<p>Is being an Asian a weakness for Harvard? I mean, when I read threads of last year admission, I read quite a lot of comments with the same idea. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>[The</a> Ivy League’s Asian problem - The Daily Californian](<a href=“http://www.dailycal.org/2013/02/11/the-ivy-leagues-asian-problem/]The”>The Ivy League's Asian problem)</p>
<p>I thought you’re an international applicant. That’s a MUCH bigger problem than being an Asian American applicant…</p>
<p>If you’re asian and you’re from a competitive high school in California, sure. </p>
<p>Just kidding. It’s not that they see this type of background and automatically put you in a different pile. The reason why it’s sometimes harder is because there are so many people like you, and with the University goal of getting diversity, you really have to then work harder to set yourself apart from all of these other applicants.</p>
<p>ckag: Like I said in post #3, if jsutcliffe is not a US citizen or green card holder, she is in the wildly tougher international pool. Discussions about Asian American admissions does not apply to her</p>
<p>If I can assume Sutcliffe is not a pseudonym, and that being Asian is not merely a theoretical question for you (or you would have asked about citizenship rather than Asian being-ness), I am assuming you are of mixed race descent. You may want to research or contact this group:</p>
<p>Harvard HAPA
[Harvard</a> Half Asian People’s Association | Half the Asian, All the Sensation](<a href=“http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/harvardhapa/]Harvard”>http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/harvardhapa/)</p>
<p>Asians are like 5% of the American population but the constituent 20% of Harvard students body.</p>
<p>It’s much harder for international applicants. Domestic Asians gain entrance in record numbers, but for some reason they seem to be world class pessimists.</p>
<p>Well if being a half Asian is already hard, then being a “pure” Asian is much harder right?</p>
<p>That’s not the logical flow of this Jessica. What you’ve delved into is the perceived difficulty for Asian Americans to be admitted to very selective US colleges. It’s not based on race rather on the fact that selective colleges want diverse communities. As a broad and gross generalization, the Asian American pool tends to be very similar – and they apply in inordinate amounts to selective colleges. For those schools, one needs to stand out. But how do you stand out if culturally, these students tend to congregate around certain ECs (piano, tennis, violin, Math Club, ethnic dance, research)?</p>
<p>It’s a current debate amongst domestic students and families. Like I’ve stated before, not applying as a domestic student, you’re outside of this discussion. You’ve got to compete among other international applicants – not only Asians but also Africans, Latin Americans and Europeans. Don’t worry about how many diffuculties Asian Americans have applying to top schools. It’s irrelevant to you. You have to get one of the slots set-aside for Internationals.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s hard to get into Harvard as an Asian American, not any more “difficult” it is for people of other races to get in. Yes, one could make the argument about affirmative action and point to statistics about Asian Americans having an average of 50-100 points higher on the SAT than other minorities, but that really neglects the differences in socio-economic backgrounds of the Asian Americans and other ethnic minorities. For example, it’s well known among Asian Americans in California that to get a better SAT score, it’s probably useful to invest a couple hundred dollars in test prep material and maybe even a couple thousand for a SAT prep class. That extra preparation can artificially inflate an Asian American applicant’s score by 50-100 points easily. Some months ago a senior member on CollegeConfidential referred to an academic study which showed an academic underachievement gap exhibited specifically by Asian Americans with really high SAT scores who ended up not doing so well in college. From observation of my peers who have just completed their first year in college as I have, that conclusion seems to be at least partially true. So yes, it may be frustrating to realize that a 2400 is not sufficient to guarantee admission into Harvard, but if you’re a passionate, dedicated “Asian American” who truly believes you belong at Harvard and will excel, then you will naturally have the portfolio to make your application shine. Hope my little spiel helps clarify some misconceptions. </p>
<p>P.S. If you’ve been reading this post all the way through, I admit I’m actually really sick of typing the phrase “Asian American” right now.</p>
<p>Thanks for the interesting link.</p>