<p>This statement (not by me) applies only to the top private colleges. As I’ve said many times, some LACs that are ranked very high consider Asian-Americans as under-represented and are trying hard to atract them. But it is an uphill battle. Between the lack of name brand recognition and the relative isolation of these LACs, they are just not attracting as many URMS, including Asians, as they would like. State university systems present a different picture altogether. I read on the Boston Globe that UMass serves pho, a Vietnamese noodle soup. It would suggest that a significant proportion of the UMass student body is Vietnamese (I can’t think of a huge demand for pho from non-Vietnamese!).</p>
<p>We are not talking about ALL Asians or ALL college applicants. We are talking about the proportion of Asians applying to elite colleges here. I have been to the true Chinatowns here in NY and there are many Asians who are not even thinking about college. I think we are all well aware that this exists. I can tell you that the Asians in our area who tend to be excellent students with high education aspirations, that there is a sameness to the school where they apply, and an aversion to some of the safeties and excellent small schools. THe trend seems to show that if they don’t get into a name they recognize, it’s off to the state U. Again, this is not ALL, but bigger percentage than for other students who are in this elite group that they have the profile to be admissable to a top school. Many parents who find out the tough go of getting into the most selective schools,even with their kids’ high stats, and the years these parents had had the mindset that theier kids were HPY bound, end up looking at many other schools to help their kids find a good match if they do not get into a dream school. There are Asian parents disappointed that their kid is not at HPY, years after the fact and they cannot seem to let it go. That situation seems to occur much more often with Asian families. </p>
<p>I think that the stereo typical goals that are shown for Asian famies here , are not harmful in themselves. It’s just they can and often do cross the line where it causes more stress and distress for all involved. And this does not pertain to ony Asian families, but to all families that fit this stereotype of “HPY or bust” with the kid who is busted as far as the family is concerned.</p>
Now you are spouting nonsense. Do you know anyone who works at the schools under discussion? Have you ever met a professor from one of these places? Do you know how little money many of them make compared to their peers in industry? Do you know how dedicated to their universities they are? And sure, 50 years it was pretty much rich white men who attended. But that’s who applied…</p>
<p>Each time new applicants push the status quo, these institutions have responded by setting an example for the country of how to open up. If I weren’t wholly suspicious that you are saying these things on purpose to cause people to start screaming, I might start screaming…</p>
<p>One shouldn’t really blame the Ivies for rejecting the 2400 bookworm shy Asian kids. Ivies are looking for people who will be outspoken, social, will contribute to campus life, will make connections and will succeed in life. They don’t want bookworms whether they are Asian, Jewish or whatever. It’s just that there are more Asian bookworms than in any other race, so Asians get rejected at higher numbers.</p>
<p>So any Asian applicant should just omit their race from their app (or change their name so it sounds like they are a URM). I know I’m not putting my race, because if I do, of course the Ivies will hold me to a higher, Asian standard.</p>
<p>Also, please don’t call any1 here racist. We’re all CC’ers first, regardless of our race</p>
<p>fast27, I know Asian students who do not have test scores that are all that high who have been admitted at the Ivies, but they tended to have interests outside of math/sciences. I don’t think that it really matters whether you check the box or not – I think the problem is that the kids with the high-end scores are also disproportionately focused on math/science/engineering/premed. So it gets very competitive in those areas. I’ll bet that if a study were controlled for those factors, the score discrepancy between Asians/non-Asian admit rates would disappear. That is, I’ll bet that in general, scores of all prospective math/engineering/premed applicants are probably higher than the general applicant pool, and also that there are a higher percentage of Asians applying to those majors than to majors in the arts & humanities. So if you simply narrowed down a study to compare application and admit rates by major, I think you would see a very different picture.</p>
<p>In other words, if you are applying as a math major and have a 700 SAT Math score, I don’t think omitting your race will help your application – you will still be competing against a large number of applicants who have 800’s. If, on the other hand, you are applying as a philosophy major, I don’t think indicating your race would hurt – there is no one who is going to say, “there are too many Asians in our philosophy department”, or even, “there are too many introverted, bookish students in our philosophy department”.</p>
<p>Also, many, many 2400 test score, shy, bookworm kids are admitted to HPY each year. And many of them are Asian. The question is whether they should ALL be admitted which would change the college communities that increase the percentage of that type. Nearly all of the colleges in the country are drooling for these kids. It’s just their apps tend to be clustered in the top schools where they are looking for other types as well.</p>
<pre><code> Are SATs ang GPA’s a better guarantee fo success than " soft " factors in the long run? No, but neither are " soft " factors. They are however a better guarantee of performance in college. So what of Einstein had problems in his childhood or high school? Truly creative people will have success, if they have the talent and persistence whether you are doing it in a coffee house of the Swiss Patent Office.
</code></pre>
<p>Wrong marite, what you claim as an obsession with HYP is a passing fad, it will not be the ultimate reality that is going to happen , fads of all kinds are going to happen anywhere ,that does not mean however people will be buying up that pad. A lot of Asian immigrants don’t apply to HYP certainly not here in California.
Those who grew up here in California know better do not misinform the public.
I know the application patterns of schools here in California. Your claim that those schools in Asia are public and HYP is privates has little bearing on the matter. HYP does what it does in the admissions process for purely selfish reasons.,</p>
<p>Marite,
Why if everyone in the college is the same just like you does that mean that you are not able to emphatize with people of different races? of different cultures? you place a very poor stock on the capability of people to understand human nature. Way back in the 80’s and 90’s there were fewer Asians than whites at CUNY BAruch and the UC campuses and Asians certainly did not demand race preferences. Now that there more Asians than whites in the freshman classes in 5 of the UC campuses, whites are fleeing to whiter UC campuses and expressing alarm at the presumptive Asian domination of pulbic universities including CUNY Baruch. Or is this really a matter about Asian competition versus your son?</p>
<p>You mean to tell me that Middlebury, Bowdoin, Bates, Colby don’t attract attract a lot of Asian Americans ? Should that be very different for the case of black Americans or white Americans? It is cold up there. I don’t see many whites or blacks here in California applying to those schools either. So what if U Mass Boston serves pho ( beef tendon soup )? Ther percentage of Asians at U -Mass Boston is higher than that of Latinos Marita even though there are more Latinos
than Asians in Boston. The only thing that means is that Asians show better academic performance than Latinos in schools. And I don’t care much for paella, empanaditas or morros y Cristianos either marita.</p>
<p>I hate to say this and please, correct me if I am wrong, but you seem like a very angry person who is concerned only with yourself and your own race. It seems that you will only be happy if the highest GPA/SAT scorers get into HYP, and you refuse to consider the value of any other admission criteria. Is this not true?</p>
<p>Regardless of what any of us on this board think, the decision about Jian Li will be made by the U.S. courts. I am not an expert in U.S. constitutional law, and it would be nice if someone on this thread were, but I believe they must make a finding that Princeton’s admissions practices do discriminate on the basis of race, and then they must apply a “strict scrutiny” test to determine whether the discrimination is justified.</p>
<p>Is anyone else qualified to elaborate on this?</p>
<p>Kidlat, I don’t think your statement that “whites are fleeing to whiter UC campuses” stands up to scrutiny. My daughter applied to UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara and it had nothing to do with “white flight” – we live in a predominantly Asian area and it did not occur to any of us to even check to see what the racial composition of various UC campuses was – it was much more a matter of social-cultural fit & geography, and a perception of some campuses as being too conservative. Both my kids were also accepted at Berkeley, and both opted for private LAC’s – and if they had stayed in state, both would have chosen UCSC or UCSB over Berkeley. Very big focus on “happiness” factor in our family – my kids were guided a lot in their choices by where their friends seemed to be happy. </p>
<p>There may be a very different cultural expectations at work here: our family idea of a perfect college makes us value factors such as flexibility in curriculum, small class sizes, social life on & around the campus, geographic location. Maybe other families put a much higher priority on reputation, prestige, and the perceived academic strength and quality of the college, and career preparation. If you look at the list of majors for the various campuses you may find that the UCSC & UCSB don’t offer as much focus on the types of majors that Asians and their parents see as most desirable. The fact that UCSC is perceived as being one of the least selective campuses might be deterrent for someone who values prestige, but not for someone who places greater value on lifestyle and social fit.</p>
<p>In other words, I don’t think there is “white flight” at all – I think that on the contrary, it is the Asians who are avoiding those campuses because of their reputations as being academically inferior, or the respective pothead and party school reps of UCSC & UCSB.</p>
<p>"Asian Americans are Americans, they do not have to be asked to go to another country to get a college education… "</p>
<p>They do if they want the American institutions to mirror the priorities & procedures of other country’s institutions. If I move to <em>settle</em> overseas & expect their educational or any system to mimic that of the U.S., I’m going to do 2 things: (a) not succeed in integrating into that system, in a way which allows me to take full advantage of that system, (b) spin a lot of my wheels and/or create a lot of tension in a futile effort to Americanize them.</p>
<p>There’s a great myth that the U.S. is a place (& the only place) where an immigrant can come & merely transplant their native culture into the American lifesytle. Every country has an existing culture. (That’s what Alumother was describing, earlier.) No one has to abandon their personal, family, cultural outlook & practices when they come here – merely to understand that these will not dominate in a different location. And there may be that intellectual understanding, or even that intuitive assumption, but it is ambivalently embraced, to say the least.</p>
<p>“Also, many, many 2400 test score, shy, bookworm kids are admitted to HPY each year. And many of them are Asian. The question is whether they should ALL be admitted which would change the college communities that increase the percentage of that type. Nearly all of the colleges in the country are drooling for these kids. It’s just their apps tend to be clustered in the top schools where they are looking for other types as well.” (Also mentioned elsewhere, & by others, but yes, it does bear repeating.)</p>
<p>Bay, my understanding of the legal process is that they must FIRST make a finding that Li in particular was rejected because of racial discrimination; it’s not a class action suit, so therefore the wider practices of the university don’t become relevant except as to show how the decision was made in Li’s case. Claims of racial discrimination can probably easily be negated by evidence that many Asians with lesser SAT scores were admitted over Li – the fallacy of the logic of discrimination is the assumption that the SAT score itself plays great weight in the decision making process.</p>
<p>What I reported came straight from an Asian admissions officer at Bowdoin. We heard the same thing at Bates from a non-Asian admissions officer.</p>
<p>As for the rest of your arguments, they are logically so faulty it’s not worth debating with you.</p>
<p>It’s quite simple, statistically. Let’s say you’re a prestigious, elite university. For convenience, let’s say you are the entire admissions committee and you are even perfect and infallible:</p>
<p>You have sufficient space to accept “X” many students per year. However, the number of students applying each year is “Y”, and Y is a much bigger number than X. You therefore cannot accept all the students who apply. Obviously, you can throw out all the applications from students who are obviously not qualified to attend your university. This leaves you with “Z” number of students. Z is <em>still</em> higher than X, so you cannot accept all of these students even though each and every one of them is “good enough” to succeed at your school. You therefore look at factors other than basic academic qualification in deciding who out of “Z” gets in and who doesn’t. This is not a simple process of sorting by grades and taking “X” many applications off the top; you can’t quantify things like extracurricular activities here, so you have to look through them one by one and pretty much make judgment calls about which set of X many students will benefit your school.</p>
<p>On the other end, this means that there’s simply no way for a student to be “so good that no one can turn me down”.</p>
<p>Calmon, I haven’t looked at college application form in a few years , but HYP have no engineering or business schools and I doubt they ask for a major in their application forms. If they do, most kids would put “undeclared”. Thus, I doubt many admissions officers would know what majors the applicants would choose ultimately choose. In addition, “premed” is not a major.</p>
<p>Hmm, cbreeze, here’s the link to Princeton’s engineering school: <a href=“http://engineering.princeton.edu/[/url]”>http://engineering.princeton.edu/</a>.
Brown asks its engineering applicants to submit an additional reference and essay.
And University of Pennsylvania has a pretty well known business school.
Almost every school asks for the applicant’s major.</p>