NYT - The Asian Advantage

This does end up having a disparate impact on Asian-Americans and some other immigrant groups as their immigration patterns tended to situate them either in the NE or the West Coast due to historical migration patterns and racial factors in the past*.

  • I.e. Certain regions/towns having strong racial animus against Asian-Americans and other racial/religious minorities or laws prohibiting racially mixed marriages(Virginia's miscegenation law was still in effect up until the late 1960's). Heck, I still observed strong attitudes among many White locals against mixed-race dating in the mid-late 1990's in my small rural college town in NE Ohio. Several classmates and I were also subjected to drive-by racist epithets...including one occasion which the driver almost came out to fight it out with me until he saw a cop car coming up a block or two behind him and he opted to drive off.

Athletic prowess is an achievement. Anyone of any race is eligible to participate. No one gets shut out by default of their race.

While it may not be convenient to move to another part of the country, one’s place of residency is a mutable condition. But an asian kid who moves to Idaho is still asian.

" And regardless of which administrations appointees are in the DOE it is not relevant to this discussion."
of course it is relevant,(you were the one who brought it up in the first place…change of heart perhaps) if another person from the other party was in power the D o E would most probably not only rule there is discrimination, they along with the D o J would sue on behalf of the asian victims. the current D o E have a narrative and this does not fit. hence they see no evil hear no evil. it is 100% a political decision. and if some of the current people get elected president the D o E will be closed…at which time they will have no say or opinion…they simply will be a footnote in history. (and a future president 15-20-50 years down the road …may reopen that cabinet department) you can not simply quote the opinion of current D of E and later say it is not relevant.

While colleges do not deliberately discriminate against certain groups, the effect of their diversity and gender balance goals may disproportionately affect some groups more than others. For example, right now white males have it easier getting into most schools than white females due to the relative number of applicants, but that’s not because colleges want to keep out white females.

That said, each year it seems there are discrimination lawsuits brought by Asians against top schools and they always lose. I’m not unsympathetic to the situation and believe our nation needs to act like a melting pot and stop making racial distinctions all the time. Nonetheless, it is not a sign of animus against Asians to point out that their cultural values can prevent them from achieving their objective of elite school admission. First, their bias against top LAC’s limits their possibilities of admission since they refuse to consider an entire class of elite schools. Secondly, their tendency to cluster in certain EC’s like playing stringed instruments and tennis means that often they fail to stand out from the pack. I don’t see how saying this means anyone dislikes Asians.

No, zobo, I brought up the ruling on the Princeton case because it is relevant to the discussion. Which political party appointed the members of the DoE is not relevant to the discussion. In fact, the insinuation, and the comparison the the cigarette industry is a bit distasteful. This is not a political thread. Lets keep it that way.

Contrary to your misinterpreted statements, this is not the “school’s opinion” and no one claimed this to be the “final say”. The one who is “confusing things” is not me. I simply posted a link to the timely article, with a quote or 2 from the article. Your outrage is misdirected , as you seem to be reading things that are not here. Don’t shoot the messenger. Again, feel free to call them. They provided a contact number. quote428-3800.

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Do consider reading the 20 pg report beforehand. Here again is the link http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/investigations/02086002-a.pdf

I agree with jym in post 64. Federal judges are also political appointees. They are nominated by the president. zobo I am not sure what you want. Are you saying everyone should be ranked by their sat score? Ivies want to be free to give slots to large donors, to legacies , to kids who study the classics and French literature, and to promote diversity. That doesn’t means anyone is biased . It just means the school is forming a diverse class which in their opinion encourages creativity and excellence in thought from a worldly perspective.

Also, it should be noted that often the student suing did in fact gain admission to an Ivy or elite, just not THE Ivy they deemed to be the best. If someone views getting into Cornell rather than Harvard or Princeton as a severe enough damage that requires a lawsuit, I think that does reveal an unhealthy fixation on rankings.

“Which political party appointed the members of the DoE is not relevant to the discussion” it is relevant and it is purely political. the president picks who runs the d o e and they follow his/her wishes. it is a position whose leadership will change with every new elected president.(and all d of e positions will zig zag accordingly…it is not science based it is pure opinion) you can not use the D o E "opinion"no matter who the president is in a vacuum.
I have been very careful not to mention any people by name in any position all the way to the top. and the cigarette industry comparison is spot on. look I see we do not agree but, that is a different issue from what you have seem to have latched on to. it hurts me to see how people can be judged by their background and receive a thumbs up on acceptance or a thumbs down on it…if others are ok with so be it. nothing more to say other than have a great night.

We do not agree because all I did was link and quote the article, with no comment or opinion about the content until your crack about the cigarette industry. Your opinion is clear, its just not consistent with the DoE findings. You have 2 choices- take it or leave it. Or sue. You want their opinion to be your opinion. And it isn’t. And honestly its quite likely, imo, that appointees from either party might have reached the same opinion.,

Forty percent of the students at Williams are varsity athletes.

Just over 16% of Vassar students are varsity athletes. Sports is not a focus at all LACs.

HS varsity? Its not that hard for a HS student to be on some varsity team. At many schools, it’s a default for senior team members. At S1’s HS, all senior tennis players were automatically made a co-captain so it would look good for college admissions.

Possibly the stereotypical Asian family, first generation, choosing between Harvard and Vassar, is likely successful in a STEM field and hopes to repeat this success, with additional prestige, with their children. And, it would sound great in the letters home to mention a school that all of Asian aspires to.

Engineers and computer scientists probably will look for schools with programs in those fields rather than a really good art history program.

Second generation will diverge more, just like all immigrant groups in the past.

Similarly the ECs will start to diverge more, with more athletes, more service oriented, maybe band instruments instead of piano or violin.

People will have met someone from Vassar who is outstanding and realize it is an option.

Suing because you didn’t get into Harvard, when 95% of people including likely 45% equally qualified do not, seems unlikely to succeed.

SAT scores and NMF are trainable and therefore also stereotypical achievements (just like little league).

While it is an achievement, there some debate in and out of academia as to whether it should merit the easing of admission standards to universities and colleges whose main mission is nominally academic in nature.

Where one stands on this debate is largely determined by which cultural values one was raised in and holds.

The US has a large subculture which idolizes athletic prowess to the point greater prioritization of school/academic funding is provided for athletic teams and facilities like sports stadiums over academic/co-curricular activities like classroom buildings, textbooks, etc.

It’s an issue some Profs I’ve encountered at Div I elite Us including some Ivies have serious issues with considering their decades-long experiences teaching and having to give special exemptions/regrades for “scholar athletes” for the sake of the school’s athletic teams.

It’s also an issue many Oberlin classmates had with their high schools/towns to the point they chose to attend our LAC to get away from what they seemed to be the “sports/athletes uber alles” mentality in their hometowns/HSs and large subculture within US society.

That’s not to say athletes and athletics aren’t prioritized at all in foreign countries…including East Asian ones. However, most don’t emphasize it to the same extent as many American high schools and higher ed institutions. They either don’t have sports teams or if they exist, are more on the basis of voluntary ECs/clubs which any student interested in participating can participate.

For more dedicated athletes who want to take it to the next level, there are specialized vocational high schools, academic departments, and colleges specifically designed for their athletic aspirations.

I think schools should just cut the BS and award athletics degrees. Are athletes really all that different from other “performance” majors like musical theater & art? I struggle to see the academic nature of tap dancing in a Cole Porter production.

The “Asian advantage” is that they tend to work hard. What an advantage! If only everyone can be born with the advantage of being able to work hard!

Many dancers are quite bright and academically talented, GMT.

And so are many athletes

True. But they don’t dance to Cole Porter. (and now I have “Anything Goes” running through my head. Earworm!)

I absolutely agree that sometimes the Asian advantage is just hard work. However, the problem for non-Asian Americans arises from long-standing cultural differences that cannot be changed overnight to compete with a more intense academic culture that is better suited to succeed under current national conditions. And nor would we want to change if it means what we consider wrong and extreme, yet that has the consequence of not being on the high honor roll etc. at our school.

I recently attended a conference during which a young Asian woman mentioned that her parents used to make her kneel on uncooked rice if she only got an A or A- instead of an A+. While I believed the notion that Asian parents were demanding, I had wondered if those sort of stories were just fables until I talked to a middle school teacher in our district who reported that each year she sees a shocking number of Asian students have hysterical emotional meltdowns in her class over a good (B+) but not great grade, sobbing that their parents are going to punish them very severely for it. You can flame me for this, but it’s consistent with what my kids also report hearing from their classmates, since my kids have tended to be 1 of only several non-Asians in their AP classes. No matter how hard I may push my kids, they will never feel the intense drive of knowing they HAVE to do well or they will shame their family.