After looking at the post “Asian rejected from everywhere POSTMORTEM”, I felt like an Asian male needs to do something extremely special to get accepted to IVy league.
For a typical Asian male, What kinds of special activities do colleges look for?
Read “How To Be a High School Superstar” by Cal Newport. But also, don’t just focus on Ivy League or tippy top schools. You can get a great education at many other schools, Don’t get caught up in the prestige hunt – it is a lousy way to make a college list.
Ditto what @intparent said.
Prestige is built by USN&WR, which is just some magazine that was low on circulation, dying, and in order to capture readers’ attention, came up with an algorithm to rank schools. It’s capricious, meaningless, and yet . . … it has all of this power over people. Somehow.
Best for you is to find schools that fit your personality and your educational goals (beyond "highest ranking school on USN&WR list that I can get into).
What I would do, if you were my child and I wanted you to have the best life and best career possible–and this includes the possibility of getting into the Ivy league ironically-- is to counsel the following: Become your own person.
- Only take the AP classes that GENUINELY interest you (not "I want to take all the APs so that I can go to an Ivy" as those kids are a dime a dozen. They have no interests but "getting into an Ivy" and their apps show that--which is precisely why it's hard for them to get into an Ivy. Yale does not want 178,000 AP classes per student, because AP classes are cookie-cutter knowledge, stuff you memorize and don't really think about, and the students are cookie-cutter that go about life in that way.)
- Don't do what I tell them to do all of the time, but to tell me, as blooming adults, what they want to do, what they think is right. Surprise me. Make me cringe. Scare me with their bold choices. It's their lives after all, not mine. Do you like theater? Do you like dance? Do you find comic books interesting? How about video games? Yes, I mentioned several things that are usually on the list of activities that people on the Ivy Trail discount as unworthy. But in fact if you love any topic and pursue it deeply and thoughtfully, you will end up developing yourself as a human being. THAT is what the world craves. Not a bunch of AP courses and other stock "prestigious" ECs--tick tick tick tick the boxes are all ticked, and the world yawns. The world craves GENUINE UNIQUE VOICES and craft to back that up. How do you get a genuine unique voice? By taking risks. And pursuing what actually interests you, even if it makes your parents mad.
There’s more to this list, but I’ll leave it at that. Basically get meta about this process. See it – and life – for what it is. You create you. Not the school creates you.
All-State football player???
But seriously there is no magic formula for Asian or any other applicants to get into Ivy League or other top tier schools. I’d focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as you can in the most challenging curriculum you can manage.
–When the time comes study for standardized tests.
–Get involved in activities you care about and work towards making meaningful contributions to those activities.
–Enjoying spending time with your family and friends.
When the time comes to apply to colleges honestly asses your academic stats (including GPA, standardized tests, course rigor) as well as your financial needs and apply to a wide range of reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable (you will have to run a net price calculator for each school you consider) and that you would be happy to attend. Expand your horizons, don’t get caught in the hunt for “prestige”, and recognize that there are many wonderful schools out there where you can have a great 4 year experience and get where you want to go in life.
Anything non Stemy and non competitive may set you apart… learning how to play the ukulele, knitting, track and field, origami, manhwa, French cooking, it can be from an Asian culture or not… Follow yourself, your likes and dislikes, don’t try to be the mirror image of something in your head that you imagine is what top colleges want.
Buy or borrow a Fiske guide. Read only descriptions for colleges you’ve never heard of AND select 10 you like. Fill out their request info forms.
so the idea is to “de-Asian” yourself meaning, steer away from those things that might typically be thought of as stereotypical like playing the violin, math leagues and such. I don’t particularly like this idea because why should these be counted against an Asian if its truly his strength? The idea is that adcoms MAY and I repeat MAY go into auto mode and have difficulty seeing this violin playing and math talented student as different than other Asian applicants with the same strength. Some colleges take race into consideration while others like UC don’t. Good Luck. I hope someday race won’t be a factor in college admissions for ivies and other elites and that someday all Math talented violin playing applicants will be valued for what they bring to college campus no matter what their race.
The idea actually is that colleges want students who are unique individuals. They’ll only take one, or a handful, that share similar characteristics, so that all kids who are in math club and play the violin will be in the same bucket and will compete against each other regardless of race. Doing what everyone else is doing will always place you in competition with more people than if you follow the beat of your own drum.
I think one of the issues is that people really don’t understand for what they are competing. Take Princeton for example. Most people would say that they are competing for 1 of 2,000 admission slots (with the goal of enrolling 1,300). Most would agree that P has a very strong Physics program. If you apply with strong stats and a Physics spike how many spots are open to you? 2k? No, it is only around 25. Maybe a few more because the net transfer from the Physics major is negative. P only graduates around 16 people per year in Physics. Compare this to Sociology. P graduates around 36 people per year. To get that they would have to admit around 50 people. Now, what do you think the size of the applicant pool is for people looking like Physics vs. Sociology majors. 2x,3x, 10x? You can do the math for what this means for the difference in acceptance rate between the two subpopulations. This is what they mean by building a class. It isn’t just taking the best 2k ranked by GPA/test scores. It is taking the best 25 likely Physics + 50 likely Sociology + 18 Religious Studies + etc.
Please note, I am in NO way implying that to get into P, you should try to game what your major should be. I don’t believe that will work because your will still be outclassed by applicants that true passion lies in that field. Find a school that fits you, don’t try to fit to a school.