Asian female--should I not disclose my ethnicity? Forum

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cavalier1138

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Re: Asian female--should I not disclose my ethnicity?

Post by cavalier1138 » Wed Jan 02, 2019 12:09 pm

BlackAndOrange84 wrote:
cavalier1138 wrote:
BlackAndOrange84 wrote:Is it true that it would be comically easy to spot? Is there any systematic linking of LSAT/GPA to admissions outcomes by race outside of URM status?
Yes. "URM" is an entirely made-up designation; schools and LSAC collect racial reporting data using the standard classifications you see on most forms that ask that question. Unless large chunks of Asian Americans are choosing to not report, that data is definitely available.
Sorry, wasn't clear. I get the data exist. Is there any hint of it out in the public domain short of filing a lawsuit and getting discovery? For instance, in the undergraduate admissions issue, there had been some academic studies done, including a book-length treatment. I'm not sure there's ever been anything similar in the public domain on law school admissions. And if Asian Americans don't outperform on the LSAT/GPA measures (especially LSAT), any discrimination would be a bit tougher to spot than at the UG level where it's pretty obvious (they've been killing college entrance exams, which is well known publicly, which in part is probably what has attracted so much attention both academically and now legally). If it's not as obvious for law school admissions (e.g., something like Asian Americans perform about the same as caucasians on LSAT but seem to have just slightly worse relative admissions outcomes) then I think it's fairly easy to see why this wouldn't attract a ton of attention. Even anecdotally, this is the first I've heard of Asian Americans not disclosing for law school admissions (anecdotally, Asian American parents and college applicants are well aware of the negative undergrad admissions bump and look for ways not to disclose).
Ah, then no. I don't think it's in the public domain, but LSAC would probably have a very clear picture of the numbers already. I think that the initial claim that it would be "comically easy to spot" was from the perspective of people who can see the full range of data.

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Re: Asian female--should I not disclose my ethnicity?

Post by QContinuum » Wed Jan 02, 2019 12:39 pm

BlackAndOrange84 wrote:
cavalier1138 wrote:
BlackAndOrange84 wrote:Is it true that it would be comically easy to spot? Is there any systematic linking of LSAT/GPA to admissions outcomes by race outside of URM status?
Yes. "URM" is an entirely made-up designation; schools and LSAC collect racial reporting data using the standard classifications you see on most forms that ask that question. Unless large chunks of Asian Americans are choosing to not report, that data is definitely available.
Sorry, wasn't clear. I get the data exist. Is there any hint of it out in the public domain short of filing a lawsuit and getting discovery? For instance, in the undergraduate admissions issue, there had been some academic studies done, including a book-length treatment. I'm not sure there's ever been anything similar in the public domain on law school admissions. And if Asian Americans don't outperform on the LSAT/GPA measures (especially LSAT), any discrimination would be a bit tougher to spot than at the UG level where it's pretty obvious (they've been killing college entrance exams, which is well known publicly, which in part is probably what has attracted so much attention both academically and now legally). If it's not as obvious for law school admissions (e.g., something like Asian Americans perform about the same as caucasians on LSAT but seem to have just slightly worse relative admissions outcomes) then I think it's fairly easy to see why this wouldn't attract a ton of attention. Even anecdotally, this is the first I've heard of Asian Americans not disclosing for law school admissions (anecdotally, Asian American parents and college applicants are well aware of the negative undergrad admissions bump and look for ways not to disclose).
Even here on TLS, I think it'd be easy to spot from MyLSN data. If anti-Asian discrimination existed, you'd see significant, systematic underperformance of Asian applicants relative to MyLSN data (and, likewise, overperformance of Caucasian applicants). Instead we see, again and again, MyLSN almost perfectly predicting applicants' actual chances.

I also think that any discrimination would be so obvious to spot from the perch of admissions offices that it's more than likely that, if there was such a practice, we'd have had whistleblowers coming forward.

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Re: Asian female--should I not disclose my ethnicity?

Post by LSATWiz.com » Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:32 pm

QContinuum wrote:
UBETutoring wrote:Fyi, the fact Harvard Undergrad is being sued does not mean the problem is limited to the undergrad or to Harvard. It only means the lawyers want to start at one school because it’s easier to prove, and less costly. This isn’t a case they’ll turn a profit on. They just want the credit for implementing a new rule. No reason to include the law school.
All of the above is absolutely true, but even if the lawsuit's allegations regarding the College were proven in court, that still would not say anything about the law school, especially given the radically different admissions process used by law schools vs. colleges. As I noted earlier ITT, any anti-Asian discrimination (beyond a lack of URM preference) would be comically easy to spot in the law school admissions context, so the fact that it hasn't been remarked upon leads me to believe it doesn't exist.
Yeah, I just meant that limiting the defendant to Harvard UG is irrelevant. I think law schools are probably less negative-discriminatory in that the real reason anti-Asian discrimination exists is not because adcoms have anything against Asians, but if it was purely numbers, the general culture of these schools would become distinctly Asian. This is not dissimilar from Yale Law school implementing holistic applications in the 1930s from preventing their institution from becoming too Jewish. It's kind of funny how little things have changed in 90 years, the Civil Rights Act notwithstanding. I think modern law schools probably DGAF as long as they hit their medians, and have some level of diversity in their classrooms. I doubt law schools pay much attention to race at all if you're not URM so wouldn't stress it, but was just pointing out that the named defendant doesn't matter. The plaintiffs don't just want to have to prove more than they have to, to win their case.

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Re: Asian female--should I not disclose my ethnicity?

Post by QContinuum » Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:39 pm

UBETutoring wrote:Yeah, I just meant that limiting the defendant to Harvard UG is irrelevant. I think law schools are probably less negative-discriminatory in that the real reason anti-Asian discrimination exists is not because adcoms have anything against Asians, but if it was purely numbers, the general culture of these schools would become distinctly Asian.
I'm not entirely sure that's true. Many Asian cultures (as well as many other non-U.S. cultures, for that matter; the U.S. is kinda unique in its "love" for litigating!) view lawyers with some degree of suspicion and skepticism. IME, many Asian parents willing to support or even push their children in excelling academically would be pretty opposed to the idea of their children becoming lawyers.

So I suspect there's also a self-selection effect going on. In my personal observations, at least, law was not nearly as popular as pre-med or engineering or business among the Asian-American undergrads at my college.
UBETutoring wrote:I think modern law schools probably DGAF as long as they hit their medians, and have some level of diversity in their classrooms. I doubt law schools pay much attention to race at all if you're not URM so wouldn't stress it, but was just pointing out that the named defendant doesn't matter. The plaintiffs don't just want to have to prove more than they have to, to win their case.
Agreed that modern law schools don't really pay attention to race (aside from giving a URM boost). It's all LSAC GPA & LSAT.

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Re: Asian female--should I not disclose my ethnicity?

Post by LSATWiz.com » Wed Jan 02, 2019 6:06 pm

QContinuum wrote:
UBETutoring wrote:Yeah, I just meant that limiting the defendant to Harvard UG is irrelevant. I think law schools are probably less negative-discriminatory in that the real reason anti-Asian discrimination exists is not because adcoms have anything against Asians, but if it was purely numbers, the general culture of these schools would become distinctly Asian.
I'm not entirely sure that's true. Many Asian cultures (as well as many other non-U.S. cultures, for that matter; the U.S. is kinda unique in its "love" for litigating!) view lawyers with some degree of suspicion and skepticism. IME, many Asian parents willing to support or even push their children in excelling academically would be pretty opposed to the idea of their children becoming lawyers.

So I suspect there's also a self-selection effect going on. In my personal observations, at least, law was not nearly as popular as pre-med or engineering or business among the Asian-American undergrads at my college.
UBETutoring wrote:I think modern law schools probably DGAF as long as they hit their medians, and have some level of diversity in their classrooms. I doubt law schools pay much attention to race at all if you're not URM so wouldn't stress it, but was just pointing out that the named defendant doesn't matter. The plaintiffs don't just want to have to prove more than they have to, to win their case.
Agreed that modern law schools don't really pay attention to race (aside from giving a URM boost). It's all LSAC GPA & LSAT.
I think the referenced case demonstrates that undergraduate schools have a de facto Asian quota, and the effect is that certain Asian cultures emphasize college and post-college education more than others. For the sake of not naming specific nationalities, let's say that 2 of 5 cultures hold a profession in high regard and have the resources needed to get certain numbers. Even though they may only represent half of Asian applicants, they may already fill the quota such that other cultures are dramatically underrepresented. Nevertheless, because schools may be grouping together Asian under one superficial lens, applicants from these cultures are out of luck. My experience hasn't been that Asians like law any less than non-Asians, but I respect your point.

I think the reality is that law schools really just care about the #'s, which we already went over.

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Re: Asian female--should I not disclose my ethnicity?

Post by r6_philly » Wed Jan 02, 2019 7:10 pm

I will just be frank, at least for Chinese culture, the same qualities which make good litigators are not necessarily traditionally viewed as good qualities by our parents. So I don't necessarily think that the culture discourages one from becoming lawyers, but those of us who become one are relatively few due to the perceived incompatibility of personalities and qualities. I think the culture and parents encourages other professional careers more.

Also to dissect this a bit more, first gen Chinese generally do not become lawyers due to entry of barriers (language + culture), and second gen+ do not because there are usually more needed/in demand professional careers in the communities they grow up in, so parents generally push them toward those needs. I think that's why we see more doctors, dentists, accountants, etc.

Further, firms generally have a tough time, at least so far, retaining Asian associates and elevate Asian partners. So the practice has not yet seen a dramatic rise in Asians. Still "minority" in practice.

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Re: Asian female--should I not disclose my ethnicity?

Post by BlackAndOrange84 » Wed Jan 02, 2019 8:36 pm

QContinuum wrote: Even here on TLS, I think it'd be easy to spot from MyLSN data. If anti-Asian discrimination existed, you'd see significant, systematic underperformance of Asian applicants relative to MyLSN data (and, likewise, overperformance of Caucasian applicants). Instead we see, again and again, MyLSN almost perfectly predicting applicants' actual chances.

I also think that any discrimination would be so obvious to spot from the perch of admissions offices that it's more than likely that, if there was such a practice, we'd have had whistleblowers coming forward.
Three issues: (1) I don't see a sufficient break down on LSN (beyond URM and African American), maybe I'm missing it; (2) if what you're talking about is correlating MyLSN with what people self-identify as on TLS, you're not only getting a smaller and smaller data set, but a self-selected subset of an already self-selected subset; and (3) given what I said earlier about performance on the LSAT (and I still haven't seen anything suggesting any overperformance, much less to the same degree as for college entrance exams, it may well be that any discrimination is actually kinda tough to ferret out. If discrimination is present in law school admissions, I think it's likely to be difficult to eyeball from anecdata or even small subsets without applying some statistics and without a pretty large set of data from which to work because it isn't necessary for the discrimination to be as extreme or as obvious as in UG admissions (unless someone finds some data showing that Asian-Americans outperform on LSAT compared to caucasians, which I've been unable to find).

All that said, I think what's been said about self-selection of Asian-American applicants in the thread is probably true to some extent and may mean it's not necessary to discriminate in law school admissions to keep desired demographic rates of admission (from the POV of adcomms, not in any objective sense) and matriculation beyond URM/non-URM status.

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