<p>Re: UC Berkeley</p>
<p>The 2008-2009 freshmen who enrolled were 42.5% “Asian-Filip-Pac Is”, 27.8% “White”, 11.3% “Chicano/Latino”, 3.4% “African American”, 0.05% “American Indian”, 1.3% “Other”, 6.3% “Unknown”, and 7.0% “International”, according to [University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu%5DUniversity”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu) .</p>
<p>“I have to say that I was shocked to see the high % of asian students and I only saw one african american student the entire time I was there. As a parent, I came away from the visit NOT wanting to send my son to UCLA . . .” - a CC parent</p>
<p>Primarily, racism is passed down from parent to child.</p>
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<p>Assuming only 30-40 colleges in the US are overrepresented by Asians and use race as a factor in admissions, the “other” schools easily constitute 98%. So if you stop fetishizing over the first page of USNews, you can easily find rewards.</p>
<p>
That’s great for your kid. But I suspect his self motivation is not the norm.</p>
<p>Technically, you do not have to be knowledgeable in any subject area to nudge your kid in that direction and seek the resources to make it happen. My colleague’s dad is a waiter who pushed him into science and math - for which he is grateful because it turns out he enjoys it and is good at it as well. But he wouldn’t have necessarily chosen that path on his own.</p>
<p>And most kids can’t evaluate the nuances of musical instruments in kindergarten, let alone differentiate between, say, a violin, viola and cello. THe fact that so many of them end up studying violin and piano has to involve parental choice in many cases. I studied and play those instruments (very poorly) because my parents put me in lessons, not because I was begging for them. BTW, I’m happy they did because I can still fool around a little on the piano for my enjoyment, although I was never really that good.</p>
<p>Oh, and I’m white by the way. And not Jewish. So I think these are the type of things many parents did, and do, because (rightly or wrongly) they feel it will be beneficial for their kid.</p>
<p>To answer your question: If colleges ask applicants to identify their race and use it as a factor (+ or -) in admissions–yes, they are racist.</p>
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<p>It is likely a lot more than 30-40 colleges and universities.</p>
<p>This doesn’t really change anything in the debate, but I think that in this case we should use a term like “race-discriminating” in place of the ubiquitous (and, as of late, meaningless) “racist.”</p>
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<p>I don’t think so. Look at the top 50 national universities in USNews and their Asian enrollments:</p>
<p>Harvard 15%
Princeton 18%
Yale 16%
Columbia 19%
Stanford 16%
Penn 17%
Caltech 42%
MIT 23%
Dartmouth 14%
Duke 21%
Chicago 22%
Northwestern 22%
John Hopkins 19%
WUSTL 18%
Brown 12%
Cornell 15%
Rice 20%
Vanderbilt 6%
Notre Dame 6%
Emory 25%
Georgetown 9%
Berkeley 40%
Carnegie Mellon 22%
USC 25%
UCLA 34%
Virginia 14%
Wake Forest 4%
Tufts 9%
Michigan 14%
UNC 8%
Boston College 10%
W&M 6%
NYU 21%
Brandeis 16%
Georgia Tech 16%
UCSD 50%
Lehigh 5%
Rochester 11%
UC Davis 36%
UCSB 21%
Case Western 18%
Rensselaer 9%
UC Irvine 49%
U of Washington 29%
U of Texas 17%
U of Wisconsin 6%
Penn State 4%
U of Illinois 14%
U of Miami 6%
Yeshiva ~0%</p>
<p>Top 50 LACs are even more forgiving:</p>
<p>Williams 11%
Amherst 11%
Swarthmore 15%
Middlebury 5%
Wellesley 22%
Bowdoin 7%
Pomona 11%
Carleton 7%
Davidson 6%
Haverford 6%
Claremont McKenna 13%
Vassar 9%
Wesleyan U 6%
Smith 12%
Washington and Lee 2%
West Point 6%
US Naval Academy 4%
Grinnell 7%
Hamilton 8%
Harvey Mudd 22%
Bates 4%
Colgate 3%
Colby 6%
Oberlin 4%
Scripps 10%
Barnard 19%
Colorado C 3%
Macalester 5%
Mt Holyoke 6%
Bryn Mawr 12%
Bucknell 3%
C of Holy Cross 4%
Kenyon 5%
Sewanee 2%
Richmond 4%
Occidental 18%
Trinity C 6%
Bard 2%
Lafayette 3%
Whitman 9%
Connecticut C 3%
Franklin & Marshall 4%
Furman 2%
Skidmore 5%
Union 5%
Pitzer ~
Centre 3%
Dickinson 3%
Gettysburg 2%
Rhodes 4%</p>
<p>Let’s make some reasonable assumptions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Asians looking at top schools will have little trouble getting into schools below the top 50.</li>
<li>Schools with Asian enrollments below 10% will not put Asians at a disadvantage in admissions.</li>
</ol>
<p>If we eliminate the sub-10% schools and those that don’t consider race in admissions (UC campuses, U of Washington, Georgia Tech, and Michigan), we have 28 universities + 12 LACs and get 40 schools total where Asians could be at a disadvantage.</p>
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</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean anything though, since Asians probably apply to top colleges at much higher rates than other races.</p>
<p>The only thing they have against Asians is that so many of them are qualified, so if they accepted them only based on merit they would decrease the university’s racial diversity.</p>
<p>True.</p>
<p>With a few billion Asians and a billion Indians in the world, if schools only accepted by stats, enough perfect-stats Asain/Indian kids could fill every college seat plus more (including all non-elite schools) in the entire US.</p>
<p>Asian Americans are only 4% to 5% (not 10%) of the total population of the US; any school with a “national” student body (as opposed to a state specific student body as with many state universities) will likely consider greater than 4% to 5% Asian Americans to be “overrepresented”.</p>
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</p>
<p>However, what of the Asian American applicants who would (by stats match) apply to the next level “down” of schools? That next level “down” of schools would be filled with Asian American students who were pushed “down” from the most selective schools.</p>
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<p>Yes, I realize that Asians are slightly less than 5% of the US. But I don’t think a college with 5-9% Asians is going to discount Asian applications because they are officially overrepresented. I think 10% was a good minimum number because those colleges had over twice the Asian representation, which I think is around the tipping point for Asian disadvantage. Do you really think a place like Vanderbilt is rejecting Asians at a racist level because 6% is higher than 5%?</p>
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<p>That’s not true. If you look at the next level down yourself, they have a pretty minimal number of Asians as a whole.</p>
<p>DHS2012 “how come acceptance rates for asians are low? do colleges have something against asians just cause they study hard to get into college?”</p>
<p>Do you have some evidence that the acceptance rates are low? Given the % of population versus the % of student at many top universities it appears that the acceptance rate is HIGHER than for other ethnic groups. If Asians (as a group) do in fact study hard then the group is being rewarded. Note: “Asians study hard” is a positive stereotype that may be true for many but definitely not all Asians". </p>
<p>Are you saying that while the acceptance rate may be high it should be higher because highly qualified Asians are being rejected in the pursuit of diversity?</p>
<p>*Where’s mini?</p>
<p>It’s been 15 minutes, and he hasn’t shown up yet to ask “What do you mean by Asian?”, followed by a list of twenty or so subcategories.*</p>
<p>;)
Well he has a point- while in my generation Japanese american families sent their kids to Japan- for college/education, now the reverse is true & I have several Korean friends whose families did not plan for them to stay in this country after they went to college.</p>
<p>Often students from China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan & India, have a socioeconomic background different from Hmong students from Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam & China, for example. Our school district does not differentiate between nationalities or economic status. Thus as a whole, Seattle cites Asians as doing better oftentimes than any other group. But within those stats, you have high drop out rates for Samoan students and uneven support for their parents who may not speak English.</p>
<p>Colleges often look beyond GPA and test scores to get a mix of students, even public schools which have legislative mandates against using racial quotas, have found ways to continue a diverse population. Some are more successful/motivated than others apparently.</p>
<p>
When I first visited UCLA (and UCB and UCSD and UCI) I was surprised to see such a large percentage of Asians only because I hadn’t really given that aspect much thought. As a parent, it was up to my kids to decide whether to attend and I was hoping they wouldn’t use that racial aspect as an factor in the decision. Neither of my kids did, they went to the UCs that had a large percentage of ‘Asians’ (from many different countries/cultures) and somehow did just fine.</p>
<p>The number of only 7 AfAms is clearly off as the data from the link UCBAlumnus indicates.</p>
<p>Chris, yes thats what i meant lol. i think my question was a bit misleading</p>
<p>Concerning the comparison made above concerning two ORM’s (over-represented minorities) - Jews pre WWII and Asians today who desire admission to top universities: </p>
<p>In the 1930’s Jewish enrollment was capped by quota at admissions in Harvard and several other Ivy League universities. At the level of college presidents, possibly pressed by families with historic connections to the university, there was a clear desire to put up a social firewall. Jewish male students, many from public schools, were not wanted as classmates to the other set of sons, many from private schools. The latter had long assumed entry to the elite universities. The former caught up with them academically like launched rockets once they reached American shores and democracy. </p>
<p>There have since surfaced from Harvard some internal written memos and margin notes on Jewish student applications remarking on appearance (noses, voice) and stereotypical mannerisms during personal interviews. The personal interview was invented to discover same, although it was masked as a way to meet students from outside prep schools and known networks. These margin notes and memos attest to severe prejudice against Jewish students, as if their acceptance in too-large numbers would somehow pollute the bloodstream of the rest by residing, studying and socializing together. Following WWII and the Holocaust, these antiSemitic policies were overturned. End of story.</p>
<p>I do not believe this kind of top-level institutionalized social revulsion, that Jewish male applicants faced in the l930’s at a handful of schools, is the basis of today’s Asian tough competition to find spots in high places nationwide.</p>
<p>Asian students face different challenges so need different strategies when faced with competition by other ORM’s. Off the top of my head, some current challenges include: hundreds of cultures lumped together and labeled “Asian” and insufficient exploration of LIberal Arts Colleges.</p>
<p>Students take messages from history to help them navigate the present times. It’s correct that Jews of the l930’s and Asians of today were/are both ORM’s for education, talented and well-encouraged in academics. It would be incorrect to imagine similar race hatreds behind-the-scenes to cause the numbers competition for top spots that Asian students feel today.</p>
<p>*“I have to say that I was shocked to see the high % of asian students and I only saw one african american student the entire time I was there. As a parent, I came away from the visit NOT wanting to send my son to UCLA . . .” - a CC parent</p>
<p>===================================</p>
<p>Primarily, racism is passed down from parent to child. *</p>
<p>I wouldn’t conclude that the parent was racist. The parent may have been African American or some other ethnic group and felt that the lack of diversity would not be good for his/her child. Parents and students on CC are often looking for schools that have diversity…which often means “their ethnic group” or they just want a full rainbow of diversity…and that’s ok. That’s not racist.</p>
<p>hmmm . . .</p>
<p>The word ‘diversity’ is thrown around too much in this context. Some people look only superficially at the color of the skin to conclude whether a college is ‘diverse’ or not. It works for stats and the general ‘look’ of the students walking around but it doesn’t tell you anything about their country of origin, whether they’re a first gen or not, their religious views, their political views, their other philosophies which in my mind are more important than the skin tone. When you see a person of a particular race walking around on campus you don’t know anything about the person other than the color of the skin - not their ancestry, not their family wealth, not the opportunities they had or didn’t have growing up.</p>
<p>Should racial diversity be a more important factor than cultural or philosophical diversity? </p>
<p>Some people tend to lump all Asians together as a single category but if a college has no representation of people from Indonesia or Vietnam descent should they be given less of an opportunity than a 1st gen black from Africa or a Caribbean island?</p>
<p>I think for a lot of people when they refer to ‘diversity’ they’re really referring to more people like themselves (not everyone - but certainly some).</p>
<p>Certainly considering race in the equation of admissions is racial bias and you can’t have bias in this way without affecting someone of a different race - something the student had no control over and should in no way affect their ability to learn or handle the material. The same is true for gender bias. Whether one considers this good or bad often depends on what side of the equation they are. According to some definitions of ‘racism’, the term ‘racism’ isn’t equal to ‘racial bias’ depending on the context so in that context the answer to the OP’s thread title would be ‘no’ but that’s look at it semantically.</p>