It is harder because American citizens who’s ancestry is Asian are discriminated against due to social engineering . The colleges that don’t take race into account (e.g Caltech, UC’s) have a significantly higher admission rates for Asians.
That being said the are other colleges where admittance is easier than for whites. Their version of social engineering favors Asians somewhat. Look at southern and midwestern LAC’s as examples.
If you look at the distribution of ACT scores you might notice that “Asians” have the highest average (23.5/72%), and blacks have the lowest (17/30%). If you look at score distributions at a micro level, like at a high school, you see a similar pattern. It would follow that more Asians will attend college, and should consist of a larger portion of the applicant pool at better schools.
The issue has more to do with where accomplished Asian students apply and the desired fields of study. It’s not just an issue of racial, ethnic and economic balance, rather academic, social and athletic balance.
TooOld4School should realize that California has a heck of a lot more Asians than the rest of the US.
Also, I’d be curious to see that if we took a US census view, where Asians were broken down into ethnicities, whether we would see only Chinese and/or only Indians being “discriminated against”.
I also believe that some Asians feel that the stereotype of getting high test scores benefits them in some ways as well.
If there was a study looking at where Asians are applying, and if the schools that are accepting “the least” are getting the most applications, that would certainly make sense.
I teach at an East Coast state college, and we have around 50% Asians undergrad, and more like 80% Asians in grad school in some majors. Many internationals are full pay, and the university goes overseas to recruit Asian students who can pay their way.