Harvard's odd quota on Asian-Americans
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Anonymous
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Asian-Americans are one of the nation's most astonishing success stories. In 1960, they accounted for less than 1 percent of the U.S. population but had a rich history of persecution — from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Back then, no one could have imagined what lay ahead.
Today, nearly 5 percent of Americans have Asian ancestry, tracing to countries from India to Japan. The Pew Research Center reports that they are "the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States." http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-asians-enrollment-harvard-colleges-perspec-0524-20150522-column.html |
Anonymous
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Top universities, which are only at the top because they are bolstered by the white political and business elite, have a long history of making it difficult for up-and-coming minorities to access privileged spheres. Previously, it was Jews. Now, it's Asians. There have been many proven cases of lesser-achieving non-Asians being granted acceptance over the heads of higher-achieving Asians. It is well known that the barrier to entry for Asians is much higher (SAT scores, grades, extra curriculars, all of it) than for the rest of the population. |
Anonymous
| Indians are the #1 immigrant group in most of the mid-atlantic and northeast - except NY reports Chinese is #1. |
Anonymous
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There is a widespread perception, which may be unfair, that Asian-Americans have an unhealthy fixation with going to prestigious colleges and are are spending an inordinate amount of time and resources prepping their children for standardized tests, doing excessively large numbers of extra curriculars, not for enjoyment or personal growth, but for the purpose of impressing admissions, resulting in unrealistically high entrances stats.
Again, this is the perception, not necessarily the reality, but this has created a situation where admissions are skeptical of scores coming from Asian-Americans. Unfortunately, this stereotype hurts poorer Asian immigrants, particular ones from countries that don't have super competitive education systems. They get lumped in with the stereotypical "Asian Math Geniuses/Tiger Moms" from middle/upper-middle class backgrounds. I think a similar issue happens to African Americans. Most colleges will accept AAs with lower stats than other races, with the assumption that they must be from impoverished backgrounds and "didn't have a father in the household," etc. But a disproportionately large proportion of the AAs that benefit from this are the middle-class AAs, or the children of immigrants from Caribbean nations, or from Africa itself -- all of whom tend to be better-off socioeconomically than the average AA. The truly poor AAs, the intended beneficiaries, don't benefit as often, and are far more likely to go to community colleges, where they will typically drop-out after a semester or two. |
Anonymous
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Not so much perception for the most part but a reality. Cram schools are here and overseas.
https://www.edsurge.com/n/2015-01-05-which-asian-test-prep-regime-would-you-prefer http://nymag.com/news/features/asian-americans-2011-5/index1.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-03-27/sat-revamp-brings-new-challenge-to-test-prep-in-china http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/magazine/inside-a-chinese-test-prep-factory.html?referrer= |
Anonymous
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This article on Chinese students receiving IV fluids to stay alert while practicing and studying for standardized tests is deplorable. It's like our prep on massive steroids.
http://www.chinasmack.com/2012/pictures/chinese-students-get-iv-drips-while-studying-for-gaokao-exam.html |
Anonymous
I view the Asian american community, its general desire for hard work and achievement, as being the ULTIMATE expression of the American spirit. Americans in the last 200 years are marked by these qualities: -- Immigrants who left their country of original for better opportunity. -- Extremely hard workers who don't ask for hand-outs from others. -- Folks who value education very very highly. To me, the Asian american community typifies these qualities (its not all, I know.. but certainly the vast majority are like this). My grandparents came from outside the US and had these same qualities. I totally welcome all from Asia who bring these same qualities to the US. These attitudes are the bulwark upon which America's greatness rests. I wish other groups in the US were more like this. |
Anonymous
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As a Filipino immigrant who sacrificed a lot to become a doctor here in the U.S., it is ridiculous for a school, especially an Ivy league one, to base it's admissions on race and not on merit. people think it's a walk in the park for us Asians to excel in several fields, especially in academics. it takes a lot of sacrifice, hard work and dedication. most of us don't have rich parents,as most people think, so most of us have to become working students too.
And for a school to discriminate against Asians or against anybody because of the color of their skin sends a very wrong message to all hardworking kids out there. |
Anonymous
The ULTIMATE expression of the American spirit, as you put it, is not having its children hooked up to intravenous fluids while they memorize tons of information. And for the record, Asians, while hard workers, do not have a monopoly on that attribute. Not hardly. |
Anonymous
I believe that article pertains to kids in China where high scores on these tests pretty much guarantees spots in top universities in China, not the Chinese-american kids that live in the US. I know many Asian Amer. kids here prep for SATs, as do many non Asian Amer. kids. Personally, as an Asian Amer. , I never prepped for the SATs because back then I didn't know such things existed, nor did my parents. Also, there are many White parents that hire consultants to help their kids through the college application process. That is prepping, too. This kind of reminds me of that article about how some kids and parents in India believed that cheating was their right because the wealthy basically bought their way into university placements, and that is a form of cheating, too. When you have wealthy people who can afford to hire or pay their way to get into the top universities, that is an unfair advantage to the wealthy. The only thing the not-so-wealthy families can do to get their kids into top universities is to score higher, and unfortunately, for most people, that involves prepping, some more than others. I don't agree with some of the prepping that goes on, and the cram classes, but then when you have these top universities that put an unfair burden on Asian students to score higher, what else should these students do? I don't agree that Ivies are the end all that be all, but if that is the goal of the student for whatever reason, and the Univ. is putting burden students, and the person is willing to put in the work to get there, why are people so negative about it? If these colleges didn't put such a high burden on Asian Amer. students, then maybe they wouldn't prep as much. I don't know. Seems to me that people who judge others for wanting to work hard and get ahead are either hypocritical or jealous. |
Anonymous
| ^^It seems to me you have no problem denigrating other hard working people in your unyielding attempts to display Asians as the ultimate definition of the perfect immigrant. |
Anonymous
Nope. Since this thread is about Asian Amer. my post was about this group. Like I said, there are plenty of non Asian Amer. that prep, go to tutoring, hire college consultants, etc.. yet, these other groups don't have links to articles about it on here. Seems people are just quick to link articles about lots of Asian Amer. prepping, but forget that wealthy non Asian Amer. prep/tutor their kids, too. I can only assume it's because they are jealous and/or hypocritical. |
Anonymous
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Prepping is NOT cheating. Some posts have come close to making that equivalency so I want to comment on that. Preparation for tests is hard work. The reason some Asians score better on tests is because they work harder and put in more time than others. Whether you think that this is a waste of their time, when they could have been doing different extra-curriculars such as sports or writing a book, etc, does not take away from the fact that these students work and sacrifice for their goal. They deserve respect. It is absolutely undeniably that right now many universities discriminate actively against Asian Americans, by restricting their numbers and thus holding them to a higher standard. That is wrong. |
Anonymous
And the kids who put in the time to master their EC (music, art, writing, a sport, etc, have also sacrificed for their goal(s). And they definitely deserve respect. The universities recognize that sacrifice and it's importance whether it appeals to you or not. |
Anonymous
I'm sorry, you haven't understood correctly the gravity of the situation. I'm talking about well-documented cases where Asian-Americans (last names that are unmistakably Asian) has been refused admission with a perfect SAT score and stellar extra-curriculars (concertmaster in a national-acclaimed orchestra, for ex), whereas others of different races in the same-year cohort have gotten in with no hooks of any kind, lower GPAs, lower SATs, and no particularly astounding extra-curricular achievements. A handful of cases have been picked up by the press over the years, and occasionally universities have reversed their decision. We are talking about egregious cases, not grey-zone cases. The scandal is that there are many, many egregious cases, and that most of them are swept under the rug by the non-transparent admission practices of most universities. Plus, the Asian-American population is not a unified whole, there are various countries and cultures represented, which impedes their capacity to unite and put media/lega pressure. Also the Asian mindset is not of a complaining sort, and standing up to point fingers is definitely not an ingrained practice. However, this may change... |