jamescchen

Waitlist at best. There is nothing that shows you are an exceptional talent beyond HS other than the Youth Orchestra. Plus, your essay topic is not helpful in showing your talents in the areas of leadership and scholarship.

IceFire

Hmmmm well I didn't want to brag in the essay haha, but I don't know. My hopes arent too high either tbh

jamescchen

You're Asian, and your application is starting off with the assumption that you're an Asian Robot. Your number one goal in the essays is to dispel this beliefs. Why waste this chance on an essay that essentially talks about nothing of what you've accomplished?

A recent Princeton study showed that Asians were three times less likely to be admitted to the top tier of colleges versus whites with similar academic and extra-curricular profiles. As the data shows, you cannot apply to schools at this level thinking you will be judged under the same criteria as your mostly-white classmates.

Think!!! PM me for details on what to do next.

Questing

IceFire, people who tell you you won't be admitted and/or will certainly be wait-listed are not -- surprise! -- Columbia Admissions counselors! Nor are they clairvoyant (I'm quite sure) so I think you should relax now, after all these years of hard work, and just try and believe in yourself. Be proud of how much you've accomplished! And try to have a positive attitude. No one knows how your future will play out but rest assured many fine schools would be honored to have you. Which college you go to is not as important as what you do with your life in the long run. Good luck!

jamescchen

Original Poster asked for opinions, and I gave mine with reasons (very specific ones, too). IceFire can ignore me if she chooses. Obviously she is a good student, but so are most of the applicants to Columbia. And we all know that fewer than 10% of these applicants will be accepted.

IceFire

I very much appreciate Questing for the encouragement, it put a smile on my face

Jamescchen- I do understand your opinion too (basically what my parents have been telling me for the past 4 years), and thank you for keeping me realistic

Also, I appreciate everyone's opinions (:

siserune

That's not what the recent Princeton study showed. Not at all. The study did not consider pools of Asians and white applicants "with similar academic and extracurricular profiles" and compare their rates of admissions. The opposite was true: the study lumped together applicants with a wide range of profiles as a single large pool, and attempted to extract statistical trends using regression analysis. Here are some of the findings:

1. Asian lower-class applicants have 91.5 times higher admissions odds ratio than identical White applicants (610 x 0.15).

2. Asian working-class applicants have 2.94 times higher admissions odds ratio than identical White applicants (19.62 x 0.15).

3. Asian lower-class applicants are preferred over black and Hispanic working-class applicants, and thus are preferred over all race and economic categories of applicants other than lower-class URM. (odds-ratios of 8.24 (A,lc) versus 3.16 (H,wc), 5.78 (B,wc), 1.00 (W,wc or higher) ).

The above are from table 3.4 of Princeton sociology professor Espenshade's presentation referenced in the US News "3-to-1 discrimination against Asians" article (slide #12, page 4 of the PDF file from the NACAC lecture). The 3-to-1 figure is from the more limited Model 5 that does not consider race/class interactions. Espenshade's full model of private school admissions, no. 6, finds huge and significant interactions between race and class, leading to the figures given above.

Note that for (1) and (2) above, all odds-ratios used in the calculation are statistically significant at the same three-star (p<0.001) level as the Asian 3-to-1 figure that is being claimed as a proof of discrimination. Item (3) is the same calculation, but taking the regression coefficients (whatever their significance levels) at face value and as such could be subject to more error. However, it is questionable whether a discrepancy of more than 8-to-1 between Asian lower-class and white working-class (or higher) applicants could be erased by statistical noise in the parameter estimates.

jamescchen

It spans Brooklyn and Manhattan island. Any takers?

jamescchen

It was rude of me to engage in name-calling. Tried to delete prior post but system would not allow it. I'll try and stick to the subject.

Readers can view the Espenshade-Chang study and Inside Higher Ed article for themselves here: News: The Power of Race - Inside Higher Ed

You can also read the US News & World Report article describing the study often cited on these boards here: Do Elite Private Colleges Discriminate Against Asian Students? - US News and World Report

This is the excerpt from the US News article that many posters often cite:

"Espenshade found that when comparing applicants with similar grades, scores, athletic qualifications, and family history for seven elite private colleges and universities:

* Whites were three times as likely to get fat envelopes as Asians.
* Hispanics were twice as likely to win admission as whites.
* African-Americans were at least five times as likely to be accepted as whites.
* Athletes were more than twice as likely to get in as non-athletes with similar qualifications.
* Students from private high schools were twice as likely to receive acceptance letters as similar students from regular public high schools.
* Students from highly regarded public and private high schools were three times as likely to win admission as others.
* Students in the top 10 percent of their high school classes were about twice as likely to get in as students in the next 10 percent."

Most of conclusions were taken from the Espenshade-Chang presentation that is linked in the US News article.

Happy reading, everyone!

siserune

The news reports are inaccurate, so quoting them doesn't make the 3-to-1 claim more credible. You have to go to the primary sources to get the real information, and if you do, you will find that my statements above are exactly correct.

Thus, US News is peddling misinformation when they say that Espenshade compared similar white and Asian applicants. He didn't, and doesn't claim to have ever performed a controlled study of that kind. As I wrote above, Espenshade's method is the very opposite: to mix together a large and diverse pool of applicants, and then try to sort out statistical trends using regression analysis. Whatever the merits of this approach it is completely different from the controlled experiment that the news accounts falsely imply.

US News is also selling misinformation when they say that Espenshade found (whatever types of applicants he studied and however comparable they were) a 3-to-1 reduction in admissions probability for Asians. This number and all the other ones that you quoted from the news accounts are loose summaries of logistic regression coefficients displayed in a recent slide presentation by Espenshade, excerpted from a new book that he is promoting. For instance, a parameter for Asians came out as log(0.33), which is conventionally and somewhat misleadingly denoted as an "odds ratio" of 0.33, and this phrase was then reprocessed by US News reporter Kim Clark into the "three times lower chance of getting a fat envelope".

If you look at the regression results provided in Espenshade's slides, you will see that the published accounts are based on his Model 5. The full model, Model 6, is of course more accurate, and more importantly for this discussion, it shows that the simple picture of "racial discrimination against Asians" or "in favor of elite whites" breaks down when you consider ever so slightly more realistic models. As you can see from the third calculation I posted, if Espenshade's admissions models hold water, then (subject to some analysis of the statistical significance levels if and when that information is published) his regressions appear to actually be showing a preference for lower-class Asians over black and Hispanic applicants who are working-class and higher. If you dispute this, have a look at his regressions and make your own calculations.

Espenshade's presentation of his regression results (i.e. the ultimate source of the US News and Inside Higher Ed reports) is here:

http://www.nacacnet.org/EventsTraini...ments/C313.pdf

Happy reading, as you say. Enjoy.

IceFire

Welllllllllllll. There are a lot of confounding variables to be considered in both cases, but I think it would be fair to say that each application should be personalized, and I don't mind Columbia views me as an Asian student, because that's who I am and I am not afraid of how they would judge me. I guess at the end of the day they are still admitting students who belong at Columbia, even if individual biases are inevitably part of the admission process. I just want to say that both of you are right...The admission officers are biased, just like everyone else in life, but their biases may not actually be strong enough to keep someone out based on their race. It wouldn't really be realistic to use regression to back up either statements because students are not statistics, you know? Unless you can somehow enumerate personality, ethnicity, innate talent, academic interests...etc., which is not realistic since we are not machines
So both of you are right, clearly. It's just a matter of settling on the middle ground, I think. And yes, I am a pacifist.

pbr

jamescchen is not a "kid." He's a long-term, thoughtful participant in this forum. He apologized, and should be respected. Many adults participate here with nothing but affection for the young folks trying to figure out the admissions system. Many of these adults have legitimate concerns regarding the proliferation of false, often overly-optimistic information offered by high school students who are not really in a position to know the veracity of their statements. Optimism is great, but misplaced overconfidence ultimately can be devastating.

zlst1876

it's interesting how you say that jamescchen should be respected when he was quite rude to IceFire. there are a lot nicer ways to express your views; you don't need to be so blunt. I think that you're going to be fine and even if you do get waistlisted as jamescchen so nicely predicted, you'll still have a chance to get in

siserune

James has some really interesting niche experience, speaks up, and writes well, which is why I find his postings more interesting reading than 99% of what is in these boards. You guys should be happy he is around. I think his assessment of OP's chances was accurate and, as such, useful.

To the extent that he is "in the trenches" of the (northern California) Asian college admissions market, and probably has been a market participant for a while, jameschen has information and insights that are useful, and that should be respected. I personally would have liked to hear more details from some of the war stories he posted, to see whether or not they really support the picture of massive hurdles for Asian admission (as opposed to Asians using inefficient strategies that are decimated at the admissions screening).

With that said, I don't think that telling statistically in-range Asian applicants that they have 150-to-1 odds (without further evidence that this is true), or claiming that Harvard gives Asian applications an extra read-and-weed filtering, or jumping on Espenshade's studies as tabernacular statistical wisdom, is either accurate or realistic, and postings of such statements are likely to be challenged.

syf330

thank you zlst for supporting me on this...btw can i have yo number, can i get it? :P

and i'm sorry if i ruffled some feathers but i was merely trying to speak up for icefire...yeah jamescchen may be a frequent "thoughtful participant in this forum" (pbr) and you may have been thru the whole college process, but the way you go about offering advice really seems to me offensive at times and, as zlst put it, "blunt" (telling icefire she "wasted her chance" on an essay opportunity with a supposedly bland essay topic, which btw i found pretty intriguing)...those types of comments really only serve to discourage potential applicants