<p>If a case could be made? It would have already been made by now.</p>
<p>trust me.</p>
<p>The OP is 18 yrs. old! Come on! You are being terribly mean, mini and some others.</p>
<p>I am very sorry that you have been denied at so many schools, and you have obviously worked hard. I hope you have at least a couple other options to choose from. Please talk to your parents and friends --I am certain they will be much more empathetic.</p>
<p>"If after selecting a certain floor of stats, you find that of those qualified, Asians are say 40%, but the college only takes 20% Asian, then I think a case could be made for discrimination. "</p>
<p>This is usually the case with HYPS. However, if 35000 students are applying with 6000 qualified Asians, 15000 Caucasians, 3000 foreigners etc. the adcoms are given quotas to fill that meet each category for 1500 seats and 2100 admissions, they can probably fill the entire pool with one race a few times over in each case. So theoretically every race is being discriminated against and none at the same time because they have already set predetermined quotas.</p>
<p>Texaspg, you’re just making stuff up out of whole cloth.</p>
<p>“6000 qualified Asians”</p>
<p>What’s an “Asian”? Do you mean Balinese?</p>
<p>I agree with the math people that theoretically the odds are better the more schools you apply to, but I also think that if there’s a weakness in your application (say boring ECs as an example) - there’s a good chance if the schools are similar they will all make the same decisions. My older son was rejected at MIT and Caltech where computer science nerds are a dime a dozen, accepted at Harvard where they might not be quite so common and accepted at Carnegie Mellon, because he was in fact a pretty accomplished comp sci nerd with stats in the running for any top school. We all knew that there were weakness in his application and weren’t entirely surprised by the results.</p>
<p>“So theoretically every race is being discriminated against and none at the same time because they have already set predetermined quotas.”
maybe… But what you point out is that when there are enough applicants in one year to fill 10 years worth of classes, some sort of formula based on numerous factors, including sex, race, FA $ needed, state of origin, and who knows what else, is very likely used- but I think that happens AFTER the easy admit decisions are made- the W on W kids, the DA’s[ $$ talks], the legacies/ children of profs who do meet admissions criteria, the Athletic recruits. When all those students who have a “hook” are added to the admit pile, there are very few spots left for unhooked students, and that pile is picked over to make a class that is representative of an ‘ideal’, according to a particular college’s desired demographic makeup of each new class.
I personally think it would be very illuminating to see cumulative overall admit rates for races at all US colleges / year. I would be surprised to see a indication of discrimination against native US Asians when looking at overall college acceptance rates compared to other races. Maybe all Asians are lumped together, regardless of what country they are from. If so, then International qualified Asian students might be crowding out US Asians, since they comprise a huge majority of International applicants. Of course, this survey is just a pipe dream, since I doubt that data could be accurately compiled.</p>
<p>If everyone increases their number of applications at the same rate, and there are still the same number of places, the only thing that goes up is the number and rate of rejections.</p>
<p>“native US Asians” - what’s that?</p>
<p>To the OP: Sorry. I know that it hurts. You have worked very hard, and this really stings. It’s okay to feel this way. Life is not always fair (in fact, I have been feeling as if it’s NEVER fair lately … ).</p>
<p>Then decide on a great school that accepted you, and move on. If you still have the yearning for an ivy for grad school, it will be there. In the meantime, you can enjoy the school you choose.</p>
<p>How about Vassar? Vassar admits male applicants with lower stats than female applicants. Their stats are published. Shall we sue them for sexism and keep their campus female dominant? Or Sara Lawrence? Who does it serve? I think adcoms are doing the right thing in balancing the campus population.</p>
<p>Diversity is used by colleges mostly to mean ‘skin color’.</p>
<p>If the OP and his friends represented 4 interesting and diverse Asian backgrounds, tough luck. If there were 4 black guys in the same school with similar achievements, but with little actual cultural diversity (say 4 cousins who grew up on the same city block) - they would all get into most of the Ivys. Even if they all rich and had plenty SAT coaching.</p>
<p>Actually a few years ago, the Civil Rights Commission was looking at colleges discriminating against women, because men were admitted with lower stats. I don’t know what became of the investigation.</p>
<p>If OP and his friends had spent all their free time honing their athletic skills, they’d be shoo-ins with those stats!</p>
<p>“native US Asians” - what’s that?
Non international applicants. Students who actually live here with their parents, versus those applying from overseas or who are sent to US Boarding schools by their parents in an effort to give them an edge in admissions. [ there are a lot of boarding schools in Calif catering to wealthy, exported HS students]</p>
<p>Pizzagirl - What the hell is a Whole cloth? I am a frigging Asian and so forgive me if I am missing the idiom here if you are calling me a !@#$% liar. </p>
<p>Are you suggesting 35000 students are not applying? Who are you to say they are not all qualified or feel qualified to apply? If you are suggesting 6000 Asians are not applying to each of these schools, think again and same goes for whites and foregners. I may be off on the exact breakdown but I highly doubt I am off by much. but every kid who is applying believes he or she qualified to apply while knowing there is probably only a 5% chance of him or her getting in. If each of the ivy league schools is admitting 18% Asians, if you use the same percentage of the totals for their admission chances, you get the numbers I came up with. Only school that does nt seem to follow the 18% rule and does nt seem to care is MIT and they really go overboard with a whopping 26%</p>
<p><a href=“http://admissions.yale.edu/node/2040/attachment[/url]”>http://admissions.yale.edu/node/2040/attachment</a>
<a href=“http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/counselors/gc_newsletter_fall2010.pdf[/url]”>http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/counselors/gc_newsletter_fall2010.pdf</a>
[MIT</a> Admissions: Incoming Freshman Class Profile](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/incoming_freshman_class_profile/index.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/incoming_freshman_class_profile/index.shtml)</p>
<p>Mini - Asian is definitely a MARTIAN. Balinese is just an islander.</p>
<p>Kelsmom, what is the bad outcome here? The op got into 6 top-20 schools. What’s unfair about that? Is his rejection from an Ivy automatically “unfair” just because it’s disappointing?</p>
<p>TatinG - No investigation needed. It’s not a secret. Pretty open. Bringing the balance of male/female ratio in student body is a good thing.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: Every person has his or her favorite school(s), so to insist that OP should be satisfied, because the schools to which he was accepted all fit your definition of success, is a bit unreasonable. If you aim for the top and fall just short, you would likely feel that the outcome was “bad.” Similarly, if you aimed for 50th place and got 51st, you might also feel that the outcome was “bad.”</p>
<p>And let’s not forget that OP has never complained of any unfairness nor has he discounted his acceptances as inferior. As another poster said, he might’ve celebrated over a tub of ice cream prior to posting this topic.</p>
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<p>College attendance, is not an issue. I figure it will be probably another 5-10 years. anyway. D2 is learning from D1, thus actual life experiences can be substituted for virtual experiences. Your D2 is off.</p>
<p>“And let’s not forget that OP has never complained of any unfairness”"
His first post was a none too subtle complaint. What did you think he was doing when he wrote it- rejoicing?</p>