On the lawsuits

Just finished reading this New Yorker article about the lawsuit against Harvard by some conservative guy and an alliance of Asian-American organizations he cultivated. First off, let's start by saying that the kid who first got very riled up about not getting into Harvard did get into Penn and ended up graduating from Williams. Fucking Williams. If not the then absolutely one of the top 3 best liberal arts colleges in the USA, and he's whining.

Overall the Asian-American beef is that all these kids get 1600s on their SATs and 4.7 or whatever elevated GPAs they had and then they don't get in at their top schools.

Here's my perspective. I got the equivalent of a 1600 (they have renormed the SAT twice since I took it and scores have gone up) and I was the only person at CHHS to be 4.0 when I graduated. And doing those two things was fucking child's play compared to the other things I did. Winning the state championship, running a reggae band, etc. Even more importantly, the other things I did were so much more important to my life. Learning to be on a team and accept a role and appreciate and celebrate my teammates, many of whom had very different profiles from me and have done different things in life, that was huge.

And perhaps the most important thing I did was something I didn't do all that well, which was basketball. I never got that good, but I did try, and doing so gave me some contact with a lot of other people with whom I would never have otherwise been in contact. And it taught me humility and a since of my own limitations. And I kept trying, and over time I got marginally better.

But back to the college admissions thing. I interview for Yale, and when I do so, my job is to get a sense of who these people are and convey it back to the rest of the admissions team. Whether they read it or weight it much, I don't know. I have interviewed a bunch of Asian kids who I'm sure look great on paper, and some of them are interesting and have a spark in their eye because they are warm and engaging souls, others of them don't. I try to reflect that in my comments. In that regard they are just like everybody else I interview. I talked to a kid this year from Cary, some generic white kid, and he was an asshole. That was gently reflected in my comments, mostly as the very faint praise that damns.

Overall, as has been well publicized, many Asian nations -- China, Korea, Singapore, etc. -- along with the Finns, have been kicking America's ass on standardized tests, especially in STEM fields. It is presented as a national crisis. And yet America has been stubbornly more productive then most other nations (though China, Israel, and Estonia are catching up) at entrepreneurship and economic dynamism. Why is that? I like to think that it is partly because our society is structured in such a way as to reward things other than GPAs and test scores. Creativity, grit, what theorists call "multiple intelligences". Once you graduate, the market really doesn't give a fuck where you went to school. If you have a good idea, if your empanada is tastier and you can produce, market, and distribute at scale and at an agreeable price point, you win.

Re the Asian kids themselves, mostly I feel sad for them. They are victims of the culture of GPA and SAT, of tennis, chess, and violin. They get hauled in to afterschool study sessions with intensive Chinese lessons like the ones that happen or used to happen at Seawell. They are deprived of enjoyable, goofy, foolhardy, American teenagerdom. I have seen it.

******

In all my years of education, some of the most enjoyable time I spent was on the basketball court at Columbia. There was some good ball, and an interesting and very meritocratic culture, as evolves in most gyms. Winners held the court, and the best players had a wide variety of backgrounds. In addition to students, there were guys who worked for the university of a wide variety of ethnicities, black, hispanics of many shades and ethnic mixes. I was decidedly lower-middle tier, which meant that most of the time I wasn't playing on court #1 at peek hour (5-7 pm).

There was this one Asian kid, maybe 5'11", not the most athletic player out there, but fast enough, fit enough, and with a tremendous handle and a smooth jumper, so he could create driving opportunities because they had to respect him outside. Long before Jeremy Lin, so he had no role models at the top level, just a kid who had driven himself to excel. That guy got picked up on court #1. But he was a loner, barely spoke to anyone.

And then there were a bunch of other Asian kids who flat out sucked, but they came out now and again. I remember one night, probably a Friday, there were a bunch of them out there I got involved in a game of 3 on 3 with them. They were horrible. They were throwing up ridiculous hook shots and crazy shit that would hit the backboard if they were lucky. And then they would fall on the ground laughing. I'm not sure I've ever had more fun on the basketball court.

I do hope the Asian ultraachievers of today have this much fun, More importantly, I hope their parents allow and encourage them to hang out with lots of other kids and do all sorts of things that are silly and often counterproductive. The great virtue of doing those things when you are young is that -- under the best of circumstances -- you can go home and talk to your parents about what you did and learn lessons in a safeish environment. There were definitely times when it seemed like that wasn't happening with some of Natalie's Asian friends.