VTjas81

It might be because some of the brightest leave Africa and study. Just like the Chinese and Indians who come to this country and study. Not very representitive of the population.

auscguy

In all of my college EE classes, I have seen total of three male black and one female black EE students. One of the black male is from Ghana. I also have one and only black EE TA, he is from Ghana, too. He is pretty smart.

racnna

I'm from ghana too.

VTjas81- most African countries follow the british system. The curriculum is very rigorous and more advanced than middle and secondary schools in the U.S. Granted a lot of african kids don't get to go to school because they're poor, but those who do take a rigorous courseload.There's a lot of talent in Africa-- contrary to the impression you get when you watch any show that has to do with africa. But of course the U.S is the one of the best places to come to for a college degree and a job.

hkapoo

Isn't it funny that African kids do much better than African-American kids? It can't be intelligence that keeps af-am's from engineering majors because they have the same genes as Africans. I think it is all because of culture and how they are raised. Africans realize that opportunities are very limited so they work hard and their parents help them get a good education and that is completely opposite of what African-American kids have been taught.

sakky

And similarly, West Indian black immigrants (i.e. immigrants from Jamaica, DR, Barbados, etc.) tend to do better than African-Americans do.

For example, to quote from Sowell: "a study published last year indicated that most of the black alumni of Harvard were from either the West Indies or Africa, or were the children of West Indian or African immigrants. These people are the same race as American blacks, who greatly outnumber either or both".

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110006608

"West Indians have long produced a disproportionate share of black American success stories. Their average family income is now 40% higher than that of all blacks in the U.S., and the percentage who are professionals (9%) is equal to that of native-born blacks. Says Dr. Asa Hilliard, an educational psychologist at Georgia State University: "Immigrants from the Caribbean are, overwhelmingly, the most successful black immigrant group, both politically and economically.""

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...959569,00.html

sakky

Uh, I don't think anybody is arguing that those immigrants are representative of the entire population of the home country.

What it does illustrate is, hkapoo pointed out, culture and attitudes matter. Those who do not have good attitudes towards education and hard work tend not to do well.

This is illustrated even within the American black population. Consider what Sowell had to say about the success of Dunbar High School, a Washington DC public black high school back in the days of segregation, and its self-selected (and hence highly motivated) student body of American blacks.


"Back in 1899, in Washington, D. C., there were four academic public high schools-- one black and three white.1 In standardized tests given that year, students in the black high school averaged higher test scores than students in two of the three white high schools.
This was not a fluke. It so happens that I have followed 85 years of the history of this black high school-- from 1870 to 1955 --and found it repeatedly equalling or exceeding national norms on standardized tests. In the 1890s, it was called The M Street School and after 1916 it was renamed Dunbar High School but its academic performances on standardized tests remained good on into the mid-1950s.

When I first published this information in 1974, those few educators who responded at all dismissed the relevance of these findings by saying that these were "middle class" children and therefore their experience was not "relevant" to the education of low-income minority children. Those who said this had no factual data on the incomes or occupations of the parents of these children-- and I did.
The problem, however, was not that these dismissive educators did not have evidence. The more fundamental problem was that they saw no need for evidence. According to their dogmas, children who did well on standardized tests were middle class. These children did well on such tests, therefore they were middle class.
Lack of evidence is not the problem. There was evidence on the occupations of the parents of the children at this school as far back in the early 1890s. As of academic year 1892-93, there were 83 known occupations of the parents of the children attending The M Street School. Of these occupations, 51 were laborers and one was a doctor. That doesn't sound very middle class to me.
Over the years, a significant black middle class did develop in Washington and no doubt most of them sent their children to the M Street School or to Dunbar High School, as it was later called. But that is wholly different from saying that most of the children at that school came from middle-class homes.
During the later period, for which I collected data, there were far more children whose mothers were maids than there were whose fathers were doctors. For many years, there was only one academic high school for blacks in the District of Columbia and, as late as 1948, one-third of all black youngsters attending high school in Washington attended Dunbar High School. So this was not a "selective" school in the sense in which we normally use that term-- there were no tests to take to get in, for example-- even though there was undoubtedly self-selection in the sense that students who were serious went to Dunbar and those who were not had other places where they could while away their time, without having to meet high academic standards. (A vocational high school for blacks was opened in Washington in 1902).
A spot check of attendance records and tardiness records showed that The M Street School at the turn of the century and Dunbar High School at mid-century had less absenteeism and less tardiness than the white high schools in the District of Columbia at those times. The school had a tradition of being serious, going back to its founders and early principals.
Among these early principals was the first black woman to receive a college degree in the United States-- Mary Jane Patterson from Oberlin College, class of 1862. At that time, Oberlin had different academic curriculum requirements for women and men. Latin, Greek and mathematics were required in "the gentlemen's course," as it was called, but not in the curriculum for ladies. Miss Patterson, however, insisted on taking Latin, Greek, and mathematics anyway. Not surprisingly, in her later 12 years as principal of the black high school in Washington during its formative years, she was noted for "a strong, forceful personality," for "thoroughness,' and for being "an indefatigable worker." Having this kind of person shaping the standards and traditions of the school in its early years undoubtedly had something to do with its later success.
Other early principals included the first black man to graduate from Harvard, class of 1870. Four of the school's first eight principals graduated from Oberlin and two from Harvard. Because of restricted academic opportunities for blacks, Dunbar had three Ph.Ds among its teachers in the 1920s.
One of the other educational dogmas of our times is the notion that standardized tests do not predict future performances for minority children, either in academic institutions or in life. Innumerable scholarly studies have devastated this claim intellectually, though it still survives and flourishes politically.
But the history of this black high school in Washington likewise shows a pay-off for solid academic preparation and the test scores that result from it. Over the entire 85-year history of academic success of this school, from 1870 to 1955, most of its 12,000 graduates went on to higher education. This was very unusual for either black or white high-school graduates during this era. Because these were low-income students, most went to a local free teachers college but significant numbers won scholarships to leading colleges and universities elsewhere.
Some M Street School graduates began going to Harvard and other academically elite colleges in the early twentieth century. As of 1916, there were nine black students, from the entire country, attending Amherst College. Six were from the M Street School. During the period from 1918 to 1923, graduates of this school went on to earn 25 degrees from Ivy League colleges, Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan. Over the period from 1892 to 1954, Amherst admitted 34 graduates of the M Street School and Dunbar. Of these, 74 percent graduated and more than one-fourth of these graduates were Phi Beta Kappas.
No systematic study has been made of the later careers of the graduates of this school. However, when the late black educator Horace Mann Bond studied the backgrounds of blacks with Ph.D.s, he discovered that more of them had graduated from M Street-Dunbar than from any other black high school in the country.
The first blacks to graduate from West Point and Annapolis also came from this school. So did the first black full professor at a major university (Allison Davis at the University of Chicago). So did the first black federal judge, the first black general, the first black Cabinet member, the first black elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction, and the discoverer of a method for storing blood plasma. During World War II, when black military officers were rare, there were more than two dozen graduates of M Street or Dunbar High School holding ranks ranging from major to brigadier general.
All this contradicts another widely-believed notion-- that schools do not make much difference in children's academic or career success because income and family background are much larger influences. If the schools themselves do not differ very much from one another, then of course it will not make much difference which one a child attends. But, when they differ dramatically, the results can also differ dramatically."

http://www.tsowell.com/speducat.html

goat4d

Students that come to America for Educational purposes are usually at the top of the top in there home countries.

racnna

that's not true at all.Students who come to the U.S. usually have parents/relatives here and therefore have an easier time getting a visa OR they are rich.

bleach000

"Students that come to America for Educational purposes are usually at the top of the top in there home countries."

Well its not just that.

The US high school and middle school sytem is easier compared to India or other foreign nations like China or Singapore.

I mean the average student learns Algebra I in like 6 or 7th grade...
and Chem, Physics, and Bio is taught from like 7th grade...

Things are taught earlier there...must be the reason why all B.S. programs are three years long.

"...the british system. The curriculum is very rigorous and more advanced than middle and secondary schools in the U.S...."

The US system is also a little strange because they divide up the students; like AP, honors, advanced, and then average classes...its like a caste system.

Jason1117

if you have relatives in U.S,you may have problem with your F-1 visa.
Most international students don't have relatives in U.S I guess.

VTjas81

If their parents were rich then most likely they are of higher aptitude relative to their home country population. And how did their relatives come here in the first place? My parents came here because we had money. And we had money because my grandfather was a smart businessman. And lots of my family members are successful. My gf's family consist of doctors, intellectuals, and former high ranking army officer. They immigrated here only a few years ago and now she is going to dental school. Her mom tried many years applying for a visa.


Actually African Americans and africans are quite different. On average African Americans share ~10% of their genes with caucasians. Now that proportion tends to get higher for more successful black americans.

Yes I agree culture and environment is a part of it, I never disagreed with that. All Im saying is that it is a combination of factors and not solely attributed to environmental factors. Secondly, people aren't realizing genetics also influence the environment that people created. For example, men are more likely to take risks and explore new ideas than females. This is biological and no one can deny that. Is it a coincidence why many men have had dominance in most every field? They were the ones to create it.

In today's liberal views social factors are used to explain all our differences. Biological factors are now taboo for sake of political correctness. And yet what were finding out now is that genetics contribute to the majority of our intellectual development. Aside from malnutrition and lack of opportunity genetics can be attributed up to 75-80% of IQ differences. And it plays an even higher role once were adults.

And that is why there is a brain drain going on in Africa now. People want opportunity and the ones with the desirable traits are the ones who get them. Everyone wants to immigrate to the US. It's not surprising they outperform many black americans. Every population has exceptionally smart people as well as dimwits. And Im saying the ones studying here are some of the very brightest.

hello

Definitely not undergrad. They might be Asian-American, and a majority of them are fluent in English rather than their mother tongue.

Jason1117

isn't English Asian Americans' mother tongue?

CH121S

If its anything American than English naturally would be the native tongue right? :P.

kennyk616

"I'm assuming that they are capable students to begin with"
why do we need AA if this is true?

"My theory is that many URM's, esp. blacks are afraid that the affirmative action question mark will always be over there heads. People may look at a minority student and think oh he/she only go into HYPMS because she/he is black. Especially if the student is majoring in something as challenging as engineering or physics etc. "

this is only admissions to colleges.
a lot of colleges let ppl freely pick majors, and sadly, people who "had some extra help" in getting accepted are often not as able to handle the courseload (engineering is common percepted as one of the hardest majors if not THE hardest major) thus picking easier majors to handle.