<p>I'm a thoughtful and serious poster, and not a race-baiter.</p>
<p>I've been reading CC for 2 years for the usual helpful reasons. I've noticed the many references to Asian students raised in the U.S., who are at a disadvantage in admissions because their high level of performance statistically makes them an over-represented minority in terms of competition for admission to top universities and colleges.</p>
<p>For different reasons of antiSemitism, the American Jewish community used to be quota-ed out of admission to Ivy Leagues prior to World War II. In response, funds were raised privately by the Jewish community to establish Brandeis University, established in l948. There, all highly qualified students could apply, but there was no upper ceiling on how many Jews could be admitted. In other words, there were no quotas against a successful academic ethnic group. </p>
<p>The Brandeis curriculum was secular, non-denominational, comparable in course offerings to other Universities. No religious or ethnic affiliation or on-campus participation in Jewish studies was ever required. Brandeis simply created a top-notch university offering, without admission quotas against Jewish applicants.</p>
<p>Today, their Jewish enrollment runs between 50-60%, which means 40-50% are from other ethnicities. Brandeis' original reason for creation has been eclipsed by greater welcome to Jewish students at the Ivy Leagues. Meanwhile, Brandeis University is thriving with high levels of student satisfaction reported, by Jewish and non-Jewish students alike. </p>
<p>I am wondering when some top financiers within the Asian community will get sufficiently fed up with the status quo and simply create a new university that admits according to high statistics, where a student's ethnic/racial minority status as "Asian" is no detriment to admissions.</p>
<p>It could be an alternative choice, much like Historically Black Colleges provide AA students today. The standards and expectations of a new private Asian-American university could be whatever its founders decide it should be.</p>
<p>See: [UC</a> Berkeley's Asian Percentage Jumps | Asian American University | GoldSea<a href="Note%20that%20this%20comes%20from%20the%20web%20site," title="Asian American University: The College Experience from the Asian American Perspective ">/url</a></p>
<p>Yeah. I was gonna say...I thought Asian Americans already had Berkeley....</p>
<p>Just kidding. </p>
<p>BTW, I disagree with the entire premise that Asian Americans as a group are disadvantaged in admissions. If anything, I think that acceptance rates for Asian Americans are often higher than for any other group. I know, for example, that has been the case as Swarthmore in recent years. Higher acceptance rates for Asian Americans than for caucasians, African Americans, or Latino/a.</p>
<p>The UCs may be the most Asian colleges in the country (except for the University of Hawaii), but there are plenty of other places with substantial proportions of Asian American students.</p>
<p>These numbers are higher than the proportion of Asian Americans in the U.S. population. </p>
<p>I'm not saying that there isn't discrimination. There certainly may be. But Asian faces are not exactly oddities on major U.S. campuses.</p>
<p>My daughter (who is not Asian) went to high school with a lot of well-qualified Asian students, some of whom are now attending well-known colleges such as Yale, Dartmouth, and Johns Hopkins and others of whom are attending our state university on large merit scholarships. It's hard to know whether they would have done better if they were white, but on the whole, they didn't do too badly.</p>
<p>Asians might be accepted in higher numbers than people of other races, but that doesn't mean they're not disadvantaged. How do we know that their acceptance rates at the top schools should actually be higher than the already high rates?</p>
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How do we know that their acceptance rates at the top schools should actually be higher than the already high rates?
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<p>I think when people say this, they're looking at the Asian students' credentials and comparing their admissions results with those of white students with the same credentials. Asian students (like Jewish students) do tend to have better academic credentials, on average, than members of some other ethnic groups do.</p>
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How do we know that their acceptance rates at the top schools should actually be higher than the already high rates?
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<p>I don't think there is any way to know the answer to this. FWIW, as a parent of California high schoolers, I have anecdotal knowledge that there are top h.s. students who are not interested in applying to UCI or UCB, because they are "too Asian." So I don't think you can necessarily conclude from UCI and UCB's Asian population totals, that more Asians are being admitted solely due to Prop 209 (i.e., race blind admissions).</p>
<p>That assumes that "people" actually understand what credentials elite colleges are looking for. I would say that 99% of the posters on College Confidential do not, so you can imagine the knowledge of the general population.</p>
<p>Caltech is another University that has a goodly percentage of Asians - I believe over 30%. It also has admissions policies that are closer to what many Asians posts here seem to think are more desirable - greater emphasis on academics, less on extracurriculars.</p>
<p>I don't see American universities overwhelmed with Hmong, Mien, Lao, Dalit (Indian), Mongolian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indonesian, Tahitian, Guamian, Filipino, Malaysian, Thai, Sri Lanka, Uzbek, Kazak, or Afghani applicants, and I have yet to meet a single one from Tuva.</p>
<p>Which "Asians" are we talking about, and what do they have in common? (As the father of a Gujarati student, I find the notion of "Asian" applicants seriously offensive.)</p>
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I find the notion of "Asian" applicants seriously offensive.
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<p>Then I presume that you also find the notions of "caucasian," "white," "latino," "hispanic," "native american," "african-american," and "black," equally offensive.</p>
<p>Yeah, but us Asians like to mix with white, black, brown also, especially when we have been so sheltered. We figure college is a good time to break out.</p>
<p>And why do you presume that? Do you have difficulty with idea that so-called "Asians" have remarkably different ethnic (and educational) identities, or did you simply want to change the subject? (I would like to "expect the best", but I suspect your intent was to diss my daughter's experience of her ethnicity).</p>
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And why do you presume that? Do you have difficulty with idea that so-called "Asians" have remarkably different ethnic (and educational) identities
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<p>Not at all. My difficulty lies with singling out only "Asians" as having remarkably different ethnic and educational identities. I think it is probably just as offensive to some people that Norwegians and Israelis and white South Africans are are lumped together in one category.</p>