why do colleges want interesting people?

<p>Narcissa, its starting to look like you the only point of the original post was to come back and bash affirmative action with your evidence from Chinese universities. Please dont deny it</p>

<p>I do support Affirmative Action, btw, I would by far rather be in an environment with different types of ppl than where it's 60% asian (honest)</p>

<p>nowhere did I say that I actually *support *the asian university system.</p>

<p>Narcissa, everytime someone provides support or ideas as to why american universities have a more holistic admissions process, you refute that with "asian students do just as well." Whats the point of posting at all if that's what youre gonna say everytime?</p>

<p>cuz their ideas and supports are all exactly the same: they think there's something more to scores and grades. and my answer is the same: asian students do just as well. I'm just trying to see if anyone has any real answers</p>

<p>Beefs, the stock market just reflects the public perception of China's economy, not China's actual economy. The public is fickle and their opinions change quickly; I would agree with aisgzdavinci that all it tells us is that stock markets are volatile.</p>

<p>^^^
how can you even prove or disprove that Chinese students at Chinese universities are doing "just as well" and why does it even matter? the two systems are entirely different. whether or not people choose to admit it, everything in the US is based on holistic assessment whereas in China everything is based on bureaucracy.</p>

<p>EDIT:

[quote]
Beefs, the stock market just reflects the public perception of China's economy, not China's actual economy. The public is fickle and their opinions change quickly; I would agree with aisgzdavinci that all it tells us is that stock markets are volatile.

[/quote]

you and aisgzdavinci don't really understand what the stock market is or how it works. also, you both are missing my other point which is that China has few regulations regarding economics practices. the volatile nature of the Chinese stock market indicate a HIGH level of insider trading and a lot of less than honest financial reporting. (both of these things occur when regulations are lax.) oh yea, and the stock market crash that occurred before the Great Depression was all because people were fickle had nothing to do with the state of the economy...</p>

<p>oh and i would not get into any school based on scores/grades-type merit anyways, so I wouldn't be a big fan of the Asian system</p>

<p>

Written by westerners who like to hype up the bad stuff and downplay the good stuff. Books are biased one way or the other. That's why we rely on some hard facts and things that we can see and verify here like the "shopping malls" and the fake black markets- irony.</p>

<p>aisgzdavinci: I think Newjack meant that there are no regulations as far as standards of practice are concerned.</p>

<p>To say that China has no regulations is not true at all. By joining the WTO, China has agreed to abide by a lot of regulations. Watchdog groups are constantly reviewing labor practice & whatnot. You will hear about it from these people if China has no regulations. As a matter of fact, China has tons & tons of regulations in many areas, what is lacking, though, is enforcement, this is not to say that there is no enforcement at all. China is a huge country with 1/5 of the world's population, everything needs to be done in a huge scale. Many in the west under-estimated the enormity of scale in the challenges that are facing China. </p>

<p>The volatility of the China stock market is not an indication nor proof of the lack of regulation in China, simply because the concept of short-selling a stock is novel to many Chinese. I'm not sure if options trading is practiced there (excl. HKSAR) Also, I do not think anyone can short a stock in China the way Americans do in this country. Remember, China is still a country where improving literacy is still a WIP, many speculators are farmers, workers, housewives..., people who do not know anything about technical analysis or financial analysis...they buy stocks simply because their savings in the bank do not give them a good enough return to keep up with inflation, & inflation is a problem in China. When you have that many people buying stocks en mass (remember 1/5 of the world population), coupled with the lack of short-selling, you will have explosive growth in stock prices. What drives down the prices of stock now is the threat of government intervention in the form of taxes on gains & through administrative measures to limit investments in certain sectors of the economy to prevent it from over-heating. </p>

<p>The wide swings in China stock markets are due to many factors, some of them are: 1. US, European hedge funds are unwinding their positions due to liquidity problems they faced back home, i.e. the subprime crisis. 2. The write-downs of investments by some Chinese banks due to their holdings of American CDOs, essentially toxic wastes that were sliced & diced & repackaged as investment grade securities. That causes a crisis in confidence in the investing public. 3. Good old shortings by those who are able to do it in their own countries, remember, we have a lot of China ADRs traded in the U.S. & European markets.</p>

<p>Another point I wanted to add is that China has excessively restrictive rules about allowing companies to list in the stock markets, causing many smaller firms (non SOEs) to list overseas thru reverse mergers. The companies that are listed in the China stock markets are only a very small fraction of what's available in the economy. The China stock markets are unrepresentative of what is going on in the larger economy.</p>

<p>"cuz their ideas and supports are all exactly the same: they think there's something more to scores and grades. and my answer is the same: asian students do just as well. I'm just trying to see if anyone has any real answers"</p>

<p>I don't know very much about the Chinese University system, other than the engineers I've met here in the US that graduated from there are often very, very smart. So, let's for a moment assume that the Chinese University works just as well. </p>

<p>I suspect the reason you don't see universities here in America that only look at grades and test scores and then take those that do the absolute best is not enough students that do very well on tests and grades are interested in going to that type of school here. They all want to go to HYPSM. I also suspect if, say, Harvard were to switch to basing all admissions on test scores and grades alone it's prestige factor would drop like a rock.</p>

<p>and ALSO i guess american tests are super-easy and super-easy to make stupid mistakes. a few hundred points difference on the SAT says nothing.</p>

<p>^^^
are China's standardized tests based on a national curriculum? if so, i think that's totally legit then.</p>

<p>yes. btw, China has people test into high school, too, i think.</p>

<p>that seems legit to me. so are classes sort of like AP classes? like there's a standard curriculum and then a standardized exam at the end of the year?</p>

<p>yep. all they do is prepare for that exam, which everyone takes (which is insanely hard, btw, if anyone's seen it. NOTHING like our SATs. I doubt anyone gets a perfect score). They don't have AP classes. Cuz if China's anything like Taiwan, they don't do CRAP in college--everything they learn in high school is everything we learni n both high school AND college...plus a lot more math/science =P</p>

<p>Just like we have our AP level classes, and honors level classes, they have an AP level high school and an Honors level high school...all the way down to whatever. In America, teachers teach their classes for the stupidest kids in the class, so everyone can understand it. in China it's the opposite--they teach their classes for the smartest kids, so it's insanely hard. Nearly everyone has some kind of preparation BEFORE the class (most of them know all the material already before the teacher even starts teaching)</p>

<p>the "regulations" in China are to project the government industries, to keep OUT us safety regulations, to stop good standards from being observed and to allow for the massive corruption that is rampant in China</p>

<p>It is a "capitilist" system that only truely benefits a small portion of the society</p>

<p>Its not hype to talk about the bad situations there, it is fact</p>

<p>
[quote]
yep. all they do is prepare for that exam, which everyone takes (which is insanely hard, btw, if anyone's seen it. NOTHING like our SATs. I doubt anyone gets a perfect score). They don't have AP classes. Cuz if China's anything like Taiwan, they don't do CRAP in college--everything they learn in high school is everything we learni n both high school AND college...plus a lot more math/science =P</p>

<p>Just like we have our AP level classes, and honors level classes, they have an AP level high school and an Honors level high school...all the way down to whatever. In America, teachers teach their classes for the stupidest kids in the class, so everyone can understand it. in China it's the opposite--they teach their classes for the smartest kids, so it's insanely hard. Nearly everyone has some kind of preparation BEFORE the class (most of them know all the material already before the teacher even starts teaching)

[/quote]

US should adopt this form of education in my opinion. sounds pretty cool even though it will never happen due to federalism...</p>

<p>
[quote]
US should adopt this form of education in my opinion. sounds pretty cool even though it will never happen due to federalism...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That kind of system is too "bookwormish", it's more healthy to strike a balance, a mix of U.S. & China systems will be just right, imo.</p>

<p>^^^
agreed.</p>