Culture Explains Asians’ Educational Success at New York’s elite public high schools

from Wall Street Journal article
https://247sports.com/college/texas-tech/Board/102960/Contents/Culture-Explains-Asians-Educational-Success-130573622/

excerpt:

Culture Explains Asians’ Educational Success
Black enrollment at New York’s elite public high schools was far higher in the 1930s than today.

By Jason L. Riley
March 26, 2019 6:45 p.m. ET

Students at Stuyvesant High School in New York, Sept. 9, 2015.
Students at Stuyvesant High School in New York, Sept. 9, 2015. Photo: Mark Lennihan/Associated Press

New York City’s most selective public high schools released demographic data last week on students who were offered admission to the 2019 fall freshman class. The results were as predictable as the subsequent griping.

These eight schools admit kids based on a single standardized exam, and again Asian students, who comprise only 16.1% of the city’s public school system, were awarded a majority of the openings, 51.1%. By comparison, whites, who are 15% of public-school students, and blacks, who are 26%, were offered 28.5% and 4% of the seats, respectively. At Stuyvesant High, the most selective school, a mere seven of the 895 seats were offered to black students. In recent years, Asians who attend Stuyvesant and the city’s other two super-elite high schools, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech, have regularly outnumbered their white peers by 2 to 1.

Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to scrap the admissions test to achieve more racial balance in the classroom. He has decried the outcomes as evidence of “massive segregation.” The Washington Post’s education writer likened the low black acceptance rates at New York’s top schools to the recently exposed college bribery scandal, calling it “an admissions scandal of a different sort.” Apparently, when black students demonstrate academic excellence, it’s celebrated. When Asian students do so, it’s scandalous. (continues at link above) 

Federal judge rules Harvard does not discriminate against Asian Americans in admissions

Judge upholds Harvard’s admissions policy

October 2, 2019

Harvard Gazette
Ruling finds that College does not discriminate

Editorial Board: Court decision in Harvard case is an important victory for affirmative action

October 4, 2019

Boston Globe
Harvard University won the first battle in the legal war over its affirmative action policies on Tuesday, when a federal judge in Boston ruled that its race-conscious admissions system for undergraduate students was constitutional.

Federal judge rules Harvard does not discriminate against Asian Americans in admissions

October 1, 2019

Washington Post
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Harvard University does not discriminate against Asian Americans in undergraduate admissions, handing the school a victory in a lawsuit that marks one of the latest chapters in the affirmative action debate.

Federal judge upholds affirmative action at Harvard

October 1, 2019

Associated Press
A federal judge Tuesday cleared Harvard University of discriminating against Asian American applicants in a ruling that was seen as a major victory for supporters of affirmative action in college admissions across the U.S.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-10-02/harvard-affirmative-action-case-far-over-opponents-plan-appeal

Harvard affirmative action case far from over as plans for appeal begin

The World

October 02, 2019 · 2:45 PM EDT

By Grace Hwang Lynch

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Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Credit:Darren McCollester

A federal district judge in Boston issued a long-awaited decision Tuesday in the affirmative action lawsuit against Harvard University, ruling that the college’s consideration of race in its admissions process doesn’t violate the rights of Asian applicants. 

Several Harvard students took the stand to support the university’s race-conscious policies. One of them was Sally Chen, who graduated in May 2019 and now works for the nonprofit organization Chinese for Affirmative Action, one of 31 Asian American groups that co-signed a brief to the court in support of race-conscious admissions at Harvard. 

“I’m really glad the court made the right decision,” said Chen, “but Harvard can and should do more to improve its commitment to inclusion, diversity, and equity.”

Chen believes that affirmative action directly benefited her, a child of working-class Chinese Americans.

College Admit Rates By Gender Preference Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action includes gender preferences as well as better known race preferences. They are rarely acknowledged but stick out like a sore thumb at Cal Tech, MIT and Olin College of Engineering where women are admitted at rates 2 to 3 times the rates of men.

Here are some data points on admission/acceptance rates for colleges by gender:

Worcester Polytechnic Institute
admit rates men 44.7% women 59.2% slightly favors women
enrolled student population at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, both undergraduate and graduate, is 55.5% White, 7.23% Hispanic or Latino, 4.38% Asian, 2.54% Black or African American, 2.09% Two or More Races, 0.286% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.0301% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders.

Cal Tech 

https://datausa.io/profile/university/california-institute-of-technology

Men 5.45 

Women 15.5 2.84 or nearly 3 times men 

Franklin W Olin College of Engineering

enrolls slighty more white women than men, but admit rate nearly 3X for women than men

https://datausa.io/profile/university/franklin-w-olin-college-of-engineering

Men 6.77%

Women 18.9%

Ratio 2.79

The enrolled student population at Franklin W Olin College of Engineering is

48.4% White, 12.7% Asian, 6.08% Two or More Races, 5.29% Hispanic or Latino,

1.32% Black or African American, 0.265% American Indian or Alaska Native,

and 0% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders.

Students enrolled at Franklin W Olin College of Engineering in full-time

Undergraduate programs are majority White Female (26.9%),

followed by White Male (25.4%) and Asian Male (7.69%).

https://datausa.io/profile/university/massachusetts-institute-of-technology

MIT

Men 5.76%

Women 12.8%  ratio 2.22 twice rate of men 

Harvard 

https://datausa.io/profile/university/harvard-university

Men 5.49

Women 5.31 about the same  0.967

UC Berkeley

https://datausa.io/profile/university/university-of-california-berkeley

15.1 

18.7  1.23 about the same rate

Stanford

https://datausa.io/profile/university/stanford-university

4.48 men 5.18 women 1.15

Luther College
https://datausa.io/profile/university/luther-college

Men 65% women 69% about equal

https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/research/2013/TotalGroup-2013.pdf

SAT Percentiles By Race

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/sat-percentile-ranks-gender-race-ethnicity.pdf

Race normed scores
97 percentile in math
800 / 99+ Asian
700 / 92 Hispanic
750 / 96 White  (MIT whites are in top 99 percentile)
650 / 84 Black   (MIT blacks are in top 85-90 percentile)


https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/09/27/scores-new-sat-show-large-gaps-race-and-ethnicity

2017 Mean SAT Scores, and Percentage Meeting Benchmarks, by Race and Ethnicity

Group	Reading and Writing	Mathematics	Met Both Benchmarks
American Indian/Alaska Native	486	477/33	27%
Asian	569	612/75	70%
Black	479	462/26	20%
Latino	500	487/41	31%
Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander	498	488/41	32%
White	565	553/61	59%

Black average is only at the 26th percentile vs 61 for white and even higher 75 for Asian

https://www.brookings.edu/research/race-gaps-in-sat-scores-highlight-inequality-and-hinder-upward-mobility/

Race gaps on the SATs are especially pronounced at the tails of the distribution. In a perfectly equal distribution, the racial breakdown of scores at every point in the distribution would mirror the composition of test-takers as whole i.e. 51 percent white, 21 percent Latino, 14 percent black, and 14 percent Asian. But in fact, among top scorers—those scoring between a 750 and 800—60 percent are Asian and 33 percent are white, compared to 5 percent Latino and 2 percent black. Meanwhile, among those scoring between 300 and 350, 37 percent are Latino, 35 percent are black, 21 percent are white, and 6 percent are Asian:


750-800 is 60% Asian nearly double number of whites at 33% even though population ratio is 6 to 51, so that is 34 times the natural ratio

Don't get 10% black until 500-550, 15% black until 450-500

https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/sat/sat-percentile-ranks-mathematics-2015.pdf
SAT® Percentile Ranks for Males, Females, and Total Group 2015 College-Bound Seniors — Mathematics This table allows you to compare a student’s mathematics score with the performance of other test-takers in the total group of 2015 college-bound seniors, as well as with all males and all females in the cohort. Percentile ranks show the percentage of each group who scored lower on the section.
 Total Male Female Score
Number Percentile Number Percentile Number Percentile
800 16,668 99 11,098 99 5,570 99
790   4,381 99   2,563 98 1,818 99
etc

Framingham State University enrollment by race

https://www.framingham.edu/Assets/uploads/about-fsu/office-of-institutional-research/_documents/Fall%202019%20Student%20Enrollment_Final_Web_2019.10.15.pdf

NEW UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT ENROLLMENT

Race/Ethnicity

Hispanic or Latino 213 → 18%
American Indian or Alaskan Native 0 → --
Asian 32 → 3%
Black or African American 187 → 16%
 Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander 0 → --
Two or more Races 38 → 3%
Students of color⁵ 470 → 41%
White 669 → 58%
International (Non-Resident Alien) 1
 Unknown 16

https://datausa.io/profile/university/framingham-state-university
The enrolled student population at Framingham State University, both undergraduate and graduate,, is 69.6% White, 9.59% Hispanic or Latino, 8.28% Black or African American, 3.3% Asian, 3.18% Two or More Races, 0.301% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders, and 0.134% American Indian or Alaska Native.

Luther College Enrollments by Race

Luther College Enrollments by Race

https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/iowa/luther-college/students/
acial Demographics & Diversity
DIVERSITY
Very Low
Students at Luther College are mostly White with a small Foreign Resident population. The school has very low racial diversity.
Remarks: 84% white and really no significant numbers of anybody else, even Asians are only 2%

RACE	PERCENT OF STUDENTS
White	84%
Black	2%
Hispanic	4%
Asian	2%
American Indian / Alaskan	0%
Hawaiian / Pacific Islander	0%
Two or more races	2%
International	6%
Race Unknown	0%

University of California Irvine Asian Admissions

UC Irvine is the only UC campus where Asians outnumber Whites even in the graduate division. The combined student population of 17,165 is 58% Asian and 28% White. Current admissions trends suggest the Asian percentage will continue rising to about 61% for the combined population before leveling off.

UC Irvine Is No 3 AAU | Asian American University | GoldSea

https://goldsea.com › AAU › irvine

ASIANS 58% OF UC IRVINE

rawing primarily from nearby Asian population centers in affluent Orange and L.A. counties, UC Irvine's student body boasts over twice as many Asian as white students. A combined graduate and undergraduate student population of 17,165 makes UC Irvine the fourth largest of the 9-campus UC system after UCLA, UC Berkeley and UCSD, but its Asian population of about 9,600 (factoring in 1,999 racially undeclared students) puts it a close third to UCLA and UC Berkeley as a contender for Top Asian American University.
     The undergraduate portion of UCI's student population totals 14,197, of which 8,079 are declared Asians and 3,060 are declared Whites. 1,143 are undeclared. Allocating the undeclared proportionately among the declared groups adds 670 to the Asian population and 280 to the white population. That makes 61% of the undergraduate student body Asians, with Whites only 23% -- easily the smallest white percentage among the nation's top 25 universities . The Asian population divides among Chinese 32%, Coreans 18%, Filipino, 16%, Vietnamese 13%, Japanese 6%, with 15% comprising Indian, Pakistani and other Asian categories.
     UC Irvine is the only UC campus where Asians outnumber Whites even in the graduate division. The combined student population of 17,165 is 58% Asian and 28% White. Current admissions trends suggest the Asian percentage will continue rising to about 61% for the combined population before leveling off. Given the rate at which UC Irvine has been growing in the heart of Orange County's most affluent section, UCI may end up with the Top Asian American University title in 3-5 years.

Asians edge out Hispanics to be largest race group in University of California system 

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-07-22/uc-diverse-diversity-class-student-admissions UC admits largest and most diverse class ever of Californian freshmen Los Angeles Times 

JULY 22, 2019 6:20 PM

The University of California opened its doors to the largest and most diverse class of Californians ever for the fall semester of 2019, according to preliminary data released Monday.

The system’s nine undergraduate campuses offered seats to 71,655 California freshmen, nearly 600 more students than last year. Overall, UC admitted 108,178 freshmen among 176,695 freshman applicants. 

Overall, the system admitted 991 more students from underrepresented groups, increasing their proportion among California freshmen to 40% from 38% last year. First-generation students made up 44% of those admitted and low-income students 40%.

Asian Americans remained the largest ethnic group at 35%, followed [only behind by 1 percentage point]by Latinos at 34%, whites at 22%, African Americans at 5% and American Indians at 0.5%.

https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/california/university-of-california-irvine/students/

Students at University of California Irvine are predominantly Asian with a sizeable Hispanic population. The school has very high racial diversity.

RACE	PERCENT OF STUDENTS
White	15%
Black	2%
Hispanic	25%
Asian	37%
American Indian / Alaskan	0%
Hawaiian / Pacific Islander	0%
Two or more races	4%
International	16%
Race Unknown	1%

https://datausa.io/profile/university/university-of-california-irvine

The enrolled student population at University of California-Irvine, both undergraduate and graduate, is 

32.7% Asian, 

23.8% Hispanic or Latino, 

17.4% White, 

3.58% Two or More Races, 

1.88% Black or African American, 

0.318% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders, and 

0.0702% American Indian or Alaska Native.

Why Is UC Irvine Only 15% White?

http://www.unz.com/isteve/why-is-uc-irvine-only-15-white/

STEVE SAILER • AUGUST 25, 2017

Graphic 2015

41% Asian
36% Hispanic
15% White
4% Multiracial
3% Black 

Because that’s The Plan!

The University of California, Irvine opened in 1965 about three miles from the beach in Orange County. ...

Strikingly, UCI soon became predominantly Asian in enrollment. It was known as the University of Chinese Immigrants and the University of Civics and Integras in the 1990s after all the rice rocket compact sports cars driven by the student body.

https://www.collegedata.com/college/University-of-California-Irvine/?tab=profile-overview-tab
Entrance DifficultyVery difficult
Overall Admission Rate 29% of 95,065 applicants were admitted

Ethnicity of Students from U.S.
0.1% American Indian/Alaskan Native
43.1% Asian
31.4% Hispanic/Latino

16.1% White

5.0% Multi-race (not Hispanic/Latino)

2.5% Black/African-American

0.4% Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander
1.4% Unknown
International Students
17.0% from 78 countries

Back to the 90s......
By 1995.... At four University of California campuses, Asian students are now the predominant ethnic group among undergraduates--most conspicuously at UC Irvine, where they are a majority. Changes since the 1984-85 school year:

Growing Asian Enrollment Redefines UC Campuses : Education

https://www.latimes.com › archives › la-xpm-1995-12-27-mn-18225-story

Dec 27, 1995 - At UC Irvine, more than half of undergraduates and 47% of all students are of Asian descent. At UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC Riverside, such students make up just under 40% of the undergraduate population. Whites still have the larger numbers when graduate figures are included but even that gap is shrinking.

At UC Irvine, more than half of undergraduates and 47% of all students are of Asian descent. At UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC Riverside, such students make up just under 40% of the undergraduate population. Whites still have the larger numbers when graduate figures are included but even that gap is shrinking.

“To be 50% of the population--that’s an incredibly high number,” said Phat X. Chiem, editor of UC Irvine’s newspaper, New University. “It’s so high that some people criticize the school for being monocultural.”

And experts predict that the University of California’s recent rollback of affirmative action admissions will increase the number of students of Asian descent on campus, because most Asian Americans do not benefit from current admissions policies, which give preference to underrepresented minorities.

Asian Americans are also the state’s fastest-growing group and meet the university’s admission requirements at a higher rate than any other group.

...almost one-third of the state’s high school students of Asian descent qualified for admission to UC in 1990, compared with only 13% of whites, 5% of blacks and 4% of Latinos, according to the most recent figures from the California Postsecondary Education Commission. “There are large numbers of very qualified Asian American applicants applying to Berkeley,” said Pat Hayashi, UC Berkeley’s vice chancellor of admissions. “And I think it’s safe to predict that our numbers will continue to go up.”

Asian American students have long favored the more coveted UC schools, particularly UCLA and Berkeley, because they are centrally located and offer quality academic programs for a relatively low cost. But they also are the campuses with the most applicants vying for every seat.

“Historically, before [World War II], a lot of American universities were not admitting Asian American students, except for UC Berkeley and UCLA,” said professor L. Ling-Chi Wang, head of UC Berkeley’s Asian American Studies Department. “As a result, Asians have had a long affection and tie to these universities. They also have emerged to become leading research universities, and they are located in two of the most heavily populated areas for Asian Americans.”

...n the mid- to late-1980s, Asian Americans accused many of the nation’s top universities--including UC Berkeley and UCLA--of discriminating against applicants of Asian descent out of fear that their numbers were growing too fast.

At UC Berkeley, various state agencies stepped in to examine the allegations that Asian American admissions had been declining because of a series of deliberate policy changes. Although the university initially denied the allegations, former Chancellor Ira Michael Heyman publicly apologized to the Asian community in 1989 for hindering Asian Americans in the admissions process.

... issue of affirmative action has divided the state’s Asian community, because its members are torn between the community’s long commitment to civil rights and its desire for equal opportunities to attend the best schools.

“Asians are still minorities in California, but they get the shaft when they apply to colleges,” said Matt Belloni, opinion editor of UC Berkeley’s student newspaper.

..UC Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien, the system’s highest-ranking Asian American, contends that dismantling affirmative action may, in the long term, hurt the very students who envision benefits from new race-neutral admissions policies.

“If we don’t make any efforts to maintain diversity, we may end up over 90% Asian and Caucasian,” Tien said. “I don’t think that would be good for the educational experience of Asians and Caucasians. 

.. some students of Asian descent say they are enduring a backlash, which manifests itself in persistent campus jokes and offhand comments about Asians raising the grading curve and creating too much academic competition. UCLA, for instance, is sometimes referred to as the University of Caucasians Lost Among Asians, and UCI has been sarcastically called the University of Chinese Immigrants.