Playing violin is not seen the same as a team sport. It is seen as something that you can improve on by yourself or paying for lessons. I would say there is much more discrimination against someone who plays the violin than someone who is Asian, that is a stronger stereotype of a kid in a room playing for hours on end with no human contact.
It is very sad that all we are seeing is the American lack of accountability, she didn’t get in (post #68) because she was Asian. PERIOD. Let’s just ignore how low the overall admittance rate is.
The valedictorian in my HS class was an excellent equestrian and she was white. She was flat out rejected from Yale early decision (ED at Yale ended 2002 or so), and we were all doomed. The year before, the top Asian student was accepted to Princeton as was the top Jewish student.
I would hazard a guess that if you have 100 candidates who all have the same ECs, GPAs, and SATs, yes most colleges would take the top few and cut the rest. How many kids do you need who play the violin? How many kids do you need who won a state or national competition? Why do colleges have to report to have holistic admissions, but then you have to take the power away from them to say “we have enough kids with 20 hours per week of the same EC”?
Denigrating choir or cheerleading, instead of wondering what her essay looked like or if her ECs were too specialized, is not helping.
Lumping all Asians in together is not helping either. Anyone who thinks that the average Chinese parents is the same as the average Thai or Indian or Malaysian or Japanese parent is insane. Just like the average English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, or Greek parent is the same.
I would say the much harder thing to do is be honest about socioeconomics. Do poor Chinese or Indian kids do the same on the SAT as poor white or poor black kids? Do you have to have a certain minimum socioeconomic parameter to “get” the benefit of a tiger mom or dad, be they Asian or European or South American?
I would like to see:
- accepted students by race
- admitted students by race
- yield by race
But then, you would have to consider:
- quantity and quality of ECs
- ranking of essays
- socioeconomic background (FAR more responsible for diversity than race or cultural background)
and I have not seen any study do that.