How Long Have Asians Been Academically Outperforming Everyone Else?

BlueWizard97
Tue, 31 Dec 2013 12:34:52 +0000

I don’t have any research on this but as an Asian I can say that the successful ones have probably always been overachieving in an academic sense. I grow up in a predominantly Asian community (like 67-70%) and everyone’s parents are really pushy about academics… If you don’t get into at least UCLA, if you don’t become a doctor, your parents are going to be disappointed in you.

In most universities in Korea and China your college choices traditionally depend a lot (if not entirely) on one single test so the Asians with a lot of money always send their kids to tutoring. I think they think the AP tests and SAT/ACT are like their old placement tests. So instead of getting like a summer job or going to camp my friends always spend like two thirds of their summer at Elite (SAT prep). During the school year, they go back on weekends and breaks are an opportunity to squeeze in 4-8 more hours of test prep a day.

That’s a bit of a generalization but that’s the closest thing I can find to why we “overachieve”. And it’s not really a good thing either because there just isn’t much chance to go out with friends or any of that. I think it’s always been this way for the top Asians even before they came to America, but lately college is our way of keeping up with the Joneses.

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