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What if we eliminated poverty, fixed the public school system, and went back to a production economy? Seems like those would probably be a bit more important.</p>
<p>Billy - You have nt gotten the point. Harvard admission process supercedes anything that ails US!</p>
<p>“Whites are picked over Asians solely due to race, is a gigantic, underreported problem.”
I have to agree with this comment if ‘Asians’ are replaced by ‘Asian males’.</p>
<p>I do not know about other high schools but this is what is happening at my HS.</p>
<p>My High School:
- Extremely competitive: Top 3 SAT (or/and ACT) average in the nation
- Around 30% NMF and 35% NM commended
- White majority but good number of Asian and URMs
- Majority (but not all) of top academic students are East Asians or Indians</p>
<p>Admission results over the past few years:
- About 40% go to top 20 colleges
- About 10-15% go to Ivies and SMC
- Asians do okay with top non-Ivy (+SMC) colleges
- URMs do okay with top non-Ivy (+SMC) colleges: We had one URM went to Ivy and he/she was a good student from a middle class family
- Asian females do okay with Ivy+SMC as long as they are science or engineering oriented
- Whites (both males and females) do okay with Ivy (+SMC)</p>
<p>HOWEVER, ASIAN MALES do terrible with Ivies (+SMC). 0 acceptances this year. 0 acceptances last year. 1 acceptance three years ago…
Extremely high SAT (ACT), SAT II scores, high GPA, significant awards, interesting ECs, community services, intended majors……<br>
It does not freaking matter.</p>
<p>20more - do the Ivy reps show up at your school? Has anyone asked them what is going on? If Asian females are getting in, they seem to be filling up the Asian quota.</p>
<p>texasgp</p>
<p>SMC and Ivy reps come to our region but they do not come to my HS. They seemed to know my HS very well though.</p>
<p>It is very difficult to understand why this is happening year after year.</p>
<p>[The</a> Ivy Delusion - Magazine - The Atlantic](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/04/the-ivy-delusion/8397/4/]The”>The Ivy Delusion - The Atlantic)</p>
<p>"In fact, when you account for all of the “hooked” seats in the freshman class—spaces specifically set aside for kids who have some kind of recruited talent or family connection or who come from an underrepresented minority group—you accomplish, at the most selective colleges, two things: you fill a large percentage of the class (some researchers believe the figure is as high as 60 percent), and you do so with kids whose average grades and scores are significantly lower than your ideal. Now it’s time to swing a meritocracy into place; the caliber of the class is at stake. All of the unhooked students are now going to be thrown into a hypercompetitive pool, the likes of which the layperson can’t imagine. As daunting as the median grades and test scores of the typical Princeton admittee may appear, those statistics have taken into account all of the legacies and volleyball players and rich people’s children who pushed the averages down. The colleges are looking for one very specific quality at this point in the cycle: not “creativity” or “imagination” (or the ability to say funny things at the dinner table and make perceptive comments about movies—a knack today’s parents tend to call “critical thinking”); what they are looking for are the most deeply smart students in the country. "</p>
<p>Asian females (science oriented), white males and females that are not the “most deeply smart students” still get in while Asian males are left out.</p>
<p>What is SMC?</p>
<p>stanford MIT Chicago?</p>
<p>Ahhhh!..</p>
<p>I was talking about Cal Tech.</p>
<p>Ahhhh!..</p>
<p>Surprising to know MIT and Caltech are in this mix. They seem to not have the 18% barrier for the Asians but on the other hand admit lot fewer students.</p>
<p>^Caltech doesn’t have any race preference, although I don’t think texasPG was implying that. I think the Asian percentage at MIT has gone down in the past 10-15 years, though.</p>
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<p>I merely aim to dispel the misconception that URM’s are somehow less qualified and less deserving of their admissions than the Asian and Caucasian students whose spots they “took”. The system has its shortcomings, no one can argue that. But what I find intolerable are the rejected students who point to AA for their misfortunes, and resent the URM admits who were just as deserving of their spots as anyone else.</p>
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<p>Perhaps not, but then again I never had the opportunity to delve into these students’ academic histories, or even their family backgrounds. Some probably had to overcome great obstacles to get to where they are, and some probably didn’t. My anecdotal evidence only represents a small portion of a much bigger issue.</p>
<p>The thing is, students like these can be successful anywhere. These rejected “victims” of AA too can do amazing things elsewhere.</p>
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<p>Most appeared distinctly Hispanic, some more than others. But this argument is a tangent which I’d prefer not to take. I do not claim AA is necessary as an apology of sorts for previous “crimes” against minorities. I support AA for other reasons.</p>
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<p>Outstanding students aren’t immune to negative feedback. They can “be successful,” but maybe having gotten feedback that they really aren’t at the highest level, they will go into a more lucrative pursuit rather than something that is a big sacrifice but which benefits society. Like, for instance, maybe the 2340 SAT Chinese kid will become a doctor rather than choosing to earn $20,000 for 10 years as a grad student and postdoc while trying to cure cancer. Or, alternatively, go to Wall Street rather than being a doctor or researcher.</p>
<p>I have known some very smart people that, after having good but not great admission results, ended up doing Wall Street. And the fact that they didn’t feel like they were “top-level” contributed somewhat to that choice. </p>
<p>There is a sentiment that high-performers should be like little worker bees and continue on in the same fashion regardless of external reward. It doesn’t work like that. Bitter disappointment can affect someone’s priorities and their general direction in life.</p>
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<p>I oppose both racial preferences and the notion that anyone has a reserved spot at any elite institution that can be “taken” by someone else.</p>
<p>I believe racial preferences have many shortcomings on many dimensions, but we’re talking about something else here. If “URM” admits are as deserving of their spots as anyone else, why practice racial preferences at all, as I asked? If they’re as qualified numbers wise and more importantly, can distinguish themselves above and beyond their numbers, what’s the point of the policy? Affirmative action would then be equivalent to a minimum wage set below the equilibrium wage; it would be pointless.</p>
<p>That’s what I find annoying, if not intolerable. If affirmative action doesn’t do much, why keep it? I can understand fully why so many fight so hard for its preservation if it’s equivalent to a minimum wage set ABOVE the equilibrium wage (i.e. it matters). But for people to say that it does little while fighting tooth and nail to keep it in place? That makes no sense.</p>
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<p>I’m glad that we both disagree with Pancaked’s “Yale or jail” argument.</p>
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<p>Fair enough.</p>
<p>The simple truth is: Asian Americans are at a disadvantage. However, the disadvantage isn’t because that “stupid” black or Hispanic kid took your spot, but because that multiple-season varsity sport, intel winning, 2400/4.0 Asian is simply, to be frank, better than you in that respect. In the same way, the high scoring black kid probably took the spot of the average black kid. To maintain a microcosm of the real world, which ultimately grants interactional coping abilities, demographics must mirror American society to an extent, although they’re already somewhat skewed with a high Asian population in top schools. Any more asians, which make up about 5% of citizens, and it’s favoring success (assumed that a top school provides a means) of a certain race at the detriment of a huge population of Americans (comparatively less qualified minorities).</p>
<p>You may be good, but you’re not damn good–not comparatively good enough among Asians. Asians, in a way, have done it to themselves. You guys, in general, culturally equate education with success and therefore have more competitive applicants despite the fact that you make up so much less of the American population. It’s a proud fact. Sad too, but unfortunately it’s reality.</p>
<p>I’m really sick of this debate. Lets be proud of our accomplishments and not seek to measure them with the futility of a label.</p>
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<p>This gets us back to shaheirunderdog’s question: “One thing doesn’t make sense to me however, why is it fine that 40-45% of the people at a college can be white, but not that many can be asian?”</p>
<p>You appear to have answered as I predicted: “"America isn’t 40-45% Asian, so colleges shouldn’t be 40-45% Asian.”</p>
<p>“Mirroring” demographics amounts to nothing but a quota by a different name.</p>
<p>If Asians are doing “too well,” they sure as hell shouldn’t be punished for it.</p>
<p>fabrizio, the one fundamental part that i disagree with you about is that i don’t think just because asian americans are disadvantaged in admissions to ivy league schools and whatnot, means that they’re being punished</p>