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<p>Hah! there have been problems in the high SES schools in the united states, and that’s just what we “know” about.</p>
<p>@sally305</p>
<p>" (Not saying anything about Africa or Latin America…I know there have been problems with Asia.)"</p>
<p>It is so easy to remember others’ problems while forgetting our best and richest schools have been caught in the cheating scandals within the last a few months.</p>
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<p>Yes, but many of the college applications from China really are fishy:</p>
<p>[The</a> China Conundrum - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/the-china-conundrum.html]The”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/the-china-conundrum.html)</p>
<p>“College officials and consultants say they are seeing widespread fabrication on applications, whether that means a personal essay written by an agent or an English proficiency score that doesnt jibe with a students speaking ability. American colleges, new to the Chinese market, struggle to distinguish between good applicants and those who are too good to be true.”</p>
<p>The “innate ability” argument doesn’t lead me to the conclusion “and therefore there shouldn’t be any efforts made in the area of affirmative action.” Should it? It doesn’t really make much difference to me if Asians are inherently smarter than whites who are in turn smarter than blacks (for the sake of argument). I still feel one’s experience is enhanced qualitatively by having smart people of all stripes, versus the smartest people of one stripe.</p>
<p>I grew up a POOR urm and went to school with many middle income kids. I was naturally smarter than most. Ethnicity has nothing to do with intelligence on average. The big difference is exposure and resources. Educated parents have a better ability to help their children with school work. This is like having a built in tutor. My parents were not educated (my dad did not graduate high school). English was not my parents primary language. </p>
<p>I took the SAT in high school with no preparation. I never took advanced math classes and scored a 620 on that section well over 30 years ago. My english score was horrible, no surprise there. Fast forward to my children. I would consider our family to be working class low middle income. I stressed education in my household requiring my children to take honors and AP classes. Both my children without an SAT tutor scored in the top 5% of the country. I think it is ludicrous when I hear one ethnicity is innately smarter than another. It is just hog wash. With money comes resources…period. It is of no surprise that on average Asians and Whites score higher than minorities because they on average make more money.</p>
<p>Also certain ethnicities regardless of income place a lot of pressure on their children to perform at a high level. It should not be shocking to see these low income ethnicities scoring high on standardized tests.</p>
<p>You cn’t explain the effect as a result of income since whites and asians at any given income score, on average, higher on the SAT than blacks at that same income.</p>
<p>^Yes you can because income is not in a bubble. Income and culture are the two important factors at work. A middle class urm family does not stress education to the extent an asian low income class family does. Culturally these two families priortize differently. On average the low income asian family will place education as the top priority where the middle income urm family will not. I see this difference amongst my child’s friends.</p>
<p>Amen Smileygerl… AMEN! I haven’t read through every post on this thread but I wonder if anyone had brought up the testing centers that exist all over the U.S. where asians begin studying for standardized tests at a very young age. I myself had never heard of these places until recently. Apparently hagwons are very much a part of the asian culture and they think nothing of plunking down $5,000 in order to get the best scores possible…</p>
<p>My daughter could never ever have that kind of luxury… so she studies on her own. Even though she is incredibly busy with all of her classes, volunteering, work and EC’s. But because she is a URM, it will be ASSUMED that her future successes are b/c of the color of her skin. Not because of hard work despite the mind boggling odds against her or because she is just as smart as her white/asian counterparts. </p>
<p>So many have such a sense of entitlement because of their race, their money or their educational background and I for one think it stinks. No one has a right to that elusive golden admissions ticket. Its a crap shoot, like life itself… my daughter realizes that and she is working her ass off to ensure that she is a realistic candidate for these top schools. If she makes it in because of her merits… then great, if she doesn’t, life goes on!</p>
<p>^^ Smileygerl, quit working in generalizations.</p>
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<p>So you agree that it’s culture at work, not income. Blacks making money does not erase the gap.</p>
<p>beachlover15,</p>
<p>Why? Generalization speaks to the large group as a whole overall. Speaking about specific individual situations does nothing at all.</p>
<p>All the information concerning the different ethnicities works with large populations of these groups. On average the high income minorities place importance on education but not to the extent asian families do.</p>
<p>I’ve always been personally very wary of these studies that try to find some sort of corellation between innate intelligience and genetic ethinicity (whatever that means) primarily because, to me, those two characteristics are very difficult to define from the outset.</p>
<p>I do not swallow IQ as a precise measure of anything, but to avoid a lengthy debate with any resident psychologist or social scientist who worships at that altar, let me assume that it can approximate intelligence (again, whatever that means).</p>
<p>THe notion of genetic race or ethnicity itself, not to mention isolating it from environmental factors, is so unclear due to miscegenation, slavery, imprecise or unkonwn measures of heredity and familial lines - I would think that to an actual scientist or even a social scientist trying to draw some sort of firm conclusions this type of analysis would be anathema.</p>
<p>I think even those clowns who wrote “The Bell Curve” came to the concluson that you can’t really fully isolate nature from nuture.</p>
<p>The problem with generalizations starts when they are based on our own personal assumptions, experiences and observations. And, along the way, we dig up- and give extra credence to- stats or info that only support what we think, in the first place.</p>
<p>My family was immigrant, the goals was to make a better life, there were multiple reasons why they left the old country and education was extremely important-- despite the fact that the elders could not help or guide the youngers.</p>
<p>The example was used earlier of the Asian parents working double shift at the laudromat or somesuch, to afford better ed for their kids. Now, someone is saying ability is innate- and using Africans as an example- but downplaying the abilities of US Blacks. </p>
<p>All along, some have said, it’s Black families’ faults, they dont push as hard. Who says so? Where do we get this generalization about Black parents? Who says Asian parents, educated or not, are inherently better able to guide their kids? What assumptions are we smack up against?</p>
<p>Also, fgs, the standardized tests are just tests, nothing makes them a perfect representation. Get off that one- or at least reexamine your thoughts. They are important, but they are not, in themselves, some absolute. How important do you think it is, to elite adcoms, if some little kids start prepping for the test early? </p>
<p>*A middle class urm family does not stress education to the extent an asian low income class family does. * How do you say that, without generalizing?</p>
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<p>So the Asian kid should be forced to work harder for the same admissions result, have less of a social life, because their parents put more pressure on them? Sorry, doesn’t seem fair.</p>
<p>I do not even know what people are arguing anymore.</p>
<p>You know, this thread was about mismatches once.</p>
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<p>Are elite college admissions supposed to be prizes for the amount of hard work exerted?</p>
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<p>But what if that is true? What if you could quantify on average that black families don’t push their kids as hard as Asian families? Let’s assume that to be true on average.</p>
<p>What on earth does this have to do with elite admissions and INDIVIDUAL black and Asian kids who are being discussed by an adcom? People aren’t just microcosms of the average of their gender.</p>
<p>collegealum314,</p>
<p>My point SAT/ACT scores have nothing to do with innate intelligence. To use SAT/ACT scores as a means to determine mismatch is suspect. As for studies any result can be seen by adjusting the paremeters of the study. I don’t understand your comment.</p>
<p>^Pizzagirl I agree. I think it is important to view each individual’s accomplishments taking into consideration everything else. Subjectivity in admissions is part of the formula. Hence, there will always be those who are unhappy with the system.</p>
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<p>Were you only talking about SAT/ACT scores? It looked like you were saying that Asian performance in class, on exams, in academic ECs are not.<br>
“Viewing it in context” also means that Asians have to make more of a personal sacrifice, have less of a social life or have less fun, in order to get the same result. </p>
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<p>Well, people are using reasons to justify why certain policies are fair, in this case the reason is Asians are pressured to work all the time so their work should be worth less, and this is the argument I was responding to. Maybe you should ask that question to them.</p>