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<p>First, I really feel for you all. Anyone who work hard need to be rewarded. </p>
<p>I’m just curious how come none of your parent or counselor let you not apply to a safety. </p>
<p>Did they mistook a match for safety?</p>
<p>“It’s only true if admissions are a lottery. But they are not”
Very True. EACH colleges admissions process is like a independent lottery. If you bet on 20 different lotteries in 20 different states you chances to win any one lottery aren’t increased one tiny bit.</p>
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<p>Why do you think stating fact means playing race card? Do you really think a Hispanic or African American or other URM would have met the same destiny with same stat.</p>
<p>You’re entitled to your opinion but you can’t change the fact which is that it is really more difficult for an Asian and White to get into top colleges than a student of any other race.</p>
<p>Yes and no whether it is a lottery when it comes to applying to Ivies or top 8s. It is just as difficult in getting into Yale as Princeton, based on their admit rate. Both of them offer excellent UG education. Most people would say Princeton is better for science and math, and Yale would be better for humanities. But if you were to do some research, and read up a lot on each school’s press, you would find Yale is looking for more stronger science students and Princeton is looking for performing arts students. As an applicant, depending on what you have to offer, you may get into one school and not another. As D2’s counselor told her last night, she will need to have good enough stats to pass page 3 of common application before they will read her essays and looks at her ECs. To get into a top school, it is necessary to apply to many of them, because you just never know what it is just that one thing you have to offer would appeal to them.</p>
<p>I guess I was not very clear.
I was talking about Ivies, MIT and Stanford.</p>
<p>I’d like to say two things.
It hurts because I worked really hard.
There are some mean people here in CC.</p>
<p>Also, I am very grateful for my options but it hurts!</p>
<p>“You’re entitled to your opinion but you can’t change the fact which is that it is really more difficult for an Asian to get into top colleges than a student of any other race.”</p>
<p>Evidence, please? (Again, once you eliminate the legacies, recruited athletes, developmental admits, etc., as far as I know, there isn’t any - EVERYONE else at least at HYP has less than a 1 in 20 chance - short people, tall people, fat people, skinny people, one-eyed people.)</p>
<p>Where Asians (and not all Asians either, 'cause Mongolians might do rather well) have a clear disadvantage is that they are less likely to weigh enough to play offensive tackle.</p>
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<p>Then it’s just matter of chance that none of you got in. Yes, it would not have been the case if you happen to be Hispanic or African American but that is part of life.</p>
<p>Yes there are some very insensitive parents. When it comes to their own kids, any disappointment would be devastating, but not when it comes from another kid who has done well in school(what right do you have to complain?).</p>
<p>I am sure all of us have our opinion about the college process. All Iwcould say is it is a day after results just came out, feelings are still kind of raw, if it’s our own kid who is shooting off his/her mouth, would this be the time we want to tell him/her that we are right?</p>
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<p>Understand but that 1 in 20 chance is for Asian or White and not for Hispanic, African American or other URM.</p>
<p>So the fact remain that it is more difficult for Asian or White.</p>
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<p>I agree that admissions aren’t a lottery or a toss up, etc. etc. But, what they are is entirely HUMAN. In a human system, it would be possible to call up all the Ivies as ask, “do you need any moderately intelligent, high AP-scoring bassonists with hospital volunteering today?” And each would say, “ummmm, no” or “ummmm, as a matter of fact, now that you mention it . . .”</p>
<p>But, since no one can call up and get precision on who needs what where (there are too many apps and the adcoms themselves don’t know until near the end), the right strategy is indeed to flood the system with applications in order – perversely – to take the guesswork out of the system. By this I mean that, in any year, if you flood the system with “who you are” (and don’t decide beforehand which schools to exclude), you maximize your chances of meeting up with that unknown “je ne sais quoi” on the other side of the admissions process that discovers that, ummmm, yes, you fit! Nature has perfected this mechanism in the biology of sex (lots of sperm going after an elusive egg and no one of them knowing which has the better chance). It is entirely evolutiontionary and biologically rational that applicants flood the system in order maximize their chances of success. The class of 2016 will have figured this out by next year and OMG!</p>
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Golden, “The Price of Admission.” Chapter 7.</p>
<p>There is more evidence, but I suspect you’ll just dismiss it.</p>
<p>“It hurts because I worked really hard.”
As did thousands upon thousands of OTHER hard working rejected applicants.
You DID win the lottery in comparison to thousands more hard working students who were rejected at the colleges that accepted YOU.
Count your abundant blessings.</p>
<p>20more - it sounds like you and your friends did what you could. I have seen many posts the past day or two from people with amazing stats and ecs (for example: Silverturtle, 3/4 white 1/4 Hispanic for those who need to know) who were also not accepted at their first choice schools. I’m sorry for your disappointment and that you did not get the results you were hoping for. No doubt all of you will excel wherever you end up, and then you can look forward to this all over again with grad school! I’m guessing that some of the schools that did not accept you for UG will see things differently in 4 years. Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>@ParentOfIvyHope Thank you! A voice of reason at last. Affirmative action is not a theory, it is a fact - there is no getting around the fact that the Asian demographic has a much tougher time in terms of college admissions. </p>
<p>@menloparkmom You are indeed correct in stating that an applicant’s chances at any one university is not affected in the least but I fail to follow your logic when you say applying to 20 schools does not affect one’s chance of admission. Would you really claim that the OP’s chance of being rejected from a single school out of the 20 he applied to is the same as his chance of being rejected from all 20 of the schools he applied to? </p>
<p>From his base statistics, it is clear that he and his friends were all within range. Thus, while his chance at Stanford (for example) stayed the same (say it’s 1%), his overall chance of being admitted to just one out of the 20 schools he applied to would hypothetically be 20%, but let’s be more realistic and say it’s 10% (still an increase mind you). Meanwhile, all 3 of his other friends applied with similar statistics and got rejected as well. This is an improbable scenario any way you look at it (remember that the 4 all lived in the same area and knew each other personally) and it is by no means comparable to four random tall people being rejected.</p>
<p>Please do not take this the wrong way though, I’m just offering my view of the matter.</p>
<p>@20more I sympathize completely and I can only offer you my condolences but keep in mind that opportunities are everywhere. I too will be facing the college admissions process next year and I am braced for rejection should it be the case.</p>
<p>@mini Rejection alone is brutal and honest enough. Your callous opinion is neither needed nor helpful at this point, especially if you can’t back it up with any substantial evidence that the rejection these four students faced were typical of any four random applicants.</p>
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I’m not even sure what this means - sounds like nonsense. Maybe Harvard and Yale could fill their classes with 2350 and above. THere were a little over 2000 people who scored 2350 or above. THat would fill about two small Ivy League schools.</p>
<p>Of course, the schools don’t select this way. And I agree the OP should drop the racial bellyaching. It’s counterproductive, whether it’s true or not. But that’s no reason to be nasty.</p>
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Yes, that’s surprising, although he did get into some great Ivy League schools. But the young man has a lot of class, as far as I’m concerned. Far more impressive than his perfect test scores.</p>
<p>As much as these extremely bright young people understand the laws of mathematics and the vagaries of the admissions process, it is still difficult to accept that their hard work has not been rewarded. It’s human nature.</p>
<p>As a friend’s elderly mother said, Of course i know we’re all mortal, but I thought that in MY case, God would make an exception!</p>
<p>the point is, other people worked even harder. if you had those stats as well as national achivments in athletics like MANY people have, you would have gotten in.</p>
<p>To the OP: I am sorry about your admissions outcomes, and those of your friends. I can assure you that college is what you make of it and that you have some excellent options. That doesn’t make the rejections easier to take, or at least not by much.</p>
<p>On the thread about The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (just when you thought it was safe to read the Parents Forum again!), I speculated that Amy Chua’s book might work to the disadvantage of Asian students this year. Admissions committee members who read the book, excerpts, or reviews might have been influenced by a stereotype of parent-driven accomplishment, made possible by sacrificing what seem like normal pleasures to many of us, in order to devote hours and hours of effort to particular fields of endeavor. If that happened, it’s one of life’s curve balls–out of the ordinary, not your fault, and furthermore, impossible to counter. The book appeared at the worst possible time for this year’s applicants: after the applications were in, but before decisions had been made.</p>
<p>Fortunately, in the US, the link between the university a student attends and the student’s future prospects is much weaker than it is in many Asian countries. If you take a look at the universities from which the recipients of Goldwater, Truman, Udall and National Science Foundation Fellowships come, you will find a broad range of institutions. There are a few recent Rhodes Scholars who hail from colleges you probably haven’t heard of.</p>
<p>Also, fortunately, you have some excellent choices. Go, learn, and enjoy yourselves, and you’ll have your pick of places at the next level.</p>
<p>'So the fact remain that it is more difficult for Asian or White."
And as long as so many Asian [ from both the US and overseas] and White students apply in huge numbers to the hardest schools to get into, and no where else, they will be rejected in greater numbers than Hispanics or African Americans. There are hundreds of great U’s and colleges where smart students can get a superb education. But those students who follow the “lemming” or herd mentality which is typical of Asian college applicants year after year, and choose to apply to only a few select colleges, thus reducing their chances of acceptance, are going to be disappointed more often than not.</p>