I am a student of Asian descent in Texas
Top student in the class-GPA of 4.0 (weighted GPA 4.6)
Several awards-including 2 scholarships, award for top student in class, Presidential award
SAT-1550
Was involved in a major charity organization and raised funds for it.
Got rejected from Northwestern, Princeton, Rice, Emory, Cornell, Duke, Yale, Casewestern
I am still at a loss why
Is it my asian descent? Is it because I was in a Hispanic dominated school. Several of the Hispanics in my school have got admission into a University of their choice, which includes several Ivy League schools. I have no problem with them getting into these top Universities, I just canât figure out why I didnât get a single of my top choices
Have got wait listed at Northwestern and Cornell-does anyone know what are my chances? Will my race play a role in getting one of the waitlisted spots?
Iâm sorry. It is frustrating and disappointing. I wouldnât jump to blame race. The truth is, youâll never know the exact reasons why a college decides what they do. A lot of these schools are basically a lottery.
Best of luck to you
Texas, rank #1 => automatic admission to all Texas public universities (although some majors may not be automatic admission to the major)
None of them are desirable and affordable for you?
Those are all selective schools. Where were you accepted? Are any of those options affordable?
Itâs awful. Itâs horribly unfair. I think you already know the answer to your question. Iâm so very sorry for what has happened to you. You deserved better. You are worth more than this. Wherever you go, you will excel, with a record like that.
Now, you have to play the cards youâve been dealt. Donât count on getting in off the wait lists. You could write each of the wait-listed schools a âlove letterâ demonstrating interest, but no oneâs chances of getting in off the wait lists are good. i hope that you applied to other schools, including the Texas public universities. Do you have any acceptances in hand?
I do not think that you can know why you were not accepted to these highly ranked schools. If you have paid attention to the Harvard lawsuit you would see that the process considers a lot more than just your academic strength. It is clear that being an American citizen of Asian ancestry does not help, but you cannot know whether this was more important or less important than other issues.
You are fortunate that you have very strong in-state public schools in Texas.
You likely assumed that grades and test scores are all you need and over focused on just them. Hopefully you were more careful with your writing on your essays than you were on this post.
@parentologist - Iâm curious as to why you say this? We have no idea what the Stats, ECâs or the quality of the essays of those others were. I really feel for the OP and those who do not get into their desired schools. My daughter was really hurt at being waitlisted at one of her top schools so I get it, she had her moment to grieve, but in no way felt that she was more deserving than anyone else.
what are your other ECs and what was your major or program you applied to, that could also explain some of it. Being an Asian in Tx definitely is not going to help. As ucb points out, if youâre #1 in your class, dont you have UT Austin to fall back on?
âYou likely assumed that grades and test scores are all you need and over focused on just them.â
Many kids, regardless of race, focus on test scores, you canât assume that just because the OP is Asian, he or she focused solely on scores. How do you know the URMs didnât focus on test scores as well?
Every single year there are many top students who donât get into any of their desired institutions. Every single year there are students who donât appear to be top who manage to get into all of their desired institutions. There is no way to predict this kind of thing. That is why the collective wisdom here is to 1) have at least one dead-on guaranteed admit affordable safety that you like well enough to attend if all else goes wrong, 2) have several matches/likelies where you have a decent chance of admission and affordability, and 3) donât fall in love with any one particular place unless it also happens to be your auto-admit affordable safety as described in #1.
Of course you are sad and confused about what happened to you in the admission cycle! That is OK. Be sad and confused. But then look at the places where you were admitted, and the aid packages you were awarded, and decide if you like any of those enough to accept the offer, or if youâd rather take a gap year and try again later.
What you get out of college will be mostly up to you.
Iâm with @Sarrip: assuming race/ethnicity is the x factor is just wrong.
Each school on your list is tough. Many, many students have excellent grades and scores. These are not enough to ensure admission into the schools that have fewer seats than they do interested students. Thatâs why you see so many disappointed posts on CC boards right now. Itâs really not fair to all of you.
I understand and am sorry for the disappointment you feel. Your home state has good schools and you likely qualify: think of all the money you can save for travel and other school opportunities.
Unfortunately, my comments would have been more helpful prior to the admissions process. Iâm not willing to beat around the bush either. So yes. Race does play a role in admissions. Everyone knows this but few are really being candid about it because itâs a touchy subject with legal ramifications. Asians have the toughest admit rate into the top schools because there is an overabundance of highly qualified candidates. By the numbers, Hispanics have a 23% higher admit rate and African Americans have a 49% higher admit rate than Asians. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/19/acceptance-rates-by-race/
Admissions is a game and youâre a player in that game and the game isnât stacked evenly. That is the frame of reference you need to approach this topic with. If it were all fair, each school would have an entrance exam and all the top scores would get in until all the seats were filled. But colleges want to pick and choose their student body makeup so preference is given based on a whole number of factors. Some of these factor are, race, zipcode, student athlete, legacy (are your parents alumni), socio economic, demonstrated interest (how many personal contacts did you have with each school). Some factors are as esoteric as whether you play the tuba if the school needs a tuba player for the marching band.
Donât beat yourself up about it. It doesnât mean you werenât qualified to attend a top prestigious name school, it just means the admit rate is so low, they decided to pick other students to find the balance that particular school was looking for. The good news is that you can be highly successful after attending any of the top 300 schools in our country. Focus on being the best student you can be wherever you end up. I know that sounds cliche, but itâs so true. I know it may not resonate with you now just having been rejected from your dream schools, but in a year or two, you wonât really care about prestigious name schools. When Iâve done hiring in the past, I donât necessarily give an edge to resumes with a prestigious name school listed. I look for good grades, something that demonstrated a solid work ethic, how good a listener the candidate is, how well prepared for the interview they were and how authentic their answers were. Listing a prestigious name school is way down the list.
I agree that one can not pinpoint why you were not accepted. This has happened to many students each year, from what I have seen, both here, from anecdotes, and to students I personally know.
Yes, Hispanic students, such as those you mention at your schools often do have a âhookâ in URM status, as do applicants who are underrepresented at certain schools do. I, for one, do not believe there is a bias against being Asian. It doesnât not give you preferred status, however. Where it can hurt is if your application falls into a category where itâs very much run of the mill, in that there are many applications falling into that same category. Diversity is something highly selective schools seek.
The biggest issue you have here is that your desire was to get into the most selective schools. By definition, that makes your chances of getting into your most desired schools small. Putting together a good solid list includes finding schools that are likely to accept you, are affordable to you, that meet your goals and that you desire. Anyone can cherry pick the name recognition schools off a list. Itâs looking deeper than that and finding less known schools that offer you what you want is the challenge. Apparently, you failed in this regard if none of your desired schools fall in this category.
@theloniusmonk I assumed it because the only other thing the OP thought about mentioning was raising money for a charity. For the elite universities, that would be really weak. This happens at my DS school all the time. The 36 or die group doesnât understand why the 34 got accepted. It is because instead of doing test prep for 2 years and taking 6 ACTs, the other kids did something interesting with their time. Not understanding all of the dimensions of holistic admissions is the most common flaw of high stats kids and parents. It has nothing to do with race.
Thank you for your responses
To address some of them-besides the charity I did a bunch of other stuff-research in an ophthalmology lab, volunteer work, wrote 4 papers (first author on one of them), president of a school club, involved with a solar car project etc
I did speak to my school counselors before I applied and they agreed with my list. Spoke to one of them today and he said that he cannot understand the reason for all the denialsâhe said that the only explanation is that I belong to an over represented minority
The one thing I did not have was a strong involvement in any sport (which might have hurt my application)
I agree-Not hopeful with my wait listed colleges. I did get admission to UT Austin-will probably accept that.
Thank you
GREAT public universities in Texas so hopefully youâre availing yourself of one of those options.
BUT, you asked a question⊠WHY? A LOT of people who apply to those top schools have similar stats. What sets them apart is what ELSE is on their application. Unless you didnât mention your list of ECs, Iâd venture to say that the answer to you question is that your application is EC-Lite !! VERY⊠. So that COULD be your answer ?
Good luck in wherever you land. Iâm a firm believe that everybody ends up exactly where they need to be. Itâs preordained⊠but thatâs just me.
You will bloom where you are planted. Never doubt your self-worth. This is a crazy process. The goal now for you is to move on and solidify where you will go.
I think we can answer him without assuming things about him and what he focused on. My writing ability as an adult is different if I am writing an application than when I post on a message board. No first, second, third drafts here. super careful and impressive writing isnât a requirement to post and that just feels like it isnât kind to say to him.
My cousins are at UT Austin and one is like you in terms of academics and both love the school. He really blossomed there and it is great to see. She super loves the school as well. Both are very sad to be home due to the virus because they love UT Austin. Their parents went there (and by chance or not are two of the most wealthy people I know with two of the best careers of anyone I know) and so did another of my friends, all of whom loved it. Iâm sorry you didnât get in elsewhere. I do think that race may have had some part but may not have. The reason most people who donât get into those schools are not admitted is because nearly all the students who apply to them are qualified and so since this is true, it becomes like a lottery to decide who gets in. Just because you did not doesnât mean you are less qualified than others who did. They were just lucky. You can do every thing right and not get accepted. In fact, that is what happens to nearly all who apply to those schools. I would not overthink the âwhyâ of it. As far as state schools go, that is one of the best ones around in the US and I think you are fortunate to have that be your state school.
@suteiki77 - I could be incorrect but my take away from this comment was that it was not focused on the grammar/sentence structure but on the content and assumptions.