Hello all!
I want to share some of the thoughts I have recently had about this year’s college process.
This might be a little controversial, and I’m open to discussion. All I really want to do is to share my thoughts, and see what people think.
A little about me: I am an immigrant, but not a recent one. I am from Cambodia, and my parents have been through a lot (I was only 6 when I moved here, but I do remember some of the bad things). They don’t speak english very well, so we’re still poor here. They work two jobs each, and are barely home to take care of us.
What I sort of want to talk about is the advantage affirmative action gives.
I’ve always been for affirmative action, more so before I realized how asians get the short end of it, but continued to be a supporter. But recently I’ve been wondering if the affirmative action system needs to change (just a little). Again, I’m not a hater.
I did extremely well with the college process, but not as well as I was hoping (which is fine) but also not fine considering the other factors.
I had a 4.0 UW, 35 ACT, 9 AP classes, 5 community college courses, and I did the IB certificate for 2 subjects, making my weighted GPA well above 5.5.
I had unique/great extra curriculars. Now there’s no research in there or anything too prestigious (except this summer program that I went to on a full scholarship at a top research university), but I was very involved and really passionate. I also worked around 17 hours a week because my parents needed the extra money, and when I’d get home, I’d have to help my two young siblings with their homework and chores. I’ve had a really tough life, but I thought it was all worth it because I had worked so hard and I knew it was gonna pay off.
The colleges I applied to:
3 ivies: Harvard, Yale, Penn
Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Emory, Tufts, Duke, 2 safety schools plus my state school, Northeastern, Rice, NYU, JHU, GT (oos), and Georgetown, Wellesley, Barnard.
I got into:
Northeastern, Rice, Georgia Tech, Wellesley, Barnard, and the safety schools. I was waitlisted at Vanderbilt. Denied everywhere else.
Now obviously I didn’t deserve an acceptance to ALL those schools, but I thought I’d get into more and I thought I deserved to get into more.
Here’s the problem. I go to a public high school (with smart kids going to great colleges. No one got into ivies or anything, but most are going to top 50 colleges) and I think that being asian really worked against me in this process. My school is mostly minorities (because I live in a poor area) and most of them who i’ve known for years, people who have received Fs just because they liked skipping school and doing drugs got into amazing schools! Some ended up at even better schools than me. Now I’m not just trying to be mean, but these people in no way deserved the schools they got into. They were surprised themselves. I know people who got into GT (OOS) and Georgetown (where I was rejected) and JHU with 25-27 ACTs and 3.6 GPAs in the same courses, most people at my school are also not very involved in extra curriculars.
I didn’t choose to write my essays about my hardships, while there have been so many: recent deaths, my family almost becoming homeless, my sister being hospitalized over and over again. I chose to write about my passions and my uniqueness/interests.
Unlike other (more privileged asians, I guess) asians, I also didn’t participate in the “common” ECs like tennis, or playing the piano or karate, or something. I was very, very unique, and I did get into great schools, as you can see, but it’s just not fair. I have friends who didn’t work as hard as me and I helped them write their essays about stupid topics mainly like getting bullied in middle school and they got in because they were hispanic or black or first gen. Technically, I am first gen, but my parents went to a lower class college in Cambodia so I had to check off that I wasn’t first gen.
I know this is very, very long, and I apologize. But, with my stats, shouldn’t I have done a little better? Please don’t say I should be thankful, etc, bc I am! I am completely in love with one of the schools that I committed with and I’m very very happy. But I just seem to be surrounded by people who didn’t deserve to even get into their state schools, and these people got into the ivy leagues. Affirmative action even helps those blacks/hispanics who aren’t even poor like I am and are rich. I know people with Fs junior and senior year getting into good colleges.
Now, I do not think that the people who got into Harvard didn’t deserve it. I know plenty of people going to Harvard and I think they deserve it definitely! but I know that they had the advantage, while I was at a disadvantage just because of my race. It’s not like being born in Cambodia makes you smarter. On the contrary, people in Cambodia barely get the chance to educate themselves as much as Americans.
Should I have written my essays about my hardships in life? (Half of the people I know who got into the ivy leagues when I was at the admitted student days wrote their essays about hardships) What should I have done? I just really wish I had gotten into Yale, which was my dream school.
Obviously I know that only 20ish% of the incoming class is getting to take the advantage of affirmative action, but I think it should be changed so it doesn’t work AGAINST asians like me, and doesn’t work FOR minorities who have had better lives because of their socioeconomic statuses.
Again, I do not think anyone who got into the ivies ONLY got in because of affirmative action, but I do think it helped. I have friends going to Vanderbilt with 26s and 27s and that’s not fair. I know them personally, and they don’t even care about education, and they were almost not even going to choose Vanderbilt because they only applied because of me. I mean these people don’t have good GPAs, they’re not unique, they’re not athletes athletes, and I’ve read their poorly written essays. I just don’t understand.
I don’t want anyone to hate me because of this, because I don’t hate anyone! I am still for minorities, but I think there should be some changes. Thank you if you read this long post, and will/are going to reply!