The campus diversity quandary

“What more could I have done to get into your college?” Michael wrote angrily to the universities that turned him down. “Was it based on race, or what was it based on?” When he received only vague responses, or no response at all, Michael complained to the U.S. Department of Education, again without satisfaction. So last May Michael Wang joined 64 Asian-American organizations that filed a joint complaint to the Department of Education, alleging racial discrimination by Harvard. That claim was rejected in July, but Asian Americans have also lately filed similar lawsuits against Harvard, the University of North Carolina, and nine other universities.

What’s wrong with their logic? Ideally, shouldn’t the best and brightest high school students — as measured by their grades, test scores, and activities — get first crack at America’s top universities, regardless of their race, creed, or nationality?

One key question

Not necessarily. Over the past two generations, educators have realized that students learn as much from their peers as from their professors — that the most transformational academic experiences occur not in the classroom but in spontaneous interactions with people from cultures unlike their own. This campus diversity (not to be confused with affirmative action, which seeks to redress past racial discrimination) is also critical for preparing students to survive in an increasingly pluralistic world.

This is why many colleges now encourage, or even require, undergraduates to spend at least a semester abroad. That is also why diversity now matters more than test scores when it comes to college admissions. “We’re looking for a well-rounded class, not well-rounded students,” admissions officers often say.

The key question for applicants, then, is not how bright or accomplished they are, but what unique qualities they will bring to their classmates.

Harvard comes to Girls High

But is this a legitimate question? I think so. In the early ’50s, I spent three summers at an international camp in the French Alps that was deliberately structured so that its population was half American and half European. It was a transforming educational experience, but its value would have been negligible had all the campers been Americans, or Europeans.

When my daughter was a senior at Philadelphia High School for Girls 30 years ago, Harvard sent a representative to the school’s “college night.” Since Harvard could take its pick of the nation’s top students, some parents asked him why he bothered to beat the bushes in public schools so distant (psychologically as well as geographically) from Harvard Square.

“It’s a good question,” the Harvard man replied. “We could save ourselves plenty of time and expense by just admitting the entire senior class from Bronx High School of Science. But what would they bring to us and to each other, aside from perfect SAT scores?”

IBM machines with testicles

No doubt that Harvard man remembered one of the most ludicrous experiments in admissions fairness: Columbia University’s Class of 1964, aka “Dudley’s Folly.” In 1959 Columbia hired a new admissions director named David A. Dudley, who declared that henceforth Columbia would do away with all forms of bigotry (against, say, Jews, blacks, and the poor) and favoritism (toward, say, alumni, the rich, and jocks). Instead, the class would be chosen solely on the basis of grades and test scores.

You can imagine what happened: Dudley’s first class consisted overwhelmingly of “IBM machines with testicles,” as they called themselves. Some 85 percent of that class were white Jews from New York. (Columbia was all-male at the time, to boot.) In a class of some 700, only 25 had been a captain of any high school sports team. The unfortunate members of that group — some of whom were friends of mine, and three of whom have written for BSR — received a rigorous exposure to books and professors but hardly any exposure to real-world experiences. David Dudley was fired after one year on the job, and his name became a synonym for admissions lunacy to this day.

Harvard dropouts

So if I were Harvard’s admissions director, how would I reply to Michael Wang’s complaint? Maybe something like this:

“Your academic credentials are indeed impressive. But that’s true for every application we receive. So the question is not how wonderful you are but how different you are. What unique qualities will you bring to this class? Put yourself in my shoes. If diversity is my primary goal, do I really need another overachieving Asian American from California?

“Here’s the great college admissions conundrum: In order to provide the best possible undergraduate experience to Asian Americans like you, I must reject many Asian Americans like you. If I picked my freshmen solely on the basis of grades and test scores, our entering class would be 80 percent Asian. You’d all wind up talking to each other, just like those Jewish New Yorkers in Columbia’s Class of ’64.

“But here’s the silver lining: Over the long haul, your choice of college doesn’t matter as much as you think. A Harvard degree won’t kill you, but Bill Gates didn’t need one, and neither did Mark Zuckerberg. Come to think of it, neither did Robert Frost, or Edwin Land (who developed the Polaroid camera), or Buckminster Fuller, or Pete Seeger, or Bonnie Raitt, all of whom dropped out of Harvard and managed just fine. I could get fired for telling you this, but if you come from a family like yours — one steeped in a love of learning, a strong work ethic, and high self-esteem — your choice of college is a minor issue.

“I would wish you luck in your future endeavors. But something tells me you’ll make your own.”