After listening to a variety of voices here on this thread, my revised thoughts on this…
focus on the applicant’s strengths as a whole and provide appropriate guidance as you would for any other unhooked applicant.
if the applicant is particularly concerned about applying as an Asian-American, acknowledge that race is a factor (unless the school is race blind) but highlight that it’s only one of multiple factors. Perhaps (if appropriate for the applicant) list alternate schools that are strong but more stats driven where race plays a lesser role, or where Asians are underrepresented.
I agree with your post, but I just want to add one thing (maybe clumsily written here, but strongly felt):
Have some respect for a family that is very focused on prestige. Go ahead and provide guidance, but do it respectfully and don’t stereotype them as “Asian family with T10 or bust mindset that needs to be changed.” Help them get a range of options onto that list, while recognizing that families are entitled to have different priorities.
Our family isn’t Asian, but I also have lots of family members who feel their kids / grandkids need extra strong credentials as a hedge against future uncertainties, due to experiences in living memory before they arrived in the US. I can understand and respect these feelings (even while I’m making sure my son has a balanced list).
This often seems like most families and students who come to these forums. (As opposed to those who go to colleges like SJSU (non-CS) or CSULA or whatever.)
Applicants and their families have different priorities. We often emphasize fit over prestige on these forums - but as @Catcherinthetoast has pointed out in a couple of threads, prestige can be a fit factor too for many people.
If a poster’s list is too reach heavy, it’s appropriate to point that out and suggest additional match and safety schools. But it bothers me when a highly accomplished kid who has spent years pursuing their STEM passion and is aiming for a T20 is told outright to disregard prestige and “just go to (popular southern football school)” instead.
This almost mirrors my experience. My best friend is first generation Taiwanese American and as his engagement/wedding approaches, the subject of how he will raise his kids comes up on a regular basis. I’ll leave it at that.
Maybe that’s true. But when the student is identified in the post as Asian and the list is very top heavy, I feel there can be a tendency to stereotype the family as “typical Asian T10 or bust mindset.” I just wish for everyone to be respectful, understand that there are many types of Asian family backgrounds and many reasons why a family might put a high priority on prestige credentials.
I will add that prestige isn’t a high priority solely for Asian Americans. I have seen the same with many of my immigrant European-American friends. I attribute this to two factors: 1) the big-name elites are the only ones people outside the U.S. have typically heard of (and the media reinforces their value and prestige - the smart kid always goes to Harvard, Yale or MIT) and 2) in those Asian and European countries, which college you graduate from often has a significant influence on career outcomes.
So I think this mindset is more correlated to being a highly educated first-gen immigrant family, than anything else. Since there are far more immigrant Asian-Americans than Europeans, we tend to associate “prestige seeking” with the former group.
Indeed, it often seems that prestige is the dominant fit factor for many students posting on these forums.
Of course, those posting here are not representative of all college students. For example, SJSU undergraduate enrollment is 38% Asian (and they obviously cannot all be in CS), but it is probably rarely mentioned outside of California-specific threads.
Maybe that’s something to highlight in chance me threads to keep with the original intent of the thread? “Seeking prestige” or however else a mod might want to phrase it?
Even if a student is not getting a prestige seeking message from their own family, they may well be getting it from their peers and school, if they attend the sort of competitive high school many kids on these forums do.
(This happened to me, where my non-college educated parent didn’t place much if any emphasis on prestige, but my high-achieving academically focused high school most certainly did.)
Whatever the reasons behind the desire for prestige, I agree it’s not productive to simply dismiss it. Better to encourage a balanced list, and to perhaps identify the best fits among the prestigious colleges being considered.
I generally agree, but the second is easier said than done.
I’m not sure that saying “race is a factor . . . but only one of multiple factors” provides any useful information, but perhaps I’m wrong on this. I also fear that, despite good intentions, such advice leads to excessive focus on the first part and not the second.
Also, isn’t focusing on schools that are “more stats driven” playing into the stereotypes that this thread was meant to address?
Also, we repeatedly see posts by Asian students/families who don’t want to attend schools or be in communities where “Asians are underrepresented,” and to me this seems like an is an extremely valid concern.
Of course, among prestige colleges, the best fit from the student’s point of view may not be the best fit from the prestige college’s point of view. For example, JHU probably does not need more pre-med BME majors, but may be more willing to admit a non-pre-med non-BME major student.
Agree there’s no reason to get into an argument with someone over their own perceptions. I would say, “It’s a crapshoot for everyone” (which is true) and politely go on to the substance of their post.
Thank you. This is what I tried to get at up-thread. The Asian-American population is not a monolith, either in ethnicity, as the OP started with, or in college admissions viewpoints. There are some number of Asian-Americans who are not thinking front-and-center about admissions discrimination or prestige, for example. It’s fine that those are priorities for some, but we should not imply or assume that they are for most.
I was intrigued by this point and browsed several chance me threads after you posted this. I actually wasn’t able to find any thread where the OP expressed this concern. I’ve seen thread responders suggest certain schools might not be a good fit due to very low Asian-American representation, but I couldn’t find any thread where the OP mentioned this.
My recollection is that there are plenty of such threads, but sometimes the concern isn’t expressed until later in the thread. Here’s one example from last admissions cycle:
I talked with D more and she’s thinking she wouldn’t be a good fit for SLC, Tucson, or Boulder. I think she (and I) would love to visit each of these towns but for college she’d prefer more diversity, and a slightly larger Asian population so she doesn’t stick out so much, plus less conservative states. Plus Arizona is too hot for her.
From the same thread, regarding suggestions she consider schools in the South:
As Asian Americans we are often viewed and treated as foreigners (sometimes even here in liberal California), and the recent rise in anti-Asian violence is especially unsettling.
In my experience these views are not at all uncommon among “Asian” American families both on and CC, and to my mind they are as or more legitimate than any other “fit” concerns.
Our half-Asian students did not do Chance Me threads, but the Asian population, and more broadly, the racial diversity of colleges, was a top 5 factor.
Major (and multiple options if/when they changed their mind)
Cost
Location
Diversity
Size
I understand your point, but I also think it is important to keep reinforcing to both students and parents that where you go undergraduate is not that important in the US, certainly not as important as what you do once you get there. I was discussing this thread with my Asian husband, an academic, and his reaction was that educating Asian parents who do not fully understand this aspect of the US system is really key. It’s not easy to do that, as it is true that in many Asian countries, the top universities are clearly sorted and the kind of career you will have is in many cases determined by where you are accepted as an undergraduate (almost regardless of what you do once you get there). There is some truth in the Asian parents stereotype and this is where it comes from. My husband’s undergraduate degree is from the University of Tokyo, which is the top school here, so he understands that very well, but he did his graduate work in the US and taught at both the undergraduate and graduate level in the US, so he also understands that the US system is different. People like him whose point of reference is prestigious research universities may also sometimes approach “teaching colleges” with a degree of skepticism, but our son wanted a small school and both through visiting a range of LACs when our son was looking and through our son’s experience at his Midwest LAC, my husband has done a 360 degree turn on that issue as well. Overall, he would now agree absolutely with the CC wisdom that “fit” is a far more important criterion than prestige at the undergraduate level. I agree with you that we should always be respectful of other people’s perspectives, but I also think it’s important to keep talking about how prestige is something of a false flag in the US system. It may be a priority for some, but it is mostly not a wise priority.