Harvard systematically advertised to black students whose low standardized test scores gave them little chance of being admitted, a new study reveals, in what the authors suggest was a bid to obscure racial quotas at the university.
The paper, based on data made public by the ongoing discrimination lawsuit against Harvard, shows that starting in 2004 the university saw a substantial increase in the number of applications from low-scoring students, in particular African Americans. The study’s authors—one of whom, Peter Arcidiacono, served as an expert witness for the lawsuit’s plaintiff—argue that this increase was at least in part a deliberate policy choice by Harvard’s admissions office to disguise affirmative action.
If true, this finding provides yet more ammunition for critics of Harvard, which continues to face charges of anti-Asian discrimination. At the same time, the study casts a less-than-flattering light on the racial dynamics at play in admissions to one of America’s most elite universities.
As Arcidiacono and his coauthors have previously shown, admission rates have dropped precipitously since the turn of the millennium. “With such low admit rates, many applicants simply have no chance of being admitted, suggesting clear information problems in this market,” the study says. Why, then, do people keep applying in droves?
The story is even odder when it comes to black applicants. Harvard assigns each applicant an “academic index,” a score between 60 and 240 that synthesizes SATs, SAT IIs, and self-reported GPA. Among black applicants who are not athletes, legacy, dean’s interest list, or children of faculty/staff, 40 percent are in the bottom tenth of academic indexes among all applicants; 60 percent are in the bottom fifth. By comparison, only 13 percent of whites and 9 percent of Asians are in the bottom fifth. – READ MORE