@iawjrh7nj819diond I’ve been reading your thread all day. I really admire your ambition and intentionality. Your heart is in a good place, it seems. I’m concerned that you’re getting sucked into the temporary game playing of college admissions. The prestige mindset, especially in making distinctions among the elites of Caltech, Brown, etc, is limiting to the extent that a degree is not a ticket to ride, but rather an opportunity for you to fulfill. You are enough as you are. Like any relationship, I hope that you find a college who accepts you based on your authentic self, rather than a pseudo-self you’ve invented for the sake of the game. Sorry if this is a lot for a junior in high school, but I tell my S22 the same!
PS You’re getting a lot of great advice on this thread. Kudos for coming to the right place. Best of luck!
In the scenario posted, it would not matter where the student was from geographically or what his ethnic background was…these schools policies would have been the same…for all accepted students to these colleges.
This has absolutely nothing to do with being an Asian male from the Bay Area.
@Catcherinthetoast There is some validity in what he’s saying, bay area Asian males is the toughest demographic out there to apply from. And the issue isn’t the acceptance rates, which are lower than published rates, but the standards needed to apply in the first place and this includes stem and non-stem. A bay area Asian male with a 1450 is not even applying to MIT or Cal Tech, they know they won’t get in based on the naviance charts in their high schools.
They definitely do, Stanford/Cal Tech/Pomona, the UCs for sure do. The UCs try to get a balanced class across the state, and that means a ton of good applicants get rejected from the bay area, simply because they’re in the bay area. Is there evidence that they don’t, please provide, because there’s a lot of evidence that says geography matters.
Right, which the OP said the applicant had or at least was able to talk about the passion for ES in essays. Even if you want to say getting into one of Penn, Cal Tech, UCB is random, getting into all is probably not.
Obviously, not all Asian cultures are the same. And they may be treated differently for admission purposes. Did the OP mention which culture he/she is from?
Maybe someone like @Mwfan1921, an experienced hand, can speak to AAPI admissions, in terms of Chinese, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan, Nepalese, Pakistani, Japanese, Korean, and on and on.
OP said he’s Indian. I agree that East Asians and South Asians, who are the only overrepresented Asian groups, are treated differently from other Asians by some colleges.
And again I say…your post was about skirting the major issue…and the policies of the colleges. Again I say…the college policies apply to EVERYONE, not just you. These policies have absolutely nothing to do with your ethnicity or your geographic location.
It is kinda scary how weird the system is. On one hand this guy gets excellent results IMO. By the time I apply I would have worse ECs than him but on a similar track. But I want his results to be mine lol. It is just that he applying to an underrepresented major still getting rejected by many colleges that let you switch majors is a huge red flag to me. For example he was rejected by Harvard, princeton, stanford, MIT, and waitlisted at Cornell CAS, all which let him switch to CS. He was accepted to Berkeley MET, Caltech, and UPenn viper, all of which only one let him switch…
What are you talking about? And anyway…why does any of this matter in terms of YOU applying to college? Are you trying to blame the system in advance if you don’t get accepted to elite schools?
Really…spend more time crafting a well rounded application list for yourself…and less time trying to cast doubt on the credentials of others.
The original post mentions he started a NPO related to ES and had high level related awards. It doesn’t mention similar ECs or awards in CS. So there is an alternative explanation – that he really was interested in pursuing ES, rather than he spending a lot of time doing ECs and getting awards in a field that didn’t interest him.
I would not assume that being Asian means it is impossible to be interested in pursuing a career in environmental science. Asians often have significant representation in related fields. Some example numbers from Berkeley (many Bay Area kids) are below, using NCES major classifications. Asians were actually slightly overrepresented in environmental science compared to overall, with 39% of ES majors being Asian compared to a 35% average across all majors.
Computer Science – 54% Asian
Environmental Science – 39% Asian
Natural Resources Conservation – 23% Asian
Try this thought experiment: “The best college in the entire country that I can get into - totally unhooked - with a 1475 SAT is…” And, tell me what comes to mind.
idk? any college, since the SAT proves nothing. At the point it has gotten so competitive that you are expected to accomplish stuff 10x more than a high sat score to get in, especially unhooked
