<p>Because there are so many super intelligent and competitive Indians and Asians, I've heard it's more competitive for them to earn admission to the top universities. To what extent is this true?</p>
<p>It depends on who you ask.</p>
<p>Some note that Asians have higher SAT score averages at competitive universities. But Asian students tend to have higher overall scores on these exams in the first place, so that’s not necessarily an indicator that it’s more difficult for them to gain admission. I’ll also note that Asian students are actually overrepresented at most top universities. The U.S. population is about 5% Asian. But Asian students make up 19% of the student body at Harvard, 22% at Columbia, 24% at MIT, 37% at Berkeley, 12% at Michigan, and 19% at Stanford, for examples. You’d think that if it were that much harder for Asian students to gain admission, they’d be closer to their national proportions in the U.S.</p>
<p>I think the net result is that expectations are higher for Asian students at very elite schools - they do, on average, probably need to have higher SAT scores and GPAs to get admitted to schools (probably not that much higher than their white peers, but certainly higher than their African American and Latino peers) when they are compared within race to other Asians, because on the whole they have higher average SAT scores. The rest is a little more nebulous and difficult to say, but many people have perceived that Asian applicants may be expected to have more and varied extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>So I’d say probably yes, slightly more competitive than their comparable white counterparts and definitely more competitive than their comparable African American and Latino counterparts, which is unfair but the reality of the situation.</p>
<p>Based on my research, there’s little evidence that Asians are discriminated in higher education. Everything argument has a reasonable explanation. </p>
<p>For example, some like to note that Asian populations at the University of California is very high (around 40-50% around UCLA and Berkeley and other UCs in recent years.) However, what they don’t note is that California has a very high Asian population to begin with (around 13.5% in state vs 5% nationally.) So given that admissions are competitive, these are state universities, that Asians comprise a large chunk of the state population, and that Asians tend to do well scholastically, it’s hardly surprising that Asians are well represented at UC. </p>
<p>Lower representation (which isn’t low) at elite schools isn’t evidence of discrimination against Asians either. The nations most elite schools draw from both a national and international applicant pool with very competitive applicants. In terms of sheer numbers, Asians biggest racial competitor are whites. Whites compose nearly 60% of the U.S. population and only do worse than Asians on test scores. When you take that into consideration with other factors (ECs, sports, personal hardships, etc.) It’s not surprising why whites generally compose the largest percentage of undergraduates at many of the nations most elite universities.</p>
<p>All in all, I’ve yet to see a powerful argument that Asians are discriminated against in higher education.</p>
<p>Here’s the best set of data I can find across a number of schools. The sources of the data are all different, but the quotes are all from one article, so take it for what it’s worth.</p>
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<p>The original article:
<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?;