<p>This idea of SAT score being detemined by socioeconomic class and other factors as compared to academic prowess is a joke in my opinion. Yes there are correlations between income and scores, and hiring a tutor may help, but the simple fact is that if you have the willpower or the talent you will succeed at the SATs. Myself and quite a few other classmates of mine (mostly all accepted to top schools) barely studied for the SAT or studied primarily off of cheap/free resources from online or through a review book. I got a 2370 after a few weeks of studying off of a review book, and you don’t need an expensive class or tutor to do well.</p>
<p>Ultimately the SATs are not an effective predictor of success by themselves because they only test a specific set of skills, but they are some of the best objective measures of qualificiation availiable at the moment. Also I think that the SAT IIs are an underrated means of determining qualification as well, I rarely ever see them being much of a factor in admissions.</p>
<p>I am very interested in this topic as I have a huge interest in education and in the admissions process. A lot of my EC’s at Cornell and in med school have been related to the topic of education: why people perform the way they do academically, how we can redesign our curriculum to improve performance, and how we can select the students who will most likely to succeed. Obviously, I already have my own opinions but we’ll see if those opinions hold over time.</p>
<p>So why do poor Asians outperform rich blacks on the SAT? Are Asians just smarter or what? Since you don’t seem to believe there are any social, cultural, or economic factors involved.</p>
<p>So then socioeconomic class has nothing to with it, as I said.</p>
<p>Perhaps the SAT targets skills that Asians are more adept in, or that they are more driven culturally to perform on the SAT. Regardless, it’s not as if a high score is significantly more difficult to attain for people of different socioeconomic statuses. Asians recieve higher scores not because they are born with a 2200+ or something, but because they have put in the work to achieve those scores.</p>
<p>Come on. You can look up the data yourself. It’s all over the internet.</p>
<p>There is a positive correlation between income and SAT scores. No shock there. But, the curves for blacks and asians are so shifted that even low income Asians are outperforming blacks making 3 times as much. Clearly, socioeconomics don’t explain everything (which I agree with alias95 on). I do think most of the difference is due to cultural factors (which I can speak to having attended a school that was 90% black for 6 years and a school that was 70% Asian for another 4 years). </p>
<p>This is why I’m a proponent of affirmative action based on race. AA is not to reward people for overcoming socioeconomic adversity. If it were, we’d accept poor Asians and poor blacks equally. Instead, being a rich black person who scores 2000 is somehow still more impressive than being a poor Asian person who scores 2100. And that’s why being a rich black will still be more valuable in college admissions than being a poor Asian.</p>
<p>Then they should take in more asian people to the NFL and NBA to make it more fair. It is absolutely not fair for asians to be disadvantaged in everything just because other asians decide to try harder. Asians didn’t choose to be born Asian and they’re forced to deal with a higher level of competition and expectations than others without any rewards. Let’s not forget that they are a disadvantaged minority.</p>
<p>I don’t want to sound like a tool. It’s just that the median income is $45,018, and that income bracket is pretty high up there in my perspective. Maybe his essays were great or he had something else going for him! I just want to keep this objective… </p>
<p>Decision: Accepted into Engineering- Mechanical</p>
<p>Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): Math- 730 Writing- 630 CR- 640
ACT:
SAT II: Math II- 730, Bio M- 700
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.7ish
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): N/a
AP (place score in parenthesis): Taking them all this May
IB (place score in parenthesis):
Senior Year Course Load: AP English Lit, AP Spanish Language , AP Calc AB, AP MacroEconomics, AP US Government, AP Physics C, World Religions
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): none
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): FBLA (Treasurer), member of Spanish Club
Job/Work Experience: Work-study program at my school (40 hours each year)
Volunteer/Community service: volunteer at local elementary school to help tutor kids and act as a translator for parent-teacher meetings (most parents there speak spanish only)
Summer Activities: work at school
Essays: not sure if considered great but talked about my rare genetic diseases and how it’s affected my life but how I don’t let it get in the way of accomplishing my goals and whatnot
Teacher Recommendation: both strong and very good
Counselor Rec: good as well. he’s known my family and me for several years
Additional Rec: n/a
Interview: I didn’t really have an interview with Cornell. It was more of just him telling me about the school and answering some of my questions. He even said himself that it’s not really an interview and it was pretty quick. He was also an alumn from my HS…
Other
State (if domestic applicant): CA
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: private catholic school
Ethnicity: hispanic (Peruvian)
Gender: male
Income Bracket: 100,000-115,000</p>
<p>I do think that the following applicant was as qualified, but I realize that there are a limited number of spaces.</p>
<p>Decision: Rejected</p>
<p>Objective:
SAT I (breakdown):-
ACT: 35
Unweighted GPA: 3.98/4.0 -Unweighted
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Top 10%. No other rank given
AP (place score in parenthesis): 5 on World, Psych.
IB (place score in parenthesis):
Senior Year Course Load: Most difficult possible at school. 7 Ap Subjects
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.):
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
Division 1 Varsity All-Conference runner for every year of high school
President of School Club
Officer of non-school association
National Honors Society
Violin w/ orchestral experience
Special Olympics Volunteer
Job/Work Experience: Abercrombie Impact Member, Abercrombie Model
Volunteer/Community service: See ECs
Essays: Pretty good I think. I won best essay composition at my school, and teachers have always said that my essays are superb.
Teacher Recommendation: I thought they were great, though 1 was very generic.
Counselor Rec: Very good.
Additional Rec: N/A
Interview: Not Interviewed
Other
State (if domestic applicant): Michigan
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Top 250 according to Newsweek. Class of 506 graduating
Ethnicity: Asian Male…
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: 150,000</p>
<p>…I sound so terrible. I know everyone who gets in deserves a spot, and I honestly hope everyone who gets in does well. I’m just a junior in high school, and I know there’s a huge chance I’m wrong in even trying to point this stuff out; please don’t hate me. I’m a rational human being, please don’t pick me apart for just re-posting stuff that other people did, but I’d love to be enlightened if you could explain in kind terms what’s wrong in my reasoning, because I’m sure there is. </p>
<p>Again, I’d like to reiterate how amazing ALL candidates are who apply to these schools. They’ve all done <em>so</em> much and all of them, especially all of these numerous admits, have a lot to be proud of.</p>
<p>bluenotebook - both applicants you showcased here probably could do the work at Cornell, even though the Hispanic has lower stats. Now if you have 50 Asian applicants with higher stats in general, 5 Hispanics with lower stats (but still have minimum requirements), and Cornell’s admit rate is 20%, would you admit 10 Asians and 1 Hispanics, or would you admit 8 Asians and 3 Hispanics?</p>
<p>The fact that Asians need higher stats to get admitted has nothing to do AA, it has everything to do with the fact Asians generally have higher test scores and GPA, and colleges do not want the campus to be filled with 50% Asians. The is no different than with Men/Women admit rate. Engineering Men admit rate is 15.86%, and for Women is
35.32%. Hotel Men admit rate is 37.5, and for Women is 21.29%. <a href=“http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000003.pdf#zoom=100[/url]”>http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000003.pdf#zoom=100</a></p>
<p>This is about building a community. A top tier school has the luxury of crafting a community with well balanced men/women ratio, race, talent, and still maintain its high academic standard.</p>
<p>Yeah, that was the reason for the ACT. I also retook my SAT because I made a couple really dumb mistakes on my first time and I was sure that I could do better, which I did.</p>
<p>Yeah, I understand that diversity’s important! Thanks for not ripping me apart, oldfort. I just don’t know how they do it though. I’d have a really hard time turning away an applicant that <em>I</em> thought was more qualified. I guess that comes with wisdom acquired over the years! The men/women admit rate is interesting too.</p>
<p>Valedictorian (female) at my schools was wait listed at Cornell engineering, yet I got in (salutatorian at application, #3 as of end of 1st semester). I had better ECs, I had unique essays. I worked with the best writer I know to make sure the effect was exactly what needed to happen for them to be effective.</p>
<p>Valedictorian denied from other ivies, wait listed at Harvard and is going. Not sure how that happens, but it did. It’s a crap shoot. </p>
<p>I also talked with the music professors and got them to notice me, I think one actually handed a personal recommendation to the admissions office. It’s all about setting yourself apart.</p>