Does the Ivy League use a quota system?

[ParkCungHee]

Ron Unz has written an article over at the Ameircan Conservative that clocks in at 35,000 words, so I can't reproduced the article even in a spoiler, here, and I know most people won't read it all, because it is so, so dense.

That said, this is probably the most important article on current events I've read anywhere in years, so I'm going to try and condense the argument here.

1) The Ivy League wields an influence on American life wildly out of proportion to the quality of it's education. An Ivy League degree is of nearly inestimable value in itself, and the higher echelons of American Business and Government are an incestuous group of Ivy League Graduates. Until this is changed, the recruitment policies of the Ivy League are a matter of public concern, given the role these recruiters have in shaping the course of our country.

2) The recruitment policies of these institutions is demonstrably not meritocratic, nor is it color blind. Despite higher performance in just about every measurement of academic performance available, and demographic data supporting increased applications to Ivy League Schools, Asian American enrolment rates at these schools have stayed steadily around 16.5. This number does not fluctuate to a statistically significant degree.

Even more surprising has been the sheer constancy of these percentages, with almost every year from 1995–2011 showing an Asian enrollment within a single point of the 16.5 percent average, despite huge fluctuations in the number of applications and the inevitable uncertainty surrounding which students will accept admission. By contrast, prior to 1993 Asian enrollment had often changed quite substantially from year to year...Put another way, the percentage of college-age Asian-Americans attending Harvard peaked around 1993, and has since dropped by over 50 percent, a decline somewhat larger than the fall in Jewish enrollment which followed the imposition of secret quotas in 1925.

3) Jewish Americans seem to benefit from the quota system as much, if not more, than White Christians. While Jewish Academic Performance has declined significantly since the 1980s.

For example, among Math Olympiad winners, white Gentiles scarcely outnumbered Jews during the 1970s, and held only a three-to-two edge during the 1980s and 1990s, but since 2000 have become over fifteen times as numerous. Between 1938 and 1999, Putnam Exam winners had averaged about two white Gentiles for every Jew, with the ratios for each decade oscillating between 1.5 and 3.0, then rising to nearly 5-to-1 during 2001–2005, and without a single Jewish name on the winner list from 2006 onward.

Ron compiles a big honking list of similar statistics, which all tell the same story: Jewish students are no longer disproportionately successful.

Based on the overall distribution of America’s population, it appears that approximately 65–70 percent of America’s highest ability students are non-Jewish whites, well over ten times the Jewish total of under 6 percent...Needless to say, these proportions are considerably different from what we actually find among the admitted students at Harvard and its elite peers, which today serve as a direct funnel to the commanding heights of American academics, law, business, and finance. Based on reported statistics, Jews approximately match or even outnumber non-Jewish whites at Harvard and most of the other Ivy League schools, which seems wildly disproportionate. Indeed, the official statistics indicate that non-Jewish whites at Harvard are America’s most under-represented population group, enrolled at a much lower fraction of their national population than blacks or Hispanics, despite having far higher academic test scores.

4) Standardized testing also fails to be meritocratic. While SATs etc, can sort out the highest performing students, the fact of the bell curve means it is very difficult to sort out excellent but not top tier students. The simple fact that there are only 1,600 points on the SATs will mean that Ivy Leagues will probably have to reject some students with the same score and accept others. Even more importantly, the difference between a student scoring a a 1300 and a 1305 on the SATs likely represents any of a thousand factors other than Academic performance.

As a result, Mr. Unz proposes that the bulk of Ivy League Students be selected by lottery:

Let us explore the likely social implications of such an admissions policy, focusing solely on Harvard and following a very simple model, in which (say) 300 slots or around 20 percent of each entering class are allocated based on pure academic merit (the “Inner Ring&#8221, with the remaining 1300 slots being randomly selected from the 30,000 or so American applicants considered able to reasonably perform at the school’s required academic level and thereby benefit from a Harvard education (the “Outer Ring&#8221.

First, we must recognize that the 300 applicants admitted by straight merit would be an exceptionally select group, representing just the top 2 percent of America’s 16,000 NMS semifinalists. Also, almost any American students in this group or even reasonably close would be very well aware of that fact, and more importantly, nearly all other students would realize they were far too distant to have any chance of reaching that level, no matter how hard they studied or how many hours they crammed, thus freeing them from any terrible academic pressure. Under today’s system, the opaque and haphazard nature of the admissions process persuades tens of thousands of students they might have a realistic shot at Harvard if only they would study a bit harder or participate in one more resume-stuffing extracurricular,116 but that would no longer be the case, and they would be able to relax a bit more during their high school years, just so long as they did well enough to qualify and try their luck as one of the “Outer Ring” of applicants.

The 300 Inner Ring students would certainly be quite different in all sorts of ways from the average high school student, even aside from their greater academic ability and drive; they might not be “diverse” in any sense of the word, whether geographically, ethnically, or socio-economically. But the remaining 1300 Outer Ring students would represent a random cross-section of the tens of thousands of students who applied for admission and had reasonably good academic ability, and since they would constitute 80 percent of the enrollment, Harvard would almost certainly become far more diverse and representative of America’s total population in almost all ways than is the case today, when 30 percent of its students come from private schools, often the most elite and expensive ones.117

Furthermore, the vast majority of Harvard graduates—and everyone who later dealt with them—would know perfectly well that they had merely been “lucky” in gaining their admission, thereby tempering the sort of arrogance found among too many of today’s elite college graduates. And our vast and growing parasitic infrastructure of expensive cram-schools, private tutors, special academies, and college application consultants would quickly be reduced to what was merited by their real academic value, which may actually be close to nil. A general armistice would have been declared in America’s endlessly growing elite admissions arms-race.

I'll encourage you all to try and read the article again, because it's far more nuanced then I've managed to represent here, and is very open with it's statistical methodologies in case you have questions about the significance of his findings.

It's a very diverse article, so there's a lot that can be discussed here: The existence of the quota system, the causes of it, the proposed solutions.

CFC has some bright people so I'd like to get your take on it.

 

[luiz]

Very interesting stuff, I'll read it carefully and comment later on. Without reading the whole thing, I can agree that the admission system seems broken, but I disagree with his suggestion. I don't think "diversity", as understood in the US, is an end in itself (I really don't see how including both me and my half-Japanese cousins to the same class would make it anymore "diverse", other than in a very shallow and meaningless sense). More later.

 

[innonimatu]

Must take the time to read it too before commenting. But he gets one thing right, top universities world a huge influence in just about every modern country, and are deeply "incestuous". That, I'm afraid, is very hard to counter effectively. Lotteries have indeed been a time-honored way of countering that (we could recall the lottery systems used in ancient Greece and medieval Italy to weed out nepotism among the ruling classes).

I'm wondering now, have the predictable attacks about "anti-semitism" been made on that author already? Or are his statistics good enough to ward those off?

 

[Hygro]

Definitely going to read this article and then comment.

 

[uppi]

That graph is a clear example of (intentionally?) obscuring the truth. It compares the enrollment of Asians (shouldn't that be Asian Americans?) in percent to the total number of young Asians. Without also showing how the total number of young Americans changed during that time, there is no way to make a meaningful comparison between those numbers.

If the total number of young Americans increased during that time, and I am assuming it did, the graph might look much less dramatic.

No matter whether his other arguments are sound or not, that graph casts a very bad light on his article.

 

[ParkCungHee]

There's only so manner factors you can fit onto a graph while keeping it easy to read. Note he also includes Cal-Tech as a comparative measure of a very high performance school. It goes up and it goes down.

The fact it is illustrating is that the numbers at Cal-Tech fluctuate, and the numbers for Ivy Leagues converge and remain stable. So the number of other students would have to rise to explain the decline of Cornell and fall to explain the gently tapered rise of Dartmouth, all while keeping in step with the rises, falls and plateaus of Cal-Tech. It's not just that 16.5 is a low number, it's that the number that several different institutions gravitate towards unerringly.

It compares the enrollment of Asians (shouldn't that be Asian Americans?)

No, Unz's methodology simply counts all people of East Asian origin.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I'm wondering now, have the predictable attacks about "anti-semitism" been made on that author already? Or are his statistics good enough to ward those off?

I'm pretty sure this is the first article in the history of TAC that hasn't been called antisemitic. I think because Unz's article makes it pretty clear that the system isn't designed to benefit Jews specifically, as to lock in place an image of campus demographics as they were in the 1980s.

Also, out of curiosity, what's Portugal's "Top University?"

 

[dutchfire]

Maybe a trivial question, but anyway, why? Why would they want campus demographics the same as the 80s?

 

[ParkCungHee]

It's certainly not a trivial question. My guess is that it's simply a fear of change, but I really don't have any idea.

 

[uppi]

There's only so manner factors you can fit onto a graph while keeping it easy to read. Note he also includes Cal-Tech as a comparative measure of a very high performance school. It goes up and it goes down.

Yes, but in this case, the proper way of illustrating it would make the graph even easier to read, as he would have needed only one y-axis. Simplicity is a poor excuse when he is taking the much more convoluted option.

 

[dutchfire]

It's certainly not a trivial question. My guess is that it's simply a fear of change, but I really don't have any idea.

That sounds like a reason why people dislike their new Windows, not why they would set up a large, nation wide, possibly illegal and probably immoral conspiracy to meddle with the future of the American elite.

I also wouldn't expect much latent racism against Asian people. Black people, sure I understand that, but Asians are fine, aren't they?

 

[downtown]

That sounds like a reason why people dislike their new Windows, not why they would set up a large, nation wide, possibly illegal and probably immoral conspiracy to meddle with the future of the American elite.

I also wouldn't expect much latent racism against Asian people. Black people, sure I understand that, but Asians are fine, aren't they?

I wonder if there is a financial incentive to curb, or quota, asian american enrollments? Perhaps it is more lucrative to the university to enroll more marginal white (or other background) students instead?

I'm still working my way though this article. Sounds like another great reason to blow up the Ivy League though. (not literally of course)

 

[dutchfire]

I wonder if there is a financial incentive to curb, or quota, asian american enrollments? Perhaps it is more lucrative to the university to enroll more marginal white (or other background) students instead?

Why?

 

[Kozmos]

I'm just concerned about the amount of research grants (billions and billions) that are funneled into the League. They have done some great stuff no doubt, but I keep wondering if other universities with valid research ideas and projects are getting shorted because of it.

 

[Hygro]

Why?

Old money rich white kids.

 

[lovett]

It's certainly not a trivial question. My guess is that it's simply a fear of change, but I really don't have any idea.

This is what makes me a bit sceptical of his thesis, to be honest.

His thesis is that there is a fixed, relatively unerring, quota of ~16.5% for Asian enrollment across the Ivy league, and this quota has been in effect (secretly) for several decades.

I am not entirely sure how admissions committees in the US work. But, if it is anything like here, it is academics who have the final say over who is admitted (or, at least, a huge say!). The academics in the Ivy League are at the top of their field. They are very intelligent people and they are relatively inured from political pressure, including that from the university (that is what tenure is for). Very intelligent people are unlikely to be racists, and they are unlikely to be the cats paws of racism. That is not to say none are; some are. But I, for one, have never met an academic of that calibre who expressed a hint of racial prejudice.

I find it simply remarkable that these people would, en masse, not only consent to the imposition and maintenance of quotas but also actively maintain those quotas.

 

[dutchfire]

Got about halfway through yesterday evening. It is LONG!

It seems a bit racist at places, ascribing certain groups of people qualities in certain fields. "Jews are good with words".

 

[galdre]

Having worked at an ivy league university, I can definitely confirm how prejudiced the institutions are. Of course the biggest prejudice involves class, but the one I worked at was pretty racist as well.

As for academics having a say in admissions (which lovett mentions); that was not the case at the law school I worked at. Not sure if that's representative or not.

 

[emzie]

I'm not sure I have a problem with quotas being used to reflect current demographics. Just as the article says, the difference between a 1300 and a 1305 SAT is negligible to the extent that 1305 student isn't expected to have any more successful a career. So if your school puts out a disproportionate amount of the country's future leadership, why not ensure your school looks like the country rather than old white money?

 

[ParkCungHee]

I'm not sure I have a problem with quotas being used to reflect current demographics. Just as the article says, the difference between a 1300 and a 1305 SAT is negligible to the extent that 1305 student isn't expected to have any more successful a career. So if your school puts out a disproportionate amount of the country's future leadership, why not ensure your school looks like the country rather than old white money?

The problem is that the quota system is there to ensure the school looks like old white money.