Target Schools for Asian Male

College Search & Lists
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For those who prefer to read rather than watch video:

Amy Wax has courted controversy before. A thread from 2017:

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The cognitive dissonance between her 2017 op-ed about upstanding citizen culture/values (glorifies clean living, no swearing, intact families, education-focused, hard work…) and her current problem with Asian immigrants (criticizes them for being educated elites who vote Democrat) is astounding.

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I would say in general - no matter where you are, there will be ignorant people.

If you label every school by a fringe on or near campus, you can probably eliminate every school in the country from your search.

Yes, some are known to be more conservative or less welcoming - but when you start eliminating the mainstream, then what’s left?

Part of our society is - regardless of how abhorrent one is, as long as they don’t hurt anyone they can say what they want…but yes, their employer can also penalize them for saying what crosses the line.

But if we eliminate Penn because of a one off professor, then you may as well eliminate thousands of schools in the country.

College is, in part, to learn how to think critically - so if you go there, you think she’s a moron and move on.

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Hi, and thanks to all for so much fantastic advice. I had login issues (login ID was disabled for some reason), and only just had the chance to clear them up.
Very good points about fit. My son says he likes small schools much more than large schools; in the same breath he says he’s obsessed with UT Austin and would love to go there :roll_eyes:
So I guess he’s not sure yet. He loved W&M which we visited a few weeks ago. He likes VT. And yes we are very fortunate to have so many good public universities in VA.
He is also interested in the LAC idea because he has such varied interests. I think the Austin obsession stems from his passion for performing live music and he hopes if he goes there he can pursue music performance gigs on the side.
UVA is out of reach and probably not a good fit - he will not do well in a high pressure environment where every valedictorian in the state is in his class. Lower pressure and smaller class size is definitely better for his personality.

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Glad you were able to log back in @nkini2001! So there’s a general interest in smaller schools and liberal arts schools, but huge universities are not off the list. He likes the idea of doing music performance on the side and prefers an environment where not everyone was at the top of their class, and where class sizes are small.

These other posters had some questions for you which, if answered, would help in developing more customized recommendations.

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For this criterion, some of these schools may be of interest:

https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings?rankings=great-classroom-experience

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As your son was interested in UT because of the music performance possibilities, I looked at some lists of best cities for live music or best cities for musicians and then cross-referenced with universities to see if your son was interested in any of these. These universities all have enrollments under 15,000, most of which have significantly fewer students. I placed a CTCL if it is considered one of the Colleges That Change Lives. Most of these are going to have smaller class sizes as well. In some places I excluded some of the most competitive universities, but they’d be easy to add back in if you were interested.

  • Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico
  • Austin: St. Edwards, Southwestern (metro area, CTCL)
  • Boston: Emerson
  • Charlotte: Davidson (metro)
  • Chicago: DePaul, Lake Forest, Wheaton (45m, CTCL), Northwestern
  • Cleveland: John Carroll, Case Western
  • Denver: U. of Denver, Regis
  • Memphis: Rhodes, a CTCL
  • Miami: U. of Miami
  • Milwaukee: Marquette
  • Minneapolis: Macalester, Carleton & St. Olaf (both about 45m from Minneapolis, St. Olaf is a CTCL)
  • Nashville: Lipscomb & Vanderbilt
  • New Orleans: Tulane, Loyola
  • Newark & New York City: Fordham, Seton Hall
  • Omaha: Creighton
  • Orlando: Rollins
  • Pittsburgh: Duquesne
  • Portland: Reed (CTCL)
  • Rochester: U. of Rochester, Rochester Inst. of Technology, Hobart & William Smith (45m)
  • Saint Louis: Saint Louis U & Washington U.
  • San Antonio: Trinity
  • Seattle: U. of Puget Sound (CTCL)
  • Tampa: U. of Tampa
  • Washington, D.C.: American, George Washington, Georgetown
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Thanks much! Very helpful list - I’m sure he’ll be motivated to research all of these cities and schools

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Thanks much. So for STEM I specifically mean Materials Engineering, Computer engineering, Neuroscience, or Computer Science.
I know CS is much more competitive than material engineering, for example.

Regarding college environment - suburban or rural; small class size, slight preference for public over private (though it’s not a deal breaker). Geographic regions: (1) Mid Atlantic (2) West coast (3) Texas (4) Midwest (Indiana, Illinois)
Hope that helps

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An AO will likely recognize that a student is Asian whether or not they check the box, especially if his surname is Asian.

Also, if the student doesn’t identify as being part of a group on the application, they can’t be part of a future class action OR benefit from a future court decision that affects that group.

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Neuroscience seems to be an outlier, since it is usually a combination of psychology and biology, rather far from computer science / engineering or materials engineering. Or is he interested in the artificial intelligence subarea of computer science, which has some overlap with cognitive science / neuroscience?

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According to College Navigator (run by the federal government), there are only 15 4-year nonprofit colleges that offer all four of the majors you listed (Materials Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Neuroscience). Granted, some institutions may have alternative names or offer individualized majors to study neuroscience (perhaps combining coursework in psychology, biology, and computer science, for instance).

Just as a point of information, here’s the list of 15 schools:

• Arizona State
• Auburn
• Case Western
• Lehigh
• Northwestern
• U. of Tennessee
• U. at Buffalo
• UC-Irvine
• UCLA
• UC-Riverside
• U. Maryland
• U. Minnesota
• U. Penn
• U. Pittsburgh
• Washington State

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Also, computer science and computer engineering may be combined into one major, and the name of such a major may vary (e.g. “electrical engineering and computer science”, “electrical and computer engineering”).

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Thanks!

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Yup, I’m a computer engineering major myself so totally get it. In general I believe it’s harder to get into computer science than into ECE (electrical and computer engineering).

No idea whether he’s interested in cognitive science vs. Neuroscience. His interests aren’t quite that specific yet. He is taking a neuroscience honors course in school right now and finding it interesting so that’s why I threw that in there.

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In general CS may be harder but CS can be in the college of science as well. As an example Berkeley EECS is harder to get into.

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Exactly. And my son’s first and last names scream Indian so unless we change both his names he can’t hide his ethnicity. Darn. Should’ve named him something else :grinning:

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The College Transitions website has a variety of lists of “Best Colleges for” that you might be interested in:

Artificial Intelligence
Cognitive Science
Computer Science
Materials Science & Engineering
Neuroscience

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