Is academic achievement commonly associated with Asian students really based on immigration?

My point is that considering the vast majority of Stuy’s student body when I attended and even now are composed of kids from low-income and lower-middle class immigrant families and the fact wealthy students are getting rejected as was the case with siblings of HS classmates…any arguments the SHSAT favors the rich is IMO a complete crock.

And that argument implies most kids from rich or upper-middle class are clamoring to get into public magnets like Stuy. With the exception of a tiny minority who are hardcore into STEM or those seeking that type of educational environment, that wasn’t the case with most of the ones I’ve observed…including some in my extended family. Most…including Asian-Americans prefer sending their kids to private/boarding schools if possible due to perceptions such environments provide greater personal attention to each individual student(fair point) and don’t have as much of the sink-or-swim academic pressure cooker environment that Stuy and other SHSes tend to have…especially when I attended. There’s also a class element as there’s a higher likelihood of meeting greater concentrations of upper/upper-middle class families and celebrities for networking purposes at the private/boarding schools due to high tuition, tradition, etc.

What’s SHSAT? The Stuy’s entrance exam?

Yes.

One other ironic thing I’ve noticed is that some of the loudest voices decrying standardized exams for Stuy and other public magnets are actually coming from upper/upper-middle class families who tend to send their kids to private/boarding schools. Encountered plenty among parents of college classmates from such families and later on, from many private school alum colleagues and their families.

They tend to prefer the more “holistic” admission measures even though the public/quasi-public magnets which does practice such measures tend to have a much higher concentration of upper/upper-middle class students and similar/worse issues regarding admission of URMs.

Personally, I feel the holistic admissions should be used for college applications as the applicant is far more likely to be his/her person and more independent of his/her parents mentally than as an 11-13 year old applicant or in some cases…as a 10-12 year old applying to enter the school in 7th grade. In the HS or middle/HS admissions…basically the applicant is really reflecting the SES and ideas of his/her parents unless he/she exhibits a highly unusual level of independence from parental influence/SES status at such ages.

Admission based on standardized testing gives the middle class a fighting chance. I don’t think it is an accident that all members of the 1st place US math Olympiad team come from public schools. If you were to ask most parents, I suspect they would prefer a holistic type of admission, ironically.

It is like chess vs. Backgammon. In chess an amateur has no chance against an expert, but in backgammon one can get lucky. They think holistic admission give their precious snowflakes a chance-a very small chance. You still need to be one lucky sperm though.

The poor are strictly a sideshow in this game.

Oh please. This kid is impressive seen from anywhere. These are standardized tests, 9 APs, all 5s, SAT in the 99th percentile, 4.0 UW GPA, swim team captain, principal in orchestra, crew, lifeguard, 250 volunteer hours…I’m sure if he were a URM kid, he’d be treated like the second coming and accepted to every school he applied to. But for a non-URM kid, this is “not all that unusual” and he was shut out of every, single, top 20 school he applied to?

How long can you liberals continue with these lies? Even if you can keep lying to yourselves, you can’t keep lying to everyone else. Some of us have woken up.

I’m sorry, but you’re just wrong about this (except for the part about URM students with similar stats, but that’s a different issue). This is an impressive kid–but not unusual for the most elite schools. They reject lots of kids like this–both Asian and white–every year, in favor of kids who have achieved national achievements, recruitable athletes, and others.

Just to take a particular example–you think it’s impressive that he was principal in the school orchestra? Every high school orchestra in the land has a principal.

What lies are you talking about, @cmsjmt ? I agree completely, a URM with that resume would likely be admitted everywhere he or she applied, because there simply aren’t many URMs with that kind of resume. And I agree that there aren’t that many non-URMs with that kind of resume, but there are enough so that in and of itself it doesn’t make the applicant a shoo-in at any particular highly selective college.

And, please, why are you lying to yourself and others, too? Obviously, a kid with those numbers is impressive, and just as obviously if a kid with those numbers is rejected at multiple schools, it’s reasonable to think that they are all looking at some additional information – tepid, qualified recommendations, essays that showed lack of effort or real problems with writing ability – not available to you. It’s pretty extraordinary that a kid with those stats gets shut out everywhere. Do you really think it’s because of the comparatively few slots devoted to affirmative action?

Good point, JHS. I note now, after looking back, that this student was also rejected by Berkeley. To me, that suggests that something else is going on there.

Just listen to yourselves, “if he were a URM, he’d be accepted everywhere”. And you don’t think there’s something wrong with that? Reverse racism is still racism, and racism of all stripes is wrong. It’s wrong for the sororities at AL to discriminate against URMs, just as it’s wrong for elite institutions to discriminate against non-URMs in admissions. The end does not justify the means, even if the intentions are good. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Perhaps this isn’t the place to get into the whole affirmative action thing yet again, but the sentence above reflects one key misunderstanding. Affirmative action does not constitute discrimination against non-URMs. Nor does it reflect racism. It doesn’t reflect dislike for or animus against whites and Asians. It’s affirmative. Now, you may be mixing this up with the different question of whether colleges are discriminating against Asians in favor of whites, which often happens here.

" @rhandco, I agree with your #289. We also do not have access to his interview."

I have had the unfortunate experience of not recommending two applicants that I have interviewed for my Ivy alma mater.

Both were hesitant to talk at all. Both had no interest in talking about the college. Both had no interest in talking about themselves. This was not nervousness, this was apathy. I have interviewed students who were nervous and/or said the wrong thing (mistaking which college you are interviewing for!), but the net result was a positive interview. I almost felt like the two I did not recommend (over many years of interviewing) were either forced to apply to my school or had some sort of issue, temporary or permanent.

As for the “would have been accepted if URM” applicant, the student himself admitted that his essays were not appropriate, and also noted that he applied to different majors at different colleges (which is a difficult thing to overcome - you want to come off as business business business in one app and essay, and computers computers computers in another).

cmsjmt has some sort of agenda. Or understands nothing about college admissions. I feel sorry for them.

Colleges don’t ask for essays for no reason. They don’t read them for no reason.

You could argue that among the cohort of top scorers, it must have been his essays (self-admitting that they were not good on CC) and possibly interviews (applying to many schools can lead to interview fatigue). I have heard of students who complain about have seven college interviews and want to get them all done on the same day, bad idea.

I agree with the point about principal - they have to pick someone to be principal for each instrument in each school orchestra. It’s usually a sign that you are a senior, or maybe you beat out one other senior.

Is it partly cloudy or partly sunny? It all boils down to how you say it, doesn’t it? But the end result is the same. College admissions is a zero sum game. The number of seats are finite. Admitting more of one group naturally necessitates admitting fewer of other groups. Holistic admission is a shameless game that liberals play. Its sole purpose is to hide favoring of certain groups over other groups behind fuzzy logic. But in the end the only people who are to blame are the unhooked kids who continue to apply in drove, begging to be let in the door like suckers. Maybe they are not so smart after all.

Re #307

Student may have applied to one of the most selective majors at Berkeley.

No, it doesn’t boil down to how you say it. It makes a big difference whether decisions are made to exclude people because we don’t like them, as opposed to trying to get some number of some unrepresented group because we think (for whatever reason) it would be nice to have more of them.

And if you think conservatives will make colleges admit more Asians over whites–well, perhaps you should take a few Political Science classes.

cmsjmt insists that race was the only factor for the student not to be admitted.

The student himself admits on CC he messed up on essays.

Who do you believe?

This was previously posted showing cmsjmt’s feelings about holistic admissions:

"No other country has this thing called “holistic admissions” which I think is just a way for our elite colleges to keep out those who aren’t in their preferred demographics(athletes, legacies, URMs, developments etc.).

But thanks to holistic admissions our HS kids are completely stressed out not just with academics but with all the ECs, volunteering, part time job etc. It’s madness! And for what? Do we really produce better kids? I don’t think so. All these kids from Asia are coming into our colleges, dominating the STEM fields and taking all the good STEM jobs, while 55% of our college grads are either unemployed or underemployed. Check out this article on Bloomberg today, even Ivy League grads are having a tough time finding jobs, much good “holistic admissions” is doing us:

“Nice Ivy League degree. Now if you want a job, go to coding school”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-07/coding-classes-attract-college-grads-who-want-better-jobs

The most ridiculous thing is even medical school admission is now “holistic” - being member of a certain demographic, volunteering or participation in sports now count almost as much as your science GPA, is that crazy or what? What do I care if my doctor was a good lacrosse player or taught underprivileged kids how to play chess, I just want a smart, good doctor who can cure my illness. It’s time to stop this holistic admission madness! "

Note the correct figures on employment of college graduates, also as compared to those who did not finish HS, did finish HS only:
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=561

@cmsjmt, my URM kid had a better resume than the kid you profiled and deserved to get in above your applicant. You are the one who is stereotyping and assuming that your applicant got robbed of their spot.

@cmsjmt that kid didn’t get into Berkeley. Berkeley doesn’t consider race so in that case certainly something else was going on, and it may be indicative of what was going on at the other schools too, whether that was the kid’s “bad” essays as he thought might be the case, or something else.

Berkeley is currently 35% Asian.

@rhandco , you say all of these kids are coming here to come to US schools and dominating the STEM fields. Why are they coming to the US when you are insinuating we have weak students? Can they not get into schools in their home country? And let’s not forget all the posts here on CC that are International students wanting to know how to get a full ride to a US school. So you want to belittle holistic admissions in the US, yet flocks of Internationals want to go to those very schools with substantial aide. Sure.

rhandco was quoting a previous post by cmsjmt.