Admissions Statistics Aren’t Very Revealing. Here’s What To Look At Instead.

As Mark Twain once said: “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

Yesterday, Harvard’s release of demographic data for the Class of 2028 drew national attention, for one reason in particular: The share of Black students decreased from 18 percent to 14 percent.

Yet this statistic isn’t what should catch people’s attention.

Ultimately, demographic statistics shed little light on the famously opaque college admissions process. The recent data leaves many questions open and answers far fewer of them.

Why did the share of Black students decrease? Many would love to point to last year’s decision in SFFA v. Harvard, which struck down Harvard’s race-conscious admissions program as unconstitutional. They improperly infer — without sufficient evidence — a causal relationship between the Court’s decision and the new data.

Why did the share of Asian students remain the same? Were commentators who suggested that Asian Americans would not benefit from the fall of affirmative action correct all along?

Why did the share of Hispanic students rise? Is the increase explainable as mere stochastic noise? Or is it evidence that those who claimed race-based affirmative action was unnecessary to achieve diversity were right?

I implore anyone seeking to interpret the admissions data — an understandable urge — not to practice causal inference on one year of data and a helping of speculation. It is simply impossible to approximate, with certainty, the treatment effect of the SFFA decision based on the very limited information we have.

In fact, what really matters in light of Harvard’s newly released data is not the data itself, but factors which extend beyond a simple demographic breakdown.

For one, it absolutely matters that our campus climate remains welcoming to students of all backgrounds.

The evidence presented by Students For Fair Admissions in their lawsuit against Harvard revealed alarming institutional biases against Asian American applicants. On average, Asian applicants received lower personal ratings than white students, perhaps the result of prejudiced views of Asian people as impersonal or robotic. While Harvard has changed its admissions practices as a result of the Court’s ruling, sadly we must continue to remain vigilant against such abhorrent anti-Asian discrimination.

We must also reject narratives that seek to paint a person as inherently less qualified on the basis of their race. Some loud voices argued last year that our University’s former president, Claudine Gay, was hired as the result of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. If the president of Harvard could face such rhetoric, I am left to the sorrowing conclusion that many of our classmates of color must face it too. We must stand vigilantly against this manifestation of prejudice as well.

Harvard deserves credit for continuing to invest and expand outreach programs for students from a wealth of different backgrounds. Still, I must emphasize the need for Harvard to do more to engage students with varied lived experiences — from many different types of high schools around the nation, from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and whose parents have varying levels of education. Out of the options available to University leadership, this will have the greatest impact toward achieving diverse representation.

Look beyond attention-grabbing statistics and continue to engage this issue at the depth it requires. History will remember fondly those of us who do.

Ian M. Moore ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is an Applied Mathematics concentrator in Quincy House