On page 47 of TCU’s strategic plan to increase academic prestige, TCU states it wants to increase the % of Asian Americans to match the levels of institutions they aspire to be in the company of (UC Berkeley, Duke, Rice, Harvard etc)
I find this very alarming because I’ve heard my Asian peers complain about the unfair pressures and problems the “model minority” stereotype brings and this definitely doesn’t help the lack of diversity and inclusion reputation TCU currently have. This initiative seems very tone deaf!
Thoughts?
TCU is not very popular among Asians in Texas nor does it attract Asians from OSS or internationally. If they want to improve student body’s diversity or academic rigor than it makes sense for them to attract lure high achieving among Asian students.
As they can’t offer rank or prestige so using UTD formula, they’ll have to give easy merit scholarships, market pre-Med and engineering programs and cut down on Greek/sports culture to get attention of average stereotypical Asian parents.
This initiative is another form of affirmative action, but unlike that it would be more beneficial for school itself.
@CupCakeMuffins Yes UTD is at least 25% Asian Americans. UTD is very diverse and inclusive, you see that once you step on campus. When I walked on TCU campus for the first time with all the big fancy cars etc, everyone practically seemed to look, talk, dress, and think the same. I wasn’t impressed to say the least
This is the first time I’ve ever heard of Asian-American students associated with school prestige building. Typically, the strategy for building a “prestigious university” is hiring a great leader, then bring in top-notch, super star faculty, which then attracts high quality grad and undergrad students. If you look at all elite, prestigious colleges and universities, this is how they’ve built their reputation over a long period of time, top down. I find it very interesting that TCU wants to build its reputation from bottom up and using Asian-Americans to do that. It won’t work.
@TiggerDad I didn’t lie, TCU academic prestige initiatives are for public consumption. But it’s common for some people to associate academic prestige by the level of interest from Asian American students … they are overrepresented at the most elite universities and in the most challenging majors (except law)
Also I find it interesting, UTD ($500 million endowment) beats a TCU (billion dollar endowment) in attracting students with higher average standardized test scores and more National Merit Scholars. It should be the other way around ideally
TCU leadership is likely embarrassed by this and contribute most of it to UTD’s very large Asian population #copycat
UTD’s biggest attraction for Asians is suburban location, easy merit scholarship, commuter culture and lack of greek life/athletic craze.
Texas attracts lots of IT related Asian families so every school wants a piece of that. They are usually hard working and academically focused students who can raise any college’s average GPA, AP scores, SAT/SAT scores, inflate 4 year graduation rate etc. What’s there not to like? Many of these measures are used by ranking lists so it can help TCU raise their ranking.
Top layer of high achievering Texan Asians either go to Ivies/Rice/West Coast/Chicago but even second tier of students are pretty good as not many Asians can crack top 20 racial barriers or afford COA.
Well UTD has slowed down a lot with the merit scholarships (too many high performing students are eligible) and quickly becoming a more residential college but yeah you’re right for the most part @CupCakeMuffins
@CupCakeMuffins I agree most kids I know who went from community college (where i attended) who were going into things like math and what not wanted to go to UTD.My former business math teacher teaches there it’s a good school.
According to this year’s WSJ national rankings TCU #179
and UTD# 460. For overall picture, Rice#14, UT# 56 , A&M# 93. Even if you use a dozen grains of salt, this gives a good idea of how these schools compare.
Cupcakemuffins…
“This initiative is another form of affirmative action, but would be more beneficial for school itself.”
“UTDs biggest attractions for Asians is … lack of Greek life/athletic craze”.
Believe it or not some people believe that AA does benefit schools by creating a diverse community of ideas and varied academic environment based on eclectic life experiences and even benefits society as a whole. Also probably not fair to generalize that all people of Asian heritage don’t enjoy Greek life or sports. Stereotyping like that is not just inaccurate but offensive unless of course you have surveyed UTDs Asian population? If so sorry.
No doubt about AA adding diversity and similar percentage of Asian students liking athletics and Greek life at a campus as any other group. My comment is about their parents and that stereotype isn’t very far from reality. I’m in Texas, know Texas colleges well enough to comment. My kids had auto-admit and full scholarship offered from UTD.
I am an Asian-American female attending TCU. I am a Freshmen and a Chancellor’s scholar. I’m not going to lie, the diversity at this school is sad but if that’s not a selling point for whoever’s looking, it shouldn’t matter. I think Asian-Americans are the smallest minorities at TCU. There are a lot of international students, who are mostly Eastern Asian, that stick to themselves. I ended up rushing a sorority and felt so out of place that I dropped. Greek life is definitely dominant but it’s not an end all.
@Needmoreec all private colleges in Dallas don’t have a diverse population. The diversity is mostly in the UT systems and a&m. I go to TCU and almost all my class is white 90-95% white.
That is true. I feel like from a gradient scale from least diverse to most diverse, TCU would be somewhere near the not so diverse spectrum, maybe behind SMU, haha. Most of my class is also 90-95% white which is a little disorientating honestly. I guess most of the diversity to be found is at the public schools.
According to the stats I found on student reported ethnicity, TCU is ~68% Caucasian. This can be found on their website: http://www.ir.tcu.edu/factbooks/2018/student_data.asp