@prof2dad : I know this post is straying away for the original topic. First, what is wrong with stereotyping is that it can lead to racial profiling and prejudice. Many of us are ingrained and indoctrinated with some form of stereotyping and prejudice. This can be very innocent from a very early age and on. An example can be stereotyping women as secretaries. We all know that women have made great strides, deservingly so, in getting into professional jobs and you might even have one as your boss. In the business world, at least in the West Coast, this is progress slowly changing for women, minorities and Chinese.
After you clarified that you were referring to international Chinese, I am in partial agreement with your comments regarding Chinese having difficulty with English communication and therefore graduation rate is low in the business school. I too am of Chinese ancestry, I am bilingual and I am a CPA (working in a large Fortune 200 company). My parents and my older sister were born in China. Compared to the more recent immigrants from China in the past 30+ years, my parents and my sister were not college educated or even high school educated (my sister might have been high school educated). The recent Chinese immigrants are generally college educated. My parents and my sister were blue collar laborers.
At least in the aforementioned schools in my earlier post, there are many Chinese students in the business programs at UCB, USC, UW and UCLA. These programs are very competitive and generally the smartest students are admitted to these business programs. The admitted Chinese are from both domestic and from international countries. Generally, the international Chinese in these schools mastered the English language. For example, a foreign Chinese female staff of mine at my workplace spoke flawless English. She told me that in China, in the big cities like Shanghai, English was required as a second language for all starting in elementary school. She graduated from the business school at UTexas, Austin, which is one of the top 25 undergraduate business schools in the US. Another Chinese female, whom I mentored, was born in China, was very fluent in Chinese Mandarin and English. She graduated from UCB Haas undergraduate with a 3.99 GPA and chose to work in investment banking over offers from the Big 4. My point is that at least in the top tier business schools, there are many international Chinese and they are able to handle the business communication classes and they do not have difficulty graduating. My son is in one of the top 3 business programs in the West Coast and he tells me that there are many competitive “FOBs” (I believe you would know what the term means) there who raise the grading curve. As you can see from my profile name, I too graduated from 2 of those schools and even in the old days, there were many international Chinese who graduated without struggling. A couple of my Chinese friends from business school even went on to get an MBA from Stanford and Wharton.
I can see that international Chinese students can have difficulty with English communication and struggle in a business schools. I don’t see that happening in a top tier school because the admitted international Chinese there are the elite of the group and generally have good command of English. International Chinese you mentioned who struggled are the ones who are not as smart and end up in second tier or lower tier business schools. I know this can be true in some of the lower tier CSUs in California
You are correct that graduation rates in graduate school among international Chinese are high. This is especially true in the top tier business schools because the weaker students are weeded out and what is left are the stronger students (just like getting into medical and other professional schools). The same analogy applies to top tier undergraduate business schools. The weaker students are weed out from getting admitted and the strong ones are left.
Lastly, this applies not only to international Chinese, but also to international students of all countries.