Harvard University Exhibits for Asian Focus Areas

Last update: 12/7/2018

Harvard University Website

Relevant data for Harvard (and for all other institutions) are presented in tables and charts featured in three exhibits per institution. The following exhibits describe Harvard's Asian Focus Areas and their relative importance to Harvard's White and Asian American graduates.

• The "AFA" prefix in front of the names of the seven degree areas listed at the bottom of the vertical axis designates these areas as Asian Focus Areas.

Harvard Exhibit 1. Asian and White Graduates by IPEDS Degree Areas

Key points:

• Harvard offered programs in 18 IPEDS degree areas
• Seven of these 18 areas were Asian Focus Areas, the five will subsequently be shown to be the most favored by all 21 institutions -- "Computer Information Sciences", "Biological  Biomedical Sciences", "Mathematics Statistics", "Engineering", and "Economics" ... plus "Physical Sciences" and "Natural Resources Conservation".
• Asian graduates only outnumbered White graduates in "Computer Information Sciences"

Harvard Exhibit 2. Asian Focus Areas Identified by Overall Asian-to-White Ratios
The chart shown in Exhibit 2 displays the Asian-to-White ratios in all IPEDs categories plus a dashed red line the marks the 0.42 overall ratio of Asian to White students in the graduating class. Bars that end to the right of the dotted line are Asian Focus Areas; bars that end to the left of the line are not.

Key points:

• "Computer Information Sciences" was, by far, Harvard's strongest Asian Focus Area; but it did not have the largest number of Asian graduates. As will be seen from the next table, BiologicalBiomedicalSciences yielded the largest number of Asian graduates.

Harvard Exhibit 3A. Graduates -- All Races
The table in Exhibit 3 displays the number of students in each racial category for each of Harvard's 18 degree areas. 

• A2W, the right-most column, displays the ratio of the number of students in the Asian column to the number in the White column for each category. 
• The last four rows of the table show the total enrollments, total number of students in Asian Focus areas, percentage of total enrollments, the total number in Asian Focus Areas, and the percentage of enrollments in Asian Focus Areas, respectively.

Harvard University Graduates, Class of 2016

DegreeAreas	All	White	Asian	Hispanic	Black	A2W
PhilosophyReligiousStudies	15	9	0	3	0	0.00
AreaEthnicCulturalGenderGroup	34	20	1	3	2	0.05
MultiInterdisciplinaryStudies	32	18	2	3	1	0.11
LiberalArtsSciencesGeneralStudies	30	17	2	3	2	0.12
ForeignLanguagesLiteraturesLinguistics	44	24	3	9	2	0.12
EnglishLanguageLiterature	58	39	5	8	0	0.13
PoliticalScience	136	75	11	17	8	0.15
History	132	86	15	11	5	0.17
SocialSciencesWithoutEconPoli	243	117	33	27	20	0.28
Psychology	101	48	16	11	9	0.33
VisualPerformingArts	49	22	9	2	3	0.41
AFA-Economics	218	93	44	18	11	0.47
AFA-Engineering	77	35	17	7	8	0.49
AFA-PhysicalSciences	89	38	23	3	3	0.61
AFA-NaturalResourcesConservation	12	6	4	0	2	0.67
AFA-MathematicsStatistics	182	82	57	6	7	0.70
AFA-BiologicalBiomedicalSciences	254	87	71	28	26	0.82
AFA-ComputerInformationSciences	104	27	44	6	2	1.63
...SumClassOf2016...	1810	843	357	165	111	0.42
...PercentClassOf2016...	100	47	20	9	6	0.42
...SumAsianFocusAreas...	936	368	260	68	59	0.71
...PercentAsianFocus...	52	44	73	41	53	1.66

Key points:

• The right most column for the "...SumAllDegreeAreas..." row shows that the ratio of the total number of Asian graduates to the total number of White graduates = 352/695 = 0.51, the defining ratio for the Asian Focus Areas shown in Exhibit 2.
• As per the bottom line of the table, 73 percent of the Asian American graduates obtained degrees from programs within Harvard's seven Asian Focus Areas. By contrast, only 44 percent of the White graduates obtained degrees in those areas; 56 percent obtained their degrees from programs outside the Asian Focus Areas.
• The "...SumAsianFocusAreas..." line shows that only 68 of Harvard's 165 Hispanic American graduates obtained degrees within Asian Focus Areas, which mean that 97 obtained their degrees from programs outside the focus areas. In other words, they were admitted from a different pool of qualified applicants
• The "...SumAsianFocusAreas..." line also shows that only 59 of Harvard's 111 Black American graduates obtained degrees within Asian Focus Areas, which means]t that 52 obtained their degrees from programs outside the focus areas. Once again, they were admitted from a different pool of qualified applicants.

Harvard Exhibit 3B. Graduates -- Other Components
Abbreviated column headings have the following meanings:

• The "Others" category includes AmericanIndians/AlaskaNatives and NativeHawaiians/Other Pacific Islanders
• "TwoOrMore" = multiracial students 
• "Unknown" = students who did not specify any racial group
• "NonResAlien" = non-resident aliens, i.e., foreign students

Harvard University Graduates, Class of 2016

DegreeAreas	All	Others	TwoOrMore	Unknown	NonResAlien
PhilosophyReligiousStudies	15	0	1	0	2
AreaEthnicCulturalGenderGroup	34	0	6	0	2
MultiInterdisciplinaryStudies	32	1	0	4	3
LiberalArtsSciencesGeneralStudies	30	0	2	2	2
ForeignLanguagesLiteraturesLinguistics	44	0	2	3	1
EnglishLanguageLiterature	58	0	1	0	5
PoliticalScience	136	1	7	3	14
History	132	0	7	2	6
SocialSciencesWithoutEconPoli	243	0	14	8	24
Psychology	101	0	6	1	10
VisualPerformingArts	49	0	1	1	11
AFA-Economics	218	0	10	2	40
AFA-Engineering	77	0	3	0	7
AFA-PhysicalSciences	89	0	9	0	13
AFA-NaturalResourcesConservation	12	0	0	0	0
AFA-MathematicsStatistics	182	0	6	3	21
AFA-BiologicalBiomedicalSciences	254	1	21	5	15
AFA-ComputerInformationSciences	104	0	9	2	14
...SumClassOf2016...	1810	3	105	36	190
...PercentClassOf2016...	100	0	6	2	10
...SumAsianFocusAreas...	936	1	58	12	110
...PercentAsianFocus...	52	33	55	33	58

Key points:

• The bottom row shows that most of the multi-racial students and foreign students obtained their degrees from programs in Asian Focus Areas; most of the students of "unknown" racial background obtained degrees outside of Harvard's Asian Focus Areas
• Total enrollments in the "Others" were negligible, only 3 students.
• The last three columns will provide inputs for the analysis of the advocates' challenge to Harvard's admissions in the final section of the Findings.