I don’t know if that’s going to prevent the adcoms from figuring out the race of the applicant.
“Washington and MIchigan both prohibit the use of affirmative action as well. Your son being an Asian Male won’t have an impact on his decision.”
Interesting that both UW and UM (18%-22ish) are in between the two lists data10 posted.
I would recommend Notre Dame. Excellent options for STEM (including engineering, science or computer science) and could double major in the Keough School of Global Affairs. An Asian applicant would definitely not be disadvantaged at Notre Dame.
How lucky you are to be in VA which has very strong public universities! UVA, William and Mary, Virginia Tech are all terrific options.
Definitely would not recommend leaving the race question blank. Among other things, the common app asks for: father’s full name, mother’s full name, mother’s maiden name, father’s place of birth, mother’s place of birth, colleges attended and languages spoken at home. Depending on high school, the counselor letter often discloses more information about the family demographics.
So based on this, it is very easy to figure out racial/ethnic composition of the student even if the race question is left blank. In fact leaving the question blank will make them wonder what you’re trying to hide. This causes more of a headache than its worth.
Is there any evidence of any college applying a penalty for not filling out the race question, beyond what would occur with listing an Asian race? The regression coefficients from the Harvard lawsuit are below, for the full (extended) sample with full controls. This is from the Plantiff’s rebuttal analysis (excludes athletes), so controls were chosen to emphasize an Asian disadvantage. Note that regression coefficient for not filling out race was in between White and Asian. There was no apparent disadvantage for leaving race blank.
Black Male: +3.7
Hispanic Male: +2.0
White Male: Reference
Race Missing Male: -0.1 (no statistically significant difference from White Male)
Asian Male: -0.3
Unfortunately this degree of detail is not available for other colleges. There are plenty of anecdotal examples of persons who left race blank having normal results, which include acceptances to highly selective colleges. However, it’s unclear whether leaving the race blank had anything to do with the results.
They would not be disadvantaged because they were Asian, but Asian applicants could be disadvantaged more than other races on average for other reasons. For example, Notre Dame’s CDS mentions that they consider the religious affiliation of applicant in admission decisions. Asian Americans have an especially low rate of Catholicism, which could contribute to Asian applicants being disadvantaged more than comparably qualified White applicants on average.
@Data10: You probably know just as well as I do that lack of a statistical difference doesn’t mean there isn’t any. It just means that the null hypothesis was failed to be rejected. This is a subtle difference that many people mistake.
What was the sample size for the blank race group? Was it large enough to avoid type II error?
While not a conclusive analysis, it does not support the theory that colleges are applying a notable penalty for leaving race blank beyond any disadvantage applied for being Asian. I am not aware of any evidence to support that theory.
Time to move back on topic. OP is looking for college recommendations.
Asian Americans are about 17% Catholic, versus 20.8% for all Americans. Lowest is Black at 5%, and highest is Latino at 48% (White 19%).
However, there are substantial differences in affiliation with the Catholic church among different Asian American ethnic groups. About three fourths of Asian American Catholics are Filipino Americans, 65% of whom are Catholic.
In terms of the OP, it likely matters more whether they are Catholic than their race or ethnicity, when it comes to Notre Dame.
Interestingly @nkini2001 has yet to repost. Hopefully they are reading the chain.
I go back to my original note and there was acknowledgement - kids with the scores shown, as strong as they are, get turned down each and every day from top schools. And seeking certain out of state schools is often difficult as they mandate to limit OOS populations.
While we don’t know the weighting system a 3.95 to 4.2 using the common .5 for Honors and 1 for AP doesn’t suggest competitive rigor. That does not mean the student is not chasing rigor but it may suggest their rigor is not what other kids at the top have. What we don’t know - how much rigor is offered or the track record of kids from private high schools.
Personally I don’t think you let anyone stop you from applying to any school of you think it’s the right fit…not just biggest name. So if your child wants Michigan, G tech, JHU or wherever - go for it. You are basically being told they are unlikely - so put them in the reach category. Just make sure you have matches and safeties.
I think from our collective posts there are enough recommendations of many sizes…large state schools, smaller schools…that adding more is not necessary at this time.
If you let us know what you are looking for….size, urban/suburban/rural, weather, sports, Greek, cost, etc….I mean there are hundreds of great colleges in your realm. If we had more focus we could target our suggestions better.
You left it open ended but I’m sure your son has preferences.
But again if you don’t apply you’ll never know…so take your shots but make sure those matches and safeties are intact too.
Thanks
@Data10 Excellent point on religious affiliation. Notre Dame is a Catholic school. The undergraduates used to be around 80% Catholic… not sure now. This is not often mentioned here on CC. My understanding is that they are actively seeking diversity. My point was that the OP would not be discriminated against purely on the basis of being Asian, as Asians are underrepresented at Notre Dame.
I would never recommend an Asian student attend Grinnell. I know several Asian students who have transferred out of the school due to its extremely Caucasian (75%) student body and overall racist attitudes.
Rice could be a good landing spot. My Asian GD had no problem getting accepted there and there are many Asian professors on the faculty. Race doesn’t seem to be an issue.
Grinnell’s student body is 20% international, a majority of whom are Asians (India, Pakistan, Korea, Japan, etc.) and one of the highest rates among all US colleges. I doubt that this would be the case if Grinnell, as alleged, was a racist place. Just the opposite, Grinnell has a reputation of being liberal and a champion of social justice.
It’s mainly the case because Grinnell is one of the few LACs with generous financial aid for internationals. I was recently talking to an Asian international who transferred away from Grinnell partly due to racism, and he cited the domestic students’ apathy towards most international students’ issues (as highlighted in the article I linked). He also mentioned that most non-white internationals feel very uncomfortable among domestic students at Grinnell.
Read the article again. The Asian Grinnell students highlighted that anti-Asian hate crimes at Grinnell in the wake of COVID were unsurprising because the school has a long history of not being inclusive to BIPOC.
Again, anyone with more questions about this should feel free to PM me. College Confidential does not do a good job of showcasing the downsides of SLACs to POC students.
What history in particular?
Some issues may be due to location and the usual correlation to racial attitudes (Midwest, rural / small town that is 87% NH White).
Feel free to PM. Mainly extensive micro aggressions + weak POC support from the school. And yup, being in rural Iowa doesn’t help.
Just came across this regarding UPenn law school, also targeting Asians:
UPenn students on professor’s racist language: ‘We really need to fire Amy Wax’ - YouTube
Can any UPenn students/parents provide further insights on what’s happening there?
I would encourage OP to drill down on any stats they see for the percentage of Asians or POC on a campus. A simple expression of percentage Asian or percentage POC will not tell the whole story.
My kids are half-Asian. Son #1 just graduated from grad school in a class of over 400. Although the school touted that over 40% of its class was POC, he was the only mixed race male. Other stats we found after he graduated: 32% of the class was white male, 22% white female, 6% African American female, 2% African American male, 8% Asian American female, 6% Asian American male. It’s not hard to see who the predominant voice would be in such a class.
I’ve been researching undergrad representation for son #2 who is a junior. I don’t recall the school, but one undergrad school listed >600 Asian students of whom >550 were male.