<p>why do so many asians attend the university of california? i mean, seriously, UC santa cruz and UCSB are the only UC's that are not asian dominated</p>
<p>is it b/c a lot of asians live in california? or is it b/c the academics are 'made' for asians? or what?</p>
<p>just curious...</p>
<p>It’s not that hard to guess. There are lots of Asians in California; Asians tend to pursue academics; and the University of California is California’s best system of academia.</p>
<p><em>duh</em></p>
<p>^but why do those asians prefer UC’s over, say, MIT or Duke or HYP or Rice or UIUC or anything OOS?</p>
<p>How do you know what they prefer? Those schools are just harder to get into…</p>
<p>they don’t necessarily prefer it over HYPSM. It’s more of…it’s the best school that they got into, outside of HYPSM. Rice and UIUC, for example, are great schools, but they aren’t HYPSM or of HYPSM’s caliber. </p>
<p>cost is also a reason here. cultural is another. and history and familiarity are as well, aside of course from PRESTIGE and superb academic quality.</p>
<p>ya…i was thinking about culture…a lot of asians are ridiculously sheltered…it’s not just a stereotype</p>
<p>(i’m an asian too so i can say that)</p>
<p>UC’s student body is basically Asians.</p>
<p>I KNOW PART OF THE ANSWER!</p>
<p>Many just want to stay in Cali, I know some of my asian friends just want to go to a really school in their field and stay in Cali!</p>
<p>Cost is the reason in many cases.</p>
<p>My thoughts after going to a high school that was 61% Asian in Northern California:</p>
<p>1) California doesn’t really have a huge amount of Asians, it’s closer to 12%.The percentage in the UCs is of course much higher. I noticed it’s mostly a cultural thing where kids are driven to succeed by their families.</p>
<p>2) I think most stay in-state, and they are encouraged to stay close to home. In my high school, the basic plan was to try to get into Berkeley, and if you didn’t, you went to Davis. I noticed most Asian students were even discouraged from going to Southern California (unless they got into UCLA) because it was considered too far from home.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s prestige in Asia is ridiculous. Add in-state tuition and rejections/waitlists from all the schools ranked above it in USNWR. Also, going OOS from Cali usually means a plane ride to the East coast, and from personal experience I can testify to Asian parents’ reluctance to send their children out of driving distance for college.</p>
<p>The UC’s are dominated by Asians because they are not allowed to use race as a factor in admissions and Asians kids outperform other kids in CA by a huge margin in high school.</p>
<p>^^Hmom is right. That is the real reason. By law the percentage of Asians cannot be kept artificially low due to race. If you’ve got good grades and test scores with at least respectable ECs, you’ll get in.</p>
<p>Asians make up a significant block of the student body at UC schools due to (1) California having a large Asian pop. and (2) relatively low tuition.</p>
<p>Other states w/ significant Asian pops (albeit not as large as Cali’s; Hawaii has a greater % of Asians but less Asians overall) also have significant Asian student pops.</p>
<p>University of Hawaii
Hilo - 43%
Manoa - 48%</p>
<p>University of Texas - 18.6% (class of 2011)</p>
<p>UIC - 23%</p>
<p>Rutgers - 24%</p>
<p>I think Hmom’s reason explains the high acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Those other cultural factors also contribute (reasonable cost, close to home) to a high yield. Cost is really excellent especially if one attends a UC within 45 minutes drive of home… and lives at home.</p>
<p>Let’s remember that Asians comprise 12% of California and probably 45% of the UC population.</p>
<p>[University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu/library/tables/table_3-2008.aspx]University”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu/library/tables/table_3-2008.aspx)</p>
<p>Asians make up 38.5% (14,071 divided by 36,538).</p>
<p>There are ALOT of factors for this that run much deeper than the shallow reasons offered here. 1) In the 70s and 80s the Asian population grew significantly in CA due to the fact that Hong Kong was eventually going to be returned to “red” China, so many (with financial means) Asian families moved to CA as it was advertised to them by a wily Chinese American real estate agent in Southern CA. (Of course not all Asian immigrant families had means, but the Gov’t favors immigrants with financial means as far as granting legal immigrant status) 2) There are cultural factors that are not just rooted in families driving their kids to perform, but also survival mechanisms that were used so that their children could be competitive in their new environment. Asian parents in their home countries who immigrated had education there and as will most college educated parents, they have college educated children. 3) If you break down “asians” by particular groups you find that their college attending rates vary from nationality to nationality and reflect CLASS realities as well so its not just “all” asians. </p>
<p>I think we should be careful about buying into “model minority” forms of analysis and dig a little deeper, especially considering that immigrant children of various backgrounds (whether Nigerian or Mexican) tend to do better in school than their older (as in having lived here longer or for multiple generations) counterparts.</p>
<p>It wasn’t that long ago when there were less than 25 Asian Americans at UCLA for example and they were part of Affirmative Action programs along with African Americans, Mexican Americans, American Indians, first generation college students and women. Also, I would argue that Asian Americans who are 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation might reflect different realities as far as educational attainment is concerned especially those families whose presence in the US preceeds the 80s.</p>
<p>Where shall we dig? I think it’s quite simple. For schools that primarily use quantitative methodology for choosing students, the Asian cultures produce kids that have the goods. They are three times more represented than their numbers in the population would suggest.</p>
<p>If there is something we need to understand, it’s why other groups, from whites to blacks to Hispanics, are losing this contest so badly.</p>
<p>i also think it’s how asians handle discrimination</p>
<p>an indian guys is probably not gonna care a white guy calling him ‘abu’</p>
<p>a japanese guy is probably not gonna remember the last time somebody called did the ‘slanteyes’ thing to him</p>
<p>a chinese girl probably doesn’t know what a ‘china doll’ is, much less care</p>
<p>the truth is, some of the motivation that asians get comes from the fact that they really don’t see themselves as being discriminated against</p>