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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'

#141

Post by hackinthebochs »

camz wrote: post #130
patio11 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yale has an explicit, declared policy to discriminate by race in admissions and hiring decisions. Sorry, it felt at least a little relevant towards the question of whether Yale racially discriminates. You can review, but not make copies, of this written policy. It is kept at - I kid you not - the Office of Equal Opportunity Programs.

i definitely agree with patrick. every school clearly remarks similar policies and reviewing the statistics is pretty self-evident. i don't see why everyone is making an issue to explain away the current standards when they're pretty clear. i'm asian and it doesn't really bother me, since i've experienced similar situations in the "real world" during my career. i've dealt with the principals and superintendents in ny…

How is race irrelevant? If the goal of a University is to recruit those with the highest SAT scores, then yes its irrelevant. But if its to foster a diverse and intellectually stimulating environment, while preparing future leaders of the world, then race (as a proxy to diverse cultures and experiences), is very relevant.

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

#142

Post by lywald »

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?

It's not, at least in my country France and probably most of Europe... I've never seen a form asking me if I'm white. Was kinda shocked to realize it's common practice in US.

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

#143

Post by thoerin »

chegra84 wrote: post #93
sliverstorm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't like what you are insinuating. You appear to be implying that some people are inferior due to the ancestry of their parents Is this just willful blindness? Do you really believe all ethnicity are perfectly matched in their potential? It's hard to study academia because we don't understand the brain well enough, but do a little reading about ethnicity and genetics as it relates to sports.

"In the mosaic of America, three groups that have been unusually successful are Asian-Americans, Jews and West Indian blacks — and in that there may be some lessons for the rest of us." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/opinion/07kristof.html?_r=... "Do African immigrants make the smartest Americans? The question may sound outlandish, but if you were judging by statistics alone, you could find plenty of evidence to b…

Culture is often inherited along with genes.

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

#144

Post by estevez »

TheCowboy wrote: post #87

I think race acts as more of a red herring when it comes to this matter. This entire thread just sounds like privileged or talented people(nothing wrong with being either) fighting over admittance to elite universities. After all, people qualified to get into Yale, and this is a large number of applicants, will still get into a very good university. Maybe the problem is that going to an elite school matters too much…

I think race acts as more of a red herring when it comes to this matter.

Agreed. Allowing elite universities to continue to serve up this shadow-play of a sorting function has led to a perverse credentialism that often fails to reflect the actual performance or qualifications of elite graduates.

And even if I were to concede that admissions to elite schools should matter, this thread's focus on URMs reminds me of the joke that was circulating earlier this fall, punchline: 'Watch out for that URM guy. He wants a piece of your cookie.’

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/golden1.htm

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

#145

Post by forensic »

rgbrgb wrote: post #139
forensic wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically social power and wealth is distributed in a top-down way based on which school you went to. "grades" don't actually mean anything they're just a social fiction created to justify why some people have greater shares of power/wealth/freedom than others. Asian families, the pragmatic authoritarians they are, are very good at hacking this system of social sorting. The elite colleges know this. Elite colleges ar…

>> Asian families, the pragmatic authoritarians they are, are very good at hacking this system of social sorting. >> Asian authoritarian parents are just hacking the system for their family's wealth. Wow. I don't care what ethnicity your are, this is horribly offensive.

Most Asian cultures hold filial piety as one of their highest values. Parents wield tremendous power over their children and use well-established and ancient psychological ploys to control their kids and obtain obedience.

These are facts of Asian culture. The traditional Asian family is organized as a well-oiled, top-down controlled authoritarian hierarchy. Chinese and Japanese cultural norms today are patriarchal with men ruling over both their wives and children.

A huge portion of Asian immigrants have kept this authoritarian family structure. This is not controversial. The Tiger Mom is real.

Asians themselves who follow this strategy are not shy about its authoritarian nature. Their values hold that parents and elderly are wise and should be obeyed with little questioning. They believe children should have little self-direction for the benefit of the child.

In conclusion, you find it offensive because you're clueless. The Asian people I know who subscribe to this style of family structure are comfortable with it and aware that it is authoritarian. "Authoritarian" is only pejorative to those who find authoritarianism distasteful.

Read Tiger Mom - it's an accurate portrayal of cultural differences.

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

#146

Post by hackinthebochs »

narkee wrote: post #140
wan23 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really a good comparison. In both cases they're trying to put together the best team. Right or wrong, the idea is that having diversity of experiences improves the academic experience for everyone. I don't know why people have such a hard time understanding this. It's fair to disagree with the idea, but it's completely different from racism.

Actually that's exactly racism. In this case, the assumption is that asian are a homogenous group, and that having a class full of asians in necessarily not diverse. That's in line with the "violin playing automatons" perception of asian students. Why is it not possible to have diversity of experience without artificially restricting access by race. The assumption that people of a certain race are defined by the same…

>The assumption that people of a certain race are defined by the same experiences is exactly racism

That's not what's being implied, nor is that implication racist. What's implied is that people of a similar ethnicity who have similar profiles on a college application probably have a similar backgrounds. This is both logical and entirely not racist.

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

#147

Post by estevez »

jwingy wrote: post #129
estevez wrote: post #126

Stories like this irk me, because they overlook the larger injustice of continuing to think about elite schools as meritocratic institutions, when they are plainly not. At Harvard, for example, the bottom half of the income distribution makes up 6.5% of students.[1] When we consider the most selective schools in aggregate, we see that nearly three-quarters of incoming freshmen at those schools are drawn from the top…

According to this study ( http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/sat-scores-and-... ), there's a clear correlation between students from high income backgrounds having higher scores versus students from lower income backgrounds having lower scores as well.

I suggest this piece [1] by David Leonhart. As he points out in the final paragraph:

    [...] all else equal, a low-income applicant was no more likely to get in than a high-income applicant with the same SAT score.
[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/business/economy/25leonhar...

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

#148

Post by hackinthebochs »

JVirissimo wrote: post #135
calibraxis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To help ensure university doesn't look as racially and sexually homogenous as the tech industry?

Are you bothered when professional sports leagues are racially homogeneous? Would you prefer that they practice affirmative action?

Professional sports leagues aren't the keys to wealth and power in this country. That's why there's a big fuss over college admissions and not about sports.

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

#149

Post by hackinthebochs »

temphn wrote: post #49

According to PBS, Race is an Illusion: http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm Jared Diamond concurs: http://www.learntoquestion.com/resources/database/archives/0... If you believe their arguments, there is no scientific basis for categorizing someone on the basis of race. Appearance is particularly hazardous. Therefore, why can't Asians mark black on the application? Who is to say they are not black if t…

Your argument strongly misses the mark. While there may be dubious scientific basis for race, there is a very strong sociological importance for our construct of race. This is undeniable. Race as a sociological phenomenon is very real and thus makes sense to address it as such.

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

#150

Post by sk5t »

rgbrgb wrote: post #139
forensic wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically social power and wealth is distributed in a top-down way based on which school you went to. "grades" don't actually mean anything they're just a social fiction created to justify why some people have greater shares of power/wealth/freedom than others. Asian families, the pragmatic authoritarians they are, are very good at hacking this system of social sorting. The elite colleges know this. Elite colleges ar…

>> Asian families, the pragmatic authoritarians they are, are very good at hacking this system of social sorting. >> Asian authoritarian parents are just hacking the system for their family's wealth. Wow. I don't care what ethnicity your are, this is horribly offensive.

Do you mean that forensic is incorrect, or that you don't like to hear it?
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