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Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

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Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#11

Post by yangez »

brandnewlow wrote: post #4

I would advise an asian college applicant to an elite school to strongly consider not checking the "asian" box. It is absolutely true that they're in competition against the other asian applicants. It's also absolutely true that the asian applicants have extremely common profiles in terms of activities, test scores, grades, and points of view. When I was an admissions office for a short time, my advice to asian appli…

I'm curious. In your experience, was it just those activities (Violin, cello, piano, etc) that were beaten to death and no longer desirable, or was more about the uniformity of Asian applicants?

For example, if a white kid had the same piano + math achievements as an Asian one did in the same year, would he stand out more?

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#12

Post by BlackJack »

narkee wrote: post #8

I don't understand why they require ethnic proportions to stay close to population averages. They don't reject high-performance black athletes for lower performing, asian athletes. I've never once heard anyone complain that their university's football team had a disproportionate number of non-asian people. Serious double standard there.

That is simply wrong.

US Population: White - 72.4 % Black or African American - 12.6 Asian - 4.8 Some other race - 6.2

Source: http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf

Princeton class profile: African America - 7.4 Asian - 18.6 Hispanic - 7.1 etc.

Source: http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/admi...

Asians are "overrepresented minorities", or ORM's, by admission standards because, in Princeton anyways, the ratios are nearly 4x the population average.

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#14

Post by jpdoctor »

narkee wrote: post #8

I don't understand why they require ethnic proportions to stay close to population averages. They don't reject high-performance black athletes for lower performing, asian athletes. I've never once heard anyone complain that their university's football team had a disproportionate number of non-asian people. Serious double standard there.

> I don't understand why they require ethnic proportions to stay close to population averages.

Thank god, I hope it means the world is a different place.

First, I'm guessing you're about 30 yo. (Sorry if I'm way off.) When I applied to colleges in late 1981, there were still some dumbass amounts of discrimination for being black. Affirmative action occurred in the 60s/70s to try and rectify some of that.

It was a given back then that admissions would overlook somewhat lower SATs if you were otherwise promising, and if you could be identified as being from a disadvantaged background. The downside was that some completely kickass guys I knew felt that they had been admitted because of their skin color.

I assume there's still discrimination out there, but perhaps it's a lot less than 30 years ago.

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#15

Post by fungi »

albemuth wrote: post #6

> "Not to really generalize, but a lot of Asians, they have perfect SATs, perfect GPAs, ... so it's hard to let them all in" Why is asking for ethnicity even legal?

ive never seen anything like it, is it a compulsory question?

we often have "are you a aboriginal or torres strait islander" but that is always clearly marked as optional and only used for measuring progress in improving the absolutely disgusting state of education for indigenous australians.

really i always thought america was better then this... TIL

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#16

Post by jpdoctor »

saryant wrote: post #9
fuzionmonkey wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your last name is Asian then would omitting your ethnicity gain you anything? I would doubt it.

I’ll admit that I know nothing about the college admissions procedures as far as the selection process, but it seems to me that applicants should only be known by an arbitrary ID number. That is, admissions committees simply shouldn’t have access to this sort of (possibly discriminatory) information. Name, ethnicity, etc. Why not just hide it from them? I suppose there are certain parts of an application which could…

> but it seems to me that applicants should only be known by an arbitrary ID number.

And then there's the whole "legacy admit" thing.

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#17

Post by loganfrederick »

fungi wrote: post #15
albemuth wrote: post #6

> "Not to really generalize, but a lot of Asians, they have perfect SATs, perfect GPAs, ... so it's hard to let them all in" Why is asking for ethnicity even legal?

ive never seen anything like it, is it a compulsory question? we often have "are you a aboriginal or torres strait islander" but that is always clearly marked as optional and only used for measuring progress in improving the absolutely disgusting state of education for indigenous australians. really i always thought america was better then this... TIL

These questions are optional from my experience.

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#18

Post by winter_blue »

brandnewlow wrote: post #3
vaksel wrote: post #2

I don't see why colleges should even be allowed to ask that on applications.

No one has to answer.

But can they figure out by inspecting your parents (as it says in the article) ?

Additionally if they have a pic that would it give it away.

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#19

Post by narkee »

BlackJack wrote: post #12
narkee wrote: post #8

I don't understand why they require ethnic proportions to stay close to population averages. They don't reject high-performance black athletes for lower performing, asian athletes. I've never once heard anyone complain that their university's football team had a disproportionate number of non-asian people. Serious double standard there.

That is simply wrong. US Population: White - 72.4 % Black or African American - 12.6 Asian - 4.8 Some other race - 6.2 Source: http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf Princeton class profile: African America - 7.4 Asian - 18.6 Hispanic - 7.1 etc. Source: http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/admi... Asians are "overrepresented minorities", or ORM's, by admission standards because, i…

I understand they're overrepresented.

What I meant was why is that a problem? According to the article, that degree of over-representation (relative to population) is below what it would be, given a completely blind admissions process.

So why not have 25% asian population? What's the problem?

On the other hand, why isn't anyone saying there is a problem with ORM in football?

Re: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'

#20

Post by reinhardt »

sliverstorm wrote: post #10
narkee wrote: post #8

I don't understand why they require ethnic proportions to stay close to population averages. They don't reject high-performance black athletes for lower performing, asian athletes. I've never once heard anyone complain that their university's football team had a disproportionate number of non-asian people. Serious double standard there.

So that they can tell the public, "Look! We're not racist!" Even though they are pretty much making racist choices, the public is happy with it. Look not without, but within, for the enemy is us.

Indeed, the myth of equality across racial and cultural lines must be protected at any cost.
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