<p>It does not seem to me that UCLA and UCBerkeley are hurting for non Asian applicants.</p>
<p>cpt, What you brought up is interesting because I’ve suggested Historically Black colleges to non-blacks and many people ignore me. I attended a college that was majority-black and I attended colleges that were majority-white. My neighborhood is diverse but it is generally considered Asian because that’s the one group that could be considered over-represented based on the population of my state or area. I wouldn’t rule out a college because one specific race (any race) was too high and I would flip out if my kids did-- BUT I would let them rule out a college that had no or almost no kids of other races or where the races self-segregated. </p>
<p>When we visited colleges, I asked the tour guide at one lac (I think it’s ranked top 50) if the black and white kids mixed because they seemed not to. (There were very few black kids at the school.) He said, “Isn’t that normal? I mean, everyone sticks to his own kind.” That crossed that school off of my list. The school where we would have had the smallest out-of-pocket pay for one of my kids was crossed out for the same reason: too much self-segregation. Really, there ARE schools and communities where people don’t define you by your race.</p>
<p>CP – Potential inductive logic failure in your argument!</p>
<p>What do you folks see in your mind when you label someone an “Asian”?</p>
<p>For years my house has been full of kids from Korea, Taiwan, PRC (several regions), Nepal, India, Pakistan, Burma (also known as Myanmar, but not by the family I know), along with kids with one parent who is an immigrant from “Asia” but whose other parent is US born white, and that is not a complete list. This is a college town and there are profs and students from everywhere. My experience is that the term Asian encompasses a wide variety of religions, cultures, languages, customs, eating restrictions, skin tones and attitudes about dating and marriage. (Even within the same groups, the attitudes about the latter subject vary a lot, depending on whether the young person agrees with the parents.) Perhaps those of you who are so comfortable using the term “Asian” as if it means something specific live in a different kind of world.</p>
<p>^^ The term ‘Asian’ is used by colleges on the common data set stats they report so it makes sense the term would be used here. All of these racial terms of Asian, Black, White, are very broad. I was quite surprised the first time I found that someone from India was counted as ‘Asian’ in these contexts.</p>
<p>Could there be a larger number of Asians in California schools because the West Coast is closer to…Asia?</p>
<p>Midmo, to answer your question, we live in an extremely multicultural city close to a large campus that is about 60-70% students of Asian decent. Same proportion at our kids private schools and in some activities - such as leadership at the Y or the math&chess school- you won’t find anyone who isn’t Chinese. Typically in day to day speech, we refer to Asians as those from mainland China and HK (since they are by far the dominant groups here- maybe the same in Cali, I don’t know), with easy recognition for those from Korea, Japan, and Phillipines but they are small numbers and not lumped together with the other two much larger groups. Those from India, mostly Hindus (our group) and those from Punjab, who are mostly Sikh, make up other large categories. We don’t typically refer to them as Asian but rather SE Asian. </p>
<p>What’s your point? Technically you are correct. In practice where we live, we aren’t blind and stupid- we recognize the distinctions and appreciate them. We also know there are big cultural differences between us that makes it both interesting and challenging. We aren’t a melting pot and don’t try to be.</p>
<p>The metaphor of culture that I like and find useful is one of a fabric and for some reason I always picture tartan. You can have many common threads that overlay everybody of course- regardless of religion, skin culture, history. Call it the fabric of humanity, if you will. Then in certain ethnic or religious groupings of people, you find other shared threads of commonality be it obvious artifacts such as food or dress or which god they believe in, as well as less visible differences such as values, assumptions, interests. As you go inside a larger grouping, there are finer distinctions still, with each subgroup having its own threads of similarity holding them together.</p>
<p>MD Mom:
</p>
<p>I think distance is not the main reason. Probably because of the following reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>Weather</li>
<li>California has more established Asian communities. It’s easier for Asian students to find support, part-time jobs to supplement the college cost in these communities.</li>
<li>California has more business ties with Asia. Asian students probably look for opportunies for doing business after graduation.</li>
</ol>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The word Asians was once and still is widely used to describe people of Indian/Pakistani descent who have immigrated to Africa and Britain. I think it started back in the late 50’s, early 60’s.</p>
<p>As an example of OP’s question, many people I know would not go to Brandeis, Hofstra, and even Penn because there are too many Jews. Are they racist or anti-semitic? It depends on one’s comfort zone.</p>
<p>And is not going to a particular college because there are not enough of a particular race any less racist than not going to a college because there are too many of a particular race? Isn’t it essentially the same thing?</p>
<p>starbright -
</p>
<p>I am a little bit surprised by this remark. Politically and economically, SE Asia consists of countries in this map:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.aseansec.org/18787.htm[/url]”>http://www.aseansec.org/18787.htm</a></p>
<p>“And is not going to a particular college because there are not enough of a particular race any less racist than not going to a college because there are too many of a particular race? Isn’t it essentially the same thing?” </p>
<p>No, one of my kids made this mistake-- and spent a year integrating the blasted school, being asked inappropriate questions, asked to represent her race, etc. It even affected her academically because she was put in the wrong level of a class because the school decided her name indicated to them that she belonged in a ‘heritage’ language class (where she did NOT do well because we speak English and only English in our home). </p>
<p>If a school has some people of a certain race, at least the kids can figure out if people are accepting or not. If there are none, the kid who is not the majority race is taking a chance. There is enough of an adjustment in going away to college; I understand a student who may not want to be the first to integrate or the only Jew trying to keep kosher.</p>
<p>^ Cut and paste error. I mvoed stuff around to make my train of thought more logical and not sure what happened to a few of my sentences.</p>
<p>My “point”, starbright, is that I think it is an error to pass on a school that has too many “Asians” because of an assumption that all of those Asians are more like each other than someone who is not “Asian”.</p>
<p>My son’s longtime girlfriend and many of his friends and roommates are various types of “Asians” and they find the type of stereotyping that goes on here to be very offensive.</p>
<p>It is not any more racist than not wanting to be in an environment that’s top-heavy with any other regional representation. It doesn’t mean that the student is too stupid or ignorant to understand that there’s variety within international regionality. It means that true diversity is more than one continent, and certainly more than a plurality of 2 (or 3, max) countries within that continent. It’s wonderful to have the choice to go to a private school where 40-50 states are represented among undergrads, plus dozens of countries, as well as having the choice to go to an excellent public flagship with much less frequency of diversity in the typical lower division classroom. Neither is a “bad” choice, and choosing either is not an indicator of prejudice or the lack of it.</p>
<p>Plenty of white students loathe the idea of going to a preppy white school, or a non-preppy mostly-white school, for that matter. That is especially true if such an environment is a mere extension of their childhood, although ironically they may still end up (partly because of affinity and familiarity) making friends with those from backgrounds they have always valued, which may not be their own background. (Thus, they may go to a school with much broader undergrad diversity than Berkeley has, but still find that some of their closest friends derive from regions heavily represented at Berkeley!)</p>
<p>One of my Indian students recently told me that he dreads being sent back to India to school, because, he says, living in the South Bay, “I am already around too many Indians as it is.”</p>
<p>There is the additional “problem” of local regionality. An international from Korea, for example, is not necessarily in the same cultural category as a Korean-American born and bred in CA. Many CA students want to get away from CA, and if so, they will generally prefer a non-UC – no matter how many Asian friends they have --and in fact will want to get as far away from CA as possible (i.e., East Coast).</p>
<p>And as probably been said, plenty of Korean-Americans and Chinese-Americans, especially, are not thrilled about attending an institution where there are so many students with backgrounds so similar to their own. That’s not racism: it’s the desire for breadth and growth. It’s only racist if you’re too PC to understand that wanting to broaden one’s horizons is a healthy feature of the college journey.</p>
<p>Didn’t somebody on this thread cross off schools because there were too many people from New Jersey?</p>
<p>I go to an expensive, instate public. Could I have gone to a cheaper instate public (full of those lower class people I hate)? Could I have gone to a more expensive private school (full of those upper class people I hate)? Yes, maybe I’m a classist. Or maybe I just feel more comfortable around people like me. </p>
<p>Anyway, who the hell cares if it’s racist? Is that person a racist? If so, then they’re a racist. It would be silly for them to go to school full of races they don’t like. If not, then I guess it’s not racist to rule out a school for that reason. </p>
<p>Personally, I don’t see how deciding not to pick a particular school because there aren’t enough non-Whites is any less racist then deciding not to pick a particular school because there are too many non-Whites. They both point out some preferred racial demographic. I’d say they show a racial preference, not that they’re racist, because I’m not some sort of Negative Nancy.</p>
<p>“Negative Nancy”</p>
<p>I just HAD to look that up!</p>
<p>“Personally, I don’t see how deciding not to pick a particular school because there aren’t enough non-Whites is any less racist then deciding not to pick a particular school because there are too many non-Whites.”</p>
<p>The issue isn’t about “white” versus “non-Whites.” It is about whether a school has any diversity or not. For example, my kids happen to be a mix of 4 racial/ethnic groups. One of my kids has expressed a preference for not going to any school where just about every kid is of the same race-- whether it’s an HBCU or a school where everyone is all-white, all-Asian or all-Hispanic. It is valid (and not necessarily racist) to admit that you don’t want to be the only one who stands out. I’ve attended college where I am the only one of my race and, frankly, I didn’t have a problem with it-- but I think not every 18yo is up to it. However, I don’t think half-Asian (if that’s what the UCs are) matters. It still means that half the kids are something other than Asian-- and Asian is a pretty wide stroke.</p>
<p>Re post #34 – I agree. I also find it offensive.</p>
<p>The category “Asian” is extremely broad. I could see the idea of seeking diversity in the sense of not wanting to be in an institution dominate by a single ethnic group… but according to the 2010 census forms, “Asian” includes Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Other Asian - eg Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian.</p>
<p>I pulled up stats from the UC Berkeley web site – see [Fall2008EthnicDistribution</a> < Main < TWiki](<a href=“http://osr2.berkeley.edu/twiki/bin/view/Main/Fall2008EthnicDistribution]Fall2008EthnicDistribution”>http://osr2.berkeley.edu/twiki/bin/view/Main/Fall2008EthnicDistribution) – and after plugging the numbers into a spreadsheet… I found that a whopping 34.5% of UC Berkeley students were Asian. (roughly 12,000 out of 35,000 students) Roughly half of those Asian students are of Chinese ancestry; the others are (in order of greatest representation) East Indian/Pakistani, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, “other Asian”, Japanese, and Pacific Islander. </p>
<p>Or to look at it another way, there are twice as many White/Caucasian students as Chinese … but for some reason Filipino and Indian students are considered to be in the same category as Chinese… whereas the roughly 3500 Hispanic students are counted as a separate and distinct group from whites. </p>
<p>So the problem that people have with Berkeley is not that has too great a concentration of any one race – but rather that it is too diverse. I made a pie chart of the undergrad populations with excel and I saw a round circle with a whole lot of different colored slivers and a few bigger pieces, the biggest of which was the 31% white. </p>
<p>Of course, a huge number of those “Asian” students are American born, many of whom don’t even speak the language of whatever country their parents or grandparents immigrated from – and that doesn’t even begin to count the large number of mixed race kids.</p>