<p>@theanaconda: I assume these last two posts were directed to me and my comments earlier when I said that elite colleges reject “boring” students rather than Asians, per se, whereas you assert the common “anti-Asian” bias theory.</p>
<p>'but being Asian subjects you to being stereotyped as boring whereas a white person with the same accomplishments would be more unique. There is no debate on that. " </p>
<p>Ahhh, but let’s debate. What accomplishments are you speaking about? And what’s “my” definition of “boring?” And how does that play into very selective college admissions?</p>
<p>(please bear with me) </p>
<p>Let’s stipulate the following: a goodly amount of very selective US colleges admit holistically where they can freely mold and fashion their incoming freshman pool.</p>
<p>This pool is not a single pool but is many smaller pools brought together to form the whole. Hypothetically, let’s say college “X” admits only 100 students each year has traditionally fostered 6 main smaller pools (categories) of students in the following proportions:</p>
<p>1) super genius STEM kids (15)
2) athletic recruits (15)
3) super theater kids (5)
4) top international kids (10)
5) URMs (15)
6) “general” kids: well-rounded, very good scholars (40)</p>
<p>Let me also stipulate the following: these categories’ proportions serve as unofficial quotas (which are malleable and can vary year to year). Many colleges practice what’s called Category Admissions. That is, an applicant is separated into one of the six smaller pools (categories) of applicants. </p>
<p>This January, 20 top athletes apply for the 15 slots. Amazingly, 12 of these athletes have great academics and will contribute to the program. They are all admitted w/o hesitation. Then you’re down to 8 kids for 3 slots. They have lesser stats. Of these 8, two are better than the other six. Although closer to the low end academically, these two get offers. Now, we have six for 1 slot. All six are identical in every way. Coin flip. One gets the offer. The other five, if they get viewed through the prism of any of the other 5 categories, don’t meet the criteria and get rejected. Admit rate: 75%</p>
<p>Now let’s look at Category 1, the STEM kids. A whopping 150 kids apply for those 15 slots. Rotten odds. Somehow the “best” 15 are chosen and offers made. The other 135 get a second look and ten are offered spots from Category 6, the “general” pool. The other 125 get rejected. Guess what? The avg SAT of these 125 rejected is MUCH higher than the 5 rejected athletes. Also the avg SAT of the 15 Category 1 admits is also much higher than the 15 athlete admits. Frankly, the avg SAT of the rejected 125 might be higher than the avg SAT of the athlete admits! Overall admit rate for these 150 = 17%</p>
<p>In Category 5, the URMs, 30 kids apply for 15 slots. Ten are shoo-ins, great potential & top academics. Ten are completely unrealistic and are several std deviations below the avg metrics of admitted students. The remaining ten, are ranked in order based on a combination of potential and past academic performance. The top five get offers, the bottom five get rejected. Admit rate: 50%</p>
<p>Category 4 gets 500 applicants for the 10 slots due to college X’s fantastic financial aid for int’l kids. The 490 rejected kids avg SATs is jaw dropping – they are clearly the most high scoring applicant pool of all. Admit rate: 2%</p>
<p>Category 3 (actors) only gets 5 applicants for 5 slots due to weak admissions recruiting/marketing. Only 3 are academically viable. 2 are rejected. (admit rate: 60%) These 2 slots are then allocated to…</p>
<p>Category 6 (general), which went down to 30 slots (due to 10 going to 2nd tier STEM kids) but rises to 32 due to leftovers from the theater pool. 150 kids apply and the “top” 32 are admitted, 118 are rejected. Admit rate: 21%</p>
<p>now let’s look at these 6 pools. If we were to crudely guess at which ones would have the greater concentration of non-international Asian applicants, I think we would agree that 1 and 6 are most likely, right? Other than the pitiful international applicants, categories 1 & 6 have admit rates of only 17% and 21% and the highest aggregate no. of rejections (again, except for the internationals). </p>
<p>When I mean “boring”, I mean kids who aren’t positioned to be viable in more than one category. How many Asian recruited athletes or musical theater people do you know? I’ve only run across a few. </p>
<p>Traditionally, Asians face a lot of pressure to remain the type of kid who would eventually be put into categories 1 or 6. But can you see how it would be easy for that super high SAT rejected Asian girl (Mary) from category 1 to feel chaffed if she knew the avg SAT of the athlete, URM or actors? But what she’s dealing with is that her fate was decided upon what category she would be viewed through. The academically weakest of the admitted URM, number 15 on the list – did not take a slot away from Mary. The 15th URM took the last remaining seat away from the 16th and 17th URMs. That 15th slot was NEVER available to Mary. Neither were the slots allocated to the 15th athlete or the 10th international kid.</p>
<p>Back to potentially “boring” Asians. I met a young Caucasian student, whose parents were UMich faculty. She had thoroughly studied African art, traveled and did research. She had rec’d offers from HYP. Simply an amazingly accomplished young woman. In my imaginary scenario above, she would have been offered a slot from Category 6. I wonder how many 1st generation Asian families would feel secure enough to nudge their obviously bright son or daughter to follow such a non-traditional path which did not lead obviously towards a financially secure future? </p>
<p>If instead, she had been Asian with the same accomplishments, I’m certain that she would have been similarly noticed and rewarded. I disagree with your 2nd assertion, here. This is what I mean about what I perceive as the lack of genuine Asian uniqueness. Far too often, we are the tennis/piano/violin/karate/STEM/NHS/tutor kids readying ourselves for Med school or engineering. And in the context of elite school admissions, our Asian kids’ admits don’t seem to follow their external metrics (GPA & test scores) vis a vis others.</p>
<p>Our parents left a continent behind to secure stability and wealth here which can partially explain it. I can guarantee you my artist brother faced a lot of pressure from my parents which I, as son #2 headed to an Ivy, did not face. Caveat: I speak from my own perspective, an Asian American whose SATs were about the 30th percentile of each of the Ivies I was admitted to. I’m certain there were many many Asians with better scores than me that were rejected. But I’m sure I would have been a Category 6 admit in my hypothetical above. I had a very unusual story of being a student leader at an almost all-black urban HS, who happened to be very academically aggressive and accomplished.</p>
<p>Sorry I’ve been very long winded here…</p>