Thelegend28

I was wondering is it bad to be part of the dominant minority at colleges? like, i'm chinese but without the crazy gpa and test scores. I know that the race and name part is cut out from the evaluator but how about my personal statement? I wrote some of it and talked about how my life wasn't that great and how i tried to help mentor some extremely poor kids living in chinatown ( kinda tell ppl i'm asian) that have like 8 by 10 rooms that whole families live in. I was wondering if it will hurt my chances being admit because of the whole asian stereotype thing. It quite funny since i took this asian american studies class and Asian in general are actually mostly poor and the wealth within the asian race is extremely uneven. A lot of Asian in northern california are extremely rich, but in general Asians are poorer than blacks and have a lower disposable income. It jsut shocked me..umm yea i'm getting off subject but if u want to learn more...http://modelminority.com/article72.html

chemical_relapse

Affirmative Action has been outlawed in California. Technically they can't admit/reject you based on your race though I'm sure they find ways to do it. (UCLA found itself a NICE loophole with the "holistic" approach).

As for the low-income thing... If you're a low-income student, you're a low-income student.

Being Chinese shouldn't hurt you THAT MUCH at the UC's as it would elsewhere... I'm asian and I got accepted to every UC I applied to and I did not have the crazy GPAs and test scores so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

alluong

BLAH BLAH BLAH^

In THEORY affirmative action outlaws decisions based on race. In practice, however its just a load of crap. REAL TALK.

Source?
Okay I have two friends of different race, one is chinese and the other is caucasian. They both applied with a 3.33 GPA, same classes, extra curricular, and volunteer hours (they were best friends). My chinese friend got a 1650 on the SAT while my caucasian friend got a 1600 (close is it not?). On the SAT 2, they were +/- 50 in Math 2 and Chemistry.

So they both applied to the same schools UCSC, UCD, UCSD, UCI, and UCB.
Both: UCSC, UCD
Chinese friend: UCI
Caucasian friend: UCSD
Rejected: UCB

You can make a case and say it was because of their personal statments, BUT they wrote their statements together with the same topics.

UCLAri

chemical_relapse,

UCLA didn't find the "loophole." Berkeley did. UCLA followed suit after the 2004 and 2005 admissions showed declining black and Latino matriculation rates.

alluong,

Actually, in "theory" AA legalizes and formalizes admission based on race. Prop 209 actually is what outlawed race-based admissions.

As far as your example goes, it's statistically meaningless. You have to look at a larger sample to derive meaning.

BirdKiller

The experience/result of two students is not enough to reach such conclusion Alluong.

One extreme case has to be UCI, if it does practice AA, then why is the student population roughly 50% Asian AND accepted your Chinese friend? UC Berkeley isn't far behind either, with 40% of the student population being Asian.

gocheechoo

UCSD is 50% asian.

mrxalleycat

Being Chinese doesn't hurt you because UC's do not use your ethnicity into their admissions consideration.... instead....

On the UC application, they will ask what is your parent's highest education? Parental income? Are you the first in your family to attend college? Do your parents have a college degree? If no, then you have as good of a chance as any underrepresented minority would have. Try to incorporate this difficulty into your essay and how you cope with being the first in your family to attend college.

UC's will take these numerous family "factors" into consideration as oppose to just looking/generalizing at your race.