At this juncture, I would like to thank all the Asian and Asian American families (and like-minded families) who work so hard to raise the bar in our colleges, universities and nation as a whole. The “good” jobs of tomorrow will be ever more technical and scientific in nature. I am glad it’s American universities (and later hopefully American companies) that will see the benefit of this effort. Keep up the good work. America needs a kick in the rear.
The premise of this bit of twaddle – that Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, or Apple care about how white a school is – is just dead wrong. When I walk into an orchestra hall where most of the faces on the stage are Han Chinese or Korean, do I perceive the orchestra to be MORE or LESS prestigious? When I walk into a professional basketball game, or maybe an NCAA or Olympic track meet, and most of the faces are Black, do I perceive the contest as MORE or LESS prestigious? The fact is, when we care most about performance, we care least about race. Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Apple are stuffed to the gills with Asian employees; about the last thing any of them wants to do is to deny itself access to talent on grounds that have nothing to do with potential and skill.
I have clients who like to invest in very early stage companies. These clients are generally Jewish and relatively old. The only investment they have made in the past five years that wasn’t run by Asians ( East or South) was run by Russians. They are doing due diligence on a potential investment in a company whose CEO is an American Jew, but at least 80% of its workforce is of Asian descent. It never even gets mentioned.
And before anyone says that proves college admissions is capping Asians – SATs aren’t “performance.”
“At this juncture, I would like to thank all the Asian and Asian American families (and like-minded families) who work so hard to raise the bar in our colleges, universities and nation as a whole. The “good” jobs of tomorrow will be ever more technical and scientific in nature.”
lol. There are none so blinded as those who exalt STEM over everything else. Clueless. Just clueless. We need proficiency in all areas.
“The fact is, when we care most about performance, we care least about race. Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Apple are stuffed to the gills with Asian employees; about the last thing any of them wants to do is to deny itself access to talent on grounds that have nothing to do with potential and skill.”
Of course. How could anyone take that article seriously? It’s so out of touch with reality.
“If there isn’t a deliberate effort to restrict the percentage of Asians, why wouldn’t admissions be race-blind?”
One surefire way to get into the “maybe nobody likes me” club is to be unlikable, and asserting that there is blatant racism on campuses where the Asian population is 25%-35%, far greater than their representation in the population, is a surefire way to be unlikable.
If elite colleges really wanted to “discriminate against Asians,” then they wouldn’t be admitting them to fill a quarter of the class or more. They’d, well, um, discriminate and admit only very few. Duh.
If say 30% of NBA players were black, rather than their 14% in the US population, would that indicate discrimination for or against blacks?
Are we really going to go on with the old trope that Asians have only SAT performance to offer?
When I read the blog post, my only thought was, “this makes sense. Even Pizzagirl mentioned how comical it was that her son’s convocation was overrun with Asians. Clearly comical == prestigious.”
I think it’s only fair that elite schools have 50% Asians with 5% of US population since Jews at Harvard are 25%, yet only 2% US population.
The truth is too ugly. It’s so much easier to blame the victims…high SATs are all they have, they only focus on STEM, their parents are mean, they’re stubborn in their old country ways, they’re unlikable…
“Even Pizzagirl mentioned how comical it was that her son’s convocation was overrun with Asians. Clearly comical == prestigious.”
Pardon me? I NEVER said the convocation was “overrun” with Asians. What a horrible thing to accuse me of. I couldn’t care less what % of his school is Asian. (His girlfriend and most of his close friends happen to be Asian, for whatever that’s worth. Great! These are all nice kids as far as I’m concerned and everyone deserves their spot at Fancy U.)
I said it was comical how, when certain department names were read, how the graduating students were, one after another, predominantly Asian names and the same wasn’t true in other departments. Here’s the chemistry department … lots of people named Li or Lee or Ho or Kim. Here’s the classics department … not a single one. It was comical because it was NOTABLE, just as the names were notable in the African studies department because they often reflected African heritage.
I never said that “comical =/= prestigious.” Those are orthogonal concepts. They have absolutely nothing to do with one another. The chemistry department isn’t “less prestigious” than the classics department. Good lord, if you think that “not having Asians” = “prestigious,” then I guess African studies is the Most Prestigious Major of Them All.
“I think it’s only fair that elite schools have 50% Asians with 5% of US population since Jews at Harvard are 25%, yet only 2% US population.”
Are you jealous of what you perceive as Jewish acceptance into the “mainstream”?
“I would agree at this. I do not buy into the notion that one ethnic could be superior than other ethnic group. If anything, it is mostly due to the fact that it is a special group that is not a representation of the general population from their country of origin.”
I do. I think it’s quite possible Asians, as a whole, are “smarter” than whites or blacks. But again, so what? An elite school is trying to get an interesting mix of people, not just “the smartest.”
I think the working theory is that Asian students aren’t getting admitted as much as they *deserve/i. Recent conversations I’ve had with the parents of such students have been a bit puzzling, until I began to put the pieces together.
One father was adamant that there wasn’t enough recognition. I didn’t know how to take that. Was he expecting local news releases chronicling these students success? When I good naturedly agreed that all the kids in this group were indeed amazing, he abruptly ended the conversation. I’m not used to that happening and I realized a bit later he meant that HIS kid should have gotten more recognition.
One mother seemed quite agitated that the host mentioned some of the particular achievements of the admitted kids, particularly sports. “Why sports? Why he talk about sports?” she kept demanding to me. Apparently, sports is not part of an achievement list.
Another man rattled off his son’s perfect scores almost before the introduction was over. What can you say to that? I said “You must be very proud.” He replied bitterly that “It didn’t count for enough.” Which, is a very strange thing to say when your kid is admitted to a tippy-top. When I managed to slip in that 3/4 of these students had some perfect stats, he replied that some didn’t have to work at it.
One father started ranting immediately about money. Why didn’t “they” get more financial aid when it was clear how superior they were? (They turned down free rides to come here). That one went on and on about how his kid was a superstar and this place just didn’t seem to recognize it. There were a few references made to how much was allegedly spent to support athletes, but nothing for top students.
I think at the CEO and executive level level in corporate America, there is still a glass ceiling for both Asian Americans and women – sometimes with a justifiable (not unfair) reason (i.e., the way the Asian Americans are brought up may not be that “compatible” with that line of jobs legimately.)
Re: the comparison between the Jewish people and the Asian Americans at the executive, and the board room management level, how many in the board room in major corporations here are the former? How many are the latter? (Especially if we exclude “VP engineering” and include only those without an engineering background)?
I have seen many cases that an Asian American educated by a more “prestigious” business program like Warton School do not do as well as non-Asians from a much low tiered MBA programs, at corporate america. But we can legitimately argue that something else not obtained by receiving education at a top business program is more useful in this line of work. (It ain’t engineering.)
You keep on bringing up names when yours was a visual observation clearly stated in the above quote. The blogger wrote about the visual makeup of the classroom and if it is too “ethnic”, it is perceived as not prestigious. You used the word comical to describe what you saw, and, to me, the word “comical” is nowhere in the same universe as “prestigious”.
Nope, not jealous at all. Good for them and lucky for them that they are able to pass off as white and not face the stereotypes that other races may face due to obvious visual features. I just get tired of the old argument that Asians are overrepresented compared to their population; therefore, they should just be thankful and have no right to complain.
Being Asian and interesting are not mutually exclusive. Surely your son must think so since his girlfriend and close friends are Asian.
Mcat, just on top of my head this morning, two biggest companies with household name recognition with Asian CEO, Google and Microsoft. Google just announced it yesterday.
It all depends on how you say it doesn’t it? In truth one implies the other. College admissions is a zero sum game. The number of slots in each school is finite. Admitting more of one group would necessitate admitting fewer of other groups.
If it’s true that admitting more Asians would hurt the prestige of a school because they all flock to a handful of majors, how does UC Berkeley and UCLA manage to stay at the top of virtually all national and international rankings all these years?
Define “interesting”. I think attempting to achieve diversity through outer appearance is an extremely superficial way to go about it. Liberals like to accuse others of being racist, but often they are the most racist. I say liberals because liberals today dominate the media and academia. They like to put people in buckets and make assumptions about them at every turn, be it by race or class. A black kid who grew up in a Northeastern majority white upper middle class neighborhood will have much more in common with upper middle class whites than with poor blacks from the south, and is in no way disadvantaged growing up. And when it comes down to it, is probably still very different from other upper middle class blacks simply because he’s an individual, with his own fears, hopes, dreams, interests, strengths and weaknesses that are unique to him and his circumstance. Yet college admissions view all blacks as one and the same and adding to “diversity”. If that’s not racist I don’t know what is.
I’ve often wondered what would happen if we all simply go to school/work dressed like Darth Vader. When we can’t tell what someone looks like, would we then finally be able to see each person for who s/he is rather than what s/he is? Then you have to wonder, why do we need a Darth Vader mask to achieve that?
I can guarantee that UCB and UCLA UG have much less appeal to domestic applicants than Ivy League. If you are not in CA there is no comparison.
Asians will be in board rooms in great numbers - they just have to wait another generation. Their mass immigration started recently. Jewish mass immigration started more than 100 years ago.
Back on the original question - I have witnessed great success stories of Asian immigrant variety. Thi left Viet Nam at the fall. She arrived in the south bay with an assortment of young relatives and friends and little money among them. They shared a house and worked as a team to keep the house going. She worked soldering PC boards, her cousin worked toward a Dental degree, others worked other jobs and her husband worked two jobs and eventually bought a mall card shop. Then another. And then another. Today they live in Fancy Town.
Phong arrived in the US after spending time in the prisons of North Viet Nam. Again he had very little money on arrival. Instead of college he went straight for a technical certification and today he makes a good if not opulent six figure living.
These are just a couple of the personal stories. But I’d classify them more in the “scrappy” free market American success story category than examples of drivers of academic success. No whining - just work and team work. Any how, I don’t think that immigration status is the major factor driving Asian academic success because there are so many immigrant groups who do far worse than their numbers would suggest they should.
On the Asian Academic Success Formula question - one experience always struck me. When I’d bring the kids to piano or violin recital put on by their teacher, the students and their families were overwhelmingly Asian. It reminded me of when I was a kid in New England and the kiddo piano recital hall would be filled with white people. It’s a sign you’re setting your kids up for success IMO. A significant portion of Asian parents just seem to “get it” and prioritize the things that will matter in their kids futures.
" The blogger wrote about the visual makeup of the classroom and if it is too “ethnic”, it is perceived as not prestigious. You used the word comical to describe what you saw, and, to me, the word “comical” is nowhere in the same universe as “prestigious”."
Stop comparing me to the blogger whose blog mcat posted. I NEVER said anything about any particular racial makeup being considered “more prestigious” than another, or insinuated that a lot of Asians in a major / school / industry made it “less prestigious”. It was COMICAL in light of the assertion that “Asians aren’t overly concentrated in STEM, any more so than anyone else” when it was so visually and aurally not true.
“Nope, not jealous at all. Good for them [Jews] and lucky for them that they are able to pass off as white and not face the stereotypes that other races may face due to obvious visual features.”
I don’t know what you mean by “pass off as white.” I’m (half, paternal side) Jewish and I’m equally as white as any other white person.
“I think it’s quite possible Asians, as a whole, are “smarter” than whites or blacks. But again, so what? An elite school is trying to get an interesting mix of people, not just “the smartest.””
Being Asian and interesting are not mutually exclusive. Surely your son must think so since his girlfriend and close friends are Asian."
I didn’t say Asians were less interesting. I said that the goal of an elite school is not necessarily to find the smartest, rank order them in smartness, and pick from the top. They want an interesting, diverse mix which may or may not be “the” smartest as ranked by, say, SAT scores.
You’re doing a lot of putting words in my mouth that I really wish you wouldn’t.
“Even Pizzagirl mentioned how comical it was that her son’s convocation was overrun with Asians. Clearly comical == prestigious.”
This is where you ran off the rails. Nowhere, absolutely nowhere, did I say “and gosh, I was so horrified because there were so many Asians that this school was no longer prestigious.” You would have had a point if that’s what I’d actually said (or felt).