<p>In most East Asian countries including Japan, one’s national college entrance exam scores not only determine which college one gains admission to, but also which major one was allowed to undertake. </p>
<p>According to my family, in the ROC(Taiwan) of the 1950’s, Medicine and Foreign Language and Literature majors required the highest scores for each given university whereas the then most unpopular Chinese Language and Lit major required the lowest scores for each given university. And competition to getting into college was so keen that back then, most applicants wouldn’t gain admission to any university back then. </p>
<p>Even as late as 2005, around 1/3 of college applicants taking the ROC national college entrance exam fail to gain admission to any college. </p>
<p>As for it being a one-time only test, this can vary by country. I know for a fact in both Chinas(ROC & PRC) and South Korea, one is allowed to retake the college entrance exam the following year by either repeating one’s last year of high school devoted to prepping for the exam or in South Korea’s case…go to a dedicated prep center to do the same by oneself. </p>
<p>One of my HS classmates’ Yale roommates back in the mid-'90s was a 20 year old Yale freshman who managed to gain admission after failing TWICE to secure admission through the South Korean national college entrance exam or a foreign university. </p>
<p>He recounted spending two years doing the dedicated prep center thing which is one option for applicants who haven’t given up their college dreams after failing to score high enough to get into any domestic universities and/or the one overseas university they were allowed to apply to each year by the national policies which were in force then. After two complete rejections, he managed to get into Yale on his third try. </p>
<p>It was one of the interesting conversation topics we had that evening when my HS classmate and his roommates from Yale got together with me and other friends for dinner one evening during our college years.</p>
<p>The limit on foreign college applications was also odd as I think it was done away with not too long afterwards. However, it sounded very similar and IMO, as absurd as the ROC’s past practice of mandating “exit exams” for aspiring college/grad students hoping to attend colleges outside their country. If one didn’t pass that “exit exam”, they weren’t allowed to leave to attend university. Even if they received admission and in case of grad admission a full PhD fellowship from an elite university.</p>
<p>The reason why we care so much about scores is cause there is so much competition. As a matter of fact I need a 2370+ on SAT II(Math 2+Chem+Phy) to get into a top college back home in India. Also, to get into IIT’s which are considered the best in India, people study up to 16 hours per day and still don’t make it to the best one’s which just shows the competition.</p>
<p>Yes. But we are in America now. People come here, at immense personal sacrifice, for a better life than what their home countries could offer. So clinging on to “that’s how it was in my native land, so it must be like that here” isn’t very intelligent. If I moved to one of these countries and thought - I started a charity and I help little old ladies cross the street, that will surely get me into the top schools - I would be stupid, because part of being smart is the ability to look around you and actually observe what’s going on, not be bound by your assumptions.</p>
<p>Just go to the premed forum and you will find the “scores” culture is live and well in the America. If a premed does not the the scores, his/her premed advisor will not write a committee letter for him/her.</p>
<p>Exactly. All that you need to get into a top 20 school is to start a charity for little old ladies.
And if you want to get a stand out and get a highly competitive scholarship all you need to do is extend that charity to little old men.</p>
<p>Adcoms don’t look at grades or academic accomplishments (e.g. lots of AP classes) at all.</p>
<p>I’m talking about - why is it they carry their cultural assumptions into the new country? It’s like there is never any feedback loop – all the brand new immigrants get over here and think that the US college admissions process is a function of grades / scores (and that the only universities worth attending are HYPSM and anything else will doom you to flipping burgers) and there is no means by which anyone ever taps them on the shoulders and says, “pssst, it isn’t that way over here, you really don’t need to push your kid to that limit for them to have a pleasant middle to upper middle class life in the US”? It never seems to make it back to “the old country” that the kid who got into Vanderbilt or Kenyon or Grinnell didn’t “shame his family” and he isn’t destined to ask “want fries with that” the rest of his life? There seems to be a congenital resistant to “but it isn’t like that here.” Well, so what? This is America. A lot of things aren’t like these other cultures. Some of those things are good. Some of those things are bad. It’s not that one culture is uniformly better than the other. But they are different.</p>
<p>Why are you assuming that all the “brand new immigrants” wouldn’t want to strive to be more than middle class? Some do want to be doctors or find cures for cancer or build great start ups. One of the founders from Google came from Russia.</p>
<p>The stereotype of the kid pushing himself to study is not that one whose goal is to have a middle class life.</p>
<p>I said middle-to-upper-middle. Again, way to miss the big picture point here. Your kid also doesn’t have to have 80-hours-a-week-studying-and-no-life-whatsoever to become a doctor here in the US, either.</p>
<p>There’s still a very weak feedback loop, as evidenced by all the kids on CC whose parents are telling them - your life is over if you don’t get into HYPSM. HYPSM et al are great places, but they aren’t by any means even remotely necessary for a nice upper middle class life in America. But each new set of immigrants seems to have to discover that themselves – there’s no mechanism where anyone ever tells them, “You know how back in the old country we thought that success in America was dependent on these handful of colleges? Well, it’s not remotely like that here. And the vast majority of people in America with upper middle class lives went to a state flagship or something similar. These places just aren’t golden tickets in America the way they are in other cultures.” Why the reluctance to even voice that message?</p>
<p>Once someone has been socialized into a given culture for a sizable portion or most of their formative years, it can be quite difficult for most to switch gears and toss out the old paradigms they’ve been socialized in. </p>
<p>And it’s not only immigrants who have this issue. </p>
<p>Many American tourists or Expats in overseas communities, especially in the past have had a history of behaving in ways which indicate they expect the locals and policies/customs to be exactly how it was at home. </p>
<p>I’ve seen it myself at a Mainland Chinese airport in the late '90s where an irate self-important American tourist was having a temper tantrum, repeatedly angrily yelling “Speak English”, and repeating questions at a louder volume. Keep in mind this was back before the Chinese economic boom of the '00s and when English speaking personnel weren’t as commonplace as they are now.</p>
<p>Pizza girl, Totally agree with you - I am an Immigrant myself, came to US during the Y2K era - now settled and my son just got in ED into Duke - to your point, internationals looking into US colleges may stress on scores, but it isn’t fair to extend that to all “asians” - to your point, my son will graduate from a public school here, and he understood the holistic process and had some extra curriculars that seemed to have impressed Duke - not all East asian parents are forcing their kids to “score” - I have noticed in my son’s high school that asian kids are indeed assimilating to the American value system even without any parental prodding.</p>
<p>University entrance exams in India are much more difficult than the ACT and SAT, because they use them to distinguish between top end students for admission to IITs and the like. That is different from in the US, where the most selective schools use other factors to distinguish between numerous applicants who present top end high school records and ACT or SAT scores.</p>
<p>“Dalit” refers to people at the bottom of the traditional social caste system, traditionally seen as “out-caste” or “untouchable” and discriminated against based on caste status.</p>
<p>CCdaddio - Thanks for your post with links and substantiating… it may take some time to finally break this myth that asians, especially “east asians” are all about “scores”.</p>
<p>And one final point - if the underlying premise is that
the “East Asians” consider themselves smart and that’s the reason they force their kids to score high on SAT, then it is counter intuitive - if we force our kids to “score” on SAT and ACT and notice that that is not getting them anywhere in college admissions and if we still force them to focus on “SAT”, then we “East Asians” are not smart to begin with?</p>
<p>I should also add this isn’t limited to East Asian and other immigrants. </p>
<p>There are plenty of Americans who aren’t as aware of the holistic admission aspects of elite colleges as you and others on CC happen to be.</p>
<p>I still see plenty of multi-generationed American working-class and low-income parents who also believe it’s all about the scores/GPA. </p>
<p>However, the response isn’t always necessarily to push their kids to work harder. I’ve also seen several cases of kids and parents decide that makes any efforts at attending selective colleges or sometimes any colleges was futile and pursued alternative paths* or gave up and dropped out altogether. </p>
<ul>
<li>Military enlistment, working jobs where a HS diploma/some HS education is considered adequate, etc. A friend attended a regional HS in a poor area of Western Massachusetts where only the top half of his graduating class, including himself, ended up attending college(including community college) or enlisting in the military. Everyone else either worked odd/retail type jobs, ended up on public assistance, or in the prison system after being arrested and convicted of various crimes.</li>
</ul>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not if there isn’t as much or any cultural assumptions that there is such a thing as natural intelligence or more importantly, that this should be acknowledged as it could be perceived as encouraging laziness/lack of conscientious effort. </p>
<p>For those who don’t agree with or feel it’s good to acknowledge natural intelligence, they wouldn’t see anything wrong with studying for such exams. If anything, they’d consider someone who studies hard for exams as manifesting natural intelligence by virtue of that very action. </p>
<p>As some would say, practice makes perfect and they’d feel that applies with studying as with everything else. </p>
<p>"There are plenty of Americans who aren’t as aware of the holistic admission aspects of elite colleges as you and others on CC happen to be.</p>
<p>I still see plenty of multi-generationed American working-class and low-income parents who also believe it’s all about the scores/GPA. "</p>
<p>Yes, but they also don’t believe that HYPSM represent the only way to a nice life. These colleges seem far more idolized and idealized overseas than they are here.</p>
<p>cobrat, your anecdote is a non sequitur. We were talking about people deliberately choosing to <em>move to and live in</em> other countries and not thinking about the fact that their cultural assumptions may or may not apply there. That has zero to do with some obnoxious American tourist in China yelling at someone to speak English. I agree there are “ugly Americans” abroad, but we are talking about choosing to relocate, not choosing to visit. </p>
<p>I travel extensively internationally for business. I spend a lot of time learning about the culture of where I go, and what assumptions I might have (about how to greet people, how to interact in business, what are cultural assumptions regarding what to wear, promptness vs lateness, etc.). That’s known as common sense, and I’m just going to be in this country for a few days. You mean to tell me that I’m supposed to be impressed that people who are MOVING to live the REST OF THEIR LIVES elsewhere shouldn’t open their minds to different assumptions, but just stick with “well, that’s how it was done in my home country so it’s the same way here” and expect me to be impressed? Well, that’s not intelligent. I don’t care what your SAT scores are; that’s just not intelligent to behave that way.</p>
<p>I knew a lot of Asians in high school and none of them thought college admissions was based primarily on scores. Zero. A lot of them felt it would be more based on demonstrated ability than it was, although I have to say that I and a lot of other non-Asian people felt the same way. For instance, constructing a hypothetical case, I did think that if someone did better in school than another person, the latter person would have to demonstrate some outside talent (say being a great painter, winning a writing competition, etc.) in order to be preferred over the first person. (I’m tallking about two people in the same demographic group.) In reality, it wan’t like that. People whose parents went to elite schools may have greater insight as to what would be more resonant with admissions officers, but I was not in that situation. </p>
<p>True internationals may have deeper misconceptions about the process.</p>
<p>In terms of value systems, I don’t think it is healthy to have your self-worth wrapped up in career success.</p>