<p>This is not a big issue. There are very few variables that a parent can control. Where you live and boxes to check whether to apply for aid, etc.. There have been lots of cc discussions on checking minority boxes so this is nothing new. I did not say lie about your religion I said convert. If you are applying to an Ivy and 30% of the incoming classes are Jewish it seems to make sense. Any discussions that Jewish parents or culture care more about education is wildly offensive and anti-something (need a term I guess). Like the authors of the books that are the topic of thic thread you only get one shot at this for your child so I think examining all the options makes sense. Certainly no more dramatic than dumping your friends and undertaking contrived ec’s.</p>
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<p>Maybe this should be one of the top college admission strategies? Want to get into a top college? Convert. </p>
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<p>Yes. Please explain: anti-whom and anti-what?</p>
<p>By the way, the same argument about a culture that venerates learning has been made about Chinese and other East Asians. In fact, there are quite a few studies that compare East Asians and Jews. These are two groups that are over-represented on college campuses compared to their representation in the general population.</p>
<p>My daughter is Jewish and she probably won’t even check that off because it gets her ZERO advantage in admissions when so many other Jewish kids apply. Like being from the Northeast or wanting to major in biology or being female. The admissions office gets tons of applicants with that characteristic, so, if anything, it counts against her.</p>
<p>There is no “Jewish” box to check off in an ethnic identification section on a college application form. More generally, checking off any of the categories you do find on a college application form is OPTIONAL. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/441477-fastest-growing-ethnic-category-great-colleges-race-unknown.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/441477-fastest-growing-ethnic-category-great-colleges-race-unknown.html</a></p>
<p>“I did not say lie about your religion I said convert. If you are applying to an Ivy and 30% of the incoming classes are Jewish it seems to make sense.”</p>
<p>Ah yes, there is a vast conspiracy between Jews and college admissions committees across America. Give me a break. I should know better than to feed the ■■■■■, but I am compelled to point out that there is not a single Ivy at which the undergraduate population is 30%. The undergraduate population runs from a low of 10-12% at Dartmouth, Princeton, and Cornell to a high of about 25% at Brown, Penn, and Columbia. [Hillel:</a> The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life](<a href=“http://www.hillel.org%5DHillel:”>http://www.hillel.org)</p>
<p>Windy, it’s not a question about caring more about education, it’s more that it takes a fair amount of education to practice Judaism (even to convert), and the lifelong practice of Judaism traditionally involved studying and critical reasoning. This was true even when the parents were peasants or factory workers with no opportunities for material gain from education; they were at least educated in Judaism. However, it is not unlike the kind of environment that can be expected from children of intellectuals like Marite. When you have intellectual discussions about politics, literature, philosophy, values, or math around the dinner table and the kids participate at a young age, they start to like it and see it as something they want to be good at it just like in many families sports is something that the whole family wants and is expected to be good at. It’s not genetic, it’s cultural.</p>
<p>I’ve seen Russians teach their kids math and chess for the love of it, and it’s not too surprising that there are many Russian kids who excel in both. </p>
<p>Take Bill Belichick (I don’t think he’s Jewish). His father was a football coach, I’m sure there were many discussions around the dinner table about football strategy. He developed a lot of insight and learned to take it to an new level. I’m sure there is no football coaching gene, but he probably had the opportunity to think deeply about it much earlier than others. (Go Pats!)</p>
<p>The other thing to point out which wouldn’t have been true 30-40 years ago, is that by 2008, many Jews and Asians are now legacies.</p>
<p>wjb–I too am taken aback by windy’s posts, but according to the Hillel site, Penn has 3000 Jewish undergraduates out of a total undergraduate population of 9730, which is 30% and Princeton is currently approximately 14% Jewish (I haven’t checked the rest).</p>
<p>I agree with ClassicRockerDad’s post about the whys of the higher percentage of Jews at the Ivies.</p>
<p>Try to be nice. No implication of “vast” anything. What the numbers point out is that the learning environment being provided by the vast majority of American households is placing their children at a severe disadvantage relative to groups that are statistically overrepresented. That is a compliment not an insult. Whenever one group is in danger of falling behind it makes sense to identify the problem and try to remedy it. Gosh people are touchy.</p>
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<p>The Math Circles in the US have all been modeled on Russian math circles that were developed specifically to reach students in remote villages. That testifies to a deep respect for math in the Russian culture.</p>
<p>yes, ClassicRockerDad is correct that the legacies are much more diverse than a generation ago! </p>
<p>The percentages might be a little higher because Hillel relies on self-reporting.</p>
<p>Re post 188: By converting, as you suggest? Or by imitating those aspects of a culture that are deemed admirable? There is a lot I admire in Japanese culture (and much that I deplore). But fortunately or unfortunately, I could not “convert” and become Japanese.</p>
<p>Windy what you say may be true, but you are drawing the grouping in the wrong place. What you really mean to say is that the learning environment provided by Americans who are less educated is placing their children at a severe statistical disadvantage to relative to the children of more educated parents.</p>
<p>Isn’t the goal then of the No Child Left Behind Act to make sure that all children are above average.</p>
<p>midatlmom – You are correct; my numbers were slightly off. Here, from the Hillel website, are the number of Jewish undergrads at the 8 Ivies:
Brown 1500/6000
Columbia 2000/8000
Cornell 3000/13800
Yale 1200/5300
Harvard 1700/6658
Dartmouth 450/4116
Princeton 650/4600<br>
Penn 3000/9730</p>
<p>For the reasons discussed in this thread, the numbers of Jewish students at these schools – even those with smaller Jewish populations – certainly exceed the numbers of Jews in the broader American population. But it is beyond absurd to insinuate that this is the result of some sort of plot between Jews and colleges. </p>
<p>Windy, are you aware that Jews accounted for 23% of all individual Nobel Prize recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2007, and 37% of all US recipients during the same period. [Jewish</a> Nobel Prize Winners](<a href=“http://www.jinfo.org/Nobel_Prizes.html]Jewish”>Jewish Nobel Prize Winners) The result of a conspiracy between the Nobel Foundation and the Jews? Of course not. The result of an emphasis on education, scholarship, and reason in Jewish homes.</p>
<p>You may want to investigate the distinction between correlation and causation.</p>
<p>wjb:</p>
<p>Another factor to consider is that all the Ivies are located on the East Coast where there is a higher proportion of Jews than in other parts of the country. I would expect, now that quotas in these very same schools have been lifted, to see a higher proportion of Jews than in top schools located in different regions.</p>
<p>No that is not what I mean, although that is true. Specifically in Ivy admissions non-asian, non-jewish students are at a severe admissions disadvantage. The numbers are clear on that point. These groups are simply superior when it comes to gaining admissions to those schools, again this is a compliment not an insult.</p>
<p>One of the worst comments I’ve seen was by an Amherst admissions officer defending legacies. He said, “Well, children of Amherst grads ARE probably more well read and more ready to do Amherst’s work.” Yuck.</p>
<p>I think it’s unfortunate that Windy brought up Jews at all. As marite and others have pointed out there are other cultures that value education as well. It brings tears to my eyes (of appreciation) when I see my Korean grocer teaching his three year old to make change. Math skills right there.</p>
<p>Of course being stimulated at an early age helps! Frank Lloyd Wright’s mother slept with architecture books under her bed when pregnant with her future genius. I kid you not.</p>
<p>I am reading a book by Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos, in which he describes his early education,prompted by his father to do physics problems at four. So were Einstein and R. Feynman. (Hey they’re all Jewish! – just kidding.)</p>
<p>One factor to be taken into account is that when one is prohibited from owning land, has no inherited wealth and is barred from many elite corps. and profs. education is “the silver bullet.”</p>
<p>I feel like being naughty and saying, since Jews learned how to think from early training they had to play to their strengths. Not too many famous basketball stars or crooners.</p>
<p>I presume the converting comment is tongue in cheek. Because obviously merely stating that one is Jewish is no advantage anywhere in the US. History of quotas in higher ed. attests to that. Interviews at Ivies (Harvard particularly) instituted to weed out Jews with Anglo-Saxon names. Big nose, nerdy appearance, curly hair the apparent give aways. Yuck!</p>
<p>“I presume the converting comment is tongue in cheek. Because obviously merely stating that one is Jewish is no advantage anywhere in the US. History of quotas in higher ed. attests to that. Interviews at Ivies (Harvard particularly) to week out Jews with Anglo-Saxon names. Big nose, nerdy appearance, curly hair the apparent give aways. Yuck!”</p>
<p>You object to my stating simple facts and then slander the admissions people who are of course antisemitic…God the hipocrisy. Been to Israel many times, thought of converting but couldn’t learn Hebrew and did not want to live in a kibbutz, although I liked the people at Bibbutz Dalia alot.</p>
<p>Windy, why draw your line around ethnicity? What I’m saying is that if you drew your line around the educational background of the parents instead of ethnicity, wouldn’t you get an even stronger correlation?</p>
<p>“Isn’t the goal then of the No Child Left Behind Act to make sure that all children are above average”</p>
<p>Absolutely not. The only Federal mandate is that a child receive an average education. C. That is it. If you have a child who is learning disabled and that child is capable of getting c’s then the school will determine that they are not being harmed and will not get additional help. That’s why there is no money for gifted programs in the public schools.</p>