epiphany

Yes, I misread the absolute numbers as percentages. And your point is? (or was, fabriziio? No, don't answer that, -- Because again, this is not about numbers for you, it's some personal campaign that defies the realities of ths actual admit & apply numbers). I read the first column, the freshman number of 24, instead of the 76 of the full college of 1663 students, bringing it to much LESS of a percentage (actually closer to 4.6%, not 4.5). The mistake is in my favor.

The earlier poster was correct. Kenyon is inviting Asians to Diveristy Weekend for a reason. They're looking for Asians. Other LAC's with a very small cohort of them would similarly be thrilled to enjoy the overflow from larger institutions with an ethnically diverse, well-prepared applicant pool which would add to Kenyon's and other's reputation.

After this correction, I'm done with the thread, because some posters would prefer to deal in urban legend & *past* practices & policies instead of current realities. Prioriites in college admissions are fluid. They change mostly according to the applicant pool itself, which is fluid. Addiitonally, they readjust as philosophies, mission statements evolve. Around 1965 & prior, one needed a few things to get into the ivy league: money, grades, scores. That marked you as "qualified" in an absolute, not relative sense. They didn't need to worry about gigantic application pools; not enough students had money or interest in the ivy league. Heck, there still weren't enough college-bound students, period. And if there was a "preference," you can bet it was for WASP Caucasians. You were about doubly or triply "qualified" if you were a legacy or had high-placed 'connections'. About 10 years later, things were very much turned on their head, with the era of a very old-style 'affirmative action' adding to the mix.

Fast forward 20-30 years, and 2 of these same elements of nomenclature are being inappropriately applied. With over-demand & shrunken supply, "qualification" is no longer an absolute for just about anyone. 'Affirmative action' has transformed from an interest in admitting pretty much one subset (American blacks) to an interest in a full racial, ethnic, nationality balance, and with the vast majority of all that diversity being highly qualified. Yes, a tiny few will be admitted with not quite as impressive stats. But that number of "not as impressive" will be so much smaller now than it once was. Any adrep or adofficer can tell you that. The students not chosen, versus them, will be both from Caucasian and Asian pools, and (again) in tiny amounts. That's how awesomely qualified the college applicant pool has transformed itself from 1965 to 2008. Perhaps fabrizio & other posters believe this is a national crime -- those few students being diverted to a different Ivy, highly regarded LAC, or stand-out public like UVA, UMich., UC, etc. No "rights" have been abridged; no opportunity for an equally outstanding education -- unless there's some absolute proof that HYP are, merely because of popular rank, definitively & qualitatively a different category of education than their peer institutions.

Anyway, have fun railing away at the supposed injustice of a surfeit of so many fine institutions that students overseas would die to attend.

fabrizio

My point is that you should never again say that Asians are obsessed with the Ivy Leagues and won’t look beyond them. None of the colleges you originally gave to Ealgian has a dearth of Asian students. Some schools like Whitman even rival Ivy Leagues in terms of Asian freshmen. Heck, at 4.57%, Asians aren’t “underrepresented” at Kenyon, either! When your own examples don’t corroborate your claims, you should consider revising your argument. And, if you think about it, that’s good news for you because it means that your advice is being heeded. Why aren’t you happy about that? It’s like you’re in denial that Asians are actually broadening their college lists!

As somedumbnoob said, the presence of Asians at Diversity Weekend is not a guarantee that Kenyon is actively recruiting Asians. Inviting students from all races is a good idea to prove to cynics like me that diversity is not a euphemism for black and Hispanic.

You’d be wise to avoid using “racial…balance” as the Supreme Court has ruled that racial balance is patently un-Constitutional (Grutter).

You claimed that ethnicity is now a tertiary focus of affirmative action, third to geography and economy. If so, then why was Proposal 2 opposed by the usual suspects for the same old reasons? Why didn’t I hear anyone say, “Ha! Ward Connerly needs to get with the times! He thinks affirmative action is still about race? What a fool! Everyone, let’s vote for Proposal 2 so we can show Connerly just how out-of-date his measures are. They won’t even do anything since race isn’t the primary focus anymore!”

So, why didn’t I hear that? There will be several civil rights initiatives come November, so why am I not hearing that now?

Weasel8488

Where the white and Asian applicants who are rejected due to AA end up going to school is irrelevant. Even if Yale, for example, began actively recruiting the richest whites and the nerdiest Asians (laughable I know), it would have no bearing on the debate of whether AA is objectionable. My problem with AA is not that it negatively impacts ORMs' educational opportunities. I' not crying boohoo because one of my WASPy friends had to go to Georgetown instead of Harvard. My problem is that it denies these students their right to equal protection guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

epiphany

It doesn't deny them, Weasel. Unless you believe, as I stated, that alternative institutions are not as equal as the ones where they are denied. Thus, where they are being diverted to is quite relevant indeed. They are not being denied an equal educational opportunity. The 14th amendment specifies equal protection, & the entire document speaks of equal opportunity.

One is to be guaranteed equal access. That access is provided by the universal opportunity to apply & be considered with the criteria decided by the college. The courts have concluded that, and concluded that recently. It's important to read the most recent definitive opinions on this. If the criteria included automatic disqualification based on a racial element, that would be unequalized opportunity. If the critera set different sets of qualification based on race, that also would be unequal. None of that has happened. There is nothing systematic here. A pattern of denial based on race is simply not there.

fabrizio

It denies them if you believe that "The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color. If both are not accorded the same protection, then it is not equal." (Bakke)

Old College Try

Why are so many people piling on epiphany?

I am a mostly white guy who goes to a school with a 40% Asian population. I have also lived in Asia. My best friend is Asian, as are several of my good friends. Here’s what I think.

At my school, many Asians do get involved in ECs only to pad their resumes. My best friend is an officer in four clubs. He jokes all of the time that he couldn’t care less about the causes underlying these clubs. He just wants to be an officer to help him have a better resume. There’s a Latina in our school who desperately wanted to be an officer in a club that helps poor people. She was once very poor, and her desire was very genuine. However, she lost the election because most of the club is Asian and they decided before the election who was going to win, and they had the numbers to pull it off. This really angered the non-Asians in the club and the non-Asian advisor (they are now trying to change how officers are elected).

Asians at my school are much better at playing the system than non-Asians. It’s not even close.

When my dad was in the military, we lived in Korea for two years. We also lived in Hong Kong for a year. I'm certainly no expert on culture, but I noticed a huge difference in the Asian culture compared to the American culture. As one example, when you ride the subway in Asia, it's a free-for-all. People are pushing and shoving to get inside the subway. Cutting in line is no big deal. Being pushy is no big deal. The people want on the subway and will do just about anything to get on. My dad wouldn't let us ride the subway during rush hour because he considered this behavior rude and annoying. Of course, he was viewing their behavior through his American perspective of how to act in public.

It just my opinion, but I think a lot of American kids and teachers see Asian students as annoying in how they approach college acceptance with such 24/7 vigor and a “get-out-of-my-way” attitude. They see the Saturday tutoring, the summer AP classes, and the 6-month SAT prep classes like my Dad saw people pushing on the subway in Seoul and Hong Kong.

I also think there is a bit of jealousy and fear. In the non-Asian cultures, there is a belief that a child needs to be well-rounded and have fun in order to be a complete human being, and that academic achievement is only a small part of the total equation. My Dad is always telling me to go outside and play. He encourages me to play lots of sports just for the enjoyment, even if my grades suffer. However, Asians approach life differently and they are succeeding (at least when measured by acceptance into elite colleges). Non-Asians may feel that their view of how best to live life is threatened when their well-rounded kids don’t get accepted into the best schools, while the completely-focused-on-academic-achievement Asian kids do make it.

It’s just a thought.

epiphany

I'll answer in a PM, OCT.

Done with the thread. Before it was just whine. In the last couple of weeks it's become good ole' Vintage Whine.

Ealgian

>Old College Try

Oh, it's definitely true Asians know how to play the system. And that incident in Hong Kong is totally typical. I'm Chinese; I'd know.

It's true that many Asians see acceptance into a stellar school as the only indication of success in life. Ethics/Morality usually take a backseat. I'm thankful my mom taught me being moral is more important than gaining success through the backdoor.

I don't agree with the well-rounded thing, though. Sometimes the scores and grades are necessary (warranted) to "make the cut."

fabrizio

I’m simply responding to some of the claims she has made in this thread. One of her recurring points is that Asians just don’t “get” that the Ivy Leagues aren’t the only good colleges in the United States and that ECs are important in college admissions. She usually follows that point by talking about how many LACs want Asians because they don’t have many Asians.

Ealgian asked her to list a few of these LACs, and a two-minute check at College Board revealed that Asians weren’t scarce at any of the ones she named. Some of them, such as Whitman, actually have Asian percentages that are very close to those of Ivy League schools! There’s nothing more damaging than being told that your sources don’t support your argument, but epiphany shrugged that off and maintained that the schools she listed had an “underrepresentation” of Asians.

It seems to me that epiphany is strangely in denial that Asians are actually following her advice. I would think that she’d be happy, but apparently my thought is wrong.

k&s

^ Yeah, and that a "weak" claim that I have refuted NUMEROUS times (gee, what are the Asian % at Rutgers, CUNY, UTexas, FIT, UIC and UIllinois - never mind community colleges) - and yet, somehow, epiph, stubbornly continues w/ the same baseless assertions.

Plus, I previously did a rough calculation which showed that a significantly higher % of Jewish students apply to the Ivies than Asian-American - but since it doesn't conform to epiph's thinking ...SILENCE.

Old College Try

Ealgian: I couldn't think of a better phrase than "well-rounded." I was simply trying to find a word to contrast the Asian mentality that academic success is all-important. I wasn't trying to make a judgment. Perhaps "more-rounded" would have been better.

k&s: Put your copy of "Mein Kampf" down for a moment. Why all the hate on Jewish people? Can an admissions officer even tell if someone is Jewish from an application? Unlike race, applications don't require the applicant to list his or her religious background. Why are you so angry with Jewish people?

I am mostly white and I do attend a high school that's 40 percent Asian and my best friend is Korean. By the way, my last girlfriend was born in Hong Kong, but her parents made her break up with me because they didn't like the idea of her getting serious with a "foreign devil." I still don't know what that means. Anyway, I used those facts only to explain the basis of my observations -- none of which appeared to me to be bigoted or ignorant.

fabrizio

Who doesn’t want to maximize his chances of admission? Asians are like everyone else: they want to be seen as the best they can be.

It annoys me that the non-Asian members in that particular club got angry at a democratic process. The majority chose one candidate, why get mad at the race of the majority? The slight irony here is that Hispanics are becoming a more important voting “bloc” precisely because there are more Hispanics in the United States now than ever before. If Hispanics weren’t the largest (?) minority in the United States, would either Senator Obama or Senator McCain be courting their vote so stridently? I think not.

k&s

What "hate" on Jewish people?

I clearly stated that I'm not advocating that there be any artificial limits set on Jews. (Btw, no Jewish poster here as ever accused me of that.)

1st off - you don't think the Ivies discriminated against Jews based on nothing but how their names sounded?

Or that they went to a "geographic diversity" model so they could get more WASPs from the South or the Midwest than Jews who were geographically concentrated in the NE (and still are today?).

How 'bout this - can you give me any PLAUSIBLE reason why Jewish applicants have a much higher admit rate than Asian-Am applicants (and I'm willing to take out the FOBs - who add cultural diversity, which ironically, is something that the Ivies "like" in black applicants - hence, the size of the black FOB pop. at the Ivies)?

"Whitewashed" Asian-Am applicants are basically no different from their Jewish counterparts in their interests, outlooks, etc. - and yet, their admit rate is substantially LOWER.

And btw, people can refuse to indicate their race, but w/ a last name like Wong, Takahashi or Kim, it's still pretty easy to tell.

Furthermore, are you willing to assert that an Asian person w/ an "ethnic" name like Shinjo Nakamura is not going to face a greater bias in the admissions process than an Asian-Am w/ a name like Gregory Park? (Or better yet, what about an adopted Asian kid w/ a name like Jessica Woodley)?

I suggest you look into Daniel Golden's book "The Price of Admission" - where he stated that Asians are the "new" Jews w/ regard to admissions (and yes, he Jewish, and he graduated from Harvard).

And this makes you knowledgeable about this topic? Much less about Asians or even more so, Asian-Americans? lol

Btw, a person can be a bigot by using nothing but personal anecdotes to confirm his or her beliefs.

Go to a site like stormfront - there are plenty of people there who formed their opinions about black, Jews, Hispanics and Asians based on their "experiences" or "observations" of those groups.

Old College Try

k&s: Maybe I am naïve, but I do not think that admission officers sit in a smoke-filled room discriminating against Jewish people or Asian or anyone else. I think admission officers are like any other human being: They make decisions, some imperfect, based on human emotions. They are not robots. They like a campus with lots of interesting people. That’s all. And getting a campus full of interesting people does not always means taking only those with the highest scores.

I do not know whether or not Jewish applicants have a much higher admit rate than Asian applicants. Where do I find that statistic? Is that a number that the Ivies track? In none of the books I’ve read has the number of accepted Jews been highlighted. Is this something you heard on Al Jazeera last night?

And, yes, I am willing to assert that, all other things being equal, Shinjo Nakamura is not going to face any bias in the admissions process when compared to Gregory Park or Jessica Woodley.

Here’s another thing I am willing to assert: When it comes to the highly-competitive admission process for the nation’s top schools, Asians have many, many advantages over all other minorities. They usually have two supportive, intelligent, and demanding parents who provide them with the resources they need to get ahead. They associate in a community with a culture that drives and supports academic achievement. Everything they need to meet the requirements of the top colleges is often placed before their very eyes. This is not true for most other minorities. For this reason, even though I understand their complainants about “discrimination” in the acceptance process, I think everything is as fair as it can be. I would prefer a random approach to admissions, but if admissions can’t be random, then I think the current system is about as good as it can be.

And is it your opinion that a white guy like myself should not be allowed to make comments about Asians? And if I do, I am -- per se -- a bigot? What have I said that is bigoted? By the way, if you are Chinese, can you help me out with the "foreign devil" comment I made earlier? Why would my girlfriend's parents consider me a "foreign devil?"

k&s

And oh, as for this - while it was too bad for you, there are people like that everywhere and don't think that you were especially targeted.

Not being Chinese, much less Catonese Chinese, they probably would have considered me a "foreign devil" as well.

In fact, many Asian parents rather have their children marry a white person than an Asian from a different ethnicity (so you, may very well have been a more acceptable BF option than me, irrespective of my good-looks - ha, ha).

And not only that - as a white person, you generally would be treated better than an Asian person of a different Asian ethnicity or an Asian person who can't speak their ethnic tongue (for instance, a white person generally would be treated better in Japan than a Korean, Viet, Fil, etc. or even a "whitewashed" Japanese-American).