<p>
Is it possible that Yale draws a more artsy set of applicants, so a strong math/engineering candidate might be more of a standout there? I don’t know, actually - it’s just that anecdotally it seems that the kids I know with a more arts/humanities bent seem to opt for either Yale or Brown.</p>
<p>Calmom, I highly doubt that number, too. We haven’t heard anything like that in all our dealings with Columbia.</p>
<p>However, I was struck by the high numbers of Asian students reporting on the ED board for Columbia. If they are at all representational, one would be hard-pressed to support a charge of quota-ism there!</p>
<p>I also noted the high number of Asians admitted, yesterday, including some with lesser “stats” than non-Asians who were deferred/rejected - I was going to post before Epiphany, then realized that no one had claimed that Columbia was discriminating agains Asians, and that historically, Columbia was one of the only Ivies that had never really discriminated against Jews. (The nature of its applicant pool made it futile to even try, even if they had wanted to.)</p>
<p>I’d like to note something else, in response to the various posts speculating that there is discrimination because of high school gc’s depicting Asians as quiet or docile, as well as the focus on violin-playing Asian math & science majors. If you look at the Columbia thread, there is a very broad range of ECs & activities for the Asian applicants – they are NOT all science nerds, or averse to community service, etc. The problem with the stereotype is that the Ivies have plenty of outgoing, involved Asians to choose from, with all sorts of interests. I do NOT think it is “discrimination” for a college to use its holistic admissions practice to choose an Asian debater and prospective history major over a more studious Asian pre-med student with higher SATs. That’s just the process at work.</p>
<p>(In reply to both),</p>
<p>While I was at first also suprised to hear the 30% figure, upon reflection, I was not. Columbia is famous for receiving an abundance of apps from students who will do anything to go to school in Manhattan itself. Columbia particularly sniffs out those who appear to be in love only with The City, vs. understanding what Columbia’s orientation, purpose is apropos The City. That was even brought up 2 yrs. ago on CC. </p>
<p>I would doubt that these reps are misinformed, since they represent and work in Admissions. </p>
<p>As to the high scorers being rejected (this ED round, too), notice (a) several high scorers were accepted; (b) some of the high-score rejects admit to having mediocre something else, or are noticeably silent about “other.” And I see this every yr., every early round, for every Ivy.</p>
<p>Epiphany, I’m still quibbling over the definition of “qualified” – that is, assuming you heard correctly- maybe they are setting a very high bar for use of that term. </p>
<p>I’d note that the ED acceptance rate this year was about 24.4% – if only 30% of applicants were “qualified” - that would make ED close to a sure bet. Of course it could be argued that the ED pool is stronger – but there are enough high stat candidates who report being rejected or deferred that I still think that the number makes no sense. Weeding out the high stat kids who are poor fits because they simply want to come to NY have no commitment or understanding of the Columbia core is not the same as determining which students are “qualified”. </p>
<p>I do think that Ivies like Harvard may exaggerate the number of qualified applicants that they get, according to their PR – I’ve always thought 80% is on the high end for a school that is so well known that they must get tons of applications from kids who don’t have a clue as to what is expected or what the competition is – so I’d expect a much lower number that would make it past the first cut. </p>
<p>But again… 30% just doesn’t make sense to me, especially since Columbia is not as well known as other Ivies, and NYU would be a much bigger draw for those who simply want to attend school in the Big Apple.</p>
<p>with regard, again, to the figure, I guess I feel yes and no about Columbia’s attractiveness. You have to “love” urban life & regular interaction with that, to (a) be accepted to C; (b) enjoy C. That would seem apparent to most anyone, but in case it wasn’t, those facts were emphasized repeatedly at that intro talk. Here’s a paraphrase, in reply to an audience question: </p>
<p>‘What kind of person should <em>not</em> apply to C? A student who does not want to be integrally a part of the city, including with regard to his or her coursework. Much of what we do in any given course is done partly “in field.” We relate academics to the City, and vice-versa. If you want to remain in your dorm room, on campus, for 4 yrs., do yourself a favor: do not apply to C.’</p>
<p>Lots of people love NYC – to visit or to live, but not every student wants to attend college in an inescapably urban environment.</p>
<p>To clarify the HYP “qualification” bar & quote; if anything, perhaps they slightly inflate that figure (rather than Columbia deflating their own figure). In a couple of cases with HYP reps, it’s been more carefully stated as, “80-90% of applicants could do the work.” I interpret that differently than “qualified.” I interpret it as, They could manage/pass, + We do attract supremely qualified students.</p>
<p>Given the combo of students attracted to NY, + <em>slightly</em> less reachiness to Columbia vs. HYP, I wouldn’t be surprised if many students throw in C there in a list that may include no other reaches, but plenty of other NY Metro schools.</p>
<p>Well, maybe the problem is that the work at Columbia is a lot harder than the work at Harvard, so it’s harder for them to find students capable of keeping up? ;)</p>
<p>Columbia, like Chicago, attracts a somewhat different pool of applicants than HYP. Its strong suit–as well as its limitations in the eyes of some–has been its humanities core. This is on top of NYC-- a draw for some, a drawback for others.</p>
<p>Yes Marite, but if the statements of admissions officers are to be believed, Columbia manages to attract a uniquely poorly qualified pool of applicants. Since Chicago accepts well over 30% of its applicant pool (36% last year, 40% or more in previous years), it would appear that all of the smartest students are applying to Harvard (where 80% are qualified) or Chicago, leaving Columbia stuck with an applicant pool that is 70% inadequate… leaving them with no choice but to admit Asians since there’s not much else to choose from. (to relate the stats again to this thread).</p>
<p>Personally, I think that between the hype put out by admissions officers combined with the natural misunderstandings that can occur in oral communications, particularly when someone is speaking in front of a group, that none of the figures are correct. I’ll bet that Chicago is not nearly as “self-selecting” as claims, that far less than 80% of Harvard’s applicants are truly Harvard material, and that far more of Columbia’s applicant pool is perfectly well qualified to attend Columbia than 30%. My guess is that at each college, around 65% of the applicant pool is well-qualified, and that differentials in admission rates are primarily a result of the ratio between number of applicants and slots available.</p>
<p>Calmom–I concur with everything you say, and I thank you for putting it together better than i could. If anything, this discussion (while off the central topic), shows that Columbia doesn’t do the PR thing as well as HYP, or, more likely, doesn’t want to.</p>
<p>To piggyback on Calmom’s post…</p>
<p>I read the Overachievers by Alexandra Robbins. Although the first paragraph starts out a little over the top, woven in between the student stories is some good sound facts and advice (which is definitely why the book is worth a read for parents and kids going through the admissions cycle).</p>
<p>From p. 202</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>“If anything, this discussion (while off the central topic), shows that Columbia doesn’t do the PR thing as well as HYP, or, more likely, doesn’t want to.”</p>
<p>I could buy that. OTOH, I suspect that the 30% figure may be more accurately defined as “well-suited” than “well-qualified.” (Again, with the combination of intellectualism, preparation, & urban learning combined.) My D is nowhere near an urban archetype, even though she enjoys NY. She applied to 3 other Ivies, but not C. (For this reason: bad fit)</p>
<p>And again with some rationale behind the HYP figures. Since they’ve “been turning away whole classes,” & sometimes twice that amount in the last few years, does not the Highly-Qualified percentage compute?</p>
<p>Just playing Devil’s Advocate here.</p>
<p>Calmom:</p>
<p>I agree in particular with your last statement. I concur that Columbia does not hype/is not hyped as much as Harvard. I just finished reading a Crimson article about books written by Asians (i.e. people living in Asia) about getting in/being at Harvard. One book has sold 1.8 millions copies! I actually wonder now whether applicants from China, Taiwan, Korea, etc…, are being counted as Asians (21%) or internationals (9%).</p>
<p>I also think that there may be a lot of misinformation about Columbia. Its uniqueness compared to HYP may not be appreciated by those who feel compelled to apply to “all Ivies.”</p>
<p>Going back for a sec to the original topic: I think colleges don’t admit overqualified Asian students because we spend most of our time studying and preparing for spelling bees and math bowls instead of partying and having fun (look at me: I’m spending my free time on a site called “CollegeConfidential”!). Call me biased, but I think there’s an inverse correlation between the SAT scores and the amount of social and networking skills that students have, and colleges want interesting people, and they really don’t want to be known as a haven for “nerds” and “dweebs”. So overqualified, bookworm kids (an many of us Asians fall in this category) should not take too much offense if they are rejected in favor of another kid who may be just as bright but much more gifted socially. </p>
<p>So, what I say to all my fellow Asians, is to leave that “optional” race box blank. Just don’t put anything. Better yet, research your family tree to find a relative who is from another minority with a better admittance rate. Unless you have a stereotypical Asian name (like Wang-Lung or Devashish), this can only benefit you. </p>
<p>And to anyone who got a 2400 (or similar) on the SAT: start going to parties. Make new friends. In the end, this might be the difference in your HYPS application.</p>
<p>calmom, I think admissions officers usually mean “qualified by stats alone” when they say that 70-80% of their applicants are qualified. I don’t think it’s anything particularly deep or meaningful, just that on the level of the numbers, the applicant pools are pretty highly qualified.</p>
<p>MIT published some [url=<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/index.shtml]statistics[/url”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/index.shtml]statistics[/url</a>] earlier this year showing that almost 80% of MIT applicants have above a 700 on their SAT in math, about 50% have above a 700 on verbal, and 70% are ranked in the top 5% of their high school classes.</p>
<p>As far as those basic stats go, I’d say, yes, a very large percentage of MIT applicants are qualified to attend the school.</p>
<p>A reason for the discrepancies in HPY’s applicant pools as compared to those of many of the other most selective schools such as Columbia is the high number of early apps to HPY where many of the top applicants are accepted, and they either withdraw their other apps or not send them out, as many have them on hold status until early notification. So those kids tend to be out of the regular pool, and if you look at the stats, that account for many kids. It will be interesting how the end of early acceptances is going to affect this situation. I think there may be a loss of some top applicants who will so want this whole situation over by the end of the year, that they will apply ED to one of the other highly selective schools such as the other ivies which could jack up the quality of those early pools. I believe I read something acknowledging this potential loss. That is one of the reasons these top schools are not committing to this stoppage of early programs; the effect is yet to be known. </p>
<p>As for Jian Li being accepted to Yale, I don’t think it is any surprise when a kid with such high academic stats is accepted to any of the top schools. It;s when they are not accepted that whispers of the Asian quotas, and other issues come out of the woodwork.</p>
<p>There’s so much misinformation and incorrect analogies here that I don’t know which to address first (but here it goes).</p>
<p>Unlike what a good no. of posters here claim - Asian-Am students DO face bias when it comes to admissions at the elite universities.</p>
<p>Daniel Golden, the WSJ Pulizter winning journalist has included an entire chapter about the admissions bias against Asian-Am applicants in his book “The Price of Admission.” (If I recall correctly, according to Golden, Asian-Am admits, on avg., have SAT scores 50-60 points higher than their white counterparts and have the LOWEST admit rate - 3% lower than white applicants).</p>
<p>Here are some excerpts from one of Golden’s WSJ articles:</p>
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</p>
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</p>
<p><a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB116321461412620634-lMyQjAxMDE2NjEzMTIxMTE0Wj.html[/url]”>http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB116321461412620634-lMyQjAxMDE2NjEzMTIxMTE0Wj.html</a></p>
<p>Here is an excellent and in-depth article about this from the Harvard Crimson.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=515779#[/url]”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=515779#</a></p>
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</p>
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</p>
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</p>
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</p>
<p>For those who still think that there is no bias against Asian-Am applicants - the comparison with Jewish-Am applicants is telling.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Jewish-Ams comprise LESS than 2% of the US pop. and yet, they make up 30% of the Ivy League student body.</p>
<p>Asian-Ams comprise MORE than 4% of the pop. (let’s just say DOUBLE that of the Jewish-AM pop.) and yet, they ONLY make up HALF of what the Jewish-Am student pop. is at Ivy League schools (this is especially telling since Jewish-Am applicants tend to have many of same characteristics as Asian-Am applicants - i.e. - play classical instrument, etc.).</p>
<p>In light of the figures for Jewish-Am students at Ivy League universities - the whole argument of “diversity” basically seems to be a bunch of BS.</p>
<p>As for the perception (of both admissions officers and posters alike) that Asian-Am applicants aren’t “well-rounded” students with interesting extracurricular activities - an old Times magazine article (1987) points out that such a perception simply isn’t true (it’s nice to see that things haven’t changed much in 20 years).</p>
<p>
[quote]
The stereotype of Asian Americans as narrow mathematical paragons is unfair, however, and inaccurate. Many are far from being liberal arts illiterates, according to a study that will be published this fall by Sociologists Ruben G. Rumbaut and Kenji Ima of San Diego State University. They found that in overall grade-point averages, virtually every Asian-American group outscored the city’s white high school juniors and seniors. Many Asian-American students excel in the arts, from photography to music. New York City’s famed Juilliard School has a student body estimated to be 25% Asian and Asian American. Juilliard President Joseph Polisi rejects the view that Asian students are uniquely talented. “It’s not just being Asian that makes them good musicians,” he says. “It’s a matter of dedication, family support and discipline.”
[/quotes]
</p>
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</p>
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</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,965326,00.html[/url]”>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,965326,00.html</a></p>
<p>In Golden’s book, Golden writes of an Asian-Am student who PURPOSELY did everything not to be seen as the stereotypical Asian student. She didn’t focus on math/sciences and spent a lot of her time organizing charity-works (winning numerous awards for her efforts), among other things.</p>
<p>Despite this - did she get into one of the elite universities? No. Her scores weren’t good enough. While she was an excellent student (on par with that of white admits), she, unfortunately, was behind the 8-ball in comparison to the scores of other Asian-Am applicants (it seems despite “other qualities” - that Asian-Am applicants with the highest test scores are still preferable).</p>
<p>Frankly, people don’t know Asian-Am parents if they think that these parents don’t know about what elite colleges are looking for. Extracurricular activities are emphasized, just like academics.</p>
<p>Here’s a video clip of a Nightline piece on this topic.</p>
<p><a href=“ABC News Videos - ABC News”>http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2625731</a></p>
<p>While there are a no. of other misconceptions - I’d like to clarify the one regarding admissions for athletes.</p>
<p>Athletes do benefit significantly with regard to admissions at the elite universities and LACs.</p>
<p>For example, during the mid-1990s, the avg. SAT score for Duke men basketball players was in the **mid-900s<a href=“out%20of%201600”>/b</a>.</p>
<p>And due to the continued futility of the Duke football team, the university, a few years ago, LOWERED the admissions standards for football recruits.</p>
<p>Stanford has the highest admissions standards for FB recruits, followed by Northwestern (under the old SAT format, a few recruits at Stanford were admitted with scores in the mid-1100s).</p>
<p>And while universities aren’t nearly as generous with recruits in non-revenue sports, the admissions benefit is still considerable.</p>
<p>Under the old format, Duke lax recruits were regularly admitted with SAT scores in the 1300s (low 1300s was acceptable if one was an elite "blue chip
recruit).</p>
<p>The same thing happens in the Ivy League where athletes generally have scores 100-150 points below that of the rest of the student body.</p>
<p>And one more thing, more and more colleges and universities are beginning to admit less qualified male applicants (basically, WM applicants) under the guise of affirmative action due to increasing gender imbalances (note - there is a difference btwn affirmative action which gives an advantage to those that are “less qualified” and that which ensures that equally or better-qualified candidates aren’t discriminated against due to race, gender, etc.; the former usually applies to college admissions and the latter to the workplace).</p>
<p>“Frankly, people don’t know Asian-Am parents if they think that these parents don’t know about what elite colleges are looking for. Extracurricular activities are emphasized, just like academics.”</p>
<p>The problem that I’ve seen is that the Asian kids all are pushed into, strongly encouraged to participate in or are attracted to the same kind of ECs: swimming, tennis, classical piano, violin, Model UN, Mu Alpha Theta, National Honor Society, Chinese school.</p>
<p>I do know Asian American parents and kids – from a variety of Asian cultures. I also have been told by the students during interviews and socially that they wanted to do things like art, acting, football, but their parents wouldn’t let them. Consequently, what happens is that a student who may have passionately and creatively pursued acting, art or football and then stood out in admissions ends up half heartedly doing what their parents wished, and then blending in with the other Asian and white students who used the same activities in vain attempts to punch an admission ticket to elite colleges.</p>
<p>Note: I also mentioned white students who do those activities (with the exception of Chinese school) because they, too, tend not to stand out in admission because so many white and Asian students use those activities as resume dressing. The URMs, however, who do those activities can stand out in admissions because relatively few URMs do those activities. (Certainly, URMs who qualify for admission to top colleges will stand out, too, because of their rarity). </p>
<p>Of course, if one is a top national officer in one of those activities, regardless of one’s race, you’ll stand out in admission. But being a top national scorer in, for instance, Mu Alpha Theta, won’t make one stand out in admission at HPYS because there are so many top national scorers in MAO and there are even more impressive achievements like MIT’s RSI that are possible for math-talented students.</p>
<p>
That statement is untrue. According to numbers reported on by Hillel, at the undergraduate level, Jews are enrolled in the Ivies at approximately the following rates:</p>
<p>Penn - 31%
Harvard 30%
Columbia 25%
Brown - 25%
Yale 23%
Cornell-22%
Princeton 14%
Dartmouth - 11%</p>
<p>The overall enrollment rate at all 8 Ivies is 24% (approximately 13800 undergrads identified as Jewish out of approx. 58,200 overall). </p>
<p>I would note that it took me 10 minutes of internet research to determine that Golden’s statement as to Ivy League enrollment was erroneous.</p>