Do upward grade trends look good?

MrMom62
Mon, 23 Sep 2013 12:40:04 +0000

In a word, diversity.

Some schools have an upper limit on the number of Asian admits, so Asian students compete against each other for those slots, and the scores and coursework required are higher than for everyone else. (I’m not saying this is fair, it’s just how it is.) So Harvard, for instance, won’t let its classes be more than 20% Asian, even those those rejected have higher qualifications than say admitted Hispanics, African-Americans, or non-Jewish whites.

The one way to avoid this is to apply to some schools that have lower Asian populations. Because Asian parents seem to have this fascination with HYPS, the applications tend to stack up there. However, there are some top rated schools, particularly the elite LACs, that don’t have large Asian populations and you won’t wind up being subjected to the unofficial, but it does exist, maximum Asian cap. (For instance, Carleton (#7 US News), is only 8% Asian. Williams (#1), is 10%.)