<p>Not sure if this is the right section but a very interesting read and interesting to have it be in the media once more now that the college application season is in full force. </p>
<p>Some</a> Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian' - Yahoo! News</p>
<p>What do you guys think? I pretty much agree with the story. It's a fact that it's much harder for Asians to get into Ivies than other races.</p>
<p>You have to be careful with these types of studies. For example, some people might cite the UCs, or Caltech (where asian populations are high) to show that asian discrimination occurs in the top universities. However, at least in regards to even the top UCs, the competition for high-achieving asians isn’t nearly as high as it is for the ivies. The UCs applicants, and admits, are mainly from california. And california i believe is one of the most populus asian states in the US (like 20% IMS). the ivy leagues applicants are from all over the US and the world. So competition at the IVYs will be significantly more difficult than competition at the UCs. It doesn’t prove that asians are discriminated against. More people want to go to the top schools because they’re at the top, hence they’re more competitive, and hence, they’re harder to get into. Again, i don’t think discrimination has been proven here. </p>
<p>Now, there’s still the matter of Caltech. Why does Caltech have such a high asian student population where other schools don’t? It could be a few reasons. Caltech is obviously in california, which has a very high asian population to begin with. So it could be that caltech could just have more california applicants and, as a result of that, more of them are asian. (however i don’t know that stats on what percentage of people from california apply to caltech so this is mere conjecture.) </p>
<p>Additionally, Caltech is a specialized technical school. None of the ivies are, so i’m not sure this comparison is really even fair. Because of this, many applicants who apply to top schools might not apply to caltech, so again, this may not be the best university to prove discrimination. </p>
<p>But what about MIT which is a technical school whose asian population is significantly lower than caltech’s? Caltech’s asian population might be so high just because URM populations are significantly lower (22% at MIT; 11% at Caltech) and if you took away that extra 11% from MIT, it would probably look more like caltech.</p>
<p>It’s also kind of elitist on some of the asians who make these claims. “if we aren’t accepted it’s obviously because we’re discriminated against because we’re clearly the best.” i mean, do only asians have the highest stats in their applicant pool? Is every race inferior to asians in their GPA and test taking ability? clearly this isn’t true.</p>
<p>Additionally, i don’t see the point of not putting your race when you apply. Universities aren’t stupid. If many asians start to do this, their admission officers will probably just assume that if you decline to state your race, you’re probably asian (if they don’t already). And if that becomes the case, and they DO discriminate, they’ll just reject more people who fail to decline their race.</p>
<p>That being said, i am interested in this issue, mostly because many asians believe it to be the case (as shown by the article) so if people have any interesting posts to make on the subject, i look forward to reading them :)</p>
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<p>It’s high but not that high. According to the 2010 census California is a little less than 13% Asian which is abut 3 times the percentage of the US as a whole.</p>
<p>Caltech is a lot smaller than MIT.</p>
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<p>Can’t say I’ve ever seen such “facts”, but regardless. Don’t forget, that many top privates conduct interviews with adcoms or alums. They will see you up close and personal.</p>
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<p>(This is where AP Stat Simpson’s Paradox comes into use.) As a % of high school grads, Asians may comprise 10-15% of the total population. But, UC only selects the top 1/8th of high school grads. Statistically, ~33% of all Asian high school grads are UC-eligible, which is 2+ times that of the white-non Hispanic high school grads (~15%). Asians should comprise the highest number of instate admits to UC.</p>
<p>beyphy</p>
<p>This sort of things is difficult to “prove” but my intuition based on some data feels it may very well exist.</p>
<p>This year, 7 of the 8 finalists of Siemens Competition have Asian last names; four of the six 2010 IMO team members have Asian last names. Given such “dominance”, that Asian % is only twice as much as African or Hispanic in the Ivy league seems pretty low. Also, the Jews make up only 2% of the population but make up even higher perentages of the student bodies than Asians in elite private colleges. I don’t believe Jews are better, let alone that much better than Asians. The difference is Jews can “hide” their identity by checking the “white” box. </p>
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In fact, I believe I’ve seen breakdown of average SAT by ethnicities at Berkeley/UCLA and still Chinese/Koreans seem to need higher average to get into Berkeley and UCLA. Coupled with the above stats, Asians are actually the most under-admitted group even at UCs.</p>
<p>The issue is being discussed further in the College Admissions Forum (the proper forum for these issues) in the latest iteration of the FAQ and discussion thread: </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1228264-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-9-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1228264-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-9-a.html</a> </p>
<p>I’ll see you over there for more discussion. The opening posts of that thread provide a lot of links to official information.</p>