Stereotypical Activities

Applying to College
1

Hello!

I have been thinking about this for some time and wanted to get some feedback on it. Looking back at previous classes and different schools I have attended, I have noticed there are trends in activities that certain individuals choose. For example, I am classified as Asian, and have noticed that Debate, Robotics, and Tennis are three major activities that Asians participate in. There is definitely a trend of this participation and although Asians might not be a majority in these activities everywhere, I am certain that this is not a singular case. Given this, are students almost creating a uniformity? Lets say x number of students participate in debate, only 1% or so of those students will be extremely successful (like TOC qualifiers/champs). Achievement does matter and sure one can argue that they learned a lot from debate even though they did not necessarily excel. Now of these debate students, a certain large percentage will be Asian, does participating in these activities and not excelling put students of the same race at a disadvantage? In the admissions process to most schools race is certainly a factor and that is undeniable. By certain races (this example was Asian) participating in certain activities across the board, does it not make it harder for both the student as well as the adcom to choose a student? Also the problem with this is those students who genuinely are passionate about the activity or the case that all of these students are genuinely interested in these activities.

Let me know if this doesn’t make sense or needs clarification I don’t have time to revise this right now.

2

Crap, I never thought of this. I’m Asian and am in both debate and tennis.

3

An Asian student on debate team will be evaluated exactly the same as a student of another race with the same debate accomplishments. It will be harder overall for Asian students since they’re overrepresented, but stereotypical ECs won’t have an effect in relation to race. (Again, they’ll hurt because their ECs don’t stand out, but that’s in relation to the applicant pool as a whole, not just applicants of the same race).

4

They would be evaluated in the same manner of course but when there is such a high concentration of these students in these activities, it cannot be the same as an Asian student who won the high school badminton world championship. It has to have an effect in relation to race because if colleges (lets go private this time) want a nice rounded student body, they cannot accept all the Asians who are in debate and play tennis so it has to have a correlation.

5

The problem is not if you are Asian and play violin. The problem is if university X already has a glut of applicants of any race who play violin when they really need a trombonist for their orchestra.

6

Add on to the uniformity - what majors are they applying to? Colleges want to fill their art history and medieval studies majors, not just math and science.