<p>Moderator’s note: Please remember that posts of a political nature are not allowed.</p>
<p>Fair enough. Thank you.</p>
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<p>Edit: Oops! Sorry, please forgive the faux pas. I didn’t pay attention to the “from whom” that admonishment originated, and assumed it was from one of us just plain forum members. It was not meant to question the moderation or moderators of the forum. Again, my apologies.</p>
<p>"I hope they are planning to send their kids to the same home country colleges. If not, they better change tune. "</p>
<p>If the goal is for the progeny to get into the schools the parents went to in US, I am sure they do follow your steps. In a lot of cases, the parents are not as jaded or as interested in sending their kids to the schools they went to. There are a lot of graduate schools in US and not every immigrant ends up in Ivies for graduate school. It in no way means only the people who went to Ivies are doing really well. </p>
<p>There are a lot of doctors in US that never went to school in US (residency does nt count as going to school) who do better than investment bankers that did go to Ivies. I know several whose kids did go to HYPS, not having contributed a penny to any of those schools before their kids got there. </p>
<p>There are 70% legacies each year that get declined whose parents have contributed over the years to their alma maters. You should read some of their bitter diatribes about the selection processes at their schools before you conclude it is the surest path to the Ivies. IMHO, gift giving with ulterior motives never works. </p>
<p>This guy did nt even go to school in USF or any school in US.</p>
<p>[NRI</a> Florida Dr. Dr. Kiran Patel, Couple donate $18.5-million to University](<a href=“http://www.nriinternet.com/NRIdoctors/A_USA/Donations/KiranPatel/2_NRI%20Florida%20Dr_.htm]NRI”>NRI Florida Dr. Dr. Kiran Patel, Couple donate $18.5-million to University)</p>
<p>Texaspg, you are not getting my point. The goal is not to get your kid in a particular school. The goal is to change the opinions of AdComs that Asians never give. Incidentally, my kid is most likely not even going to apply to HYPSM, or any academic school for that matter.</p>
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<p>I suppose “dominant culture” is more along the lines of an “I know it when I see it” kind of thing. Certainly, it doesn’t seem to be something people are willing to define in detail, because as soon as someone does, any number of others question the particulars of that definition. It’s like defining exactly what it means to be “American”.</p>
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<p>This is precisely the beauty of subjective judgments. You never have to prove anything, not even define what it is that you are trying to prove. You can just say, I know a textureless math grind when I see it. This is precisely what the colleges have been using to discriminate against Asians.</p>
<p>I agree, the “textureless math grind” moniker is extremely insulting, especially when it’s used to label an ethnic or racial group as “undesirable”. There should be no stigma in reaching for excellence. And really, what’s the difference between the person with a “passion for math” and one who really desires to master the discipline? What makes one intrinsically better than the other? Which one is “textureless”?</p>
<p>Dominant culture is regional, in some cases restricted to something as small as a neighborhood. You have a dominant culture when you live in East LA, Harlem, Beverly Hills, China town in any City, Little Havana in Miami or Washington, D.C. </p>
<p>So what is acceptable in a small town USA among different races is not tranferable across US and same can be said of a major City where different areas of a single city have dominant cultures within small areas.</p>
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<p>Having spent a good part of my life in the pursuit of math, it is quite clear to me that in math you HAVE to master the discipline in order to pursue your passion. Math has its own special language. If you do not know that, in lower levels you can make do through intrinsic inquisitiveness and basic logic. You can get away with just using first principles, if you will. Not so as you keep going into the upper levels. You must master everything that has been done so far in your particular mathematical area of interest, before you can create new math. Trying to do everything from first principles would be impossible as everything builds on another. This is often not the case in other disciplines, e.g., you can be a very successful poet without reading Homer and Virgil and Dante (though I can’t imagine any passionate poet not getting an intimate urge to master the same).</p>
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<p>Excellent points, texaspg!</p>
<p>I had a rude comment about culture and politicians in Washington but I am afraid of Mainelonghorn!</p>
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<p>I was among those providing names, but would not state categorically that the quality of education at those specific colleges is (or isn’t) as good or better than HYPSM. People disagree about how we measure quality of education. Some people value networking opportunities and maximum financial outcomes. Some people value other things more. </p>
<p>But as for your question, you can look (if you haven’t already) at two studies by Alan Krueger and Stacy Dale. These studies conclude that, for students admitted to the most selective schools, later income is about the same regardless of where they actually attend. Economist Caroline Hoxby, using different measurements, reached different conclusions. She found a spread of about $400K in lifetime earnings between those who chose the most selective vs. the least selective schools. She compared schools across 9 groups according to the 1980 Barron’s selectivity index, and it isn’t clear to me whether the spread increases significantly within the highest one or two groups. In other words, there may be a clear financial benefit to attending one of the top 50 or so, but perhaps not to choosing #10 over #40 regardless of costs.</p>
<p>So I’m not seeing a clear imperative to choose Harvard over Haverford, or Stanford over Smith, based on average financial returns alone. Of course, for a very bright Computer Science major dreaming about her own start-up company, I’m sure Stanford offers opportunities Smith can’t. On the other hand, Stanford isn’t going to offer half its places to that kind of applicant (for reasons that have nothing to do with racism.)</p>
<p>Fab, this is really frustrating to me. I guess I’ve joined the party of people who are frustrated trying to communicate with you.</p>
<p>So, is there an “Asian perspective/point of view” on topics other than racial preferences? I thought you disagreed about the concept of “Asian point of view” in general.</p>
<p>When I gave my anecdote back a couple thousand pages ago, it was just that – an anecdote. An example of how I felt having a diverse classroom is important. I decided that class was discussing the topic of this thread. I could have decided the students were discussing immigration reform, steroid use by athletes, abortion, urban transportation, Beanie Babies – anything. </p>
<p>You and I disagree on this. Fine. Just for the record, I’ll say that I do think that a person’s background – including their race/nationality/culture – gives them a point of view/perspective, affects how they see the world. I don’t understand how we can define diversity for everything else – gender, geography, sexual orientation, socio-economic status – and yet ignore the skin color. This actually has nothing to do with giving preferences to race, and just talks to the issue of diversity.</p>
<p>IP,</p>
<p>Based on your responses to my posts, it sounds like you are saying that private colleges, specifically HYPS, should be prevented from using subjective factors like opinions, or race as a factor in admissions, even though they are legally entitled to do so. They must “let the chips fall where they may,” which will result in a class composed 50% of conformists who do not assimilate well and will not donate, but who will perform just as well in life, regardless of whether they are insufferable prima donnas, or can’t string two sentences together, or don’t speak English, or pick their noses.</p>
<p>Is that right?</p>
<p>It just occurred to me that what I described in #3615 is essentially UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>The following might explain what is troubling IP about selective college admissions:</p>
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<li>Asian American application volume to US colleges has increased in the past several decades;</li>
<li>These applicants (relative to others) tend to be especially interested in a small number of schools and specific majors;</li>
<li>The number of faculty to teach those subjects has not grown dramatically relative to faculty in other areas;</li>
<li>Non-Asians continue to have a relatively broad interest in those other areas.</li>
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<p>The result is that highly qualified Asians appear to be “losing places” to less qualified white and AA applicants. In reality, they aren’t competing for the same places. They are competing in many cases against each other, and have raised the bar higher only for those spots. This is true even though American colleges don’t require applicants to commit to specific majors. That’s because adcoms do practice a kind of “profiling” sufficient to limit over-enrollment in those majors and to maintain a balanced, diversified class.</p>
<p>UC Berkeley can graduate ~500 engineering majors per year due to its sheer size. HYP cannot do that without turning into very different schools. So perhaps this dialog really should focus not on race but on liberal education v. technical and career education, and how colleges should respond to market forces (specifically, to the interests of applicants with the highest objective qualifications.)</p>
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<p>Pages and pages ago, Hunt’s opinion on this matter was that there are “perspectives / points of view” by racial classification. His example was that American blacks, in general, do like watermelon. Well, excuse me for noting that in the context of this thread, we are not talking about food. Neither of you is talking about the “Asian point of view” on food. You were talking about the alleged “Asian point of view” on racial preferences.</p>
<p>It’s the same thing with the question of “Is college X ‘too Asian’?” Replies to the question often don’t make direct comparisons. mathmom’s posts imply that she thinks Berkeley is “too Asian” because on a campus tour, she saw a biology class that was all Asian. Apparently, it is not prejudiced to say that a class that is exclusively of one racial classification has too much of that racial classification. Indeed, with respect to the “too Asian?” question, HBCUs are often brought up as examples of schools that are “too black” and some schools with strong religious ties demonstrate schools that are “too [insert religion here].”</p>
<p>Fine, then. Let’s consider the opposite extreme. Suppose instead of seeing a biology classroom that was all Asian, mathmom saw one that only had one Asian student and still said, “Ooh…this classroom is too Asian for me.” I think most of us, herself included, would say such a statement is prejudiced against Asians. So if one is not “too many” but a full classroom is, then after how many [insert group here]s does your judgment shift from “wow, this is diverse!” to “ew…no diversity”?</p>
<p>(I think ucbalumnus asked epiphany essentially the same question and didn’t get an answer.)</p>
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<p>And I don’t agree with the premise of your anecdote. Ensuring that an Asian is in the classroom doesn’t guarantee that my perspective will be aired. If you wanted my perspective in that classroom, you’d have to admit…me. Not just any Asian. Me. THAT is why I strenuously disagreed with you that there is an “Asian point of view” with respect to racial preferences; there is NOT one.</p>
<p>Indianparent asked:
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<p>I guess I would answer the question with another question, “Assuming 17 year-olds do know anything about his/her future career at 17 (and, were truthful about it when asked), would colleges be justified in choosing a class based on each applicant’s self-assessment?”</p>
<p>I see the following at Berkeley:</p>
<p>40% of the school is classified as Asian. If we say about 50% of the Aliens is also Asian, this probably bumps it up to 44% Asian looking.</p>
<p>I tried adding up all of the different STEM major percentages for which degrees are being awarded and came up with 38% of the graduating class getting their diplomas in STEM (I have added only those that seemed clear cut and Psychology and Interdisciplinary are not part of my list).</p>
<p>So for Asian = STEM stereotype - does this work, i.e., STEM majors have 100% Asians and everyone else at Berkeley does liberal arts?</p>
<p><a href=“http://cds.berkeley.edu/pdfs/PDF%20wBOOKMARKS%2010-11.pdf[/url]”>http://cds.berkeley.edu/pdfs/PDF%20wBOOKMARKS%2010-11.pdf</a></p>