<p>UCBAlumnus
^yes. I was just poking jokes, if it can be taken as a joke. Anyway, lets stop talking about this individual.</p>
<p>^you sound like a lawyer. </p>
<p>When my bichon went barking fiercely and threatening to bite my neighbor, he told my dog – you don’t want to get in trouble with a lawyer.</p>
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<p>Doubtful! </p>
<p>I’d say that the many UCB supporters would not mind pushing a stake through my heart, or burning me in the middle of their Red Square.</p>
<p>I do, however, like UCB and recognize it as the best public university in the United States, and a world class graduate school.</p>
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xiggi, you can say what you want, but still it feels like discrimination to me. when you or your child is just as qualified, or even more, the next guy got in the school that you seriously wanted, and the only difference you feel is the color of your skin, then it is a discrimination to me. Again you can think and say whatever you want. But if you say it to me that very word when my child got the cold letter and you look different, you could get punched or kicked by me. Of course you try and weigh your chances and distribute the schools reasoanably. That doesn’t justify the way it is right now. Majority of the pool is where you can never compete in.</p>
<p>Toughyear, again, I do understand how one can be upset and let down by a system of admission. I do think it is not helpful to cling to notions of discrimination and racism. Defining your son in sole terms of skin color is a decision that some might not see very positive. You seem to believe that this was the reason for his non-acceptance. As we know, you are not unique in thinking that the statistics do support the theories of asian discrimination. And also not unique in sticking to the “objective” elements of one’s admission package. Objective as in perfect GPA and perfect test scores. </p>
<p>Does it make any difference that “whitebread” kids have encountered similar rejections? Fwiw, what would you tell a great kid such as our friend Silverturtle. Since he made much of his story public on CC, it is easy to check his data. Perfect 2400 SAT and 36 ACT, valedictorian, plus a bunch of activities. With his “pedigree” and the multiple rejections he collected, would one assume him to be … Asian? The reality is that he qualifies as Hispanic. Accordingly, how do we adjust the narrative of discrimination? Did the adcoms consider his superb academic performance as too asian? Again, there are over 30,000 rejections at Harvard and a similar number at Stanford. Why is that a single group feels the need to claim discrimination, and this despite a massive over-representation? </p>
<p>On a final note, although he did not land the “typical” HYPS spot, he compiled an impressive list of candidate schools. And I am certain that your progeny did just as well. In a few years, the rejections will be laughed at, especially when earning admissions spots in even more prestigious schools. </p>
<p>HTH</p>
<p>Disappointment does not mean discrimination, toughyear.</p>
<p>And more qualified is not just a function of SAT scores.</p>
<p>You really don’t get that tons of qualified students get turned down each year, do you?</p>
<p>BTW if a 2400 white kid doesn’t get in and a 2300 Asian kid does, does that mean the white kid was discriminated against?</p>
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<p>Stanford and Cal have admitted to past discriminatory practices when it came to the admission of Asian applicants (this was when the no. of Asian applicants was booming due to demographics but yet the no. of Asian students admitted remained about the same).</p>
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<p>And where’s the proof that Asian students are “less qualified” when it comes to ECs and other stuff?</p>
<p>Again, studies have shown that Asian students do the exact same type of ECs as their white counterparts.</p>
<p>And what other explanation is there for such a high % of Jewish students at many Ivies, considering Jews of college age make less than 2% of the total population and not much more of a % of the white population aside from higher grades/SAT scores?</p>
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<p>Not necessarily on an individual basis, but when you compare stats overall, a case can be made.</p>
<p>Also, when UCLA adjusted its admissions/recruiting policy so that it would be able to enroll more black students, the group that saw a corresponding decrease in admissions was lower-income Asian students.</p>
<p>There was no decrease for lower income white or Hispanic students or for that matter upper income Asian or white students.</p>
<p>K&S, the above is pure B&S!</p>
<p>^ Really? </p>
<p>Since when have I ever BS’d?</p>
<p>I’m not going to bother to find everything that I posted again (not sure, if I can still find it since it’s stuff that I have read over the years), but here’s the LA Times story about Cal apologizing for its admissions policy when it came to Asians.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://articles.latimes.com/1989-04-07/news/mn-1075_1_uc-berkeley[/url]”>http://articles.latimes.com/1989-04-07/news/mn-1075_1_uc-berkeley</a></p>
<p>And from the Dan Golden WSJ article from several years ago.</p>
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<p>Considering the % of Jewish students at the top schools, I wouldn’t worry too much.</p>
<p>In fact, schools like USC and Vandy have actively recruited more Jewish students. (Gee, why would they have to do that? Don’t they already have enough white students?)</p>
<p>USC, for example, despite already having an **“overrepresented” Jewish student body<a href=“relative%20to%20the%20pop.”>/b</a> at 4%, decided that they needed to increase the no. of Jewish students (almost doubled now) and set a policy to actively recruit more Jewish students.</p>
<p>Now, if Jewish students (for the most part) are just white students, why would there be a need to single out Jewish students for recruitment?</p>
<p>It’s a good way to raise GPA/scores of the student body w/o changing the racial make-up of the student body too much.</p>
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<p>I looked at the make-up of Havard’s varsity sports programs a no. of years ago and there were a good no. of Asians on the sports teams (including 4-5 guys on the FB team, including the starting tailback).</p>
<p>Also, Harvard’s best hockey players back then for both their men’s and women’s team were Asian (Julie Chu and Kevin Du), and Harvard’s best BB player recently has been Jeremy Lin.</p>
<p>And speaking of Jeremy Lin, he stated that the most racist comments he has gotten at games have been at Ivy League schools.</p>
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<p>Yeah, that’s what they used to say about Jews, so Jews had to start their own law firms, hospitals, banks, etc.</p>
<p>Plus, these days, there aren’t nearly enough students heading towards majors in engineering, physics, etc. - which is why schools have turned to foreign Asian students (even Asian-Am students, esp. the “whitewashed” ones don’t go into the hard sciences and opt for Wall St.).</p>
<p>Along the same lines, it also humorous to see these schools saying that they want “diversity” (meaning we don’t want too many Asian students) and yet, they are chasing Asian students from Asia (since that’s where the big $$ resides among Asians).</p>
<p>Also speaking of diversity, Asians are incredibly diverse when it comes to culture, language, religion, etc. - a Vietnamese student could be any no. of distinct ethnic groups (even more so for a Chinese student).</p>
<p>And it also strikes me funny when admissions boards think bi-racial students add diversity (say, half Asian-half white) when a bi-ethnic Asian student brings more diversity.</p>
<p>More likely than not, the half-asian/half-white person is no different culturally than the typical white American (can say the same for full-Asians who are, as they say,“whitewashed”), but a bi-ethnic Asian person (say, half Thai, half Korean) will have 2 distinct cultural backgrounds.</p>
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<p>Princeton is the one Ivy school where the % of Asians in the student body is about on par w/ that of Jews.</p>
<p>Princeton is also the Ivy which reportedly has the most holistic admissions policy.</p>
<p>Princeton is also the Ivy which has had the greatest issue w/ Jewish education advocates (one argument being that the holistic admissons policy is what is limiting the no. of Jewish students).</p>
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<p>2 big problems here.</p>
<p>The avg. Asian median personal income is skewed by Asians from the Indian subcontinent (shouldn’t use median family income b/c many Asian families include extended family members).</p>
<p>Aside from Asian ethnicities like Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, etc. - even Koreans and Chinese have lower avg. median personal income than whites and higher %'s of those living in poverty (in NYC, there is actually a higher % of Asians living in poverty than there is for blacks).</p>
<p>Also, there Asian ethnicities like Cambodian, Hmong, etc. are just as underrepresented at college campuses as are URMs (if not more so), but college admission boards don’t care about that.</p>
<p>And while African-Americans are underrepresented, blacks students of immigrant parents from Africa or the Carribean are not (in fact, they are overrepresented in relation to their % of the pop.).</p>
<p>In addition, their parents tend to have higher educational levels than the avg. African American parent and these parents can be pretty strict about education (for example, many Nigerian parents send their kids back to Nigeria for a year if they think they are taking it too easy - since school in Nigeria is more rigorous and there is a lot of competion to “get to the next” level).</p>
<p>And if the “goal of affirmative action is to level the playing field for these applicants, who tend to be lower-income and thus at a disadvantage in nearly every other way” - then why should black students w/ highly educated, professional parents and who grew grew up in affluent areas, going to top notch schools, get a boost since they have had all the advantages?</p>
<p>I’d much rather see low income black students get the edge even if their grades and scores are a bit lower than a black student who has all the advantages.</p>
<p>And as for Hispanics, since Hispanic is not a race but a cultural background, I’d wager that a lot of Hispanics at the top schools are white Hispanics or those who have one parent of non-Hispanic white ancestry.</p>
<p>Also, there are Asians in South America (for example Japanese-Brazilians who have brought their love for baseball to Brazil) - shouldn’t they be considered Hispanic as well if Italian or German Argentines, etc. are considered Hispanic?</p>
<p>Or what about Filipinos - they are just as Hispanic as anyone from South or Central America (and technically more so than those who come from Brazil or other Portugese speaking country).</p>
<p>You just did it again. And again!</p>