<p>To my surprise, I was invited to apply for diversity weekend programs from several LACs.
I did apply for 3 programs and I was not accepted to any of them.</p>
<p>I am just curious.
What does it take for an Asian kid to be accepted for a diversity weekend program?
Are these LACs serious when they invite Asian kids to apply for such programs?</p>
<p>Asian Americans are a racial minority, so it makes sense that you would be invited. I don’t know what it “takes” to get accepted, probably just a resume that makes you seem like a reasonably likely candidate to attend the school if you are eventually asked to come.</p>
<p>You may also find that Asians will be a more recruited minority for schools in the Midwest or the South which do not have as many Asian applicants as schools in the West and the Northeast may have.</p>
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<p>… but often an ORM instead of an URM in a college or university context.</p>
<p>Then again, if such events are recruiting events, then the students selected to attend them may be those whom the college or university thinks are reasonably likely, but nowhere near certain, to attend. No reason to spend recruiting money and effort on students who will certainly attend, or students who will only attend if that is the only school s/he gets into.</p>
<p>20more, get off your high horse! I suspect that there are Asians among the applicants whom have been invited. Don’t demean the program just because you were not selected.</p>
<p>It all depends whether you are considered ORM at the LACs that denied your request.
For instance, you may not be a URM at Ponoma, Harvey Mudd, Dartmouth, Swathmore, all of the Sister schools (if you are female), Vassar or Babson were Asians make up 11-25% of the student body while other minorities come in at 1–11% of the school population.</p>
<p>So, at a school like Harvey Mudd where non-Asian minorities are 10% of the school population as a whole, 25% of the student body consists of Asians. IMHO, you would not qualify for a diversity program @ HM. </p>
<p>If you wish to attend a top ranked LAC, pull out your rankings list and college guide & look at the percentages of Asians vs. other minorities to see if said institution considers you as a URM. A quick scan of Amherst shows that Black-Americans, Asians & Hispanics EACH make up 11% of the student body for a total of 33% non-white students.</p>
<p>"20more, get off your high horse! I suspect that there are Asians among the applicants whom have been invited. Don’t demean the program just because you were not selected. "</p>
<p>I was disappointed but I was not angry.
Also, I do not want to demean those programs.</p>
<p>It is something I remember since they were my first ‘rejection letters’.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s possible they didn’t detect sincere interest in their school on your app.</p>
<p>I wish CC creates a section for Asian American students.</p>
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<p>Some of the existing ones probably are by default.</p>
<p>OP, at first I laughed at the idea of a separate forum for Asian-American students, but then it occurred to me that we have special forums for various URMs, so why not have a forum for Asian-American students? You should suggest it to the mods.</p>
<p>20more, diversity is more than a numbers game. Very generally, diversity outreach in any context–college admissions, employment or otherwise–is premised on a need to foster fairness and equality in access. So, if you re-read the diversity program goals of the LACs to which you applied, you are likely to see statements reflecting a desire to identify and nurture promising students who, because of their ethnic or economic background, or both, might not otherwise have the opportunity to tap into the LAC experience.</p>
<h2>You posted elsewhere on CC: </h2>
<p>SAT I: 800-780-800
SAT II: 800-800-780
ACT: 35
UWGPA: 3.96</p>
<p>EA: MIT (deferred), Chicago (Accepted), Georgetown (Accepted)</p>
<h2>Applying RD: Yale, Columbia and Stanford</h2>
<p>In your case, then, there’s no obvious basis for concern that you’ve been handicapped in reaching your highest potential because of any barrier, e.g., cultural background or economic hardship. You are competitive at the highest level of the American college admission process.</p>
<p>It’s too bad that you apparently took the LAC diversity program rejections to mean you shouldn’t bother applying to those schools. Every applicant is so much more than his/her stats–by your essays and short answers, teacher recs, ECs and overall presentation, you clearly make a strong case for why you’d be an asset to a college community. I hope, in April, you are very excited about the choices you’ve earned and will happily settle on the school that offers the best chance of meeting your aspirations for your college experience.</p>
<p>If the LACs in question know that they rarely “win” students with the above stats (because they choose MIT, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, etc.), then they may realize that recruiting effort would be pointless on a student with the above stats.</p>
<p>My D12 just attended the FAST recruitment program at Harvey Mudd, which is intended to inspire women and minorities to pursue STEM. She reports that, out of 30~40 kids, it was mostly girls, the majority of whom were Asian. She also mentioned a couple of hispanic boys who knew each other and hung together, and one “really tall” black boy (she didn’t say if there were others, less tall). When pressed, she said there were other boys too, some Asian and some not.</p>
<p>I’m impressed with your 12 D’s! any S’s?</p>
<p>Can I suggest that “Asian” is a huge category. Perhaps kind of Asian factors in as well. I’m sure there are quite a few top Asians of Chinese/Japanese/Korean/even Vietnamese ancestry applying to many of these top LACs. Lao, Burmese, Cambodian? Not so many. Census data for those groups show a college completion rate on par with Native Americans.</p>