Asian Americans

Applying to College
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<p>TheDad- it also depends on what school Jamimom worked at. If it was MIT, well no s**t that its going to be mainly engineering focused Asians. But if it was Yale or Harvard, thats a completely different story isnt it? We cannot make so many assumptions based off one person who worked in a prestigious university. This is making widespread assumptions across the board which is not fair for Asian Americans like me (who have no interest whatsoever in engineering/science/math).</p>

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<p>I would, however, have to agree with TheDad on college admissions and what factors into their decisions. Colleges accept people, not stats.</p>

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<p>Rockice, it's just not MIT. It <em>is</em> Yale and Harvard. And it's schools like UCLA, where TheMom is a director-level employee who has worked at UCLA for 25 years and myself, who formerly worked as a counselor at UCLA as well as another SoCal private university.
I'm not pulling this stuff out of my hip pocket.</p>

<p>Part of the problem is that it seems every year there's some group of Asian students that discover the profile of how things work as if it were something New and decide a Revolution is in order. It's possible that a Revolution <em>may</em> be in order but you have to understand the why's and wherefore's that exist before you can decide. And as with many problems, it often looks black-and-white (no pun intended) initially and then becomes grayer and grayer the more you get into it and the more you understand.</p>

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<p>Whoa, that's deep^</p>

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<p>"This is pure bull. Otherwise there would be tons of Asian football players, soccer players, tuba players, etc. etc. etc"</p>

<p>A sport a sport, an instrument an instrument. What difference does it make if the sport is basketball or soccer, tennis or lacrosse?</p>

<p>"Also, you really need to get off from your definition of "more qualified." If you talk to virtually <em>any</em> admissions officer, they will tell you that they're <em>not</em> looking for a stats-based class"</p>

<p>Of course stats aren't everything, but they are quite important. Simply to be considered, you need stats within an acceptable range. How can a student with a C average, 950 SAT, but amazing acting skills possibly even consider Harvard?</p>

<p>"I suggest that you read books on the subject like Michele Hernandez' A IS FOR ADMISSIONS"</p>

<p>And if you read it, you'll find that people in the 8-9 range are accepted at over 90% and those in the 6-7 range around 65%. For the students in the 3-5 range, they have an admit rate of approx. 25%. How can you possibly say academics aren't that important in face of these numbers? A meager 25% of the kids with low academics, but apparently striking ECs get accepted as opposed to the 90% of the 1600, 4.0, etc. kids. Even the above average, but not exceptional kids have almost 3x higher admit rate than those depending solely on a hook.</p>

<p>Also, Hernandez straight out says that an academic 8 or 9 will ONLY BENEFIT from mediocre ECs. That means even slightly below average ECs WILL NOT hurt someone who is academically strong enough. And yet, ECs are supposed to be the ultimate deciding factor in admission? Please.</p>

<p>"Btw, defining people with hooks as "oddballs" will make you extremely popular at whatever campus you end up."</p>

<p>Even after the second read, you still don't understand. I never said people with hooks are "oddballs." I said the people who DEPEND on A HOOK such as being an artist, athlete, etc. have few chances of getting accepted because they'll need some truly amazing and spectacular accomplishments. I listed "oddball" as a POTENTIAL HOOK you could USE. I NEVER said hooks = oddball.</p>

<p>"Well, you better start explaining how schools like Harvard and Yale have a quarter of their class with SAT's under 1400."</p>

<p>URM, atheletes, legacy. Throw in a few people with strong ECs, but weak academcis and that pretty much covers it. But these are SPECIAL CASES. The rest of the applicants, the kind that represents the vast majority of students, are in the 75% that scored higher.</p>

<p>"Or maybe they just bring a diversity of experience and viewpoint to campus."</p>

<p>If that were the case, why aren't more of the sub 1000's and 2.0's accepted? I'm sure there are many more students with a greater diversity of experiences and viewpoints than those that got accepted. Why were these students then rejected? BECAUSE THERE ACADEMICS WEREN'T STRONG ENOUGH. Simply being able to contribute to diversity will NOT get you accepted. </p>

<p>"There are nine-and-sixty kinds of social yeast...and colleges look for every single one of them."</p>

<p>Please. Coke and Pepsir are the same thing, just different names. You can label each student whatever you want, but they generally fall into a handful of common archetypes.</p>

146

<p>Hmmm....reading over what I wrote, it seems I'm not really arguing for or against AA. I honestly don't care about it either way.</p>

<p>What I am responding to is the definition of a "desirable student." I just don't believe low stats, but amazing ECs+personality is given higher preference to high stats, but decent ECs</p>

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<p>In that case, there should be an active lookout for all underrepresented minorities. Black mathematicians, Asian wanna be politicians, White basketball players, Hispanic pre-med, etc... I never got the sense that admissions committees thought that Asian Americans who were interested in politics should be deemed "unique".</p>

148

<p>this seems like something exclusive to the asian population in CA and i daresay that you would not see the same thing in NE or highly affluent Chicago suburbs at all. just as an example, you would be shocked to see how many asian lawyers there are in Newton, the town where Kerry lives. Or how many asian businessmen/women there are even in traditionally industrial areas. you have to remember that asians are only 4% of the population. nonetheless there are many extremely exclusive surburbs that are 40% asian, and most of those kids have no intention of being engineers. even upper-middle-class asian families do not emphasize math/sci like you're suggesting all asian families do. i think it is only with these "chinatown-based" asian societies that you get this particular breed of asian that you're debating right now. </p>

<p>i'm sure both of you have a point about the asian population but i do think that most of you haven't seen the whole picture. </p>

<p>with what i just said in mind, i think it amounts to discrimination against those asians who are lower-class and simply want to work their way up. in their case, i tend to think that the drive to succeed is <em>slightly</em> more impressive than a white girl's parents' buying her an oboe and her making it to all-state. that's just my opinion.</p>

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<p>Coke and Pepsi are NOT the same thing!--a Pepsi drinker</p>

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<p>The thing that boggles my mind is why is that maybe 99% of the Asians with high SAT scores/ and High GPA do not look beyond 20 of the almost 3500 schools in this country? And because these schools look at building a diverse class, the are first to cry that there is a backlash against Asian Americans and it should the admissions system should be built soley on merit and not other factors. The issue is not that asians are not getting in to college, it is that they are not getting in to a certain handful of colleges</p>

<p>Explain why is it that many do not even take into consideration the concept of Reach, Match and saftey schools, maybe it does not apply to them. </p>

<p>Why is it when people say that HYPMS are reaches for everyone that it falls on deaf ears and the list bill get balanced out my just adding a few more Ivy schools</p>

<p>On the parents forum there are many kids that can hold their own with perfect scores still tell there kids the value of reach safety and match, but parents of most asians tell theirkieds apply to all Ivies or nothing at all.</p>

<p>The net-net is no school is ever going to fill a class that is 100% asian.
No school is ever going to fill a class that is 100% 1600/ 4.0 gpa</p>

<p>As long as AA can be used as a scape goat for people not making good choices in the selection process, it will be an acceptable excuse because it is easier to say that "I did not get in because they let some AA kid in with lower stats" vs. "I was too arrogant to believe that no school would ever reject me even though of the thousands of applicants just like whose applications looks just like mine. "</p>

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<p>What are you talking about when you say that Asians do not have safeties? If you are talking about the 1600/4.0s--obviously our college counselors will let us use a school like Georgetown or Cornell as a safety. I know about a dozen people at my school who are using Cornell as a safety. </p>

<p>And do you realize that there are tons of NMSF near full-scholarship Asian students at publics like UT-Austin, UMCP, etc? Take a look at the break-up of ANY honors program at ANY school. I feel like you're taking a couple of examples you've seen and making a broad statement that makes no sense from what is actually true. </p>

<p>Finally, your argument that Asians still get into college is irrelevant. I just hope you take a class in reasoning. By your logic, I could say that women don't have the right to complain when they don't get a certain high lvl job because at least they are still working. Nice....real nice...</p>

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<p><dryly>, Justice, I'm hardly speaking of a "Chinatown" Asian culture. The area we live in is pretty representative--Asians are about 10 percent of D's high school--though there are some of those Asian-heavy affluent suburbs nearby too.</dryly></p>

<p>Asian students do concentrate into the hard sciences. The girls may have slightly more options or independence than the boys. It's all about familial influence...and if you're going to try to tell me that Asian students aren't heavily subjected to parental wishes, I'm going to laugh. Moreover, Asian parents seem to be waaaaaay too hung up on prestige and <em>what they perceive as prestige.</em> If any of you remember Sunshine on the Old Board from last year, Asian girl from Ohio, she was caught between Williams and Cornell. Her parents just about blew their gaskets because they had never heard of Williams and refused to believe it was a good college. Sunshine ultimately chose Cornell but not because of her parents...when she visited Williams some students were a bit snotty about the fact that she went to a public high school. Then there's my D's ex-bf (Asian), a chemistry major at Berkeley. His list of colleges was determined solely by prestige without considering what "fit" means. Well, he struggled to get a "B" in AP Calc B/C...and I knew he was going to have his rear handed to him at Berkelely...and it has been. He would have been much better off looking at some good but slightly less selective schools where he could succeed. I think it's kinda tragic, because his mom told him "You're the last hope of the family [to be a success in his generation]," a pressure that no kid should have to walk around with.</p>

<p>Going further with the whole prestige thing, if you assume that Asian enrollment is a rough indicator of applications, look at the comparison between some schools: Wellesley, 17 percent, versus Smith, 9 percent. (This one's easy at hand for me, my D attends Smith and took it over Wellesley.) Smith is a damn good school but it doesn't have quite the same "prestige" factor that Wellesley does. Harvard, 19 percent, versus Dartmouth, 11 percent. (In fact, just scanning the Ivy figures, you can almost rank prestige by percentage of Asian students.) Hmmm...this is interesting...Amherst 12 percent vs. Williams 9 percent...I bet that difference is largely due to the relative lack of Asian applicants with athletic background, something Williams is known for selecting for.</p>

<p>Both by major and by institution, the best Asian students self-select through a pair of narrow funnels. And the short of it is, as Jamimom notes, after the 20th high-scoring piano-playing Physics major, the adcoms are going to start looking for a different kind of student. Conspiracy or discrimination? No. Resulting in admitted Asian students having higher test scores? Yes.</p>

<p>Cal1600, it's not that an Asian government major will be unique but that at any given level of academic profile, he/she stands a much better chance anyway. Same as with a competitive African American, math major or not, Hispanic student, pre-med or not.
Effectively, an Asian gov major has a much better chance of being admitted than an Asian math major. Yes. Because the selection pool isn't nearly as brutal.</p>

<p>StressedOut, and you've hit it: your definition of what constitutes a desirable student does not align with how most adcoms define it. We (Americans) do place high value on lots of different factors. You don't have to agree with it but the system isn't going to change. If you don't want to try the Chinese, Japanese, or Indian systems, you can also try the French or Russian. There are enough people--both American and international--who believe that our system offers a much richer educational environment than the narrow stats-based approach.</p>

<p>Other points: a sport is NOT a sport. Colleges support many teams and they're going to make some effort that they're competitive in all of them. Stanford and Williams, to take two, are absolutely nuts about how they go about this. I believe that Stanford supports more NCAA teams than any other institution, thus being able to support sports beyond the marquee sports of football, basketball, and track/field. Nor is an instrument an instrument. Bassoon players are harder to find than violinists, trombonists harder than clarinets. An orchestra needs all of them and while it may frustrate you because it's not YOUR priority, the Music departments and the adcoms are going to make sure that colleges get them.</p>

<p>You exaggerate when you talk about a 950 SAT Theater Major at Harvard. But a 1350 Theater major with sparkling credits may well be selected over a 1550 Math major.
You know what? A 1350 is perfectly well equipped to succeed at Harvard. The only reason that SAT's are used the way they are is because there are just way too frickin' many applicants and they have to use something as a rough sorter. Moreover, there have now been enough studies to say that the SAT measures two things: a) how good you are at taking the SAT and b) a predictor of success in the FIRST YEAR of college...and then for WHITE/ASIAN students, not URM's. When you talk about 1000 SAT's and sub-2.0 GPA's, you're being nonsensical. That doesn't happen because the threshholds are higher. What you--and a lot of Asian parents (per Jamimom)--don't get is that the 1350/3.5 is going to often be offered admission and sometimes a 1550/4.2 isn't. Btw, you seem to assume that all that bottom 25 percent is URM's, legacies, and athletes...I suggest that you will wind up embarrassing yourself if you take that attitude onto campus.</p>

<p>Btw, you keep trying to argue as if I think academics don't matter. They do. Highly. But they're not the only thing that matters and adcoms will make <em>some</em> trades in pure academics for other factors. There are enough kids in the SAT 1100-1450 range who will be admitted to elite institutions because the adcoms see them adding something useful to the campus environment. And I can tell you flatly that adcoms don't see students as falling into a handful of archetypes. This may be <em>your</em> view and this may be why your vision of the admissions process is a bit like being color blind in that you can't see things the way others do.</p>

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<p>Cross-posted while writing a long post. Sybbie's post is absolutely correct. Justice, there may plenty of Asian NMSF's at places like UT-Austin and other places but that's not what Sybbie is [correctly] observing: high-achieving Asian students focus far more heavily on a very narrow range of schools compared to Anglo students.</p>

<p>Looking at Cornell as a "Safety" is something I wouldn't do with a 1580/3.9. A mindset that buys into this is waaay too hung up on prestige and doesn't get the realities.</p>

<p>Finally, you should probably be prepared to eat some words. You never really know who you're talking to on-line unless you've been around for a while and maybe not then. Sybbie is female and the job she has done "on the side" would make you choke and take off your hat if you were wearing one.</p>

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<p>I have one point to argue. Maybe the Asians are parents-driven somewhere else, but it's definitely not the case in my area.</p>

<p>My parents have no dictation whatsoever in my interests. They don't like military-type activities; my brother is on the Honor Guard for ROTC. They don't particularly care for journalism. They definitely don't care for film. Are they stopping me? No. Are they trying to stop me? Certainly not.</p>

<p>Yes, they are nearly inflexible. However, they are fine with anything my brother and I are involved in, as long as it's benefitial in some way.</p>

<p>My dream school is Wesleyan. Have my parents heard of it? No. Do they check US News or some other list to find out its ranking? No. They were most definitely supportive of my choice of interest. Also, they've suggested Ivies but have never pushed me in any way to consider them. </p>

<p>Unless I'm some sort of extreme anomaly, it's pretty unfair to classify all Asians as such. Other types of Asian, such as Vietnamese or Laotian, dictates the lives of their children less so than others. You make us sound like prestige wh0res with absolutely no passion for our achievements.</p>

<p>It sounds like you're attacking based on personal resentment towards your daughter's ex.</p>

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<p>of course that kind of asian exists--i'm just saying that it's a cultural phenomenon that you don't see as much in other places and i want you to realize that. i don't want you to judge the asian-american identity based on what you see in CA. in particular, i think it is a middle-class phenomenon. asians have leadership. look at the student gov at princeton and wharton, for instance. asians play sports. there are always about a half dozen asian recruited athletes at my school, which is just about right consider the proportionality.</p>

<p>if you want me start giving you anecdotes, all but one of the asian applicants for harvard ea last yr from my school got in, and none of them were math/sci. i think we're talking about different lvls. like if you can see cars that are under 70,000, we're probably talking about different things.</p>

<p>your % thing doesn't make sense. by that logic, asians find berkeley 4x more prestigious than princeton. you also completely ignored my point about asians in public honors programs. finally, to say that an asian govt major would have a better chance is ridiculous. govt is the most common major at harvard and very common at every school, and there are many asians in it. it is sickening to think that there are ppl like you who take what you know from what you've seen around you and make this statement that they're all physics majors/blah. </p>

<p>harvard's physics concentrators: 7.7% asian. <a href="http://physics.harvard.edu/s/directory/undergrads%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://physics.harvard.edu/s/directory/undergrads&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>TheDad:
"it's not that an Asian government major will be unique but that at any given level of academic profile, he/she stands a much better chance anyway.
Effectively, an Asian gov major has a much better chance of being admitted than an Asian math major. "</p>

<p>On the common application, I stated that I wanted to major in Math and French. What effects do you think this will have?</p>

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<p>Effulgent...whoa. I am not attacking. I am explaining, including to some people who do not want to hear the explanation. I have no ill ill whatsoever towards my D's ex; his choosing Berkeley was just a good case at hand.</p>

<p>You're quite right in that all Asians should not be lumped together: Chinese parents seem to be the most demanding <em>as a group</em>, followed by Korean, then Japanese. Others are below the radar screen but they're in much smaller numbers. </p>

<p>But what you may broadly generalize as a group certainly does not apply to all individuals, as your own family indicates. And you wouldn't have Robert Chai playing offensive line for the UCLA football team, either.</p>

<p>Justice, my experience in SoCal are the specifics that color in the generalities supplied elsewhere. This is the beginning of my third cycle on CC. I've read <em>thousands</em> of posts by Asian students in that time. The picture is like an Impressionist painting, with each post like a splotch of color that doesn't mean anything much but does take on meaning in aggregate. I also was a deeply involved parent at my D's high school and talked to many parents and students on a large number of issues...I am not someone who relies on any single source of information. </p>

<p>We're talking tendencies here. Making up numbers for purposes of illustration, if 20 percent of Anglo students major in the sciences but 60 percent of Asian students do, that is significant. If 50 percent of Anglo students apply to LAC's but only 15 percent of Asian students do, that is significant. And it all has effects on the ultimate admissions profiles.</p>

<p>Justice, you prove my point: if 7.7 percent of Havard Government concentrators are Asian, then they're underrepresented in that concentration relative to their 19 percent standing in the student body as a whole. And you're twisting numbers in a way that produces nonsense: comparing Princeton to Berkeley is silly; comparing Princeton to other Ivy League schools is like to like. </p>

<p>Berkeley and Stanford have special places in that, being on the Pacific Rim, they're better known in Asia than most of the Ivy League schools except Harvard. They also get a lot of applications from high-achieving West Coasters who want to stay close to home. Havard, you can encounter a previously unknown tribe in the middle of New Guinea and they've heard of it.</p>

<p>Aero56, I don't think it will have any effect. I do not think colleges are setting Asian quotas. The pool of Math majors is less competive than some others in the sciences, so all other things being equal, I think you'll have an easier time there than otherwise.
And I'd give points for the Math/French double major...what someone on an adcom would actually do, I don't know. But it strikes me as "interesting" and adcoms each have their own definition of filling out an "interesting" student body.</p>

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<p>7.7% of harvard's PHYSICS majors are asian. check the link why don't you. and get some glasses</p>

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<p>Uh... didn't he say 7.7% physics major... not government?</p>

<p>Anyways, I'm going to gymnastics practice, and I'll DEFINITELY have more to say on this topic when I return.</p>

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<p>just to add my two cents. </p>

<p>asians do have reach, match, and safety. each person should have a general idea of their abilities, their strengths, and their weakness. if they don't, they aren't ready for the "real world", asians or not. </p>

<p>i like the concept of AA because i don't want to be a school surrounded by asians. i must say from a naive high school perspective, making friends who are not asians with parents enforcing far different values than mine is truly eye-opening and i love it. but whether i am in favor of AA or against it, i need to do more research and i must say this thread has been informative.</p>

<p>yes, i agree with the fact that asians parents care way too much about presitge. my father for example was horrify that i would consider anything but uc berkeley (also partly because it is near home). but at the same time, despite the fact i do feel pressure, i believe if a student is ready for college, he/she is also ready to make their own decision. </p>

<p>i realized that compare with most posts on this thread. this lack luster, statistics, thorough knowledge and experiences but since i feel this subject hit quite close to home, i decided to comment.</p>