did something incredibly unique, most likely led by the applicant (e.g., some sort of decent-sized development project, local or international).

One or more of the above, substantiated in recommendations and/or supporting materials (e.g., newspaper articles, bulletins, etc.) will make an applicant much more unique.

> Though I do agree the odds are quite insane lately, with the top schools receiving applications from the top students of the entire planet. Basically everyone has to shift their sights down the rankings as a result.

This is largely not true.

Outside of covid years (those years are outliers), the main reason the acceptance rates are lower is because more people are applying. In general, the overall quality of those additional applications is relatively low — it’s just much easier to apply now (especially with a mediocre application) than it was in the past, and it’s getting easier every year.

Harvard had 60k applicants last year, and about 13k 30 years ago. The strong applicant pool has not increased 4x-5x over the past 30 years.

Is it tougher? Yes, but only slightly, imho. I think the internet has allowed some students who are not in elite university feeder schools to get info on how to be a strong candidate. This info was much tougher to access 30 years ago.

As a simple example, Cal Newport has written some good blog posts and books on how to be an outstanding applicant.

That said, many people don’t avail themselves of this information and still stubbornly think that grades and SATs are the main criteria for elite school admissions.

You are displaying an amazing sense of entitlement.

The reality is that the race is not independent from economic means and social status. Students who are applying who are black or native are at a major disadvantage. In terms of how they were treated personally, how their schools were likely funded, their family wealth, etc. So when someone toggles the race entry, the probabilities factor in the fact that their background is going to be much more compelling.

You have an average wealthy family, without major hardships, in a wealthy area. Your son is doing just ok for his background; not great, not bad. I have seen thousands of such applications and the poster you're replying to is spot on.

Even if the Supreme Court kills race-based affirmative action, universities will use hardship and economic means instead. And that will not change your son's statistics one bit.

Stop blaming underrepresented less well educated poorer people for what your limitations are. That's how you become a racist.

This is how I objectively know he's being held to a much higher standard. A kid of any other race, to have the same chance of admission to these schools, will need an SAT score 250-450 points lower (depending on race), and a GPA 0.2 - 0.9 lower (again, depending on race), than him. To use Harvard's own statistic, "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%)" They tried to explain it on the basis of soft metrics like "personality". Funnily enough, interviewers didn't judge Asian Americans as low on personality and sociability. Only the admissions staff did. Go figure.

Other posters who understand this tried to explain it to you. Even if this law were to change, it would make zero difference. You don't understand what changes these statistics. Race is a shorthand for them. Those people come from a much more disadvantaged background.

Your child comes from a wealthy family with every opportunity and is doing ok for it. Other people come from very far behind and got nearly to the same place. Their gap is much much larger, their effort is much much larger, as a consequence their achievement is higher.

These statistics will not change substantially after the lawsuit.

Moreover, you're totally being blinded by this to blame the wrong people: poor black kids.

Do you realize that the vast majority of applicants at Harvard aren't getting in by merit? They go in through programs related to wealth and legacy. That's where people should be upset.

Instead, you're just walking down a racist path that is obviously false.

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.

Your measuring stick is 90% blank. How you measure "higher standard" are table stakes in the Ivies.

csa already did a good job explaining this which apparently didn't sway you, so I'm going to try a different tack.

If you ever get the opportunity to meet in person face to face in an intimate setting with Bill Clinton, Barack Obama or Arnold Schwarzenegger, I encourage you to avail yourself, and observe as detached as you can. The change in the room is palpable and electric. Their charisma is off the charts powerful.

I'm familiar with Clinton's charisma, and it is stunning to watch at work. It isn't just his extraordinarily comprehensive recall, but also how he deploys it. You can observe the mechanics, like warmly restarting a thread of conversation with someone he last met a few years ago as if he simply turned around from another party guest a few seconds ago. But even among top politicians who employ the same technique, he stands out in the refined fashion with which he delivers it.

Think how many people regularly in your life have that kind of charisma. The Ivies still reject candidates with that level of magnetic personality because they lack in other dimensions.

By using the metrics you use, you are limiting your son and yourself. Those metrics come with a hard ceiling. Where the Ivies are going, there are no ceilings, there are no metrics in the first place. World class admissions means being open to von Neumann-scale, I-didn't-believe-that-possible possibilities to surprise the admissions committee and delight in that.

You don't achieve that surprise and delight with what you have mentioned so far.

Your son sounds like a terrific human being and you are rightfully fiercely proud of him and what you have accomplished as a parent and successful immigrant. Keep pushing forward on that trajectory, for college is not the pinnacle, just another foothill towards that summit reached at the end of our life. He can (and I'm sure will) still achieve incredible heights in his life, Ivy or not, as long as he continues to improve himself and the little part of the universe around him that he can personally make better. Successful dents in the universe have rarely historically come stamped with Ivy diplomas, and I wish someday to read about a dent your son makes and delight in my surprise at where that dent shows up.

Thanks for your sentiments in the last paragraph. He will make a dent!

This is worded extremely well.

I think many people grossly underestimate what a motivated and talented high schooler can do, largely due to the conceptual ceilings that are pervasive in our society.

1) The ivy leagues (and many other colleges of the US) shifted from a purely meritocratic assessment to an "all rounder" vetting process of potential candidates simply to eliminate the "undesirables" (at that time, mostly jews).

> The first thing to understand is that everything we know about selective college admissions today is less than a century old. So if you go back to 1910 or 1920, the Ivy League schools were not particularly expensive. They were not particularly desirable, in that they didn't have five or 10 or 20 times as many applicants as there were spots. And they weren’t particularly rigorous about vetting students ... So how did we get from there to here today, when these schools are desirable, expensive, and have a very rigorous vetting process?

> The answer is that most of those measures came about as part of the effort to limit the percentage of Jews in the student body. The extensive college application of multiple pages came about because they added questions to figure out if an applicant was Jewish, including What’s your religion? What is your father’s occupation? What is your mother’s maiden name? Where were your parents born? At some schools, they asked you to attach a photograph. Some began to require an interview. And that was in part so they could try to suss out if you were Jewish or not.

(Source: America’s most prestigious universities became elite through policies designed to keep Jews out of them. - https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/deep-shtetl/632c8ea068f6... ).

> ... the Ivy League didn't really want them. Being first-generation students, these applicants didn't have rich alumni parents who would be likely to donate big bucks. Being from an ethnicity not associated with America's governing class, they didn't help the Ivy League with its biggest selling point — that going to college there provides an opportunity to rub shoulders with America's governing class. And they were seen as boring grinds who studied too hard and weren't much fun.

> The result was a change in admissions criteria to reward "leadership," and "well-rounded" candidates — a thin disguise for "WASPs" — and, following closely on, actual quotas for Jewish students, so that no matter how many applied, their numbers on campus would stay just about the same.

Source: Asians get the Ivy League's Jewish treatment: Column - https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/11/23/ivy-league...

Yeah, it looks like they are doing the same thing with the Asian-Americans today (who have a similar immigrant cultural values like the jewish immigrants of the early 20th century - strong family ties and cultural importance to getting a good education).

2) If you are rich and have money to bribe these colleges, the "minimum qualification" will be "adjusted" to accommodate you. (Source: How elite US schools give preference to wealthy and white 'legacy' applicants - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/23/elite-school... ).

1. A good history of the SAT and ACT can be found here: https://www.erikthered.com/tutor/sat-act-history-printable.h...

2. Here is another very solid source on the wart (Lowell): https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/10/27/opinion/harvard-presi...

3. One goal of standardized tests in the early 1900s was to get the better students and a more diverse group of students into the better schools rather than lean very heavily on feeder WASP private schools (which had been standard up until then). There were societal needs that the the existing admissions processes did not address on a number of levels.

4. Eliot, Harvard president in the early 1900s before Lowell, embraced diversity. "Eliot was bragging to The New York Times about Harvard’s racial, ethnic, and religious diversity as well as its economic class diversity."

5. A racist Lowell became president and implemented a Jewish quota in the 1920s.

6. In the 1930s, Conant, Lowell's successor, gradually eased these quotas and focused on using the SAT as less-biased assessment tool. "Eight years after rejecting the SAT for use in admissions, Harvard begins requiring all prospective scholarship students to take the SAT. The president of the university, James Conant, feels that the test provides an accurate assessment of a student's intelligence. (Conant reasons that the SAT could then be used by Harvard to select scholarship candidates from among students other than those from well-known East Coast private schools.) By 1938, all of the College Board member schools will be using the SAT to evaluate scholarship applicants."

7. In summary, Lowell's Jewish quota was only in place for a decade or so (a dark time to be sure). Prior to and after that, diversity found via various forms of merit were aggressively sought after.

8. Some of your quotes seem to suggest that academically strong students are also boring grinds. It is possible to be strong academically while also being well-rounded, regardless of your race. The definition of "well-rounded" may have been tailored during Lowell's time to exclude Jews, but a modern day definition definitely does not exclude any race by design (e.g., it is possible to be an acclaimed Asian athlete, leader, artist, etc.).

9. There are book-length treatments of the subject of Harvard's history of seeking diversity that are quite compelling (noting that Harvard never was and never has been perfect). Rather than read and quote click-bait articles about the topic, I would encourage folks to read one of these books. Student Diversity at the Big Three: Changes at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Since the 1920s is one possible book, but I'm not sure it's the best (I read a very good one in the 00s, but I cannot remember the title or author). The Chosen is another.

I will close with a quote from the Boston Globe link above:

"Don’t be fooled by those using the Jewish quota of the mid-20th century or charges of discrimination against Asian Americans (also despicable when true, but which the lower courts convincingly found was not the case here) as an excuse to limit the inclusion of Black and Latino students at selective universities. We should be celebrating, not ending, the policies of diversity and inclusion that opened universities to Catholics, Jews, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, women, and other outsiders."

I hate this. No you came here with an education that got you a high paying tech job in the bay area. What does it matter how much money was in your pockets.

You had the momentum generations of high caste privilege and high caste education focused culture in India that let you achieve that.

> have worked hard to reach where we’re at.

Yes ofcouse but getting that opportunity is a privilege that was denied to many.

>I hate this

Strong words.

You do not know their struggles, or their stories (beyond one fact and one assumption). Better to use weak words, because you are in a weak position

> You do not know their struggles, or their stories

By your logic no one can respond to anything because no one will know the commenters life story.

I don't think Indian education is noticeably better than other developing countries anyway. Much less poor regions of the US. Especially India a generation ago.

I forgive you since you wrote out of ignorance.

> The backward castes of South Asia, known as Dalits, form 1.5% of all Indian immigrants to the United States

Calling me ignorant and a passive aggressive "forgive you" without actually addressing my comment isn't "kind".

Degree helps you at the beginning of the career

After you have exp and knowledge

It becomes less and less relevant

It is impossible to predict value of degree

Just like the value of connections

Surely a stem degree and an opportunity to get a post graduate stem degree in a blazing hot tech market is worth more than $30.

Do you really think GP and a venezuelan asylee have same amount of privilege because they both came over with $30 in their pockets. Yet that was the logic GP used to justify his lack of privilege.

You guys over there seem to be treating degree like the only way to better life

Degree is not worth this much.

So the biggest salary gap is at the beginning and later everything is up to the skill

If you want fancy jobs like Jane Street then "just" degree from random school may not be enough

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2021/10/11/new-...

People with degrees, especially in stem are small (in compare to all ppl) group of people who are willing to put multi year, intense effort studying non trivial things

So yea, just those traits make them more likely to earn more

Go ahead and give degree to somebody without skills in good paying jobs and see whether that person will be milions ahead too

Are you aware that the majority of STEM seats in Indian colleges are set aside for either affirmative action for ‘lower’ castes (itself an arbitrary criteria) and women?

The average man in India is competing for approx 10% of college seats!

And saying an Indian STEM degree is worth millions in lifetime earnings reveals even more ignorance - outside of a handful of colleges, the India higher education system is considered woefully inadequate, underfunded, pumping out graduates who only succeed out of personal initiative.

Every major corporation in India essentially has a retraining program to actually teach what’s necessary for work. The worker training issue is one of the top challenges faced by businesses there.

Perhaps it’s time you described your own ethnicity and background etc. Let’s learn a little more about where your biases flow from.

If you actually grew up in India in the time period of the OP, or knew anything about it other than nonsense in woke publications, you would feel ashamed for your tone and envy and render a sincere apology to the OP.

And these seats are never filled and go to upper castes anyway?

My class was supposed to be 50% low caste with 25% Dalits in a class of 60. There were literally 2 Dalits in my class. And of late, the OBC categories are being crowded in by upper castes through political action.

A whole 50% of my class was actually "payment seats" where they paid double the fees to get seats with low entrance scores. Basically, a 50% quota for the privileged.

Having said that, People ask folks how much they scored in their entrance exam. Then it becomes obvious who were Dalits are - they had the lowest scores. The 2 of them were also fairly underprivileged, so you could guess from their less trendy and not as new clothes too.

50% were payment seats with about the same entrance rank as OBC students. So it was hard to tell the OBCs apart from the payment seat students. India actually has "affirmative action" for the rich in all private universities, which most of Indian H1Bs have graduated from. My parents couldn't afford these seats. The H1B upper castes wont tell you that, and will pretend that rich Dalits are taking over all the seats. No such thing is happening. I have never met a rich Dalit in my life. I am sure they exist, but I have never met them.

Their academic performance improves with time, and some of them are engineering managers at Microsoft now.

Also, is "caste radar" a word you made up, or is that a generally-used concept?

I am connected to those folks on LinkedIn.

> Also, is "caste radar" a word you made up, or is that a generally-used concept?

I made it up. But I have read content online, where Dalits feel a huge pressure when they are asked which temple they attend, or how they celebrate certain festivals. I don't know what these ritual differences are. Many folks pick up caste from last names, I can only pick up a small subset of them. What I meant to say was that - I can't tell the caste of a person as easily as Hindus. The Dalits I know, I surmised their caste from their entrance rank and many of them didn't hide it.

Your comment portrays you on par with a poor mexican immigrant who just crossed over. You both had $30 in your pockets when your came over but you credit your success to "have worked hard" implying the mexican immigrant didn't "work hard" as yourself.

Add in the fact that affirmative action isn’t about poor people. There are vanishingly few kids at Harvard who grew up in the projects in NYC. You’re comparing two groups of people who are comfortably middle class based on their grandfather’s status.

Now the op has a kid who is about to enter college which means when he arrived to USA he was already had access to college level education although had little money. The

If he was lower caste, he is being hypocritical as he would have benefited from affirmative action in India.

Dont forget to be grateful to the black people affirmative action was originally intended to help. They are the only reason you were allowed into the US and could become naturalized. They spent their limited political capital fighting for you when they didnt need to.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is meant as hyperbole. Still I feel like this comment falls into the same rut that has lead to the current college admissions debate.

Advocating for poor people does not have to be seen as an attempt to disenfranchise or minimize the opportunities of racial minorities.

Black Americans arent just poor or racial minorities, they were systematically robbed of the vast majority of their "early US investor" wealth by the state for centuries. They dont and shouldnt fall into the same category of other "racial minorities" and white women when it comes to these programs.

You are privileged, and I know it because I wanted to study in the United states for a master's degree but my parents couldn't afford it. The students who were able to afford an education in the United states were the rich kids in my class, and 100% of them were upper caste.

Most American students graduate with a 100K+ debt burden. How much debt did you have on graduation?

I forgive you for being blind to your upper caste privileges.

Having said that, I believe SAT scores should be the key factor in admissions.

still not a reasonable justification to misdirect talented individuals to mediocre colleges and waste their potential.

On a long term, this negatively affects scientific progress, and indirectly the national security.

yes agreed.

I'm a Korean American male who migrated to the US as a second grader. I did not know any English and my parents were nail salon workers. I was on state assisted lunch program during middle and high school. While my parents had more than $30, we were certainly in lower socioeconomic class.

However, I was fortunate to have loving parents who wanted good things for me and my brother and I was studious/lucky/smart enough to go to a southern Ivy.

You're not being very kind by simply denying the struggles of over-represented minorities.

Does it not matter? Can we step back and think this through? The op is most likely comparing himself to all the better placed individuals compared to him. Do people in America always think about third world countries and feel humble, modest and welcoming? Everyone's got their own struggles.

> You had the momentum generations of high caste privilege and high caste education focused culture in India that let you achieve that

Surely, you don't feel humble because centuries of evolution put humans at a disproportionate level compared to others.

The op may have got an advantage because of cultural and historical reasons, but is that a conscious decision on his part? I don't think people voluntarily supress lower castes on a day to day basis.

90% of high caste folks might have started the migration to US, but it's just been a couple of decades.

I also don't understand this dichotomy. If higher caste people are affluent and influential in Indian society, what could be the reason for them to move out and make bread in a different country?

Judging from op's hundreds of dollars, they were definitely not affluent. If you are not affluent, you can't be influential. If you are not influential, you have hustle your way through everything, literally everything.

I think this comment is harsh on the OP.

You can't buy food, housing, or pay utilities with your diploma. You need money to pay for things.

>getting that opportunity is a privilege that was denied to many.

Is it though? There are people who lived dirt-poor lives but managed to do a complete 180.

The whole concept of "privilege" is really just making excuses for why you can't do something about a problem.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

But I can see how it came off that way. Sorry to op and you the moderator.

The problem with your statement is that affirmative actions is not based solely on race, so it appears that you are attempting to or have mistakenly fallen into perpetuating an offensive myth that the main beneficiaries of it are Black/Hispanic.

The group that has benefited the most from affirmative action are White/Non-Hispanic women.

White Women and Affirmative Action https://www.racismreview.com/blog/2014/03/11/white-women-aff...

White women benefit most from affirmative action https://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11682950/fisher-supreme-court-...

> My wife and I came to this country with a few hundred dollars...

That's a great story, how you came up, after immigrating to America from India and were able to take advantage of the opportunity. However, very important points that you have glossed over is the history of slavery, redlining, Jim Crow (and other laws), voting suppression, etc... of Black Americans who are the descendants of slaves. They (and other ethnic groups) were being shut out of opportunities, and the courts were attempting to alleviate this in some way. The original purpose of affirmative action, was to help those that were being actively and consistently discriminated against.

As a more recent immigrant, you are benefiting from laws and polices, which are the result of historical issues, court battles, and actual battles in America. Many Americans fought, died, and were jailed to get laws changed.

The context of why affirmative action was created, should not be skipped over, as if it applies simply to one person's situation and benefit. That you don't need something, is great for your situation, but that doesn't mean that's true for other ethnic groups and their situations.

"Affirmative action laws are policies instituted by the government to help level the playing field for those historically disadvantaged due to factors such as race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. These laws typically pertain to equal opportunities in employment, education, and business."

What is Affirmative Action and Why Was it Created? https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/what-is-affirmative-action...

> For my son, keeping everything else the same but simply changing his race from Asian to Black/Hispanic increases his chances...

That's gaming the system, for personal benefits, and contrary to the purposes for which affirmative action was created. That would be like a guy saying that if he writes down he's a different gender, he can now cheat his way into getting something he should not (by pretending to be female). If anything, you should arguably be against people falsifying documents or trying to present themselves as something they are not.

And not one of those things is in the least bit his fault or responsibility, least of all the fault or responsibility of his son or many other kids in the same situation. It's a pernicious, grotesque notion that people with no personal or ancestral fault in a specific historical context should be punished for its existence as a compensation to others. The idea is in fact little better than the implicit punishment-through-bias accorded to other minorities because they or their ancestors were at one time considered inferior. A society can alleviate past wrongs without creating new ones of a similar if softer flavor against yet other collectively defined groups.

>As a more recent immigrant, you are benefiting from laws and polices, which are the result of historical issues, court battles, and actual battles in America. Many Americans fought, died, and were jailed to get laws changed.

And so what? Does he somehow owe a personal debt to a country because it, for reasons of its own, decided to fix and fight against internal historical wrongs that its own people had created in the first place? Another idiotic and ugly idea: that a country makes itself better and then is right to foist part of the cost onto people who later come to it specifically because it's supposedly become a better and more just place, as if they'd had a part in its previous wrongs.

That you make such absurd arguments shows how much the ideological aspect of affirmative action (vs. its practical, carefully balanced merits) has contaminated much progressive thinking.

Yeah, affirmitive action kinda warped into something akin to the biblical original sin IMO.

Yes. He owes a personal debt because the average wealth of white families is vastly higher than that of black families because they were exploited for 300+ years.

The black student who worked even harder but started much further behind, with far fewer resources, deserves a shot too. Even if they didn't get as far.

You're comparing an ultra-privileged child with a child who comes far behind. So course you need to factor that in!

Otherwise you might as well just look at their net worth and only admit children of the rich, because look, they're so far ahead in life already.

> That you make such absurd arguments shows how much the ideological aspect of affirmative action (vs. its practical, carefully balanced merits) has contaminated much progressive thinking.

You have been contaminated by racism and a lack of caring. You want to live in a world where black people are an endless underclass that you can exploit.

Furthermore, nothing I said is about continuing to exploit black people or advocating racism. It's specifically about redressing past wrongs against African Americans and other minorities without creating new ones against other arbitrarily assigned groups, particularly if they're immigrants who have also had to suffer for their forward movement and have no personal fault in the past racial tensions and injustices of a country they're not originally from.

Why would you completely misinterpret a fairly straightforward argument in the most emotionally charged, simplistic and negative way possible?

Why would you ignore basic facts? White families in the US stole from black families for centuries. Today the average white family has more than 10x the wealth of the average black family.

This must be fixed. It is not a "historical wrong". It is a wrong that is occurring now. Today. To real people. By the wealthy in the US toward minorities who are much poorer.

> the guy in question is from India and isn't an Anglo/European white man who "benefited" from centuries of exploitation of blacks in the United States

What nonsense.

He moved to a country where white people stole from black people for centuries. Then said "Well, we're rich now, and the theft happened a while ago, so.. good luck!". And now he shares in that stolen wealth. He is as responsible as everyone else.

> Furthermore, nothing I said is about continuing to exploit black people or advocating racism. It's specifically about redressing past wrongs against African Americans and other minorities without creating new ones against other arbitrarily assigned groups, particularly if they're immigrants who have also had to suffer for their forward movement and have no personal fault in the past racial tensions and injustices of a country they're not originally from.

How can you redress a wrong against black and native people if it's illegal to look at whether someone is black or native when giving life-changing opportunities?

Come on.

Just admit it. You enjoy your racism and have zero desire to help anyone. Stop hiding behind "I totally want to help people, as long as literally no one is inconvenienced, without any plan, outcomes, or goals." Please.

Please refrain from senseless personal attacks as per HN commenting guidelines:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsgu idelines.html

I cannot help recalling a quote that my grandfather repeated to me earlier this evening: "when you run out of reasons, your argument gets louder."

An immigrant from India (or anywhere really), who arrives to the US and then works hard to exchange some sort of value for voluntary compensation from others is most definitely not making themselves better off by sharing in "stolen wealth" from some previous century. They're doing what all of us (of any color or creed) do every day to stay mutually economically solvent. By your logic, even modern African Americans would be guilty of the same thing because their increased standard of living is a part of the same economic participation in exchange of "stolen" wealth.

Too much to unpack here in further argument, but i'd suggest more carefully considering these positions.

Economic position or being at an economic disadvantage is a different argument than what you had originally presented and the attack on affirmative action. America did not develop as, and still is not, a society blind to race, color, or sex. Better that you had made that argument, which would possibly be along the lines of better loans, scholarships, free education, etc...

What if white people are, in the future, treated as second class citizens, should AA then be for white ones?

IMO using racist policy to fight racism is just not going to end well.

Another solution I could see working is making it much easier for students to go to other schools than the default one assigned to them. Altough, that runs into issues of areas where there isn't any "wealthy" school nearby.

I get that it's an incredibly difficult problem to solve and that, tbh, I don't really have much of a clue how to solve it either. So the best I can do is throwing ideas at the wall to see what is workable, while opposing policies I see that I deem to be actively harmful.

Thinking more about my ideas, I think there is a link, altough can't really argument that one atm, behind "no child left behind" and "bad" schools getting worse.

It is a complex multifaceted situation that might differ based on region, but in my moderately large mid-west city, the difference in curb appeal of the public schools in the wealthy suburbs vs the more urban schools closer to where I lived was wild (and I would expect curb appeal to be the easiest needle to move with just money). Forget the academics and the student environment. The suburb districts were best-in-the-state experiences while some of the high school kids I worked with from the more urban schools just wanted to make it through the day without a knife fight....

It should have been abundantly clear to anyone that I mentioned CollegeVine to show how the system works, not that we intend to apply as another race. Sheesh.

Sorry, this is textbook bigotry to me, and I am dismayed by the fact that this way of thinking infested the American academia and half of its political system.

As a young guy in the 1990s, I knew a few old bigoted Polish Catholics who disliked the Jews because they "killed Christ". Being naive, I was thinking back then that this kind of heritable guilt was on its way out. Nope, I was wrong. The ideology that you describe is arguably even more nonsensical, classifying totally unrelated ethnic groups as "white-adjacent" and assigning them the same or even greater level of malus points.

The most absurd thing about your argument is that OPs ancestors probably lived under British colonial rule more recently than American blacks under their masters, and approximately at the same time when Jim Crow was rampant. And in 2022, white liberals treat them as undesirables once again, and once again for racist reasons; only the details have changed, but not the principle: Sorry, there is too much of your people on the campus already. Begone.

Nowhere did I state that. You are putting words into my mouth and making up fake arguments. You are doing a classic straw man. Just stop, with that, and argue actual points that I made.

For the record, I have zero bias against young smart Indian Americans trying to get into college, nor against their parents who have done their best to raise and provide for them.

But that is exactly the result of your preferred policies. You don't just get to push for a policy and then walk away from the consequences claiming they have nothing to do with you.

You cannot disawow the consequences while supporting the mechanism that produced them. It is like saying "I hate reeducation camps and cultural revolutions but I support Maoism".

I would argue it is impossible to be good at testing and nothing else. Even with a relatively poorly-designed test, there are valuable skills needed to be "good at it". and the current standardized tests have years of development and constant updating behind them.

But if it's a pattern you see from STEM majors from a US school, you could complain to their dean. They usually have industry advisory boards also to get feedback about how students are performing and what is needed.

I am quite familiar now with the SAT, and have taken the GRE and GMAT myself, and don't understand why any of these standardized tests are considered unfair to certain groups. I think they are a good measure of cognitive ability for advanced studies. People are shooting the messenger.

It can be true that the SAT is a good predictor of university grades, and also that there is more to university life, and life in general, than grades. The parent comment is suggesting that optimizing for grades may not produce the ideal set of university students/graduates. But if you think that graduating with high grades is the whole point of the endeavour then obviously you'll disagree.

Certainly I enjoyed spending my time at university surrounded by people who had more going on than just academic excellence.

Politics is about people voting in their self interest. If you're Asian, that calculus is simple. Trump may say mean things, but one side wants to create a system where your kids (and my kids) will be left holding the short end of the stick simply because they're "not the right kind of diversity." And don't think for a second it will stop at college admissions: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/appellate-court-strikes-dow...

Most of the geographical US has places where non-white people basically feel not welcome.

if the same “Asian Americans” who vote for Republican policies are fine fear-mongering against racial and religious minorities (Trump comments and policies on Mexicans, Muslims, etc), then I guess can the sheep really be surprised when the wolf comes to eat him?

There is so much danger in a political ploy like the one you described. If you want to create a country that is even more friendly towards cruelty and ignorance, I guess I understand why you would support the people you do.

I'm a visibly non-white immigrant who has lived in a few different states and driven through most, including some very remote areas. I currently live in a Deep South state. I have not felt unwelcome anywhere in this country, nor have I felt more welcome in stereotypically liberal areas compared to stereotypically conservative areas.

No doubt pockets of genuine racism exists, but both at a population level or square miles of land level, such pockets are in the tiny minority. I fear you are exaggerating the level of antipathy against non-white people amongst the so-called "Trump-voting types".

Demand for racism in this country greatly outstrips the supply of it.

This strikes me as a feeble attempt by Democrats to refocus the conversation on what people say and/or think and away from the system of legalized discrimination they endorse.

Conservative populism isn't some uniquely "nativist, racist, and supremacist" threat. Trump people are for the most part just insular in the same way most people in my home country are insular: https://www.outlookindia.com/national/rohingyas-camps-becomi.... Democrats--with their affinity for diversity and change for their own sake--are the ones who are radically different.

You're right that, all else being equal, Asians should prefer the folks who don't make fun of foreign-sounding names. But all else isn't equal. The people who are nice to your face want to create a racial hierarchy that will prejudice Asians legally and economically. It is illogical to me for Asians to support that, just because some white Trump voters in Kansas say the same things their folks back home in India or China would say if the shoe were on the other foot.

> Most of the geographical US has places where non-white people basically feel not welcome.

I grew up in a Virginia House district that went Republican by 30-50 points the entire time I lived there. I have been all over the south and midwest. I live in a precinct that went decisively for Trump in 2016. I have never felt "not welcome" in those places. Now, I don't know what white people say behind my back, but I also don't care. They should hear what my parents say about non-college educated white people.

Indeed, the most racism I have encountered in my life has been from white liberals in the last 5-6 years. It's not Trump-people making me write diversity statements about "tell us about how you're not from here and are different from white people." Give me a guy in a MAGA hat who assumes I don't speak English any day of the week over a condescending white liberal.

Of course this is by no means limited to republicans or whites for that matter, but the effects I have felt most often come from people who are pushing their views in support of this regards; thus I am sensitized to checking overreach of these views.

Class also has a place in all of this. And I am certain from liberal places I have visited they have problems. But for me perfect is not the enemy of good. It’s simply a matter of who more negatively affects, my way of life and those of others, in the views they push. So far, the MAGA crowd will not be gaining my support until they change many of their views and policies.

If educated Asian-Americans want to gain institutional power like the white elites in this country, fine. But I think they’re making a huge mistake and allowing harm to come to others in their quest for “climbing the ladder”. And I will try to do what’s right either way, as many things are not in my control.

What does that even mean? Are people in Texas making you take Communion? Are they beating you for being brown? Yelling profanities in the street? Are they robbing you or denying you jobs?

And if not, how does any of that affect your daily life? That all seems extremely abstract to me. How can it be more relevant than democrats wanting to legalize discrimination against Asians in universities and workplaces? That’s concrete harm. Why should I care what “takes” some white person in Kansas had about people from Muslim countries, when democrats want to legalize discrimination against my kids?

/s

>enshrining a nativist, racist, and supremacist movement?

I see nativism and racism in left wing movements too. In reality, I think race/ethnicity seems to be the subtext of most things nowadays, maybe it always was. No one really explicitly says it but it's pretty obvious. I am not sure why anyone thinks it's okay only for some groups to advocate for policies that benefit their own race but others can not. As if racism didn't beget more racism.

If it makes you feel better, public California colleges cannot employ affirmative action as documented by https://ballotpedia.org/Affirmative_action_in_California, so your son's chances in the UC system should be unaffected by race based quotas. Best of luck to your son on college admissions. Having recently gone through that myself, it's a hell of an undertaking.

For three hundred years, America kidnapped slaves from Africa, and used them in the most horrifying and evil ways.

And their descendants still live in America, mostly in poverty, trapped in areas without schools. One of the two political parties in America considers that most of these descendants of slaves are contemptible animals and makes no bones about it.

Your response to this is - nothing. No compensation; no reparations; the slavers who owned them in fact got compensated while African-Americans got nothing.

It's unfortunate you lack compassion or a sense of justice, but luckily, people with more of an ethical and moral sense got this one perk setup in this otherwise horrifying and destructive system.

Indian-American father here as well.

You came to the US from India. You are probably upper caste. You almost certainly got a good quality education in India for cheap. Your parents probably had servants.

You are privileged.

End of story.

The generational poverty thing is a disingenous distraction. Hypercompetitive environments like the bay area is rife with OP-like cases, the parents go after the boxes to check to get into the top schools, the kids check them. OP's son worked hard and will almost certainly go to a good school, but... Sharma's son went to MIT! All that has happened is that the gaming Indian parents do doesnt work as well as it once did because others wised up to it. I see nothing wrong with promoting someone who has "unforced" talent, and in some cases race may be a poor way in some cases to base that upon, but in general it is not so bad.

The real tragedy is that the most unfair thing these colleges do, which the article mentions, legacy admissions, gets a pass in all the AA talk.

So what you’re saying is that it’s “not so bad” for colleges to pick the upper middle class Hispanic kid over the upper middle class Indian kid, because you think Indian parents are “gaming” the system.

I’m going to say no, that’s racism, and it should be illegal. If you want to give kids a leg up because they’re from a poor family, fine. But it shouldn’t matter what race they are.

2. Affirmative action is not racism.

Can you share the definition of racism that you're using?

I think you may be projecting your own thoughts and insecurities here.

Oh absolutely I am projecting my thoughts. I was lucky but I know many Indians who have been pushed by their parents and are miserable. I also dont think a university environment dominated by such kids will be good either for the school or for them down the line. I am pretty positive your son will have a great experience in whatever school he goes to vs whatever ideal school you had in mind for him. Diversity to me is ipso facto a good thing.

Why? Harvard was 90% WASPs when it became #1. Universities in India and China do just fine with 99% Indians and Chinese. What difference does it make?

> The diversity is of value in other ways - experiences outside of your comfort zone and ones that dont come with a quantifiable meric are wonderful things about a college education.

And you can't have those things if you have too many Asian students?

We hang out in different circles. Looks like your default position is that Asian American kids have been pushed to study by their parents. Did it ever occur to you that many kids like to push themselves and test their mettle?

>I also dont think a university environment dominated by such kids will be good either for the school or for them down the line.

You're making up stuff about "university environment dominated by such kids." That's right, let's admit unprepared kids by lowering the bar. We'll act puzzled when they drop off from STEM programs into easier majors (which is a well known phenomenon, BTW.)

Also, you watered down the term "privilege" to such an extent that it has lost any practical meaning. I came to the US as it is the land of opportunity, and still believe that is the case. In my view, anyone born here, including black and brown people, has sort of won the lottery already. But they're so concerned with "fairness" that they miss taking advantage of the opportunities right in front of them.

I understand a big part of the problem is that many US citizens don't understand what's available, but some almost everyone has smartphones and Google these days, even infrequent attempts to casually browse the internet for self-improvement will yield very large returns for most US citizens in poverty.

https://twitter.com/michaeljburry/status/1587420720644214799

The post is this since he famously deletes all his Twitter posts:

If you are denying or justifying discrimination against Asian applicants for colleges or jobs, you know exactly how all the most oppressive racists of the past felt.

--

By the way did you ever consider having your child apply to schooling in other countries that are purely exam and test based and somehow produce the engineers that FAANG companies love to hire? The education in those countries are almost free compared to the US and they graduate with minimal or zero debt and get hired for very high salaries by FAANG companies. Just look at the number of foreigners at FAANG companies with undergraduate STEM degrees from the rest of the world. They often do a masters or PHD (for free usually with TA or RA responsibilities) to get acclimated to the US and its nuances which your child does not need.

Among other things, Harvard is accused of adding a "personality" metric to admissions, covering likeability and attractiveness, and consistently scoring Asians low on it, to cancel out less important things like GPA, AP credits and SAT scores. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/15/politics/harvard-admissions-a...

Define privileged. You came to the U.S. which means you had the means and impetus to do so. Doesn't that already put in the top 50th percentile of world population? 50 is wild speculation on my part and it could be higher or lower.

I'm almost positive you are more privileged than someone born into a modern indigenous South American or African community. But what does it even matter? "Privileged" is completely relative and irrelevant because anyone who makes it past about the age of 18 is in some sense fortunate.

> Is it fair to penalize my son for working hard and being an excellent student?

No. You're son will have to overcome unfair and unfortunate circumstances just like you did. Hopefully he has been prepared to do so.

Thank you for coming to America and for raising your family here. We are collectively richer for it.

That's the exact case I made. The kid with the absentee father has worked hard, and deserves to be helped. But it's independent of race.

>little darling keeping his train on the tracks that you and your wife have laid out for him

I caught the condescending tone here. We live in a good, safe school district but nothing else has been laid out for him. He found all the APs, college courses, internships and applied on his own. The one thing he's not is an entitled, spoilt brat -- he's the exact opposite who takes nothing for granted and works very hard to make full use of his opportunities. It's sad that some people can't see the difference.

Some people don't want to. There's an entire political movement devoted to removing individuality from the equation and seeing people only as oppressed or oppressor races. The heroes and villains are conveniently identifiable by their appearances and any details or personal history deviations from the storyline are disregarded.

Even if you disregard how crude the official government racial classifications are (black Americans have much more in common with white Americans than with black Africans, for example, and Pakistanis have much more in common with Afghanis than with the former have with Japanese or the latter have with Swedish, contrary to what the governments racial groupings specify), if you are interested in recognizing hardship and overcoming the obstacles, why not just ask about those directly? When you read the students essay about his jailed father and mother working three jobs, what more do you learn from the mere race checkbox?

I’ll be very explicit here: the universities practicing the policies currently discussed in the Supreme Court don’t care about hardship even close to as much they care about visual diversity. They really are, indeed, trying to achieve a certain color balance among their students, and they really do not care a lot about the diversity that’s more than skin deep. This is really as simple as that, and it’s disgusting.

This is the part that bothers me, they want all the colors of the rainbow but do not care if they are actually helping their students move up in the world.

I went to an ivy, and sure the student body was "diverse" by race but I did not encounter many people from lower classes.

Anyways affirmative action for mostly white people (“legacy admits”) already exists. Removing AA based on race may not result in great outcomes for the underrepresented minorities. Huge disparities exist that cannot be corrected at the university level in entirely; but AA gives the opportunity for URMs to enter these spaces at higher rates than they would at a so called “level” playing field (it is never is the problem).

It’s time to start considering that there is far more to life than what “elite” colleges will have people believe.

The different perspective you are referring to is groups versus individuals. to the degree that they differ, whatever is most fair for one will be less fair for the other. It is objectively true that a group preference will be unfair on an individual level to some people. For example, on an individual basis, legacy admits only benefit legacy applicants. Yet you're using this argument to support penalizing people who are not legacy applicants.

Every applicant needs stuff on their application besides academics as well, so try to stand out there. They look for unique talents. If they believe that someone is the best X at Y niche that the admissions team likes them they're getting in no matter what.

Also... these schools admit a number of Indian-American males every year. Your son does have a chance. Unfortunately the competition is higher for him due to these unfair rules.

The brand is real though. Those top tier schools are gateways to power and money. I read through the law suit made against Harvard and other schools and it blames white people, not affirmative action in general. It compares the test scores of white people against Asians and argues that there should be fewer white people. The % of Harvard that is white is 33%. The % of the US is 57.5%. Whites are being shut out of the premier gateways to power in the US. I think AA based on race makes sense in some way because of what these schools mean in reality. It's not just about education.

The test score gap between Asians and whites is not even very broad. So on the one hand, I think all this focus on race is detrimental to life if we use it to judge the most elite people in the country. On the other hand, I think this lawsuit is just more squabbling between races to be the #1. This is a fight about prestige and power and not education, at least in my opinion.