@mom2collegekids Why do asian americans not choose alabama since it is supposed to be very good, but there is only 1 or 2 percent of asian kids there.
Just wanted to throw in my perspective as an Asian immigrant. Like many other Asian parents, my parents are very prestige-focused and only let me apply to schools they considered “good” (read: high-ranking, well-known, prestigious) enough.
I think a lot of it is due to the fact that in our home country, difficulty of admission pretty much correlates to the quality of the university and going to a university with a good name is CRITICAL to having a successful career.
I totally feel you on this, thank you so much!
@Boltingflame, speaking of the NBA:
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/11/25/when-jews-dominated-professional-basketball/
While Harvard and other super-selective schools are not populated exclusively by scions of wealth, the family income and wealth distribution is extremely skewed, with about half of the students coming from the top few percent (i.e. those not getting financial aid from those relatively generous-with-financial-aid schools). Many of the financial aid recipients are also in the upper or upper middle income and wealth range by normal standards, and relatively few come from lower income and wealth families.
"Just wanted to throw in my perspective as an Asian immigrant. Like many other Asian parents, my parents are very prestige-focused and only let me apply to schools they considered “good” (read: high-ranking, well-known, prestigious) enough.
I think a lot of it is due to the fact that in our home country, difficulty of admission pretty much correlates to the quality of the university and going to a university with a good name is CRITICAL to having a successful career."
Right. And supposedly “smart” people can’t ever figure out that their new country might have different norms from their old one? Because repeatedly, this is what happens.
There is zero cultural transmission to the newbies that - hey, this isn’t like our home country - where you go to college is not as make-or-break as we’re used to.
There is zero consideration to the concept of - if you haven’t heard of something, the intelligent thing is to then investigate and learn more about it rather than conclude that if you haven’t heard of it, it must not be very good.
Lots of different kinds of intelligence in this world, and it seems to me that people who think they are smart aren’t as smart as they think if they can’t figure the bottom two out.
“As far as I know that kind of data isn’t available anywhere. I believe the most discriminated group at Harvard today is the unhooked(non-athlete, non-legacy, non full pay) Christian whites, especially those involved in anyway with the Republican Party, tea party, evangelical churches, or any conservative organizations.”
I would agree that such students are likely underrresented in the APPLICANT pool. Which would likely mean that they stand out in said pool. And you don’t understand elite admissions at all if you seriously think that they want yet another secular liberal kid who volunteered for Obama. Such kids are a dime a dozen. Your conservative tea party evangelical is going to have a BETTER chance because he “cleanses the palate”.
I question the intelligence of people who don’t get that part of elite college admission is standing out / being differentiated from the rest of the applicant pool.
“While I certainly do believe that everyone on the team aims to admit the best class possible, they are humans, and natural biases will come into play, especially when things get cutthroat and there are a lot of stellar applicants. This becomes even more prevalent when subjective things like “personal qualities” are brought into the picture. Can you tell me with complete confidence that if everyone on your admission team was asian, the exact same class would be admitted? Of course not. It is subjective, and that is why proportional representation on the admission committee is very important.”
Is there something preventing Asian adults from applying for ad com jobs?
Would you prefer a system in which adcoms were selected to ensure their races were proportional to the population?
Or maybe ensure a minimum number of each race on the committee?
Because of course all Asians, all blacks, etc would bring the same view to a candidate.
(sarcasm alert)
Thought experiment. Suppose Harvard (or other elite) released acceptance data by race. Suppose the Asian acceptance rate was lower. Suppose also that the data showed that if they equalized the acceptance rates, they’d wind up with a class of too many chemistry and physics majors and not enough classics or French literature majors.
Would your reaction be -
- oh, I get it now or
- well, then, H should expand the chem and physics programs and if no one wants to major in classics or French lit, so be it
@OrchidBloom So would you say these parents are not well informed and make decisions using superficial criteria?
@Pizzagirl The answer for most would be 2) and it is due to culture. Studying classics, history, language, social sciences and art is based on the principles of democratic societies. The best way to understand this would be to study Japan pre WW2 and compare it to today. Many cultures simply do not understand that unless you know history and the great books, etc. you pretty much know nothing. You may function well and become affluent but still you don’t know enough to be considered well educated.
In my profession, this does not become evident until a bit later in career. About year 5 it becomes evident that people that know history, literature and social sciences advance and become standouts. In many cases because they write and speak much better and have better political and negotiating skills. They use liberal arts knowledge to make better decisions. For example, studying Abraham Lincoln would provide a blue print for how to deal with a deep crisis.
But just being, say, Republican or highly religious- or having a very unusual EC- is not “it.”
You still have to meet the core criteria, which are academic, intellectual, social and personal. Just wanting (or even desperately wanting) an admit, isnt enough. Nor is building only part of the strengths they want.
Yes, being educated is more than getting good grades in a pre-professional track. And intellect and one’s contribution are more than salary or job security.
Enough kids get it to build a fine class.
It’s not always short, simple process to just change ideas about college that have been ingrained in you since you were young. And it’s a bit harsh to imply that someone is stupid just because they don’t have the time to research every single college that they hear about.
I encountered many people with Asian last names in admissions. A number of my regional reps had Asian last names and to the extent a picture popped up they looked like they were at least part Asian. A number of my interviewers were Asian, one of whom was not a doctor or engineer or lawyer. I believe the director of admissions at one of the state Cornells is Asian.
“The answer for most would be 2) and it is due to culture. Studying classics, history, language, social sciences and art is based on the principles of democratic societies. The best way to understand this would be to study Japan pre WW2 and compare it to today. Many cultures simply do not understand that unless you know history and the great books, etc. you pretty much know nothing. You may function well and become affluent but still you don’t know enough to be considered well educated.”
I think that is an indulgence that not everyone can afford. I also think that is a personal viewpoint that people who were raised in a certain time and in a certain socio economic strata believe. I do think that those that write and speak well have an advantage. Most Americans lack basic writing skills. This argues for better high school grammar and rigorous course work in English and a mandatory Freshman writing and rhetoric seminar. It does not require a study of Plato. If it interests you, by all means.
The US K-12 education is deficient (or so I have been told) however its deficiencies are not in learning about the War of 1812 but rather in math and science where the US (I keep hearing) is ranked fairly low in the world considering it is a first world country.
@BatesParents2019 More or less, yeah. The criteria they consider “important” are quite different. For example, my parents could not understand why I wanted to visit colleges and the concept of fit was almost foreign.
“not always short, simple process to just change ideas about college that have been ingrained in you since you were young. And it’s a bit harsh to imply that someone is stupid just because they don’t have the time to research every single college that they hear about.”
But neither of those things are Harvard et al’s fault or responsibility. Look, I’m really sorry the mindset among many of these parents is that there are only a handful of good colleges worth going to and so everyone crowds the admission pool instead of being smart and applying to the many equally good colleges elsewhere. But Harvard et al are not obligated to indulge that mistake by ensuring everyone who is Harvard-worthy gets in.
“And it’s a bit harsh to imply that someone is stupid just because they don’t have the time to research every single college that they hear about.”
No one said that everyone was obligated to research every college they heard about. But the wholesale dismissal of - I haven’t heard of it, so therefore it can’t be any good - sorry, I think that’s stupid and unimpressive thinking.
How can it not be? If you move to a different city and hear about a suburb you never heard of, do you say “well, I can’t possibly live there, I’ve never heard of it” or do you investigate? If you go on vacation do you only stick with Hilton and Marriott because you’ve heard of them and potentially miss out on a charming boutique hotel?
There are numerous examples on CC where kids say that their parents won’t let them apply to anything but Ivies/MIT/Stanford. Why would I be impressed with that? I have no doubt these parents could bubble in boxes and get the right answers on SATs but they just aren’t smart. Smart involves thinking outside the box one has been placed in. This may be a very Anerican/western definition but they want their kids to place into American schools so you better learn the cultural norms.
Here is what I do not understand. You guys keep talking about the crowded Asian applicant pool at Harvard and Duke etc. Yet, Vanderbilt, Amherst, Middlebury etc are not exactly easy to get into, speaking from personal experience (I am white). While I have not looked it up, all have sub 20% admission rates. I doubt holistic admissions is exactly everything the average un hooked applicant would want at those schools. I know plenty of white kids who were upset or even surprised when they were rejected from Bowdoin and Vanderbilt.
First, even if Asians applied to Middlebury, they will continue to apply to Harvard. Second, if they did apply is everyone saying that since they are above the 75% at LAC schools (I am talking about the student with a chance at Harvard, not everyone obviously), will they get in more or less in proportion to their number in the applicant pool at LAC?
But this stuck me, “So if a whole group has written off all but about a dozen schools…” And it bookends with #195.
The notion you can make a small group of schools stratospherically competitive to get into- and thus, with some magical thinking, increase your chances- baffles me.
It also makes me wonder (as CC has, in general,) if all that studying for quantitative measures really adds up to some sort of critical thinking skills, what sorts of people it really forms.
You don’t get in because you’re first in line, have dreamed of the school since you were 4 (yeah, right,) your parents want it, because you studied and studied for the SAT, or even because you claim a certain “passion.” You increase your chances when they see you are the whole picture they want and need. That’s not rocket science and shouldn’t be treated as such.
And you don’t shrivel up and die or constrain yourself to a future of poverty and lack of status, for freaking going to a non-top 12 school. In fact what some of us are saying is: tunnel vision IS the constraint.
Bowdoin and Vandy have their own wants and needs, just as Cornell and Stanford do, or just as PG, BP, and I could. You can’t “satisfy” each with some common formula. And definitely not by providing only part of what they want (stats.)
And frankly, by the time you get to fall of hs senior year, it’s late to be exploring what the schools consider maturity, wisdom and energy and potential. Come to it late, based on assumptions and what your one hs liked, and you may not have built a record for the Great Leap colleges.
What’s ironic is that the tippy tops want thinkers and do-ers, able to climb out of the little preconceived boxes- and some here keep saying, in effect, that they can’t think beyond Top 12 because their parents believe x and y. Talk about starting off in a rabbit hole, sheesh.
@lookingforward I think fall of senior year is precisely the time to look for those things. It is too late to enter Intel or improve that 3.5 GPA (assuming you have one) or even for those with a 3.8795 fix those 3 A-s you got in STEM classes that will keep you out of the HYPSM. However, as for showing wisdom and maturity, there is no better place than the essays and the application. No matter how many times you visit in junior or senior year, most people do not know what a particular collegs “really” wants. Sometimes when you have the stats and you think you know what will impress and write totally the WRONG essay. If you have a hook they may explore further, if you do not your application goes in the circular file.