3.4 -4 GPA Total Asians 14,463, accepted 7,773: 53.1%
3.4 -4 GPA Total Hispanics 4,706, accepted 2,891: 61.4%
Don’t know where you came up with 39% and 35% advantage for Asians.
The 7,673 to 2,891 acceptance is an “advantage” only when you don’t consider the total # of applicants.
At lower scores, the differences are much more significant:
GPA 3.2-3.4 Asian 19.6%, Hispanic: 33.9% accepted.
GPA 3.0-3.2 Asian 10.6%, Hispanic 26.1%
MCAT 24-26: Asian 12.2%, Hispanic 40.7% Accepted
MCAT 27-29: Asian 28.3%, Hispanic 59.3%
This is a topic I’ve been wondered about for a while - my oldest (biological) daughter is Caucasian, and ended up doing very well with her college admissions. Her younger siblings are adopted from south Asia and have Asian first names. I wonder if colleges will view them in the same light as their older sister, or if they will somehow be perceived differently? If anything, despite being Caucasian, my oldest fits the “stereotypical Asian profile” much more than the younger kids. Time will tell, I guess. We are definitely not planning to change anyones names in an attempt to improve their chances!
How very, very sad, for all involved. I initially presumed that this was either a joke or an urban legend about somebody that someone’s brother-in-law’s co-worker “knew,” but it seems as if this has actually occurred.
That’s my point about statistics: To me the total number of applicants is significant. When you consider the higher GPA groups and if you DO consider the total number of applicants and then then divide by it, the 39% and 35% stand. Does it mean anything? I still don’t know.
Post #40 Look at the sheer number of Asians applying for med school. I bet they don’t have the same difficulty in marine biology. When everyone is targeting the same majors, I’m not surprised that there are bottlenecks.
I’ve heard that some Jews did the same in the Soviet Union. It was easier for children with non-Jewish last name to be admitted in universities, it was easier to make a career.
IMHO, if it helps child to avoid racial bias - I am for it.
My daughter went to a public elementary school in Chinatown (NYC) that had 90%+ Asian students per the statistics, virtually all of them Chinese-American. A large majority of them were given “American” names on their birth certificates although they almost always had a Chinese name they used at home. Mandarin Chinese, the official language of China, is tonal and the standard romanization, Pinyin, doesn’t read exactly the same as English. The Chinese name is a character with no pronunciation attached and a written “English” version is imperfect at best. So it’s just easier all around to use a more “standard” name. It has nothing to do with getting into college.
How sad is this? If they feel the need to change their kids name to gain advantage in admissions, then they are applying to the wrong schools. I wouldn’t want to admit a kid that pulled this stunt. Where’s the integrity?
Has anyone really shown that it’s the ethnicity rather than the fact that Asian applicants are much more likely to be in the hypercompetitive prospective STEM major pool of applicants, and there are only so many prospective STEM majors each top liberal arts school will admit? It seem to me that changing the name will do nothing if they end up in the same pool.
I accidentally gave my daughter a Jewish name and she’s not Jewish. She gets asked all the time if she is Jewish. I actually find it odd. I just thought it was a Judeo-Christian first name with a German last name. Nope. Jewish first name, Jewish last name. Raising her in Central/Southern California, where there is a zero Jewish population, it was never brought to my attention before, no one ever asked us if we were Jewish, it just came up when she went to UPenn which has a high Jewish concentration of students (or so I’m told). Was it an advantage in admissions? Who knows? If it was, it was definitely not planned that way.
@brantly Lots of people Americanized their name when they came here: Italians, Poles…
You can change your name but you don’t change your profile or your target major. Is it wrong to want many different communities represented in the medical field. Maybe if you are Hispanic, you would prefer to go to a Hispanic doctor who is fluent in your language and understands your culture. Does one race have to sweep a professions?