<p>hi
i'm currently a sophmore, but i was just had a question about the admissions process
i'm asian indian american and my parents were both born in india. do i have a "leg-up" in getting into colleges?</p>
<p>no, unfortunately us asians don't benefit from affirmative action, since there are so many well-qualified Asians in the admissions pool. In fact, being asian hurts us in the admissions process... yep, its harder for asians to get into good colleges than it is for whites.</p>
<p>Is it really that hard? Why is there such a disproportionate amount of Asians (higher than the national percentage) at the top schools in this country (when they only make up 4% of the total population)?</p>
<p>Harvard 19%
MIT 24%
CMU 24%
Stanford 23%
Berkeley 47%
Caltech 36%
UT-Austin 17%
UCLA 41%</p>
<p>Hate to go harsh on you BUT:</p>
<p>your parents immigrated here and you still can't get in based on merit?
make your daddy proud....</p>
<p>you'll be suprised by just how many of you there are, I'm guessing around 50,000 nationwide, that's YOUR COMPETITION.</p>
<p>AA doesn't apply to indians.</p>
<p><em>indian-accent</em> THANK YOU, COME AGAIN <em>indian-accent</em></p>
<p>
[quote]
Is it really that hard? Why is there such a disproportionate amount of Asians (higher than the national percentage) at the top schools in this country (when they only make up 4% of the total population)?</p>
<p>Harvard 19%
MIT 24%
CMU 24%
Stanford 23%
Berkeley 47%
Caltech 36%
UT-Austin 17%
UCLA 41%
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Exactly, asians are not an under-repersented minority. They are over repersented at top schools becasue most asians in the US tend to come from educated backgrounds.</p>
<p>For a discussion of this point see the link below.
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=158980%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=158980</a></p>
<p>well also.. if you look at the schools with the highest asian count , these are western scools: calfornia, texas... there's ahigh asian population in those areas & the culture puts large emphasize on education. so double whammy. asians are a minority but in certain pockets of the country they're not.</p>
<p>Actually, the "high numbers" of asians at schools like cal and ucla are due to a lack of affirmative action at those schools. If private schools like Harvard, MIT and Stanford were to base admissions solely on merit and completely disregarded race, those schools would be almost completely Jewish and Asian. (right now, Harvard is over 50% Jewish and Asian....even though they comprise maybe 6-7% of the total population)</p>
<p>kfrizzle, I have to disagree with you. Asians pick UC's because they aren't discriminated against, and because of the fact that they're a helluva lot cheaper than, say, Harvard.</p>
<p>Yes...overrepresented doesn't mean by the US population, but rather the applicants to that college, which trust me, has A LOT of Asians.</p>
<p>i think the bias coming from every single one of these posts are coming from high middle class background and up (please don't attack me :P)</p>
<p>in my high school there are only 3-9 people going to top 50 LAC's each year, and the rest end up in cal states or junior college, yet most of these 3-9 people are underrepresented (<em>there are only 500 seniors each year</em>)</p>
<p>i think it all boils down to the quality of your high school, and the number of applicants coming from your high school</p>
<p>if you're coming from a private school and you're asian and your parents make 100k a year then the admission people will probably won't consider you to be underrep---</p>
<p>dude, i m not indian but have indian friends and they are the smartest students in school! You arent really underrepresented b/c indian americans cant be stereotyped as getting bad grades, dropping out of high school, getting pregnant, etc. they have high morals/values</p>