They are Asian, which I don’t consider minority for purposes of this discussion. I’m talking about blacks and hispanics primarily. When I attended, BTHS was very diverse. Stuy and Bronx were not as much, but all 3 are now predominantly Asian.
If the test is unbiased, why is that a problem?
The problem is that real-world results do not match their expectations. That’s why public schools have been dumbed-down in the past 50 years, why the SAT and ACT was 're-normalized, and why ‘holistic’ admission policies were instituted. 50 years ago Asians were URMs , when too many became successful, they became ORMs. Instead of following a model that produces superior results, they just rewrite the rules so they do not have to change their broken system.
I have always told my kids that they want the academic success of their Asian and Indian friends they need to work just as hard.
The same applies to all demographics.
We did not pay for tutors or test prep ever, but we always have utilized the library and some inexpensive test prep books form Amazon.
Which my kids worked through…all the way…and then again.
I am not a big fan of competitive Asian way of educating children, but that is the way it is now here in Silicon Valley.
My kids have all been excellent students, but we strive for balance.
They have a very clear idea that the kids who do well, in life as well as college admissions, work very hard.
For Asian and female students who are frustrated with the increased difficulty of admissions at good colleges, Lehigh University is one highly ranked school that is actively working to increase their percentage of both. They are also trying to increase the percentage of students who are outside of the three states where their students most frequently come from (NY, NJ, and PA). As part of this initiative, Lehigh has expanded their West Coast recruiting this year.
Last year 8% of Lehigh students were Asian and 45% were female. Both stats are lower than most other selective schools and they would like to improve.
There are not many top 50 schools who are actively seeking more Asian and female applicants than they already get, so it is really worth considering. They have excellent students, a beautiful campus, and exceptional job placement. They also have both engineering and business schools, in addition to the usual Arts and Sciences curriculum.
Lehigh’s website is located at Lehigh.edu
I’m not a tiger mom and my kids (half white) are put in a very disadvantaged in college admissions. Actually, my boy was mistaken as a admitted black female student. From that admission office, he was deferred and at the same time the special AA outreach program congrats him. Does anybody ever think about he makeup of admission officers? Maybe most of them are female and minorities.
I was looking at the admission stats for Pomona. https://www.pomona.edu/news/2017/03/17-pomona-college-receives-record-breaking-number-applications-class-2021 The admitted class of 2021 is 57% domestic students of color, and 11% international. It’s great that every year Pomona and other top LAC’s strive to increase their diversity and proudly report on their success. But the flip side is the inevitable conclusion that there’s 32% of the admitted class that is made up of domestic white students. And we don’t know what % of those domestic white students who were admitted were hooked (i.e., especially how many were athletes). My guess is that at the top LAC’s a lot of those spots are going to recruited athletes. But with an 8.2% admission rate and an applicant pool that has for years had far more female applicants than male, it’s going to be tough to be an unhooked female white applicant. Worst demographic (from a statistics perspective) at Pomona has got to be unhooked female from SoCal. @Much2learn interesting info about Lehigh.
Pomona’s ratios do somewhat mirror the state of California.
About 25% of the Pomona admitted class is from California.
@Corinthian but that’s still a considerable chunk. The % from California isn’t higher than 10-15% at Pomona’s east coast peers. When you have a raw 10% more from a state that has more Hispanics and Asians than virtually every other state in the country, it’s not surprising that Pomona has such a high % of minority students. Stanford is the same way compared to HYP, in large part due to 30% of their students being from California.
One thing I’d want to know is: what does Pomona’s applicant pool look like? For instance, Brown released this infographic about their applicant pool this year, and 45% of applicants are US students of color: http://www.browndailyherald.com/2017/03/21/class-2021-applicant-profile/ Brown said on their website that 47% of the 2020 admit pool were US students of color, which isn’t a huge difference (assuming the pool hasn’t changed drastically in one year). The pool that seems to have it hardest is international students. Amherst and MIT show a 3x lower admit rate for international students than their overall acceptance rate, and they’re both need blind. 22% of Williams applicants this year were from international regions, compared to just 7.6% of the admit pool.
Agree that more transparency would be helpful. For example, what % of ED and RD admits are recruited athletes, especially at LAC’s.
@Corinthian some LACs are very transparent in that regard.
https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/PlaceOfAthleticsAtAmherst_Secure_1.pdf goes into more detail about those classifications.
I don’t know where you got 45% of Brown applicants are US students of color. Your link has 9% black and 11% Hispanic. If you’re including Asians that’s not what most people mean when referring to students of color in college admissions.
@roethlisburger students of color is not the same as URM. Students of color includes Asians which is why the # is so high.
They are minorites of convenience for marketing puposes, but get no benefit in terms of admissions.
Practical questions regarding admissions and race. S1 is mixed race Asian/White, but is also a good baseball player, and hopes to continue playing, probably at a D3 college. My questions;
1- Is identifying as mixed race when the races involved are Asian and White an advantage when it comes to admissions, or is he an ORM (as I suspect)?
2- Are colleges looking to make their baseball teams more diverse, and would he be considered an URM when it comes to baseball, where Asians are rare, making him more attractive to an admissions department/school? In other words, would his race actually help him a bit (for once) getting into a school because of his baseball/race “hook”? Or do admissions not care about that?
3- As far as admissions are concerned, are we better off just not identifying S1’s race? My thought is that it will become obvious anyway once he is seen, thought his features can actually look Hispanic to some, which might add further confusion.
Being Asian can give one an edge at some schools like some of the smaller, more rural LACs.
If he’s recruitable for baseball, that is it’s own hook. I’d say the two are separate. If the coach ranks him high, it will be based on his baseball talent not because of racial factors.
Yes, the coach is interested in his BB talent, but might not Admissions, or the school through the Admissions department, be interested in showing more diversity in an area where it lacks it(i.e. baseball team)? After all, they do the admitting, not the coach.
And he's mixed, not Asian.
I could be wrong and someone might chime in with a different answer but IMO teams care about getting the best talent and winning. If a school is going to value diversity, it will be driving by institutional needs overall not diversity of a specific team. Also, I’ve never gathered the impression that being a bi-racial (white and asian) gets you any more of a look than white or asian. Again, though, at some schools they are looking for Asians in terms of diversity and being bi-racial would fit that box.
There is an article in today’s WSJ titled “Is the Ivy League’s Admission Bias a Trade Secret?”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-the-ivy-leagues-admission-bias-a-trade-secret-1490740763
For those without access to the WSJ, the summary is that a person named Jian Li sued Princeton for racial discrimination in 2006. The Justice department exonerated Princeton in 2015. However, his supporter, Edward Blum of Students for Fair Admissions filed an FOIA request with Princeton. Princeton is refusing on the basis that its admissions policies are a ‘Trade Secret’.