It is not necessarily the same Americans who value diversity as the ones who prefer to see significant assimilation.
The assimilation point makes sense @Hunt. So maybe this is more an immigration issue and not an Asian/non-Asian one. However, with the “misfortune” of standing out in looks, I think that a lot people assume that most Asians are immigrants (as evidenced by that link I posted earlier) and maybe perceived as not as assimilated. Much to my parents’ chagrin, my kids are too assimilated, eschewing authentic Asian food, not speaking a lick of their native tongue, and not really taking interest in their heritage and culture.
For what it is worth, it would be inaccurate to say that @Hunt is anti-Asian. I think he has been steadfast in his position that “maybe Asians are being discriminated against, but I’m not convinced since there is no proof. So don’t dwell on it and instead focus on presenting yourself in a way that is appealing to adcoms.” To me, he has always been diplomatic about the whole topic and I have appreciated his advice.
When I see posts by @Xiggi about the cheating scandals in Asia, it takes a lot of objectivity on my part to not assume Asian bashing, but rather a reporting of the facts. No doubt that xiggi has helped countless students and parents on these boards in all matters of admissions and I appreciate that.
I think the generalities are what is upsetting to some people. When posters claim that “Asians force their kids into STEM; Asians force their kids into test prep; Asians don’t allow non-Asian friends, etc.” I’m thinking, “hey, I’m Asian and I don’t do any of those things”. It’s true that some Asians do (maybe immigrants more so?), but plenty of us don’t and it’s hard not to get defensive about it.
Well, I think the same American can feel both impulses–it’s cool if your neighbor is from a foreign land and eats interesting foods–but not so cool if they don’t want their kids to play with your kids because your kids might not be serious enough about academics.
My point has always been that if enough Asian families do these things–such as push kids into STEM–that this can have an effect on admissions results that isn’t attributable to discrimination. It would be interesting to compare elite-college admissions results of first and third generation immigrant families. Of course, increased assimilation might also affect work ethic or competitiveness.
Including those with origins in other countries (in places like Europe, Africa, and the Americas as well as Asia) and controlling for the immigrant generation’s educational attainment would make such a comparison more interesting. It would also be more interesting (and give a much larger sample) to look at educational attainment generally, not just elite college admission.
One scenario that appears (to me, anyway) to be more common among recent immigrants than others is the idea that if the kid can’t get into Harvard, MIT, or a couple of others, that he may as well go to the local state university–that it isn’t worthwhile looking at somewhat less selective schools. That’s a binary way of thinking that may really be appropriate in some countries, but isn’t in the United States.
But note that many families of limited financial means may have financially realistic choices of:
a. University of Excellent Financial Aid (in practice, typically the most highly selective reach schools)
b. University of Huge Merit Scholarships (in practice, probable admission safeties)
c. Local State University (at in-state tuition, possibly commuting, possibly after starting at community college)
So many of the “somewhat less selective” schools may not offer enough need-based aid and may not offer much merit aid for “match” students, becoming less affordable to such families.
Yes, but I’m not talking about families with those financial limitations. I’m talking about families who think the student isn’t worth sending to an expensive school if it’s not Harvard or MIT. Sadly, I don’t think this is all that unusual.
I understand your point. It is a valid one under the current system and I will take it to heart with my kids. However, my point is it is discrimination (or disadvantaged or whatever you want to call it) if STEM Asian kids have to compete with other STEM Asian kids for the limited STEM Asian spots.
Even Pizzagirl called it “comical” the imbalance of Asians and non-Asians at her son’s convocation. To me, it illustrates the point that the look of the student body does leave an impression (possibly a negative one in relation to Asians). I’m wondering whether anyone would have batted an eye if the auditorium was filled with immigrants from Europe or Russia or Australia…
As far as Asians pining for certain schools, I really feel like that is beside the point. Yes, it is narrow minded and closed minded, but that is a separate issue from feeling like you are disdavantaged because of your race.
What if it’s STEM Asian kids competing with all STEM kids for top-20 U STEM spots? There’d still be more competition among the Asian kids in that scenario, because more of them are choosing to be in a pool that is even more limited than the top-20 pool is.
@Hanna did mention in another thread that many white students would not want to attend a college where they are a member of a minority group. So maybe that is not specifically about Asian students, but about a discomfort factor associated with white non-majority situations. Of course, this means that colleges considering marketability to white students or parents who have such a preference may adjust their admission criteria to reduce the chance of becoming “obviously” white non-majority.
Getting back to the OP’s question:
https://appsupport.commonapp.org/link/portal/33011/33013/Article/1158/Ethnicity
Namely:
"Answers to the ethnicity question are not required for submission. "
This old thread may be of use as well:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1366406-race-in-college-admission-faq-discussion-10.html
Same with the Universal College Application:
https://www.universalcollegeapp.com/documents/uca-first-year.pdf
(which Harvard uses)
and that specifically says:
“Race/Ethnicity information is optional. Information you provide will not be used in a discriminatory manner.”
Whether Harvard does discriminate or not is the question. If they use that application, they say they do not.
This thread is by an OP with your daughter’s issue:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1574775-race-on-common-app-for-biracial-girl.html
"Even Pizzagirl called it “comical” the imbalance of Asians and non-Asians at her son’s convocation. To me, it illustrates the point that the look of the student body does leave an impression (possibly a negative one in relation to Asians). "
It was notable that as they called the students up by major, certain majors were - Li, Wu, Chang, etc. it would have been just as notable if certain majors were - Goldberg, Weinstein, etc. Or O’Connor, O’Dell, etc. Or the heavily African names when the African studies students were called up. I never said it was a negative; that’s your imputation.
Check “white” - it will help her.
Essentially, we are all mixed. We are all one human race. There is little genetic difference between some Hispanic and white, but a difference in admission! Many blacks have more white than African blood, but still count as black. And some Africans are not allowed to count as Africans, even though their tribes lived in Africa forever. Pakistani Pushtu are listed as Asian, Afghan Pushtu are listed as white, although they are the same tribe, with the same language. Aboriginal Australians are listed as white, even though they are darker than many Blacks. All these labels are so unfair!
All this discussion dovetails in some interesting ways with my in-real-life observations. (Which, at this point, are getting pretty dated, since the cohort of kids whose college applications I really paid attention to has now generally graduated from college.)
Recapping some background for readers who haven’t read thousands of my posts: My kids graduated from a large, urban, public academic magnet school. They had previously, for a long time, attended a private school with a first-rate academic reputation. I was very familiar with college application and admission patterns at both schools. I also have many friends whose children attend the same or very similar private schools, super-high-quality (wealthy) suburban publics, and the other significant urban public academic magnet here.
At my kids’ public school, the group of highest-performing, most ambitious and competitive students was pretty evenly distributed across the following ethnic groups: immigrant or first-generation (“IFG”) Han Chinese from all over Asia, IFG South Asians of different ethnicities and creeds, IFG Eastern European (mainly Russian) Jews, native-born 2nd±generation Jews, and IFG Eastern European non-Jews. That was not exclusive – there were onesies and twosies of IFG Hispanic, IFG Caribbean Black, and even, in one kid’s class, a WASP salutatorian (no one could remember the last time that had happened) and an immigrant Japanese.
Anyway, the application patterns of the highest-performing IFG students of all colors was very similar: pretty much Ivy (or MIT) or bust. Some were iffy on whether Cornell, Dartmouth, or Brown counted as Ivies, and many skipped applying to Princeton because Princeton was seen as hostile to city kids. The more adventurous applied to Stanford and maybe Berkeley. There was some difference in what “bust” meant – Asian students, especially Chinese, thought more of Penn State’s rural main campus than the other groups; others were happy to stay home and go to Temple or Drexel if they couldn’t get into Harvard, MIT, or Penn. High-performing IFG students were almost exclusively STEM-oriented students; they wanted to be doctors, PhD medical researchers, engineers, or sometimes obscenely paid finance/consultant types.
Their admission success was similar. I never noticed, or heard even a whisper of complaint, that Asian students were less successful than, say, Russian ones. Lots got into a high-prestige college, a few into lots of them. Some didn’t. A few played the merit game to go to public universities for free. The admissions stars of my daughter’s class were both IFG Eastern Europeans, one Jewish and one not, who were both accepted everywhere anyone conventional might apply except for Princeton; in my son’s class, it was the Japanese kid and a non-immigrant Jew who was so humanities focused she actually got a C in AP Physics CE. Between their two classes, almost 60 kids attended an Ivy or equivalent college, and if you lined them all up it would be a complete jumble of colors.
The non-IFG kids, who pretty much were all Jewish except for the one WASP, tended to resemble demographically the students at the fancy private schools. They tended to apply more broadly, including top LACs and the University of Chicago. Their safety school tended to be Pitt’s honors college – they wanted to get away from home, they didn’t want to be in the middle of nowhere if they weren’t at Williams, Dartmouth or Cornell, they thought it was a great place to be pre-med, and they had a lot of success at competing for merit scholarships there. More of them got into their first choice than the IFG kids, but that was because more of them decided their first choice was an LAC. As a group, they were much less STEM-oriented than the IFG kids, and the STEM-oriented kids among them had a harder time with admissions than their IFG counterparts. The private school kids were almost identical in their patterns, except they were much more likely to apply ED to LACs like Amherst, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, Oberlin.
Anyway, the point of all this is that IRL the yellow or brown IFG Asian kids were not noticeably different from the pasty white IFG Eastern European kids, either in where they applied or where they were accepted.
Re: #214
Seems like a pattern that is connected to the topic of the other thread at http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1796746-is-academic-achievement-commonly-associated-with-asian-students-really-based-on-immigration.html .
“Even Pizzagirl called it comical” As I said on another thread, that may be specific to her kid’s school. There are plenty of non Asian kids studying STEM subjects. My kids are both engineers (with no pressure from us). Their schools were pretty balanced. Asian kids slightly overrepresented probably, Hispanic and African-American kids probably underrepresented , and plenty of white kids studying engineering. There is more imbalance with PhD’s in engineering, with many foreign born Asian students pursuing that. Both kids have Asian friends - a couple are engineers, but others are in business, social media, journalism, one is a chef, etc. The stereotypes about Asian families pushing their kids into STEM, stereotypes about all engineers being “nerds” and not being “nuanced”, not having sensitivity, not being able to communicate or having poor writing skills , etc. are interesting… Certainly, that is true of some , just as it is true of some artists, musicians, journalists, marketing and business people, etc.
I never said you said it was a negative, although I don’t consider comical to be a neutral word. And you never mentioned names, yours was a visual observation. And from my reading, it was more than notable. It was in your face. Unless blind. In any case, even if you didn’t see it as a negative, it is not unreasonable to think that others saw it as a negative.
Actually, technically speaking, it was an aural observation - as we were listening to the students in each major being called up. My son was one of the first majors alphabetically so after we heard him, we just sat back and listened to the procession of the names.
My daughter had graduated a top LAC a few weeks prior. Her class was called up alphabetically vs by major, so I can’t make any claim as to whether Asisn students were more STEM-concentrated. I would say her LAC is a good 33% Asian - mix of all types (judging by the names) and mix of internationals vs Americans (judging from the hometowns listed). Far, far fewer Jewish students (judging by names) compared to S’s school. These are observations, not value judgments.
I don’t want to nitpick, but you did use terms like, “you would have had to have been blind not to simply observe” and “only a blind person would have not seen”. I understand such terms to mean using one’s eyes. Anyway, my point is that you noticed (without judgement) so it’s not far fetched to think that others also noticed and had a reaction to it.