Harvard University - Blog Posts

The Model Minority Myth Today -- Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard

Asian-Americans being discriminated against in college admissions, specifically towards Harvard.

The rat race of college admissions tends to be an uphill battle for Asian-Americans, as the Model Minority Myth (which stems from the creation of H1-B and EB-3 visas prioritizing skilled workers, causing Americans' perceptions of Asian-Americans as ALL highly skilled, which is untrue) contributes to the sky-high expectations of achievement by Asian-American high schoolers.

"To illustrate just how strong the Asian-American pool is, in the baseline dataset Asian-American applicants have academic indexes that are over 0.2 standard deviations higher than whites, almost one standard deviation higher than Hispanics, and over 1.5 standard deviations higher than African Americans. Indeed, Asian-American rejects have academic indexes that are higher than African American admits."

While yes, academically Asian-Americans excel, it turns out that in other areas of college admission they slump.

"Using data over ten years, they found that Harvard’s admissions officers assigned substantially lower personal ratings to Asian-American applicants versus white applicants, especially when compared to the ratings assigned by teachers, counselors, and alumni interviewers."

"Asian-American applicants suffer a statistically significant penalty relative to white applicants in two of the ratings Harvard’s admissions officers assign to each file (the personal and overall rating)."

So not only are the personal and overall ratings one of the contributing factors, but it is likely due to racial biases within school counselor and admissions officers systems.

White people having the most legacy as usual.

Within each of the other three groups (3, 3+, all 2’s), African-American applicants have the highest admit rates followed by Hispanics, then whites, and finally Asian Americans.

In fact, the scoring for African-American applicants on Harvard’s overall rating exhibits the opposite phenomenon exhibited by Asian-American applicants, as African-American applicants are disproportionately concentrated at the high and low ends of the rating scale.

African-American applicants are either overperforming or underperforming, never averaging out, showing how also due to societal norms and racist ideologies, have to fit the mold of being extraordinary or what society tells them they are. Or entirely be seen as a diversity student to lower (or raise) the GPA to seem more welcoming or exclusive.

Asian-American applicants are less likely to be admitted if they are in the middle of the road. They have to be exceptional or above average, otherwise they get completely ignored.

Despite being more academically qualified than the other three major racial/ethnic groups (whites, African Americans, and Hispanics), Asian-American applicants have the lowest admissions rates. In fact, data produced by Harvard show that this has been true for every admissions cycle for the classes of 2000 to 2019. A closer examination of the six years for which Harvard produced applicant-level admissions data shows that even removing those who receive some other form of preferences (such as legacy, athletic, or early action) still results in Asian Americans having the lowest admit rates over this period.

Asian-Americans are disadvantaged in a space where everyone else thinks they are not.

🚨 Students at Harvard University launched an encampment in support of Gaza in Harvard Yard moments ago, calling for an end to Harvard's moral and material complicity in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

Harvard has invested over $200 million of its over $51 billion endowment in companies with ties to zionist settlements in the West Bank, while most of its investments to the zionist entity are kept secret.

The students are demanding financial transparency regarding investments related to the zionist entity, as well as genocide and occupation in Palestine; divestment from these investments and reinvestment in Palestine; and dropping all charges against student activists.

The University has suppressed student voices in support of Palestine time and time again, suspending the Palestine Solidarity Committee just this week on baseless grounds. They have also enabled attacks on pro-Palestinian students from the media and politicians. Today, the students say enough is enough, and that they will no longer tolerate their institution's support for genocide.

This brings the number of ongoing encampments to 19, with more to come.