Is There an “Asian Ceiling” at the Ivies?

Want to the get into an elite college? Get good grades, score high on the SAT, and try not to be born an Asian American :

SAT score aren’t everything. But they can tell some fascinating stories.

Take 1,623, for instance. That’s the average score of Asian-Americans, a group that Daniel Golden – editor at large of Bloomberg News and author of “The Price of Admission’’ – has labeled “The New Jews.’’ After all, much like Jews a century ago, Asian-Americans tend to earn good grades and high scores. And now they too face serious discrimination in the college admissions process.

Notably, 1,623 – out of a possible 2,400 – not only separates Asians from other minorities (Hispanics and blacks average 1,364 and 1,276 on the SAT, respectively). The score also puts them ahead of Caucasians, who average 1,581. And the consequences of this are stark.

Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade, who reviewed data from 10 elite colleges, writes in “No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal’’ that Asian applicants typically need an extra 140 points to compete with white students. In fact, according to Princeton lecturer Russell Nieli, there may be an “Asian ceiling’’ at Princeton, a number above which the admissions office refuses to venture.

The article also notes that while they only account for five percent of the population, Asian Americans constitute 15.5 percent of the 2013 class at Yale, 16.1 percent at Dartmouth, 19.1 percent at Harvard, and 17.6 percent at Princeton. In California where government institutions are banned from discriminating on the basis of race, Asians make up thirteen percent of the population but forty percent of public university students .