I totally agree with that above.
I read your statement as Asian kids good at math science and music who get into Ivies are the “real deal”. Well, actually I read it that way because that’s what you wrote.
Asians are such a diverse group, the label Asian is almost meaningless without further identifiers (Eastern vs. Southeastern vs. Pacific Islanders and the subgroups within each) and thus should not be used in imho.
@socaldad2002 Did you expect this question would be so popular 
I am a first generation Chinese immigrant who got a full scholarship to a grad school here 20+ years ago. At that time everyone was poor in China so only those from the top Chinese Universities who got good GPA and GRE scores were able to come to US for grad schools on full scholarships. Keen observation @ucbalumnus . Things are changing now with more and more people being able to afford colleges tuition in U.S.
In the 80’s when I applied for college in China, the college entrance exams were so hard they definitely distinguish how well you score, if not how well you understands each subject. There is very small chance you can do much better or worse than you should. On the other hand students rank their priority of college of interest prior to those exams so even if you score better than you think you would, you may not have applied for the top colleges because you don’t think you can get in. The colleges of #1 priority gets your application first and if you are rejected then your application goes to your #2 choice, which by the time your application get to the school they may have already filled most of their spots and you would have small chance of getting in. It was a two way process so at the top university there was very little “luck” of getting in: you have to believe you can get in and your scores have to back up your belief.
I didn’t think there is much of ‘chance’ to the top colleges here before. My older one had 4.5GPA and close to perfect SAT and was a NMSF, danced competitively for over 10 years. She was very quick in learning and athletic, but didn’t put in much effort. She was rejected by the ivies and got into UC Berkeley. I wasn’t surprised and don’t think it was a miss by the ivies. I am reading this thread because now my son is a senior and is applying for top schools. He is not as quick in learning as my daughter and doesn’t have as high SAT and missed NMSF cutoff, but he is one of the kindest and hardest working kids I know. He has been dancing for a long time too and has passion to pursue it even he is not very talented. He moved away from home in his senior year so that he could train in the best training program here in SCA. He doesn’t do anything for college, only what he loves. He does meet the academic requirements I think, at 4.67GPA/1540 SAT. So I guess I’ll learn more if this is a “crap shoot” or not in March based on our own experience.
@OHMomof2 You did the equivalent of telling me: ‘ALL lives matter.’
@SCMHAALUM
Actually there are a lot of luck involved in China’s Gaokao system, esp. in the early post-cultural revolution era, kids who were born in big cities had a huge advantages over kids who were from secondary cities, while those from secondary cities were much luckier than rural kids. And I bet many of your college classmates were from (varying degrees of) intellectual families, ie your parents went to schools themselves, if not colleges then associate degrees or high school diplomas. Those are all fortunes that we middle/upper-middle class folks all over the world don’t even consider anymore.
Good luck with your S18’s college aspiration. He sounds like a gem!
@LadyMeowMeow I guess if your belief is that Asian math-science-musicians are the only ones entitled to an Ivy acceptance, you could see it that way.
I still find your original statement offensive to all non-Asian-math-science-music kids who get into Ivies.
BLM/ALM won’t be able to be discussed on this forum but your perception of bias against “real deal” kids is allowed, there’s a whole thread for it.
@blossom I am a Penn alumnus and an alumni interview as well. I completely agree with you. I’m blown away by the kids that get rejected. The vast majority are incredibly qualified and us alumni interviewers are always shocked at how few get in. (I’m in suburban Boston…so somewhat geographically undesirable). I’ve been interviewing for 25 years and the candidate get more impressive each year and each year less and less get in.
@makemesmart That’s absolutely correct! Everyone was poor back then but definitely people from bigger cities and with intellectual parents had much better chances. There were true “genius” kids from small towns/villages but only small % in my college class. Thank you!
In December, my daughter was admitted ED to a very selective school with a single digit admissions rate (I wrote a post on this site about her journey from my perspective on the Admissions Hindsight and Lessons Learned section of the College Admissions section).
Did she work hard for years? She did. Did she have an application that included many of the items listed on the original post in this thread? She did. But I also feel she was lucky. Thousands and thousands of astounding kids will be denied a spot at the school she will attend, and yes, some of that is random and perhaps extremely subjective. She was lucky in many of the ways that have been articulated so well in many of the posts above, but also lucky that she had the kind of life that would lead her to be able to have such a strong application.
She was lucky to have the chance to go to good schools where she was well educated. Lucky to have been able to have lessons in an extracurricular that she began in middle school. Lucky to attend a selective high school where she took rigorous and interesting classes with very smart kids and where she was really intellectually sparked. Lucky to have good college counseling, and to have parents who had the good fortune to be able to be both involved and also fairly informed about the process (thank you College Confidential community!)
I’m so glad she will go to a school that she really loves and that has so much to offer her, and glad that she maintains a sense of gratitude rather than entitlement.
Getting into a top college is not a crap shoot or dumb luck. A lot of people do not like holistic admissions that give the underprivileged and the under represented a chance. Some people think the same old playbook of taking the SAT 6 times and being the president of 9 clubs and hiring tutors to insure you get good grades and sending you to pricey summer academic camps should work forever to get you into tippy top schools. AOs see through that. AOs want a diverse class of society. Being a leader and an innovator is what gets you into a top school not a rehash of a tired and worn out strategy that is no longer relevant in todays society.
@Jensmom27
Well said! Thank you!
@collegedad13
Please explain to me the phenomenon of Ivy legacy vs “holistic approach that gives underprivileged and the underrepresented a chance”, if TT schools are truly dedicated to give those kids a chance, they would have abolished legacy by now. Someone posted somewhere that 10% of US high schools are private students but 30% Ivy freshman classes are from private schools. This could mean 1) private high schools picked academically superior kids; and/or 2) having money to take SAT six times/being able to hire tutors/go to pricy summer camps STILL work in this “holistic” environment.
@makemesmart - many private schools themselves have holistic admissions and terrific financial aid…I wouldn’t assume all those kids are rich. I went to a private day school on an almost full scholarship myself.
@blossom @SwimmingDad Correct me if I’m wrong, but interviews are not random, are they? I suspect top 15 colleges don’t waste anyone’s time inviting unhooked kids with low stat longshots to an interview. So you’re likely seeing kids that made it out of the first cut, hence good stats or hooked (e.g. legacy).
@writermom2018 My son’s interviewer told him it’s random. He picked my son from a list given because he has similar interest as my son 
@writermom2018 This interviewer is from Columbia
@OHMomof2 “I guess if your belief is that Asian math-science-musicians are the only ones entitled to an Ivy acceptance, you could see it that way.” I don’t know why you enjoy putting obnoxious words in my mouth. Obviously I don’t believe that & I don’t know anybody who does – or anybody who could possibly think I do based on this or any other thread.
Once again: to the extent that there is chance involved in ivy/ elite admissions, I (like others here) believe it comes after a high bar has been reached. The bar is extremely high for everyone, obviously, but there’s no reason to take offense if I point out – as many others have, to the point of lawsuits – how tough it is to be coming from the demographic of non-legacy, non-athlete Asians who build their applications on the basis of backgrounds in math, science, and music. To say that a kid accepted from this demographic is the real deal is to note the obvious, not to demean anybody else and not to deny that there is, along with talent and hard work, remarkable good fortune involved.
@OHMomof2 I included private students like you in my post #311. There are a thread I read the other day from a small private school senior who thinks the college application process is not as competitive/hard as CC made it out to be, because in her class of 85, 14 got into Ivies or Ivy-like schools just in the early round and it was like this every year. As it turned out, 9/14 of the kids got in have either legacy or other hooks.
@LadyMeowMeow “non-legacy, non-athlete Asians who build their application on the basis of backgrounds in math, science, and music” - this view is a bit narrow and passé, as a competitive swimmer’s mom, there are so many nationally highly ranked swimmers of East Asian decent and many are recruited to top schools. Many of the Asian students I know are extremely strong liberal arts candidates, captains of debate team and golf clubs and president of SGAs (not just stem nerds who also play violin/piano) these days.
@makemesmart Yes, there are all kinds of talented Asians doing all kinds of things, but they have not moved on entirely from math, science, and music. I refer you to the math competition team rosters for any ivy/ elite school you wish, and the same for any university orchestra.
@makemesmart MIT and Texas A and M don’t do legacy. The holistic approach isn’t perfect but is a sure a lot better at the TT schools than it was 40 years ago. We should be a land of equal opportunity in education not a place where your SES determines your college
Most of those lawsuits are frivolous from groups that are very significantly over represented and don’t believe those less fortunate groups should be given a chance. I find that offensive at least in principle