An Asian Guy's Opinion

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>My name is " I am an asian guy", as you can see.=)</p>

<p>I am doing EA for MIT now, im anxious to see the result. =( I hope I can get in. I'm not posting my stats here, coz it won't make any difference.(no offense)</p>

<p>Ok, back to topic about the Asian-disadvantage. Well, I agree there is some level of disadvantage. We can see it from the statistics.(I'm an asian guy, I can't change it. I'm proud of being one)</p>

<p>However, being honest, are we really as good as our test scores? I know some asian guys with 2300+ SATI scores and perfect SAT II's, but still struggle in school's math and science courses. (Although GPA is good.)</p>

<p>So what makes our test scores that good? I think the major reason is our families' influence. Asian parents usually put a lot pressure on their children and even force them to go to SAT prep schools( I rarely heard and AA or Hispanic parents do this). For example, 80%+ conversation between my parents and me is about College Apps. So with the same stats, the AA or Hiapanic applicants usually have more potentials and better work ethics.</p>

<p>Besides, since I live in a AA and Hispanic community, I see their working environment more often that mant other people. I think it's more difficult for them to study. So their scores are more valuable than others'.</p>

<p>Anyway, this is only my personal ideas. Maybe people will attack me for standing on the opposite side, or even think i'm a fake asian guy. I'm not fake. I think there is really more competition between Asian guys, so what you can do is to be better than them. If you are not the best out of the best, then you are not deserved in MIT.</p>

<p>ps. I can't wait to see the MIT decision, even if i get deferred, I will not blame everything on my race. Come on, Be proud! What we do will eventually pay off. Life is not only about college(I'm lying, my life is now.=) lol)</p>

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<p>now THAT is a sweet first post....
I agree with almost everything you had to say maybe except the part about Asian students struggling in "school's math and science courses." I don't know exactly what you were trying to say there, but generally they ace the SAT's and EXCEL in school courses.
I also agree that the reason AA and Hispanics are looked at differently is simply because the general environment in which the majority of them grew up in isn't very academically-encouraging. Thus, making their efforts seem more admirable.</p>

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<p>Heh, a lot of people come here attacking AA... and that's okay, everyone has his own opinion... but when it comes down to it, I think there's only ever one question you need to ask yourself:</p>

<p>If you get accepted, will you be happier your school employs AA, or not? I for one would be quite sad having to live with a 7:3 guy:girl ratio... or without friends of various ethnicity (all of whom are equally qualified to be here!).</p>

<p>Meh, again, everyone has his own opinion, and this is mine. As a Turk, I would not want to go to a school with only 5% minority students... or even a school with 95% Turkish students... or whathaveyou... What people forget is that affirmative action is meant to improve the quality of life and culture at a school... not skew admissions. People who think in terms of admissions are quite shortsighted, IMHO.</p>

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<p>Thanks.
I'm praying for my apps now, lol.
Good luck to everyone who is applying.</p>

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<p>you might be proud of being an asian, and i guess i am too,
but i can't believe that you are perfectly fine with the whole math/science, tennis, piano, asb stereotype that has been with us all through high school</p>

<p>once you say you're asian.. people can guess your ecs, gpa, scores.. it's annoying, and sadly, most of the time true</p>

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<p>yeah, of the Asian parents I know, they definitely put a lot of pressure on their kids. I even saw an Asian 1st grader at my school today wearing a Harvard sweatshirt. It might just be that they family traveled to Boston, and purchased it as a souvenir, but I really hope the parents aren't nudging their kid in that direction that early. how nice it was to not have to think about college back then... :]</p>

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<p>Rachel: I once participated in all of those ECs!</p>

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<p>lol well if you're an asian, then you fit the stereotype
and if you're white... well then you're an egg i guess
egg = white outside, yellow inside
banana = yellow outside, white inside
hopefully that doesn't sound crazy to you, but where i live everyone knows who's a banana or an egg lol</p>

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<p>There is a very interesting thread right now on the Parents Forum that some of you may want to read. It's called, "To new immigrants -- how to get your kid into HYPS" and has many comments worth reading. In short, the OP, who works with many Chinese colleagues and spends considerable time working in China, tries to explain the characteristics most valued in US culture, and presumably in US college admissions, that differ from characteristics valued in many Asian cultures. She encourages new immigrant parents to try to understand this and not force their children into the stereotypes you're mentioning here. Anyway, I am finding it an interesting thread.</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=271192%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=271192&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>well, im not saying there is no stereotype. what i'm saying it that people who blame on AA or Hispanic taking away their seats instead of thinking improving themselves are wrong.(there are a lot of people do think this way, as far as i know)</p>

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<p>Good post.</p>

<p>But what I don't understand is why Asian-Americans don't recognize that in the same way, as a group, African-Americans can't compete with Asian-American, Asian-Americans can't compete with Chinese national's. Plus, why do they have to be so racially divisive? What is there to be proud of in one skin color or another? Maybe its a cultural thing, but in Europe and esp. in the U.S. people are viewed as individuals and their merit is based on achievement and potential, not their race. Everyone knows race doesn't matter, so lets adopt that persepctive, abolish racial identification in our minds and our policies (affirmative action included), and then we will "view the world aright."</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Everyone knows race doesn't matter, so lets adopt that persepctive, abolish racial identification in our minds and our policies (affirmative action included), and then we will "view the world aright."

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Unfortunately, everyone doesn't. Therein lies the problem.</p>

<p>Affirmative action isn't just about who came from a poorer family or less advantageous background. It's about countering effects such as those described at <a href="http://www.irs.princeton.edu/krueger/names2.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.irs.princeton.edu/krueger/names2.htm&lt;/a> (Summary: A study found that job-seekers with stereotypically black names were less likely to get callbacks than those with stereotypically white names). Or the effects shown in Claude Steele's studies that found that fear of of conforming to stereotype caused high-achieving black students to choke on standardized tests (he found a similar effect on mathematically talented women taking math tests).</p>

<p>People have unconscious biases even if they don't mean to be racist or sexist. It's too bad that affirmative action is still needed, and some of the ways in which it's implemented are inappropriate. But sadly, we don't live in a race-blind, gender-blind society.</p>

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<p>
[quote]

Meh, again, everyone has his own opinion, and this is mine. As a Turk, I would not want to go to a school with only 5% minority students... or even a school with 95% Turkish students... or whathaveyou... What people forget is that affirmative action is meant to improve the quality of life and culture at a school... not skew admissions. People who think in terms of admissions are quite shortsighted, IMHO.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Awesomely said Olo. Caltech is awesome, but I don't think I would mind if there were more non asians and more girls here. Asian males are not victims of the college application process :-P We need to stop whining.</p>

<p>Although it's definitely easier said by those who are done with the whole process already.</p>

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<p>I wasn't trying to suggest a total abolition of affirmative action; those debates and very politically contentious and mostly charged with blinding emotion. Public policy should be about empricism and pragmatism, so I fully agree with a data-driven approach and government regulation of any institution if its policy works. I think John Rawls and countless utilitarians have explained why well enough in philosophical terms for us to take that for granted.</p>

<p>My point was that people as individuals, including apparently particularly race-conscious members of this forum, should be introspective, examine their positions, their outlook, and their biases and then take a personal step forward to view the world from a race-blind perspective as much as possible. Obvioulsy by definition they can't control their unconscious thoughts, but they can control most actions and they can control their focus. I'd think it would be much more beneficial to discuss important race-blind issue, such as why 20,000 or more children had to die today from preventable diases and starvation, and ignore this emotional, nonsense debate that only fuel antagonism and feed into those unconscious biases.</p>

<p>By the way, I'm inclined to say the jury is still out on what the best solution to the "name bias" issue is. Having the government try to correct a small evil through reverse discrimination is probably doing more harm than good. Even though there is a demonstratable bias against African names, there is a similar demonstratable bias against European and Asian ethnic groups in place to correct it. So its reduced to a philosophical question of priorities, in particular subjective utility calculations.</p>

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<p>YAY YAY YAY! I got in. So anyway, MIT isn't really that mean.</p>

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<p>why do people always think asians are forced to study by their families? How are you so sure all the asian families are the same? that's a very rough assumption.</p>

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<p>I'd say that this generalization is pretty true for a very large majority of asians.</p>

<p>congrats Iamanasianguy!! thats awesome!!</p>

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<p>^^Or maybe just first-generation Asians, if at all.</p>

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<p>I am an Asian parent. While we expect our son does well in school, we never "force" him to do anything he does not want to. In gegeral, Asian parents are a bit of more "pushy", but not everyone. I always think that "push" won't make the kids more successful or happier in school or later in the larger society.</p>

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<p>I got deferred.....</p>

<p><em>stuffs asian nerd in trashcan</em></p>

<p>Nerd on Nerd Violence....</p>