<p>sorry i'm computerly challenged and don't know how to quote but during your rant when you said "why would a school reject me for my race, isn't that racist?"</p>
<p>well no.. its not.. if you put down asian as your race you'll be compared strongly against other asians, because honestly if they did the whole admissions process race-blind all top schools would be all asian and privledged white kids. so they would never reject you for being asian. it just puts you at a disadvantage because there are so many brilliant asian kids applying to top schools that they, obviously, can't accept them all or it'd be an all asian school. if that made any sense.
just don't want you to think colleges are racist.
because even as a white person applying to college, a person with your stats and ecs and identical everything who's an urm will probably get accepted over you, to create a diverse student body.
yeah it's kind of racist.
but if you've got the stats and essays and everything else that adcoms think is worthy of yale, it won't matter that you checked the asian box.</p>
<p>I have to disagree superstarpie about your comments about admissions being more competitive for Asians.</p>
<p>I think the disadvantage given to Asian students is a bit overdramatized honestly. Your race won't make a difference. They either like you as a candidate, or they don't. People get the perception that it's more competitive for Asians, but really it's because more Asians that are unqualified apply to the Ivies and Stanford due to pressure (often from their parents), not because they're all brilliant. I don't mean to make categorical assumptions, but this is just from my observations. </p>
<p>If you're Asian and of the same caliber as white or other non-urm accepted candidates I'd say you have the same overall chances as they did. The Asian pool of applicants is equally competitive as the general pool (at least when considering the pool of applicants that has a legitimate chance of acceptance).</p>
<p>Also, if they were to accept people racially-blind, it wouldn't be all asian. These top schools look for more than just academic prowess. Look at some of the prep schools in Korea that focus on getting their students into top American and English universities... a lot of that brilliance is learned through hours and hours of hard work and stress. You'd be surprised how many people can teach themselves to make a 2400 on the SAT and get a 4.0 if they put in the time. You'd also be surprised how much of that unravels when they get to university and are no longer under the watch of their parents of their prep school. The top schools know that which is why they look for brilliance in other ways. And I feel like once one realizes that, one will see why the schools don't have to put Asians at a unique disadvantage during the application process.</p>
<p>Actually, there was this study done on affirmative action by Princeton sociologists that show that the Asian population at elite universities would increase significantly without affirmative action.</p>
<p>That study was pretty dumb. You can make studies say just about anything you want by applying different statistical and analytical methodologies (one of the reasons I dislike sociologists that consider themselves scientists). Go look at the actual methods in the study, I dare you. The criteria used by the admissions committee are, assumably, confidential. In otherwords, there's no realistic way the sociologists could replicate admissions (especially at a heavily competitive school) using a race-blind means. What they used, instead, was a fairly generic model based on SAT scores and GPA (with mild preference to atheletes and children of alumni). Look to my above post: there are basically farms in East Asia (NY Times article on this recently, actually) programming kids with perfect scores and GPAs. It really doesn't mean much in terms of latent abilities, and Princeton knows that. It's not racism, it's that the elite schools want kids that have proven themselves accomplished outside the realm of pure academic grind... and when you look at it like that, the rate of brilliance (whatever that may mean) in the Asian population is probably equiavalent to any other racial group.</p>
<p>The reason the study found those results is two-fold: the first being the farms I just mentioned; the second being the cultural/familial pressures I had mentioned in the previous post. A lot of underqualified (underqualified could mean kids with super high scores and grades and nothing really else, or kids with scores too low) asian kids apply to these schools because their parents or community or whatever pressure them to do so. But when you consider that, and then switch to a GPA/SAT methodology like the study does, it makes sense that most of the kids that get bumped up because of their scores are Asian.</p>
<p>The point being: the results are very misleading with that study, and doesn't suggest some racial bias against Asians in admissions (at least when compared to other non-URMs)</p>
<p>correct me if i'm wrong but doesn't assuming "diversity" comes from different SKIN COLORS basically denote racism? i mean, isn't diversity really about a diverse group of interests and passions and talents? who cares if i'm asian or white or black or native american or hispanic or unknown? what does that mean other than that my ancestors are from europe or asia or africa or whatever? </p>
<p>asians are expected to have a higher SAT score and whatnot, and while i'm not chinese or korean or an "over represented" asian ethnicity, i can honestly say that i feel it is racist for asians to be held up against each other for comparison instead of against EVERYONE in the pool, just as all applicants are. granted, those from underprivileged families, such as first generation citizens or high school graduates or poor educational system or kids who grow up in destitute areas should indeed be reviewed in light of the hardships they've overcomed, i really think that should have nothing to do with the color of their skin. there are poor white people, rich black people, middle class hispanics, everything. </p>
<p>so who are colleges fooling with talk of diversity? it's about the superficial, skin-deep (literally) values. and imho, that's ridiculous.</p>
<p><em>phew</em> didn't mean to get worked up, again, but ya know it just doesn't seem right!!! let the best students, who have overcomed their personal challenges on an individual basis (the first gen student with a 3.2 average but a full time job and a family living on welfare; plus the prep school grad with a 4.5 W gpa and a drive to overcome stereotypes through volunteer work done out of love not out of college-admissions-game-playing; etc.), be accepted into the best schools for them. </p>
<p>pleeeease.</p>
<p>thanks again to those who talked about AA and also those who wrote about applying form a prep school, and of course my chances in general! this is a nice thread we got going here- :)</p>
<p>Oh man, I want to go to Yale as bad as you...and my issue is my gpa as well! However...the challenging course load is more important to a college...the only issue is that at yale, there are kids with stellar grades and a challenging course load!</p>
<p>Nat'nl AP Scholar? That's a 4 on all AP exams taken, AND a 4 or more on 8 AP exams....you've only listed 5 here, so you would be an AP Scholar with Distinction. (you may have taken more exams..I'm judging on the info here)</p>
<p>3 more exams senior year, and you've got the award! (after apps, unfortunately)</p>
<p>About "perfect SAT score" statistics: Remember this- last year, only 269 people in the WORLD got perfect scores on the SAT. It's not like there are that many 2400's to reject, assuming you don't include the superscored people.</p>
<p>As for another piece of information regarding admissions for perfect scorers, I recall reading in one of those Jian Li articles that Princeton only rejects half of them, making the acceptance rate around 50%.</p>
<p>hey MagiTF--
i just wanted to clarify what i meant in my post
i thought (or at least i meant to in my ramblings) i said that being asian wouldn't hold her back and they aren't being 'racist' or discriminating against her. if a person is good enough for yale, being asian won't get you rejected.
i know it's kind of pointless to clarify a stupid rambling post but yeah.
and anyway-- with the chancing aspect i think you've got a great chance. seriously. but you're not in--- because no one's in unless you're jesus (sorry if someone takes offense to that). also-- yale is definetly nothing further than cookie cutter. all of the yale alums that i know are incredibly intellectual quirky people with strong opinions, not by any means cookie cutter.</p>
<p>but back on topic--- you're a stellar applicant.</p>