A college may believe for marketing reasons that it needs to be attractive to potential White applicants because there are lots of potential White applicants (more than there are potential applicants from each of various minority groups), and it does not want that large number of potential applicants refusing to apply.
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Science and math are liberal arts.
Also, economics is liberal arts, but it probably is too popular at Ivy League schools (pre-Wall-Street major), so it may have an overabundance of applicants at Ivy League schools, regardless of race or ethnicity.
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They encourage them to express interest in non math/science majors. Pretend you want to study English, Classics, Philosophy, History, etc.
Whatever you do, dont tell them you want to be a doctor.
I think this is true. The other factor is geographic location and/or specific high school. If you are an Asian STEM-intended student from a well-regarded Bay Area HS, you would probably lose a spot to an Asian STEM-intended student from North Dakota. Assume similar stats/ECs/essays for both.
In other words, you may not just be competing against other Asian students, but against your own high-performing HS with a high Asian student population.
Again, this isn’t exclusive to Asians. The Bay Area has an overabundance of qualified students, and any unhooked STEM-intended student from the Bay Area will probably face longer odds than a comparably qualified STEM intended student from North Dakota.
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But in the interest of this thread topic…
I know about this. I feel like it’s a vicious cycle. Parents want prestige, counselors sell prestige. Where there is lots of money to be made a market is made or perpetuated. See Rick Singer. And this is of course not limited to Asian parents.
The sure thing in our school to get into these high prestige, limited seat schools is athletics (and less so musical talent). Not legacy and not affirmative action.
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My point was a little different. First, I understand that universities may seek to create diverse student bodies in various ways, and I think that is generally a good thing as diversity is enriching. What that means will be different from school to school, region to region, etc. But I don’t think it leads to a conclusion that all “Asian” kids will have a tougher time at all high-ranking universities, and I do think it is sad if people simply accept and act on that assumption. As the OP pointed out, the concept of “Asian” is overly broad, and I do hope that schools would be able to make distinctions within this group. Part of that is up to the applicants, who need to present themselves as individuals who will add something to the student body, and not just through some curated list of ECs. (My son’s Common App essay was actually about the diversity checkbox and the quandaries it presented for him given his complex ethnic and cultural background.) There are also regional differences, and kids can make their lives easier if they apply to a broader range of schools. I know “Asian” kids who were accepted to top schools all over the US, including schools that already had a high percentage of Asian students, so if a kid wants to try, I think they should try, although they should also be realistic, just like all other applicants.
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I would rather see a Chance Me that does not list race. The CC advice would leverage the North Dakota part and stats/ECs/essays. And that is enough to get to the same advice without making the student panic about their race that they cannot change.
To the OPs great point.
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But if they are an URM, race actually increases their chances so they should list it. If you want to help those kids, knowing they are an URM, is important.
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That would be fine with me. But realistically many kids and parents include the info because they think (and/or have been convinced) that their kid will be at a significant disadvantage. To my mind, it might be worth pointing out that while admissions are tough for everyone, these students aren’t necessarily any more “disadvantaged” than any other unhooked student with similar accomplishments.
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Yes. URM important to list. So the prompt is URM yes/no.
Yes, and CC perpetuates it by prompting it. Stop prompting and over time, it may just become less of a bogeyman to Chance Me students in the future.
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Not at every college. However, it does seem that some posters give chance answers as if URM turns a reach into a likely or something like that.
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IMO posters regularly overstate the supposed benefit of being a URM while also overstating the supposed penalty for being Asian.
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The Chance Me format asks the students to include that information. Are you an URM or do you have a hook? State of residence? Intended major?
If we don’t want to consider that info, someone needs to change the form.
A guy I worked with went to Williams and then Harvard Law. The schools were all over his son, trying to get him to attend because he was a legacy. A black legacy. The son had been raised with all the advantages of two working parents, good schools, a funded Florida prepaid account. He wasn’t interested in being a legacy admit. He got a full scholarship to the fine arts school at UNC (acting) and saved his FPP for grad school. I don’t think he would have gotten much in need based FA from any of the top schools because, although his parents weren’t rich, they made over $200k combined. They also were supporting two households as the father was working for the government in different cities and mother stayed in the family home with the son in hs.
It’s not all so clear cut for the AOs either.
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This.
This is an example of “saying the quiet part out loud.” I live in New York City, just a few blocks from Brooklyn Tech. It has always been my sense that this preoccupation with getting into a T10 school is limited to a small subset of Asian American families and that even the brightest working-class Asian kids wind up where the brightest working-class kids everywhere else do - the state’s flagship universities.
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If we look at the Arcidiacono report on Harvard ALDC advantages, the answer would suggest yes for Harvard for this period at least if we use Academic Index deciles as a proxy for objective academic measures. For the top 3 AI deciles, the admit rates for nonALDC White are 7.53; 10.77 and 15.27 vs 5.12; 7.55; and 12.69 for nonALDC Asian Americans. For Black and Hispanics, the admit rates are multiples higher.
While I am firmly in support of policies which seek to shape a class based on factors other than academics, that seek diversity of backgrounds and that accounts for different resources and opportunities available to each applicant, we also have to concede that in a zero sum game of a finite number of spots, giving favorable treatment to certain groups (any hooked group) necessarily disadvantages others. They are competing for fewer spots so the competition by definition will be fiercer.
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There’s a belief within the Asian community of implicit bias against high performing Asian students and their families.
If non-Asian families hire math tutors, people might think, this family is really focused on education. If Asians hire tutors, they must be “gaming the system”.
Gaming the system is a term we see quite a lot. They’re running for student body president or started a non profit, or is captain of their sports teams - they’re doing it for college admissions and trying to “game the system”. Non Asians - they are dedicated and ambitious. It’s very difficult to counteract that.
In the Harvard trial, it was revealed that on average, Asians were ranked lower in personality traits vs non Asians and yet they discovered that in the college interviews, they did quite well.
It’s interesting that admissions officers deny any implicit bias and yet when they go into private counseling they are extremely direct about Asian stereotypes.
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Personally, I disagree with the examples you chose. You’re from the Bay Area, right? Have you read Denise Pope’s book, “Doing School”? The book is old but, she’s out of Stanford the book is based on students from a Bay Area school.
https://www.amazon.com/Doing-School-Stressed-Out-Materialistic-Miseducated/dp/0300098332
- No Im not from the Bay area
- Im not sure how 5 students represent the hundreds of thousands of Asian students who work extremely hard in both academics and EC’s and are painted with a “cheating the system” brush.
This book probably perpetuates the same stereotypes that already exist.
Are they the adopted kids of Lori Laughlin?
My daughter is very ambitious but she wont even use an expired Bed Bath and Beyond coupon.
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