Do elite private colleges discriminate against Asians?

This new Princeton study covered on US News and World Report says so.

Highlights:

• Translating the advantages into SAT scores, study author Thomas Espenshade, a Princeton sociologist, calculated that African-Americans who achieved 1150 scores on the two original SAT tests had the same chances of getting accepted to top private colleges in 1997 as whites who scored 1460s and Asians who scored perfect 1600s.
• Deborah Santiago, vice president for policy and research at Excelencia in Education, noted, however, that other recent studies have shown that many well-qualified students who come from low-income, African-American, or Hispanic families don't apply to elite schools. So the few who do apply are likely to have better odds.

• Espenshade found that when comparing applicants with similar grades, scores, athletic qualifications, and family history for seven elite private colleges and universities:

• Whites were three times as likely to get fat envelopes as Asians.
• Hispanics were twice as likely to win admission as whites.
• African-Americans were at least five times as likely to be accepted as whites.
• Athletes were more than twice as likely to get in as non-athletes with similar qualifications.
• Students from .private high schools were twice as likely to receive acceptance letters as similar students from regular public high schools.

COMBO, COMBO, COMBO

Links to the Prince's coverage of the famed 08 COMBO survey which we are always bringing up at mod meetings:

The article: http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/10/01/21600/

Highlights --

• The results indicate that the likelihood of students to describe themselves as “always happy” decreases with their income level. Sixteen percent of upper-class students said they were “always happy,” compared to 7 percent of lower-class students. A majority of students from all backgrounds said they were “usually happy” at the University.
• One of the major findings of the survey was that respondents who classified themselves as lower and lower-middle class were more likely to feel uncomfortable than middle-, upper-middle- and upper-class students in a variety of social contexts, including at fraternity or sorority events, at eating clubs, on athletic teams, during extracurricular activities and at weekend parties in eating clubs and dorm rooms.

The editorial: http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/10/03/21639/

A related guest column about diversity and self-segregation on campus: http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/02/24/22867/

The full PDF results of the survey: http://open.dailyprincetonian.com/public/COMBO_survey_results.pdf

-Alexis

Robert George's argument against Same-Sex Marriage

Pages 119-136 of this Google Books link contain one of George's famous essays explaining his views on same-sex marriage and a response. Considering that he is a prominent professor on campus, the co-founder of NOM, and involved with student organizations on campus from Aquinas to Anscombe, mods might be interested in reading and understanding his views and/or bringing them up in discussion.

-Alexis