<p>Would being Asian help in terms of acceptance at liberal arts colleges, especially those in the Midwest, including but not limited to Pope's Colleges That Change Lives? (for example, Beloit, Lawrence, Earlham, Knox)</p>
<p>My son attends one of the top two high schools in Illinois (a selective enrollment school in Chicago) where all classes are honors classes. He does not fit the stereotype of being strong in math; strongest subjects are literature, history etc. and his major is likely to be in one of those areas, too.</p>
<p>I am asking because he is currently a freshman and I am trying to imagine places he could apply since he is a strong student, but not a straight A student in all of his honors classes.</p>
<p>Thanks. This CC board is utterly fantastic.</p>
<p>wont matter that much either way ill imagine. they take a holistic look at the student not race… unless ur under represented or over represented which i imagine is not the case</p>
<p>In a document called the “Common Data Set”, usually available on the web, colleges publish detailed information about their enrollments. This includes class composition by ethnicity (as well as SAT and grade distributions, percent of students in each major, financial aid, etc.) I suggest you focus on other issues since there are so many more important ones you are trying to sort through. But I suspect the answer is yes, the fact that your son is Asian might make a small difference at some of the Midwestern LACs.</p>
<p>Thanks. I am of course focusing on all issues and I have been carefully reviewing the data sets. In most of the colleges, there is a tiny percentage of Asians and thus was curious about ethnicity and insiders’ (as in those on CC) views on how it affects admissions.</p>
<p>I think being an Asian male reflects very favorably on applying to LACs. I’m generalizing here, but Asians typically look at the top privates and Cal Berkeley only and completely disregard LACs; most don’t even know what an LAC is.</p>
<p>For top Asian students, competitive for the top LACs–e.g. Swarthmore, Amherst, Middlebury, Carleton, Oberlin, Grinnell–it is absolutely a positive tip factor. These schools will “recruit” Asians along with other ethnic minorities at “diversity weekends” in the fall where the school pays for airfare to visit pre-application. The acceptance rates for students selected for these programs is often absurdly high, though one must account for the URMs who are also selected. Still, we’re talking about ~75% and ~90% acceptance rates. The programs themselves are selective, but from a self-selective pool and limited to ALANA students (some are also open to low-income/first-gen white students).</p>
<p>The next tier of LACs, such as the CTCLs that you mention, can’t afford to run these types of recruitment programs. But they still want racial diversity, and their Asian %s are relatively low. Especially if the student is comfortably within range stats-wise, being Asian is a logical tip–these schools tend to focus on their % of domestic minority students in their propaganda/advertising, rather than splitting it out to individual group %s.</p>
<p>I think most LACs are trying to address a gender imbalance that arises because most don’t offer engineering, among other things, so being male helps. And Asians are under-represented at LACs in the midwest, so yes, that helps, marginally, as well. Bonus points to your son if he’s interested in majoring in an area where men generally, and asian men especially, are under-represented, like art history, classics, german studies, etc…</p>
<p>^Yes. I was surprised, too. But I know MANY Asian students thus “recruited” by Swarthmore, have heard one report of a non-first-gen/low-income Asian at Amherst’s diversity weekend, and myself personally participated in Middlebury’s weekend, which I estimated by observation to be about 50% Asian.</p>
<p>I was careful to only identify LACs by name if I was absolutely sure that they had run a diversity visit weekend in Fall 2009, and moreover that the participants had included unhooked Asians. If you expand to only low-income/first-gen Asians, I would also add Pomona and Bowdoin. Williams has one as well, but I don’t know about Asian participants.</p>
<p>I am surprised to learn recruitment of Asians is so heavy at such selective schools. According to Middlebury’s CDS for 2007-2008, Asians and Pacific Islanders comprised about 11% of the entering class. That does not look like underrepresentation to me. Asian Americans total less than 5% of the US population.</p>
<p>^Asians are not recruited, nor treated as URMs; rather, they are recruited to increase campus diversity. I am inclined to believe that many schools are motivated by the desire to increase their overall “% of domestic minorities” stats–high-stat Asians are a lot easier to recruit than high-stat URMs–but it is of course possible that they simply want more non-WASP diversity on campus.</p>
<p>I will say, though, that of my Asian friends who cared (or whose parents cared) about Asian representation at their chosen colleges, 5% would have been unacceptably low. 7-10% is a reasonable approximation of “critical mass.”</p>
<p>Interesting.<br>
For the same class at Middlebury, African Americans comprised a little less than 4% of the class. So, the sum of Asians and AA almost reflects (slightly under-represents) their sum proportion in the general population. But the two component numbers (~11%, ~4%) are flipped.</p>
<p>Conveniently, earlier today I just pulled the basic stats for Swarthmore, Williams, and Wesleyan for another thread. I was very surprised by Swarthmore’s recruitment efforts aimed at unhooked Asians (though of course numbers must be up to par); perhaps this contributes to the 16%?</p>
<p>Swarthmore:
10% Black
12% Hispanic
16% Asian
87% top decile
SAT CR 670-760
SAT M 670-770
SAT W 760-760</p>
<p>Williams:
10% Black
10% Hispanic
13% Asian
88% top decile
SAT CR 660-770
SAT M 650-760
SAT W N/A</p>
<p>Wesleyan:
9% Black
9% Hispanic
11% Asian
70% top decile
SAT CR 640-750
SAT M 650-750
SAT W 640-740</p>