Tue 22 Nov 2005
Jim Kolesar has kindly replied to my concern about whether or not the College sets a quota for international students.
Williams currently expects to have international students comprise about 6% of each entering class. That number could go up or down somewhat from year to year based on the quality of the international applicant pool. I know of no college that admits international students as if they were U.S. citizens. Colleges exist in the law, including the tax law, as contributors to the national good. Their first responsibility is to advance that national good. Since students help educate each other, enrolling international students enhances the preparation that all students receive for an increasingly complex world and, happily, does broaden geographically the public good to which colleges contribute. But a college that gave itself over to educating mainly international students, which is eventually what would happen given the numbers, would have a significantly different mission, very different standing with U.S. prospective students, and greatly altered relationship with government, donors, etc.
Comments:
1) Kudos to Williams and to Kolesar for being so open and honest.
2) Williams does indeed have a quota. Interesting.
3) Jim claims that “Colleges exist in the law, including the tax law, as contributors to the national good.” That’s just wrong. There is nothing in the law, tax or otherwise, about Williams needing to contribute to the “national good.” Of course, there are some complexities with regard to non-profits and the intentions of their donors (from Ephraim Williams to the present day), but the basic legal reality is that Williams is a non-profit entity, a 501(c)(3). Nothing in the law prevents Williams from having 0% or 6% or 100% international students. Non-profits, as long as they adhere to the appropriate regulations, can spend their money as they see fit. How can Kolesar not know this?
4) Doing so more research on the question, I just discovered this passage in The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. The speaker is Radcliffe Heermance, Director of Admissions at Princeton from 1922 to 1950 and a graduate of Williams (class of 1904, I think).
“But a college that gave itself over to educating many Jewish students, which is eventually what would happen given the numbers, would have a significantly different mission, very different standing with U.S. prospective students, and greatly altered relationship with government, donors, etc.”
Heermance and others of his era felt that having “too many” Jews at places like Princeton would radically change them, generally for the worse. Let in all those Jews, however clever they might be, and non-Jewish students won’t want to attend, formerly loyal alumni donors won’t want to contribute.
I had thought that such opinions were a thing of the past.
If a meritocratic admissions process leads to a Williams than is 1/3 International students, then so be it. Anyone who argues otherwise is no better than the men 50 years ago who sought to keep out the Jews.
UPDATE: As Sam Crane points out in the comment below, the “quotation” that I have attributed to Heermance is not real (although Heermance is a real person and the sentiments expressed were widely held at the time). I simply replaced “mainly international” in Kolesar’s comment with “many Jewish.” The rhetorical point was to emphasize that the rational for having a quota for International students today is mostly indistinguishable from the rationals offered 50 years ago justifying quotas for Jewish students.
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:18 am
Your direct quote from The Chosen is not on the pages you link to, as far as I can see. Indeed the quote, which you have placed in quotation marks and highlighted, appears to be Kolesar’s statement with the word “Jewish” substituted for “International,” but you attribute it to Heermance. Did Heermance use exactly the same words as Kolesar, save the world “Jewish”? If he did not, you have misquoted him in the most egregious manner and slandered Kolesar in the process. This kind of violation of basic intellectual integrity would be cause for failure of the assignment in question, as least, if not more severe sanction.
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:37 am
I have updated the the post to highlight the fact (which I would hope is obvious to 99% of the readers) that Heermance did not, 75 years ago, use virtually the exact same words as Kolesar does today.
I do not understand how I have, in any way, slandered Kolesar, who has been a friend of EphBlog for many years. I have reported accurately what he said.
I did make up the quote for Heermance. However, it is clear from The Chosen that Heermance and others of his era believed precisely this with regard to Jewish students.
If this had been an assignment for a class rather than a blog post, I would have included a footnote with this or introduced the quote with some phrasing about, “Imagine that the supporters of Jewish quotas claimed that . . .”
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:49 am
You made it sound like Kolesar was using the exact same words as an earlier anti-Semite. He did not use those words. To suggest that he did ties him to the precise vocabulary of the anti-Semite. That, to me, is slanderous. You may disagree with the policy Kolesar presents, but you should not link him personally to words he did not utter and ideas he does not share.
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:55 am
Kane, the nature of the “quotation” was not clear in the slightest. Your only saving grace is that you linked to a page, but the reader would have no way of knowing whether you fabricated the quote or simply linked to the wrong page.
And you have an odd way of rewarding friends of Ephblog. Suggesting that an administrator who offers valuable information is guilty of bigotry and putting his words in the mouth of an anti-semite strikes me as extremely rude and not in Ephblog’s best interest.
November 22nd, 2005 at 12:01 pm
Just to be clear:
1) I quoted Kolesar accurately. He, and Williams, believe that Williams should not have too many International students because this would have unfortunate effects on the quality of US students who applied and the quantity of money donated by alumni. I think that both those fears are overblown, but I could easily be wrong.
2) I did not say that Heermance was an “anti-Semite”. I fact, the little material that I have read about the era suggests that many of the men making policy at that time were not themselves anti-Semitic (although many others were). The non-anti-Semites had concerns almost identical to those expressed by Kolesar today. They honestly believed that letting in too many Jews would hurt recruitment among non-Jews and donations from alumni. At the time, this was not an unreasonable belief.
In other words, I am linking (correctly!) the arguments used today by Kolesar and Williams to the arguments used in the past by men like Heermance. As best I can tell, the situations are perfectly analogous. Aren’t they?
All the great and good of Williams College today, however, agree that it was wrong for elite schools to discriminate against Jewish applicants 75 years ago. How can these people justify virtually identical discrimination against International students today?
November 22nd, 2005 at 1:18 pm
I think it would be best if that quotation were removed altogether. Its intent is inflammatory at best, and it is not entirely clear save the disclaimer afterwards that it is considered to be a… joke? clever rhetorical device?
The comparison between discriminating against a qualified group of applicants exclusively on the basis of religious background or race and international students by a US institution is nowhere near as simple as your use of this “quote’ suggests.
Ephblog should strive for a higher standard.
November 22nd, 2005 at 1:34 pm
Oh, David Kane stabbing himself in the foot again (see the quotation fracas).
Would Williams’ character really change if it went more international? Probably… but how? Most students and alums who are internationals have extensive connections or interest in the US. (This is tied at least somewhat to why they bother to apply to a school in the US). It would take a long time for the faculty to teach in anything but English, although the school could also go more international in its hiring at the same time. All of this might be very interesting to any Americans also attending the school. It would probably also change the way the local community deals with Williams students.
At a place like the London School of Economics, international students are encouraged to apply and a huge percentage martriculate. The school is famous for this international student body. However, aside from allegations of pumping the rolls to make more money, the school’s teaching is viewed as enriched (international faculty also attracted to the school) if changed at all.
This is an interesting “last frontier” that may face more American schools than we think in the future. American higher education is probably the best, on average, of any country in the world. Question, then: why should we not focus on this comparative advantage in the world market? As a hopeful PhD candidate, I’d love it if American schools tried harder to build their market share and increased hiring capacity.
*
Athough I wish someone else had chosen to call up Jim Kolesar, no one did — so I guess David is going to have to get credit for being the reporter and news analyst (er, well, there’s no real news, but soundbytes pass for news all the time in the MSM, so why not here too). As he should. Most eph alums are too lazy, busy, or trusting to focus on this very interesting material. (It seems like, in essence, David is an unpaid reporter whose beat is Williams College!)
November 22nd, 2005 at 1:53 pm
Again, I think that Williams should restrict itself to fluent English speakers. Although it might be interesting to have a small liberal arts college with a multitude of languages in wide use, both inside and outside the classroom, I don’t think that Williams should go in that direction.
Williams should seek to admit that most intellectually talented and ambitious (and otherwise well-rounded) English-speaking students it can find. The resulting student body would be certainly closer to 1/3 than 1/20 International. (It would still probably be around 1/10 Jewish.) So be it.
It is no more reasonable to discriminate against International students today than it was to discriminate against Jewish students 75 years ago. Anyone who decries the latter, should fight the former.
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:07 pm
One reason might possibly be differing attitudes toward philanthropy - most particularly potential philanthropy favoring Williams.
November 22nd, 2005 at 3:07 pm
Straying aside from the explicit topic, as the trained Rhetoritician in this bunch, I have to defend David here, both in his intent and his practice.
The kind of substitution that David uses here is, of course, a common enough device– one takes a phrase that seems innocuous enough in the current context, and by a gentle change of words or phrases, sometimes merely of diction, suggests that the utterance has far different significances than would be assumed at first glance.
If this can be done with a bit of subterfuge– in a way that disguises the device for a moment, allowing us to postpone the “reality” component of our critical faculties, the effect(s) of the device are hightened.
In this case, I (and I suspect many a reader) was immediately highly suspicious of the second “quote”– given the language was exactly the same. I began to wonder if it was possible that Kolesar chose to use the exact same phrasing as Heermance, his predecessor. If he had… it would almost certainly have been intentional, and meant that Kolesar wished to signal that he was undercutting the explicit meaning of his note. That would have been wonderful! if implausible…
David has sufficiently defended his use of words to explore how and where Heermance’s historical situation, and Kolesar’s contemporary situation, are analogous. The practice is simply common, even in what passes for “philosophy” these days. The common arguments run: that, in his time, few would have taken Heermance’s points as unusual. Can and should we draw parallels? In asking such questions, the use of literary as well as literal language is often of great use. Etc. (”Welcome to Rhetoric 10, Reason and Argumentation;” unfortunately a course only taught at a handful of Catholic institutions).
Literally speaking, of course, we could also question Kolesar’s reality: as I pointed out in our first thread on this topic, institutions such as Carnegie Mellon are in fact admitting international students without prejudice, doing so in a manner that is explicitly justified and marketed as being in the national (and world) interest, and making money at it (CMU offers no financial aid for international students). What do we make of Kolesar’s assertions in such a context? Repeat exercise above.
It is highly worthwhile to have someone like David point out that 501 (c)(3s) have no such limits as those which Kolesar asserts; I think it equally worthwhile to step back from that and ask, what are the real committments that Kolesar is asserting? Are they committments that we as “the Williams community” want Williams to have? If we take the time to list the implicit premises behind what Kolesar is stating, it is likely that we will say “yes” in many cases, and no in others– and that there will be a few points where we conclude that Williams’ current policies may be as offensive as a Jewish quota.
None of these exercises insults or maligns Jim Kolesar ad hominem, even if you as a listener choose to take it as such. As David has pointed out– and he should not need to point such things out, again and again– he has not bladly asserted (or concluded) that Jim Kolesar is a racist, or anything of the sort. Rather, David has explored the language. What, indeed, is Jim Kolesar saying and what is David Kane saying about what Jim Kolesar is saying– and what are the implications for how we live?
This is an exercise, in political thought, if you will. And the question is, what do we take Jim Kolesar to be asserting? How do we judge his words? What do they show us about Williams, about the world, about ourselves– and where we are going?
Certainly Jim Kolesar is a big enough boy to hold his own in such a discussion.
Moving back to the history of Rhetoric and the kind of “quotation” device employed above, any German schoolgirl throughout most of the Middle Ages would have carried a hundred or so Latin texts in her head– as well as familiar quotes from local traditions, politics, community and family life, and so forth. Likely she could recite them verbatim if she wished; but the practice, as in so many oral cultures, was to “recite differently”– to creatively add and alter, sometimes for purposes of amusement and creativity, sometimes for logical effect. In short, the process was to explore different positions and possibilities, and to renew the grasp of reality through constant inquiry– and contesting views.
It was also assumed, on the one hand, that the listeners would be sophisticated enough to be able to note the alterations within well-known stories, and take them into account. And on the other hand, that a report of political speech or personal rumor would likely be altered to meet the speakers’ ends– and that the listener would naturally have to take this into account.
Dare I return you to three levels of introduction to the Apologia, and what they ask us about each of the speakers, and the nature of knowledge as it is conveyed to us in words?
In contrast to individual “authorship,” such oral games were what resulted in the compilation of the Iliad (where “Homer” is, of course, simply the word for “the poet”). The Bible and the Koran any many other “religious” texts are similar compilations of oral stories, with similar implicit questions about knowledge as those within the Apologia– though they are rarely taught as such (at least in the States). Notably, these oral traditions also lie at groundwork of every “Republic” (if you will excuse a poor locution).
Daresay I that the hypothetical German schoolgirl above was more interesting that most of today’s renowned academics? (The comment I have just given Immanuel Kant’s, and by his time, the technique, “misprision”– the art of taking something to be other that what was stated, and strength of interpretation, making it so).
Such forms of literacy and thought– which historically have thrived in face-to-face conversations– are hardly extant in our times. One of the wonders of ephBlog, is that it revives such practices, and in a new media.
Worth noting for those of the audience who might not recall, that writing was the new media in Socrates’ Athens, and that much of Plato is a response to that new technology’s effect on society.
Worth noting for our times, as– in this still very new media– we mix debates of the nature of our educational institutions with debates of rhetorical form and devices with debates of national security and internationalism, — that even written Arabic still largely follows the patterns of oral discourse.
Might I harp again that Mark Hopkins was Professor of Moral Philosophy and Rhetoric? If Professor Hopkins would have had any criticism of David Kane’s device above, it likely would have been that the device could have been executed with much more subtlety and deception, and thus produced greater insight.
Formally, of course, most of what Mark Hopkins taught in such respects no longer survives in our institutions. We teach “facts” and the seeming certainties of the common media, alongside a series of more-or-less esoteric specialites, but as for moral philosophy, the ability to develop visions that guide the flame of knowledge…
It is a longer history, but the mastery of oral discourse that would have been common in Mark Hopkins’ high schoolers left our formal curricula nearly a century ago. I daresay as well that we would be hard pressed to find the competency of language that Mark Hopkins expected from his high schoolers, amid the highest levels of academics and graduate students today.
And today, we are paying a very high price in the Middle East, for having abandoned those traditions.
November 22nd, 2005 at 3:09 pm
Kane is nevertheless correct in his point, though it would have been made better if he had taken an actual quote from the anti-Semites at the Ivies in the 1920s.
The nature of Kolesar’s reasoning is no different than the nature of the anti-Semites’ reasoning. We have merely substituted “international” for “Jewish.”
November 22nd, 2005 at 3:15 pm
This earlier post by me may clarify why David went for that particular analogy, and it contains actual quotes from Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell.
November 22nd, 2005 at 3:44 pm
David Kane is actually asking the wrong question. The question is not why Williams isn’t doing enought to attract International students? Instead, the question is why Williams is devoting such a large percentage of its financial aid resources to international students, at the expense of domestic students?
I have found that Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore tend to mirror each other on many financial indicators. And, when I looked back to 1999, this was true of international financial aid. But, in the last several years, Williams has shifted a signficant percentage of its total aid from domestic students to international students.
Here is the comparative data for Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore. It’s from the 2003/04 Common Data Set filings (the most recent year I have for Amherst).
A few notes: “Aid” in this case, refers to institutional grants and does not include loans, work study, or grants from non-college sources.
Percentage aid refers to the total institutional aid divided by the total students. So, it is average across all domestic students, including those who receive $0.
These percentages of INTL enrollment are a little lower than currently published because the denominator includes a few part-time students at each school and because Fall 2003 was period when INTL enrollment was suppressed a bit due to general unease and visa issues related to 9/11, Afganistan, and Iraq.
It is pretty clear that Williams “short-changes” domestic students (relative to Amherst and Swarthmore) by shifting its aid dollars to international students. This would explain why Williams has less diversity (both ethnic and socio-economic) in its domestic student body than either Amherst or Swarthmore.
% Intl in student body
Williams: 5.6%
Amherst: 5.9%
Swarthmore: 5.3%
% US students receiving aid
Williams: 37%
Amherst: 47%
Swarthmore: 49%
% INTL students receiving aid
Williams: 83%
Amherst: 57%
Swarthmore: 58%
Avg grant per student (US citizen)
Williams: $7,283
Amherst: $10,406
Swarthmore: $9,516
Avg. grant per student (INTL)
Williams: $27,930
Amherst: $19,242
Swarthmore: $19,812
% INTL aid of total aid budget
Williams: 18%
Amherst: 10%
Swarthmore: 10%
November 22nd, 2005 at 3:47 pm
I’m gonna have to play the Jew to Ronit’s international student, though I will admit there is a *degree* of merit to the comparison- that is to say, rather than individuals being evaluated qua individuals, they are evaluated with some other factor that would, optimally, not be a factor as it outside of their control.
I think the basic difference, though, can be located at the level of function, as Kolesar suggests. Williams is essentially a national institution, even if it is private- it might be a good question if it should be an international or transnational one, but simply to declare it equivalent to a Jew quota is rhetorical distortion.
Now, I can see someone responding ‘In the 1920s, one might say Williams was a ‘WASP’ institution. Does that make the Jew quota legitimate?’ No, but you have to ask as to the primacy and justness of the distinction. I think we would all, at some level, recognize nations- at least now, and speaking pragmatically- have a high level of responsibility toward their citizens and is the basic baseline caretaker in our world. Thus, I would argue, the concept of ‘national’ has some legitimacy- perhaps not optimally, but there you have it. And I think we’d all admit we’re more comfortable- perhaps purely through indoctrination- with the notion of ‘nation’ over the notion of ‘racial group’ or ‘Aryan’. If you doubt it, and you’re English, German, French, etc in descent- ask yourself this- does saying ‘I’m Aryan’ produce a greater pause than saying ‘I am a citizen of the United States’?
Arguably, one could use this ‘nation’ defence to claim that Williams has a primary responsibility to US citizens first; even if it is financially private, it can still be national in essence or function. By your logic, Kane, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are morally equivalent to Jew Quotas.
And hell, Kaney, if you’re so interested in justice all of a sudden, how about using Kane Jr.’s college fund to sponsor an African village? I’m pretty certain you could do a lot more good for them, relatively speaking, then you could for anyone in your family using the same amount of money. And it’s utterly contingent that your children are your children rather than starving African children; that’s the same contingency that determines if someone is the a US resident or an international.
November 22nd, 2005 at 3:51 pm
“frank uible” wrote:
One reason might possibly be differing attitudes toward philanthropy - most particularly potential philanthropy favoring Williams.
So, you are claiming that current Williams alums (mostly white and male) would give less money to the school if Williams became more Eastern European and Asian.
You are forgetting one important fact. Where do you think do international students end up after graduation? The international students are probably the group on campus with the largest percentage of members landing the covered Wall Street banking/trading jobs and Boston consulting jobs. For example, 2 out of 3 people who got internships at JPMorgan from Williams were internationals. This is certainly not surprising, as most of them have high GPAs and major in econ and other quant fields. (For those of you who graduated some time ago, the recruiting policies of Wall Street firms have changed considerably. Being a varsity athlete is NOT a prerequisite to becoming a banker anymore. These firms finally started favoring those with brains vs. those who can play football well.)
As more international students become rich alums, their will give more money to Williams. Heck, they will probably be more loyal Ephs than your average New England prep school varsity athlete, since Williams gave them the opportunity to go from a third world country to become a successful banker/consultant/academic in the US.
November 22nd, 2005 at 4:02 pm
hwc-
Interesting point. Are Swarthmore and Amherst need-blind to international students? I didn’t think they were…and if they’re not, that would explain the difference in aid between the schools (Williams is not shortchanging US students…Swat and Amherst are shortchanging internationals).
November 22nd, 2005 at 4:05 pm
Yo Eislerman, how’s Cambridge?
There is a huge difference between Williams admitting international students and US extending Medicaid to African villages.
What Williams gets by admitting more very qualified international students is that it increases the intellectual quality of the student body. By doing so, it becomes more “elite” and more “prestigious” school. Because of that, more firms would recruit at Williams, and more graduate, business, and law schools would admit Williams students.
Furthermore, by admitting more international students Williams is benefiting the US. Large percentage of Williams int’l students stay in the US, obtain the citizenship, and become some of it most productive citizens.
In sum: extending Medicaid to African villages is philanthropy; giving fin aid to internationals makes economics sense.
November 22nd, 2005 at 4:56 pm
Turning back to the explicit topic of discussion,
Well, are they or aren’t they the same? If they are, what do we make of it?
Or as David puts it elsewhere, if the current International Student quota is the equivalent of the Jewish student quota, should “we” (whoever “we” refers to) not treat the International Quota just as “we” claim we should have treated the Jewish Quota?
If you believe they are the same– and you believe the Jewish Quota was wrong– how can you not conclude that “something must be done” about the International Quota?
Is anyone arguing that they are not the same?
These are the questions raised here. Are they or aren’t they the same? If you agree with David and say they are, it hardly makes sense to criticize his methods and ask for a “higher standard” (whatever that means). If you disagree and say the two quotas aren’t the same– well, if you really disagree with David’s assertion, why don’t you come out and say that before accusing him of underhanded methods?
Choose! Or tell me why you refuse to choose! But if all you have to present is snide ad hominem attacks against David’s presumed flaws– well, such comments certainly establish a poster’s standards of auctoritas.
Or is it that the audience would prefer not to choose? Is it that there are those of you out there who agree with the fundamental point, but for some hidden reason prefer harping on David’s supposed faults to acknowledging that Williams has what is effectively a new “Jewish quota?”
Are the situations the same or not? If they are, what should we do?
The core question remains, whether the two are the same.
Does the current international student quote discriminate against a class of people, in the same way that the Jewish student quota did– and for similar reasons?
Would Williams– all things being equal– have more international students without such a quota?
Do Williams’ motivations and intents in maintaining a “quota”– all things being equalized– contain reasoning, prejudices, errors, and possible effects similar to the motivations of a “Jewish quota?”
If so, do we really believe what everyone says about “Jewish quotas” — that they should not have existed, that a brave and foresightful Williams would have eschewed such quotas?
Do we really believe that a “Jewish quota” was as wrong as it is claimed to be in retrospect? What would have happened if Williams had done so?
And why so often, when David raises core issues, do so many people choose to turn to side issues and personal comments which have nothing to do with the issue David has presented?
Should a concerned reader not take the personal vendetta against David that keeps occuring here, as rather a displaced vendetta against his forms of inquiry?
Or against the conclusions that such inquiries lead to?
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:17 pm
Semus: My point was that my impression is that international cultures as a general proposition have an ethos which is less philanthropic than the American culture and furthermore that American “Jews” are very philanthropically inclined. Consequently if my impression is correct, ceteris paribus Williams might want to be more receptive to American “Jews” applying for admission than to international applicants and thus increase the possibility of alumni donations to Williams in years to come.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:22 pm
Current Eph:
It’s a zero-sum game. Once a school sets its financial aid budget, every dollar that goes to to one group of students does not go to another group of students:
Look at the average grant per student (total) at the three schools:
Williams: $8,434
Amherst: $10,925
Swarthmore: $10,095
So, on a per student basis, Williams spends less on institutional financial aid overall (fewer students receiving financial aid). Of this smaller pie, they spend more of it on INTL aid and less of it on aid to US students with financial need. Williams is perceived as the whitest, wealthiest, and preppiest of the three schools because it is the whitest, wealthiest, and preppiest. Nearly 2/3rds of Williams US students receive no grant/scholarship money at all, while 4/5ths of INTLs receive aid averaging $28k each.
Not saying this is good or bad. Just that the numbers indicate that enrolling INTL students is a higher priority, with a larger chunk of the budget, at Williams than the diversity of the domestic students. Admissions offices get the class the colleges tell them to get.
The question that interests me is why Williams’ international students need so much more aid than those at Amherst and Swarthmore? The distribution of students seems pretty similar, with the only striking difference being higher Canadian enrollment at Williams (little Bronfmans? Hockey team?) From what I have been able to tell, all these colleges draw their internationals from a small number of well-established feeder schools, especially in Asia. For example, the Nepalese students at these colleges pretty much all come from the same boarding school outside Katmandhu.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:24 pm
God - I hate verbosity.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:25 pm
Ken writes:
Guilty as charged! The post was a bit rushed.
Yes. Jim Kolesar has told us this.
It is a shame that someone as smart as Eisler insists on arguing so stupidly. The argument is as follows:
Assumption 1: Williams should provide need-blind financial aid to all admitted students.
Assumption 2: Williams should seek to enroll the most intellectually gifted and ambitious English speaking 18 year-olds in the world.
Assumption 3: Williams has the financial strength to spend at least twice as much on financial aid as it currently does.
These assumptions have nothing to do with “justice.” They might be false. But, if you accept these assumptions, I believe that you are forced to conclude that the 6% quota for International students is wrong.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:39 pm
Ken, first of all, in terms of people attacking David, if he just made an argument without making unsupported, irrelevant, and potentially hurtful allegations against faculty, staff, and prospective students, no one would care, but in an, apparently successful, attempt to increase his readership, he transparently insists on using the most controversial, and wholly unnecessary, methods possible. I think it doesn’t take a genius to understand his motivation — more controversy equals more readers / posters — but the cost to using those rhetorical methods is that people end up debating his tactics rather than the issue he is trying to raise (best example being the latina admitted student a number of months back) or just don’t take him very seriously at all.
I, too, was confused regarding that quote when I first read it, and I don’t think I’m an imbecile — it was just totally needless and added absolutely nothing at all to the point he was making — which is a fair point and very clear on its own — other than to equate the Williams public relations director with a bigot. Whatever tautological or technical rhetorical arguments you want to make, that was the point of David’s comment — say that a Williams official is using identical logic to a notorious bigot, and, gasp, get more attention. It’s like my cat when she jumps on the table when she feels like she is being ignored — she immediately knows she is being bad and will be yelled at, but does it nonetheless because she needs the attention. Unfortunately, I am one of the many whose heated reactions only encourage David’s methodologies …
Now, on to the substantive point, which as I said, is certainly a fair argument to make. I think it is completely different. First, there is motivation. If you claim, as David does, that concerns about Jews from the first half of last century were genuinely out of mere desire to keep a balance on campuses at colleges like Williams or Harvard, and not a pretext for animus towards Jews, you are simply wrong and simply insane. Anti-semitism was running rampant at that time, and is still a powerful force in this any every society. No one has claimed, nor could they in good faith, that Williams has any particular animus towards international students. To the contrary, as David et. al. are so fond of bitching about, the administration is pro-ethnic and cultural diversity, some (eg David) would say to a fault.
So is there a difference between limiting internationals and limiting Jews, blacks, etc.? Of course. Hell, every state school in the country gives geographic preferences / sets limits to outsiders in accordance with their respective mission. Williams is an American college. It is basically supported by people who live in America. It receives all kinds of indirect and direct support from the United States — federal grants to its low income students, federal funding of scientific endeavors, exemption from federal tax laws, which allows it to receive benefits of government services — like sewer and utilities and police presence — without bearing the costs. I am sure the list is far more extensive. So, who should be the primary beneficiary of the education Williams provides? Arguably, American students and, indirectly, American institutions. Williams is a very small school and can only be so many things to so many people, and if overwhelmed by internationals, it would undoubtedly affect its ability to influence American institutions.
Secondly, Williams simply can’t afford to be both need-blind (an important value I would suggest) and take a full cadre of international students, based on the numbers provided above. So there are competing values at stake as well, and to some extent it’s a zero sum game. Moreover, there are very likely some important campus needs that must be balanced against international students — domestic minority populations, children of alumni, athletic teams, all of which aren’t really represented by the international student presence. I imagine it’s much harder to get an accurate gague of potential extracurricular contributions of international applicants, in general. And, if Williams, from experience, realizes (as a for example, no idea if this is true but it has been suggested above ..) that most internationals end up majoring in quantitave fields, going into banking and consulting, and focusing solely on academics rather than on campus activities, it again has a reason to keep that figure down.
Now, if there really are hordes of super-qualified international students being kept out by the six percent number, I’d be in favor of a slightly higher number — perahps more like 10-15 percent. I think international perspectives most definitely adds to diversity on campus, moreso than even domestic minorities, and enhances the classroom and social experience for all students at the college, and the most academic superstars the college can attract in line with its other priorities, the better. But at a certain point, I think it is reasonable to say that you don’t want a Williams that is 75 percent kids from China, just as you don’t want a Williams that is 95 percent white prep school kids.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:39 pm
HWC writes:
I do not think that this is a reasonable way to frame the question.
1) I believe it is the case that, with regard to US students, the College does not discriminate against poverty. That is, being poor does not hurt your chances of getting in.
2) Upon acceptance, the College provides full financial aid packages to all US students. Now, these packages are not typically as generous as, say, Princetons (there are loans for example), but all demonstrated need is met.
Given these facts, it makes no sense to claim that the “expense” of US students. Even if the US Congress banned all International students next year, the current US students on financial aid would not be any better off. They would get the same package in a world without International students as they do in a world with them.
The same might not be true for other schools, but Williams is so rich that it holds for here.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:46 pm
HWC, I would guess that the need blind policy itself is the reason for the difference. There are SO many qualified applicants out there fighting for places, that you can be not entirely need-blind and still get very good people — see Brown University over the years. But, if there are three kids with nearly identical profiles, Amherst and Swarthmore are likely to take the bottom two of those three, if they can pay full freight, while Williams will take the only slightly-marginally-better best of those three, regardless of ability to pay, hence, Williams ends up with the international financial aid student.
There is also the demand side of the equation — if you are an international with huge financial aid needs, where are you going to (1) apply and (2) if accepted, attend — Williams, or a school without need blind financial aid for internationals? Obviously, Williams. If Amherst became non-need-blind for regular applicants, I guarantee it would immediately have a MUCH higher percentage of kids without financial aid, without a substantial impact on quality (based on numbers) simply because the demand for schools like Amherst is currently so high.
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:00 pm
Enough. Time to pick up the girls after their piano lessons.
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:07 pm
David:
I think you are dead wrong that Williams would have more INTLs without the 6% target. The finanical aid data indicates precisely the opposite: that Williams has struggled to get UP to the 6% target.
Colleges don’t spend aid money unless they have to in order to get the class they want. Schools that feel a need to bump their median SATs spend it on merit aid. Schools that feel a need to increase ethnic or socio-economic diversity spend it on need-based aid. Williams didn’t double its international aid (relative to its own historic levels and relative to its closest peer schools) in recent years by accident. They would not have done so if they had been getting the 6% international enrollment they desired. The Williams Diversity report indicates that International enrollment has doubled in the last decade. I can’t find data going back that far, but, look at the international enrollment for the freshman class in Fall 1999, before Williams bumped its INTL aid spending (I wish Amherst made historic data available):
Williams: 5.6%
Swarthmore: 7.6%
And, freshman enrollment after the increased aid in Fall 2004:
Williams: 5.8%
Swarthmore: 5.7%
And, for this fall’s freshman class:
Williams: 6.3%
Swarthmore: 7.2%
It makes sense. With no critical mass of international communities as you get in the 5-college area or in a major urban area, Williamstown is tougher sell. In any case, the data suggests that the 6% has not been easy for Williams to achieve, particularly in a post 9/11 environment.
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:39 pm
David:
You are forgetting a key premise: the admissions office gets the class it wants and the class it wants is determined by institutional policy, including financial aid budgets.
Saying that you are “need-blind” means nothing if you enroll 2/3rds of your domestic students with the means to pay full-fare. Williams doesn’t have 58% full-fare students, year after year after year by accident.
Because wealth and high academic “stats” are so closely correlated, the enrollment of any lower-income students at a school like Williams requires a conscious outreach AND a financial investment. If you want more students of a particular type (be it low-income Americans, African-Americans, or internationals), you allocate aid resources to get those students. Choosing to allocate more aid resources to International students and less to domestic students means that you can afford fewer low-income US students, which is precisely what the admissions office delivers — year after year after year.
Nesbitt admits that know the socio-economic status of the applicants when they review the files: based on zip-code data, based on parent’s college and employment, based on extracurriculars (not too many poor kids are on a downhill skiing or crew team). Heck, they even know if the applicant checked the box indicating whether or not they plan to apply for financial aid. Of course they know. These are seasoned professionals with sophisticate enrollment management strategies. In terms of the make-up of the class as a whole, admissions is anything but need-blind.
November 22nd, 2005 at 7:04 pm
I found the historic data.
1990 International enrollment:
Williams: 2.3%
Swarthmore: 5.1%
1995 International enrollment:
Williams: 2.8%
Swarthmore: 4.9%
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:21 pm
And yet, Kolesar’s response explicitly implies that if Williams did not exercise a quota, Williams would “give itself over to educating mainly international students.”
Why this phraseology? Certainly there are scenarios in play in which international enrollment would increase– scenarios that certainly might also involve “a significantly different mission, [a] very different standing with U.S. prospective students, and [a] greatly altered relationship with government.”
And in fact, many institutions in each tier have already begun this very transformation. Each of these institutions absolutely claims that such changes enhance their primary “responsibility… to advance [the] national good.”
Is Williams merely biding its time, watching others and gaining experience, as claimed with co-education? Or is it sitting on the fence, so to speak? Or worse?
Regardless, in the current scenario Williams seems to be paying disproportionately to maintain a specific profile of international students– for which it must seemingly “struggle” to get 6%. (What is that profile)? And in some other scenarios, Williams’ international enrollment would increase without caps.
Looking over the national origins of Williams’ PBKs, the small sample seems to make it clear that the overall geographical distribution of Williams’ non-US students is very different that the profile of international students nationwide (India, China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, in order).
(And indeed, we have so far avoided that there are evidently some stark racial components behind this discussion). Anyway you slice it, I suspect David’s suggestion of open admission to any qualified English-speaking non-US student would mean a science center where Hindi and Chinese were the dominant languages.
Back to that most basic of questions: what is the best path from here?
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:31 pm
And indeed, this is a concern often stated in the terms of “brain drain:” what happens if we open our (superior) institutions to the “Asian hordes,” pushing out our native “Gentile” students, and then these bright (”cold, calculating”) individuals suddenly start returning to their home countries (as they are now doing), build their own superior institutions, until the appeal of our “summer hotels” is no longer left? Until the Gentiles start frequenting Jewish hotels– as in the increasing number of American students attending medical school abroad, for instance?
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:51 pm
Kane!
You could be sued in Australia or Singapore (where they’d kane you) for making up quotes in a defamatory context! I thought Williams turned out ethical grads !
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:41 pm
Now, if you guys want to really contemplate the modern version of a “Jew quota”, I would suggest that Asian-American enrollment would be more fertile ground. Like the Jewish enrollment in the 1920’s, this group is massively over-represented in elite college admissions relative to their proportion of the US population.
In an interview last week, Swarthmore’s admissions Dean, Jim Bock, let slip a couple of figures that are almost NEVER released by colleges: acceptance rates for this year’s freshman class broken down by race/ethnicity. The only other time I’ve ever seen this kind of data was for UVa in response to a Freedom of Information request by the leading anti-affirmative action public interest group.
To put these numbers in context, Swarthmore’s overall acceptance rate this year was 22%.
The numbers Bock mentioned included a 46% acceptance rate for African-Americans. Nothing terribly surprising there. Enrolling Af-Ams is an uphill battle, coming (# qualified applicants) and going (poor yield).
The more interesing number was that Swarthmore accepted 36% of its Asian-American applicants. No way this number resulted from affirmative action on a widespread basis (although there may be some for first-generation SE Asians). The school overall is 15.3% Asian-American and this year’s entering class is 17.0%. These are very high numbers for East Coast schools, pretty much the same as Harvard and exceeded only by MIT and Wellesley.
It’s not a financial motivation: Over the last five years, Asian-Americans there have qualified for financial-aid at higher rates than white students.
The only plausible explanation for a 36% acceptance rate is that this pool of applicants is that strong (the same scenario that preceded the implementation of “Jew quotas”). It would appear that the school is not imposing a cap, but rather is allowing the admissions chips to fall where they may. 21% of the accepted students were Asian-American. Yield among those must have been slightly below the overall average (this could reflect smaller Early Decison numbers in this group or that the group was strong enough to have HPYSM options).
I wish all schools would release application, acceptance, and enrollment numbers by race/ethnicity. It would help a lot of students understand why admissions feels like a lottery. The acceptance rates for white applicants can’t be pretty.
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:56 pm
Comments:
1) You can’t be sued for defaming a dead person (I think).
2) Jeff writes about my “tactics”:
I use rhetorical tricks in an attempt, often unsuccessful, to be interesting and persuasive. I wrote the same way for the Record 20 years ago. I would write the same way here if I knew that only my family was reading. Ken does a much better job of capturing my motivations.
Moreover, this particular rhetorical trick — implying that person X said something when in fact it was, surprisely, person Y — is something that Paul Krugman, among others, does all the time. By the way, what “unsupported, irrelevant, and potentially hurtful allegations against faculty, staff, and prospective students” did I make in this post?
3) Jeff claims that Radcliffe Heermance ‘04 was a “bigot.” What evidence does he have for this accusation?
4) Kolesar and Williams do use identical logic to that employed by the proponents of Jew quotas a century ago. Why is this so hard to see?
5) People like Radcliffe Heermance ‘04 might have said something like this 100 years ago:
6) Jeff writes:
I did not claim this. Anyone who has studied this era knows that motives were mixed. There were real anti-Semites who wanted Jews out because they did not like Jews. But there were also men of goodwill who, like Kolesar, argued that the costs in enrollment and donations resulting from “too many” Jews outweighed the benefits of open admissions.
Moreover, it is clear that the men in charge at this time were not the raving anti-Semites that Jeff describes them as. They still allowed Jewish students to be over-represented, relative to their percentage in the population, even with the quotas. Real anti-Semites would not have allowed in any Jews.
But, in the end, it is nice to see that Jeff and I agree. Williams should adjust the quota upward to 15% or so for the class of 2010. A couple of years of experience at that level will provide us all with better information about the optimal policy going forward.
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:06 pm
Onanism.
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:32 pm
Wow. You want to increase INTL enrollment from 6% to 15%?
Remember, this is a zero-sum game. You can’t propose that increase without identifying which group of current students you plan to cut by 9%.
Also, don’t forget the aid implications. There is no reason to expect the incremental intl. students to be cheaper than the current ones. The current INTLs cost $3 million out of a $16.6 million total aid budget. Your proposal would boost INTL aid spending to $7.7 million. According to our zero-sum game, this means that domestic aid drops from $13.6 million to $8.9 million.
Effectively, you just gutted Williams’ diversity efforts. Forget Questbridge scholarships. Forget low socio-economic admits. You’ve just turned the college clock back decades on the domestic student body being lily-white and wealthy. To put it into perspective, that’s less domestic financial aid per student than Washington & Lee spends. W&L is 88% white with 69% who don’t qualify for need-based aid.
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:11 pm
Admission rate for Williams class of 2008: 18.4%.
The admissions rate for Williams internationals students for the class of 2008: 7%.
These numbers came from the Williams Record article accessible at
http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?view=article§ion=news&id=5707.
The article explicitly states that the admit rate at Williams that year was 18.4%, and that the international students comprised 16% of the applicant pool. Assuming that
(1) the yield for int’l students is same as the yield for the Americans
(2) the int’l comprise 6% of the student body
we can infer that the admission rate for internationals is (6/16)*18.4=7 percent.
Also, note that this admissions rate is not the same for all countries. From regions that traditionally send a lot of applicants, such as Asia and Eastern Europe, the application rate is much lower, probably around 2 to 3 percent. Now, don’t tell me that white Americans have the admission rate less than this!
Note that since internationals comprise 16% of the Williams applicants, in a world with no quotas, they should comprise around 16% of the class assuming that their academic credentials are the same as those of Americans. Is it safe to assume that international students applying to Williams have the same (if not better) credentials as Americans who are applying? Yes. Remember that we are talking hare about a group of people who decided to uproot themselves to another continent at the age of 17, to pursue an education in another language. How may of you have done similar?
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:21 pm
Sorry, that should be:
From regions that traditionally send a lot of applicants, such as Asia and Eastern Europe, the *admissions* rate is much lower
and not
From regions that traditionally send a lot of applicants, such as Asia and Eastern Europe, the *application* rate is much lower
November 23rd, 2005 at 12:03 am
Jeff,
Thanks for your more direct and indepth reply, which gives me a better idea of how you see things– and the sense that we are less in disagreement.
As a quick reply, in lieu of a very long one that may come:
– I don’t immediately agree with your interpretations of Heermance or Kolesar; in fact, I would need a little time to mull both to even think I know what you’re trying to say!
– When first looking at David’s post, I took David’s intentions at face value. I would not normally hold him to the “standards” you assert, nor question his motives in the way you (and others) do.
– Equally I believe that if David’s assertions were as weak as you state, attacking them directly would be far simpler than maligning his intent, technique, seriousness, etc.
– In saying you “don’t take David seriously,” it seems to me that you dismiss David with the same sort of prejudice that Heermance or Lowell’s critics would have received. J’accuse.
– David’s defence, that any deficiencies in execution were a matter of time, seems quite reasonable and normal; people work with the materials they have, under time constrains. Pointing out such “deficiencies of execution” in an attempt to undermine substantive points seems to me meanspirited; and entirely opposed to the kind of co-operation that leads to effective decision-making.
– David’s “syllogism” asserts that Kolesar’s statements and Heermance’s statements represent situations that are fundamentally similar. Such “logical coupulas,” to turn the phrase, run both ways– not only must we evaluate Kolesar’s statement vis-a-vis Heermance, but Heermance vis-a-vis Kolesar. If we believe Kolesar is “not guilty,” so to speak, we have to ask in turn whether Heermance is similarly “not guilty.” This is why David most certainly did not call Heermance a “bigot”– to do would have undermined the entire position.
In short, I’m trying to point out that you come to this forum with a lot of assumptions– such as Heermance’s “bigotry”– that I, David and some others may not have. Unless you state these presumptions directly and as your own, we’re likely to talk around each other, and to get nowhere.
November 23rd, 2005 at 1:01 am
Probably not a fair assumption. Swarthmore’s INTL yield this year was 13% higher than the overall yield. With Williams’ large INTL aid budget, I would expect the spread to be even higher.
As far as I can tell, successful international admissions are “arranged marriages”, much like the old days of the New England prep schools, where the graduating seniors were divvied up by the guidance offices to each of the colleges and universities: x number to Harvard, x to Yale, x to Williams, and so on and so forth. This feeder school approach results in high yields. Look at the college lists from some of the major Asian feeders (Mothers in India, Raffles in Singapore, Budhanilkantha School in Nepal, etc.)
For example, here’s a link that will show you Raffle’s US college admissions for the last five years:
http://www.rjc.edu.sg/usapps/colleges/rjc.htm
Show me a US high school that has gotten 400 acceptances out of 512 applications to the University of Michigan over the last five years. That’s Raffles’ track record.
Or 77 admits to Duke over the last four years. Or 54 to Brown over the last five years. And, so on and so forth.
Although a much smaller school, the acceptances from Budhanilkantha School in Katmandu (where the Nepalese royal family sends its kids) are just as stunning. This was the school that won one of Williams’ annual “teacher awards” recently. Two or three each to Swarthmore, Williams, and Amherst every year, like clockwork. And that’s not counting the Harvards, Yales, Princetons, Dukes, Browns, Michigans, Standfords, Berkeleys….
It is true that the overall acceptance rate for internationals is very small. Internationals generate large numbers of apps (it’s a big reason for the explosion in applications). The top applicants are very strong. However, there are a lot of wishful thinkers, too. The average joe international student browsing college websites probably has no idea the competition from these designated feeder schools.
November 23rd, 2005 at 2:48 am
hwc wrote:
“Probably not a fair assumption. Swarthmore’s INTL yield this year was 13% higher than the overall yield. With Williams’ large INTL aid budget, I would expect the spread to be even higher.”
Actually, I am glad that you have pointed that out, since the HIGHER yield rate for international students would lead to the LOWER acceptance rate for the international students (since Williams would need to accept less int’l students if a larger portion of the accepted students choose to attend). 13% higher yield for international students than for domestic ones would probably put the acceptance rate for internationals to less than 5 percent. Funny how these things work…
Also, I don’t see a problem if these students are coming from “elite” high schools in their home countries. Williams should pick the best talent, regardless where it comes from. To get to these schools, which are probably THE “magnet” schools in their countries, they had to pass through a lot of examinations in the first place.
hwc also wrote:
“It is true that the overall acceptance rate for internationals is very small. Internationals generate large numbers of apps (it’s a big reason for the explosion in applications). The top applicants are very strong. However, there are a lot of wishful thinkers, too. The average joe international student browsing college websites probably has no idea the competition from these designated feeder schools.”
Look, int’l students from Asia and Eastern Europe are competing for a spot with 30 to 50 other 17 year-olds who are smart enough to figure out how a college admission system works on another continent and in another language. The average American competes with 5 other Americans.
November 23rd, 2005 at 3:42 am
I agree. Higher yield results in lower acceptance rates. High yield is the main reason that Harvard has such a low acceptance rate. The actual ratio of applications to enrollees is larger, but not orders of magnitude larger than it is at Williams. But, Williams has to accept 2 for every 1 enrolled. Harvard has to accept 1.2 for every 1 enrolled.
5% is probably a good guess for international acceptance rates. A couple of years ago, in an effort to give internationals a dose of honesty, Swarthmore published in a FAQ that their international acceptance rate was 6%. My feeling is that once you get to single-digit acceptance rates, you have de facto proof that a large percentage of the apps have no prayer and are simply unrealistic misguided applications.
BTW, don’t interpret my comments as meaning that I see anything wrong with international feeder schools. I don’t honestly know how international admissions could be done any other way.
I also am in favor of increased international enrollment. I just think that honesty requires us to acknowledge that every additional international student means an offsetting cut in some other category of students and, realistically, a cut in funding for low-income US students.
November 23rd, 2005 at 6:24 pm
Wanna throw around pejoratives, eh?
Kane, are you retarded? Look at your original post- the claim is rife with moral insinuation. People aren’t most outraged because they think the Jew Quota reflected an error of calculation in the admissions process, they’re outraged because it seemed *morally wrong*. Once again your *total* lack of discretion and judgment leads your rhetoric right into the toilet.
Regardless, your failure to recognize the possible validity of the concept of a ‘national institution’ is a deep flaw in your argument.
Semus, Cambridge is good and will be better if my first essay this year goes well. I’d say the same (without the abusive vitriol) in response to your post- the question here isn’t exclusively about making Williams the strongest possible school but also about Williams’ responsibilities. Note that I’m not necessarily *advocating* the international student limit, so much as suggesting that a particular set of values (nation-oriented, perhaps, but at least somewhat defensible) could be used to defend the international student quota.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind knocking out a few tips, legacies, or future alcoholics to admit some more international students…
November 24th, 2005 at 12:10 am
Eislerman:!
Vitriol is one thing, wasted breath another. You might as well insult David Kane’s mother as ask if a Williams graduate is “retarded:” in either case, you are undermining your own voice more than your opponents’.
You misunderstand these exercises.
Hindsight is simple. Foresight is not.
In the time that A. Lawrence Lowell and Radcliffe Heermance wrote, publications ranging from the New York Times to local papers bemoaned “the Jewish Problem” and admired Adolf Hitler’s economic and social transformation of Germany.
And in a time when those same papers carried front-page pictures of Henry Ford with a twenty-foot portrait of Mr. Hitler behind his desk, any Harvard alum so cheeky and pernacious as to question Lowell or Heermance would likely have received as cold and summary a dismissal as you have given David Kane’s thoughts.
You may take Lowell and Heermance and others to have been simply “morally wrong,” moral monsters, or the like. That’s very easy to claim in retrospect, about men whose actions and statements seemed entirely normal and reasonable at the time. I, on the contrary, believe that men such Lowell and Heermance, and women and men such as you and I, quite often lead us into disaster by, as Robert McNamara so wonderfully put it, blundering and errors of judgement.
Who says David Kane is not interested in the national responsibility of Williams? “Are you kidding?” The question is whether the version of national responsibility represented by Jim Kolesar’s mouth is, in reality, “responsible” at all. And whether we as citizens are willing to raise the question of its implications.
Seventy years ago, nay-sayers such as you and Neville Chamberlain and the rest of the reasonable and civilized world blithely dismissed the questions and insinuations of such a seasoned and craggly old orator as Winston Churchill, even as and until Panzers rolled into Alsace-Lorraine and the Sudetenland, into Austria and Hungary and the Second Czech Republic, into Poland. I can hardly expect better judgement from our times.
Regardless, to extend the simile and its implications, the simplistic criteria of judgement which you forward are intellectually naive, morally bankrupt, and politically dangerous. Do you fail to recognize the world-historical game played by both Lowell and Heermance, and Kolesar and so many other administrators?
That the question of the national and racial composition of the Williams student body is a complex microcosm of our national “identity” and international relationships?
That the question of whether and how the United States openly admits non-US students into our society and economy is substantively similar to the question of admitting Jewish students in the 20s and 30s– and the question of admitting “Jews” to American and German society?
That the national security implications of these decisions, so very hard to envision in foresight, are nonetheless equally similar?
I may only pray that it will not take hindsight and bombs upon our soil to drive home the reality of these questions.
November 24th, 2005 at 2:02 am
But, not in the case of international admissions at Williams in 2005. If there were additional demand from qualified international applicants, Williams would not have to spend $3 million a year (nearly 20% of its entire aid budget) to get the international students it has.
Morty is one of the country’s leading experts in enrollment management and college pricing. He did not authorize doubling the international aid budget because he was comfortably hitting the desired 6% international enrollment. If a cap is limiting higher enrollment in the face of enormous pent-up demand, why not do what any economist would do? Raise the price by reducing the aid dollars for internationals.
Now, if you want to talk quotas, ask why Williams only has 9% Asian-American enrollment from a hugely qualified and eager applicant pool as evidenced by the percentages at:
Amherst 13%
Dartmouth 13%
Duke 13%
Princeton 13%
Brown 14%
Yale 14%
Swarthmore 16%
Columbia 16%
Harvard 17%
MIT 28%
It’s not the international enrollment at Williams that is out of step with the prevailing supply and demand at high-end US colleges. Looking at those numbers, it is hard to not speculate that Williams may have an “Asian-American quota”. I have a hard time imagining that Asian-Americans simply aren’t applying to the #1 ranked liberal arts college in the country.
November 24th, 2005 at 6:38 am
Semus asks: ‘Is it safe to assume that international students applying to Williams have the same (if not better) credentials as Americans who are applying?’
As hwc points out, I think the answer to this question is clearly ‘no.’ Why is this?
*International students, for the most part, are not nearly as well-informed about their chances as American students are. Sure, some are–the elite feeder schools probably have very good counseling…and this is reflected by very high acceptance rates into schools like Williams from these schools. However, the majority of schools do not.
*International students often do not speak English as a first language and consequently do not do as well on the verbal SATs. I don’t have numbers on this, but I would be very surprised if there wasn’t a significantly larger math-verbal SAT difference with Intls than with Ntls.
*As I’ve already stated, most international schools do not put the samae sort of emphasis on extracurriculars as US schools do. This is a big part of the Williams application so I’m sure it makes a difference.
On a separate topic, hwc is continually pointing out that admissions aid is a zero sum game. I’m not entirely sure this is true at Williams. I know Williams need-blind status for international students is supported largely by several large donations (from the Bronfmans I believe). I disagree that Williams’ commitment to its 100% need-blind status for everyone is a ploy to increase intl application numbers, as hwc implies (I think everyone here would agree that we currently have more qualified intl applicants than we are enrolling–Williams does not need to provide added insentives to get a very strong international class).
I’m of the belief that many of Williams’ policies are shaped by an idealism towards higher education held by many of the administrators. I think that Williams’ 100% need-blind status is due to the shared ideals between the administration and several very wealthy donors that everyone from everywhere should be able to come to Williams if they are qualified. Would Williams be 100% need-blind without a Bronfman supporting it? I think it’s less likely, but still possible. Would the big supporters of our 100% need-blind status donate the same amount of money for a different cause? Probably not–I strongly suspect they’re donating money to this cause, not because Williams wants them to, but beecause they want to.
I don’t think the economics for colleges are nearly as zero-sum as you believe them to be. One way to solicit large amounts of money from alumns is by having policies and programs like this (the tutorial system is another example of this–I’m sure we get more money ‘in support of the tutorial system’ than we would ‘in support of small class sizes’ if we didn’t have the tutorial system).
One final point–Williams does not have a cap or limit on asian admits. The relatively low number of asian admits at Williams is reflective of the admissions pool rather than any particular Williams admission practice. Most likely this is due to a carry-over of Williams’ reputation as being a school for upperclass white boys combined with a relative lack of asian recruiting (compared to other minority groups recruiting) on the part of Williams’ admissions office.
November 24th, 2005 at 10:08 am
did anyone mention that the only reason that williams went need-blind for intl students is because a donor (an alum, i think), gave money stipulating it be used for intl student fin aid?
November 24th, 2005 at 12:18 pm
Ken,
I appreciate the sentiment, but how many more caveats do you want me to put in my post? How many times do I have to say ‘possibly’ and explicitly indicate this isn’t MY OWN position so much as a *position that must be faced* before you realize that I’m just playing the ’strongest possible defense’ game?
I also think, rhetorically, invoking World War II isn’t the finest analogy. Sure, the US is in *serious* danger if we don’t pick it up (no evolution in schools? NO EVOLUTION IN SCHOOLS?!?), but I think that danger is primarily financial and intellectual rather than military…except for Taiwan, maybe.
November 24th, 2005 at 3:37 pm
The large donor (Bronfman?) explanation for the large international aid budget makes sense.
However, I would still argue that aid is a zero-sum game. Were it not, then Williams’ Bronfman aid would have been added to an already competitive aid budget, making Williams’ per student aid larger than its equally-endowed peer institutions. That is not the case; Williams’ overall per student aid is lower than either Amherst’s or Swarthmore’s. This has to be attributed to a conscious decision regarding institutional priorities, enrollment management, and/or pricing strategies. Morty is one of the world’s leading published experts on college pricing. I don’t believe there is anything accidental about Williams’ pricing, discounting, and enrollment management strategies.
I am skeptical about the claim of a small Asian-American applicant pool at Williams. I see no reason that its brand identity would scare off applicants any more than, say, Dartmouth’s nearly identical geographic location and market positioning. Particularly telling is that Williams’ percentage of Asian-Americans has declined from its high-point in the early 1990s (11.2%). Asian-American enrollment at most elite colleges has skyrocketed in the last ten years. For example, Swarthmore’s 1995 Asian-American enrollment was exactly the same as Williams that year (10.8%). By 2004, Swarthmore’s percentage had increased to 15.8%; Williams’ had declined to 9.2%. Simple twist of fate, running against the demographic grain? Or, institutional guidance to the admissions office?
I think a likely explanation is that the admissions office at Williams has been given higher priorities than enrolling Asian-Americans, who tend to be more likely to be seriously academic and music oriented; less likely to be varsity athletes. When 28% of the incoming class consists of recruited athletes, as it did this year, the Asian-American enrollment will tend to be lower. According to Williams’ Diversity Report data, 49% of the white students play varsity sports at Williams compared to 33% of the Asian-American students.
This is directly analagous to the “jew quotas”. If I recall, the argument was that the academically-focused Jewish students were not “well-rounded” enough (and that included being well-rounded enough for the hockey team).
It is also possible that the smaller aid budget for US students impacts Asian-American enrollment. This group, on average, qualifies for frequently for need-based aid (44% at Williams) than caucasian students (32% at Williams). This theory could be tested by looking at the relative yields for accepted Asian-American students.
As a side-note, Morty might be interested in an unintended admissions priority on enrolling drinkers. The same Diversity Report data shows that 58% of Williams white students self-reported having 5 or more drinks on one or more occasions in the prior two weeks, compared to 39% of Asian-American students.
November 24th, 2005 at 6:35 pm
My high school had many international students, including a pair of twins from Hong Kong. Their grandparents bought an ad in the yearbook congratulating them on their accomplishments, and saying “… and I hope you get into a prestigious university.” Williams has no name brand recognition; therefore, it is less appealing to Asian students whose families, at least, value “prestigious universities” above other institutions of higher learning. Of course, this is true to some extent in every ethnic group, but I think it is especially prevalent among Asian families.
November 24th, 2005 at 7:37 pm
hwc-
Might it be possible that Williams’ per-student aid is reflective of per-student need? The USNWR ranking of best value colleges list Williams as 1st, Amherst and 2nd, and Swarthmore at 5th. I don’t have the paying version of this report so I can’t see all of the data, but Williams after all need-based debt is paid is cheaper on average than Amherst (albeit only by a little, but still). Regardlessly of rankings or exact numbers or where Swarthmore exactly falls, I think you’ll find that on average, Williams students on aid graduate with very similar amount of debt as Swat and Amherst students do. What does this indicate? It indicates that Williams is at least as generous with aid as Swat and Amherst are…despite your implications that somehow Williams is ripping off its students.
Now, regarding asian american enrollment, it’s very true that, in a sense, Asian Americans may be somewhat of a casualty of changed admissions priorities. However, to imply that as an ethnic/racial/geographic group they might be singled out, I think is wrong. In other words, fewer asian americans are getting into Williams because fewer asian americans have application characteristics in line with what Williams is interested in. The fact that this is a trend seen among a particular ethnic/racial/geographic group is probably entirely coincidental. Your guess is as good as mine regarding what these characteristics are that asian americans as a group are relatively lacking at Williams. It’s possible that as a whole asian americans have higher SAT scores, and Williams is emphasizing SAT scores relatively less than they did before (or relatively less than Amherst/Swarthmore)…leading to relatively smaller an admissions boost from high SAT scorers, leading to relatively lower numbers of high SAT scoring admits, leading to relatively lower numbers of Asian American admits (who, according to our hypothetical example, tend to score higher on SATs).
Your assertion that asian american enrollment might have decreased because on average asian americans cost more than white americans is entirely unsupported and, in my opinion, reveals your cynical (and biased) view towards institutions of higher education–Williams in particular (excluding, of course, Swarthmore).
November 24th, 2005 at 9:38 pm
Actually, it is supported by the data that Williams only chooses to enroll 42% of the class who qualify for financial aid. In other words, they are seeking and enrolling a higher percentage of full-pay students than Amherst, Swarthmore, or any of the Ivy League schools.
I do not believe that there is anything accidental about enrollment management/pricing strategy at a college with Morty Schapiro as President. He’s written far too extensively on the subject to leave it up to chance. Williams budgets less aid money and enrolls to the budget. It’s smart business and good management.
November 25th, 2005 at 12:18 am
hcw:
I am several posts behind in responding to your additions!: however, last night, I meant to make it to posting that UC Berkeley acheived an Asian-American “majority” in 1997, amid the controversy over Ward Connerly’s Proposition 203– whose intent was to remove any form of “affirmative action” in UC admissions (and, as intended, likely would have driven Asian-American admissions far above 60%).
Indeed, I have pointed out elsewhere that the perceptions of Williams as “white, wealthy,” suburban, gated-community, etc (that you forward) likely discourage West Coast applicants. Adn that I believe this undermines Williams’ Mission. Regardles– and not tying the two issues together– I cannot imagine that if Williams chose a truly “racially neutral” approach to the constitution of its Student Body, that the Asian-American composition of the Student Body would not rise dramatically.
For those others out there, please note that stating the above is not the same as advocating that Williams take any such course of action.
November 25th, 2005 at 1:31 am
Eislerman,
Was fuer ein Name ist denn Eislerman?
First, please consider that from my reading and perspective, your qualifications of your statements do not seem nearly as careful as you represent them. And that according to any primer of classical Rhetoric, your introduction made it unlikely that a reader would pay much attention to such qualifications?
Next, the Second World War is the obvious comparison, and the one with which– as in the case of the materials Davis chooses to forward– the one that is most familiar and easy for me to forward. To explore the similarities and differences in depth would certainly take volumes, and be much more complex that the discussion here. These complexities are certainly in the back of my thoughts– as well as the fact that neither I, nor we as a nation, may have time for “academic” analyses of the problems.
I also do not necessarily personally believe the assertions I give here. Particularly, I am much more sympathetic to people such as Lowell and Heemance– unlikely to condemn them as moral monsters– than the (post-WWII) tradition that I am drawing on.
As for our national security position, I take it to believe much more grave than you imagine. I have not had the chance to add to ephBlog’s “Diplomacy” section– for which I have been mulling over the contents of fifty or so pages– but I might note that the United States has expanded an initial consideration of the first use of nuclear weapons in a Taiwan conflict, into an adoption of a worldwide “First-Use” doctrine. Except in the highest and most esoteric circles of policy, this has received little to no consideration, despite its enormous consequence.
China and the rest of our potential nuclear opponents have responded with profoundly disturbing changes in nuclear posture and force deployments. The past six months of scuttlebut and noise from China have truly disturbed me, and I wish I could give you three or four good pages of summary, but the bottom line is that China is expending enormous resources to prepare for the possibility of a nuclear conflict with the United States. And what I keep hearing from friends at the Department of State is that such a conflict is increasingly likely, and if the United States does not change its policy and posture, increasingly in the national interest of China.
I lived in Paul Wolfowitz’s old room at Cornell; my friend Noah Feldman, two doors down, later lived in Emerson’s room at Harvard. I assure you note of us sleep very well about these issues– Paul least of us all. The vernacular says that we are much more secure that the Cold War, but I wake up most mornings surprise and thankful that our world is still here.
As for policy? I have no immediate or easy answers. Certaintly simply to invoke the Second World War would be to foolishly “prepare for the last war;” but I am equally a great believer of George Santayana’s comment that to fail to learn the lessons of history, dooms us to repeat it. All of this has happened before– and will happen again– from far before the Peloponneian Wars to the Great Wars of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Clinton and Albright’s bombing of Belgrade and Novi Sad, for instance, are frightenly similar to the French bombing of Cologne– and in the speed of the modern world, we may pay the price of such mistakes far more quickly. But do I disgress?
Not entirely. Certainly we can spend man-years pointing out the differnces between our contemporary situation and the prelude to the Second World War– or the Peloponnesian Wars, etc.– but also amid the similarites, one fundamental similarity is that decision-makers in each world failed to envision the potential consequnces of their actions– and that voices such as Winston Churchill’s were ignored and ridiculed.
The minutae of decisions and considerations behind each such scenario are likely beyond our consideration– but in microcosm, I assert, simply, that when human virtue and consideration and judgement fails– when we blithely and confidently dismiss the warnings of a Churchill or Kane– the consequence is a disaster. And “blundering.”
Is Williams and Jim Kolesar also “Blundering into Disaster?” And is the question not whether Jim Kolesar is “morally wrong,” or “guilty” of “crimes”– but rather whether we are willing to ask him more simply, whether his words and Williams’ policy might be well-meaning and yet lead to disaster?
Again, we can dismiss the actors as “monsters,” or we can evaluate them as humans making good or poor decisions. To me, the point here is not to suggest that Jim Kolesar is a “bigot”– but to ask him and ourselves where these decisions will lead us all. And, equally, to re-evaluate the common judgement of people such as Lowell and Heermance.
Let me not forget that the Churchills also had and have very intimate connections with Williams. Their ideas were in play in the build-up to the Second World War, and are in play today.
The ultimate point is that Williams’ decisions play a geopolitical role– and that, given the difficulties of foresight, anything less than a direct and forthright examination of the consequences of our decisions may result in disaster. Hoka Hey, to invoke an entirely different language, if any of you know eastern Piute.
November 25th, 2005 at 2:48 am
Ken:
Berkely doesn’t surprise me. The latest data for undergrad enrollment there is 41% Asian-American. Stanford is very high, too: 24%
It would be difficult for a northeast college to achieve those levels, simply due to the underlying population on the East Coast. Likewise, it is difficult for southern and midwestern schools to achieve East Coast Asian-American enrollment.
What is interesting is when a school is an “outlier” for its own region. For example, 13% Asian-American is a pretty respectible number for an East Coast school; but, IMO, the Pomona admissions office must work very hard indeed to hold their Asian-American enrollment down to 13%, given the demographics in California.
————-
Reading the papers written by Morty Schapiro and his associates in the Williams Econ department on college pricing and enrollment strategies opened my eyes to the fact that none of this stuff happens by accident.
Here’s a terrific and eye-opening paper co-authored by Schapiro, when he was the Dean at USC, and Michael McPherson, President of Macalaster College:
http://www.collegenews.org/prebuilt/daedalus/mcpherson_article.pdf
This paper, along with the book, “The Student Aid Game” by the same authors, gives a glimpse into the degree to which Schapiro has thought about enrollment management.
The authors make several blunt statements:
Here’s another one, by long-time Williams trustee, Paul Neeley:
http://www.collegenews.org/prebuilt/daedalus/neely_article.pdf
Actually, all of the essays at the site are quite interesting. I particularly enjoyed the essay on sciences at LACs by Thomas Cech and the essay on the role LACs should play in developing responsible citizenship by Eugene Lang.
http://www.collegenews.org/x492.xml
November 25th, 2005 at 5:48 am
hwc, I think Morty’s statements apply differently to Williams than you believe them to.
Morty says: ‘Moreover, even for very well endowed institutions, their ability to fund fully their needy students depends heavily on having a great many high-quality applicants who are willing and able to pay the sticker price.’
You interpret this to mean that Williams is consciously limiting the number of financial aid students (especially Asian Americans) so as to achieve an appropriate balance of full-pay students and finaid students. You then go on to assert that Williams must more strictly limit the number of US finaid students than Amherst or Swarthmore because Williams is the only one of the three that is need-blind for Intls, and consequently spends relatively more funding Intl. finaid students.
However, I believe Morty’s comments apply to Williams (and Amherst and Swarthmore) different than what you believe. First of all, these three schools (but especially Williams) are much more than ‘very well endowed.’ I assume that when Morty wrote that paper, he was looking at, say, the upper quartile of elite college endowments as being qualified as ‘very well endowed.’ For liberal arts colleges, these would be endowments of the 400-700million range, which are really quite huge by anyone’s standards. However, Williams’ endowment is currently 1.5 billion. This obviously allows Williams to comfortably take on significant additional financial aid burdens that even most of the other elite LACs cannot (such as being 100% need-blind, or the tutorial system).
Furthermore, Morty’s not claiming that all colleges must base admissions practices off of fiscal reasoning. In fact, later in your quote, he indicates that what largely differentiates top schools that offer merit-aid from top schools that do not is their ability to naturally attract strong full-paying applicants. In other words, Morty’s claiming that schools that do not offer merit aid do so because they do not need to; strong full-paying applicants line up for their schools in sufficient quantities without any added incentives.
So what conclusion does that lead me to from Morty’s statements? I think Morty’s saying that a schools financial situation depends, in part, on what their applying and matriculating class looks like from an economic standpoint. He’s not arguing that non-merit aid schools manipulate admissions practices for financial aid reasons. He’s not even arguing that they should. In fact, judging from Morty’s typical sentiments regarding financial aid, he seems to strongly believes that a school like Williams should NOT do this, that everyone should be able to afford Williams. Williams as an institution, from the top down, is based around the premise that all qualified students should have exactly the same opportunities. Nearly everything on campus (from parties to lectures to concerts to the frosh orientation trips) is free for this reason.
Williams has qualified full-pay applicants lining up to be admitted. Not only is Williams financially fortunate enough not to need to offer these applicants admissions preference to be on firm financial footing, Williams is actively trying to decrease the relative number of full-pay applicants (by boosting the number of non-full-pay students). This is somewhat of an uphill battle for Williams, given the rich white boy reputation it has, a carry-over from Williams’ past days (a no longer appropriate steriotype which you continually perpetuate). A 1.5 billion dollar endowment lets you be need blind to everyone, admit who you want regardless of their financial status, and still continually offer some of the most generous finaid packages in the country.
Regarding Asian American applicants, Williams’ current admissions processes slightly favor Asian American applicants for being Asian American (obviously this is not in the same category as URM-status, but it is a positive flag Admissions uses). Does this mean that Asian Americans have a higher acceptance rate into Williams than the rest of the student body? I don’t know. It certainly wouldn’t necessitate this. To best compare how Asian American applicants stack up Admissions-wise, what you’d need to compare would be the acceptance rates and applicant strength of non-tipped, non-legacy asian american applicants with non-tipped, non-legacy white american applicants. If the two groups received relatively similar number of flags, relatively similar EC and AI numbers, and yet had different admissions %ages, then THIS might possibly indicate some sort of admissions bias (in either direction). Personally, I’d be VERY surprised if the asian american group of applicants appeared to have a relatively lower shot at Williams than this particular white american group.
The argument that Williams has an asian american quota simply because they have fewer asian americans than their peer schools just doesn’t work. Williams has fewer Jewish students than Amherst or Swarthmore despite the fact that it is quickly becoming known for its vibrant Jewish community. Are you going to argue that Williams still has a Jew quota? Your argument for a Jew quota at Williams would be significantly stronger than your current argument for a possible Asian American quota. Yet, I doubt you’ll make such an argument, given its obvious fallaciousness.
November 25th, 2005 at 7:10 am
Ken,
Like my man Hobbes, I am deeply suspicious of rhetoric, and tend to avoid thinking in rhetorical terms most of the time. Obviously we all express ourselves using rhetoric, but I prefer to see that as a low priority.
Pay attention to the argument as a thing in and of itself, that’s the way. And I keep hammering Kane for one simple reason- he seems to be unable to recognize that merely because things are alike in *some* ways, they are alike in *all* ways. Following from this, he *repeatedly* flames by drawing comparison that are not *completely* devoid of merit, but seem to be lacking sufficient merit to make the connection.
And to respond to the core argument- perhaps it could be said that Williams has an obligation to focus on educating US citizens, so that we may be better prepared for facing global crises? Again, not my argument, but one that I would like to see derailed head-on rather than by tangential flourishing references. I want someone to face the nation-as-unit-of-responsibility argument headon.
November 25th, 2005 at 2:59 pm