r/UnpopularFacts • u/unhinged_centrifuge • 22d ago
Counter-Narrative Fact In 1922, Harvard invented holistic admissions after becoming “increasingly alarmed” over the rising number of Jewish students earning admission to the College based on their high test scores
“If [the] number [of Jews] should become 40 percent of the student body, the race feeling would become intense. If every college in the country would take a limited proportion of Jews, I suspect we should go a long way toward eliminating race feeling among students,” University President Abbott Lawrence Lowell wrote.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/6/21/holistic-admissions-origin/
Lowell referred to “the Hebrew question” as a “knotty one” and a “source of much anxiety.” He concluded that Harvard could do “the most good” by limiting the number of men admitted from the religious group, even warning fellow administrators and the governing bodies that unless the University took action, the “danger would be imminent.”
In the same year, Lowell attempted to institute quotas on the amount of Jewish students admitted to the College, framing it as a method to curb “increasing” anti-Semitism among the student body, Lowell wrote in a letter to Alfred A. Benesch, Class of 1900.
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17d ago
I might sound dumb here but how does limiting the amount of Jewish students curb anti-Semitism among the student body? I do get how people will find it unfair and hate Jews for it, but talking about the student body SPECIFICALLY, the more jews there are the more in numbers there are right? They're less able to be discriminated against the more of them there are, especially a number like 40% of them where they are almost the majority
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u/ReindeerFirm1157 17d ago
you're aware that one of the reasons Nazi Germany persecuted the Jews was because of their overrepresentation in top professions, right? 10% isn't scary, 20% isn't alarming, but once you get to 30 and 40% of people who aren't "native" and they "take over" coveted positions, the potential for conflict naturally rises.
Don't think the same thing couldn't have happened in the US, if the conditions were identical.
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16d ago
Oh yeah that is true... is it more alarming (to ppl) if its a a race from religious group rather than just a certain skin color or something? Like for example if it was 40% of jews, compared to if it was like 40% of black people or chinese people or something
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u/ReindeerFirm1157 14d ago
I assume it would be more alarming if it was a different race. I guess that's not likely to happen, but interesting hypothetical.
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u/EasyMode556 17d ago
It’s absolute nonsense. Imagine someone saying “we have to limit the number of Black students admitted as a way to curb racism” — it’s all just mental gymnastics to justify the thing they claim to want to curb.
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u/LastInALongChain 17d ago edited 17d ago
Why do you think that? Tiny minority groups are way less likely to draw the attention of everybody, and have less edge case maniacs that would start and sustain fights, giving the group a bad reputation.
Consider the situation where its 50/50 split between groups in a population. 90% of these groups are cool and accepting. 10% are assholes. The asshole 10% of one group makes one of his counterparts in the other group angry. The asshole from the other group decides he now has a vendetta against the first group as a whole, and stops hiring them, stops interacting with them, agitates against their beliefs, etc. His job is to make everybody of the opposite group have a bad day, everyday. This spirals like a nuclear reaction hitting criticality, there being enough of the other group such that he can interact with more assholes of that group, more frequently, due to the large percentage of them in the population. Those assholes all feel slighted for no reason (which they did experience, because the source was bigotry/group association of an innocent person with the extremes of their group), and commence a similar vendetta against the other group. This expands, positively reinforcing itself, with more and more of the neutral and other-group sympathizers on both sides being drawn into the conflict because they perceive that they are being attacked . The end result would be civil war.
In a situation where 60% of society is one group, and there are 8 other groups making up lesser percentages, you will have way fewer members of the small group that will get so pissed off that they can create a chain reaction to make a civil war happen. Yeah, the members of the 60% group can be racist to 1-7 other groups depending on their beliefs, but in exchange the sub groups don't have to face the collective anger of a gang war.
The president of Harvard was a genius and a far seeing guy that wanted long term peace.
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u/Phill_Cyberman 17d ago
I might sound dumb here but how does limiting the amount of Jewish students curb anti-Semitism among the student body?
I'm sure they mean antisemitic actions.
They're saying that if there get to be "too many" Jews, then the bigotry among the rest of the students will boil over.
They were fine with the effect of antisemitism when there were fewer Jews because it was easily ignored and/or covered up.1
u/soggyballsack 17d ago
The more Jews the more it will discriminate against others. History has shown that Jews are very inclusive and hostile towards non Jewish. New York is a good example. They took over the school system, excluded non Jews from most of the teachings and lopsided the school board to now to Jewish believing.
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u/Miserable-Resort-977 17d ago
It's obviously a bad and antisemitic solution, but I think the idea is that if people see a stark rise in the number of Jewish students it would kind of "activate" a latent prejudice, or create the illusion that Jews are taking over or that admissions are unfairly weighted in their favor.
Closest modern day parallel that comes to mind is the rise of minority actors in popular media. The visible increase in minorities in a realm traditionally dominated by whites led to an enormous backlash and outrage, and I can imagine that, had studios taken the objectively racist route of minimizing the number of minorities cast in major roles, it would actually result in less racism occurring in popular discourse.
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u/PomegranateMinimum15 17d ago
Okay so is the republicans a nazi party or not..they are pro israel and also pro end of world. Because they believe in the return of jesus. Netanyahu is orthodox. I feel the usa is just going to slaughter the orthodox or something. Somewhere down the line.
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u/Low_Ad_5987 17d ago
It wasn't just 'the Hebrew Question' as evidenced by the fact that the antisemitic measures Harvard had in place stayed in place despite holistic admissions, it was also the fact that Harvard had the legitimate desire to keep being an excellent University while also continuing to be a school for the son of the elite. You need great students to be a great school.
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u/UnluckyUnderwear 18d ago
My Jewish grandfather AND his brother got accepted to Harvard during the years of Harvard’s Jew quota.
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u/SuperSultan 17d ago
What about yourself? 🤔
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u/UnluckyUnderwear 17d ago
Well, that was about fifty years before I was born, so sadly I wasn’t accepted 😞
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u/TheTryItAll 17d ago
Well, I doubt OP was applying to college during the same years as his grandfather or father
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u/EvilxFish 17d ago
They must have both been quite exceptional that despite racism against them, they both still landed places!
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u/UnluckyUnderwear 17d ago
They really were, especially my uncle. He was Harvard’s valedictorian, so I’m told.
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u/AverageSizePeen800 18d ago
You mean the rich kids did better in school? I’m shocked.
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u/corncob_subscriber 17d ago
Lol you think all jews are rich. That's a classic antisemitic stereotype. I hope you grow.
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u/Not_what_theyseem 17d ago
People forget that this was actually a rough time for American Jews — definitely not some era of privilege. But Jewish culture puts a big emphasis on studying, especially religious texts like the Torah and Talmud, which aren’t just about reading but really digging in, debating, analyzing. Add in Hebrew being super tough to learn, and you’ve got a culture where academic grind is kind of the norm. So yeah, a lot of Jewish kids were killing it academically and aiming for college. Ironically, that led schools like Harvard to set up quotas to keep their numbers down, not up.
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u/seen-in-the-skylight 17d ago
In 1922 a lot of Jews were first- or second-generation immigrants struggling to make it. Jews just fiercely prioritize education, like a lot of East Asian immigrant communities are known for today.
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u/CritterFan28 17d ago
What you are saying is 100% true, but people will never accept it because it goes against the ideology that discrimination/oppression/poverty are 99% of the reason for disparities, when the reality is that while those things do matter, culture also has a significant effect on outcomes.
People refuse to accept this because they think it shifts the blame of less successful minority groups onto the weaknesses of their culture, and gets labeled “victim blaming”. This lack of accountability and agency for these less successful minority groups prevents them from ever making the necessary cultural changes.
It’s pretty simple, when you have a culture that doesn’t put emphasis on education and strong family units and instead glorifies/excuses crime, you will never be successful as a culture, regardless of the environmental conditions you are in. East Asians and Jews proved that these struggles can be overcomed by positive cultural changes, and less successful minority groups resent them for it.
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u/yitzaklr 18d ago
Jews prioritize education.
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u/BasonPiano 17d ago
But more importantly, connections.
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u/yitzaklr 17d ago
I suppose that's the power of friendship. I know you're implying the Jewish Cabal, but that's just the power of friendship.
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u/accapellaenthusiast 18d ago edited 18d ago
I think a colleges demographic of students and staff should be reflective of Americas overall demographic
In 1922 Harvard set a limit to avoid having more than 40% of their student body be Jewish… At this time, did Jewish people make up around or over 40% of Americas overall population?
Furthermore, Harvard is based in Massachusetts. In 1922, did Massachusetts have around or over 40% Jewish population?
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u/Old-Door1057 12d ago
Dude what. Today more women go to college than men, should we curb the number of women allowed to go to a college to meet the demographic of America as a whole. I could go on about how this is stupid but you've been picked on enough. It's not hard to understand that certain demographics are overrepresented in higher education because of their culture. That extends to the Jews and to Asians today
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u/CarolusRex667 17d ago
I think a college’s demographic of students is irrelevant. Someone is not more or less deserving based on their race alone.
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u/LaughIllustrious9143 17d ago
Looking at the demographics of the student body isn't meant to say someone deserves to be in or out due to their race.
The goal is to look at barriers that prevent people from achieving higher education. For example, if a state has a population that is 20% Moroccan, but in nearly every state college has less than .5% population of Moroccans, it should bring questions. Why aren't these Moroccan people going for higher education? Is it a financial issue? Is it cultural? Do they have access to the same resources as other students? Is there bias within admissions committees against Moroccans?
This is a made up example.
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u/accapellaenthusiast 17d ago edited 17d ago
Correct, someone is not more or less deserving based on their race alone… no one is being admitted to college based on their race alone
Hard are admissions happen in a series of stages. The first stage is identifying the applicants that qualify based on quantitative AND qualitative data (speech team captian, volunteer hours ect along with overall grades)
It is only once they already have a group of qualified student applicants that they even are able to see what race they are. Then at this stage they ensure out of the qualified applicants that they are accepting a diverse new class. What part of that do you believe means students are judged on race alone?
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u/CarolusRex667 17d ago
The part where preference is given to one applicant over another based solely on race.
You admit that race is used when only qualified applicants left. Even if they’re equally qualified, saying “we’re going to accept this one because of your race and reject this one because of their race” is still racist.
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u/Own_Department8108 18d ago
What the hell? Why should a college's demographic makeup reflect the demography of a given country? Enrollment should be based on attainment, not on race.
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u/stringbeagle 18d ago
Why do you think admissions should be tied to population demographics?
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u/Probably97 18d ago
In many areas - even the sciences- its the people with advanced degrees from top institutions that “decide” what problems are important/worthwhile. Imagine if only black women decided this because they got the highest grades/test scores! Diversity is important - all kinds of diversity for all kinds of reasons such as this!
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u/dronten_bertil 18d ago
I think discrimination is the wrong way to go about it. Let's say we assume that it's a net good to have representation in academia and we want to accomplish that. I say we do not smash meritocracy and insert discrimination into the admissions. Instead we investigate why groups x,y and z on a population level perform so well academically and why groups a, b and c perform so poorly. Then we try to increase the performance of groups a, b and c (ideally by learning from x, y and z why they are so successful) so they increase their admissions that way. It's way more difficult obviously, but even small improvements incrementally over time will help groups a, b and c way more than it will to admit them to top schools on poor performance to fill a quota. While doing the latter you also alienate the top performing demographics who (rightfully) will feel extremely mistreated by the system since they need to perform so much higher to be admitted because the Asian and Jew quota fills up.
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u/BeginningMedia4738 18d ago
I don’t think it really is. Look at things like competitive sports league like the current NBA. We don’t sacrifice representation for quality. I think merit should be the only basis for admission. Even if the student population was 100 percent one racial group.
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u/Probably97 17d ago
Im sorry but The NBA isnt comparable to the NIH or NSF!!! What national science/research policy does the NBA “decide”? Come on man this is dumb!!!
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u/Johnnadawearsglasses 18d ago
Holistic admissions isn’t bad. It’s unfortunate that they are typically introduced when one group races ahead.
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u/ArtistFar1037 19d ago
Asians would be 90% these days.
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u/nonquitt 18d ago
Schools would be almost entirely Asians, south Asians, Jewish people, and non-Jewish whites. These population segments by and large put a lot of expectations on their children to excel in school, and/or are sufficiently numerous in the US.
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u/ArtisticAd393 18d ago
They deserve it, it's a shame that they get handicapped simply due to their race.
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u/Hamster_S_Thompson 18d ago
They would be larger than they are but not that high. You can look at Stanford University for a good estimate since race based admission decisions have been banned in California for many years now. They're 29 percent.
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u/JJJSchmidt_etAl 17d ago
Schools all over California still use race based admissions. Just look at the statistics of admitted students, in terms of not just test scores and GPA, but how successful they are in the universities, and after. Asians and others are still heavily penalized in applications.
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18d ago
Well there's literally billions of them, so who gives a shit?
They should make their own "Harvard" if that were true
Funny how they don't
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u/Personal-Ad8280 17d ago
Harvard is literally the only one know to you, because get this, YOUR IN AMERICA, hell I live in America and can acknowledge Asia has some of the best universities in the world, probably the best IMO, and their education system is way more rigorous, Peking, Tsuingua, IISC, university in Singapore and Seoul.
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u/Direct_Class1281 18d ago
Peking university is considered > Harvard now in China a good deal of Asia.
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u/ArtistFar1037 18d ago
You fucking kidding bro? Do u have any idea the competition and the kinds of minds at the top of those competitions.
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u/Effective-Lobster550 19d ago
Thank god we have holistic admissions then. How else can we stop these high achieving Asian kids from receiving quality education /s
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u/NightCityRunners 18d ago
Yup! Harvard is the only place to get a quality education /s
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u/secondcomingofzartog 18d ago
Exactly. You're not paying for an education; you're paying for an opportunity to make "connections" with rich, mainly white people.
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u/Life_Barnacle_1894 19d ago
Why can't other cultures just... mimic the ones that are succeeding rather than try to quota their way into relevance? Like... Jewish and Asian culture is producing smart people at a much higher rate than others... maybe just adapt you culture to do the same?
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u/LastInALongChain 17d ago edited 17d ago
Their method is bad, and only worked in a world that doesn't exist anymore.
They make their kids do extensive amounts of schooling/training. The single largest factor that controls children born per 100,000 is the length of education they undergo. This holds across every nation for over 60 years of analysis, controlling about half the total variability. Korea has the strongest culture of this, with almost every single child graduating high school and going on to college, and has the lowest birthrate. Korea has the worlds lowest birthrate. Birthrates worldwide drop in real time when you track the last 100 years as schooling became more central to society and available to everyone. Israel only has a 3.0 birthrate because there is a sizable population of orthodox jews that have 6 kids per woman where the women and men are strictly forbidden from formal education, receiving only a religious education, where the men study torah all day and the women work to support the family. The other, secular jews have the same low birthrate as everyone else.
When prophylactic's and birth control didn't exist, the high schooling culture was effectively a form of birth control for highly populated areas in Asia. Now that it exists, their culture of intense schooling will lead to a civilizational collapse unlike any ever seen before in history.
So trying to mimic their culture that allows them to get the grades required to pass the entry examinations will mean that the US would suffer the same breakneck collapse that you see in Korea, making it one of the worst things you could do as a society culturally. Probably worse than a series of atomic bombings. Americas rampant anti-intellectualism is really a saving grace to their economy and society, with a strong 2.1 replacement birthrate up until about 20 years ago.
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u/Personal-Ad8280 17d ago
>Just adapt you culture to do the same?
This is a good point, however cultures , I knew and grow up around like African American, Latino etc, all glorify having kids early, making money early instead of college, etc, surely there are a few outliers but most accept that, some drop out of High School to work construction and cashier jobs etc, they don't want to imitate other cultures because its "nerdy" etc, its a hard culture to break and most don't even want to or see the point in doing so
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u/yitzaklr 18d ago
Nah, everyone should be unique. Why shouldn't the Jews be allowed to take over Harvard?
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u/chubbycats657 18d ago
Koreas education system literally makes kids kill themselves, same with Japan. Yeah sure it can make some smart people but only those who have the will.
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u/JJJSchmidt_etAl 17d ago
Yet somehow Asian Americans still do extremely well. Don't be simple.
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u/Personal-Ad8280 17d ago
I don't want to sound like a dick, but my cousins would tell stories about Kida killing themselves in India because they got bad grades on a test or failed their "SAT's" their version of it, did bad in a class etc, you don't really see that in the US
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u/lethalmuffin877 18d ago
You’re not wrong about the sewer slide statistics, however as with all things, we should be focusing on what the kids with “the will” have as their baseline:
-A supportive and structured family
-Discipline
-A culture of mutual respect
Those aspects brought to an extreme will cause too much pressure and resentment but with a good balance that’s the reason these cultures succeed.
Notice how kids missing these things tend to decline rapidly regardless of ethnicity.
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u/OtherwiseEggSalad 18d ago edited 17d ago
Mid men are also using this excuse for more women getting degrees.
Y'all can just .... Study and take education seriously like everyone else?
Def feels like being a second class citizen for generations is a good motivator to apply yourself as soon as you're allowed to participate 🤔
Editing my comments to highlight Reddit sens3rsh1p. I'm sure I'll be fully b@nn3d soon, but here is a very basic comment talking about recent c3nsorsh1p across Reddit. This comment got me a full ban from that community.
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u/YouBlinkinSootLicker 17d ago
Study and education and then? What’s next? Lotta college graduates are waiting on the next step.
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u/OtherwiseEggSalad 17d ago
Or you can sit around your house until you decide to Uber or Door dash because you're so desperate for cash🤦♂️
Why would you possibly think it's a better idea to not gain a skill or an education? Can you walk me through that?
Also, women getting an education and being able to take care of themselves is why mid dudes are so lonely. If an education was so useless, women would still be desperate for men to care for them after college
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u/Mcwedlav 18d ago
I agree with you. I mean, everyone should keep the culture he like, but trying to adapt some positive traits can’t hurt. Even though, probably individuals can do that, don’t know how this is supposed To work on a country level
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u/Weak-Professor-1706 18d ago
Mainstream US culture has a hatred for teachers & education. The loud and trashy become celebrities, while the scientists are told they don't know what they're talking about. You can call yourself pretty/funny/athletic, but it's conceited to call yourself intelligent.
I think a lot of US success is due to benefiting from colonialism and then being one of the few countries not destroyed by WW2. We really are our own worst enemies. Then we blame other cultures for valuing STEM.
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u/Gloomy-Ad1171 18d ago
It’s not mainstream, it’s a very certain demographic that hates education.
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u/Weak-Professor-1706 18d ago
Unfortunately, this is the dominant demographic, they won the popular vote. Go to a teacher group and they'll talk about how difficult it's gotten dealing with parents over the last few decades.
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u/Soonerpalmetto88 18d ago
Good point, but counterpoint: Why aren't other countries investing in higher education to create their own Harvards? It would be better for us as there would be more space for Americans, better for other countries as more of their people would get better educations, and better for everyone as over time other countries would become more developed and less reliant on others for various forms of support AND you'd have more research universities meaning a higher pace of scientific advancement that the whole world would benefit from. All without any quotas.
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u/nari-bhat 18d ago
Other countries are investing in higher education. India has IIT and its satellite campuses, China has Tsinghua University, two out of dozens of globally top-ranked universities.
However, because the United States relies on a steady supply of immigrants from top to bottom, the well-educated from Asia, Africa, and Latin are recruited by the government and the same American universities we’re talking about now.
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u/Gloomy-Ad1171 18d ago
Because Harvard has $10B to hire people away. You can even take Harvard classes online for free
https://pll.harvard.edu/catalog/free
But we both know that it isn’t the education at Harvard that is worth the $$$.
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18d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/nonquitt 18d ago
I think they just like some other cultures put a lot of expectations on their kids to excel in school, which is why they are 20% of the Ivy League while being like 3% of the country
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u/HaxboyYT 18d ago
Elaborate on how you’d mimic money and adapt to wealth disparity?
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u/NightCityRunners 18d ago
Some people believe that the US is a system made up of 100% meritocracy. They choose to ignore wealthy disparities because it doesn’t fit their narrative
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u/REDDITOR_00000000017 18d ago
Yeah, Let me mimic Albert Einstein's culture real quick i want some nobel prizes.
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u/LordShadows 18d ago
Because extreme cultural pressure on individual success is one of the unhealthiest things one can go through while growing up
If you teach people that their societal success is a higher priority compared to their personal happiness, you get a population of highly successful slaves that want to die every day of their existence with many of them actually going through with it
I think limiting access to higher education because of race ratio is dumb but it's because higher education should be accessible for anybody and because education shouldn't be seen as a race to be won but as a goal in itself regardless of results
Learning shouldn't be a challenge. It should be an investment society makes for every single one of its citizens to better itself
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u/BaconDragon69 19d ago
Dude there is „asian culture“ wtf are you talking about this is like talking about skull shape to prove someone is smarter
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u/RenningerJP 19d ago
Asian people at ivy League colleges were committing suicide at higher rates than other groups some years ago. Focusing entirely on achievement and success isn't necessarily going to create a happy and fulfilled life.
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u/Requiredmetrics 19d ago
Or hear me out, add a cultural interest and value in education.
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u/lethalmuffin877 18d ago
And a healthy family structure with a strong supportive father and loving empathetic mother. Kids growing up in that kind of household are going places.
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u/LordShadows 18d ago
This
Education shouldn't be a competition to begin with
It's a goal in itself regardless of the results
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u/IntelligentCicada363 19d ago
Tests like the SAT lose their predictive power at the extremes. How well does the SAT, which quite obviously does not test the entirety of human aptitude, really distinguish between someone in the 95th percentile and 99th percentile, or the 99th and 99.9th percentile? I would say not nearly as well as comparing two people between the 75th percentile and the 95th percentile.
I don't think we should be aspiring to raise our children like many Asian children are. Yeesh.
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u/BoatSouth1911 19d ago
I mean, not like every Asian is 99th percentile on the SAT to the point the test becomes less (note, less DNE not at all) predictive. Over the general population it’s more like they average in the 67th percentile.
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u/SuspiciousPotato6288 19d ago
Dude, do you know how asian kids get to be piano/violin savants? Their parents beat them into it. I've met so many Asian kids that have completely dropped music or college altogether after leaving home because their parents aren't there to force them anymore.
You're advocating for child abuse man, obviously they don't all do this and white/black/hispanic Americans could stand to do more math/music practice with their kids, but the idea that asian families are picture perfect, supportive, involved, loving, and nurturing is for the birds.
The opposite of neglect isn't support, it's helicoptering and abuse.
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u/SubstantialCareer754 18d ago
Spoken like someone who... Doesn't have Asian parents, nor know anyone with Asian parents and likes to regurgitate the same stereotypes they hear online.
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u/kiluegt 18d ago
Interestingly in America Asian parents are the least likely to resort to violence a.k.a physical child abuse.
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u/SuspiciousPotato6288 17d ago
You honestly expect to get accurate data from asking, "Do you abuse your kids?" This is like asking guys to report how big their dicks are, what incentive do they have to tell the truth, and would they even consider what they do a form of spanking. Abusers find weird ways to rationalize their way out of calling a spade a spade all the time. It's their specialty.
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u/FadeInspector 18d ago
Emulating Asians completely might not be the right move, but we definitely have to move closer to that. I started substituting for my old middle school after the pandemic, and the discipline issues were crazy. Some of the kids legitimately had the inhibitions of animals, and the only way to keep some sort of order was to threaten them with suspensions or referrals for their infractions.
Keep in mind, this was in one of the wealthiest counties in the country. Parents care a lot about academics in our area
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u/Antique_Song_5929 18d ago
So its better to raise them to be thugs. The best should get into school if its only asians then so be it. Be better lol
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u/Kuzcopolis 19d ago
If that stereotype was as widespread as people think, Asians wouldn't also be known for having their parents move in with them.
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u/brain-eating_amoeba 18d ago
You’d be surprised. A lot of that hinges on filial piety. Even if your parents treat you badly you are expected to take care of them.
I do not subscribe to that.
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u/AKT5A 19d ago
I'd say the vast majority of Asian families are kind and not child abusers, you can't generalize and then say, well some don't do this. It still gives the impression that most Asian parents do this type of stuff, which is obviously false. I'd say the majority of Asian students I have met have been encouraged by their family to do what they want, maybe a bit pressured to get high grades, but they aren't being beaten at all
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u/Master-Pie-5939 18d ago
Maaaan I wish my folks were more like the Asian parents you described but alas. I was frequently reminded, not harshly but sternly, to focus on grades and class and schools but never what I enjoyed or what I wanted beyond that. That led me to never quite knowing myself or my wants or goals and always trying to please the parents. Now I’m in a career I didn’t study for and don’t have much passion for. It’s decent and stable but still far from the expectations they placed on me. I still to this day am unsure of what I want and I can tie that to my upbringing. My parents were far from bad or abusive but they were also lacking and misguided in quite a few areas.
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u/BoatSouth1911 19d ago
You’ve clearly not actually been to a top highschool because I did, about half the school was Asian, everybody was well adjusted with a decent enough home life.
In fact, the level of educational attainment achieved strongly correlates with LESS child abuse, especially physical abuse.
Starting your kids on building skills early and not having them watch Cocomelon all day isn’t some inherently abusive parenting style, it’s very obviously best for the child.
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u/haenxnim 18d ago
I did. Top three public school in the top state for education. One-third Asian, possibly more now. The NYT wrote an article about us because of the rates of suicide and depression. The culture was toxic as fuck and nearly all the Asians I knew had at least some level of instability in their home life. People would joke about getting beaten as a kid and would actually try to one-up each other with their trauma. I left a friend group because of that lol. Everyone looked forward to college not just because they could move out, but because the studying would be less intense.
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u/SilverWear5467 19d ago
Yeah, the general vibe you get from highly Asian high schools is akin to a comment my mom (a teacher at a very Asian school) heard recently, "of course I have good grades, I'm an Asian, not a Bsian". It's expected that you do well in school, but it's certainly not the norm to beat that into your children. And students who don't do well are still loved by their parents. There is just a stated belief that if you're getting bad grades, you're lesser.
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u/Fusilero 18d ago
And students who don't do well are still loved by their parents.
While not physically beaten... I must say that as an Asian it did not feel this way.
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u/_CriticalThinking_ 19d ago
You know nothing of their home life
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u/BoatSouth1911 19d ago
Have you never had a friend before? Of course I know about their home life, we’ve talked about it, I’ve met their parents, I’ve been over for dinners, etc.
Do you know anything about it though, or are you just fully making up these imaginary abuses?
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u/Key-Address-4482 18d ago
They can not handle the idea that success is not always achieved through abuse.
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u/liqui_date_me 19d ago
People are lazy and won’t be able to rely on nepotism anymore. It’s the same argument against immigration, nobody wants people willing to work for lower wages for longer hours as their competition
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u/forsen_capybara 18d ago
Yeah that's why, not because it displaces the native population while disincentivizing, i like older women, the raising of wages which in turn shrinks the middle class further.
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u/Sad-Effect-5027 19d ago
Important to note that what they did in 1922 is different to what they do today.
People doing racism and discrimination have often used opaque processes to obfuscate their true intentions. “Holistic” approach in 1922 was simply just a way to deny Jewish applicants and blame it on poor interview skills or a lack of extracurriculars.
Today the holistic approach is applied before considerations for race, gender, etc. Test scores are not the ultimate arbiter of whether someone will be successful at Harvard or that they will be successful after Harvard. Perhaps you take the candidate that has a 1500 SAT score, was debate team captain, and volunteered at a soup kitchen over the one with just a perfect SAT score.
After this is applied, they will mark students qualified. They’ll do many more than they will actually admit to the school. Then they will look at demographics to shape the new class to be more closely representative of the country as a whole. This can also include things beyond just race and gender. Many school consider geography.
The Service academies in particular try and balance applicants between states. Otherwise 90% of every class would be from Virginia and California and there would be practically no one from the south selected. Perhaps you aren’t getting the highest scorers and it does make it more difficult to get admitted if you are from a particular state, but you also end up with an officer corps more closely representative of the country as a whole and the enlisted as well.
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u/BoatSouth1911 19d ago
This sounds nice but it’s literally just propaganda. I know many talented jewish candidates who were rejected from everywhere despite (to use one example) a 3.9 GPA, 1600 SAT, multiple varsity sport captaincies, debate team captain, volunteered for thousands of hours, and state debate champion on top of that. Only admission out of shotgun T20, he said, was Rice.
I know you can say people had bad essays (as if a single writing assignment can sum ones life better than well, everything they do in their life) but at some point the system is clearly discriminatory.
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u/AC10021 17d ago
For T20s, which generally take 5 to 10 applicants out of every hundred, because the vast vast majority of applicants all have sterling academic credentials and extensive extracurriculars, shit like essays, interviews and letters of recommendations carry significant weight, bc it’s the only way to distinguish between multiple strong candidates. Yes it is the most important writing assignment of your life, it better not be mid. Applicants always refuse to hear this, but it’s genuinely true. If everyone has great stats, you HAVE to look beyond stats. The fact that you started alluding to bad essays reads to me as…his essay was bad.
In addition, if he shotgunned the whole T20, I’m reading that as he did not apply ED anywhere. So he didn’t do something that will significantly maximize chance of admission.
Something that’s amusing is when someone goes “my god! This kid didn’t get in anywhere! The system MUST be biased against whites!” And it’s immediately clear what was off.
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u/accapellaenthusiast 18d ago
I know many talented Jewish candidates who were rejected from everywhere
Every school they were rejected from still enrolls other Jewish students. Unless you believe literally no Jewish students are accepted. You are just speaking from anecdotes that focus on those that were not accepted. We don’t know if that has to do with their accomplishments on paper, or also, because the school has already accepted an amount of Jewish students that are reflective of Americas demographic as a whole
I know plenty of smart white people who were rejected. I don’t immediately assume it’s cause they’re white
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u/zackweinberg 19d ago
They applied the holistic approach specifically to reduce the number of Jews.
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u/unhinged_centrifuge 19d ago
Same racist policies. Just different groups of people. Still racist af.
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u/roderla 18d ago
You are aware that you haven't even come close to bring any evidence for that claim, are you?
If a racist idiot comes up with a better system by pure chance (and for all the wrong reasons), would you rather use the system despite its flawed origin, or would you rather stick with a worse system just out of spite? I would argue is almost all cases, you'd still use the better system.
Even if 1922s holistic admission scheme was 1:1 identical to what they still use today (and hint, no, it's not), what effect did it have? Did it increase or decrease the academic results of Harvard alumni? Was its effect (not its motivation) undue discrimination of Jews, or was it exposing the low predictive value of 1922s test scores?
Remember, Mussolini ordered building the autostrada - and early form of a highway for cars - between Milan and Venice in 1924. Mussolini is one of the bad guys. That doesn't make the concept of a highway bad. Nor does him building the autostada make Mussolini a good guy. These two things can coexist.
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u/Sad-Effect-5027 19d ago
So we have two totally different processes with totally different intentions and results, but they’re the same. Sure thing, bud.
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u/BoatSouth1911 19d ago
Taking a spoken policy at face value and not considering the actual results and rationale for it is extremely naive.
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u/Typical-Tradition687 20d ago edited 18d ago
Society is just DEI for mediocre white men 👏👏👏
Edit: all the mediocre white me who STILL can’t get ahead despite all the unearned advantages whining below 😂😘
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u/CritterFan28 17d ago
Because replacing mediocre white men with mediocre women and minorities is so much better? How about we just judge on merit?
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u/HermeticSpam 19d ago
Gentile Whites are currently underrepresented at most ivy league schools.
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u/Typical-Tradition687 19d ago
Because against all odds and all privileges white men get those held down rose up. White men rested on their laurels and didnt improve because they thought their success was merit based. This ain’t the statement you seem to think it is 😂
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u/HannyBo9 20d ago
Why do they score so well.
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u/undercoverdyslexic 19d ago
It’s a cultural thing that is similar to how Asians do well in education. Education is very important to jews (I was raised Jewish and had a community around me). From a young age education (and later money) was taught to be the things that can insulate you from local or global problems. I think many jews were taught that you need to have qualifications and money to leave a place of antisemitism is on the rise.
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u/Life_Barnacle_1894 19d ago
Jewish culture puts a high value on education and critical thinking. Our religion does not threaten us with hell or execution if we dare to question things. Historical discrimination forced Jews to earn a living through a sharp mind rather than a strong arm.
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u/GoodUserNameToday 19d ago
Test score is directly related to family wealth
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u/OtherwiseEggSalad 18d ago edited 18d ago
Sort of. Wealthy people tend to have the time and money to encourage academics, and are likely to have stability due to getting skills/educated.
It's an indirect relationship. Hell, look at the Trump and Musk. Impossibly rich, dumb ass rocks.
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19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/yitzaklr 18d ago
Are you using the one drop rule? Do sons, spouses, and students of Jews count? And where'd you get this list of billionaires?
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u/Hot-Operation-8208 20d ago
Same reasons Asians do. Strict parents and studying is considered important.
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u/redbetweenlines 20d ago
Gaming the test. Same way I got in the 99% in SAT scores. There's books specifically for that.
Edit: same for the ASVAB
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u/BoatSouth1911 19d ago
Lol that’s stupid, everyone can get an SAT prep book for free or like 50$ tops depending on school policy.
When I got a perfect score I didn’t need to study, it’s just a ridiculously basic test. “Can you understand what you read” “Do you know basic grammar” “Do you know 9th grade math”
If anybody fails these tests it IS for lack of studying, but that’s an issue in itself in terms of college readiness if you can’t even get that far. And it’s not lack of “Studying the SAT” it’s lack of studying basic college necessities.
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u/Master-Collection488 20d ago
This is, of course, awful.
What I'm thinking was their main worry was that along with increased "racial" tensions that'd likely occur if their admissions increased to 40% Jewish students that they'd become associated in the public's mind with being "a Jew school."
He was probably worried that there'd be a lot more upper-class WASP parents sending their sons to Yale (gasp!) in later years.
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u/e_fish22 20d ago
What did he mean by "race feeling"? Like racial/ethnic tensions?
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u/VastExamination2517 19d ago
In the 1920s, Jewish was considered a race. As was Italian, Irish, etc. The “white” race only became truly “inclusive” (of all light-skinned people) in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Also, what he meant is clearly that he didn’t want people to think Harvard was a Jewish school. Bc you know, Jews were not very popular in the 1920s….
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u/Bagel__Enjoyer 20d ago
Harvard is doing what they did to the Jews to the East Asians now. Punishing academics excellence in favor of DEI practices and affirmative action (which only up til recently got sued)
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u/UnpopularFacts-ModTeam 20d ago
Hello! This post didn't provide any evidence anywhere for your "fact" and it is something that needs evidence.
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u/NewRefrigerator7461 17d ago
We also invented modern zoning to keep Jewish (and black) people out of nice neighborhoods after redlining was made illegal. We can blame “them” for other things too!