<p>As a black student, I have to wonder how many people like me actually apply, people who could actually compete with white students based on gpa, sat, ECs, essays. You all seem to assume because i'm black I don't value education and I don't aspire to be anything someday. I am for affirmative action until the day all basis is swept away, not only racial, but gender, athletes, financial and any other categories. Until that day I consider AA fair.</p>
<p>Celebrian, wouldn't you rather be judged on your own merits and not on the color of your skin? It seems that discrimination is wrong if it's against you yet right if it's for you!</p>
<p>I agree with Kilimanjaro. One question though....What happens if a student doesnt mark a ethicity in the section? How do colleges admit then? Is it better for the Asian or White students?</p>
<p>What happens if a student doesnt mark a ethicity in the section? How do colleges admit then?</p>
<p>Admission is then based on whatever qualifications that particular institution deem highest. Perhaps for some, the essay is the most important. Perhaps for others, SAT scores are most important. Not knowing a person's ethnicity seems to be the fairest way. No one could scream discrimination then. Except for the essay that reads, "Growing up in a village in East Pakistan, I came to value education......."</p>
<p>I am curious about how many Asians with stellar grades, scores and ECs (particularly Asians who are active in ECs that are not academic or classical music-related) are being rejected by top colleges. </p>
<p>Is it possible that in general Asians are participating in things like Brain Bowl, math competitive teams and are taking classical music lessons and therefore, when colleges seek all sorts of diversity, including in ECs, the Asians aren't adding much in terms of diversity? Adding to this, many Asians seem to be planning on majoring in permed. In some cases, the students were interested in less marketable areas, but parents have insisted that the students major in subjects like biochem.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, top colleges want to attract students with a variety of interests, not just premed students.</p>
<p>Do the Asians with top scores, grades, class rank plus tough curricula who are being turned down also play on varsity sports teams, do major community service, serve as class presidents, edit h.s. newspapers and literary magazines, play in rock bands, win art contests or serve as class presidents? </p>
<p>Asians are often stereotyped as being extremely bright and extremely hard workers when it comes to academics, but also being somewhat passive when it comes to taking leadership or doing things that are creative and independent. Is this what's causing the perception that excellent Asian students are being overlooked by top colleges?</p>
<p>There have not been a lot of Asian students in the areas in which I have lived when I have been interviewing for Harvard and doing other work with teens. However, in my various professional and volunteer works, I have heard Asian students say that their parents were insisting that they plan to be premed or in the hard sciences. This has been true even when the students interests were in other areas.</p>
<p>I also have seen Asian students with interests in athletics who weren't allowed by their parents to go out for h.s. sports. </p>
<p>Where I currently live doesn't get a lot of students into Ivies, so I don't have a large sample. However, one of the Asian admittees stood out because while the student was premed, the student had extremely strong leadership, arts (not classical music!) and community service that clearly seemed to be based on the student's interests, not on the student's trying to fill out a resume. </p>
<p>This, actually, has been true of other students, regardless of race, whom I've seen admitted to my Ivy. The students who had the stats plus passionately followed their interests seem to have the best chances of getting in -- regardless of what their race is.</p>
<p>When it comes to African American students, the ones whom I have seen get in have had exceptionally strong ECs. Some didn't have sky high SATs, but did have ECs that were extraordinary, particularly when it comes to community service.</p>
<p>One thing that I remember in Bok's book "Shape of the River" is that African American students who attend elite colleges tend to be more active in community service after graduation than are white graduates. Since most of the elite colleges want to have graduates who do service in the community after graduation, it may be that some African Americans get in not because of race, but because they are perceived to be on track to becoming the kind of graduates that the universities wish to produce.</p>
<p>"What happens if a student doesnt mark a ethicity in the section? How do colleges admit then?"</p>
<p>That's exactly what I have been calling for. Then the admissions process could be race neutral or race and ethnic blind.</p>
<p>As a side note, please check out:</p>
<p>For the "Multiplier Effect", an essay detailing the performance of immigrants and children of immigrants as academic stars, mainly Asian, a valuable resource for America. </p>
<p>If immigration is restricted, America will suffer and will not be able to maintain its edge in innovative leadership. America was built on immigration, sans quotas. Racial quotas will be the bane of America.</p>
<p>I'm afraid of without AA i'll be the only black student, like I am currently at my high school, I know it's not fair, but it's the fairest way out there i believe. If you agree no more urms, no more athletes, no more economic concerns, no more gender basis, then i'll agree we can throw AA out the door. But, too often people only see AA as race, when it's so much more than that. maybe i'm the only one on CC who thinks this way, but we're a product of our environment, and I don't know how many other black CCers go to all white public high schools, yet care about diversity</p>
<p>I mean, now if a student was Asian or White and was to ignore the ethnicity box...what difference would it make in admissions?</p>
<p>"I'm afraid of without AA i'll be the only black student, like I am currently at my high school, I know it's not fair, but it's the fairest way out there i believe. If you agree no more urms, no more athletes, no more economic concerns, no more gender basis, then i'll agree we can throw AA out the door. But, too often people only see AA as race, when it's so much more than that. maybe i'm the only one on CC who thinks this way, but we're a product of our environment, and I don't know how many other black CCers go to all white public high schools, yet care about diversity"</p>
<p>How is it fair that a rich back student with lesser EC, lower SAT, and lower grades get accepted over an impoverish vietnamese with a lot of good EC, SAT score that is 300 points higher, and a GPA than is 1 point higher. How is that fair because thats what AA does.</p>
<p>One must close the Black-White (Asian) Test Score Gap in America. One must assume that this gap is able to be narrowed and eventualy be closed first. It may be an impossibilty to narrow this gap, because of a nebulous factor call "IQ" or intelligence quotient which is ill defined. In any event, one must take the optimistic approach and find ways to at least narrow, if not close THE GAP in all testing, which includes the SAT II (achievement tests), high stakes tests in k-12, licenscing exams such as the State Bar Exams and and the USMLE (United States Medical Licenscing Exams). These exams do not test "IQ" or aptitude (the SAT I). Only 40% of all black law students pass the State Bar Exams compared the the 90% of White and Asian law students who pass. Less than 50% of the black med students pass the first part of USMLE compared to the 95% of White and Asian med students who pass. Some never pass, even after multiple attempts and years of repeating medical school, whiich is a total waste of valuable resources.</p>
<p>The biggest problem facing the nation is the closing of the Test Score Gap between the races, if at all possible. Otherwise, nothing will change in terms of educational achievement and attainment of the lower class underachieving blacks in America. This call for change is easier said than done, but we must finds reasons for the existence of THE GAP, and ways to close it.</p>
<p>One of the ways to close the gap, may require blacks to change its culture and reset its priorities in the form of the family unit ( over 70 to 85% of births in Harlem are out-of-wedlock, non-existant fathers, etc.), stop self-destructive behavior with drug abuse and crime, and review the importance of education and its attitude in hard work towards studying. To ask blacks, as a group to change its culture, is to bring forth charges of RACISM, mainly from the flaming liberals who make a living based on the victimhood of blacks, causing blacks a grave disservice.</p>
<p>Please read,</p>
<p>The Black-White Test Score Gap, Christopher Jencks and MeridithPhillips, Editors, Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 1998.</p>
<p>This book is a complilation of research from many scholars from the most prestigious universities, in an effort to find the causes for the Test Score Gap and an attempt to recommend remedies in narrowing The Gap.</p>
<p>But that isn't me! I was born in wedlock, no one in my family abuses drugs, I have scores comparable to any white student, my parents are married, but seperated, but that has nothing to do with my birth. I never knew I was a lesser person because I'm black. :(</p>
<p>Example of unfairness of AA. My cousin had a GPA of 4.71, SAT of 1480, And SATII of 700v, 800IIC, and 800 Bio, and 800 Physics. He had 5s on 6 different AP test. President of Key Club at his school, he even ran for LT Governor of Key Club of California (Lost), but came close to winning. He played sports all 4 years of HS, He held a job, did over a 1000 hours of community service ( helped children read, soup kitches, park clean, ect), he did all of that growing up greatly impoverish. He applied to Stanford with many letters of rec all praising him, everyone who read his admission essay said it was the best they have read. He was rejected from stanford Comp Sci program. Yet he and I knew blacks with GPA, SAT, and EC not close to his get accepted into the same program. My cousin greatly regrets marking Asian for his aplication.</p>
<p>Again, from Jay Matthews' column: </p>
<p>[He noted the recent estimate by Harvard humanities professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. that two thirds of blacks at Harvard were not descendants of American slaves, but the middle class children of relatively recent immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa. "Why should they deserve admission with lowered standards (relatively speaking) based solely on the color of their skin over a high achieving Asian American living in a Chinatown ghetto or a Black ghetto (many Asians live in Black and Latino ghettos) or a poor white from the slums of NYC?" Chin said.]</p>
<p>That's the question. Is it because lower class blacks don't qualify for admission under any standards used, even the subjective and holistic criteria that Harvard uses, that there is a dearth of lower class blacks at Harvard and the elites? Is it that this lower class black group just cannot even qualify for any college, let alone Harvard, under any criteria used, including the ever widening racial gaps on academic performance and standardized testing. Let's face it , not everyone, of any race , has the ability to attend college. Not everything is equal, and one cannot create equal with race based AA. </p>
<p>Again, from Jay Matthews' column:</p>
<p>[The solution to the problem of lower average achievement among African Americans and Hispanics is not "the Band-Aid approach of race-based affirmative action," Chin said. "It is solved by improving the K-12 schools for the lower economic classes which are disproportionately Black and Latino."]</p>
<p>Um... they're usually going to find out anyways, mystic. And personally, I would prefer the asian/white who marks themselves down proudly on the application over the student who tries to sneak by unnoticed, thinking not marking a race would be an advantage for them. But it'll usually be obvious through your name, other parts of your application (your parents' names, where they went to school, etc.) or your... uh... interview.</p>
<p>It's easy to approve of something if it works for you, harder to approve of a program that works against you. Being a female applicant to MIT, I smile upon the slightly higher acceptance rate for the fairer sex, while you may smile upon affirmative action. Take that into account while defending AA.</p>
<p>Now, to northstarmom -</p>
<p>It's exactly generalizations like this about the Asian race as a whole that offends me slightly. Being asian myself, I do not go around stating that all blacks receive low grades and play sports, just like I don't believe people should generalize that all asians receive high marks and are NOT active in sports.</p>
<p>Yes, I understand, you did not say all, but the things you do say did infer that a VAST majority of asians do fall into that category, and there were negative connotations attached to all those things: asians ALLL played classical music - YES I do play classical music, and YES it is the <em>cringe</em> piano. However I PERSONALLY made the choice to play the instrument and I continue it because of my love for music and the instrument. Should I NOT participate in something just because many people of my race participate in the same activity? Not all of us are forced into good grades and music by our parents.</p>
<p>You say asians don't have leadership skills: I'm a student body representative, the student council treasurer, I run a statewide conference (officer of human relations club of 250+ members), and I've mentored incoming freshmen for three years as well as tutored. You say asians don't have athletic ability (or their parents don't let them play sports): I play three varsity sports for school and have BEEN varsity since freshman year (i'm a senior now) in gymnastics, since sophomore year in tennis, and since junior year in badminton. You say asians are generally not interested in the arts: I've taken photography classes for three years and will be sending in a photography portfolio to my first choice school. </p>
<p>You say asians are timid and passive: I'm a very social person and very vocal about my beliefs (obviously). </p>
<p>With all that said, I still have the right to be passionate about science and math (no, I don't want to be a doctor, I want to be an aeronautical engineer) as WELL as do other "typical-asian" things such as get straight A's, get 1500+ on SATs, participate in chemistry and math competitions (without winning, may I add ;)) WITHOUT being judged by college admissions officials based on my race. I find it sickening that such an in-depth hobby of mine such as playing the piano (8 years and running) would be CROSSED out simply because I'm ASIAN and ALL ASIANS PLAY THE PIANO. Yes, I'm very offended by that because some of us may actually have a passion for the instrument.</p>
<p>Despite of race, applicants still need to be treated as individuals. I hate to be clumped in with all the "asians with good math/science scores" because that's NOT all I am about. I'm a very well-rounded person and have a LOT of commitment in everything I do... when it comes to college admission, COMMITMENT to the things you do should be valued WAY above the actual activities and how they relate to your RACE.</p>
<p>*excuse any spelling/grammar errors... I'm running on very little sleep.</p>
<p>To Northstarmom:</p>
<p>I know of a Chinese American kid who was was a top student from the local high school and the winner of the Gold Medal in the International Physics Olympiad who was denied admission to Harvard. He is at Princeton today. He should have been able to attend Harvard, his first choice. Sure, he went to Princeton, but he was unfairly denied by Harvard. He deserved his first choice more than the applicant admitted with lower standards and he was unjustly, immorally and unconstitutionally denied, simply because of his Asian race!! That's the point. He is much more qualified in every aspect for admissions to Harvard sans racial preferences given to URMs (Blacks an Latinos) and whites admitted with much lower standards. There is clearly bias due to racial quotas/goals/diversity against Asian Americans in favor of others much less accomplished in ECs, passions, SAT scores/GPAs, talents (including sports) and overcoming of obstacles, culture and language differences. This kid was denied despite being the best in the world at what he did, Physics, and won the Gold Medal in world competition, yet Harvard accepts the Gold medal winner in Women's Figure Skating in the International Winter Olympics. A richer black or Latino student or even a white with his credentials would be an automatic admit. But this kid is Asian, subjected to the biases, stereotyping and the prejudices of the adcom. He is subjected to a cap or quota on Asians. That's the only reason this kid was rejected. It is all relative. The Asian applicant had met the highest standards and he most certainly exceeded them, yet he was denied. Also, on this note, the best tennis player on the Exeter's New England Prep League Championship team, several years ago, was a Chinese American. He was also named the best individual player in the league, yet he was denied by Harvard despite graduating near the top of his class at Exeter. Why?? Because he was Asian American. </p>
<p>He was unjustly and unfairly denied because he was Chinese American. He was competing only against the Asian American applicants, who were more stellar as a group, and he was not competing against the rest of the applicant group which include whites, blacks and Latinos, who are less stellar when compared to the Asians. In fact, in this sick and demented game of admissions, each applicant, Black, white, etc., competes within its own group for admission. Not every group is equally qualified. Therefore, the playing field is not level for Asians who have to meet a higher level of achievement and exceed certain criteria and standards, both academic and non-academic factors, than any other group vying for admissions. Asians paid the highest price in being denied in a race-based preference polcy for admissions. Each applicant is not treated as an individual when race is considered. The only way to change is to make admissions race neutral. Asian numbers will most certainly increase at Harvard and the Elites.</p>
<p>Remember, 39% of all Asian American SAT I test takers had English as a second language, yet they outscore every group in the composite SAT I score today and they attain the highest levels of scoring at 700, 750, and 800 than any other group. 39% of all SAT 1 test takers in 1999 of the Asian American group did not have English as their first language. This percentage is the highest among all ethnic and racial groups, including Latinos (only 29% of Puerto Ricans did not have English as their first language.) Source: The College Board. Of course, the predominant first language of Afro-Americans and white Americans is English. If you view not being able to speak the English language at first as a disadvantage, then Asian Americans should be recognized as having a disadvantage, but Asian Americans have never asked for nor been given preferential treatment. They merely overcame this obstacle even though over half the Asian American population is comprised of immigrants or children of immigrants who also faced racial discrimination and poverty. 15% of Asian Americans live under the poverty level, comparable to the Latino- American group. Source: US Census Bureau,1997. </p>
<p>Asian Americans, as a group including the poorest, score higher on the average on the SAT I and SAT IIs and other standardized tests for k-12, college, graduate and professional schools including the much maligned IQ tests, than all other groups, which include Blacks, Latinos, and Whites, (Jews included in the white group) despite their disadvantages of culture and language differences and their overcoming of living under the poverty level. The POOREST Asian Americans from families incomes of less than 20k/year with parents with a high school diploma or less outperform on the SAT I and achieve higher GPAs, and take more difficult courses than the richest blacks from family incomes of 100k/year and parents with college and graduate degrees. In fact, the poorest Asian Americans living in the poorest neighborhoods outperform whites in more affluent neighborhoods. That's the well known secret that the politically correct refuse to acknlowledge.</p>
<p>We certainly know that admissions is not based on test scores and grades alone and Asian Americans on average are overqualified as a group according to these standards. They, as a group, meet and exceed these standards, more than any other group. The other more IMPORTANT point to remember is that they also meet and exceed, on average, the holistic criteria Harvard uses for admissions. This includes special talents, motivations, work ethic, creativity, and especially the overcoming of obstacles and life's hardships. They are a diverse group with diverse interests and study in diverse fields. Just look at the distrubution of Asian Americans in the Harvard graduate and professional schools. Even at UC Berkeley, Asians study and support the wide range of fields of study in the liberal arts, humanities, social sciences, creative and performiing arts, all the professions, as well as math, science and engineering. They are overrepresented in every field of study for their 4% of the American population.</p>
<p>Check out Harvard Fact Book, Distribution of Students by Race and Ethnicity for Harvard College and each of its graduate schools.</p>
<p>Asian Americans are in every field of study, not only the sciences and medicine, but also in the arts, humanities, design and social sciences and are overreprepresented relative to their 4% of the American population. At Harvard, they are 10% of the Graduate School of Arts & Science, 8% of the Business School, 33% of the Dental School., and 12% of the Design School, 6% of the Divinity, School 10% of the School of Education, 7% of the JFK School of Gov't, 10% of the Law School, 26% of the Medical School, and 10% of the School of Public Health School. This distribution is representative of the distribution of Asian American students in the Ivies and the elite schools. In fact, Asian Americans now represnt about 10% of law students in the top American law schools. This is remarmarkable because 39% of Asian American college students had English as their second language.
Therefore, there is much misconception, and stereotyping of the Asian American applicant to Harvard and the elite colleges that Asians are one dimensional pre-meds violinists who study biochem. This is not the case. This sterotyping adds to the biases of the adcom in the admission process in implementing the de facto quota against Asian Americans.</p>
<p>and VTBoy, even if your cousin would have not marked anything on his application, he would have been treated as a white or asian applicant. Usually URMs don't deny colleges that kind of information. Besides, 1480 with good SAT IIs, good recs, good essays, and OK EC's is DEFINITELY not a sure deal at a school like stanford. In fact, I'd say his 1480 SAT scores are in fact a tad on the low side of the applicant pool. Yes, URMs may have beat him out, but so may have many other asians and/or whites who ARE better overall candidates. Though it's obvious AA plays a factor, let's not jump to conclusions and assume he would have gotten in if he was not asian.</p>
<p>I still don't know what Asians we are talking about. Low-income Asians are WAY underrepresented at prestigious colleges. Count the number of Hmong, Mien, Palauian, Laotian students from low-income communities. No matter where you go, it is not going to take many hands. They do NOT score higher on SATs than African-Americans generally speaking.</p>
<p>But folks with lower SAT scores CAN do the work. Folks with 1150s have done well at HYP for several generations. (You can start with Bill Bradley.) The result of the studies at Smith found NO correlations between SAT scores and academic achievement on campus. Bates has now found the same thing. </p>
<p>Parents and applicants look at college admissions as a zero-sum game. The admission of one means the rejection of another. The colleges don't look at it that way at all. They seek to build a CLASS that will best carry out the institution's mission as defined by the board of trustees. Usually, for prestige colleges, that means severely limiting the number of low-income students, of whatever race or ethnicity. They don't have to do that. They can find plenty of them who will perform perfectly well in class room if they choose to do so. Most choose not to.</p>
<p>In my judgment, this choice significantly decreases the academic quality of the experience for ALL students, and limits their understanding of the world later in life.</p>
<p>And on an even sadder small note--in the part of rural NC where I live, there's a "secret committee" at my son's high school that selects National Honor Society members, and this committee has ignored an extremely well qualified Asian student. Racism lives and festers. My son is having qualms about accepting membership even if the secret committee taps him this year despite the fact that he's a math and science guy and they generally favor only those interested in the humanities because of their treatment of this Asian kid. I will be SO happy when my son is out of here and at a university!</p>
<p>Mini said, </p>
<p>[I still don't know what Asians we are talking about. Low-income Asians are WAY underrepresented at prestigious colleges. Count the number of Hmong, Mien, Palauian, Laotian students from low-income communities. No matter where you go, it is not going to take many hands. They do NOT score higher on SATs than African-Americans generally speaking.]</p>
<p>You are incorrect.</p>
<p>The POOREST Asian Americans from families incomes of less than 20k/year with parents with a high school diploma or less outperform on the SAT I and achieve higher GPAs, and take more difficult courses than the richest blacks from family incomes of 100k/year and parents with college and graduate degrees. In fact, the poorest Asian Americans living in the poorest neighborhoods outperform whites in more affluent neighborhoods. That's the well known secret that the politically correct refuse to acknlowledge.</p>
<p>Source; The College Board</p>
<p>Fact #1</p>
<p>Black children from the wealthiest families have mean SAT scores lower than white children and Asian Americans from families below the poverty line.</p>
<p>Fact #2 </p>
<p>Black children of parents with graduate degrees have lower SAT scores than white or Asian children of parents with a high-school diploma or less. </p>
<p>From the College Board data, you will discover that Asians mostly sit on top of the heap; that whites, Mexican Americans and blacks follow in that order. Some details prove interesting. For example, whites enjoy a verbal advantage over Asians that disappears at high levels of income and social advantage. Regrettably, the College Board no longer discloses these data. In 1996, they stopped publishing performance by income and parental education disaggregated by race and ethnicity.</p>
<p>Check out;</p>
<p>for the actual data verify the facts above.</p>
<p>Your so-called facts take no account of the reality that many (very many! I've worked int the community) Mien, Hmong, and Laotion students don't take the SATs at all! (often from ignorance, sometimes from lack of funds, and sometimes from the refusal of families to allow their children to stray from home.) It isn't a matter of income: it is a matter of culture.</p>
<p>You continue to talk about Asian Americans as if, as a group, they exist.</p>