<p>I think Mr. Golden did a pretty good analysis. He won a Pulitzer Prize for this work. In his book he quotes admissions officers spouting Asian stereotypes and suggests a clear prejudice.</p>
<p>It’s also a myth there’s not any difference between a 2200 and a 2250, or a 2250 and 2300, which common data sets help us understand.</p>
<p>maybe that 50 point example was just a way of saying that asian americans are held to a higher standard in many cases…</p>
<p>it goes along the same lines as “priveleged-ness”… adcoms can look at a first gen app with mediocre SAT scores and justify it…however, when looking at a app with educated and high income parents, they assume they had access to SAT prep and then question why the SAT scores were STILL mediocre…etc.</p>
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<p>I’ve merged your question into the main FAQ thread about “race” in college admission. The first few posts in this FAQ thread link to a lot of official information. </p>
<p>ALL college application forms, by federal regulation, will make clear in the coming application year that you can mark “one or more” race categories if you so desire. That’s a change that is already apparent on the draft Common Application </p>
<p><a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/2009-10CommonApp_highlightedUpdates.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/2009-10CommonApp_highlightedUpdates.pdf</a> </p>
<p>and because this is a federally regulated issue, all other college applications will be much like that for the new school year. It appears that all of the new application forms will also make clear what has always been the law–that all these questions are optional and you can decline to answer the question on any application form. </p>
<p>Read the FAQ posts at the beginning of the thread for more, and feel free to ask follow-up questions in replies here.</p>
<p><a href=“interesteddad:”>quote</a></p>
<p>This whole meme of “needing 50 extra SAT points” is really a misinterpretation of the data. The actual interpretation is that, on average, Asian American applicants tend to have high SAT scores.
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<p>That is very far from being a viable interpretation. </p>
<p>The “50 SAT points” means that, <em>controlling for SAT</em> as well as some other factors, being Asian-American was a negative statistical predictor of admission. SAT was also used as a predictor, giving comparability between Asian/black/legacy/athlete status and SAT scores (what SAT change would be equivalent to changing a white to an Asian, in its estimated effect on admission probability). The admission model used was quite accurate in its prediction of the composition of the admitted population.</p>
<p>I don’t remember whether the study used GPA or class-rank as predictors. Conceivably there could be some difference in the way these distribute, at a given SAT range, among Asian applicants compared to others, but it is hard to imagine how any such differences could conspire to produce the results seen. Thus, if Asians concentrate in enclave pressure-cooker high schools, that would lower the grades and class rank for many of them. But admissions compensates for these phenomena reasonably accurately when it wants to, by using test scores to calibrate the high school academically. So SAT should continue to pick up the direction of any effects, if not the precise magnitude. Maybe 50 points was a slight over or under-estimate, but it is hard to argue that the study found a mirage.</p>
<p>I had a quick application question as well. I am Native American and Filipino, and I have always identified with both aspects of my heritage. Still, as my family lives outside the geographic area of my tribe, cultural expression of my heritage has taken place mostly in family gatherings as opposed to tribe-organized events. As a result, enrolling in the tribe has never been a huge priority. My younger sister and I finally decided to enroll earlier this year, and recently I noticed that the common app has a place for “date of enrollment.” Now I am kind of worried that if I check Native American, admissions officers will look at my enrollment date and think that I only enrolled to benefit from AA. My questions are:</p>
<p>1) Would I be better off not mentioning my Native American heritage?</p>
<p>2) As the Philippines are are part of Asia, is it considered over-represented in the same way that China/Korea are?</p>
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<p>Absolutely. The same Princeton study, drawing on data for about 100,000 applicants to some Ivy League schools, not only found -50 points for Asian and +230 points for Black, but also a substantial boost for being in the “over 1500 on SAT” category. That’s in addition to the linear effect of the SAT score itself; it reflects the nonlinear increase in the importance of SAT as the score increases. As a simplification one can imagine extra points being added to SAT in the high range.</p>
<p>You can see the same thing in the above-mentioned graphs (RP, Early Admissions Game) of admissions probability by SAT score. The curve gets steeper and steeper as you climb toward the top of the SAT range; it’s not just that higher SAT improves your chances, but that the sensitivity of admissions to SAT keeps increasing the higher you go. Adding 50 points means more at 2300 than at 2100.</p>
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<p>I sure wouldn’t think so. Write truthfully about what your actual situation is, with regard to enrollment and all the rest. </p>
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<p>I’m not aware of any college that specifically considers Filipino-American students an underrepresented group, and, yes, the Philippines are considered part of Asia in the federal ethnic classifications. </p>
<p>As a matter of personal expediency, you are probably best off marking all categories that apply to your case (which the application forms will make easy this year) and then explaining your background in detail in your application essays or supplementary information. </p>
<p>I’ve told a story above about [why</a> I’d rather not have anyone in my family mark any category](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061810714-post10.html]why”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061810714-post10.html), which is a right we all have if we so choose, but I don’t insist that everyone do that. </p>
<p>Good luck in your applications.</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062607649-post617.html]#617[/url]”>quote</a> Mixed Race Applicant: Asian or White? </p>
<p>I’m white, my wife is Asian. In the old days our daughter would have been called “Amerasian.”</p>
<p>As she is a high school junior, we’ve begun visiting schools and taking serious looks at the admission process. Most (all?) of the applications we’ve seen to date <em>do</em> ask about the race of the applicant. None that I’ve seen yet allow choosing BOTH “Caucasian/white” and “Asian/Pacific Islander.”</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
<p>Is there any advantage to choosing one as opposed to the other? Any disadvantage?..
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<p>As [tokenadult</a> has noted](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062609396-post631.html]tokenadult”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062609396-post631.html), your daughter has every right to decline a [[mis]categorization[/url</a>].</p>
<p>Some more food for thought: Would you love your daughter any less or any more by how she self-identifies? Is she not an individual to you? If so, why would you encourage anyone else (college or otherwise) to evaluate her as part of a ‘group’ rather than the person you helped bring to this point in her life?</p>
<p>As to advantage/disadvantage, it’s empowering to pass on to your daughter Gandhi’s philosophy of "[url=<a href=“http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/2050]You”>http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/2050]You</a> must be the change you wish to see in the world](<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1059962915-post382.html][mis]categorization[/url">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1059962915-post382.html)".</p>
<p>(Update: Savannah College of Art and Design’s ‘Race/ethnicity unreported’ statistic referred to in the [link</a> above](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1059962915-post382.html]link”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1059962915-post382.html) was 59% but is now [at</a> 80%](<a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board).)</p>
<p>Should they? 9/11 allowed for an ample amount of racism and hatred, and middle easterners/north africans have had to go through a lot of that to succeed. Talk it up!</p>
<p>LOL, I HAVE NO IDEA. I would say no. I never here anything about these groups doing poor academically. It seems like they do really well in fact.</p>
<p>What about ugly people? They have to put up with a lot of hardship, too</p>
<p>I don’t know how someone can ask if a certain group should be underrepresented…either they are, or they aren’t. It’s a statistic.</p>
<p>Sorry, a clarification: Not if they should be URMs, but if they should have minority status (which they are)</p>
<p>Well, I think they should given some extra weight.</p>
<p>For example, Middle Easterners are considered “White” – but I doubt an Afghan refugee living in this country and WASP kid have much in common…</p>
<p>From language barriers, cultural differences, and other tidbits, I do not see how both of these applicants are parallels in terms of race/ethnicity. </p>
<p>In law school admissions, they apparently favor certain hispanic groups over others (puerto ricans/mexican have an advantage say over people of Cuban descent). If some racial groups can be formed into subgroups, then I think others should have that same benefit when needed.</p>
<p>If you can make a case-by-case argument as to how racism and hatred limited their opportunities in high school, sure.</p>
<p>^Yeah, but why is that not the case for other minorities? We do not see any other minority group having to “prove” that in the college admissions. IMO, all applicants should prove something like that to get a benefit, but I think the system should be the same for all minorities…</p>
<p>Because race-based AA is a flawed, stereotype-based system. But the TC asked “should” so I answered accordingly.</p>
<p>Well, then again, what they should do based off the current system is treat them the same. So, they should get the benefit outright if warranted, like other that get the benefit outright </p>
<p>Whatever though, worrying about this stuff is pointless. Just work hard, and you will get where you need to be. If an applicant wants to give perspective of their application because of their background, then go ahead and write about it. People obsess over the most inane things…</p>
<p>NO, North Africans and Middle Easterners are considered WHITE. I know this for a fact.</p>
<p>^Duh. That’s the point. They aren’t really “white” like most of their fellow white applicants of European descent.</p>