Good thing you have taken a strong moral stance against generalization, stereotyping and vilification.
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Yes, this is another stereotype about Asians, that their accomplishments are not due to “true passion” while the accomplishment of whites are. In other words an Asian violin student may play at an advanced level but will do so like a robot without feeling. But the true passion that a white student has for the instrument can be heard in their performances (except that when you put them all behind a screen for auditions this is not actually the case, but never mind that.) And an Asian will do tennis only because of a tiger parent and will not have true passion for the sport, but when white parents start their kids in tennis (or swimming or T-ball or soccer or whatever) at age 3 and have them play sports year round it results in producing the sort of passion, character and leadership we want on campus.
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Actually those were the motivations and sentiments as expressed by Sophia in Try Harder. I wasn’t being racist I was being specific to the thread.
These are Sophia’s own words in a recent article reflecting on the documentary…
“Although I probably developed imposter syndrome in high school after becoming the captain of the tennis team, despite not being great at tennis but thinking it would look good on my college applications, and joining the newspaper, not because I was passionate about journalism”.
And as to why she choose her activities…
“a college counselor my parents paid for told me that I needed something “unique for an Asian student” to put on my resume.”
Her words, not mine or a stereotype.
It would appear the AOs at all 8 Ivies she applied to were able to identify her lack of true purpose and engagement in her ECs and her rejections weren’t a function of bias or quotas. Conversely the class President who was apparently a gifted violinist was accepted to both Stanford and Harvard clearly not a victim of stereotyping.
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Thank you, that’s why I prefaced my statement with “in my experience”.
Yes, those are Sophia’s own words. The point is not that Sophia wasn’t being pushed into activities. The point is that when white students are pushed into activities, their accomplishments are still assumed to represent true passion, while the accomplishments of Asian students are assumed to be robotic until proven otherwise (and if you are Asian you can only prove it by being absolutely phenomenal.) So yes, the Asian valedictorian of a tippy-top magnet that admits only tippy-top students to begin with gets into Harvard and that proves that there is no bias against Asian applicants?
I live in a rich, heavily white area. White students are also “manufactured” by their parents here. They also do activities chosen by their parents (and sometimes private CCs.) They are also often burned out. But their accomplishments are somehow still seen as authentic. Why the difference in perception? I think it has to do with prejudice.
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Hogwash. You see on CC the recurring comment that 99% of non profits are BS, the term helicopter parenting isn’t unique to a demographic, article after article discusses kids being pushed into sports.
If you want to suggest that all kids are having absurd amounts of pressure placed on them or all kids are being pushed to pursue EC purely for fluff there is a discussion to be had. This isn’t unique to a community.
Sub 5% acceptance rates suggest those entitled white kids are not getting a free pass or not being scrutinized.
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So I guess in your opinion it would be ok for someone to say the following as long as proceeded with the caveat “in my experience”…
In my experience, (whites, blacks, Asians, tall, short, gay, straight, etc) are more likely to have flexible ethical standards that adapt easily to power dynamics.
I don’t think your experience calls for that degree of extrapolation or minimized the impropriety of the assertion.
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Your guess is incorrect. You don’t know my experience.
Your experience is not relevant. You are expressing a type of bigotry broadly defined as classism. You are articulating a view that a common experience or attribute amongst a large population of people has a causal relationship to an abhorrent trait and extrapolating a conclusion that all who share this trait or experience lack ethics.
No different then a person who assumes all Asian applicants ECs are contrived because they have experienced and heard from students like Sophia.
Often stated on CC is that anecdote doesn’t equal data. Similarly personal experience doesn’t equal universal truth nor does it excuse or justify insulting broad populations of people many of whom are part of the CC community.
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I have never heard this before, nor do I believe it to be true.
I imagine that AOs are quite aware of the overwhelming manufacturing going on out there. I also imagine that true authentic interest often is obvious.
Nonetheless, if there is a gut of violinists or lacrosse players in the market, a smaller percentage of them get accepted - no matter how authentic the interest is.
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This appears to all be about my sentence “In my experience, Ivy grads are more likely to have flexible ethical standards that adapt easily to power dynamics.”
Let me rephrase that to “Ivy grads I know are more likely to have flexible ethical standards that adapt easily to power dynamics.” This is simply a statement of fact, and is also the training that we received. It is an unwarranted inference (and perhaps insulting?) to call this an abhorrent trait.
The attempt to link this anecdote to some larger brief involving bigotry and insults is tenuous. I do not claim to have larger data or universal truth.
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The fact that you don’t think being accused of having flexible moral standards is insulting is something we will have to disagree on.
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Please refrain from personal attacks. My written opinions might be obnoxious to you, but this is inappropriate.
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Similarly please don’t suggest that by virtue of the school attended, I or my kids have flexible moral standards.
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Which part do you believe to be false?
Yes, unhooked white kids and unhooked Asian kids both have a minuscule acceptance rate, but the grades and test scores of the Asians who ARE admitted are higher than for the white kids. And then on top of that, white students are far more likely to have hooks (ALDC) than Asian applicants…
That white manufactured kids are seen as more authentic than Asian manufactured kids.
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I concede I don’t have any hard proof. I doubt you would find an AO who would admit to having such a prejudice. I come to my opinion only indirectly, but here are some examples:
- Hearing white parents around here making general comments about Asian students being stiff, coached or robotic, while never hearing them say the same about white students.
- Hearing white people being super impressed with white students who speak Mandarin (often very poorly) and saying those white kids must be so intelligent, but not saying the same of Asian kids with perfect bilingual skills in Mandarin and English and often on top of it a 3rd language like Spanish.
- White parents on CC express “concern” about UC Irvine, for example, being 40% Asian, but not about schools that are much higher percentages white.
- Comments on CC that Asian kids with accomplishments in activities seen as “typically Asian” indicate that they don’t have leadership potential (can’t even get 6 kids together for a movie), but when white kids have accomplishments in “typically white” activities this is seen as a sign of leadership potential (even though, for example, excellent swimmers --an overwhelmingly white sport–are started by their parents in lessons by age 3, and are typically swimming year round before the end of grade school.)
- Knowing white kids who got into HYPS despite being unexceptional, with private CCs, separate private essay coaches, parent-bankrolled mission trips (back when that was the thing) and parent-bankrolled “research” (now). None of us were fooled, but apparently the AOs were?
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think Asian people are making this up…
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Seems like you take issue with a lot of posters who you perceive to be “white parents” on CC.
I find that a lot of parents on CC say things that I find frustrating and sometimes even offensive, but I don’t think these things break down neatly by race, and oftentimes the comments have little or nothing to do with actual admissions practices. “White parents” on CC don’t control admissions at Stanford and Harvard.
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How is this a statement of fact?
I think you are saying you and all of the people you know who attended any and all Ivies were trained to have “flexible ethical standards that adapt easily to power dynamics” regardless of their major.
I am not even sure what that means, but holy broad-sweeping generalizations, Batman!
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