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<p>It won’t bother me if you start arguing that “Asians are disproportionately clustered into business/home economics/health professions and STEM fields” instead of just STEM fields. You know, telling more of the story instead of a half-truth (read: a stereotype)?</p>
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<p>I understand that. But what I’m trying to tell you is that without data, the comments about averages and frequency are guesses. I’m not trying to project (as I already said). Rather (and my experience is not alone), judging from a length of time with a variety of mixed populations, and watching an evolution of encounters here, some brief, some extended, the average and the frequency which you note seems to have become diluted at certain local levels, plural. It is observable to those who have worked in education in oversight positions for some time. To what degree it has already become diluted, and is posssibly become more rapidly diluted, I do not know. </p>
<p>IOW, I somewhat disagree with this statement,
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<p>…because naturally enriched intelligence as a product of genetics, quality of and application to educational opportunity, and work ethic are all at play in academic achievement. I’m suggesting that the last two can become compromised quickly when the isolation is removed! 
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<p>I think that extremes have an inordinate impact on all of us (relative to frequency or domination of a field), including myself. Yes, it’s true that many “recent” (however you define recent) immigrant families from East and South Asia consist of parents (both, sometimes!) with STEM Ph.D.'s. I myself have expected to be impressed with their children, but you would be amazed at how often the children’s habits and apparent ability vary from their parents --both those newly arrived, and those who have been here for 10-15 years. In fact, I’ll have to say that my surprise (about this) over the last 5 years alone has far outweighed my assumptions of high achievement.</p>
<p>And for each large metro area there is quite a mix among immigrants from South and East Asia: Some are dual Ph.D.'s, some are one Ph.D., one less educated; some one Ph.D. one uneducated; some are dual working-class. I do not see a predominance of double Ph.D. STEM majors in a typical mixed-environment (culturally diverse) metro area. However, there are pockets of “ridiculously” high-achievement immigrant parents+children in certain STEM “regions” which employ these, and which produce a rich cluster for college admissions purposes. The irony, of course, is that such a cluster can end up ‘disadvantaging’ (only relatively so) those children who are competing with each other for the same ‘elite’ universities, since geographic proportionality will be a negative factor !</p>
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<p>Maybe they are the Asians who are getting accepted to HYP et al and not spending any time on CC so we don’t know about them. </p>
<p>Like the president of Dartmouth: “Born in Seoul, Korea in 1959, Jim Yong Kim moved with his family to the United States at the age of five and grew up in Muscatine, Iowa. … Kim attended Muscatine High School, where he was valedictorian and president of his class and played quarterback for the football team. He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. from Brown University in 1982.”</p>
<p>Jim Yong Kim had the geographical (Iowa) admissions advantage. It is also very possible that he was an AA beneficiary, depending on how many Asians enrolled at Brown back in 1978.</p>
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<p>Yes, exactly. That’s what I was trying to show. He also played football.</p>
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<p>So in other words, geographic preferences might end up getting us what we already have–namely, an “overrepresentation” of Asians?</p>
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<p>I think the takeaway from this analysis is that at CSU Asians are “underrepresented” in the humanities, since most of the schools we are trying to apply this information to do not have home economics, undergrad business or health profession majors. I really don’t think anyone was trying to tell some sort of half-truth here.</p>
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<p>Huh?</p>
<p>(You know, I was trying to insert a slight bit of humor with my comment.)</p>
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<p>fabrizio is DISPUTING that Asians disproportionately major in science? He is calling other posters liars and/or racists for asserting the “stereotype” that such a disproportion exists??</p>
<p>A web search for “STEM majors” produces this as the #2 hit. Do you think fabrizio could have done a few seconds of research instead of lazily demanding that others work as his unpaid research assistants (or else be called racists)?</p>
<p>US Dept of Education NCES 2009-161 (July 2009)
Students Who Study Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in Postsecondary Education
Author: Xianglei Chen</p>
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<p>That is, compared to other groups, Asians are an outlier in their rate of affinity for STEM fields. Stereotype refuted… not.</p>
<p>Concerning half-truths about Asians and STEM, a better example is any discussion of white vs Asian admission rates that disregards the higher fraction of Asians majoring in subjects with elevated SAT requirements. In her (anti-)Duke admissions memoir Rachel Toor wrote that the engineering admissions used a different formula that doubled the weight of test scores and tripled the weight of math scores. The result of this would be a higher rate of Asian admission (check! Duke is 20+ percent Asian) and a higher average SAT score for the Asian vs white population (check! 50 point difference in the data from 10 years ago).</p>
<p>Fabrizio wants to get the word out that Asians are disproportionately majoring in Home Economics. FULL TRUTH NOTED! However, there is no Home Ec major in any top 10 university (OK, Yale has a Nursing school), so the admissions effect of this is nonexistent. STEM, however, does impinge on the white vs Asian statistics.</p>
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<p>Correction duly noted, siserune! </p>
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<p>It was YOU who claimed to know of labor studies which supposedly proved your point, was it not?</p>
<p>It was YOU who described several of those studies which supposedly proved your point without listing the names of the authors or the titles, was it not?</p>
<p>And, it was YOU who used the term “decimated” to describe supposed Asian underperformance at the “highest echelons” of AMC competitions and the IMO, was it not?</p>
<p>Edit</p>
<p>The Berkeley NMF data that you “will post” would be nice too.</p>
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<p>From what I remember, Asians make up roughly 50% of USAMO and MOSP qualifiers. This has increased a lot in the past 20 years. It used to be more like 20-30% at the highest echelons of the AMC competitions in the mid-90’s.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>siserune claimed that “in the old thread after I first mentioned this, a few CC diehards spent enormous numbers of pixels trying to make the statistical case that US East Asian representation was not dropping at the highest echelons of the national math competition.”</p>
<p>He argued that based on the selection path USAMO —> Top 24 —> IMO, Asians were “decimated” (his word) in the following table:</p>
<p>YEAR _____ USAMO _____ MOSP <strong><em>(TOP 24)</em></strong><strong><em>(TOP 12) </em></strong> IMO
2006 ___ 204/404 (50%)<em>21/54 (39%)</em> 11/21 (52.4%) __ 6/10 (60%) 3/6 (50%)
2007 ___ 226/459 (49%)<em>24/55 (44%)</em> 10/24 (41.6%) __ 5/12 (42%) 3/6 (50%)
2008 ___ 258/465 (55%)<em>29/56 (52%)</em> 5/23 (21.7%) __ 4/12 (33%)_ 1/6 (17%)
2009 ___ 245/431 (57%)______ n.a. ______ 11/23 (47.8%) __ 5/11 (45%)__ 3/6 (50%)</p>
<p>Given “US East Asian representation [is dropping] at the highest echelons of the national math competition,” we would think that the percentages are monotonically decreasing. But with the exception of 2008, they are not.</p>
<p>2006: 50% - > 52.4% - > 50% [increase -> decrease]
2007: 49% -> 41.6% -> 50% [decrease-> increase]
2008: 55% -> 21.7% -> 17% [decrease -> decrease]
2009: 57% -> 47.8% -> 50% [decrease -> increase]</p>
<p>Moreover, as I’ve repeatedly stated to siserune, [2008[/url</a>] was the year that [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1155321-colleges-racist-89.html#post12792261]“low”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1155321-colleges-racist-89.html#post12792261]"low</a> hanging fruit”](<a href=“International Mathematical Olympiad”>International Mathematical Olympiad) guy Alex Zhai scored a perfect 42/42 on the IMO. So even in the year that seemingly verifies siserune’s “decimated” claim, a U.S. East Asian scored one of three perfect scores (alongside [two</a> Chinese nationals](<a href=“http://www.imo-official.org/year_individual_r.aspx?year=2008&column=total&order=desc]two”>http://www.imo-official.org/year_individual_r.aspx?year=2008&column=total&order=desc), who according to siserune do not feast on “low hanging fruit”).</p>
<p>And the table can be updated. Though siserune claimed USAMO –> Top 24 –> IMO was the selection path, it [appears[/url</a>] that the IMO team is chosen from the Top 12. In [url=<a href=“American Mathematics Competitions | Mathematical Association of America”>American Mathematics Competitions | Mathematical Association of America]2010[/url</a>], 7 of the 12 winners were East Asian (58.3%) and [url=<a href=“International Mathematical Olympiad”>International Mathematical Olympiad]4</a> of the 6](<a href=“News | Mathematical Association of America”>USA Mathematical Olympiad: 2008 USAMO Winners | Mathematical Association of America) IMO team members were East Asian (66.67%). I don’t know what percentage of the USAMO qualifiers was East Asian, but siserune’s monotonically decreasing prediction did not hold.</p>
<p>What about the current year? [8</a> of the 12](<a href=“American Mathematics Competitions | Mathematical Association of America”>American Mathematics Competitions | Mathematical Association of America) winners are East Asian (66.67%) and [4</a> of the 6](<a href=“American Mathematics Competitions | Mathematical Association of America”>American Mathematics Competitions | Mathematical Association of America) IMO team members are East Asian (66.67%). There was no increase or decrease! So how does siserune explain away my response? Easy. My response “assum[es] that a 50% empirically observed (3 of 6) qualification rate for one year’s IMO refutes the idea that the true Asian qualification rate is something lower.”</p>
<p>That’s classic siserune: he is always right even when his own data doesn’t support him. To the extent that he was just trying to silence the proponents of “Asian supremacy” (whoever they are), fine. I do not condone such a belief. But siserune went a step further and tried to argue that “US East Asians” were inferior to “whites, Jews, and Indians” who apparently have “more sophisticated educational strategies.” It’s funny, then, that the U.S. IMO team has been coached by a “low hanging fruit” guy from a culture that has “less sophisticated educational strategies” since [2004](<a href=“International Mathematical Olympiad”>International Mathematical Olympiad):</a> Zuming Feng.</p>
<p>Daughter is finally coming up for air after the junior hs spring gauntlet of APs, standardized testing, etc. We drove a long time together today and shopped and ate ice cream and gradually the school stress started to lift. Driving home, I described this discussion and asked her opinion. She said that, of course, on a personal level she get’s freaked at the thought that other applicants with her profile will get an advantage over her based on race. But in the next breath she told me, “Mom, you really have to take the long view of this. There’s so much history of discrimination and whole cultures that grew out of that and it’s going to take time to get it finally where it needs to be.”</p>
<p>She supports AA in college admissions. She absolutely does. She also doesn’t think going to HYPS will make or break her life trajectory, although she has personal fav among the four and is going to do her utmost to “get in.”</p>
<p>So, again, I think our kids are ahead of us. Ahead of me, certainly.</p>
<p>One thing these schools should be aware of, though, is that perceptive kids applying are very aware of the subtleties and see the admissions process for what it is. I think it’s conceivable that “getting in” to these schools may morph into a different sort of achievement than what it has been historically.</p>
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<p>epiphany has access to the right students and has keen observations. I wonder if you’ve noticed any difference between children who were born here and who are immigrants themselves, in other words, those of parents who have been here right before they were born and more recent newcomers. I’m not interested in Asians per se, but immigrants in general. I thought immigrants would be more driven.</p>
<p>Is a PHD harder to get than a BA/BS other than more schooling? I don’t know how much we can say about their children. Intelligence could be of little influence among this children. (I’m off topic here).</p>
<p>Colleges want diversity.</p>
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<p>No, I no longer see the kinds of differences (differentiated by arrival) that you suggest. The effect of prevailing American culture on the children (not the parents) seems to be almost instant now. Frankly, I think some of this may be economically caused. In previous “economies” there would not necessarily be dual-parent income households as the default. Now it is increasingly the default pattern, which results in less sustained attention from at least one of those immigrant parents during the transition to a new culture. And that new culture is the American school environment, with its very different approach to public education and its emphasis on socialization and “fun.” (relative to many other countries, which treat school as serious business)</p>
<p>It’s just my informal but consistent observation that the immigrant parents retain their cultural norms no matter how long they’ve been here during their child’s growing years – 1 year or 20+ years. The parents stay ambitious and with high standards; the children are a different story.</p>
<p>In private schools, particularly where there is a strong critical mass of educationally ambitious immigrant families (often homogeneous in that regard), those students tend to continue to identify with the ‘home’ culture (like their parents), because of the sizeable similar peer environment. </p>
<p>I do not see many families from Western Europe. They are overwhelmingly from East, West, and South Asia, Africa, and parts of Latin America. But I do think those are the bulk of immigrants coming in anyway!</p>
<p>So the children of Asian immigrants are slackers (unless they go to private school with a lot of Asians where the slackers somehow peer-pressure each other into achievement). Surprising that so many are in any position to hope for a good college.</p>
<p>Apart from the academic scores, SAT and so on, plus the math olympiad, here is another interesting field for fairly objective measurement of achievement - chess.</p>
<p>10-year old Asians are doing OK on this list, relative to their few% representation in the population. And (western) chess is not at all common in most Asian countries.</p>
<p>[The</a> United States Chess Federation](<a href=“The United States Chess Federation”>The United States Chess Federation)</p>
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<p>Right. Several things happened to increase the East Asian (which for present purposes means mostly Chinese and Korean) numbers in that time. There are different patterns for Indians and Vietnamese, and other groups that are ethnically or geographically East Asian (Japanese, Filipino, etc.) are not even remotely comparable to the big 3 in their numerical representation or apparent interest in the contests. </p>
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<li><p>More Asians (per capita) of high school age. Many are scientists’ children at elite high schools, or hooked up to local universities where mom/dad works.</p></li>
<li><p>Qualification became relatively easier. Number of USAMO qualifiers is 500 instead of 100.</p></li>
<li><p>USAMO and IMO became more trainable (and consequently more difficult in absolute terms). Problem books, databases and contest-focused math web sites have proliferated since 2000.</p></li>
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<p>3b. As a result, starting early became more important for those wanting to reach the high echelons. Since Asians on average start their childrens’ math education earlier and/or more intensively, there are relatively more Asians who have enough time to reach the ever-increasing training levels needed to reach USAMO and beyond. </p>
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<li>Word of the association between olympiad success and elite college admission has reached the Chinese and Korean immigrant communities.</li>
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<p>4b. As a result, dozens of math olympiad schools (some conduct classes in Chinese or Korean) and math olympiad camps (published attendance figure from the first year of a camp run by ex-US IMO coach: 80+ percent Asian) have opened in the past 5-8 years. A few are oriented toward Russian or Indian immigrants but the vast majority of olympiad schools are started by East Asian immigrants and pitched to East Asian parents. </p>
<p>4c. At the high end one could count Philips Exeter as a special program of this kind, producing one or more E.Asian winners of the USAMO or IMO each year. Of the 20+ USAMO qualifications from Exeter in the past two years, 100 percent are Asian. The US IMO coach, Zuming Feng, is an instructor at Exeter, and apparently Asian parents are using Exeter as an olympiad school at a much higher rate than whites.</p>
<p>Equivalent factors don’t operate after elementary and high school, and as a result one would expect some deterioration of the Asian percentages as time and selectivity levels increase along the academic “pipeline”. For example: </p>
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<li>70+ percent East Asian winners of the 8th grade olympiad (Mathcounts) > 50-60 percent of USAMO qualifiers > 20-30 percent of Putnam competition winners (top 50-80). In odds-ratio terms (relative chances of a white vs an Asian math star to be a math star four years later) these declines are huge. It’s not because the math tests are culturally biased against Asians, and it’s not because Asian competition winners are radically likelier than whites to switch their interests to other subjects.</li>
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<p>This thread will soon reach 1500 posts, and it is obvious that it will end up in the same manner than all its august predecessors. There are a few points that will NEVER be accepted by all, and a number of elements that nobody disputes. </p>
<p>The above post is typical. It introduces a number of correct elements and adds a few that are open to debates or trivial. Is there anyone that wants to dispute that Asians students, either because of personal choices or “recommendations” by their elders do tend to focus AND excel in activities where success is easily identifiable, especially when it represents a solitary activity. Chess is an obvious choice … but what is the direct relevance to college admissions? It’s a given that many excellent chess players will be accepted and a greater number be rejected! </p>
<p>Regarding the “slackers” among Asians and the differences among recent or older immigrants, we should probably invite Mini to produce one of his favorite lines that cover the diversity of Asians. When it comes to SAT, people who have analyzed the distribution have learned that the distribution is essentially bimodal with a great number of students who do (very) well and others who do (very) poorly. In addition, the SAT reported scores for Asians are skewed because of the inclusion of foreign test scores. This might explain why the verbal scores continue to lag the Math scores (and the formulaic part of Writing component.) </p>
<p>In the end, we will not be any wiser. Except for people who DO make admission decisions, none of us can do more than speculate about the outcomes. Some of us will keep on screaming about discrimination and offer some elements ranging from the ridiculous to the acceptable, but never compelling. Others will continue to accept that the holistic admissions process is more an art than a science and that the adcoms DO an excellent job in selecting the best classes of freshman …as they see it. Some will continue to cling to the “statistics” of the very best of the students to extrapolate that all Asians must be “superior” in general. Others will continue to believe that Asians are better in some areas and a lot weaker in others. Math versus verbal. Individual talent versus team players. Violin versus marching band. Academic prowess versus community service. And the list goes on! </p>
<p>What you can’t count on is that there will NEVER be a consensus on a discussion forum. And that the same whining voices will continue to seize every opportunity to repeat the same trite arguments, the same fabrications, the same misinterpretation of date, and play the same mental games. </p>
<p>Oh well.</p>
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<p>And no agreement on who is whining and whose arguments are trite.</p>