Asians and College Prestige.

College Search & Selection
541

<p>Geographically yes the Philippines are associated with the content of Asia but culturally I would say Spanish has equal if not the same amount of influence as any Asian country. Look at the native language. There's no way in hell you can tell me its closer to any Asian language than Spanish. Last names as well. There are tons of Filipinos who have last names like "Mendoza", "Cortez", "Torres". If you want to get to the nitty gritty, look at skin color, eyes, hair.</p>

<p>Geographically yes you can consider Filipinos Asian, but IN MY OPINION, if you say Filipinos are culturally Asian, that would be the same thing as calling a Russian Asian, after all, some of Russia is in Asia.</p>

542

<p>fabrizio, I don't know how I can prove to you that Upenn and Dartmouth aren't very known among Asian parents with concrete statistics and evidence. It's just the way it is man. Parents who have lived here like 10 years would more likely to know about it, but those living outside of or relatively new to US often times don't recognize Penn and Dartmouth.</p>

543

<p>Bourne,</p>

<p>Did you notice the ellipses I placed around “you’ve enforced”? That was because I was referring to what you originally wrote in #505:</p>

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I think he's simply detaching himself from the stereotypes you've enforced about Asian parents/families. He chooses to assume that said stereotype is much more valid for mainland Asian families than for Filipino families.

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<p>I already asked you whether “you” was singular or plural in #508, but you have not answered my question yet. I strongly deny enforcing any stereotypes about Asians.</p>

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It's not necessarily about remaining ignorant -- Why do so many people here know nothing about Rice? That's even with Hawkette posting about it quite frequently.</p>

<p>They only concentrate on the top schools and also there's a bit of regional bias. I'd doubt Asian parents in the NE would ignore those schools, but Asian parents in California?

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<p>Is it in fact true that so many people here know nothing about Rice? Their subforum is in CC Top Universities, and it seems pretty active to me.</p>

<p>First off, I don’t believe that Asians only concentrate on the top schools. Second, even if it were true, what would be so wrong about that? By the way, when you say stuff like this, who’s enforcing the stereotypes?</p>

544

<p>Brown,</p>

<p>My answers to your questions, as follows:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>The age when kids are preparing for college gets younger and younger every year. It is not rare for rising freshmen to post here inquiring about what they should do to maximize their chances of admission to HYPS. To give a personal example, I first took the SAT when I was in seventh-grade for the Duke TIP program. The room was full of my fellow students! (I live in the Deep South, so my peers were almost all white.) To directly answer your question, yes.</p></li>
<li><p>Yes to both.</p></li>
<li><p>Why go to CC when you can just read it at USNWR’s website? In other words, no.</p></li>
</ol>

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[quote]

It's difficult to change somebody's perceptions. What kind of exposure to prestigious colleges are these parents going to get to change their perceptions when their kids aren't even close to going to college? Most parents start to care about colleges and their prestige only when their kids start applying to colleges. This is why the views of Asian parents, that HYPSM are by far the best schools in the nation, go unchanged. When Asian kids begin applying to colleges, their parents still harbor an immigrant's view of prestige that have not changed much- that HYPSM are by far the best known schools in the country- since they have had little exposure to other colleges. After all, why should a person care about which colleges are prestigious if neither they nor their children have any intention of going to college in the near future?

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<p>So you really think that Asian immigrant parents stay ignorant? Out of curiosity, do other immigrants also stay ignorant, or is it just our parents?</p>

<p>You must have never participated in Duke TIP, or else you would not have asked the second question. I went to Davidson the summer before I started eighth-grade. Before I went, my dad had never heard of Davidson. He did a little bit of “research” and found out that it is a great LAC. He encouraged me to apply when the time came.</p>

<p>More generally, if you’re even remotely familiar with what word of mouth is, then you wouldn’t have asked that question. Like all other parents, Asian parents are proud of their children’s accomplishments, and they like to talk about them with their friends. Considering that a lot of schools in this country have substantial Asian populations, that’s a lot of indirect advertising.</p>

<p>Even if an Asian immigrant parent remained absolutely ignorant about the prestige of American colleges until his child started applying, one summer is more than enough time for him to start realizing, “Woah! These schools are good! Hey, you should think about applying to Johns Hopkins!”</p>

<p>Really, I find it interesting that you’re trying to argue that Asian immigrants stay ignorant. I agree with you that they come without much knowledge about our universities, but I couldn’t disagree with you more that they stay that way.</p>

545

<p>
[quote]
Geographically yes the Philippines are associated with the content of Asia but culturally I would say Spanish has equal if not the same amount of influence as any Asian country. Look at the native language. There's no way in hell you can tell me its closer to any Asian language than Spanish. Last names as well. There are tons of Filipinos who have last names like "Mendoza", "Cortez", "Torres". If you want to get to the nitty gritty, look at skin color, eyes, hair.</p>

<p>Geographically yes you can consider Filipinos Asian, but IN MY OPINION, if you say Filipinos are culturally Asian, that would be the same thing as calling a Russian Asian, after all, some of Russia is in Asia.

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<p>How about genetically? Ethnic Filipinos are very closed related to Taiwanese aboriginals. (Source</a>). If Taiwanese aboriginals are Asians, then so are ethnic Filipinos. To say otherwise is like saying your blood brother has no relation to you.</p>

<p>Yes, thank you for giving Russia as a counterexample to “Asian.” Strictly speaking, they are Asian, and the U.N. classifies them as “North Asian.” But, no Russian feels that way. That’s fine because Russians don’t cop out. They don’t say, “We’re not Asian. We’re not European. We’re Russian.” Russians say they’re European. I’m cool with that.</p>

<p>I just get peeved when Asians want to say that they’re neither Asian or European, they’re [insert demonym of country that is located in Asia].</p>

<p>If you want to say that you’re European, that’s fine. Just say it.</p>

546

<p>
[quote]
fabrizio, I don't know how I can prove to you that Upenn and Dartmouth aren't very known among Asian parents with concrete statistics and evidence. It's just the way it is man. Parents who have lived here like 10 years would more likely to know about it, but those living outside of or relatively new to US often times don't recognize Penn and Dartmouth.

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<p>I’ll agree with you that residents of Asia and recent Asian immigrants might not know about how good UPenn and Dartmouth are.</p>

<p>However, that becomes a moot point because most Asian immigrants don’t emigrate here RIGHT BEFORE their kids start applying. They will have been here for some time, and during that time, they will know. That is my point.</p>

547

<p>How is there any guarantee that immigrant Asian parents will have heard about Penn and Dartmouth when many laypeople outside of the Northeastern United States haven't even heard of these schools? I agree that they will become familiar with schools once they come here, but the schools they become familiar with will usually be around their area- local schools. Since there is no guarantee that most or all Asian parents immigrate to the Northeastern US, there is no guarantee they would have heard about Penn/Dartmouth. </p>

<p>I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree because my experiences with prestigious colleges are far different from yours. My parents moved to GA from Asia and held schools such as Emory and GATech in high esteem but did not even know that Dartmouth existed, let alone the fact that it's Ivy League, until after I had gone to college. They didn't open a single edition of USNWR until I started looking at colleges, and they don't think USNWR can possibly be right when Penn is ahead of MIT (like you said). When college admissions came along, they were disappointed that I was choosing between Cornell, Columbia, and Penn rather than HYPM. We have different experiences and we'll have to agree to disagree because no one is going to win this argument as there is no hard evidence to substantiate either of our claims. My experiences are different from yours and we're not going to convince each other otherwise.</p>

548

<p>fabrizio:
No not really, because tons of Asians parents who moved to US when their kids were in middle school/early high school still don't have a good idea schools like Dartmouth. </p>

<p>Of course, an immigrant who's extremely interested in colleges would know about Dartmouth. However, I think a lot of immigrants, even the ones who have been here for a while, simply don't BOTHER learning about schools other than HYPMS.</p>

549

<p>Even within a state we can have such different experiences...very interesting IMO.</p>

550

<p>Yeah I do agree with Brown Man that location make a huge difference. I am in the West Coast, which is probably one of the reasons that Dartmouth is unheard of here among Asian parents.</p>

<p>Dartmouth?! Wut?!</p>

<p>but I guess my point was that schools like Dartmouth are GENERALLY pretty unknown to many Asian parents. It obviously varies on the individual, location, length of immigrant life, and etc.</p>

551

<p>
[quote]

fabrizio:
No not really, because tons of Asians parents who moved to US when their kids were in middle school/early high school still don't have a good idea schools like Dartmouth. </p>

<p>Of course, an immigrant who's extremely interested in colleges would know about Dartmouth. However, I think a lot of immigrants, even the ones who have been here for a while, simply don't BOTHER learning about schools other than HYPMS.

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<p>Like brown said, we’ll probably have to disagree on the basis of having had significantly different life experiences.</p>

<p>I’ve lived in three different states in two different regions: the Midwest and the South. I know Asians from the Midwest who have gone to Rice, UPenn, and USC. I know Asians from the South who have gone to UPenn, Cornell, Duke, Northwestern, just to name a few. Their parents clearly knew that it’s just not HYPS.</p>

<p>Does this mean every parent knows? No. But, I remain unconvinced that Asian immigrant parents stay ignorant. Perhaps your experience was simply different from mine.</p>

552

<p>I am fine with agreeing to disagreeing since we are from different areas and life backgrounds, but I don't get how the fact that Asians have gone to Rice, Penn, and etc say anything about how well those schools are known among Asian parents. Not every Asian kid gets into HYPS, so of course many of them go to other great schools. It doesn't mean they are well-known among the general population of Asian parents.</p>

553

<p>
[quote]
I would say this is more myth than reality. The UCs are not the only public universities with high Asian enrollments. Many state flagships have double-digit Asian student body percentages. Furthermore, it is very common for any LAC ranked in the top 10 of USNWR to have an Asian enrollment that is at least double the nationwide percentage of ethnic Asians. I think many Asian parents do know that there are a lot of amazing colleges here.

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<p>Of course, they do! That's why the U.S. News rankings are so handy, at least the two pages that list the top 50 universities and top 50 LACs. </p>

<p>Interested in an amusing test? Pick 5 LACs out of the top 20, and ask your friends if they know them? They all say yes. Then ask in which CITY and STATE those colleges are located. </p>

<p>Chances are that they'll recall instantly the US News ranks and selectivity indexes but would be totally unable to locate the schools on a map. </p>

<p>By the way, I find the line "Asians do not know about Rice" somewhat amusing ... well in a starchy way.</p>

554

<p>As I said, "Does this mean every parent knows? No. But, I remain unconvinced that Asian immigrant parents stay ignorant. Perhaps your experience was simply different from mine."</p>

555

<p>xiggi,</p>

<p>Hmm...you could very well be right. "I've heard of it, but where is it?" is a pretty common question as far as I know.</p>

<p>I did not notice the Rice joke...</p>

556

<p>Stark, you need to do much research because your present understanding of ethnic circumstances in Asia is fairly flawed.</p>

<p>The Philipines are unquestionably an Asian society. The people have Spanish surnames only because the area was conquered by Spaniards and was a Spaniard colony. Are Vietnamese no less Asian because they were a colony of France and use an alphabet based on European characters?</p>

<p>And, incidentally, the people of the former Soviet Union whom you refer to are known "Central Asians."</p>

557

<p>Fair enough</p>

558

<p>It's a general you. To outsiders, it feels like the word Asian is compromising the individual cultures/ethnicities that exist within the subset of that word. It's almost annoying. If I was Filipino, I'd want to be Filipino. If I was Nigerian, I'd want to be Nigerian. I don't understand why people would call you African.</p>

<p>And btw, how did the term sub-continental come about? That seems like a powerful ethnic distinction right there. Almost as if someone wants to make a point.</p>

<p>Like I said, many of my friends' parents only concentrate on the top schools. Indian, Pakistani, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese -- are the five ethnic groups of which I base my conclusions on. Rice is well known here. Dartmouth and Upenn are not. They think Upenn is like UT-Austin. </p>

<p>I also grew up in the south.</p>

559

<p>
[quote]
To outsiders, it feels like the word Asian is compromising the individual cultures/ethnicities that exist within the subset of that word. It's almost annoying. If I was Filipino, I'd want to be Filipino. If I was Nigerian, I'd want to be Nigerian. I don't understand why people would call you African.

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<p>Then let’s do away with all continental demonyms. From now on, there’s no such thing as a European, an African, an Asian, a Latin American, and so forth.</p>

<p>On a less extreme note, if startraksfinest doesn’t want to be called Asian and doesn’t want to choose a continent, that’s fine as long as he completely stops using the term Asian. If he’s not Asian, then nobody from Asia is Asian. To say stuff to the effect of, “I’m Filipino, so I’m not Asian, but you’re Japanese, so you are Asian” is an even bigger cop out than claiming to have no continental demonym.</p>

560

<p>Lol? Do you hear people say he's European? Rarely.</p>

<p>Do you hear people say he's North American? Rarely.</p>

<p>Do you hear people say he's South American? Still Rarely.</p>

<p>And who the hell calls Russians Asians? If anything most of them are European? Like 75% plus? That's pretty ironic.</p>

<p>Funny enough, it seems all the former imperialists are referred to by their former nationalities. Even China in a sense is beginning to break off...</p>

<p>For census + mass identification purposes, I don't really care.</p>