<p>At Berkeley the undergraduate population is over 40% Asian American but at Stanford it's significantly smaller (about 22%). </p>
<p>As an Asian American, I've always found it curious how these two schools could have such different undergraduate populations. </p>
<p>Stanford and Berkeley are in the same city. Both offer an outstanding education in the sciences as well as the humanities. What is the reason for this discrepancy?</p>
<p>The two schools are an hour or two apart, that’s not really in the same city.</p>
<p>Part of the difference could be related to public vs private, cost, etc.</p>
<p>They have very different admission policies.</p>
<p>As a public school, UCB has to follow California law by doing mostly stats-driven admission. Stanford, on the other hand, performs holistic admission of it applicants.</p>
<p>Stanford is richer thus offers better services and houses better facilities. That said, there are only 6 or 7 schools/universities in the world that can match Stanford’s capability, so in essence, it’s really hard to match Stanford.</p>
<p>^which should make Stanford all the more appealing.</p>
<p>To add to what PCHope said: California’s Proposition 209 prohibits its public universities from considering race in admissions. Stanford, on the other hand, has the option to reject otherwise qualified Asian Americans for the sake of diversity.</p>
<p>It can also be attributed to the fact that California has a much larger proportion of Asian Americans. And since UCs place priority on in-state applicants the student body distribution should not be surprising.</p>
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<p>Although both universities are close to each other, they couldn’t be more different.</p>
<p>First of all, 20% for Asians is HUGE considering that Asians only make up like 3% of the U.S. population. It’s also the percentage that Asians tend to have at most elite undergraduate universities (e.g. HYPSM) except for Caltech (who, although elite, lacks elite reputation like MIT)</p>
<p>Berkeley’s AA undergraduate population is significantly higher for many reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>Cal is a public school so it has an obligation to take in state residents</li>
<li>Cal is very competitive, so it’s applicant’s have very high stats./grades</li>
<li>California has a large Asian population relative to the U.S.</li>
<li>Asians tend to score high stats./get high grades</li>
<li>1-4 leads to a high representation of Asian students at Cal (and UCLA, SD, UCI, etc.)</li>
</ol>
<p>While Stanford has the strongest prestige on the west like Cal, it’s much more well regarded across the state and U.S. than Cal is. Admissions are also much more competitive at Stanford than at Cal. The latter’s applicants are mainly from the state, which include strong undergraduates, but also many weak ones; the former has probably the among the most competitive applicants in the U.S. (Again, with the other elites.)</p>
<p>Another important point is that Stanford has legacy admits, while none of the UCs do. This makes many well connected families much easier to attend the elites than those who are trying to enter just based on their stats alone. e.g.</p>
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<p>[Stanford</a> Daily | New study finds that legacy status is a strong advantage at elite universities](<a href=“http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/01/10/legacy_status/]Stanford”>New study finds that legacy status is a strong advantage at elite universities)</p>
<p>There’s two sides two every coin. You can look at the lower population of Asians at Stanford and other top elites as Asian discrimination or underrepresentation. You can also conclude that Asians are overrepresented at UC rather than underrepresented at the other schools. </p>
<p>Personally, i conclude the latter since Asians only make up like 3% of the U.S. population, 14% of California population, yet make up as much as 50% of the students at a school like UCI, and near that much at Cal.</p>
<p>That being said, i readily admit that there are discrepancies that can’t be explained among Asian applicants. However, the applicants who experience this are more the exceptions than the rule.</p>
<p>^Thanks for your insightful post bephy. I didn’t think about the small population of Asian Americans outside California.</p>
<p>I think Asian Americans are actually like 5-6% of the US, so it’s not THAT huge of an overrepresentation, at least for HYPSM. :)</p>
<p>Staford exercises this bs policy called “race-based” holistic admission process in order to reduce the number of Asians admitted, while Berkeley does not. Otherwise the undergraduate population would be over 50% Asian at Stanford. F Stanford, we are smarter than them.</p>
<p>Life is not fair… so try extra harder if you’re Asian.</p>
<p>Berkeley also uses holistic admissions, but it is much less opaque and much better documented for public view than the holistic admissions processes at elite private universities. It also looks like it is designed for greater consistency and repeatability, with less room for what some consider corruption or shenanigans (other than recruited athletes).</p>
<p>[Admissions</a>, Enrollment, & Preparatory Education | Academic Senate](<a href=“http://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/committees/aepe]Admissions”>Admissions, Enrollment, and Preparatory Education (AEPE) | Academic Senate)</p>
<p>Well, to be fair to Berkeley, which school can actually match Stanford other than HYPMC+Oxbridge? I guess none.</p>
<p>I have nothing against Stanford, but the simple fact is that Stanford discriminates against Asians. I know of many blacks who got accepted to Stanford, rejected by Berkeley. No Asians I know of had that happen. </p>
<p>A study done a few years back suggested that being black was equal to about 300 extra SAT points. Being asian was equal to a loss of 60 points. But from what I have seen, I think the study underestimates the effect. </p>
<p>I’m not going to debate politics as to whether this is right or wrong.</p>
<p>Those who work hard should get an equal reward for their effort. While this principle is pretty much true in the UC’s college admissions, it is not at Stanford’s. Stanford, like the rest of the HYPS, sets admission quotas (on Asians) and unfairly discriminates against the Asian race. </p>
<p>I’d like to point out that discrimination against minority applicants with high scores did not start out with Asians - it started out with Jewish applicants. Indeed, ~100 years ago, Jewish people were the one scoring full scores on admission exams. To read more about it (and I implore you to, as this article really opened my eyes to discrimination in admissions), read this article from the New Yorker: [Getting</a> In : The New Yorker](<a href=“http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlarge]Getting”>Getting In | The New Yorker)</p>
<p>Now, Asians are scoring higher than ever on their exams, because they work so hard - we are the New Jews. Why can’t African Americans put in the same effort? Just because a hardworking ethnic group is a minority in the U.S. doesn’t mean they should set admission quotas on them in admissions!</p>
<p>Everything I’ve read on so-called “Asian discrimination” has been mostly unsubstantiated. Everything that looks like a bias against Asian applicants can be readily explained. An Asian student who scored 2400 on the SAT was rejected from Princeton. That’s clearly sign of Asian discrimination right? Except, Princeton rejected half of its applicants who had perfect scores on the SAT (I doubt that all of them were Asian.)</p>
<p>The truth, which many don’t want to hear, is that college admissions are random and tailored to meet what the college feels will provide its students with a diverse student body. College admissions can’t simply be gamed with high SAT scores or high grades. Just because an applicant has lower grades or lower SAT score doesn’t make them “less qualified.” Different people just provide different value to universities. </p>
<p>Many Asians complain that grades and test scores are all college admissions should consider; but conveniently, these are also the things that, collectively, they excel in. Interestingly enough, there’s two more complicated Asian issues that aren’t generally addressed. The first is that of lower income. Certain Asians (e.g. Cambodians, Vietnamese, etc.) generally come from lower income families than others (Chinese, Japanese, Indian, etc.) Should richer Asians be discriminated against in favor of poorer Asians in order to provide an overall more diverse (Asian) student body?</p>
<p>The second issue is the national/international issue. If college admissions were completely determined by grades and test scores (ignoring legacies, race, etc.) American applicants (including Asians Americans) would be at a large disadvantage compared to international Asian students, who tend to score higher on standardized tests, and get higher grades. If that were the case, should national origin be taken into account when educating students? i.e. should American universities have a preference on educating Americans? I’d imagine many Asians would argue, if this were the case, that they should; The United States has a compelling interest in educating its top students who will be the leaders of tomorrow. But then the question arises, why stop at national preference? The U.S. also has an important interest in educating people among URMs (both racially and socio-economically) and so on. Again, the issue is much more complex that many, generally Asians, make it out to be. It isn’t as simple as ‘discrimination’ or ‘quotas.’</p>
<p>You can expect more Asians in CA schools overall because they represent a proportionally larger part of the population in CA than in most other states.</p>
<p>However, the discrepancy between Berkeley and Stanford can be attributed almost entirely to the lack of affirmative action in California public schools. In fact, within 2 years of banning affirmative action, Berkeley’s proportion of Asian students doubled from ~ 20% to ~ 40%.</p>
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<p>College admissions cannot be both random and tailored at the same time (unless there is an actual random component), even though an opaque holistic admissions process may seem random* to outsiders.</p>
<p>*Or corrupt or unfair in some way. Then again, if they were less opaque, there would be even more criticism of actual policies, as opposed to speculated policies.</p>
<p>“Random” was poor word choice on my part. A better word would be unpredictable.</p>
<p>It is not anecdotal or unsubstantiated that race matters a lot in college admissions. Several studies have shown that race confers a significant advantage or disadvantage at many schools. This effect was, in fact, quantified a few years back with a +300 SAT point advantage for blacks and -60 point penalty for asians.</p>
<p>The word no one wants to use is “discrimination”. But that’s what it is, and I’m not going to argue whether it’s right or wrong.</p>
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<p>College admissions is not always unpredictable; it depends on the process used at each school. UC holistic admissions appears to be designed for consistency and repeatability; while thresholds for each campus, division, or major cannot be predicted perfectly in advance, it is not like some other colleges’ holistic processes where rerunning the admissions process again supposedly could result in a mostly different admissions class. And some other schools have at least a portion of their classes automatically admitted by stats. Community college admissions is perfectly predictable, as is admissions to non-impacted majors at non-impacted CSU campuses.</p>