There’s been a lot of talk in and outside of the Asian American community about discrimination against Asian Americans in college admissions.
But a statistical analysis by Julie Park, an assistant professor of English at the University of Maryland, concluded that the real culprit are students admitted through special preferences.
In her blog in the Huffington Post, Park says that about one out of three white students are admitted through special preferences. Those include legacies and athletic recruitment.
Whites admitted into Harvard have on average SAT scores which are 22 points lower than Asian Americans at Harvard.
About lawsuits charging discrimination against Asian Americans in college admissions, Park wrote:
“Affirmative action gets blamed instead of legacy admissions for why Asian American enrollments aren’t higher in the Ivies. This is a disservice because we need to understand the source of the problem to diagnose a solution. In this case, the lawsuit’s proposed solution–eliminating all consideration of race from the admissions process–goes way too far”
You can read more of Park’s analysis and a breakdown on how she arrived at her statistics in the Huffington Post.
