The Adults Fitness Test Score: Fill & Download for Free

There’s a surprising amount of good, randomized data on this question—so much that it shocks me to see that the mainstream narrative is that masks are NOT about protecting the wearer:All the big organizations—WHO, CDC, ECDC have been saying this, yet not citing evidence.Maybe they’re citing intuition? It certainly is intuitive. Surgical masks are not tight-fitting.It’s not just intuition. It’s data. Researchers have tested using mask fit-tests, like the one I’m doing here. This setup tests what percentage of air is going through the mask versus leaking around the sides while a person is actually wearing the mask.Those fit tests routinely find that surgical masks score lower than N95 masks. For example, doctor and Quora writer Richard Saint Cyr MD fit-tested a surgical mask against five N95 masks. Most of the N95s managed to get more than 90% of air through the mask (rather than leaking around the sides), whereas the surgical mask only got 63%.But that’s just one person. When researchers fit-tested surgical masks on 21 people, they found a median fit effectiveness of 80%. That’s lower than a study of N95s that found 99.5% fit effectiveness.Bottom Line 1: Surgical masks don’t fit as well as N95 masks.Yet Surgical Masks Still Prevent InfectionsI find that people have an odd all-or-nothing image of how disease works. The logic works like this: if some intervention isn’t perfect, it’s worthless. Can you spot that logic in these examples?An infectious disease expert at the University of Texas said that touching a mask could make it useless.Similarly, the Los Angeles Times printed an opinion letter claiming that N95 masks are “worthless” without proper fit testing.There’s some truth to these claims. We shouldn’t be touching our masks, and it’d be great if more people could personally fit-test masks like I did. (Unfortunately, that fit-test machine costs $10,000.)Tests of Imperfect MasksSo how perfect do masks have to be to have a meaningful effect on preventing infection? Can those 80% surgical masks prevent people from getting sick?But there’s a problem. If we want to test whether masks work, we need to randomize some people to not wear a mask. But it’s hard to find studies with a “no mask” comparison group because how are scientists going to force people to be around sick people without a mask?But wait! There is a way. When people in our own families get the flu, some people (most people?) don’t wear masks. Thus, researchers could defensibly randomly assign people to wear masks or not.And that’s exactly what researchers in Australia did. They gave surgical masks to parents taking care of their children, who were sick with the flu.Then they tracked how many parents got the flu. One important thing to note: the sick children didn’t wear masks. It was only the healthy parents. So this is a test of protecting healthy mask-wearers, not of keeping sick people’s germs in.When the data came in, 16% of unmasked parents got sick, compared to 8% in the surgical mask group.Perhaps not surprisingly, the masks only worked for people who actually wore them. There was no benefit among people who often forgot or just gave up on wearing the mask. So yes, masks are useless if people don’t wear them. Shocker!But here’s the far more interesting conclusion from that study:Bottom line 2: Masks work, even if they don’t fit perfectly, even if they’re worn by us regular, unprofessional, non-fit-tested dummies.It Gets Crazier: Surgical Masks Reduce Infection as Much as N95 MasksThe data is even wilder than that. What I didn’t tell you was that home study also tested N95 masks. They randomly assigned some parents an N95 mask like the one I’m wearing here.(OK, they used “P2 masks,” but P2 and N95 masks are essentially the same thing.) We know N95s fit better, so they they prevented infection even better than surgical masks, right?The mighty surgical mask! Surgical masks prevented infection as well as N95 masks. That is genuinely surprising.Well That’s Because Those Dummies Didn’t Know How to Wear N95 MasksN95 masks are fairly sophisticated. Professionals like nurses and engineers who work with dangerous chemicals are required to do fit-tests every year.Fit-tests are important, right? These parents were non-professional, un-fit-tested mask n00bs.So let’s bring on the professionals! Researchers have tested the same thing with nurses—people who are specifically trained to wear masks. Researchers in California randomly assigned 2,862 nurses to wear surgical masks or N95 masks.Then they tracked who got infected with the flu.There was no statistical difference in infection rates. If anything, the surgical mask group was infected slightly less.And lest any readers out there think this is something about careless Americans, a study with Canadian nurses found the same thing.Bottom line 3: Several randomized studies have found that surgical masks prevent respiratory illness as well as N95 masks.OK, I’ll Believe You on Surgical Masks, But These Cloth Masks Are JunkThese studies are all with medical-grade masks. So maybe skeptical readers out there will grant me that it works for surgical masks, even though they don’t seal completely. But most people during the coronavirus are just wearing flimsy cotton masks.And here’s where we get to the edge of knowledge. The data for homemade masks is the weakest.Because homemade masks weren’t on scientists’ radars for the last 50 years, we don’t have good randomized studies tracking infection with homemade masks. Thus, the evidence we’ve got is mechanism data—do masks filter viruses?Years before the COVID crisis, researchers tested homemade cloth masks by shooting viruses (yes, real viruses!) at homemade cloth masks and seeing what percentage the masks could block.And the data proved the skeptics right—the homemade masks didn’t capture as many viruses as the surgical masks. But they did manage to capture just over 50% of the virus particles.So DIY masks capture some virus particles, but these flimsy cloth masks are too leaky, right?Wrong! Another team of researchers in the Netherlands (again, pre-COVID) fit-tested homemade cloth masks. This team used cotton dish towels, rather than the cotton T-shirts the other team used. Here’s what their fit test looked like.That researcher looks extremely enthusiastic, but I’m pumped about this data because it gets at the debate America is having right now. Remember, this is about keeping tiny particles out of the lungs of a healthy, uninfected person. It’s a flimsy cotton mask tested while an actual person is wearing it (actually, while 28 adults wore the masks).Not bad, dish towel! Again, the homemade mask kept fewer particles out than the professional masks, but still much better than nothing. (You’ll notice yet again that the surgical masks averaged around 80% on fit effectiveness—lower than N95 masks).Bottom line 3: Homemade cloth masks capture a significant percentage of virus particles, even while real people are wearing them and even after taking into account leakage.So yes, even imperfect masks can have a meaningful effect on preventing respiratory infection. We just need to wear them.Breathe safe!P.S. Fit-Test or Bust?Remember that claim that masks need to be fit tested or they’re junk? Researchers tested that too! They randomly assigned nurses to get fit-tested for N95 masks or just receive N95 masks without a fit test. And it turns out, infections were just as low in the non-fit-tested group.P.P.S. Do Masks Make People Feel Invincible?Have you ever heard people argue that masks are actually dangerous because they make people overconfident and therefore take more risks?Researchers just tested that. The data showed the opposite: masks made people slightly more cautious.

I am one of those data points. One of the plaintiffs sounds exactly like me: an Asian-American valedictorian applying to the Class of 2014 with a 36 ACT and several extracurriculars.Emotional anecdotes and knee-jerk responses are tempting. I indulged earlier (unwisely?), because if there is anything I feel I can anecdote about, it’s being an Chinese-American applicant to the Harvard Class of 2014, and growing up in an immigrant subculture that that is intensely focused on education and top schools.But now I want graphs. Tables. Numbers. A news article, while nice, is not much better than emotional anecdotes or stereotypes.It took me some time, but I found them!Primarily from the plaintiffs’ Statement of Material Facts and other documents. Harvard has some too. These sources are obviously biased — there’s some fighting about what subsets and controls to use in the regressions — but they include a lot of actual admissions data, so let’s dig into the numbers, shall we?Warning: Long answer with tables and charts. I have largely avoided the contested regressions and stuck to the actual data, though the plaintiffs have excluded legacies, recruited athletes, and Dean’s List applicants from their tables of deciles and Personal scores.(This answer is subject to obsolescence if new information is released in the ongoing litigation.)Here’s how Asian-American and White applicants stack up in four “Profile” categories, which are intended to be race-neutral (that’s right, this isn’t even the “Affirmative Action” part of the lawsuit):As you can see, a higher percentage of Asian-Americans than white applicants excel in Academic and Extracurricular, while the opposite is true in Personal and Athletic. Slightly more white applicants are “well-rounded” in three or more categories.What do these categories mean? Here’s what we know:Academic: “grades, test scores, and other typical measures of academic achievement, such as nationally recognized competitions or awards”1: “has submitted academic work of some kind that is reviewed by a faculty member”Only ~100 applicants per year receive a rating of 1.Aside: enough applicants have academic publications there’s a separate category for them?! This must be quite rare for a high schooler if they haven’t been coached by their PhD parents. On the other hand, I know a first-gen college student who joined a scientific mailing list out of personal interest and drew the attention of a local researcher, leading to first-author publications, so it can be done. A well-earned 1 right there.2: has “perfect, or near-perfect, grades and testing, but no evidence of substantial scholarship or academic creativity.”Interesting choice of words, “academic creativity”.Plaintiff and I are probably 2s. I scored better on some tests than them and other plaintiffs, but at Harvard, perfect and near-perfect merit the same Academic score. Tragic.Extracurricular: “extracurricular activities, community employment, and family commitments”1: [redacted, but probably international and national-level accomplishments]2: “significant school, and possibly regional accomplishments” — for example, “student body president or captain of the debate team and the leader of multiple additional clubs.”Athletic: “athletic achievements” [scores redacted, but 1 is probably Olympic- and international-level athletes; recruited athletes can’t be far behind]Personal: “a variety of ‘subjective’ factors,” including… “character traits”, “positive personality,” … “humor, sensitivity, grit, leadership, integrity, helpfulness, courage, kindness and many other qualities”1: “outstanding” personal skills2: “very strong” skills3: “generally positive” skills4: “bland or somewhat negative or immature”5: “questionable personal qualities”6: “worrisome personal qualities”There are case studies used by the Admissions Office and interviewers as examples of “distinguishing excellences” and how to evaluate candidates in the context of their circumstances. The Casebook excerpts have been redacted, to protect the applicants and stymie zealous college preppers, but they reflect an obsession with using context and personal qualities “to distinguish among the many academically strong candidates in its pool”:Definitions out of the way, here’s the data.This a table of the percentages of applicants with “outstanding” and “very strong” Personal scores. You can see both the Personal scores assigned by the alumni interviewers, as well as those of the admissions office, which is based on the interview report (if available), personal essays, teacher recommendations, school background, and more. The data is arranged by race (columns) and academic index decile (top to bottom, worst to best). The academic index used here is not the Academic score, but calculated from only GPA and test scores, then used to separate the applicants into 10 deciles of about 13,000 students each.For reference, applicants of different races are not equally distributed across academic deciles, so the overall Personal scores are skewed accordingly:I also got really tired of squinting at these numbers, so I squinted at them one last time and made graphs:Takeaway points from this data:Academic index (used by the plaintiffs) is very different from Academic score (used by Harvard admissions).Comparing the first bar graph to last line graph, an Academic score of 2 (“perfect or near-perfect”) corresponds roughly to Academic index 6. That is, about half of all applicants have “perfect or near-perfect” GPA and test scores.You could almost fill the entering class (~1,600) by admitting only applicants with Academic index 10 (~4,000 applicants over 4 years). That group is a bit more than 50% Asian, 35% white, 3% Hispanic, less than 1% black, and the rest “other/decline to state”, presumably also white and Asian applicants.Harvard admissions does not officially distinguish between perfect and near-perfect GPA/SAT/ACT. Everyone over decile 6 is lumped into Academic score 2. (Academic score 1 is reserved for faculty-reviewed academic submissions.) Asian Americans are over-represented in deciles 8+, edging ever closer to “perfect”.Academic index and Personal scores are positively correlated for all races. Surprising — not what I expected from Harvard’s description. This suggests that Personal may actually mean something like “inspirational” and “talks/writes like an intellectual”. Personal != personality, unless you believe kindness somehow tracks with SAT score.Speculation: Is the bonus to black and Hispanic applicants in higher deciles in part due to “Wow, you’re so articulate”-style prejudice? Black and Hispanic applicants are less common in those deciles; they must really stand out to application readers.Speculation: Perhaps more whites and Asians “study to the test” to attain higher standardized test scores. This strategy can improve your SAT score but is unlikely to improve your ability to “talk/write like an intellectual”. Disproportionate hard work may put less-talented students in the upper academic deciles, where they drag down the Personal scores of everyone else. (Use of test prep services is not reported in application data, but in one of the voluntary freshman surveys, it was highest in Asians, then whites.)Oh alumni interviewers. I love you and your grade inflation. You basically gave half of all interviewees the highest possible scores on the Personal rating. The Admission Office was not nearly so kind.Most people are more personable in person. It probably takes a lot of writing skill to be personable in an essay.Different sources of data: The interviewer is evaluating their in-person experience, while the office is reading essays, recommendation letters, and the interview report. The office also has access to financial and high school quality information.Asian Americans have great Academic scores, better than whites — how can their average Personal score be lower?At almost every academic decile, alumni interviewers gave top scores to fewer Asian-American applicants than applicants of other races. (They come out slightly ahead overall because they have a high average academic index.)It was reported that the in-person interviewers gave Asian Americans better scores than the admissions office. While that is true, they also gave everyone better scores. They actually show the same trend as the admissions office.At almost every academic decile, the admissions office gave top scores to fewer Asian-American applicants than applicants of other races. The differences between races is more apparent in the admissions office.Taken together, there were ~4% more whites with high Personal scores from the Admissions Office than Asian Americans, while there are ~1% more among Asian Americans in the interviews. In the highest decile, the disparity is ~7% and 1%, respectively, in favor of whites.Racial disparities are larger in the higher academic deciles — the ones where Asian Americans dominate, and the ones where the serious culling of applicants will take place. The lower deciles are less important because almost no applicants (of any race) in those deciles had a chance at admission in the first place.I’d like to appreciate for a moment what an interesting strategy it was to publicly cast this as a battle between Asian-American and white applicants.When you look at those graphs, is it really the red and blue lines that seem the most different? This data is clearly far more damning to African American and Hispanic applicants.Edward Blum must have realized after the #BeckyWithTheBadGrades case that Asian Americans have great grades and white people are an acceptable target. Better to have a weakly supported narrative about rescuing Asians from elitist racist white people than a stronger case pitting Asians against black people. No one wants to be rejected in favor of some rich white private school kid.Whatever. That’s not the point.The point is, they’re biased against Asian Americans and in favor of African Americans (and Hispanics and finally whites, in that order).Well, I could think of other reasons than bias.We don’t know what “Personal” means. Harvard’s redacted all those juicy details and suggested vague but value-laden traits like “kindness” and “humor”, which are very odd traits to be positively correlated with SAT score. Of course, they have to be vague, or they’ll see a sudden influx of applicants remarkably like the ones in the documents, but it sure looks bad if all you can say to defend yourself is [redacted].In the absence of confirmation from internal Harvard documents, but in line with what everyone already knows about writing a college personal essay, Personal probably owes a lot to Interesting or Unusual.This means you’re screwed if your profile (and background) looks too much like anyone else’s. That’s not fair. It’s especially unfair to immigrants and children thereof, whose characteristics tend to cluster tightly around the requirements for US visas and the cultural values of their communities.I don’t think the admissions office could ever own up to that. At least Americans generally agree on what it looks like to be artistic, humorous, confident, etc. Those things are usually considered important positive traits. Virtuous, even.But Interesting? How is it fair to use something so arbitrary to determine who deserves entry into the Hallowed Halls of Our Greatest and Most August Institutions of Learning™?Can’t you just buy Interesting, like going on a backpacking trip through South America while creating a documentary about migrant farm workers’ orphaned children? Woe to the ordinary, who lack the connections for an internship with a leader in [Something Cool], the money to go gallivanting off in pursuit of adventure, or the poverty for a heartwarming tale of persevering against all odds!What even is Interesting?Maybe an unusual sport or extracurricular, something that causes the reader to think, “I’ve never met anyone who _____ before.”It could mean rural or from an underrepresented state:It could mean that you’re interested in doing something other than the Asian-American favorite, “Medicine or health”, perhaps even expressing interest in the whiter “Government or law” and “Arts, communications, design, or social service”:While we’re at it, being an Asian who is dismissive of liberal arts education is probably not a very good way to get into a liberal arts school. It may reflect a fundamental disconnect[1][1][1][1][2][2][2][2] between what Harvard thinks a Harvard education should be and what the average Asian thinks (any) education should be. You’ll have an easier time getting in if your educational philosophy matches the school you want to get into. While laser-focused math/science types abound, they are much less common (and may have been subjected to more stringent selection) than well-lopsided students with a few different strengths.Or maybe they’re taking your family background into account, too, when trying to gauge your passion for medicine or science:But… Why are those things bad?Isn’t it crazy that the advantages our parents fought so hard for — getting STEM jobs to support us, buying a more expensive house in the right school district, making sure we did extracurriculars, cultivating our interest in STEM, paying for enrichment programs and all the activities we could fit in our schedules — that all those supposed advantages are counted against us, because they’re stereotypical, and we didn’t have as many barriers to overcome on our path to excellence? Is Asian American academic achievement less valuable because it doesn’t reflect innate intelligence, but parental involvement and hard work?Don’t you value parental involvement and hard work?It’s almost like Harvard favors people who excel despite their background more than people who excel because of it. Parental involvement and a good upbringing mask the underlying talent of the student. Meanwhile, the rest of the world usually cares about performance, regardless of the cause.Would the same characteristics be praised if they belonged to an African-American student? A white student?And after all that, then you have to prove that you’re unique and special, but if your application reader has already seen too many people like you, your specialness goes down.But surely there can’t be that many Asian Americans with similar profiles?These racial categories are so broad and artificial, they don’t even capture all the relevant stereotypes/archetypes.There is huge diversity in Asian Americans, though in conversational American English it tends to mean the plurality East Asian group, and in college admissions, tends to focus on Chinese Americans. (Thanks, Amy Chua.) So, are South Asians treated the same way as East Asians? Southeast Asians? (Data on Filipino-American representation suggests no: Filipinos are underrepresented at most selective of UC campuses, after the removal of race from admissions.)Almost 80% of Asian American adults are foreign-born[3], so their children will dominate aggregate statistics like these, but what about Asian Americans who have lived in the US for multiple generations? Are assimilated Asians scored similarly to white Americans?Are white applicants more diverse in life background and interests than Asian-American applicants?Don’t wealthy white kids have access to the same advantages Asians are often cited for using, like pricey prep schools and SAT tutors? Is the admissions office also docking their points on Personal?What about children of African immigrants, who have similar opinions about education and STEM careers as Asian immigrants? Do people just assume that every African-American applicant had to overcome larger life obstacles by default, and thus get a higher Personal score?The statistician for Harvard added those “life background” variables (rural/urban, type of extracurriculars, parental occupation, school quality, neighborhood income, intended career) to his analysis, and came away with the conclusion that once you take those into account, race doesn’t explain the difference between white and Asian-American admission rates. It does still strongly affect African Americans and Hispanics, but apparently we’re not talking about them.But… when does using those “life background” variables cross the line into discriminating against a specific group (racial or otherwise) disproportionately representing a particular “life background”?What else?Culture shapes your personality, either in conforming to or rejecting it, as anyone familiar with the long history of Asian-American angst literature can tell you.Pictured above: prelude to Chinese-Canadian angst. See also the extremely heavy-handed application of Chinese-American angst in Paper Menagerie.I don’t attribute these differences to genetics or “race”. We know very well how upbringing can shape academic outcomes and personality. Anyone can be a Tiger Parent. We just have more of them.We’re also aware that stereotype also includes low sociability/creativity, even as we know many friends who don’t fit that stereotype at all.We can point to charts and surveys about differences in values[4][4][4][4], personality[5][5][5][5], social anxiety[6][6][6][6] , self-esteem[7][7][7][7][8][8][8][8], motivation[9][9][9][9][10][10][10][10], and so on. None of this Academic vs. Personal debate is new. I recall a lot of people being upset by Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, which I interpreted as “superior in some ways but not in others”.Those factors are also part of the ~4% difference in the average Admissions Office Personal score. At the same time, those factors might be an excuse.Here is what I sometimes suspect my face signifies to other Americans: an invisible person, barely distinguishable from a mass of faces that resemble it. A conspicuous person standing apart from the crowd and yet devoid of any individuality. An icon of so much that the culture pretends to honor but that it in fact patronizes and exploits. Not just people “who are good at math” and play the violin, but a mass of stifled, repressed, abused, conformist quasi-robots who simply do not matter, socially or culturally.I’ve always been of two minds about this sequence of stereotypes. On the one hand, it offends me greatly that anyone would think to apply them to me, or to anyone else, simply on the basis of facial characteristics. On the other hand, it also seems to me that there are a lot of Asian people to whom they apply…“There is this automatic assumption in any legal environment that Asians will have a particular talent for bitter labor,” he says, and then goes on to define the word coolie, a Chinese term for “bitter labor.” “There was this weird self-selection where the Asians would migrate toward the most brutal part of the labor.”By contrast, the white lawyers he encountered had a knack for portraying themselves as above all that. “White people have this instinct that is really important: to give off the impression that they’re only going to do the really important work. You’re a quarterback. It’s a kind of arrogance that Asians are trained not to have. Someone told me not long after I moved to New York that in order to succeed, you have to understand which rules you’re supposed to break. If you break the wrong rules, you’re finished. And so the easiest thing to do is follow all the rules. But then you consign yourself to a lower status. The real trick is understanding what rules are not meant for you.- Paper Tigers, one of the most prominent post-Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother thinkpieces of the Asian-American angst genre.Give off the impression that they’re only going to do the really important work. It occurs to me that it’s the kind of naive arrogance that could go over really well in a college essay. A shibboleth for the elite.Just because something is more common in one group [of surveyed college students] doesn’t mean you can make assumptions about individuals. If there are 4% more white applicants given the top Personal score, that doesn’t mean that all white people have 4% more “personality” than all Asian Americans. A statistical statement is not a categorical statement.We can’t make assumptions about people based on their race, gender, or any other adjective. We have to look at them as whole people, with their own backgrounds and unique circumstances. Unfortunately, that kind of thinking — those “unique” circumstances that overlap with other H1B visa holders — and all that space for subjective personal judgment and cultural preferences — is what got us in this mess in the first place. Even if you consider every person as an individual, without stereotyping, if there are average differences by race, the aggregate outcome will show average differences by race.Maybe we should just judge students based on the most meritocratic, objective, and unbiased measurements: grades and test scores [that my racial group is really good at, and correlate with income].But that just pushes the problem further down the road. Those subjective things like “leadership potential” and “communication skills” are important in real life. They will come back as a bamboo ceiling. We’ll have to deal with people giving us low Personal scores for the rest of our lives if we don’t have the cultural intelligence to improve those skills or advocate for our own cultural values[11][11][11][11].This reminds me of the gender wage gap[12][12][12][12], which can be explained by women’s job choices, personal values, childcare, work experience, flexible hours, maternity leave, and so on. We have a culture that shapes women’s personalities, leading to aggregate inequalities. Maybe the 20% gap isn’t entirely sexism. But biased attitudes are real, especially in institutions that feel no pressure to change.“Lean in” by understanding how your social behaviors will be perceived by others, and how to change them. But if you’re being judged by your stereotype, not your actual attributes, sue the hell out of them. (Bonus: This will demonstrate your assimilation to the ancient American tradition of litigation.)The two legal filings are basically in agreement that there are non-quantitative factors affecting Asian-American admission. The plaintiffs say the non-quantitative part is a racial quota enforced in part by artificially deflating Personal scores by race. The defendants come just shy of saying that the Personal score is a reflection of things like the above tables and that “uniqueness” is negatively correlated to the number of other applicants with the same background.It’s funny how they edge around it. Maybe they can’t explain themselves, because the explanation itself would sound racist. Or it’d mess up their legal strategy.This Personal score is just the tip of an iceberg. I don’t know how much can be attributed to bias rather than underlying differences in cultural values, or overvaluing unusual backgrounds. But if you’re worried about race in Personal, worry even more about race in the Overall score, where it’s explicitly allowed to be taken into consideration.I’ll be quite honest: my education would have been worse without intelligent classmates of all different perspectives. African Americans, South Asians, Europeans, and so on, but also people who were Republican, communist, atheist, poet, Buddhist, Jewish, evangelical, farmer, military, queer, Muslim, dancer, Kentuckian, Texan, homeless, sled dog caretaker, BDSM enthusiast*, whatever. (I met all of them and more.) *maybe not a good topic for your essay thoughAsian Americans have the rare opportunity to learn from the best of two cultures, if we manage to evade the worst of both. As a result, I believe that exposing students to different cultures is part of a world-class education. That means admissions will subjectively judge students on what their personalities and values might bring to the campus environment.But geez, Harvard, I wish you could do that without implying that our culture is the least special of all of them.Footnotes[1] Whither the Liberal Arts at Harvard? | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson[1] Whither the Liberal Arts at Harvard? | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson[1] Whither the Liberal Arts at Harvard? | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson[1] Whither the Liberal Arts at Harvard? | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson[2] As Interest Fades in the Humanities, Colleges Worry[2] As Interest Fades in the Humanities, Colleges Worry[2] As Interest Fades in the Humanities, Colleges Worry[2] As Interest Fades in the Humanities, Colleges Worry[3] https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2015/05/21/113690/asian-immigrants-in-the-unites-states-today/[4] Career Development Attributes and Occupational Values of Asian American and White American College Students[4] Career Development Attributes and Occupational Values of Asian American and White American College Students[4] Career Development Attributes and Occupational Values of Asian American and White American College Students[4] Career Development Attributes and Occupational Values of Asian American and White American College Students[5] Culture and Personality Among European American and Asian American Men[5] Culture and Personality Among European American and Asian American Men[5] Culture and Personality Among European American and Asian American Men[5] Culture and Personality Among European American and Asian American Men[6] APA PsycNET Login[6] APA PsycNET Login[6] APA PsycNET Login[6] APA PsycNET Login[7] ACCULTURATION, COMMUNICATION PATTERNS, AND SELF-ESTEEM AMONG ASIAN AND CAUCASIAN AMERICAN ADOLESCENTS[7] ACCULTURATION, COMMUNICATION PATTERNS, AND SELF-ESTEEM AMONG ASIAN AND CAUCASIAN AMERICAN ADOLESCENTS[7] ACCULTURATION, COMMUNICATION PATTERNS, AND SELF-ESTEEM AMONG ASIAN AND CAUCASIAN AMERICAN ADOLESCENTS[7] ACCULTURATION, COMMUNICATION PATTERNS, AND SELF-ESTEEM AMONG ASIAN AND CAUCASIAN AMERICAN ADOLESCENTS[8] PsycNET[8] PsycNET[8] PsycNET[8] PsycNET[9] APA PsycNET Login[9] APA PsycNET Login[9] APA PsycNET Login[9] APA PsycNET Login[10] Motivation and Mathematics Achievement: A Comparative Study of Asian‐American, Caucasian‐American, and East Asian High School Students[10] Motivation and Mathematics Achievement: A Comparative Study of Asian‐American, Caucasian‐American, and East Asian High School Students[10] Motivation and Mathematics Achievement: A Comparative Study of Asian‐American, Caucasian‐American, and East Asian High School Students[10] Motivation and Mathematics Achievement: A Comparative Study of Asian‐American, Caucasian‐American, and East Asian High School Students[11] Cracking the Bamboo Ceiling[11] Cracking the Bamboo Ceiling[11] Cracking the Bamboo Ceiling[11] Cracking the Bamboo Ceiling[12] What is the gender pay gap and is it real?: The complete guide to how women are paid less than men and why it can’t be explained away[12] What is the gender pay gap and is it real?: The complete guide to how women are paid less than men and why it can’t be explained away[12] What is the gender pay gap and is it real?: The complete guide to how women are paid less than men and why it can’t be explained away[12] What is the gender pay gap and is it real?: The complete guide to how women are paid less than men and why it can’t be explained away

Week 1 (receiving week): you show up at the depot, get screamed at a lot. Stay awake for almost 72 hours, set up a bank account, get gear issued, get a rifle issued, move into your squad bay, learn how to make a rack, take the IST (initial strength test), etc.Week 2: Meet your drill instructors and let them fuck your whole world up. You will P.T. probably 3-4 times this week and do nothing but learn basic drill and basic knowledge.Week 3: More of the same, learning more knowledge, taking classes (that you'll get slayed during if you fall asleep), more P.T., more trashing of the squad bay, Mcmap (marine corps martial arts program), pugil sticks.Week 4: Same thing but with the confidence course, obstacle course, and body-sparring thrown in.Week 5 (swim week): You go to the pool for literally one day and if you aren't an “Iron Duck" (somebody who can't swim) you just sit in the squad bay for the rest of the week getting slayed and learning knowledge, as well as cleaning for the senior drill instructors inspection. Pretty sure initial drill and initial testing happen at the end of this week too.Week 6: lots of admin stuff, getting fitted for uniforms, gas chamber, rappel tower, P.T., Confidence course, getting slayed. If you're as lucky as I was, you might get to drink a sandwich.Week 7 (grass week): Go to the range and get taught the different marksmanship positions, as well as learn how to keep stability and what-not. Get absolutely fucked with by your PMI (primary marksmanship instructor) who will treat your whole platoon really well until some fuck gets lazy and you're forced to play the 5 minute game. The 5 minute game is holding your rifle up in the high kneeling position and staying completely still for 5 minutes. If anyone moves they make it harder by making you only use one hand, or taking off your sling. End the week by zeroing your rifle optic so you're not shooting the berm (you'll probably still shoot the berm).Week 8 (range week): Spend the entire week being marched up and down the entire length of the 500 yard shooting range until the PMI's and range staff finally show up, then enjoy taking turns firing at targets, or changing out targets for your fellow recruits. Drill instructors mostly leave you alone because they don't want you to go postal and shoot people. Thursday you'll do pre-qualifications, and they’'ll track your score. Friday you qualify. Sometimes on Pre-qual and qual days they’ll play music over the range speakers which is dope because that’s the first non-gospel music you've heard in almost two months. Pretty chill week, all said.Week 9 (team week): Spend the first day or two going around base with civilians and non-drill instructor marines who actually treat you like human beings. You'll be doing dumb shit like collecting laundry, making targets for the range, and police calling for trash on different locations around the depot. Day 3 or 4 dental rapes your mouth by taking your wisdom teeth out. In some rare cases (I'm the rare case) your gums won't heal properly and form a massive blood clot that covers your entire body and your rack in blood. Enjoy your Vicodin and ibuprofen. Clean the squad bay for the battalion commanders inspection and prepare for the hell that lies ahead.Week 10 (table 2 and BWT/field week): Go to the range again and do weird things like speed-reloads and rapid fire. Doing this qualification is what solidifies your marksmanship score as either Marksman, Sharpshooter or expert. Then, head to Page Field if you're at Parris Island and commence BWT (Basic Warrior Training). You'll learn basic tactics (patrolling, combat movements, hand and arm signals, map reading, camouflaging, etc.) Get absolutely covered in mud as the drill instructors make you crawl through mud and drag the 250 pound bodybuilder recruit through an entire day movement course. Get sand in places on your body you didn't even know existed and cry yourself to sleep on the floor of the shitty shack you sleep in knowing you're still covered in filth for at least two more days. Close out the week with the “Combat Endurance Course" where the drill instructors will fuck with you royally by filling your mouth with sand while you're crawling on your back under barbed wire, and make you Sprint from obstacle to obstacle for like two hours, while carrying/dragging other recruits and getting no water breaks.Week 11 (Admin week): Final CFT (Combat fitness test), final PFT (physical fitness test), final drill, final testing, more uniform fittings, last minute medical/dental work and cleaning the squad bay.Week 12 (crucible): whatever your company didn't do from week 11 will be done at the beginning of this week before the crucible. The crucible is a hellish abomination where for the first time in almost 3 months, you're only getting 4 hours of sleep (3 if you have firewatch), patrol Page Field and get filthy, and tired, and pretty much ready to quit. Then enjoy the 7 mile hike back to the parade deck to finally become a Marine.Week 13 (Marine Week): pretty much turn in all the bullshit the depot needs back, turn in your rifle, enjoy the drill instructors (most of them) actually treating you like an adult and being more laid back. Liberty Sunday you get to go to different places on base in buddy pairs, enjoy a soda for the first time in 3 months and make phone calls home that you’ll be holding in tears during. March yourself and 5 other recruits to and from the chowhall on your own (don't take too much creative license with your cadence though) and just clean the squad bay for Regimental commanders inspection. See your family the day before graduation for a few hours, and basically do nothing until graduation.Then enjoy your 10 day leave because after that you go to SOI, and if you thought boot camp sucked, you're in for a world of hurt. Lol