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Not sure about the others, but Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Filipino are well represented at UC Berkeley.</p>
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You have quite a large empirical data from previous acceptance, you can reverse engineer the chance of a student getting accepted at a certain school. If the posters on CC cannot correlate past acceptances to future, they do not deserve to go to college. 99%? you are kidding.</p>
<p>"Why is that the Jewish population at these schools are so much higher than their actual population?</p>
<p>Since the Asian student populations at top schools are around 18%, are you saying that Jewish students are more qualified? If it’s OK to have Jewish populations at 30%, why not Asians at 30% also(I’m talking about Ivies) ?"</p>
<p>—To this poster, it’s probably because “Jewish” is a religious affiliation according to colleges ALTHOUGH some Jewish people may see it as an ethnicity. Therefore, since there are many, many mixed marriages between Jews and Christians, the children might not be practicing Jews but might be considered ethnically Jewish and therefore put that on their college app. Really, I live in New England in an area with a fair amount of Jewish kids and I’d say 3/4 of them are only half-Jewish. In a U.S. census they might not define themselves as Jewish. But in a college app. they might. So that’s one reason for the percentage to be higher.
Also, since Jews have been emigrating for quite a while – the German Jews in the 1840s even, and others later on – Jewish children may recieve the same sort of traditionally WASP preference that other white kids do, because they attend the elite New England boarding schools in large numbers and are legacies at these schools and at Ivy League colleges and may have been for several generations. Asians simply aren’t this established.</p>
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<p>Only for schools that admit strictly by the numbers. For the schools I follow, some of them over five years and hundreds of applicants here, I can’t predict with any certainty who will be accepted. I can usually predict who won’t (although I keep it to myself) unless the applicant is so far off base that they really need some urging to recalibrate their college lists. I have told two students in five years that they were sure-bet locks to admitted. I was correct in both cases. It’s really, really difficult without seeing the totality of the application.</p>
<p>Here’s the problem. For the colleges I follow, virtually all of the applicants have “the stats” to be accepted. There is minimal difference in stats between those who apply, those who are accepted, and those who are rejected. It all boils down to the “other” stuff.</p>
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<p>I would say that more than 50% of the chances threads on College Confidential don’t even include race or ethnicity. Another 50% include no meaningful estimate of class rank. Virtually none include a qualitative description of an EC curricular activity (or whatever) to be the focus of the application. Some neglect to mention being international, which of course changes the calculations dramatically. Without that most basic information, it is 100% impossible to even make a wild stab at the chances of admission. Yet, posters willingly reply, “oh, you have a great chance”. I just shake my head.</p>
<p>That’s why I say that the bulk of posters here don’t really understand the admissions game. It’s no knock on College Confidential, the posters here are more knowledgeable than the general college applying public.</p>
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<p>I don’t think this is historically correct. As the OP pointed out, Jews have been discriminated in traditionally elite colleges, therefore Brandeis was formed. I doubt many Jews would agree with you that Jewish students had received WASP treatment in elite boarding schools and colleges for many generations because these institutions held a Jewish quota from 1920’s to 50’s.The inclusion of Jews into the “elite” colleges of America was not fully achieved until the 60’s.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine all the different Asian groups getting together to form a school- being Asian is too vast and diverse. Being Jewish refers to a uniform religious/ethnic group. India itself is a subcontinent with as much diversity as Europe. Do you expect agreement among the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese, just to mention major ethnic groups of the other part of Asia? It is typical of our Eurocentric society to try to lump everyone not of European origin together, when the only thing they have in common is being not European- or to lump the two major parts of a vast continent together despite the obvious “racial” differences of the people. European based cultural norms have long dominated our society, that is fortunately being modified by other influences. So many factors to consider- a huge topic. Remember that most Asian immigrants are well educated, aside from the war generated influx of Hmongs, and California, being on the Pacific, has more Asians just to name two of them. The opening statement show far too little knowledge outside the typical European American box. </p>
<p>My rant meter just overloaded- if I hadn’t fallen in love with and married an Asian Indian I would never have bothered to learn outside my Eurocentric box, I shouldn’t expect others to have reason to do so. And to think when we got married we thought our children would have the minority’s advantage…</p>
<p>I won’t try to speak for the OP, but it was not my impression that she was necessarily trying to lump people together. I could be wrong. Perhaps, though, the better way to express it & propose it would be to suggest an American U “in the pattern of” (or <em>more</em> in the pattern of) U’s in some Asian countries whose identifying feature is qualification on quantifiable standards alone.</p>
<p>Again, though, as I said earlier, it is my observation from the many East Asians I know, that they are relieved not to compete only with equally ambitious, singly focused students (which they would in their homeland); thus, the U.S. is a better choice for them. That’s why I think there’s a bit of hypocrisy in the position of those Asian American students who complain about things like score standards in U.S. University admissions. They want it both ways: they want to compete with their admissions expectations but on someone else’s turf. They believe, or have believed, they’ll have an advantage in that regard. However, they have not taken into account the number of applicants quite similar to themselves. (And how Elites loathe too much similarity.)</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I remain favorable to the free market idea for anyone willing to establish different rules. Heck, Mt. Holyoke examines candidates differently, as do many other colleges & U’s, and I think that’s great.</p>
<p>What I had wanted for awhile, and still see a value in, is a more British than Asian approach. Yes, scores & grades mean a lot to their major U’s. But so do the in-person <em>academic</em> interviews, which are quite difficult to fake and pose for. No, (before people get hysterical), it wouldn’t mean the entire country doing it, it could mean one U doing it. I prefer not specializing as an undergrad for the first 2 years, but I can see the specialization starting earlier than we start it.</p>
<p>JMO.</p>
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<p>Epiphany, what someone other’s turf??? These students are Americans first and foremost, majority of whom were born in this country and never been to their “homeland”.</p>
<p>You are showing your bias , like many here.</p>
<p>I took the OP more as epiphany does. An interesting thought experiment, not something to get my knickers in a twist about. I wouldn’t mind an Oxford-style university here as well. I realized my son is probably going to end up with a pretty specialized education. He’s got all of his distribution requirements out of the way with APs except for one history course which he took first term. I think (fear?) that he’s going to spend the rest of his undergrad years taking exactly what he likes best physics and computer science and nothing else.</p>
<p>“They want it both ways: they want to compete with their admissions expectations but on someone else’s turf.”
Epiphany,
Wow, that is the “greatest” statement I heard out of your mouth. You mean American Indian’s Turf, right?</p>
<p>Totally second cbreeze. What do you mean, somebody else’s turf??? We’re citizens too, thank you very much.</p>
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Yes, well, I have yet to meet a single person from Tuva in general. Where’s Tuva, and how many Tuvanians (?) are in America?</p>
<p>Edit: oops, somebody already posted something to this effect</p>
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<p>Someone who lives in the continent of Asia, including all of its subcontinents, excluding Russia.</p>
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<p>OR they come to the US because of better job opportunities?</p>
<p>speaking of people getting their knickers in a knot (thanks for that phrase, mathmom), to those who thought I was showing national bias, I’m not: it’s not about nations. When I said “turf,” I meant college turf, not a country’s turf. The same holds for the other way around: how absurd it would be for a U.S. student to emigrate temporarily or permanently to Europe or Asia and either be shocked to & horrified to see that e.c.'s are not a major admissions factor there, or worse, to come on a message board and demand that those institutions become that way & the nerve of those colleges not to consider how “better qualified” said student is because of a superior level of e.c.'s. Such radical changes are not going to happen any time soon, at least not en masse – in either direction, probably.</p>
<p>So people can calm down. Not about nations, about colleges. They set the rules. I don’t; you don’t. Which is why, for the third time, I approve of the free market, which most definitely includes colleges. Create what you want, and stop bellyaching. Qualification, including academic qualification, is differently determined here than either in Europe or in Asia.</p>
<p>lethargy, of course the <em>parents</em> come to the US because of better job opportunities – & ditto projecting into the future for their children, but that’s obvious & I’ve said that maybe 12 times on CC. However, as I said I think even on this thread, there’s a presumption that the <em>job</em>, yes, the jobs (for progeny) will depend on a good education, and unfortunately because they fail to distinguish between the economic system over there and what is over here, too many of them tend to assume that great U = great (professional, white-collar) job; less than top tiny fraction of U’s = rotten job.</p>
<p>The plan for the progeny is to use the educational system to get a great job, not unlike obviously those ‘native-born’ to the U.S. But there’s a major difference in the understandings (again) of how many University pathways do in fact exist for said great job. Completely different economic model, completely different academic model, completely different (importantly) political model.</p>
<p>Alumother is the one who said it at least a year ago or more, and she’s right: educational institutions are rooted in, and spring from, the dominant political mindset of the country. They are contextualized within the culture of the geography in which they are situated. We are not a ‘top-down’ model such as one finds in China, Korea, Japan. We are a participatory democracy, & our institutions reflect that: the colleges want a reflection of many areas, regions, varieties of excellence. Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, European-Americans, etc. make up the landscape, but the worldview of the admissions process is not per se borrowed from Asia, Latin America, or Europe. It is distinctly ‘American’ in the sense of including not just many peoples but many factors.</p>
<p>No flames necessary.</p>
<p>I think you have over-simplified the debate. You appear to be saying that Asians do not want to play by the rules of the game. That’s a little harsh.I think the grouse of ‘Asians’ (justifiable or not) is that their numbers are being unfairly contained in the name of ‘holistic’ admission factors.</p>
<p>I also wonder how this thread would have developed if the OP had said: Many people on CC complain about people with lower stats getting in ahead of them to elite colleges. Doesn’t this suggest that there is a niche for an elite stats-only college? This college would take the applicants with the highest SATs and GPAs (this would obviously require some correcting), and would disregard race, gender, ethnicity, ECs, community service, recommendations, and essays.
It seems to me that quite a few people with very high stats but few or no ECs would apply to such a school.</p>
<p>Caltech is a Common Application college, and thus a college that explicitly promises to have a holistic admission process considering “subjective criteria,” </p>
<p><a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/BecomeMember.aspx[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/BecomeMember.aspx</a> </p>
<p>including criteria other than test scores, but on the whole it appears to mostly look for extremely high levels of academic ability in math and science and fit with its particular campus culture of a student-administered honor code. Some authors </p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges–and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates: Daniel Golden: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Price-Admission-Americas-Colleges-Outside/dp/1400097975/]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Price-Admission-Americas-Colleges-Outside/dp/1400097975/) </p>
<p>suggest Caltech has the most merit-based admission process of any elite university in the United States. Caltech will admit anyone of any ethnic group who fits its criteria, and Asian-heritage (whether east Asian or south Asian) students don’t appear to be systematically disfavored by Caltech’s admission process.</p>
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Wis, I’m certainly not in a Eurocentric box, even though my ancestry is 100% European. I do know, however, that there is at least as much diversity of culture, language, mores, etc among European countries as there is among Asian countires. I didn’t have to marry an Asian, or African, or Latino to understand that lumping people together based on stereotypes is not a wise move.</p>