Ummm, that’s not what I was saying. At all. But ok.
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Everyone here appears to be focusing on those with so-called privilege, but what does that word even mean when it comes to boarding school? Everyone at a “top” boarding school is privileged to be there, honestly, with incredible opportunities unavailable to most. Personally, I don’t care much if fewer legacies get in to “top” universities, even though my spouse and I have degrees from several of them. The main “problem” is Anti-Asian racism in college admissions at the top places. Despite the fact that the number of Asians in America has essentially doubled over the past two decades, the percentage of each entering class at “top” universities has essentially stayed the same. It’s the same problem Jews faced throughout the first two thirds of the 20th century–a quota system. I think it’s horribly unfair.
The second problem is that once you get past the legacy admits (there still are plenty, I’m sure, even if less than before), many of whom are white, the number of spots available for other white students is infinitesimal. This is especially true lately, as top colleges have dramatically increased their admits among first-generation students, virtually none of whom are white. So, non-legacy whites, whatever their academic prowess and other qualifications, are virtually shut out.
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Regarding Penn, I wonder if the financial aid lawsuit has anything to do with whether it decided to wait and accept legacy/wealthy applicants in the regular decision round. Depending upon what the lawsuit has in terms of evidence, certain schools may not feel it is worth it to accept legacies in the early round, even strong applicants. There may be other reasons Penn is doing things the way they are that we may not be aware of…just some food for thought. Also, in terms of feeder schools and acceptances, I think its highly dependent upon the applicant pool in the class. Some years, the students are killer and other years not so much. The vast majority of students get into great schools from feeders - the relationships aren’t changing that much, at least that’s what I am seeing at our school.
Here are some stats from Questbridge this year:
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It already has (not to an Ivy, though). If kiddo ends up at a school he is already accepted at, we would be delighted. He has more RD apps pending, so we don’t know for sure yet where he will end up.
Believe it or not, I am really just fascinated by the cultural shift and how it is playing out. I feel like I have a front row seat, or rather my kid does.
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I wonder what the breakdown is between Asian Americans and Asian citizens is in that pool of entering students, and more specifically whether/how the mix has shifted over time.
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Total US high school graduates will continue to increase till 2026 when the cliff kicks in. Dept of education has the numbers.
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Not that it doesn’t mean there can’t also be discriminatory admissions practices, but I don’t think this claim is accurate. I started to look up the percentage of Asian freshmen on both the oldest and most recent available CDS for Ivies, subtracting off nonresident aliens/unknowns, and a pattern quickly emerged:
• Harvard: 2007 20%, 2020 27%
• Penn: 2009 28%, 2020 37%
• Princeton: 2011 21%, 2020 28%
• Yale: 2006 16%, 2021 23%
• Cornell: 1999 19%, 2020 27%
Asians made up 3.6% of the US population in 2000 and 5.9% in 2020.
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So what about kids who attend boarding school, but are NOT rich, but also not URM, or first gen. Just normal kids who attend BS on large scholarships but are middle income. Are they being lumped in with the rich and privileged in the admissions game?
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Unhooked? Yes, it seems they’re actually taking the biggest hit. Because they are coming from “elite” schools and yet likely need aid. At least that’s the case this round in our school so far (well known private, not BS).
I don’t think the backlash is against rich. It’s privilege, and a student attending a world-class educational school at the HS level is seen as privilege.
To others who argue this has been happening the last few years…Yes, but test optional has put the process on steroids. It has opened the can of worms, allowing AOs to accept basically whatever candidate they want as it will no longer negatively impact their rankings.
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It may make more sense to compare %of Asians in freshmen class vs %of Asians in the “qualified “ pool. Of course it’s hard to define “qualified “, but we can roughly draw conclusion based on those schools’ student profile- GPA, SAT, EC, Leadership etc. I suspect Asians are a higher % of that pool before the subjective measures kick in. Look at Caltech or UCB and see why.
Comparing it to overall population does not make sense.
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I agree, though to be fair there is really only one full round of admissions data to confirm. And many elites haven’t put out their cds for this year (interesting in itself, as I was told they usually come out in December). It is mostly anecdotal and talk between the schools, families and students.
If you think about it, the elite college admissions are need blind, so they have no way of knowing if a private school kid is on scholarship or not. They just know basic demographics. So CCs have to weave relevant info into their LORs, or the student has to carefully incorporate signals into essays. It is tricky to strike the right tone.
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This seems like an exaggeration. Some examples numbers are below. IPEDS goes back to 2004, so I chose the 15 year period from 2004 to 2009. I am counting students listing race as only Asian, not students listing two or more races. The 25 highly selective grouping includes all Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Duke, Northwestern Vanderbilt, and similar types of highly selective non-LAC, private colleges.
2004 ->2019
Asian % of US Population: 4.7% → 5.8% (23% increase)
Average of 25 Highly Selective Private Colleges, : 11.7% → 14.7% (26% increase)
Median % Asian HYP: 11% → 15% (36% increase)
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So true. Our counseling department has now incorporated training in how to subtely downplay privilege while not running from it entirely. The AO can see a home address and a home school- most often they have a pretty good understanding of the applicant’s means and backround. Don’t talk about your annual trips to Maui and how you learned the value of a dollar by working 5 hours a day at the ice cream parlor at the pier…but don’t pretend it doesn’t exist.
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“Non legacy whites are virtually shut out.” But, they are emphatically not!!
I think this is some posters’ anxiety. But it is not reality.
Some of you going through the process for the first time have a distorted view of the process at this moment in time. Uncertainty is anxiety inducing!
But please hold on to the fact that it WILL all work out.
Your kids are extremely privileged. They have a head start over most other high school students. Their lives will be fine if they don’t get into XYZ school. It’s those kids from Appalachia with no resources whose lives will be utterly transformed if they get into an elite school. Your kids will be fine.
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No they are not.
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As an FYI, URM has not performed as well this year at our school. I can think of a few URMs with high GPA/SATs who were rejected/deferred. I can even think of an URM double legacy that was deferred with great stats (maybe they get in RD, who knows). I can also rattle off quite a few unhooked students who got into HYPSM. I was surprised myself upon hearing the news. Apparently, luck and the intangibles truly are factors one cannot control for, but perhaps I don’t really know the true extent of their achievements either.
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It certainly isn’t my reality. I don’t have a child applying to college for several years. But it is a general reality when it comes to the Ivies. I do agree, however, that whatever one’s race, where one goes to college matters much, much less than what one does with the experience.
Actually, as far as income potential goes, one’s major and career choices matter much more than college choice.
Yes as your stat and others indicate, one could argue that Asian/Asian Americans have gone from over represented to similarly or even more over represented on a population level over time. I do acknowledge @G07b10 's comment about whether looking at it on a population level makes the most sense, but @ameridad 's comment pretty clearly implied that acceptances should track the makeup in the population on the whole.
Interesting take. I’m not sure AOs make the distinction between wealth and privilege in that way, nor that they are they blind to the distinctions between students at even the most prestigious high schools.
My sense is that AOs can actually discern a ton, whether signals are carefully incorporated or not.
They may not impact their rankings in the near term, but over time, if these “whatever candidates” don’t pan out according to the handful of “Outcome based” inputs to the formula, they will in time. Here are the criteria:
So funny - I was asked to read the application essay of a family member. The central experience was riding a Velib down the Champs Elysees.
I found some different numbers for the Class of 25 at some of these schools:
Princeton: 20.5%
Yale: 25%
Harvard: 25.9%
Dartmouth: 21%
Cornell: 22%
Columbia: 28%.
Harvard, Yale and Columbia were higher than I thought they would be. However, I think that if based solely on merit and potential to advance humanity, Asian Americans would be in the 40s, as they are at MIT and CalTech, for example. (And I’m not Asian!)
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