<p>Most people are probably aware that Brandeis was founded to give Jewish kids or other kids who were not being admitted to quality universities in reasonable proportions a good option.</p>
<p>I wonder, given the current situation for Asian Americans applying to top Universities in such high numbers, do you think there will be an "Ito University" (sorry, only Asian American judge I can think of) in the future??</p>
<p>I suppose prominant Asians ( but what does that mean - /Japanese/cambodian/Thai?), could found a new university , but like Brandeis would it be independent and nonsectarian or perhaps Buddhist?
Where would they decide to put it?</p>
<p>Their= There (oops)...</p>
<p>Well, Utah is taken. California is too expensive(though logical)...I would say Nevada. Oh, no...Vancouver. It will be Canadian, and hence a good bargain as well...</p>
<p>Depends on who you term Asians. Does it mean Southeast Asians/Indian subcontinent?
Or do you mean Vietnamese, Thai, Cambodian. Or do you mean Filipino - which is different again culturally, as you already know. And then again, do you mean Japanese; or Chinese or Korean? The Japanese don't immigrate to the US in large numbers, so I wouldn't count them.</p>
<p>Most of the students whom I read complaining they feel discriminated against in admissions mention that they are Chinese or Korean.</p>
<p>Question for OP: Just curious what you mean by the "current situation for Asian Americans." The founding of Brandeis wasn't simply a matter of "Jewish kids not being admitted in reasonable proportions." There were outright quotas -- open and well-known - that restricted admission to so-called "quality universities." No doubt I've missed some threads on this issue, but is there a feeling that Asian Americans are suffering in the admissions process due to a quota of some sort (whether or not analgous to the quotas on Jews)?</p>
<p>schoolmarm: there is such a feeling of Asian "quotas" regularly expressed on cc. Looking at the percentages of Asian students at Ivys--12-20%+, at Stanford, 25%, Berkeley, 50%, it's hard to draw a comparison to Princeton, Williams, Dartmouth, and even Harvard in the days of yore, when very few Jews, if any, were admitted. Still, it isn't hard to imagine that, in the interests of diversity, there may be an issue here. The complaint that it is harder for an Asians with top academic credentials to get admitted than it is for others is frequently heard.</p>
<p>"Asians" (whatever that means in college admissions) are overrepresented at top colleges by two to three to four times the representation in the general population. So it is very hard to make the case that "Asians" are finding undue barriers to higher education.</p>
<p>From another perspective. At the few colleges, I've looked at, the acceptance rate for "Asian" applicants is roughly comparable to the acceptance rate for "white" for "undisclosed" applicants. Sometimes a little higher; sometimes a little lower. But, in the same ballpark.</p>
<p>As far as quotas go. It seems to me that it is intellectually bankrupt to argue in favor of admissions quotas for one race and against admissions quotas for another. For every guota that servers as a floor, there must, by definition, be a corresponding quota that serves as a ceiling.</p>
<p>The "bias" against Asian-Americans (broadly defined) in admission at the private "prestige" institutions is actually a very real bias against middle-income applicants. I'd be willing to bet that if you looked at, say, Yale, you'd find that the admit rate for top 5%ers is roughly 1 in 3, and for low-income folks roughly 1 in 6 or 7, but for middle-income folks (35%-95% percentile in family incomes) it is no better than about 1 in 20. In other words, affirmative action for rich, mostly white folks (has been that way for a very long time, though it is dressed up as "best qualified".)</p>
<p>I have no #'s to back this up but it appears that some schools do not want to be perceived as too Asian.....</p>
<p>"For every guota that servers as a floor, there must, by definition, be a corresponding quota that serves as a ceiling."</p>
<p>I think that sounds like a GREAT idea - and I don't think we'd need to have the floor quota at all. It would make everything much more transparent.</p>
<p>Simple answer, "NO"</p>
<p>Many schools were founded to serve segregated (discriminated against) populations in America. Schools founded to serve American Indians, many "Historically Black Colleges," A college in Hawaii for native Hawaiians, women's colleges (!!!!), but the social climate today is supposedly moving away from discrimination in admissions and towards diversified student bodies, so you would likely see very little support for a new race-specialized college. There are too many other opportunities for average students of all flavors, and the exceptional ones would still want to go to HYP-etc, not Yamaguchi U.</p>
<p>You might still see universities founded by religious groups, like Liberty University (Jerry Falwell) and I can imagine a Fundamentalist Muslim University. (TU)</p>
<p>In 2001, 20.3 percent of applicants to Brown University's class of 2005 were Asian American, but only 16 percent of the acceptances were.</p>
<p>A white reader, who declined to let me use his name because he does not want to offend the university that employs him, said his experience as an admissions officer confirms Chin's sense of unfairness. "What scares the top colleges is what their campuses might look like, racially speaking" if they followed Chin's suggestion and rejected middle-class African American and Hispanic students in favor of higher-scoring, low-income Asians. They fear, he said, "the sort of intense heat they'd take for the presumed drop in 'diversity.'"</p>
<p>Chin calculates that with those quotas gone, about a third of Harvard undergraduates are Jews, who make up about 3 percent of the U.S. population. About 17 percent of Harvard undergraduates are Asians, who make up about 4 percent of the population. Since the percentage of Asian Americans at schools of comparable quality that do not practice affirmative action are much higher -- 40 percent at Berkeley, 50 percent at selective New York high schools such as Stuyvesant -- Chin says the Asian American percentage at Harvard and other Ivies would go up significantly if the rules were changed.</p>
<p>interesteddad, your argument is reminiscent of the racist early 20th century college admissions era. They had quotas on Jews. There used to be 10% quotas on Jews, to the a number of colleges like Yale and Princeton. There should not be quotas. Jews now compose more than 30% Harvard and Penn; they are overrepresented by about 16 times; Asians are only overrepresented 4 times. Heck, even at a school like Penn, regular non-Jewish whites compose only about 25%. If you allow for Jews to be overrepresented at such a high number, then why not asians. </p>
<p>Tell me this, is Berkeley diverse? I think it is, and it's doing fine.</p>
<p>45% of UC Berkeley, 40% of UCLA, 20% of U.of Texas- Austin, 25% of Stanford, 27% of MIT, and 29% of CalTech are Asian Americans, yet only ~ 15% of the 8 Ivies are Asian Americans because of discrimnatory quotas against them.</p>
<p>The interesting thing is that a college can minimize the number of any group, including asians, without ever establishing a quota. And the same can be done in reverse. For example, just put a lot of emphasis on community service. Instantly, your prep school applicants will have an easier time, your public school kids a harder time. But, you did not use a quota.</p>
<p>Want to minimize the number of first generation asians? Just put a lot of weight on sports as an EC (except volleyball, of course).</p>
<p>Oh, this is soooo easy to do.</p>
<p>Newmass, you understand my point. Schools like UT austin and Berkeley are meritocratic, whereas the Ivies feel that have to respond to legacies and racial quotas.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Want to minimize the number of first generation asians? Just put a lot of weight on sports as an EC (except volleyball, of course).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You seem to imply that asians fit into a certain stereotype. This is certainly not true. I myself, a first generation asian, started at DT for four years. I've been a student gov't representative. There are three asian girls in my grade. One is a chapel guild head and spends her summer volunteering in Central America. Another is one of the best at violin in the state. And the last girl is on a national level dance team and is a star tennis player. Asian-Americans do well in non-contact sports, like swimming, hymnastics, tennis, and volleyball. Asian Americans are leaders and they participate in a plethora of activities. </p>
<p>And about the math/science premed/engineering myth: Over 10% at top MBA schools like wharton and stanford are asian. Look at HLS, YLS, Stanford Law School, etc. over 10% are asian. They are overrepresented in those areas as well. Look at The Crimson- there are asian writers. There are simply just quotas in the Ivy system.</p>
<p>Would it be fair to state that schools that highlight diversity seek a rainbow class photo? Not too much of this and not too much of that......if so this would work against any group that has a large #'s of qualified applicants. Just a numbers game, nothing personal.</p>
<p>One confusing aspect is that the Ivy League and similar schools claim to want to accept "the complete person", giving full consideration to subjective aspects of an applicant's qualifications, such as quality of extracurriculars, leadership, etc. They also say they want a diverse student body.</p>
<p>It is difficult to say who is more qualified by these measures, since they are less easily quantified in a replicable manner. So it's probably hard to pin them down to prove that they are unfairly discriminating, I would imagine.</p>
<p>I'd guess that some of the engineering-oriented schools pay more attention to hard quantifiable aspects and less to these "squishy" factors. Possibly some of these state schools have also adopted more numbers-driven policies, I don't know. If this is the case, then their procedures are more transparent. </p>
<p>But the other selective schools can all claim that their admissions are not merely a matter of adding up SATs and GPAs. Given these ephemeral criteria, it's harder to prove that their procedures are unfair, I would think.</p>
<p>Oldman, that may be true. However, I've pointed out that asians play sports, they write in school papers, they're doing well in law schools, b-schools, grad schools, and med schools. There are asian musicians and artists. They are represented in almost every single possible discipline out there. Even if it were "numbers game" that seeks "not too much of this and not too much of that", asians should still be accepted at a higher percentage than they are now at elite colleges.</p>
<p>Studies (done internally when charges of bias were presented) at Brown and
Stanford have clearly disputed the stereotyped image of an Asian American
applicant as being "one dimensional" with no extracurricular activities
except for music. This image only existed in the biased views of the some
of the admission officers. These studies have shown that there was an
unexplained bias in admissions and in fact, the Asian American group
appeared better prepared by any standards used, yet had only a 60% to 70%
admission rate compared to the white applicant group at Stanford. The
Admissions Dean of Stanford could not explain the disparity, but at least
she admitted that there was one. Many of the heads and admission officers
of the elite schools don't even acknowledge that the problem even exists.
The Asian applicants were better prepared than the white group, yet have a
lower admission rate.</p>
<p>Source: Annual Report of CUAFA, Stanford University, 1986, reprinted in "Campus Report", November 12, 1986.</p>
<p>Between 1978 and 1986, there was a 430% increase of Asian
Americans applying to Brown, but the number of these students remained
fairly constant. </p>
<p>Source:Grace Tsang, "Equal Access of Asian-Americans", "Yale Law
Journal", January 1989, pp. 659-78.'</p>
<p>The last two citations should make things obvious. Again, the Stanford report says that "This image [academic/music]only existed in the biased views of the some of the admission officers. These studies have shown that there was an unexplained bias in admissions and in fact, the Asian American group
appeared better prepared by any standards used, yet had only a 60% to 70%
admission rate compared to the white applicant group at Stanford."</p>
<p>I don't see an Asian-specific university. Asians, especially East Asians, are too focused on prestige -- the Groucho syndrome, if you will -- to spin off, no matter what the quality. </p>
<p>My prediction is that the U.S. will soon get a Saudi funded conservative Islamic college with a wide international AND American student body and that it will be very controversial. State? Maybe Michigan, New Jersey.</p>