Part of the issue is by the time kids come to CC, most have already taken their SATs and their EC’s have been pretty well defined.
Sure, if they have time, they could try to redirect their energy to a more creative EC but that’s not really easy to do and it may also come across as “gaming the system” if they do this in their senior year. A lot of times, everything is already baked and they’re asking for a taste test, not to change the recipe.
You beat me to that. 
I was about to type that. I (along with other parents) was asked to speak on one of those graduating senior panels at child’s school.
I hope I wasn’t inflaming the tiger parents too much but I said that IF you were aiming high, start early.
Candidly, Im not sure I want to tell 7th graders they need to be creative with their ECs. It seems so contrived and borderline abusive.
Just for the record, I dont really care if my kids dont want to attend an elite school. I think being a big fish in a small pond is fine and can be just as rewarding.
However, it does pain me when they start looking at college topics online, they start to recognize that being Asian may mean you are subjected to implicit bias from the top schools. My daughter, unsolicited, brought up the Asian personality ranking issue.
The Harvard lawsuit has brought a lot of that out in the open.
Me neither.
Indeed, it would be counterintuitive to have a separate “pool” for applicants who are widely believed to be overrepresented. It would be like having a separate pool for Jewish applicants. The AO would have to be insane or insanely foolish to admit to such a thing.
Thank you for stating this so clearly. Your posts are all giving me food for thought.
This thread is moving quickly so I don’t want to overlook @mynameiswhatever question asking for your definition of “Asian pool”. I have a suspicion you may be defining that a bit more narrowly than anyone with ancestry from the Asian continent, but I could be completely off base.
The vast majority of Asian American college applicants have roots in 3 countries. China, India, Phillipines.
The first 2 probably also supply (my guess) the bulk of the applications to highly rejective colleges.
There is a general belief among Asians that most Ivy league schools admits for a class will be 15-25% Asian kids.
These schools want to increase their URM; that’s a clear and stated goal (maybe 20-25%) They also have legacies so that takes up 15% of admits (mostly are wealthy white kids). Most Asian students are not recruited athletes. Recruited athletes are about 20%. The rest are unhooked white kids.
Unhooked Asian kids are competing in that 15-25% Asian pool.
Many if not most Asian parents and kids believe that they are handicapped. They look at actual data and anecdata and come to these conclusions. If they are asking a chance me question with a self identification it is because they want to know how they look relative to the Asian curve at a certain college. Nobody will believe if someone on CC takes the view that this stuff doesn’t matter. A few years ago, one particular application season, none of the Asian kids (and usually they are some 20-25% of the class) got into their early schools – EA or ED. The school administration was in a panic. They called all the Asian families of that batch and a couple of batches below to say that they are doing their best to understand what happened. When situations like this happen, nobody believes the benign explanation anymore. Most Asians believe they are the new Jews.
It is impolite to dismiss these concerns.
2 questions - this was precovid, right?
This was precovid. The AOs obviously didn’t say anything. At the end of the day many of the kids went to other schools that were not their EA schools. More so than in a normal year. In a normal year some very large percentage of the kids get in EA/ED.
I am curious: what is this “data and anecdata” that you speak of in relation to this enormous category called “Asians”?
Anecdata are outcomes for Asian kids at their school over several years. Data are what come out of the Harvard case or the fact that before the Harvard case, Harvard or comparable college intake of Asians is locked at some number, for example 17% for several years , as if it is an engineered number. Wouldn’t you normally expect some good variation in that number year to year?
The group may be enormous, but you can count all the Asians at your school of all varieties and look at what the outcomes are. People do count.
So that was pretty facetious on the part of the college advisors unless they have changed the advice they give the kids -have they?
@neela1, can you please provide the definition of “Asian”? And how do mixed students with some level of “Asian” ethnicity figure into this?
I really don’t know.
They haven’t changed the advice much. But they do give nuanced advice. If I have concerns, they will give me what the acceptance rate is for the Asian cohort. They will tell us how to frame the essays. What activities to highlight. How to not get stereotyped. They are delicate about it. They told us to try not to apply to Stanford early. This is not an Asian thing — I a just giving an example of the kind of advice.
This is just detail. And covers less than 10% of the kids. Anyone with an Asian last name is an Asian. Any one whose profile looks Asian is an Asian — unless you can completely hide it. Luckily they don’t ask for pictures. I asked the counselor, jokingly, about checking other boxes. She told me it is hard to hide. They even ask for parents names. Why do you need the parents names?
Well, the current template is somewhat of an improvement over the old template. I did lobby to minimize the prominence of gender, race, ethnicity, legacy (see How to post a Chance Me or Match Me (reverse chance me) thread -- START HERE - #11 by ucbalumnus ) but was only slightly successful on that front.
This is the part where it’s hard to get a meeting of minds. Does someone’s bias get activated (IF it does) by a last name? By a last name and a check box? By a last name, check box and pre-college Juilliard and math contests?
Does someone’s bias get massaged away if they see a last name and the check box BUT (say) tons of lead roles in amateur musicals and poetry writing contests?
A great many highly paid private counselors and parents and kids think so.